Bursting Into Life

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Man-making Contest / Creatio Ex Nihilo

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened patiently to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well! How about this? Let's have a man-making contest."
The man replied, "Okay, great!"
But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem." He bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. Go get your own dirt!"

Joke stolen 'out of nothing' somewhere in the public domain. Graffiti picture made by me in London; original graffiti created 'out of nothing' by this artist, I guess... (Still wondering whether he really exists or not). Check out this text too!

Rooftop gigs by U2 and the Beatles

Only the first time it's really a stunt - so all credits for this great idea go to Paul, John, Ringo and George. But U2 are today's Beatles, if you'd ask me. Never too proud to be inspired by musical heroes from the past & standing on the shoulders of giants. Amsterdam Arena tickets were sold out within 10 minutes, by the way. Next stadium concert announced directly after that. This was to be expected. Bono promised also some cheap tickets because 'this is a recession'. Yeah. It's in the middel of Summer - we will probably listen to U2 in our car or somewhere else on a camping site / in a hotel. We'll see.
Let me know what you think about No Line On The Horizon. My opinion? Magnificent! ;-)

By the way - U2 played live on rooftop BBC building near All Souls Church! (John Stott, Rico Tice, Christianity Explored... So cool!!) Next time a REAL stunt - what about LIVE @ the Vatican? Ha, ha.

Narrow escapes?

Yesterday Dutch police arrested seven would-be terrorists that allegedly were planning to 'kill as many people as they could' in the city of Amsterdam. Today a Dutch boy was arrested after announcing that he was going to kill kids in a school in the city of Breda. Both threats have been detected by the police - tipped off by an anonymous phone call from Brussels (referring to the planned attack in Amsterdam) and by Dutch TV-journalists who read an anonymous school shooting announcement posted by a Dutch boy in an American chat box. (See screenshot above) The police was able to track down this boy and by doing so they've probably prevented a situation like we've seen too many times now on both sides of the Atlantic.

Pfew... Are we just lucky? It's a terrible thought, but sooner or later these kind of horrible things will happen here too, I'm afraid. But what can you do about it? We can only hope and pray that we will be protected against such senseless attacks. I'm happy and thankful that the police seems to do a good job in preventing these tragedies from happening so far.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people in Germany who are mourning now due to the act of one violent and merciless idiot.

Dutch news sources here and here.

Praying for Germany

Turning Pain into Praise

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah. (Click on the pic below to enlarge)

Dawkins takes wrong bus...

...and gets totally lost with no sense of direction. Lets hope he still has a sense of humour.

Make Up Your Mind

Source

British buses spread strange message

You will probably know that this is the real message on some busses. I am a happy believer, so I don't have to be worried about God or (after)life at all. But if I was an atheist, I wouldn't be so happy with the 'probably' word. And Jesus already told us to stop worrying, so that truly is a Christian message - believe it or not. Especially good to be reminded of these encouraging words in these difficult times.

I like Eugene Peterson's The Message translation of Jesus' words:

"What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself."
"Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can't go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being." Source

Disputed desolate dots

Just try to find these desolate dots on Google Maps. It looks like this is one little island in a big blue sea, but you need to zoom in and pay close attention. Why bother? Because both South Korea and Japan claim that these tiny pieces of rock belong to them and to no one else. I don't want to be the judge of this, so I don't know whether we should talk about 'Dokdo' (South Korea) or 'Takeshima' (Japan). Yeah, let's start World War 3 because of these disputed desolate dots.*

Read more here (and have a look at all the other amazing pictures on this great site) If you really care about this 'big issue', you can also visit this blog.

* Just to make sure: I don't really think this is a bright idea.