Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

i walked through a garden in the morning i walked right into a change no words were spoken just a feeling and i cannot explain but i can feel the difference  - King's X, The Difference It always seems to happen around the end of the year. Things get really busy at work and the stretch of days that I plan to take off are threatened to be broken up by a promise to check an email here or a half-hour conference call there. As I walked out into the parking lot last night there was a specter that wouldn't let me pass until I had walked right through him thereby committing myself to some mode or method of work during my vacation. Once I had whirled around to see if I had, indeed, passed through him (I had, there was no doubt about that) I said to myself, "Lord, I am not going to worry about this. You got this one, right?" A simple prayer that did nothing to dissipate the presence of that ghost but that set my mind and heart on a course into water that was decidedly uncharted

I lost my temper on Monday night. I lost my temper so badly that I sinned in the process and had to ask for forgiveness from my oldest son. There was no reason for me to have done that. Even though my son was disobedient and more than a little wrong in what he pulled there was no reason for me to lose it. I guess I just wanted to make him feel badly about what he had done, but how is that my job? Shouldn't I have left room for the Spirit to convict him of his sin and drive him to confess it? So there I was, in his room, just before he went to bed, confessing my sin to him and asking him for his forgiveness. Then, when the conversation was over, and rather uncharacteristically, I hugged him. And he wouldn't let go. When we left each others' arms he looked at me and said, "I don't know how you do it." "Do what?" I asked. "Well, I just keep on sinning and sinning, but you still love me." His inquiry led me to remind him that he forgave me for

I was at a Christmas concert last night for my nieces and I thought that the choirs that sang did a great job. The accelerated choir group sang "Carol of the Bells" and as they did I thought of the piercing cry of a bell in relation to the piercing presence of Christ that Christmas night. I couldn't shake the thought that bells are such a perfect picture of what happened when God took on flesh and dwelt among us. But then, probably because I grew up Catholic, I got to thinking about the Annunciation. The Annunciation is what Catholics call the salutation the Gabriel made to Mary to announce that she had been chosen to bear Christ. It is recorded in the Gospel of Luke and is tremendous in its implications and in the illustration of Mary's unbridled submission to God's will. This event in our salvation history is celebrated on March 25 each year. What made me think about the Annunciation in reference to Christmas (beyond the obvious fact that Mary had to get pregnan

I have blogged about this before , but was thinking anew (thanks to C.S. Lewis) about my role in completing the joy that other people have. I have always understood that there was a role I was to have to help bear the burdens of others and that really listening to their issues and entering into their suffering was key to that process. When someone is happy or joyful there is a role that I need to play as well. Rather than bearing their happiness, which seems kind of nonsensical, I am to complete it. As soon as my youngest son is done with a Lego creation or the oldest reads something funny in his Calvin and Hobbes book they immediately want to share it with their mother or me. Now I could be cynical and say that their motive for sharing was born out of the desire to be seen as clever or to, albeit briefly, have our undivided attention, but I think that it is so much more than that. Firstly I am thankful that I have the time that I do to devote to examining the creation or hearing the f

This morning on my way into work I heard a great story on NPR about an Indian dancer/actress that taught some Indian prisoners how to perform folk dances so that they could begin to have a life outside of the prison environment. She was absolutely spot on with reminding the audiences that they performed for that this was not the end of the their transformation but the very tip of the beginning of it. Many of the prisoners still had a hard time finding jobs and struggled to find trust from the people on the outside of the correctional system. This woman also was consistently asked by various audience members if the men that performed were truly reformed. It was her simple response to that question that shook me: "Are we?". It was also interesting how she delivered the answer. When recalling the incident to the reporter that was interviewing her she laughed uncomfortably. I don't think the laugh was one where she felt badly about taking the one who asked the question off gu

I was listening to a lecture on the Gospel of Thomas (GOT) last night and I got to thinking about something that professor said. There are 114 "sayings", or logia, in the writing and some of them are rather goofy and extremely uncharacteristic of Christ...although given the Apostles penchant for confusion I could see some of the dialogue coming from their mouths. Other sayings are given serious weight as being from the mouth of Christ and more historically accurate than the ones presented in the orthodox gospels. Here is one of them that the professor brought to my attention: (Logia 9) Jesus said, "Now the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered them. Some fell on the road; the birds came and gathered them up. Others fell on the rock, did not take root in the soil, and did not produce ears. And others fell on thorns; they choked the seed(s) and worms ate them. And others fell on the good soil and it produced good fruit: it bore sixty per measure and a hu

Last night I was impersonating William Shatner (as James T. Kirk confronting a Romulan Warbird commander) reciting "It's a Small World" and hilarity ensued: Nan: [at computer] "I can't believe she knows her. It is a small world!" Mark: "It's a world of laughter...a world of tears...it's a world of hope...and a world of fears..." Drew: [triumphantly] "Shakespeare!" Nan: [facepalm] Mark: "There's so much that...we...share...that's it's time we're...aware...it's a small world...after all." Drew:  "OH!" Yeah - it's never dull.

It should not come as a shock to anyone that our children sin. They do. And they do regularly. One of the delicate balancing acts that we have to achieve as parents is making sure that we hold out the entire Gospel to them when we confront them concerning it. It would be easy for us to focus on the "bad news" that they sinned or the "good news" that they have been forgiven. It's tough for me especially because I always want to run to the forgiveness part right away. But this cheapens the forgiveness as the weight of the infraction is not recognized. Of course focusing on the sin itself without forgiveness in sight has its own issues as it doesn't hold out God's mercy and grace to the fullest extent possible and could easily sap their hope. When I think about it the bad news and the good news need to be held in such perfect tension that they are both diminished without the other. All that to say that I am sure we mess this up. A lot. I am sure that even

I struggle with the fact that 12.3 Americans are still looking for work too. I think I struggle a bit more with the job that the 0.3 of an American is going to fill.

Two things happened to me recently that made me realize that my childhood was not that of the typical red-blooded American boy: Thing #1: I was making some costumes for the boys (pictured here) so that they could be Lego minifigures for the Halloween festivities. I had to put a couple of coats of primer on the tubes for the heads to mask some of the writing on them and to allow the paint to adhere more evenly. As I put the third coat of primer on I thought, "Man...these would make great heads for couple of Cybermen costumes." Perhaps someone will agree with me on this. Or maybe not. Thing #2:  I was looking up the definition of the word "adamant" just to make sure I was spelling it correctly. It turns out that I was but I ran across this definition in Google: As I read the noun definition of the word I instinctively stuck the word "musician" at the end of "A legendary rock" because, well, I listened to way too much Adam Ant in the 80's.

My oldest son wants a tablet that can connect to the web. He is saving his money and we are looking for a used one on craigslist for him and, in the meantime, I am looking at ways that I can extend the web filtering I have on our PC to every connected device in the house. I had heard about OpenDNS  and the free web filtering that it can provide, but I was having a hard time changing the primary and secondary DNS entries on my router. Thankfully, I came across this forum post   this forum post  that led me in the right direction. It was not information specific to my actual router (we have a Netgear B40) but the interface that the post referenced was the exact one that I had. At any rate, I changed the DNS entries and now all of the connected devices in our home (including our Wii) are subject to any rules that I want to set up using the OpenDNS service. I do need to find a way to subject specific devices to different filtering schemes. So, for example, when my son gets his tablet I w

In this woeful state that I find myself in I find that I pray for this or that to happen so that I can be comfortable rather than so that I can be holy. In imitation of Christ I need to pray with an eye towards holiness rather than comfort.

Maybe I am doing it wrong but this life with Christ can get downright exhausting at times. In fact, if someone's goal is to be happy all the time I would recommend staying far away from Jesus. I would think that I could fashion a god that is impressed with most of my efforts to live a righteous life. I would say that a god who is less concerned about justice and unity and more about making me, as his or her subject, comfortable and rich would be more to my liking. Maybe a god who winks at sin (however that's defined) just once...or twice...or maybe at a certain number of sins a month would be a good thing. Getting the sin bank replenished every once and a while would be so much better than a God that demands perfection wouldn't it? A god who can get distracted at times too would be just wonderful...as long as he or she isn't turning a blind eye to any legitimate wants or desires that I may have it would be a superb state of affairs. Then again there should be some sacri

It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 My friend death shocked me on Friday. As I did dishes on Saturday morning my hands shook concerning the implications of his visit to a friend of ours and I wondered where they would go from here. I found my intellectual end and he hurt me but much less so than he hurt my friends. I woke up in the middle of the night praying for them and awoke in the morning to pray for them again. On Saturday he seemed to be everywhere casting a pall even on my son's birthday celebration. My wife and I wondered aloud to each other articulating our dismay over the events of his sudden, unannounced appearance. My friend, why did you sha

This may surprise most of you but, as of last Sunday, I have been married to my first wife for 17 years. The number 17 seems so much more than 15 and I think that is due to the fact that we are, solidly, on the other side of the teens and hurtling headlong to 20. It has been a wild ride and we have shared many a special time, holiday, and trip together both as a couple and with our two sons. I cherish those times and love to reflect on them. However, as I thought back across the years (almost decades) that we have spent together I couldn't help but consider our everyday lives, our Monday mornings or Thursday evenings, as being the most meaningful to me. There was a boy a while back that seemed to be a bit confused. No. It wasn't me. Well, not this time. Anyway, whenever this boy saw Nan and me he would ask his parents who that was and they would say, "Oh. That's Mark and Nan." Well, this boy had heard that so many times that his parents reported to us that he thou

Yeah - this may be a bit too geeky for many (er...all) of you, but I had an interesting, albeit brief, moment in my driveway last night. Our house is very socked in by trees. There are holes in their canopies here and there that allow for glimpses to the sky, but for the most part there are no clear sight lines to take in any meaningful portion of what is going on "up there". And that is where my moment begins. I had to grab some milk the other night and return some tail light bulbs that I had erroneously bought. Thankfully the grocery store and the car parts stores were both open, but I noticed that it was quite a bit colder than it had been the past couple of nights. When I got out of the car I looked up into the sky and saw that it was snap clear. Through the copious trees that are in our front yard I noticed that I could see some of the Autumn constellations that I had grown to know and love. And there it was: Cygnus. All its stars were arranged so perfectly and I co

Great son, great band, great night, and the greatest God. Last Friday Drew and I went out to dinner at Greece Ridge Mall (his choice!) and then made our way to the Classic Petra concert at Roberts Wesleyan College and let me tell you...it was an absolutely fantastic night. We got to the auditorium a little early so we hung out in the lobby for a bit and then headed to our seats in the balcony. We were practically the only ones up there and waited a bit for the band to take the stage. From the first chord they were absolutely great. I hadn't ever seen Petra with Greg X. Volz before and his voice was fantastic. He was funny, engaging, encouraging, and spiritually-minded. These guys may have been around for over 40 years but they absolutely rocked the place. The best part of the night was Drew and I were rocking out together. I was wondering if he was enjoying it as much as I did so, after the concert was over, I asked him if he would come back with me and, with a big smile on his fac

Some things I done did learned last weekend: The brake lights on our 2005 Toyota Siena have a double-filament bulb. This is important. The blinker bulbs are single-filament. This is more  important. Blinker bulbs go on the top and brake bulbs go on the bottom. When I ask either of my sons to press the brake pedal to test out the installation of the brake bulb they will invariably ask, "Can I press the gas pedal now?". If I answer "No" once I will have to repeat it the next time they come out as they will either have forgotten that they asked the question, forgotten the answer, assumed that I may have changed my mind, or want to annoy me. In an attempt to silence the Inquisition-esque inquiry about pressing the gas pedal I realized that I can adjust the mirrors on the van to test the installation of either bulb as long as I take the bulb housing out of the van and hang it at a precise angle. Taking the bulb receptacle out of the van and hanging it at the right angle

About a week ago my youngest son mentioned that he lost his MP3 player and he was more than a bit sad. I had just loaded it up with a bunch of music that I thought he would like (everything from Petra to Messiah Prophet) and I knew that he was listening to it often. On my way home from work one night I had prayed that we would find it and it took me about 15 seconds to find it when I got home. It was face down on the front lawn and subjected to a bunch of moisture that was the result of, literally, a record-breaking stretch of rain. Needless to say it was in bad shape. Well, my wife suggested that I put it in a bag of rice to draw out the moisture. Now there are some open holes in the Sansa that I did not cover before I put it in so I had to shake some rice out of the player before I re-inserted it with those holes jammed full of paper. It took about 5 days, but I tested it this morning and it works as well as it did before it spent two nights nights exposed to the elements in Dudley F

For a while I thought it would be cool to have a theme song . Now, I am no musician so I would have to rip one off and enhance it (maybe that's not the right word) so that it could be played when I was on the move. Well, the time has come for me to unveil it and, all humility aside of course, I think I nailed it. I have always liked the opening guitar rift of Roam by the B52's  so I thought that would make a good start. I opened up the mp3 in Audacity and cut the guitar riff out and pasted it into another file, and pasted it again, and again...it goes on for about a minute. I don't want to blow anyone's mind by making it to go for too long. I personally find that it is at the perfect length of awesome. Now, to play it so others can hear it when I, er, roam the building at work was another challenge I had. My trusty Palm Tungsten E has a pretty decent external speaker so, along with the DioPlayer application , I can play my theme song at the perfect volume as my Palm is

I feel the dust and gravel under my feet I suppose you're walkin' down golden streets Everybody always forgave you A child of mystery And I remember you were merciful to me Hey Gene... Give Jesus a kiss for us - Hey Gene, The Choir I have to admit that I am more grace-oriented than truth-oriented. When I feel the tension between grace and truth I almost always choose grace. Now this may make me easy to be around, but it does not illustrate the perfection of the balance that God displays in these two areas. In other words, I can get too focused on grace at the expense of the truth and do not lovingly confront people like I should. So I may be making too much of this, but I am of the opinion that there is rarely a more graceless time in the life of our country than there is during an election. It seems that the two dominant political parties are so bent on winning that they have to pretend that they are the sole guardians of absolute truth. They call each other out on what seem

The family was getting ready for work/school this morning and I was singing a song about the Prophets from DVD 9 of the What's in the Bible Series (God Speaks). Hilarity ensued: Mark: "These are the Prophets; there aint none finer. They're in two sections called the Major and the Minor..." Drew [from upstairs bathroom]: "I want an energy dome for my birthday." Mark: "I cannot believe that just happened." Nan: [facepalm] Mark: "I literally think my job as a parent is complete." Yeah...it's never dull around my house.

Yes, for those of you that know me pretty well that title may seem a bit strange, but at Northridge Church I actually teach the Bible lesson at our kids' ministry known as High Point . The kids there are fantastic and it is great to work with a bunch of talented, committed people and tell the kids about the bad news of their sinfulness and the good news that God has made a way to have their sins forgiven through His Son, Jesus Christ. Well, during the large group time (when I teach) there are two people up on the stage - a Host and a Storyteller (teacher). The Host is the funny one and the Storyteller is the straight guy and the one that has to reign the Host in as the Host is usually missing something that the Bible is trying to teach or has some hair-brained idea that he is trying to launch. Well, the past couple of weeks has found me in the Host role and I have to say that it is great acting silly and letting whatever comes to my mind fly out of my mouth. OK, not whatever comes

Go and tell the whole world it's all right It's all right Go and tell the whole world it's all right My God is sovereign and strong And His will is ours to live... - Falling on Everlasting , I Am Terrified Will not the judge of all the earth do right? Genesis 18:25 Those of you that have been monitoring my facebook status updates know that our oldest son had a stint in the hospital due to pneumonia and an appendectomy. He is recovering nicely and should be feeling like his old self and more up and around in a week or so. Of course, no gym for two weeks and no soccer for the next four (which kills soccer camp) but God has been way too good to us. Through it all this one thing remains: my Sovereign, strong, loving God. And that makes it all right. I will tell the whole world that, regardless of how this could have turned out, even if we were still in the hospital with post-operative complications, it's all right. I pray that I will never, ever doubt this because it

On Monday I got the distinct feeling that things were not well with me. It hit me at work and we have all been there - the dizziness, light-headed feeling, and chills that made me shiver like I was shoveling the driveway in a bathing suit in the middle of January. Yes, it was a cold and it was more than the normal one. But more than that, it was a visit from my friend Death. He stayed for a bit this time making me pause to catch my breath or clear my head a few more times than I am comfortable with. But he wasn't leaving anytime soon and I found that it was hard for me to want him around. A rather bad night's sleep on Tuesday was followed by a good night's sleep last night and I feel a lot better today. So much so that there is little comparison between how I feel today and how I felt the last couple of days. I have struggled with this before ...calling Death my friend and I am still in the process of getting my mind around the whole thing. I was thinking this morning how m

My wife and eldest son are away on an adventure this weekend and I am going to get to spend some time with my youngest son tomorrow. It is a bit of a bummer that I have some obligations in the morning that I need to drag him along to, but after that I am excited about the little trip we are going to take to Powder Mills Park and to the fish hatchery there. It is a place that I visited years and years ago and I have wanted to take him there for a long time (that and the one in Caledonia). It is so funny how geeked I am about this simple time with him, but I want to thank God that I am. There is plenty of me that wants to do my own thing. To go along beholden to no one or nothing except the three people that would do me the most harm (me, myself, and I - not a handsome group of guys) is so unlike God. I wonder...does God get geeked to bless me? When He knows that there is something that is going to make me more like Christ, or something that will bring me closer to joy I wonder if He get

I heard a report on WXXI this morning that there is a piano competition that is attached to the Eastman School that begins today at 1:30 p.m. The gentleman that is in charge of the event recalls a conversation that he had with a student that was not happy with the position that he had received in a previous competition because he had missed a couple of notes in the piece that he had performed. The student mentioned that even the great pianists miss notes here and there when they perform to which the instructor, rightfully, replied "Yes...but that is not what we should seek to emulate about them." That response was brilliant and has implications about my walk with God. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God works in spite of me. I don't hold my marshmallows close enough to the fire for them to toast properly but God, because of his great love for me, makes sure that they are toasted just right for the s'mores that he knows I will enjoy. He is a great God and I ne

There is no question, in my mind anyway, that my youngest son is way too much like me. When he is interested in doing something he goes full tilt, puts the pedal to the metal, and worries about careening off the edge of the cliff at just about the time that he is careening off of the edge of the cliff. Last night was a perfect illustration of all of that for the both of us. I saw a video on Youtube where this person pranked another with a toilet paper gun made out of a leaf blower, some electrical tape, and a paint roller. It looked to be super simple to make so when I got home I said (in true Phineas and Ferb fashion), "Drew, I know what we are going to do today." Well, dinner was on the table but my wife was outside talking to some neighbors. That gave me the window of opportunity I needed to construct the gun and test it out. My son held the roller and I taped it down well enough. I then sent him upstairs to get some toilet paper. He came down with five rolls. That did not

A little less than a week ago I received a postcard from death and I did not like it one bit. We have almost finished painting the basement in our house (it looks good thanks to my wife) and I was in the process on re-installing the handrail for the stairs leading down to the cellar. Well, it was all looking pretty good until I drilled a hole to help ease one of the screws into place and I used a drill bit that was much too big. Try as I might I was not able to get that one screw to grab and hold and I then took out my frustrations on the handrail, tools, and eventually my wife. Thankfully she was gracious enough to accept my apology. You may be wondering why I see this as a foretaste (postcard) of (from) death. Simply put it was a situation that I found myself in where my want for progress was being frustrated. There will come a day when I will be in a situation where all of my desires, and the desires of those around me, for me to recover from illness or injury will be frustrated. De

I wonder...have I fallen into this trap? I am so connected now with family, friends, and "friends" I believe I have a wider number of people that pay attention to me than I should have. I can share a link or a thought at the flick of a finger and have influence over people that may regret it later. My commitment to blogging may be seen by some (erroneously or not) as a sign that I have opinions and ramblings that are well thought out and that have been vetted, even somewhat, through a Biblical worldview and some sort of sound reasoning. And then there are the people that read and even like what I write. Does a post that gets 100 or even 1,000 views mean that it is worth one whit in His eyes? Does the fact that 100 or even 1,000 people agree with me mean that something I wrote is a worthwhile, kingdom-building initiative? I can always find people that agree with me...always. It is simple arrogance to think that nodding heads and handshakes (even virtual ones) lend any real val

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,  and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;  may the name of the Lord be praised.  - Job 1:21 I love this verse in the Bible, but for a long time now I wondered if Job's attitude was more of a believer's fatalism than anything. I mean it seems to me like he is throwing up his hands here and saying, "Oh well...who can resist Him? Who can stand against His will?" And that is partly the point of the verse I am sure. This is a high picture of God and one that I am not altogether comfortable with. But God couldn't care less about a comfort sourced in anything but Him and He is not interested in presenting a picture of Himself that is the least bit not true. And I am thankful that He isn't interested in either thing, but I am digressing a bit here. So what of Job's attitude? This morning as I was rummaging around for some bread in the lazy Susan I was struck by the last bit of the verse, namely, &quo

My oldest son, Will, has determined that he is going to read one chapter in the book of Proverbs a day in July so that he can get through the whole book this month. I need to ask him how he is doing on that. Anyway, my youngest son, Drew, checked The Action Bible  out of the church library yesterday and hilarity ensued: Me:  "What is this? Wow it is thick." Nan:  "Drew convinced Allison to put The Action Bible in the church library so he could check it out and read it." Me: "Oh...that's interesting." Drew:  "Yeah - and Will! You can get through Proverbs a lot quicker if you just read this instead of the other Bible." Nan: [facepalm] Me: [to Drew] "There are no Proverbs in The Action Bible." [to Will] "And even if they are, don't even think about it." Knowing Will that would be the furthest thing from his mind, but knowing the influence I had from time to time over my brothers I wanted to make sure that was stopped befo

Sometimes I have fragments of thoughts that I could turn into a full post, but it doesn't make sense to. This is one of those posts: I was watching an old episode of the Twilight Zone last night and caught a glimpse of an interesting transformation. At the beginning of the story death is portrayed as a well put together man handsomely groomed and in control of a situation, an appointment, that he had with a mere mortal. Toward the end of the story his hair was mussed and he was clearly being manipulated by the man who was making the pitch of his life; a "pitch for the angels" as he called it. I got to thinking that if a man could be portrayed as doing that to death I cannot even imagine what the Son of Man actually did to it. I mean, I have some indication of the extent of death's domestication through what has been recorded in the Bible, but I have a feeling that I will be marveling at the Master and His masterstroke for all of eternity. -----------------------------

I recently re-purchased (my cassette tape came up missing) the album Little Red Riding Hood  by the Lost Dogs. It is a great album and the more I listen to it the more I am coming to appreciate and enjoy it. The song Imagine That  is an absolute classic, but it is the song You Satisfy  that got me thinking this morning. There is an oft-repeated line in the song where they sing "Oh Lord You satisfy...". You satisfy. It sounds so active as if God is here satisfying me. And it sounds that way because that is exactly what He does. That got me to thinking about how many times I chase this, that, or the other thing in a quest for some type of satisfaction. When it is all done I realize that I am satisfied, but the fact that I am, and the quality of the "this, that, or the other" that satisfied me is not inherent in the thing that I chased. It rests in God Himself and His active work of satisfying me. Then my thoughts turn to the chasing itself. It seems to me that there i

Originally I thought about titling this post as "Exhausted, nauseated, dizzy, and thankful" but I thought better of it for that would belittle what God did for me yesterday. I have never been more convinced of this than I am now: God does His best work through relationships. Just looking at the way Jesus called 12 people to himself and how he lived with them and for them makes me think that this was His plan all along. Yesterday I got to spend the entire day at Darien Lake with some junior highers and middle-schoolers from Northridge Church's youth ministry and to say that it was splendid is a complete understatement. It was just about heavenly. To top it all off I got to hug my fifth-grade son and let him know that I was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend the day with him. How could God have done better work? How could He have been more excellent in the way He provided for me as I got to hang out with people I am growing to love even more and, hopefully, show them

Last night I was riding a golf cart around the Greece Little League ball fields giving people rides and selling drinks. Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn flagged me down and hilarity ensued: The Sheriff: "Do you have any water?" Me: "Yes sir. That will be $1.50." The Sheriff: "$1.50!!?? That's highway robbery." [Irony of him being a law man and me serving him from a non-road-legal golf cart noted] Me:  [Handing him the bottle and taking his $2.00] "This is the best water you will ever drink." The Sheriff:  "Keep the change for the till." Me: "Thank you, sir." It is experiences like this that make me wonder why I ever dread doing anything. It was a warm night and I was not looking forward to spending it away from my family, but who knew I would be driving a golf cart around peddling drinks and giving rides to people that were, in and of themselves, interesting as well. Besides, like my Dad, I like to talk and be around people

I had the opportunity to spend most of my conscious childhood in the 1980's and, as a result, witness a great transition in the secular music scene, but also what I consider to be a seminal shift in the Christian music scene. Now the first Christian music album (besides one by Dallas Holm...but that is a subject for another post) that I had ever heard was Soldiers Under Command  by Stryper. I know what some of you are thinking..."What??!! They can't be Christians wearing all that spandex and playing those drums real loud like they do. You are possessed by the Beat Menace himself!!!" Well, that is a subject for another post entirely, but go with me on this journey. Or not.  When I was in college It was all that my friends and I could do to get down to Houghton College, over to Buffalo, or to downtown Rochester to catch the rare Christian musical act that was passing our way. We had a great time taking in music by Whiteheart, Bryan Duncan, Michael Peace, Newsboys (befor

I guess I can't help it. I do like to write and find great satisfaction in knowing that people like my writing. I think this is especially true when I try to be humorous. There is an even greater satisfaction for me when people laugh at what I have written. This past week our kids ministry "took over" the main worship service on Sunday...what we call "Big Church" to the kids that we minister to. I was given the task of being the "HighPoint Guy". Now, HighPoint is the name of our children's ministry on Sunday mornings and the people organizing the service wanted me to explain a little about why we do what we do and present it like Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame. I basically had four times that I appeared on stage to give a bit of background on what people just saw. Here is what I came up with: -------------------------------------- Appearance #1 after opening songs: What you just saw was not a figment of your imagination nor is it a hastily arran

I was 10 in 1980. It was also around that time that I started to get decent with the clarinet and I developed a real love for music. During the 1980's there was a lot happening in both the Christian (especially in the late 1980's) and secular music world. There was plenty of good music coming out of Europe and some of the most memorable music, for me anyway, came from Germany and Austria. One Austrian artist, Falco, really appealed to me and sang in a weird mixture of Austrian German and English. Here's what goes through my head (and, loosely, across my lips) as I sing his second most popular song in the US - Vienna Calling: Mumble mumble mum Rio Mumble mumble Tokyo Mumble mumble mumble mumble Mumble mumble sowieso   Mumble mumble mumble mum Mumble mumble mum Mumble mumble mumble mum Mumble mumble mum   Mumble mumble mumble mum Mumble mumble mum Mumble Tucson, Arizona and Toronto, Canada   Wien Wien Mumble mumble mumble mum Mumble mum Mum Wien Mum Wien Mum

I have the absolute pleasure of working with some great people, and even greater kids, in our church's children's ministry called HighPoint. I also get the opportunity to write for the blog once a month. Here is the post I submitted for the virtue of trust that we are focusing on this month: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a very long time I was too scared to go on any roller coasters. No matter how many times my older brother, Steve, went on them and arrived back to the group alive and excited from the experience (not gasping for air or fainting from fright) I just wouldn't get on them. I had a picture in my head that the roller coaster was something that was going to send me careening off of the cliffs of insanity thereby permanently damaging my mental and physical well-being. So I decided to sit it out. I just didn't trust the people, including my own brother, who said that I would love the experience. I knew bet

Therfore seith Seint Jerome: 'Dooth somme goode dedes that the devel, which is oure enemy, ne fynde yow nat unocupied.' - The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer I think that, in my own life, when my mind and hands are not occupied with "goode dedes" then my enemy has an opportunity to exploit them. And he does that far too often. I wonder how often he uses my idle words or the opportunities that I take to declare something to be this, that, or the other when, in fact, I don't know what I am talking about or I simply have not obtained (or cannot obtain) the information necessary to make the declaration or pass the judgement. How many times have I said "This is the way it is..." when I am simply guessing? Can I really know why something is the way it is beyond the presented proximate cause(s) of the situation? Should I limit my understanding of what I see to the revelation found in God's Word? I think I have to maybe 97 out of 100 times I want to say

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. - Philippians 4:8 Even though this command is given in the context of peacemaking (Philippians 4:2 sets the stage) it had always been presented to me as something that I should do to combat impure thoughts whether they are lustful, violent, or something of that nature. Obviously, the context of the command begs to differ with that, but I also am finding a broader application as well. It is so easy for me to dwell on the bad stuff that has happened to me; easy to complain about how this, that, or the other thing is unfair. Now there is a time and a place for those thoughts. If I do not recognize and injustice or a sin that should not be overlooked then I will not fight for the right thing nor will I engage in the ministry of confrontation. But there comes a time and place for

"...Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"  - Genesis 18:25 I thought it was rather unfair to ask the boys to trust that God is doing right by, at the very least, allowing their school to close. My reasoning stemmed from the fact that, well, I have about 31 years more experience than the oldest on this planet and understand that these things happen and that I know that this is to make them, and their parents, more like Christ. I have seen things like this happen before and I have seen what is on the other side and, I guess, it's not too bad. But what if it is? What if it brings about something that, on the surface, seems so much less than what we had? What if my understanding is so darkened that I can't see the Christ-likeness that God is producing in me, or my children, as a result of His divine decree? What if this brings me to the brink of despair? I had a picture in my head this morning of me walking down the road and being restrained from going any furthe

Hi Dad, I have to admit something. I had a bunch of ideas in my head concerning how You work and what You're all about. I knew You answered prayers and empowered Your children to do Your work, but, recently, I saw something that I had never seen before. Oh I had seen it happen in various ways and through various means, but I almost think that those times were just a drop of what I experienced. I have to admit, it made You seem a bit unfamiliar to me. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed what I saw...I was a direct beneficiary of what happened. Yet, it kind of left me more than a bit unsettled. After the whole thing took place I tried to talk to my wife about it but I did not have a whole lot of words to describe what what I saw or how it made me feel. You took me off guard as I was waiting for what I expected to happen to actually manifest itself. But it never did and, as a result, I was in unfamiliar territory. When it was all over I wasn't sure what had just happened. I knew You

For the longest time I have used the ScribeFire plugin for Firefox and, now, for Chrome 19 for blogging, but not had a functional spell checker in that plugin. Not so recently, I had subscribed to a post about it in a feature list or bug parade type of forum and have been monitoring the progress of the enabling of the spell checker for the plugin. Well, I finally have it working. I received a post that kind of put me on the right track. Here is what I did: it turns out that the ScribeFire plugin is uses TinyMCE which is a WYSIWYG browser-based editing control. Well, there is a file called tiny mce src.js (in the Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions directory) where there is a line that reads  if (!s.gecko_spellcheck) t.getBody().spellcheck = 0; The value of the t.getBody().spellcheck needs to be changed from 0 to 1. Once that was done I was able to use an inline spell checker ala MS Word. If the file mentioned earlier is no in the directory mentioned earlier, just search for it on the

There is no other way to describe it. I needed God to hold me this day and He did just that. There have been times when this has happened before, but I am always surprised when it does. Thank you, God, for the reminder that your Son has died, risen, and is coming again. Thank you for focusing me on what really matters rather than a thousand other things. Thank you for the knowing nods and affirmations, the opportunities to encourage people, the amazing time I had with the kids at HighPoint, the time we had together as a family, and the hand I was able to hold tonight through some difficult news and information sharing. But most of all, God, thank you for holding me. Thank you for squeezing me tight and pressing me against your chest. I could almost feel your breath on my neck you were so close to me today.

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.  Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 "...Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?"  Job 2:10 Well, the day I had been dreading has arrived. We received word this day that our sons' school, Northridge Christian School, is closing. We had a feeling that this would be the result of the work that the board had been doing these past weeks to try to keep the doors open, but the mounting shortfall in funding was much too great and, well, God saw it fit to close our school. Thanks be to God that He used this school so mightily in the lives of our sons. The character they have, the knowledge of the Bible that they possess, and the love they have for their God is due

I had intended this to be a three part blog post, but my mind got the best of me on my ride into work this morning so I had to type this one out to conclude it all. It's a law: when I, as a man, die to something I come alive to something else. And it is precisely in that dying to and coming alive to where both the terror and peace of death reside. If I, as a man, die to selfishness I come alive to other-centeredness. Unfortunately the converse is true as well. Feeding the Spirit of God who is in me will result in a diminishing desire to gratify my sinful nature. I will be progressively dying to my sin and coming alive to the Spirit. But, if I continually come alive to my sin I will become more and more dead to the Spirit and so much so that I may never again hear his voice this side of heaven. There will come a day when my body will wear out or malfunction so epically that I will die. But, in so doing, I will come alive to something else. I will die a mortal man and come alive to i

This is the third post in what I think is going to be a three part blog. The first is  here . The second is here . So here I am with some strange vision of holding death's hand. Here I am with a desire to grab a hold of it as if, somehow, he would lead me into a new and shining place. The only reason I can find for my trust in him as a God-ordained guide is that death has proven to be a good friend already. I don't fully understand him (ok there is my Englishness), but I see where he is not only of great benefit to me, but he is the vehicle of true life. I was always under the impression that his valley, his shadow was something to fear if not something to be avoided. Now I won't go visiting him , in the ultimate sense, anytime soon unless God Himself arranges the meeting. That visit would require a commitment and create a wake that I am very interested in avoiding. But I would be a fool to neglect becoming familiar with him; to receive correspondence from him as I live thi

This is the second post in what I think is going to be a three part blog. The first is here . I don't like dead things. They creep me out a little. The bigger the dead thing the more creeped out I get about it. Of course this may come as a surprise to people that know how many mice I have killed in my basement (that should be done now) but dead things just seem to be unnatural to me as a son of the earth. I would think that the opposite would be true. I would think that in this sin-soaked earth I would be more comfortable around death. Maybe if I was in different circumstances (on a farm for example) I would be more inclined not to get a little weird when death came. I am trying to get more familiar with it, but I am not one of those people that likes to kill things. But I am called to die daily, and I am comfortable with the call even though I do not die as much as I should each day. So why is that? Is there a destructive death (dead squirrel under the swing) and a constructive on

I think that this will be the first of three related posts, but I am not sure. I received a great Christmas present last year. My wife bought me the complete works of Francis Schaeffer and I am working through some of his 22 books that I have not had the privilege of reading in the past. Schaeffer framed the "problem" of the apparent primitivism or anthropomorphism of the hand of God in my reading last night in a way that I hadn't thought of before (why does the song Candy Guru  go through my head whenever I write that?). Schaeffer is always quick to ensure that his readers know that our God has made Himself manifest in space time history. He mentioned that the picture of the hand of God is simply a reference to His real work in history and in, well, everything. Our thoughts are actuated through our hands (and feet, and mouths, and...) thus to paint a picture of a God who actuates His thoughts in the physical world we would naturally turn to the picture of a hand doing st