Flotsam and jetsam (10/22)

• iMonk has an excellent post on why we need to develop better traditions for grieving in community.

What churches often do less well is grieve. We lack a ritual for the long and tiring process that is sorrow and loss. A friend of mine whose husband recently died put it like this: “For about two weeks the church was really the church—really awesomely, wonderfully the church. Everyone came to the house, baked casseroles, carried Kleenex. But then the two weeks ended, and so did the consolation calls.” While you the mourner are still bawling your eyes out and slamming fists into the wall, everyone else, understandably, forgets and goes back to their normal lives and you find, after all those crowds of people, that you are left alone. You are without the church, and without a church vocab-ulary for what happens to the living after the dead are dead.

• Dave Block offers some good thoughts on how to master Greek. None of the advice is terribly new, but it is a good reminder that learning Greek (or any language) is a continuous process.

So you’re studying New Testament Greek and finding it a bit of a challenge. A lot of people don’t stick with it. “I tried learning Greek and it didn’t work for me.” The problem with these people may just be that they never learned persistence. Do you want to master the Greek language and be able to use it in your walk with God and in your service for Him? If you do, you will have to put forth some effort. How can we “stick with it” in a practical sense?

• Some of the seminars from the Desiring God conference are now available online.
  • Tullian Tchividjian, Giving Thought to Gospel ‘Math’: Why Jesus + Nothing = Everything
  • Kevin DeYoung, Rethinking ‘Missional’: Reconciling the Mission of God and the Mission of the Church
  • Randy Alcorn, Difficult Truths & Deep Love: Pondering Sovereignty, Suffering, and the Promise of Heaven.

• Michael Hyatt has an interesting post on how publishers are using trailers to promote new books.

• Ever wonder how much money your pets really cost you? Heres a post on how much our pets costs in a lifetime.

Cockatoo: If you’ve ever seen the cockatoos at a pet store and thought about keeping these large and magnificent birds- don’t. Yes, they are beautiful, and yes, they are relatively smart. But, they will cost you $1,035 a year after spending $1,535 the first year. And these guys are no guinea pigs. Expect your cockatoo to live for 50 years, costing you a total of $52,250.

• And, on a similar note, here are instructions for how to pet a kitty. I’m not sure why you would want to pet a kitty. But, if you’re going to do it, you should learn to do so safely. HT

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