Let's Feast on Theology

God's Word Isn't a Board Game

January 10, 2018 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

From childhood to adulthood, I’ve always enjoyed the experience of that board game with 255 squares and those tiny wooden tiles. The game that forces me to acknowledge that my vocabulary and spelling acumen isn’t always up to par... Keep Reading

God is Really Hard to Buy For

December 6, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

Christmas season is upon us with all the consumer hoopla that it brings. Christmas shopping has reached colossal proportions. The National Retail Federation and other tracking entities’ projections for holiday sales in the U.S. this year are to top $1,000,000,000,000. That’s one trillion dollars. (I rounded up and left off the cents). Presumably, you will be contributing to this projected amount. Nowadays, many know well in advance what they are going to give someone else because the intended recipient made their wishes for a particular kind of gift well-known, subtly or otherwise. Or, we just ask what they want. But did you ever have one of those people on your Christmas gift list who is simply too hard to buy for? They either have everything they could ever want or have the cashola to buy whatever they think they need any time of the year. They just don’t need to wait for the Christmas gift giving season. However, the market economy being what it is, there are always thought-provoking ideas for presents for those hard-to-buy-for people. If you’ve reached a dead-end for a choice Christmas present, stop beating your head with that mistletoe, put a cold compress on it and chomp down a Tylenol spiced candy cane while you forget about that boring Partridge in a Pear Tree. There’s relief! For instance:... Keep Reading

God the Icebreaker

November 15, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

On June 16, 2016 the Arktika was launched. Yup. It’s a new class of icebreaking ships ordered to be built by the Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom. It’s basically a 568 feet long mammoth of raw power, bringing 80,000 hp (that’s 60 megawatts) to break through ice almost ten feet thick! It will open up routes for convoys of ships that would be otherwise impassable.*... Keep Reading

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Theology

God Doesn’t Take Fingerprints With Ink

October 11, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

As a former federal law enforcement officer, I have a not so fond memory of the first time I fingerprinted someone I arrested. Sure, I learned at the academy how to properly take an arrestee’s prints. I was schooled in how to roll the fingers on the fingerprint card with just the right amount of pressure, squeezing the correct amount of pasty ink from the tube. Not too much, not too little. Now, here was my debut out “in the field” where the big boys did their thing.... Keep Reading

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Theology

Is Someone Knockin' at the Door?

September 20, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

If you’re like many people there are times when you hear a familiar song in the background somewhere and it just relentlessly plays over and over in your head. There’s no relief. Even when you want to discard the melody and lyrics to clear slate in your silently humming mind it just plays and plays. You plead with the pop muses in your head to take a break but they ignore you. This happened to me recently. Here’s the song: Someone’s knockin’ at the door Somebody’s ringin’ the bell Someone’s knockin’ at the door Somebody’s ringin’ the bell Do me a favor Open the door and let ‘em in ... Keep Reading

Touch

August 9, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

The following story is a Facebook post by my gracious niece Brianne of her encounter with a homeless man and how it affected them both: “Just had a homeless man ask for food outside the Wendy's on Bardstown Rd. and when I told him I had no cash on me he replied I understand and I don't want money just some food! So I bought him a burger and some nuggets when I purchased my own food! I've never seen a man more pleased and full of joy! He began to cry and said this is the first thing he has eaten that was not out of a dumpster in a month and that he was thinking about ending his life yesterday when he was turned down for another job and completely down on his luck! He then proceeded to thank me and told me that if it wasn’t for me being so willing to help and taking time to talk to him he might have given up! Tears pouring from his face as he smiled at me made my heart happy knowing I helped him through one more day! Glad I am fortunate enough to make someone this happy! Sometimes it’s a simple act of kindness and a couple minutes of time to change a life! Not everyone is so bad!” ... Keep Reading

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Theology

Jesus is the Ultimate in Free Soloing

July 12, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

I used to be a kind of adrenaline junkie... To the untrained eye you wouldn’t think that I was into pushing the limits of physical and psychological prowess. But you would be wrong. And you might even ask for some examples. Strap yourself in. I have one for you. As a little boy I climbed what my young eyes saw as an enormously tall tree in our family’s yard. Who knew that giant sequoias grew in New Jersey? I stretched my tender tendons to grasp that next branch with the risk of plummeting at any moment. One tedious and measured clutch; one branch at a time. It was madness. That is until, out of sheer terror, my parents showed up and pleaded with me to stop my ascent. The tree trunk was bending and the roots were popping out of the ground. Never mind that I could have had my self-image injured for life from the two-foot plunge before reaching the top of that three-foot tall wooden colossus.... Keep Reading

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Theology

Wrestling Matches With God

June 15, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

It goes without saying that professional sports are deeply embedded in our culture. One such sport has always made me scratch my head, wondering why it’s attractive to its fans. I’m speaking about pro wrestling. Most people watch pro wrestling with all its characters and drama for its entertainment value. And although it’s not considered a “legitimate” competitive sports match, if you spoke with a devoted fan they would probably acknowledge that unlike competitive sports it is, indeed, all scripted. The outcome is already determined, but they wouldn’t say it’s fake. After all, fake implies what the wrestlers do is unreal, which isn’t true. They actually are wrestling. This accounts for why fans can identify with their favorite wrestling hero and root them on in the excitement of all their antics in roped 20’ x 20’ ring.... Keep Reading

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Theology

The Trash Days of My Soul

May 17, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

Every Wednesday like clock-work the same hydraulic song plays in front of my house. It’s a deliberate sound from that thing that has “wheels and flies” but isn’t an aircraft. It stops and its claws squeeze its prey, effortlessly lifts it and devours it as if in one motion. Then it continues down the street in its serial gluttony of mishmash, all served up curbside in poly-something-or-other vessels methodically placed in the front of each house.... Keep Reading

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Theology

The Happiness Report

April 12, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

Contentment is one of those loosey goosey words. For one person’s contentedness might be another’s nightmare. One person is content with the bare necessities of life such as a roof over their head and fish tacos. The same sustained situation would make another’s expression make the subject in Edvard Munch’s portrait The Scream look like Humpy-Dumpy. Of course, social/geo/eco context is everything. “What? No Wi-Fi? What’s the point of living?”... Keep Reading

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Theology

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