From Star Trek Deep Space 9 and IMDB:
[after Bashir tells the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf]
Dr. Julian Bashir: The point is, if you lie all the time, nobody’s going to believe you, even when you’re telling the truth.
Elim Garak: Are you sure that’s the point, doctor?
Dr. Julian Bashir: Of course. What else could it be?
Elim Garak: That you should never tell the same lie twice.
Raving atheist here who likes this one, too. It’s a fantastic metaphor and can be transferred to lots of other topics (I teach so it’s a close jump). It’s a nice general lesson in patience.
I like the one where Satan is tempting Jesus and dares him to jump, for God will save him. And Jesus replies that one should not put God to the test. It’s a profound statement that has many applications and many degrees of interpretation. I always preferred a more extreme interpretation, that faith is no substitute for wise life planning, e.g., God helps those who helps themselves.
We do see our fair share of the ambulance! But the youth minister and most of the youth workers are smart enough to stay off the boards or bikes.
I can skate straight and to the left and only will get on a bike with brakes.
But this is us http://www.myspace.com/skatechurchqc for the most part. We’ve gotten bigger and the site isn’t up to date but it’s something.
Thank you all again so much for sharing with me. Please keep them coming I am enjoying reading them and it seems so are others.
I really like the Buddhist ones!
I like the parable of the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1 – 10).
The shepherd leaves the 99 to get the one that’s lost. Leaving those sheep meant there would not be 99 sheep to come back to, as they all would have wandered off, (see the shepherd goes home to tell his friends not back to the sheep). To me this says that God values the individual more than he values the group. Each PERSON is important, not the numbers of people but each person. It’s a very helpful belief for me when I compare myself to other people who have achieved more in there lives than I have.
The parable of the woman with the coin makes the most sense the way Fr. Tom explained it at the Newman Center low those many years ago. Say a student has 10 $20 bills and she loses one. She cleans her dorm room until she finds the missing $20. She then calls her friends to go out and celebrate that she found her missing $20. She spends more than $20 on the beer and food. To me this says God values me much more than I can produce or earn.
Taken together God values me more than He values “the church” and He values me more than I ever could “give back” and He knows this and tells me that He does.
