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In our culture we are abundantly blessed with opportunities for laziness. We don’t have to walk miles for clean water or hunt for food. At the press of a button, without leaving our homes, food and things appear on our doorsteps from all over the world. We can afford to be picky, to have a brand preference, to complain about calories. Even more so, we can afford to quit when things just are not working out the way we had wanted or planned. Everything is convenient.

My core Evergreen business, Spraggins Inc., is a building products and construction services company based in Orlando, Florida and focused on the contract residential market. In 2007, the great recession hit our business extremely hard. Homebuilders just stopped building.

The job shaming of actor Geoffry Owens (known primarily from The Cosby Show) last week should cause all of us to pause. In case you missed it, let me catch you up on pop news. Geoffry Owens, like many actors, is a part of an industry that is not known for steady work. Geoffry took a job at Trader Joe’s to remain flexible for auditions and still provide income to support his family.

I often lay in bed at night, exhausted from the day, and think, “Isn’t it amazing that God made our bodies capable of recharging as we sleep so we can get up and do the same thing again tomorrow?”  We can be utterly spent in the evening and wake up refreshed in the morning.  But sometimes, it’s not that simple.  Sometimes, life is overwhelming and we need more than just physical refreshment.  Sometimes, our hearts need to be revived; we need spiritual renewal.

Strange how it keeps happening, how the greatest works of Chinese art keep getting brazenly stolen from museums around the world. Is it a conspiracy? Vengeance for treasures plundered years ago? We sent Alex W. Palmer to investigate the trail of theft and the stunning rumor: Is the Chinese government behind one of the boldest art-crime waves in history?

My apologies all the way around for what amounted to a great big tease last week when no video was embedded in the previous blog. The problem has been sorted out but the only solution is to include the link rather than the actual video. The ideas that Dr. Amy Sherman, a Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research (where she directs the Center on Faith in Communities), puts forward is worthy of our consideration as we embark on vocational guilds together.

We are back and off of the July Screen Sabbatical. This week’s blog post is an interview with James K.A. Smith and Roberta Ahmanson and they are discussing a fascinating topic—patronage. Most interviews that are transcribed can be a little rough and this one is no exception, but it is well worth the read.  Patronage is a lost concept in our culture today and especially with a view towards eternity. 

Aaahhhh! Summer is here and hopefully that means you will be taking some much-needed time off. Interestingly, Americans have become so focused on productivity that we often struggle with how to unwind, destress, and actually relax. Many of us even wrestle with whether or not we should strive to achieve these things a part from a perfect world, and sense that does not exist, then why try.

We are all familiar with the exciting and encouraging opening lines of Oh the Places You’ll Go. I read it the night before going off to college, full of confidence, ready to start my life, excited to see where my brains and my feet would take me. 

It is hard to believe. It is has been two years since the Pulse shooting that tragically took the lives of forty-nine people. Forty-nine lives that seem to have been cut short and many, many more who will be forever impacted—families, friends, and first responders (including all those at ORMC).