December 2007

Is this your first visit to On the Horizon? You're invited to subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Genesis 2:2-3

Welcome to the Inaugural Edition of The Seventh Day, a weekly blog carnival designed to provide bloggers an opportunity to showcase their best work and readers a chance to get acquainted with some new sites and authors.

The Carnival is off to a great start, as evidenced by the wonderful posts submitted this week on a wide variety of topics:

The Holidays

James shares To a Homeless Man and His Dog, Merry Christmas from JCME Freelance Writing. James describes an encounter with a nameless individual that he still thinks about from time to time. I’m confident that it will resonate with you just as it did with me.

Holly shares Give the gift of a home this holiday from Everything and Anything. She is an interior design student who is exhibiting gratitude and “giving back” this holiday season by supporting Habitat for Humanity.

Sandy Carlson shares a beautiful “video of images of the moon that she shot on Christmas morning, accompanied by lovely, peaceful music called Joy in the Morning.

Spirituality / Belief

Bobbie shares from 40 Shades of Pink. 2007 was a trying year, but Bobbie remains faithful and thankful.

Karen Lynch shares New Year’s Curriculum from Live the Power. Karen sets forth the “basic requirements for a broad Liberal education to achieve a degree in Creating your Best Life.” I recommend printing and posting these course outlines near your desk so that you can remind yourself of this lesson plan throughout the year.

The Witchy Woo shares Wicca: Satan’s Little White Lie from The Witchy Woo about a book by that titled that she discovered. She expresses her opinion about it, as well as lots of other things in her brand new blog.

Parenting / Family

Lin Burress shares Technology and Children - A Wake Up Call For Parents from Telling It Like It Is. She speaks to an issue that is on many parents’ minds: “How can the non techno-savvy parent ‘critically examine the impact of technology’ on their children if they are clueless about technology and computers?” If, like me, your kids are more technologically proficient that you are, you need to read this post!

Tami Boesigershares Share and Share Alike from The Next Step. Tami offers “something light-hearted for your first edition” that will leave you laughing if you are a parent because you will relate to her family’s predicament!

Blogging

Jon Swift shares Best Blog Posts of 2007 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves) from Jon Swift.
Jon asked all the members of his blogroll to submit a link to what they thought was their best post of 2007. Jon was overwhelmed when more than 150 bloggers responded, observing that “[n]ot even Condoleeza Rice could have predicted the shock and awe you will feel at the sheer magnitude of the talent out there, of which this is just a small sampling.”

Fiction

Jenn H. shares The Letter from Mixed Metaphor.net, which she describes as “a fictional story about a woman coming to grips with the choices she made in her youth, the state of her life, and the direction she wants the remainder of her journey on earth to take.”

Products / Services

Bruce K. Hollingdrake shares The Fine Art of Book Pricing from The Bookshop Blog. Whether you are selling or buying books online, Bruce’s provides useful guidance on how to determine the market value of a book. It’s an imprecise science, as you’ll see.

fahmi shares List of Companies Selling and Servicing Prefab House Design from New Digital Architecture Magazine on Architecture and Interior. Stop by and check out the photos of some beautiful homes.

Thank you to all who participated this week either by sharing your talent with us or visiting the participants and letting them know that you appreciate their efforts!

You can submit your contribution to next week’s Carnival by clicking here. Posts submitted by next Saturday, January 5, 2008, at 12:00 p.m. (noon), Pacific Time, will be included in The Seventh Day: Second Edition published here next Sunday, January 6, 2008!

We are delighted to showcase the wonderful submissions included in our second Group Writing Project!

Please visit each participant’s site and take a moment to leave a comment letting him/her know not only how much you appreciate his/her contribution, but the way(s) in which the post touched, inspired, motivated or otherwise “spoke” to you at this most special time of the year!

Here are the submissions to “Keeping Christ in Christmas:”

[TABLE=1]

Tami and I extend our sincere thanks to all of you who contributed your posts! We appreciate your willingness to share your talents with us during this demanding and busy time of year!

Have a very merry, Christ-centered Christmas!

“Don’t blame suffering the world on the anger of God. He’s not mad; he didn’t mess up. Follow our troubles to their headwaters, and you won’t find any angry or befuddled God. But you will find a sovereign God.
Your pain has a purpose.

Your problems, struggles, heartaches, and hassles cooperate toward one end — the glory of God.”

~ Max Lucado ~
It’s Not About Me

A couple of months ago, I attended a Christian social event with a group of friends at which the subject of the Southern California wildfires came up in conversation.

One of the women seated at our table shared that earlier that day, she had watched a televangelist opine that the fires constituted God’s punishment. As my good friend kicked me under the table, I found myself compelled to ask, in the most innocent tone I could muster, “Punishment for what exactly?” I already knew the answer, but had to hear it from her lips in order to believe it.

Just as I knew she would, she proceeded to explain that the fires were God’s way of sending a message to Californians about our “acceptance of homosexuality” and otherwise overly-permissive culture. She also mentioned the “horrible” things that our children are learning in public schools.

As my friend’s kicks became more emphatic and my shins started to ache, I decided to let it go with a simple, “Well, I don’t believe that’s how God works.” Then I quickly changed the subject to something benign like the unseasonably warm weather, resumed eating my typically flavorless banquet-variety chicken breast, and heard my friend breathe a huge sigh of relief as she too continued eating her dinner.

[click to continue...]