Still Saturday::where will we turn?

We can cut ourselves, or throw our children in the sacred river, or give a million dollars to [charity], or serve in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, or perform a hundred forms of penance and self-injury, and the result will be the same: the stain remains and death terrifies.

We know that our conscience is defiled — not with external things like touching a corpse, or eating a piece of pork. Jesus said it is what comes out of a man that defiles, not what goes in (Mark 7:15-23). We are defiled by pride and self-pity and bitterness and lust and envy and jealousy and covetousness and apathy and fear — and the actions they breed...they don't come from new life, they come from death, and they lead to death. That is why they make us feel hopeless in our consciences.

The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn? Hebrew 9:14 gives us the answer: we turn to Christ.

We turn to the suffering and death of Christ — the blood of Christ. This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death.

John Piper,  The Passion of Jesus Christ,  p. 51

{Between February 12th and April 16th (the Wednesday before Easter), I am reading and discussing John Piper's The Passion of Jesus Christ - Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die with a group of friends. From now through Easter, my Still Saturday quotes and I {LOVE} Sunday scriptures will come from my readings in this book by Piper, and the photos might simply be a few favorites from those I've taken during the week.}

Sweet...

Half a dozen tall bottles of amber cane syrup rattled in the cardboard box Louis set next to the take-out plates of barbecued pork and chicken on the back seat of the truck.

On the short drive home from the Ortona Cane Grinding Festival Louis said with a grin, "Can't wait for pancakes in the morning!"   

What sweet goodness has been your delight this week?

{Photos} 2012 Ortona Cane Grinding Festival

Greater than the parts...

If you read my facebook, you'd know that on Sunday mornings my status often includes: "Oh how I love the Body of Christ."

It's not just the fellowship and worship that brings me great joy - it's the feeling of being complete. Of appreciating and delighting in the gifts of others - gifts that inspire me to greater love. Gifts that spur me on and cause me to dip deeper. Gifts that unite our hearts in Christ as we make up the Body under His Head and bring glory to His name in ways He has not equipped us to do alone.

If all were a single member, where would the body be?

~ 1 Corinthians 12:19 ESV

Yesterday I was inspired by Troy McCullough, freelance photographer and Wall Street Journal news editor, and his amazing photography and article at High Calling Focus.  Challenged by Claire Burge, a High Calling Focus photo editor, I played with my archived photos to create a couple of layered photos, including the "ghost bus". 

As I browsed through my archives in search of photos to layer, I kept "compare and contrast" in mind. I didn't want to throw two photos together without a bridge to connect their differences. When I saw the photo I'd taken of a busload of migrant farm workers on a rural central Florida 2-lane highway next to the photo of downtown Ft. Myers on Florida's west coast I first noticed how the roads might blend in well together. I loved how the bus and shadow fit right on the downtown road and the poles along the highway blended in with the palm trees. 

Interestingly enough, I had taken both photos on the same day this past spring. I captured the bus photo early one foggy morning as I drove to our rural county's courthouse near Lake Okeechobee for jury duty. It was typically moving at a snail's pace, but I was afraid to pass it in the fog. With nothing else to do, I picked up my camera (which I rarely leave home without) and clicked. Later that afternoon, I headed in the opposite direction to a meeting in downtown Ft. Myers. Why I took and saved that photo is beyond me. It's poorly lit and nothing interesting about the composition, but there it was in my archives just two or three photos past the bus.

By themselves, neither photo is all that spectacular, but layered together, it not only makes an interesting photo, but it's greater than the parts - telling a more complete story of life in SW Florida and of worlds that are otherwise far apart. 

And is that not like the Body of Christ? We are literally and figuratively worlds apart, but layered together - under the headship of Christ - our lives and stories and gifts are complete. 

Have you come to love and appreciate the gifts and stories of your brothers and sisters in Christ?