A partial repost from a year ago. I love this phrase so much I just wanted to promulgate it some more:

In France, when Easter is celebrated, there is a common phrase that is proclaimed in cathedrals, shared on sidewalks, spraypainted on walls and plastered on streetlights.

l’amour de Dieu est folie!

The love of God is foolish!

What a great phrase. Why don’t we have anything like it here?

Now, we know God is infinitely wise and omnipotent. It’s a bit odd to call him foolish, isn’t it? It’s simply foolish because we can’t possibly fathom or understand God’s love for us. We are broken, sinful creatures, yet God loves us. Magnificently. Spectacularly. Undeservedly. And I can think of no better time to proclaim the glory of God’s foolish love for his creation than on Easter, the day of Christ’s resurrection and victory over death.

1 Corinthians says it better than I ever could.

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

- 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (ESV)

Happy Easter!

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius

While Marcus Aurelius is probably best known as the kindly old emperor offed by Commodus in Gladiator, the real man behind the fictional character was the last of Rome’s “Five Good Emperors” and was also an insightful philosopher.

I came across this quote of his the other day, and I was struck by the note of truth it sounded. It reminded me of a passage from one of my favorite books, Mere Christianity.

“Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heaven creature or into a hellish creature — either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.” – C.S. Lewis

How true – and what a potent reminder that every day we are presented with choices, and the choices we make shape who we are in eternity.

To steal from Gladiator, since I mentioned it: “What we do in life… echoes in eternity.”

The other day someone set me some links to some cool LOST posters… and today, I was thinking, “Hey, why don’t I make one of my own? That would be fun.”

So I did. Less than a week until the premiere!

Doug asked me to give a traditional toast “to the lassies” for Burns Night. Below is the poem I wrote and delivered for the toast…

***

“To the Lassies”

The lassies with us here tonight,
Are graced with many gifts,
We count ourselves as lucky friends
Although they give us fits.

For sure, they’re wise and beautiful,
Fair-skinned, with eyes that glisten,
But when they open mouths to speak
We resign ourselves to listen.

And on you go, ‘bout many things:
‘Bout Glee and Harry Potters,
‘Bout knitting, running, vampire men,
And even circus otters.

But that’s not all, as we well know,
For more we often hear,
Of Percy Jackson, word twist games
And even schnabeltiers.

You study eyes, you study books,
And other information;
You work to keep things nice and cold,
and work with animation.

You wrangle germs and viruses
With great dexterity;
And one of you does something strange:
‘sustainability.’

And though we tease, we clearly know,
Your worth to us as sisters;
Without you we would merely be
Sad and lonely misters.

And so, to end this silly rhyme,
I do what just seems right –
I borrow from Sir Burns himself
To celebrate this night:

“Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes;
Her ‘prentice han’ she tried on man,
And then She made the lasses!”

Dear Beth, Christina, Chelsea, Jane,
To you, we raise our glasses.
And Megan, Sarah, Erica –
We toast you, all fair lasses.