Browse: Page 16
By J. Timothy King on June 21, 2012
Links and things I’ve recently run across.
Babylon 5 Fans: How many of these people can you recognize?
Bill Mumy is probably best remembered as young Will Robinson on the original Lost in Space, but he’ll always be Lennier to me. Nowadays, he’s pursuing his music career. (You can catch some of Bill Mumy’s music on Spotify.)
Anyhow, this past weekend, he posted this cellphone photo on Facebook, with Walter Koenig, Claudia Christian, Patricia Tallman, and J. Michael Straczynski.
Big B, little b, …
Posted in Bits & Pieces | Tagged Babylon 5, Bill Mumy, book industry, economy, finances, food
By J. Timothy King on June 20, 2012
According to Dave Ramsey, money arguments are the number-one cause of marital strife.
Now, I’m not sure where he got that factoid. And I don’t actually know whether it’s true, because marriages—as all relationships—are more complex and nuanced than a single cause. Regardless, it is surely true that money arguments are a leading factor in failing marriages.
In early 2009, after a series of bad software development jobs, I sunk into a deep depression. At the time, I attributed my mood to the bankruptcy of the software industry— And I still believe the industry in general is broken in several key areas, and needs to be fixed. But I later discovered, my problem was mostly connected to my own reactions, my own thoughts, going through my own mind, what Perry Marshall calls “inner head trash.” Continue reading “Budgeting is a Love Thang”
Posted in Books, Love and Relationships, Love through the Eyes of an Idiot, Stories, True Stories | Tagged budgeting, Dave Ramsey, depression, finances, Financial Peace University, Ivan Tyrrell, Joe Griffin, marriage, money, psychology |
By J. Timothy King on June 19, 2012
The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here, by C.R. Snyder
Reading back through some of the old posts on this blog, I see a man who saw wonderful possibilities for his future, and an undiminishable drive to pursue those possibilities; a man who saw the future as his salvation, not as his curse.
What happened to that man?
He’s still inside me, beat down by patterns I’ve allowed to set over the past 6 or 7 years. He may no longer be fighting, but he still longs to escape, to live free.
Enter the Used Book Superstore. Browsing there one day in the Psychology section, I of course noticed the wanna-be-psych-textbooks, the pop psychology, the psycho-mumbo-jumbo. And then a book jumped out at me—literally, almost jumped into my hands—a hardcover entitled The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here. Continue reading “Teaser Tuesdays: The Psychology of Hope”
Posted in Health, Mental Health, Teaser Tuesdays | Tagged C.R. Snyder, depression, hope, psychology, The Psychology of Hope
By J. Timothy King on June 17, 2012
“I’m not a traitor. I just want to live.”
I wrote those words about two years ago.
Around this time each year, in synagogue, we read from Joshua chapter 2, the story of Rahab the harlot.
It inspired a short-short story, “The Confidant of Jericho,” which concluded with the line above.
The story of Rahab always hits me between the eyes.
We say she was afraid of the Israelites, awed by God’s terrible power. Therefore, she believed in the God of the Israelites, and she hid the Israelite spies from the king of Jericho, and God accounted it to her as righteousness.
But I think there’s more to it than that. And I think this view of Rahab sells her short. Yes, I’m sure she was afraid of the Israelites. But was that enough to make her turn traitor? Continue reading “Don’t Sell the Harlot Short”
Posted in Fear and Love, Judaism, Religion | Tagged Rahab
By J. Timothy King on June 8, 2012
I just received the funniest credit-card offer ever!
Ever since my Beloved got us a membership in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, I’ve been listening to him way too much. And proof that I’m listening to him way too much is that I’m starting to think of jokes that he might make. And I also imagine myself writing this with a vaguely southern accent.
So I get home this afternoon, and there, in my mail, lying on my so-needs-a-visit-from-a-vacuum-cleaner rug, is proof that the economy must be turning around.
Yes, I’m referring to the bane of all junk mail: a credit-card offer. Continue reading “No Surprises, Until…”
Posted in Humor | Tagged credit cards, Dave Ramsey, Financial Peace University
By J. Timothy King on April 27, 2012
… someone throws you a reminder.
The AARP has tried this before, but now they’re getting desperate. They’ve sent me letters inviting me to join their organization. Some mailing-list marketer probably got the idea that since I’m no longer employed by an idiot in an office somewhere, I must have retired. I’m neither old enough nor crazy enough for that. (Even if I were “retired,” I’d rather eat fried ants than to join the AARP.) But more to the point…
I’m still working! Continue reading “Just When You Think You Might Not Be So Out of Touch…”
Posted in Humor, Writing | Tagged AARP
By J. Timothy King on April 18, 2012
My father over at his blog posted a two-part series on gay marriage. It started as an initial post called “Redefining Marriage,” which proved controversial enough among his theological colleagues that he felt a need to post part 2 to clarify.
What follows is in reply to part 1.
Same-sex marriage is now a fact of life with state after state endorsing it as a bonafide marriage contract. This has brought me to reconsider the subject hopefully without prejudice and just a soupçon of bias. I have come to the conclusion in studying the, so-called, relevant scripture that God does not approve. But by the same Biblical message I cannot limit God’s grace in matters of the heart. [emphasis in original]
Continue reading “Redefining Marriage?”
Posted in Christianity, Judaism, Politics, Religion | Tagged gay marriage, homosexuality, morality |
By J. Timothy King on April 13, 2012
On Friday, I usually post an attempt at humor. (Some times more effective than others.) Today, however, I thought I’d tell the story of how a Gentile pastor’s kid from western Pennsylvania ended up identifying with a Messianic Jewish synagogue.
Firstly, I’m not Jewish. When I was a boy, my father, a pastor, passed on to me (at least in part) his love for the original languages of the Biblical texts along with a healthy respect for Judaism (which at the time I didn’t realize was so unusual or important). He taught me a little Biblical Hebrew (and a bit of Koine Greek).
Then, in my twenties, I married a nice, Jewish girl who believed in Yeshua (which, again, at the time I didn’t realize was so unusual or important). She had been raised Catholic—which is a completely different story that she can tell sometime, if she wants. But she had heard the stories of her family’s nascent Jewish roots. Continue reading “How I Ended Up in a Messianic Jewish Synagogue”
Posted in About Tim King, Judaism, Religion | Tagged Ruach Israel |
By J. Timothy King on April 6, 2012
One hell of an hilarious warp core breach!
John Stossel recently published a short piece in The Freeman about ideas having sex. This naturally explains the most lucrative business sector ever seen on the Internet: idea porn.
So, when I shared this article on Facebook, and fellow fiction blogger and Star Trek fan Neil Shurley re-shared it, I thought of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Timescape.”
(Not really, but it seemed like a good segue.)
Continue reading “Ideas Having Sex”
Posted in Humor, Intellectual Property | Tagged creativity, ideas, Star Trek
