I emailed a friend of mine today from Riverside and told him it was 1 degree as I drove to work, he was sitting outside in the sun, 50 degrees, but "freezing." He has no idea what it means to freeze.

I'm about ready to give up on the pop culture. I've been convicted of late that I am too tied into Hollywood, MTV, ESPN, etc. I don't know that I'll give up sports, but I've got to quit caring what happens in Hollywood, what pop artists are doing/creating, and wasting my time watching so much TV! It's going to be a gradual process, but there is so much better work to be done, I have to separate from this.

As mentioned, I'm reading "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs. In his chapter on the growth of the Chinese economy, he gives a little history lesson and quotes Adam Smith who wrote about China in 1776 and said it was "rich but static." Sachs continues "China's dynamism was drained by its inward orientation and lack of interest in trade... China had relinquised world leadership by turning inward." Then another Smith qoute follows:

China seems to have been long stationary, and had probably long ago acquired that full complement of riches which is consistent with the nature of its laws and institutions. But this complement may be much inferior to what, with other laws and institutions, the nature of its soil, climate, and situation might admit it. A country which neglects or despises foreign commerce, and which admits the vessels of foreign nations into one or two of its ports only, cannot transact the same quanitity of business which is might do with different laws and institutions.

I couldn't help but see the analogy of what these two men write with the church of today. Although I'm not one who believes the early church was this utopian state (it sure had its problems too, as exposed by some of the writings of the Church Fathers) but I sure think things were better in the first and second century than today. They seemed much more outward focused, focused on loving others, were not as institutionally focused, etc. In today's church, one can catch glimpses of that here and there, but we have become so burdened with non-essentials and inward focus, concerning ourselves with mere numeric, butt in the seats growth, to the detriment of Kingdom expansion. This analogy may be a little far-fetched, but I do believe it has some validity.