-
Tootie Frootie the Turtle

Tootie Frootie the turtle was afraid of water. It happened that when he was very young he fell into a can of orange paint, which had never really come of, and that was the origin of his fear of water. Though a sea turtle, Tootie Frootie found that he could live happily at a pond, a little ways inland from where he had been born. He could enter the water to wading height, eat fish and minnows, and lived well.

This continued until one fateful day when the pond was developed for a luxury resort. Upon finding the strange orange sea turtle that lived in a pond, the hotel made Tootie Frootie their mascot. While not as satisfying as his pond life had been, Tootie Frootie was comfortable in his new role. He was well fed, and didn’t have to go in any water. Still, a life of captivity, no matter how good, was something he could only handle for so long.

So he embarked on a fast action, daring 3 year escape. During the course of his escape, the orange paint was washed off of him, so the hotel people didn’t recognize him anymore. Tootie Frootie returned to the sea, and found to his amazement, that he had missed it for so long he was no longer afraid of it. Having lived in captivity to his own fears and then to a large hotel, he returned to his true home.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty

-
Image
Leslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt , and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1995. 105 pgs. In this gem of a book Newbigin takes the reader on a journey away from the idea of Cartesian certainty and towards a more proper scaffolding for thought and belief. He denies the possibility of ideal certainty with no doubt and concludes that seeking this ideal can only to skepticism (of an extreme sort) and Nihilism. The thesis of this book might best best be stated as follows: the proper confidence of a Christian is not the possession of indubitable knowledge but the confidence of one who has heard and answered God's call of 'Follow me.' In order to demonstrate this point, Newbigin first examines three 'paths' whose titles, which are his first three chapter titles, seem somewhat counter-intuitive. In the first chapter, 'Faith as the Way to Knowledge,' Newbigin argues that if knowledge, and God, are ultim
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more