It is popular today for people to distinguish between free as in liberty and free as in don’t pay money for something. However, I think people often forget that there is a difference between free as in sunshine and free as in free food. Sunshine is free in the sense that God provides it at no cost- and for you to enjoy sunshine it doesn’t have to cost anyone else something (ignoring obtrusive solar panels and such). Free food costs somebody: taxpayers pay for school lunches, complimentary breakfasts at hotels are included in the cost, people pay for pizza to encourage attendance at meetings where they can try to solve problems or sell you something more expensive than the pizza you ate. Online content is like food not sunshine.

There are monetary costs to keeping a blog; time is a bigger cost. I started writing about a variety of business models for blogging, but that was getting boring. So I deleted a bunch of stuff and decided to go in this direction: if you appreciate content, occasionally consider how a blogger might hope to benefit from your visit.

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I loved reading Dug Down Deep (that’s an affiliate link) by Joshua Harris. Dug Down Deep communicates core truths of Christianity using biographical examples from Harris’s life.

It is one of the few books I would give a five-star rating if we had a rating system with stars set up. That doesn’t mean it was perfect; it means Harris combined spectacular writing with excellent content.

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Once upon a time, I lamented a blogging frustration. I found nuggets of articles across the land, and I wanted to share them with my beloved readers. However, try as I might, I just couldn’t make them fit with my blog. I tried writing individual posts for each article expressing why readers should go see the marvels for themselves, but that was too big. I tried collecting a handful to publish at a time (as I had seen other bloggers (like Tim Challies and Thabiti Anyabwile) do), but sometimes the links were particularly significant at certain times, and the rate of finding the treasures was too irregular. I tried posting articles that were only a few lines long for each link, but that was just too small.

Along came my gallant prince, with tales of a mighty weapon called microblogging that might just be the key to my woes. I had heard of one such creature, Twitter, but the tales I knew were about frivilous things like breakfast food. He told me we could wield a microblog in such a way as to put the links on display in a column at the edge of my blog. It fit just right.

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I’ve often been frustrated about the amount of misguided spirituality in organizational books (mostly from Eastern mysticism), and was asking "Why can’t they just leave the junk out of these books?" I recently realized it was because these authors know that clutter is a spiritual issue. Now I’m not about to recommend that you start looking into how your stuff channels or blocks energies in your room (quite the contrary I say run away from such mystical ideas that are at best meaningless and at worst demonic). I do want you to think about how the stuff in your life makes a difference in your worship.

When I say clutter is a spiritual issue, I do not mean that having less stuff makes a person spiritually superior, nor do I mean having an abundance of stuff shows that God favors us more than those with few, if any, possessions. Our stuff displays what is in our hearts, and items can either help or hinder our relationship with God and others.

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I enjoyed reading Clutter Clearing Choices by Barbara Tako. This humorous book had a refreshing philosophy on clutter. Defining clutter as "stuff that no longer enriches my life" (page 4), the book attempts to help people remove clutter from their lives in order to make room for higher priorities.

Philosophy

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Through Book Sneeze, Thomas Nelson Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns to review. Stearns narrates his journey from a business executive to president of World Vision. He encourages readers to give everything to God and show faith through works, particularly toward those in need.

I enjoyed the narrative portions of the book; I found myself glorifying God for the work He has done in Stearns’ life and through Stearns’ work in the lives of others. I think this book is helpful in exposing American Christians (including myself) and churches to our need to act.

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I like cakes. I like making cakes. I like eating them even better. I do not like frosting cakes. Honestly, I don’t like frosting all that well; I would rather dust cakes with powdered sugar or top them with fruit. Occasionally I feel the need to frost them, and it usually doesn’t turn out well.

I used this dark chocolate cake recipe with jet black cocoa. The only people who have voiced less than wonderful opinions of the cake either don’t like chocolate or don’t like chocolate cake (and some of them even admit it is "not too bad").

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Yesterday evening, I finished Aging with Grace by David Snowdon, Ph.D. It describes the research of a unique study on Alzheimer’s by intertwining the stories of individual nuns with research findings.

I enjoyed reading about the research process. I am familiar with some aspects of the research process (things like peer review and ethical issues involving human subjects) because of Michael’s work, but I think Snowdon describes things well enough that you don’t need to know a lot about academic research to enjoy the book.

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"You do not have, because you do not ask" — James 4:2.

James makes it clear that there are benefits that come exclusively from prayer, but one obstacle to prayer in my life is that I doubt the benefits.

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Last week, I proposed a Clutter Scavenger Hunt. No one else has indicated participation, so I guess you all missed out. I actually had a very enjoyable time working with Michael. I think we ended up with roughly 19 points, but we found more than 19 items we can cheerfully part with. In fact, I have a picture (the furniture and bicycles are staying, but the stuff in the chairs and on the coffee table are going out the door in the very near future).

Pile of clutter to go