Elephants, worry and Jesus

Elephants live longer than people, maybe because they never worry about trying to lose weight!

Now that most people’s anxiety is focused and preoccupied with 40% of things that will never happen, 30% of things relating to the past that can’t be changed, 12% of things relating to other people’s criticism, which is generally untrue, and 10% of things relating to health, which often gets worse with stress and negative thinking. Only 8% of the time do they worry about real concerns that will need to be faced. So, if only about 8% of all the issues in our lives really turn out to be ‘something’ why is it that we spend so much time worrying and being highly anxious and stressed about all the rest?

Death Clock

Go to www.deathclock.com to find out when researchers think you will die.

For me, it’s Saturday, 7th August 2083.

Gets you thinking….

Mistakes

“Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.”
-Al Franken

Quote of the day

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

–Helen Keller

[via...]

The Desantification of Nature

We have lost our capacity to see not only the reality of the world about us but even of what was to have been the main purpose of our investigation to start with–the reality of our own presence within the world.  If man thinks and acts as if God does not exist and is not present in all things, he thinks and acts a lie; and the result of this is that he reduces his own life to a falsity, which is the same thing as unreality.

This from The Eclipse of Man and Nature: An Enquiry into the Origins and Consequences of Modern Science by Philip Sherrard.  Sections from Chapter 4.

Purpose Driven Life

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having ‘wealth’ from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren,  ’Purpose Driven Life ‘ author and pastor of  Saddleback Church in California .  
 
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:   
People ask me, What is the purpose of life?  And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.  

God’s Three-Dimensional Glasses

by Traci Blevins

There she is, Miss Perfect. Between her GQ husband, angelic children, and home straight from the “Parade of Homes” tour, is there anything that she doesn’t have? Doesn’t she have it all? Have you ever caught yourself wondering how the Barbie across the congregation got so lucky? She must have given a dying child a kidney or something that made God smile on her, right?

Too many times I have wondered why God chose to bless somebody else.

Wide Eyed

When I met him on a sidewalk
He was preaching to a mailbox
Down on 16th Avenue
And he told me he was Jesus
Sent from Jupiter to free us
With a bottle of tequila and one shoe
He raged about repentance
He finished every sentence
With a promise that the end was close at hand
I didn’t even try to understand

Something for you

Funky animation that makes you think about the big questions in a fun way.  Love the jazz too

 http://www.fivebigquestions.com/

 (thx, Lil!)

Small, Yes, but Mighty: The Molecule Called Water

Natalie Angier’s short appreciation of water, which, before you scoff, is a pretty amazing substance despite its ubiquity. “Pulled together by hydrogen bonds, water molecules become mature and stable, able to absorb huge amounts of energy before pulling a radical phase shift and changing from ice to liquid or liquid to gas. As a result, water has surprisingly high boiling and freezing points, and a strikingly generous gap