NowTHINK!AboutIt

Riviera Resort – Sea Point, Cape Town

March 10, 2016 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Location, Location,
Location!

We recently stayed at the Riviera Resort (timeshare) in the Sea Point area of Cape Town. It was the week of March 4-11. The Cape Town Cycle Tour, which was the reason we visited Cape Town, took place on the 6th of March.

The weather was great the whole week and particularly nice on race day: Cool but not cold, Slightly breezy, sunny and generally very pleasant.

The Riviera Resort was just what we needed. It had a few bad points but it was mostly a great experience. We booked a four sleeper through RCI, but bookings can also be arranged through First Exchange.

Four Sleeper

Our four sleeper consisted of an open plan lounge-bedroom area that had one king size bed and a pull out sleeper couch.

There was a separate bathroom that had a bath-come-shower arrangement. The door for the shower extended half the length of the bath and swung free.

The kitchen had the usual appliances, which I won’t list other than to mention the stove/oven was counter top (microwave sized) and the fridge was half sized. That’s probably standard for a 4 sleeper and was fine for two. [Read more…] about Riviera Resort – Sea Point, Cape Town

Two Responses To The Gospel – Love And Hate

March 2, 2016 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

The Gospel
Is The Same
For Everyone

The Bible says some things that are hard to accept, even for Christians.

Not so much hard to understand, but hard to live with. Believing the Bible isn’t the problem. Putting it into practise is. Let me explain.

The core message of the Bible is positive, not negative. We call it The Gospel, which translated means Good News.

But this Good News is difficult to accept because it is consistent. It doesn’t change, and it’s universal. The Gospel is good news for me and everyone else, the people I like and the people I don’t like.

“Universal” is what makes the Gospel unique. Not all news is equally good for everyone.

The person who wins the lottery is ecstatic. Everyone else can only wish.

The good news in the Bible, however, is unqualified. It’s good for everyone. It can’t get any better, but it can be viewed differently by different people depending on the situation.

Most people are very happy that the Gospel offers upliftment to the hopelessly downtrodden or liberation to the impossibly enslaved or enlightenment to the bewildered.

When that part of the penny drops, people are elated.

But it gets even better than that. [Read more…] about Two Responses To The Gospel – Love And Hate

Solitude, Silence, Contemplation? Please!

February 23, 2016 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Sustained Conversation
Curbs Brashness

“Solitude, silence and contemplation?”

A friend recently sent me an email sharing a few snippets from material he had been encouraged to read by a friend who was into a religious leader, whose name I won’t mention.

One of the snippets promoted “solitude, silence and contemplative prayer.” It was somehow interwoven with “loving one another” and being connected to Jesus.

I’m paraphrasing because, quite frankly, all the ideas, though very acceptable separately, came across as mumbo jumbo. It was like the alphabet soup of religious, idiomatic jargon swirling together in a suspended state. The order of the ideas could shift with no change in meaning.

My friend wrote me wanting to know my thoughts.

To be honest, I don’t get it. Besides confusing, it is all so yesteryear.

The terminology harks back to a time when solitude was fairly common, silence was required and contemplation was allowed only in prayer, the silent kind. No audibles allowed.

I don’t know why we still use these terms.

The words were popularized when religion was owned and operated by the powerful few, centuries ago. The Spirit was entirely regulated.

Whatever ideas individuals developed through personal contemplation had to be kept a secret lest they be accused of heresy.

Today we’re smarter. We understand that these words describe the very issues that deprive people of feeling alive. Jesus commented on this very thing, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!”

“Free” being synonymous with “Alive!”

And He said this to the most rigidly religionized people of the day. He didn’t say anything about solitude, silence or contemplation. According to Jesus, all they needed do was “continue in His Word.”

That sounds like action to me.

Should we still be using such words? Let’s look a bit closer. [Read more…] about Solitude, Silence, Contemplation? Please!

Love’s Language Is What?

February 18, 2016 by EnnisP 2 Comments

Love Is Spoken
In Many Different
Languages

The need for love is common to us all, but it isn’t the same for everyone.

We all need love in some way, and each person loves in his or her own way, but just getting on with it, without thought, may not be the best approach.

People who are loved don’t usually overdose on self-loathing but according to Glamour.Com, 97% of women find their bodies disgusting everyday. Either they aren’t being loved at all, which I doubt, or the love they’re getting is lost in translation.

A part of the problem may the human tendency to take the simple approach. Treat everyone the same. No thinking is required. No special effort is made. We just do for each person what we always do. And it’s usually what we’d like done in return.

If you’re a thinking person you realize that that approach is an insult to individuality. There is a difference between taking someone out for a movie and going to a movie, dragging them along with you.

It’s now common knowledge that every person’s receptors pick up love signals in different ways. We have Gary Chapman to thank for that. His book, The 5 Love Languages, makes the argument well. [Read more…] about Love’s Language Is What?

Love’s Focus Should Be What?

February 16, 2016 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Make Sure You Look
Where You’re Loving

Everybody loves. Not some, but all. There is no person who doesn’t love.

Every saint loves. Every sinner loves. Good citizens and criminals both love.

The question is never, “Do you love?”

The capacity to love is engaged every waking moment by every person but is sometimes focused in the wrong direction. The important lesson is that we learn to love somebody else. Somebody other than self.

There was never a time when Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t love. He loved before his transformation and he loved after. The difference was “What” he loved, his focus. The people or things he was attached to. [Read more…] about Love’s Focus Should Be What?