A Universalist, huh?

I've mentioned here before that I regularly read Rev. Bob Cornwall's blog.  He posted something there last week (a week ago today to be exact) that I wanted to comment on, but I didn't get to it this week.  He's prolific enough that this one has already fallen off his front page.  I wish I had the time (and enough interesting things to say) to write that much.  Oh, well.  The entry was mostly an excerpt from a book by William Barclay.  Barclay was a much better biblical scholar than I will ever be, but he describes himself as a Universalist and goes on to explain why.  What is really interesting to me, is that, while he can back it up biblically better than I ever could, he describes almost exactly the place I reached during one of my undergraduate religion classes when we were discussing process theology.  I didn't even realize I was a Universalist.  Anyway, go read it.  I'm going to have to see if the local library has a copy of that book now.  As a result of this and a couple of other things I've been looking into lately, I've also added a couple of new books to my Amazon Religion Wish-List (to the left).

Blindsided by Grace - thoughts

I just finished reading Bob Molsberry's book Blindsided by Grace: Entering the World of Disability.  I won't call this note a review because it isn't.  I'm not going to critique the book in any way.  I will, however, recommend it unabashedly.  I've known Bob and Ann for almost 2 years(?).  I was on the Ohio Conference UCC's Board of Trustee's when Bob's name was brought forward by the search committee for Conference MInister although I was unable to attend the meeting where he was introduced to the board and I was off the board by the time he started the job, but I met hime not too long after.  I like Bob and he's not a bad preacher, either. :)  When I saw that he had written two books, I certainly wanted to read them, but I didn't buy them then.  Now I wish I had.  I read Tour de Faith: A Cyclist's Lessons for Living a few months ago and as a cyclist (somewhat out of practice of late) myself, I could relate to some of his stories, and I enjoyed it very much.  But this one touched me more.  The book is basically (as the subtitle suggests) about how Bob dealt with the devastating 1997 accident that cost him the use of his legs.  The closest I've come to what our society would call a disability was my back/nerve issues prior to my 1998 back surgery.  I had to make some adjustments to compensate, but as I read Bob's book, I wondered how I would respond in similar circumstances.  I hope I'd do half as well.  I also appreciated his perspective on life since the accident and especially the story about taking the youth group to Mexico after the accident.  The disabled ones in the group were those who couldn't communicate.  I don't have the book in front of me and I know I'm not really doing him justice, pick the book up yourself.  You won't be sorry.