June 2nd

Five Minutes on Friday #73

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE

What’s the difference between Dubai and Abu Dhabi?

In Dubai they don’t watch the Flinstones, but people in Abu Dhabi doooooooo!

THE TASTE OF GENEROSITY

Faith and pie:  A story from Mennonite World Conference

https://mwc-cmm.org/en/stories/taste-generosity

ONE GOOD BOOK:  SHATTERED by Arthur Boers

Arthur Boers's earliest memory was of shattered glass. His father threw a potted plant at his mother, and she ducked as the plant crashed through a window of the family home. His mother cleaned up the shards that day; later in life, he would find himself called upon to pick up the pieces as well.

In Shattered, Boers reflects on coming of age in a family scarred by violence. The son of Dutch immigrants, Boers illuminates the generational trauma of the Nazi occupation of Holland, refracted in vignettes of his boyhood in postwar Canada. His hard-working, Calvinist family is endearing, but ultimately unable or unwilling to address the insidious cycle of abuse that passed father to son. Breaking with this silence and complicity, Boers reflects candidly and empathetically on his tumultuous relationship with his father. Intertwined with this narrative is his emerging vocation to ministry, more mystical and expressive than the Reformed tradition in which he was raised.
Forthright and authentic, Boers extends a hand in solidarity to readers who have been wounded by those who were meant to protect them the most. With Shattered, he charts a path toward healing through faith.   [CMU Press website]

What to do with our children?  Among the saddest sights in our world are child refugees facing a bleak future in camps with few facilities for their thriving.  And I think of the contrast with rich, and sometimes spoiled children, growing up always needing more – more toys, more gadgets, more entertainment – because no one takes time to teach them the beauty of books and walks outdoors.

The child in this story comes from a society (1^st century) who often thought of children as less than significant, especially if you were a girl.  But Jesus turns such thinking on its head.  The clearest picture of what the kingdom of God is like is not the survival of the fittest (greatest) but is made up of those unafraid to be vulnerable, trusting, and generous in love.