Put Up Where It Belongs

A. Unabashed Pacifist:

A peace at hand is worth two in a bush.

B. Unabashed Christian:

Holy One,

We come to this place because it is dedicated to you.
We come to this place out of dedication to you as we have seen you in Jesus the Christ.
We come to this place because we share with others a commitment to serve you and one another.
We come to this place for the inspiration and courage to serve others in our wider community, and for the renewal we need to do so.
We come to this place because we need to be reminded that we are loved and forgive, that we are your children, that we have received the charge to care for Earth and for our neighbors.
We come to this place because we hope to find you in our midst.
Amen

C. Un-quoting Jesus:

“Every person here deserves to die. Except me, of course.”

[Not even in a lesser-known sermon did He say this.]

D. Blog: A Rant on “Up”

We Christians speak of Christ as the light of the world, the one who brightens our lives. That being true, it does not make sense to add “up” as in “you light up my life.” I get the sense; I object to the grammar. We have perfectly good nouns to speak of the phenomenon of light. We have a wonderful verb to describe the act of bringing light into a space: brighten. So, how lazy is our language that we add an “up” (an adverb) to make grammatical soup?