Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ll be back

Posted by Larry Burtoft on

As my long silence demonstrates, it’s been a crazy busy Fall teaching two new courses at Denver Seminary while serving as the Intentional Interim Pastor at Mountain View United Methodist Church in Woodland Park, CO. I’m hopeful that I might be able to post more regularly next Spring. In the time being I am going to try to post something of substance every now and then, even if it is not my own writing. Today it will be a benediction by St. Francis de Sales which I find to be both deeply true and deeply satisfying.

Be at peace.
Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life;
rather look to them with full hope as they arise.
God, whose very own you are,
will deliver you from out of them.
He has kept you hitherto,
and He will lead you safely through all things;
and when you cannot stand it,
God will bury you in his arms.

Do not look forward to what might happen tomorrow;
the same everlasting Father who takes care of you today,
will take care of you tomorrow, and every day.
Either He will shield you from suffering,
or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace,
and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.

– St. Francis de Sales

quote of the day – on the gift of good writing

Posted by Larry Burtoft on

As one who loves the ocean (and therefore has grave concerns about Revelation 21:1), good books and is in hopes of producing some good writing, these words of Anne Lamott caught my attention:

“An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I am grateful for the ocean.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Worth Pondering . . .

Posted by Larry Burtoft on

“The main reason Christian believers today lack influence in the culture, despite their aspirations, is not because they don’t believe enough or try hard enough or think Christianly enough. It’s because they’ve been absent from the arenas in which the greatest influence in the culture is exerted.”

James Davison Hunter, author of To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, in a May 2010 interview in Christianity Today (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/may/16.33.html?start=1)