Faith Comes First

Subway is one of the leaders in the fast food market. It was started by a college student and a research scientist with a $1,000 and very little else. In his book, Start Small Finish Big, Fred DeLuca, the college student in the partnership, not only tells his story but that of other successful business people who started small. One such is Cynthia Wake. She sums up why she has persevered in her business thus:

“Faith comes first”, she says. “I have faith that God can do anything, including make me a success. I would have to do my part, of course, and that meant I couldn’t give up.”

Start Small Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start and Run Your Own Successful Business by Fred DeLuca with John P. Hayes

Wired Recognizes Challenge

The August 2005, issue of Wired magazine arrived in yesterday’s post. I ripped open the plastic cover and settled into my easy chair last night to explore the cutting edge of technology and culture in this slick, edgy periodical. Along with a million-dollar production car, the Bugatti Veyron, digital images on Japanese school girl's nails, and the latest movie news was a side bar that really caught my eye, “Will the Internet put public libraries out of business?”

What followed was a brief overview of the debate in library circles. It is summed up in three quotes from some leading figures in the field – libraries will change roles but continue to be the storehouse and gate keeper of information in the community, Sue Davidsen; electronic access may draw clientele but books will keep satisfying a need to read in the public, Michael Gorman; the library is all ready on its way out and public money will be shifted to more pressing needs, Jessamyn West. (The side bar is found on page 30 of the Aug. 2005 issue.)

Wired is good at side bars but much more can and will be said on this topic. How about continuing the debate here – post your comments!

Essays from a SciFi Master

Isaac Asimov was one of the most recognized names in Science Fiction in the 20th Century. While he was a legendary novelist, he loved playing with ideas as the essays in The Tragedy of the Moon demonstrate. In "The Ancient and the Ultimate" he muses on the book as a form of "stored speech." Asked to speculate on the perfect video cassette of the future, he describes the BOOK - compact, self-contained, personal, unobtrusive, portable. Technology may find a replacement for the ubiquitous book but, until that day, Asimov argues, books will not disappear.

While the essays in this volume cover a lot of ground from space to the thyroid gland to the book, one of the most intriguing is "Lost in Non-Translation". Asimov examines the meaning of despised foreigners in two Biblical stories - a Moabite woman, in the Old Testament book of Ruth, and a Samaritan business man, Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament. He brings home the distinctions humans make toward those despised others in our midst in terms of American race relations. Although there have been many changes to the category of despised others in America, this essay is as thought provoking a treatment today as when it was published some 30 years ago.

These two essays alone make The Tragedy of the Moon worth reading.

Worth Quoting - Prayer

Keeping His commandments means we have a God-reference to life. God and His word are taken into account… He is our frame of reference.

Don't Just Stand There, Pray Something by Ronald Dunn

The Miracle of the Garden

My garden inspires many emotions. Sometimes it is frustration when it seems that my weeds have weeds. Sometimes it is satisfaction when a plant combination works just right or a flower blooms to perfection. Underlying all is the knowledge that it is not my skill, persistence, or luck that makes my garden grow. One of Jesus’ parables uses the miracle of the garden to explain the Kingdom; conversely it tells us how gardens grow! A garden is a reminder that God is the creator and sustainer of all things.

26He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
Mark 4:26-29 (NIV from BibleGateway.Com)

The miracle of the garden is the topic of Jan Karon’s sweet little book, The Trellis and the Seed. This picture book is attractive both for its art, by Robert Gantt Steele, and its story of a little seed who becomes something far more than anyone ever expected.

The Trellis and the Seed: A Book of Encouragement for All Ages
by Jan Karon
Paintings by Robert Gantt Steele
Viking Juvenile (April 14, 2003), ISBN: 0670892890

Worth Quoting - Joy of Grace

"Surely it has theological significance that unearned gifts and unexpected pleasures bring the most joy."

Philip Yancey What's So Amazing About Grace?