Here and Now

Elie hides. Every Sunday after our Traditional Worship Service (tm) we have fellowship time. You know, coffee, juice, donut holes, cookies. My kids used to call it Donut Sunday when we only did it twice a month. Now, it's just a normal part of every Sunday. It's a good opportunity to talk to people that we might not see too much through the week. And the kids love the donut holes. In fact, one Sunday a couple months ago they [gasp] ran OUT of donut holes. Elie walked up to the table, didn't see any donut holes, and ran to my office crying. She didn't turn the lights on and she ran behind the chair and she cried. Now, I was really tempted to tell her she's just being silly - it's only donut holes after all - you know, buck up - shake it off - all those dad-isms I'm supposed to be so good at. But I realized how much I do that. Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't run off and hide behind chairs and cry. But, when even little things don't happen...

Okay - we got it. We finally found one without paying 500 bucks online. Yep - we are Wii owners. Got it for my birthday. I bowl. Don't get me wrong, I've got other games. But bowling doesn't require me to figure out how to use the nunchuck (is that what it's called?). So, Lego Star Wars sits dormant. Of course, we're WAITING for the release (it's been sort of promised...it really has) of ROCK BAND for the Wii. Someday. Then I will unleash my inner drummer :) On a somewhat related note... I've been kind of intrigued by the success of Guitar Hero (on, what, III now?). If you spend hours and hours practicing, you can become good enough at the game to play...well, the game. What intrigues me about it is that if we spent that kind of time actually practicing the guitar, well, we might even become guitar heroes... But that's not FUN (plus, every time I set up my Marshall full stack and crank it to 11 in my living room my kids tell me to turn it down...). So,...

I probably won't read any more of this book. In a Pit... I read the first chapter - well, part of the first chapter - online at Amazon and, well, I'm not impressed. I'm supposed to be. We're all supposed to be. Mark has some good stuff to say about courage and about how God turns our difficulties into opportunities Here's the point: God is in the resume-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities. But those God-given opportunities often come disguised as man-eating lions. And how we react when we encounter those lions will determine our destiny. (page 14) Okay - I don't argue with anything that he says here. My problem is that he takes an obscure passage of Scripture and builds an entire book on it. This is 9 chapters of...well, Christian self- help, really (chapter 9 is, please try to look surprised, "Unleash the Lion Within"). Sigh. God's word - fodder for feeling good...argh... For what it's ...

"Do you want a picture of Jesus in the manger or Jesus on the cross," asked Rachel, flipping through a children's Bible. "Jesus on the cross," said Elie, "and up close." That was the conversation in the seat behind me on the way back to the office after lunch. Immediately I thought of the Apostle Paul ('cause that's what I do...): When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (I Corinthians 2:1-2, NRSV) Granted, it was a children's Bible, so the picture wasn't the blood and anguish of The Passion of the Christ . Yet, the conversation went on: "Why are his eyes closed?" she asked. Rachel said, "Because he died. They nailed him to the cross and he died." Elie was quiet for a minute or so. "How does he open his eyes? How do the nails come out so he can op...

I set out a fairly easy challenge the last Sunday of 2007 - Read through the four Gospels in January. I even laid out a plan: Week 1 - 4 chapters of Matthew each day Week 2 - 2 chapters of Mark each day (plus 2 extra chapters) Week 3 - 4 chapters of Luke each day (for only six days - bonus!...or, um, 3 a day plus three...) Week 4 - 3 chapters of John each day Okay - not SIMPLE - and if you want to get technical, you could throw those two extra chapters of Mark onto the first day of week three and then 4-a-days the rest of the week... Not the point... Last night, one of our Sunday night regulars said, "Bill, I want to thank you for laying out the Gospel reading challenge. I'm almost done with John. I can't get enough. I can't stop. I have a little new testament I take to work with me and when I have a few minutes all I want to do is read about Jesus." Several other people have told me they've "taken the challenge" too and I believe that God will...

Someone posted an anonymous comment on the last posting that shifted the soundtrack that runs through my head - and here's the full quote: No his mind is not for rent To any god or government Always hopeful, yet discontent But He knows changes aren't permanent But change is. - Tom Sawyer (Neil Peart - Rush) There's always music in my head. It's amazing what sets it off. Our bishop was praying at annual conference last June and he prayed something about "being in the sunshine of your love" and suddenly I'm offering a dose of Cream in my prayer... Nothing unusual in that for me (and God seems pretty patient with me in this). I wonder - my daughters seem to live in a musical. They will spontanieously sing and dance - make up songs (Rachel is now famous for having sung about toast...heh). Maybe it's genetic. Maybe a lot of people do it and we just don't talk about it. Okay, so maybe I'm not so thrilled when I've been in the presence of someon...

Found this quote a few minutes ago: Henry Ford once said… ”We should be guiding our future by the present, instead of being guided in the present by the past.” Okay - Henry Ford was no philosopher - but there's something about this that intrigues me. How do we lock our present into the past in the church? There are some things we have no control over - our architecture is locked in time, for example - but the "how we do church stuff" is becoming more and more fluid... We talked about moving the church library down onto the main floor of the church - building beautiful oak book shelves on one wall in one of the parlors. The idea was to get the library visible and, hopefully, to encourage people to use it. There was much resistance. The loudest criticisms came from people who said it would "spoil the aesthetics of the parlor" or something like that. The original intent of these rooms would be ruined. Besides, they said, people who want to use the library (a very h...

It has been a long dark night...um...week....two and a half months...of the soul (?) ... Dunno. Went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra last night. It was, of course, fantastic. This is the way Beethoven, Bach and Lizst were meant to be played (heh - my wife who was an oboe major in college may have a slightly differing opinion...) But I realized something last night on the way home. We stopped at McDonalds after the show for a quick bathroom break and a snack and sat at the table with the people we sat with at TSO. They were telling stories - really, really funny stuff - and I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt. What I realized is: I haven't been laughing much this past couple of months. I mean, cheeks hurting after one really good story means that my smile is WAY out of shape (heh - somewhat like the rest of me). So, I'm wondering what happened... I've been in a pretty dark mood lately - even Christmas eve and Christmas morning didn't pull me up out of the pit. But the horiz...