Thankfullness

Here in Brazil this is a very common weekend, but most of the bloggers I used to see (here at your left) shows how Thanksgiving is important.
In the past we have a bank that every thanksgiving day made a thanksgiving event that was broadcasted at TV, but we are not used to observe this day.
It is good to reflect how we are used to thank and to have a gratifull atitude, commonly even to start some conversation it is common to complain about something, if the person agrees the conversation started.
I have posted in my brazilian blog a very nice music made by one of our gratest worship musician, Ademar de Campos:

"I am gratefull for everything I have
The biggest trasure of this world was given to me as an eternan heritage
the biggest prove of a so deep love.
I have life, happiness in all times
I have friends, family and lots of brothers
it was Jesus, my truly friend
That have done everything to give me salvation.
I will worship to the Lord in all times
His worship will be coutinously
in my lips and also in my heart
Jesus Christ is allways my song."
(Ademar de Campos)

My Arts Day

Yesterday I take our holyday (Republic day) to make something different, so I decided to attend our XXVI Arts Bienal of São Paulo. As my ladies (wife and daughter) were getting ready to go (not so fast) I took a look at Solomon Porch Visual arts lounge, very nice! It made me wonder about expressions and how poorly we have explored art expressions generally at church, I saw good examples at Solomon Porch (at their art louge), Warehouse 242 (which assign a picture to each of their services) and Quest, I don’t know so many examples.

My visit to Bienal was very funny, there are very nice things, very weird and also very funny ones, I was afraid my daughter Maria Ester would be scared of some weird installations, but she went fine. I think one of the great benefits of art is to get new point of views, see same things by different ways and get insights that you would never get in your day by day. I returned home willing to make art, to express myself by any way, may be Photoshop, or painting, don’t know.
If I wait more for it, the same will happen: nothing!
Today I read an article from Relevant about art and church: “Irrelevant to the Church”, it is ironic to realize that art and church relationship is very controversy, once you know that arts is considered the picture of the soul.

It worthed the night!

Last sunday, at service, we heard a witness of parents of a recently born baby who had a terrible disease and had to raise a great amount of money to submit him to a surgery in US, they witnessed miracles of God raising quickly the amount and also by the quick recover of their child from this rare illness. At the end, the father concluded that they were not feeling more blessed than many parents who lost their children nor less blessed than many parents who have healthy children, he witnessed that what they spent was unique to their journey with God, something that everybody have with God, but by their own way. It was great to see such wisdom!
Few moments later I noted I have the same feeling of my wife, we could left church at this moment because that was a great message, a message preached with their own life.

What's Going on in our world

Thanks to Orangejack blog, there's a site that classifies the top 100 significative words in news launched by news agencies, also links those to a picture, so you will find what is going on. Very interesting:
10x10 Words and Pictures that Define the Time

Bye Old Year!*

Yesterday, I went out to a mall to celebrate my 17 years of my date with my wife, the terrible thing to note was to see everything decorated for Christmas!
This is terrible, a great sign that the year is getting to end, as I heard from many friends, this is a kind of dispair by feeling that many things planned to this year was unfortunately not done.
I have read a nice text at Relevant Magazine: "Forever Young", I recommend for all people at their 30ies that is getting desperated by feeling time going too fast.
Dispair comes when we use to compare with whished patterns, be that comparision to younger people who happened to realize more things than us in their age or be that our comparision to our own expectations made when we were younger.
It is good to realize that our age is too few compared to eternity we have with Jesus Christ, I get very comforted when I think that God patterns are not related to accomplishments, but to relationship with Him.

*Here in Brazil, we have a song which we use to sing every new year and is like:"Bye Old Year, Happy New Year, that everything happens in the year that is borning, much money at poket, health to give and sell"

For a meaning to life

Latelly I was able to watch some movies and take advantage of my cabo subscription, so I could finally watch XMen United and Die another day (my wife loves 007 films), my difficulty to take advantage of cabo is to program yourself to be well at the time of the movie, I have been lost lots of movies because when it was at TV I was too tired or I was making anything else. There is another movie, (which I recorded in my VCR) that I was long expecting to see, The Good Girl, in Brazil the movie received another title :"For a meaning to life", this film catch my attention mainly because of Jannifer Aniston (ex-Friends) performing a drama, very far from Rachel Green.
She plays Justine a woman very upset with her life, she worked at a supermarket making up other women to sell make ups, that environment was very boring, also she was married to a pathetic house painter that used to grab is co-worker every night to her house to see TV and smoke marijuana. She looks prisioned to her life.
She met a boy, Haiden, who was also fed up with life, his parents were very far from him and just watched TV at night, he used to create some stories which the main character commited suicide at the end. They have an affair, but Justine felt greatly guilted, she even accept an invite from a creepy safety guard to attend to a Bible study meeting, she took her husband to recover her marriage but runs away when she saw a recepcionist of the hotel she usually had the affairs.
It is a disturbing movie, it is disturbing when you see some days like that, to be at night watching TV and seeing the life going away. But I thing the most disturbing thing is how we christian are providing the meaning of life for those kind of people that feel prisioned to their life, have no hope and surround us everyday. Sadly, many churches are just changing pathetic lifes in front of TV to pathetic lifes at programs in churches.
Jesus Christ gives us abundant life, living with him mean to share his redemption to all world, participate of a community of love and faith that lives fully love, Jesus have the answer that people are looking for, we have to live this answer and save people from the hell they are living now.