Post Halloween

After the night is all said and done.  I must say that Halloween here in our little town is, dare I even say it?  Nice.  Folks start trick or treating just after school and it tapers off significantly by 6 or 7.  I suppose I know this (as this is the fourth halloween we've had here) but it's so far from what I have always known Halloween to be that I forget.  

It was nice to see some folks and to have everything be less hectic and halloween'ish if you take my meaning.  

Kids are going to be nuts tomorrow.  Sheesh.  

It's all good. Tara will likely post pictures tomorrow too...

'Til later.

Halloween

I dislike Halloween. Sorry but it's true. I dislike it more than any other time of year. It feels out of character to 'celebrate' the dark and macabre.  It feels dishonest.  You might think I'm trying to be 'spiritual' or something about the whole thing, and likely I could do that but this year, today,  it's about something else.

This morning I found out about a funeral I will be leading next week.  Halloween, for all that it seems to focus on violence and death seems utterly out of place when I begin to prepare for a funeral.  Nothing about Halloween makes a funeral any easier to wrap your head around.

Don't get me wrong, I like costumes, I like playing pretend and make believe.  I have costumes in my head that I think would be fun to make one day, most of them for me, predictably fall around Lord of the Rings themes but I digress. 

We will take the kids out trick or treating, we will have fun pretending and rejoicing in near sugar comas; but there is still a deep unsettleness about some of the other aspects that some seem to place on Halloween.   But so much of Halloween seems to revolve around fear.  In my humble opinion, there's far too much that people are already fearful of that we don't need to add more to the mix.  So there's my opinion about Halloween.  Parts of it are fun, but there seems to be a rise in the ugly side of it all too.  I dislike that.  

Regardless of whether you agree or not, have a great weekend.

I also don't particularly like the colours orange and black together, I don't know why, but I just don't.  There I said it.

In an attempt to make you all fearful, I add this less than flattering picture of myself, it's as scary as anything I've seen lately.  For those keeping score, this is the longest my hair has been in likely a decade... but don't worry it will be gone soon...

frayed

If I can get you to focus on the fraying hat, maybe you won't see the parts of me that are fraying.

I haven't said much about this here, but my wife has, today, here, here, here, and other places that I'm too lazy to link to. My son struggles with school. He gets so upset at something and doesn't know how to deal with it so he either runs away or tries to run away from the school. Today he succeeded, again.

It is hard to know your child is struggling so much with something that is such a 'normal' part of life. We are trying to sort it all out. To do the most we can to encourage him, to make him feel loved, to help him see that some of the things he does isn't good.  

But on days like today, well, I feel frayed. But maybe it's just the hat.

Passion.

 

God has been challenging me with some things lately.  He's been doing it 'quietly' in the sense that there isn't any major crisis, tragedy or meltdown bringing it about.  

I wrote the other day about finding an encouragement card from my Bible school days in a Bible from my High School/ CBC days.

That has got me thinking a little bit about the things that we believe strongly are important.  The building blocks of ideas that we start from when we go and do what we do.  Encouragement is one of the things that God has used to push me to grow.  Yet often I'm not very good at passing it on.  I try, often half heartedly, because I feel like there's so much else going on that it gets bumped down the list.  This got me thinking about the other things that we believe are fundamental to what we do.  The basic building blocks upon which we know we should be doing life and ministry (paid or not).

I found this, through a relatively long and twisting path through the interweb.  That links to a .pdf file.  It's written by a guy who works for a non-profit group.  It's good, read it.  I found it to be very thought provoking.

What do you think?

Jelly Telly

Back in April I blogged about Big Idea. Since then I have been following Phil Vischer's blog. He and his new team have a new project that is just about off the ground. The name of this new project is "jelly telly". They are very close to be up and running, but right now there is a preview video up on the main site. It's long, almost a half hour and it starts with Phil sharing his vision and then some of the content.

The content of this thing will be delivered via the internet and it looks like it will be a subscription kid of a thing. Phil mentions in one post that it's kinda like Nickleoden meets Sesame street. Puppets, simple animation and some live action stuff. They are looking for content from people too.

So far it looks really cool, honestly this stuff is good, Check it out.

Crystals

Found this link today.  National Geographic photo gallery of some simple crystals in a lead mine in Mexico.  

Okay, so it's incredible.  I can't imagine what they must look like in person.

Encouragement Card

Anyone remember these? Found this in a Bible. Brought a lot of memories back, mailboxes, friends, and growing.Feel free to post memories below, or to your own blog (a link would be helpful).

the shack

So I finished reading Paul Young's "The Shack". Others have reviewed the book with more skill then I could muster (I'll suggest one review here), but I will offer a few thoughts.

First, I have a tendency to get engrossed in a good story.  The writing at times is not as polished as some novels but I found the main character and his journey compelling enough to oversee them.  

While I am still processing some of the things in the book I will say this, it made me think.  The story, for me anyways, elicited even an emotional response.  This is a book that has theology in it.  Is God good?  That is a theological question and it is the one that Mack struggles with throughout the story.

I'm not sure I agree with everything that is presented in the story.  There was at least one thing that bothered me by it's absence, and that is the role of scripture in the book and in the life of the Christian.  This is a book to provoke thought and introspection.  I imagine it will help many to start to see more 'big picture' about God and free will.  

I can recommend that you read the book (if you haven't already), but, while it is distinctly theological, in that it deals with questions of God, free will, evil and the relationships all the way around; I would recommend that you use the book as a springboard to fuel some digging into other sources for more complete answers to some of the questions raised.  

I am, like many I know, sometimes skeptical of 'phenom' Christian books.  I think there is some excellent stuff in here, some good thoughts, some good perspective, some excellent imagery and a (in my opinion) compelling narrative.  Yet this book should not be a destination, if you take my meaning, it should be a springboard to search out these answers in the Scriptures themselves.  

 

Night light...

Found this visual essay on 'light pollution'. I found it interesting.Thought I would share.

The night sky, and the sky in general has always been fascinating to me. You can see some of my learning to take long exposure photos here.

Or view them in this slideshow thinger below.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Our Thanksgiving

A little view into our Thanksgiving weekend.

Great time.

Something new...

I have started another blog.

I will keep this one.  The posts on the other one will be a photograph with a short description of my thoughts on the photo.

The photos will be posted larger then I can post here in this blog template.  Right now there are two posts up.  More to follow.  Check it out if you like.

A fall walkabout

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Justice...

... when evil is done, one response alone can overcome the evil.  Revenge perpetuates the evil.  Justice punishes it.  Evil is overcome by good only if the injured party absorbs it, refusing to allow it to go any further.  And that is the pattern of otherworldly grace that Jesus showed in his life and death.

-Philip Yancey, P224, Rumors of Another World,  2003 Zondervan

Educate me and maybe you...

I came across this powerful little piece of photojournalism from Chase Jarvis' blog.  

Tuberculosis, it's back.  It's mutated, it's a nightmare, look at XDR-TB.

Startling to say the least.

the start and the finish

Ecclesiastes 7:8 (New Living Translation)

Finishing is better than starting.
      Patience is better than pride.

This verse has been running around my head a little this week.  Finishing things is hard.  It takes more work then starting, it's harder to keep your energy up over a whole project, it's easy to get distracted on the way to the end.

Just thought I'd share.

Bee huts

*
Originally uploaded by salguodbocaj

Did you know it's fall?
and the bee huts are empty?