Monthly Archives: June 2023

Smile for a while…

Posted on by

A good quote can motivate, make you think and maybe even bring a smile. Here are a few favorites…

  • If God is your co-pilot, SWITCH SEATS!
  • “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that he didn’t trust me so much.” ~ Mother Teresa
  • Life is fragile, handle with prayer
  • Be ye fishers of men. You catch ’em – He’ll clean ’em

Additional humorous lines are HERE and HERE

ACTION: Have some humorous religious quotes or stories to share? Tell a friend [and share with the Christian Playbook if you’re willing (salong.now @ gmail.com) ]

Enjoy your time, filled with the Spirit!

Click on the picture below for a 3 minute Youtube video of a wonderful, beautiful plant going from bud to glorious flower – the Twirling Primrose

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, July 2, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically

Including the one HERE about the first publisher to be smote  …  plus toonfever like this one:


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip

In Solitude Solidarity…

Posted on by

“In Solitude Solidarity” HERE, a Henri Nouwen site post can bring one back to the Maya Angelou video commentary in the last CP post about all of us having the opportunity to enjoy the best and suffer the worst while being a Child of God.

This part of the Solitude Solidarity catches attention

Rather, in the center of our solitude we meet all men and women as brothers and sisters. In true solitude, we stand so naked and so vulnerable before God, and we become so deeply aware of our total dependency on God’s love, that not only our friends but also those who kill, lie, torture, rape, and wage wars become part of our flesh and blood.

This solitude sounds pretty challenging. Yet, perhaps with this version of solitude, we can truly love one another, setting “othering” out of the game!

POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES

  • Did you miss the 3 minute video HERE with Dr. Maya Angelou, or want to hear it again? Powerful commentary!
  • Find 10-20 minutes for solitude with a focus on solidarity like Nouwen mentions: “Our hearts, full of God and empty of fear and anger, become a welcoming home for God and for our whole human family on earth.”
    • Do this in silence and stillness posture
    • Do this with some musical background? HERE are some possible meditation practices
    • Do this with some movement, perhaps like the Whirling Dervishes HERE?

Enjoy your time, filled with the Spirit!

unrecognizable man with bulb against sundown sky
Photo by Clement Eastwood on Pexels.com

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 25, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically

Including the one HERE about the first publisher to be smote  …  plus toonfever like this one:


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip

Juneteenth – reflecting and encouraging…

Posted on by

Juneteenth is a federal holiday now, offering a wonderful time to reflect on our past while encouraging a better future. The TedEd 6 minute video HERE shares background history to this holiday begun in 2021, including this note:

“Juneteenth holds profound significance as a celebration of the demise of slavery, the righteous pursuit of true freedom for all, and the continued pledge to remember the past and dream the future.“

While the practice of slavery is now illegal in the United States, we find many quasi-slaved by the behaviors of the past coupled with opinions sadly still voiced by too many in powerful positions. As compassionate people of faith seeking peace, we have opportunities to help those quasi-slaved with justice-filled actions. To quote Meister Eckhart, “Compassion is where peace and justice kiss.”
 
Ready to be additionally inspired? Spend 3 minutes HERE with Dr. Maya Angelou which includes her “child of God” commentary and encouragement to embrace positive opportunities.
 
PRAYER: Creator God, help us examine the natural beauty wherever we are, including with those children of God who may not be acting quite the way we’d like (nor in the way we think you’d like…) Power us to act in justice-filled ways. Amen

Enjoy your time, filled with the Spirit!

NOTE: CP is indebted to Matthew Fox and his post HERE, helping spur several of the references and commentary about Juneteenth above. That blog posting is well worth a full reading if you have time

P.S. Want to know more about Juneteenth? AP has a “beginner’s guide” HERE

unrecognizable man with bulb against sundown sky
Photo by Clement Eastwood on Pexels.com

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 25, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip

SONG: Mother Earth (encore)…

Posted on by

Encore! Encore! This word, uttered by a young elementary school child this past week at a summer enrichment program, was a thing of beauty. She was enjoying a particular experience, wishing for another opportunity.

Encore! Christian Playbook readers may recall a CP post on the song Mother Earth. That song – now in the CP “All Year Round” song listing HERE – contains lyrics relating to our climate series

Now I am going on a journey
And I pray all things end well
While Mother Earth looks after me
I will follow faithfully

~  Mother Earth (full lyrics HERE)

When you have a few minutes, the song Mother Earth (HERE) is worth enjoying – as an encore or for the first time. The instrumentation, rhythm and lyrics will likely lighten your day plus get you thinking.

PRAYER: Creator God, help us examine the natural beauty wherever we are, with corresponding prayers of WOW, praising our connectedness to you and seeking ways to heal your creations… Amen

ENCORE! ENCORE!  🙂

Enjoy the day, filled with the Spirit!

P.S. Any of the 10 Ways to Confront Climate Without Losing Hope article ideas leading you to personal action?

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 18, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip

Feeling Climate’s Effects…

Posted on by

Those in the Cincinnati region and various other geographies have been affected by climate recently – air conditions from Canadian wildfires causing masking and staying inside; severe lack of rain browning our earth; etc.. It’s yet another reminder of what some of us learned from margarine commercials many years back: “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” (click HERE for an example commercial)

We are learning more all the time about the impacts of human action on our earth’s climate. What begins as a HUGE human discovery – “plastics,” for example – ultimately causes some rather substantial climate challenges (plastic containers clogging water sources.) Yet we also experience wonderful joys from human discovery – the abilities to fight wildfires with techniques including aircraft dropping water on specific fire targets.

This constant battling of good and evil is challenging. What begins as a good invention can cause many unintended consequences.

Our human condition relies on wise counsel and substantial discernment for “putting our best feet forward.” May this day find us all learning – including learning sometimes by “doing it wrong”…

Enjoy the day, filled with the Spirit!

P.S. Any of the 10 Ways to Confront Climate Without Losing Hope article ideas leading you to personal action?

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 18, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip

Falling Upward …

Posted on by
Constant failure at loving is ironically and paradoxically what keeps us learning how to love. When we think we’re there, there’s nothing to learn. ~ Richard Rohr (HERE)

We Learn By Doing It Wrong is the title of this CAC posting – it is well worth a read. In the post, Richard Rohr shares powerful commentary about “falling upward,” a concept he has expanded in a book by the same name. When we “put ourselves out there,” worrying less about making mistakes (and our ego) while focusing on following Christ’s examples, it’s then that substantial progress can occur.

Love one another.

Turn the other cheek.

{and so many more…}

May this day find you learning by “doing it wrong,” with joy in your heart…

Enjoy the day, filled with the Spirit!

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 11, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

You may enjoy the comic HERE that’s newly added to the humor page below? 🙂

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip

Assisi inspirations …

Posted on by

When you think of Assisi, who comes to your mind?

Did any of you say “Clare?”

Recent journeys brought Saint Clare of Assisi ‘front-and-center.’ HERE is one source sharing Saint Clare and her relationship to Saint Francis and the Franciscan way of life.

Incredibly famous folks frequently require a host of other less familiar folks to inspire the cause. In a “CP-novelized” version** of Saint Clare and Saint Francis, she was a companion like few others; her inspiration, encouragement, reminders, etc., helped Saint Francis thrive, fanning the Spirit in him all the more…

Like Saint Clare, may we find ourselves “fanning the Spirit’s flames” in those all around us…

Enjoy the day, filled with the Spirit!

**and maybe factual too, though we won’t do that much research, at least not now! 🙂 In a short video HERE, Sister Margaret Carney provides fuel for the novel…  🙂

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 4, 2023:

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

  • share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
  • check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
  • volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
  • find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

Know someone who might like receiving Christian Playbook messages like this?  If so, please forward this message and they can sign up WITH THIS LINK

You may enjoy the comic HERE that’s newly added to the humor page below? 🙂

CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically


Click on the cartoon above to visit toonfever.com!

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO CHRISTIAN PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

DevotionalPraying handsSingendes Quartett3StudyMobius strip