How Genghis Khan cooled the planet

Frank ponders how to give an eco-friendly gift, and ends up discussing the difference between hope and stress.

Ben Myers has stopped blogging about faith and theology and has become a short story writer (briefly). And he is frustrating brilliant at that too! It was bugging me that most of his stories seem to be set in the US. I was about to comment on that trend when I came across this one and I felt right at home.

Amidst all the climate records set in 2010, a new melt record for the Greenland ice sheet was set in 2010.

And Mongabay tells of How Genghis Khan and Hernán Cortés cooled the planet (perhaps Christopher Columbus should get the credit). I'm not advocating that we try that particular strategy of geoengineering.

Don't watch this video...

...if you want to sleep tonight.

Very appropriate for the season. H/T Frank.

Link love

It's been a while since I've shared the love.

Alastair posts some Thoughts on Rowling's revelation that Dumbledore is gay.

Michael has discovered Hart's often breath-taking The Doors of the Sea and offers some reflections upon providence.

Rory is reflecting upon lessons learned about churches (big and little) while in the UK recently.

Frank has noticed a worrying tendency in Christian responses to climate change.

Mark has been posting some (more lengthy) thoughts on creation science (or as MPJ would say: 'creation' "science"). I've just linked to the first few posts in a series that already contains eleven lengthy posts.

Hope: God sees the world upside down

H/T Frank. A simple idea, but quite effective.

However, to speak of hope, we must speak of Christ crucified. This is what turns the world upside down:

Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

- 1 Corinthians 1.22-25

Holy water

Frank Emanuel over at Freedom Log has posted on What is Sacred?. More needs to be said, of course, but this is worth saying (and reading).

Frank has also just written a paper on the ethics of bottled water, a topic I had never much considered. I've never been a fan of bottles and this paper gives plenty of reasons (health, economic, environmental) to back up my prejudice. I feel justified in now called it a post-judice. For me, perhaps the most interesting point in his paper was a brief comment noting that the habitual consumption of bottled water dulls communal motivation to maintain quality tap water. As usual, it will be the poorest who suffer from this move. Water is not a commodity.

Finally, to complete this Frankophile post, this lovable Candian pastor has also just joined Thom Chittom as co-moderator of the large and active Jürgen Moltmann Yahoo group.
Eight points to the first non-theologically trained reader to name the psalm in which this image figures prominently.