Through the fence

Ever feel like you don't know?  We're in a season right now of transition.  The time at which some of these changes will happen feel very imminent.  I've noticed that when you start to feel the stress and the pressure (and make no mistake - we feel it), you become somewhat fixated on it all.  It feels as if the one pressing question eclipses all the other answers you have in life.  

So I feel like I don't know much of anything.  Which is not all that true, it's just I feel that way.  I wish I knew more about what God was doing.  As I wrote to someone in an email the other day, I catch glimpses of God behind the stuff I see, moving about, but there's so much in the way I can't tell what's he doing or where he's going.

It's like watching a neighbour through a wooden slat fence.  You see slivers of a person moving here and there, but you can't tell what they're doing or working on.  

So ya, He's there.  And that's good (in the very best and largest sense of that word).  In many ways we're in a better place in this transition then we have been in the other ones in our life.  But .....

So God is there.  And while I still feel like there's lots I don't know.  I working at choosing to trust.

The one thing I keep 'hearing' from God, or perhaps the better way of expressing it is, the one thing that I keep going back to in my thoughts, is:

I'm forgiven.

Which is a good thing to reflect on, if you're needing something to reflect on...

Trusting. Forgiven.  Waiting.

Us May 2011

We went and played at Sandy Beach today.  I took some photos.  It was fun.

"Mark dilemma"

I think I solved my "Mark" dilemma. If you click that link, you will see a Facebook status update I wrote lamenting  the problem.  Which is, 11 Sundays to fit ten chapters into, oh and we have special Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday services in those 11 weeks too.  Some suggestions were given and at least one person wanted to hear how I resolved to approach the dilemma, thus this post.

Backstory:

This year I wanted to preach through the gospel of Mark.  For some reason I don't often look to Mark when I'm studying the gospels.  So, to learn more I decided to preach through the book.  I had preached from Mark 1 through Mark 6:44.  Then as I sat down to sort out how to break down the rest of the book with the number of Sundays that I have remaining as pastor of Timbers Community Church (blogged about here), I realized that at the pace we were moving it wasn't going to come together the way I wanted.  

So here's what I'm planning on doing with the rest of the sermon series.  Date, Passage and then the subtitles that may (or not) be in your Bible.

• April 10 - Mark 7:1-23 Jesus teaches about Inner Purity
• April 17 - Palm Sunday service 
• April 24 - Easter Sunday
• May 1 - Mark 8:11-21 Pharisees demand a miracle and the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod
• May 8 - (Mothers Day) Mark 8: 27-38 Peter's declaration about Jesus, Jesus predicts his death 
• May 15 - Mark 9:2-13 Transfiguration
• May 22 - (Victoria Day weekend) - Mark 9:33-50 Greatest in the kingdom, using the name of Jesus
• May 29 - Mark 10:35-45 Serving Others
• June 5 - Mark 12:1-12  Parable of the Evil Farmers
• June 12 - Mark 13:1-37 Jesus foretells the future
• June 19 - (Fathers Day) Mark 14:12 ->> Last Supper and onwards

Some thoughts, I will draw from the Mark accounts for my portions of the Easter services, and while it will not be a part of the series, we will as a community look at the accounts, even if it is out of order a bit.

I have felt like some of the portions of Mark that I have outlined above are what 'we' need to look at.  I dislike that we have to skip parts.  I should have planned the front end of the series a little better.  

I think there are some really excellent things we can learn from these scenes in the book of Mark and I look forward to working through them with our church.

I have lots in my head these days, but every time I try to articulate it and it doesn't work.  As Tara blogged about a little while ago we are in transition.  I will finish as pastor of Timbers Community Church no later then the end of June.  This was not a surprise to us.  I was in discussion about what was going on with our church all the way through.  In fact, we were struggling with the idea of taking a salary when our church hasn't generated enough revenue to support it.  There would've been time and space to continue for a period of time, but it seemed unwise.  So changes are coming to both our Timbers family and our immediate family.

What and where? Don't know.  We'll see.  I have learned a lot in the short time we've been here.  We have truly enjoyed it here.  And we wait to see what God has in store for us next.  Wherever that may be.

In other news, I got a suitcase full of cameras the other day.  How much fun is that?

Maybe you need to read this too.

I get a daily email from the Henri Nouwen society thing.  I don't always get around to reading them.  Today's however was something that brought perspective.

Finding Solitude

All human beings are alone. No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do. Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness. The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude. Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

Letting our aloneness grow into solitude and not into loneliness is a lifelong struggle. It requires conscious choices about whom to be with, what to study, how to pray, and when to ask for counsel. But wise choices will help us to find the solitude where our hearts can grow in love.

Here's the photo that this prompted me to remember.

January

Not sure what to tell you all about but I thought I would let you know that I am trying to post photos regularly to Flickr.

Here is what is there now:

on resolutions

This thing about resolutions and goals and stuff is interesting to me.

I think we just want to get better at life.  And we are, slowly, and I think the desire for goals, or words, or resolutions or whatever is in part our impatience at how slowly we are changing.  There are parts we'd like to change much more quickly.  

As for me?

I hope to continue growing, learning and figuring stuff out.

No benchmarks or anything - I just hope to try these things:

One thing is I want to read more.  Especially the book (or another version) pictured above.  

I want to write more.

I want to post more pictures to the world to see via the interwebs.

Or not.  We'll see.

Hallelujah Chorus

There is something powerful in this little video. At least to me. To me there is something about the Hallelujah chorus that cuts through the secular stuff around Christmas.  It goes straight to the heart of the matter for Christians.  For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth forever.

The lyrics for  George Frideric Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, from the Oratorio Messiah are at the end of this post.

As you may have noticed, Christians don't always agree.  We disagree about doctrine and practice.  Which may be a short sentence, but encompasses a remarkable number of things.  Hopefully, though, while we may question many things, what this Chorus sings about is something I hope we can agree on.

I used to wonder what the big deal about this musical piece was all about.  Same thing every year.  Except that now, what it declares moves my spirit.  Makes want to sing in agreement, in worship to the God that I love and for what he has done for me.

So ya, your mileage may vary, but for me this little video was an excellent reminder that Christmas is coming.  And that is something to be happy about.

If you're looking for a link with the piece played by some folks in a more traditional way, 
Hallelujah Chorus Performed by The English Concert & Choir on youtube, but no video.
____________________________________________________

|: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! :| |: For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! :| For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. |: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! :| The kingdom of this world Is become the kingdom of our Lord, And of His Christ, and of His Christ; And He shall reign for ever and ever, For ever and ever, forever and ever, King of kings, and Lord of lords, |: King of kings, and Lord of lords, :| And Lord of lords, And He shall reign, And He shall reign forever and ever, King of kings, forever and ever, And Lord of lords, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! And He shall reign forever and ever, |: King of kings! and Lord of lords! :| And He shall reign forever and ever, King of kings! and Lord of lords! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

video game engagement

Me playing Operation 7
(and doing quite well actually)
earlier this year

I like video games.  Currently the games I'm playing most are Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook and a shooter game called Operation 7.  Wahoo!  I've spent countless hours of my life in video games. Most of the time I prefer it to television.

Okay, so what?  Well, I know I'm not alone, I read an article last month that said that people spend 927 million hours a MONTH on Facebook games.  Ya, that was staggering, even to me.  Activision's newest game Call of Duty: Black Ops sold 5.6 million copies in the first 24 hour period, about $360 million dollars US worth.  Note that Black Ops is a game rated M and is for adult gamers.  That's some serious numbers about games.


Now some would argue that all this gaming is not a good sign.  I was challenged today listening to a TED video: Tom Chatfield: 7 ways games reward the brain.  He cited the intense passion that many people have towards video games and noted 7 things that contribute to our collective obsession with them.  Essentially he was asking how does video games elicit such a strong engagement of it's players?

So my big question is this: 

Can we as a church learn something about how to get people engaged in growing as a Christian in a way that is similar, or at least informed by how games engage people?

Without trying to explain everything he spoke about, here's the seven points:

1. experience bars measuring progress

2. multiple long and short-term aims
3. rewards for effort (every effort no matter how small)

Me playing Runescape August 29, 2006

4. rapid, frequent, clear feedback
5. an element of uncertainty
6. windows of enhanced attention
7. other people

Gamers will often do repetitive and boring tasks over and over again in a game.  How does the game get people to do boring virtual things over and over again?  How does a game get dozens of people to spend a month building a virtual ship?  It appears (I've never played this game) that in EVE Online the Titan class of Capital ship takes that kind of work.

Can I as a pastor learn from any of this?  I was listening to another TED video: R.A. Mashelkar: Breakthrough designs for ultra-low-cost products, he gave this quote:

When you wish to achieve results that have not been achieved before, it is an unwise fancy to think that they can be achieved by using methods that have been used before.

-Sir Francis Bacon

So how do I engage people?  Are there things that we can do that will engage people more effectively in Christian devotion?  Or are video games and the spiritual disciplines too disimiliar for there to be any crossover?  What can I do differently in a church that would engage people in a way that is more encompassing?

What do you say?

Man up.

I realize that the title of this post is somewhat ironic.  Ironic in that I expect that most of my readers are female.  Of the 12 "followers" on my blog (followers as defined by google that is) 10 are women.  I do not begrudge that, they likely know me in offline life or they are aware of my wonderful wife's blog.

Speaking of Tara's blog, this week she was at Blissdom Canada.  Don't misread me here, I'm SO glad she went.  We've missed her terribly, but I think it's has been good for her to be away for a bit.  Especially getting to meet Shannon, but also in a place where she can talk blogging stuff with other women who are into this stuff as much (or maybe more!) then she is.  I don't resent her being gone at all.

But I did catch myself feeling sorry for myself a little.  There's a lot going on this week, even had Tara been home.  There's been a number of costume kind of events at the school.  Olivia's class had a costume parade, there was a family dance the other night, and then there was a costume fashion show.  Owen won a prize for the best "look a like" costume at the dance.  Aiden was amazing during the fashion show, and Olivia was just plain old cute!  Cool stuff!  So much fun!  However, it's put a fair bit of pressure on me to get my 'normal' stuff done for the week.
Have you ever got to the place where there's things happening and you feel like you're entitled to something to compensate for all the 'stuff' you've had to deal with?  Maybe you do deserve some recognition.  But the part that I want to zero in on today is that feeling of entitlement.  Who am I to say that I am entitled to something?

Proverbs 25:6,7a

⁶ Don’t demand an audience with the king

      or push for a place among the great.

 ⁷ It’s better to wait for an invitation to the head table

      than to be sent away in public disgrace.

I suppose if I'm honest with myself - most, if not all, of the thing things in my life that I find as a challenge are really quite mild.  The world is amazing and nobody's happy, or so it often appears.  When you start to feel like you are "owed" something - you're really just feeling sorry for yourself.  If I'm just feeling sorry for myself because I did something that has drained me in some way, then why am I any different then the rest of the planet?  Do I really want to be the guy with the edge of attitude every time I do something for someone?  


I love that Proverb.  Don't worry about recognition, because if it's deserved, it'll likely happen.  Time and Truth go hand in hand.  Eventually, given enough time, the truth will come out.  If not in this life, then the next.  


Feeling sorry for oneself doesn't get much else done.  It doesn't help anyone, it doesn't even yourself feel better really.  So Mr. Doug, Man Up and get over yourself and keep doing what you should.  


Besides all that - Tara is home now.  She's awesome.  It's awesome to have her home and really that's all the recognition/reward/whatever I need.  Maybe all we need is just a little more patience.

This week

So this week I'm parenting on my own.  Yesterday we (all of us) drove to Thunder Bay and stayed at the Victoria Inn.  It was great, they upgraded our room without my even realizing it until we opened the door of the room!  (Hence the link love)  Great place to stay in our experience, although we've only been there twice.

The reason for our overnight stay in Thunder Bay was that today Tara was flying to Toronto for Blissdom Canada 2010. She jumped on her plane and flew off into the big blue yonder.  She landed before we had made it halfway home.  But due to the power of technology I found the following video on the computer when we did arrive home showing that Tara has in fact landed safely:




So Tara and Shannon are at Blissdom.  It seems there's a play by play of photos over on Shannon's TwitPic page.

So far, so good.  I hope all goes well in Toronto.

Oh, and just for fun...
Tara you missed Owen pulling that tooth out all by himself.

And it appears to be snowing.

I went to an autism seminar today

So I went to an autism seminar today.  As you may know, my eldest son has been diagnosed with something on the autism spectrum.  What has he been diagnosed with you ask?  Some call it P.D.D.N.O.S. (pervasive develop disorder not otherwise specified - helpful no?), others call it an autism spectrum disorder.  I say he sees the world differently then me.
Nothing all that earth shattering as far as straight up learning goes, but our speaker guy had a great way of putting things in context for us.  It's often good to be reminded of things you already know by someone you don't know.  Good to hear things phrased a different way and in another context.

We continue the journey.

vacation 2010 part 1

So we went on big trip this summer.  Our biggest (this does not include the several months we lived out of our tent trailer, as that was just us in between jobs and places to live) to date.  We drove from Dryden to White Rock with lots of stops in between.

We got to see family and some friends along the way and it made it quite nice.  We drove in a car that was loaned to us by a nice gentleman in our church (thanks again Bill!!), we took advantage of his offer as it cost us some $30-40 to fill the tank in his car, and well, our 1996 GMC Safari has a much bigger tank, and doesn't get that much farther per tank.  I digress.  

A trip like that give you time to think, or just be, or gain some perspective.  For me, it did a little bit of two of those and lots of the other.  I got to "just be" most of the time.  I think one of the best parts of the holidays for me was just being with my family with far less distractions.  I enjoyed the extended times with the kids.  We were all a little more comfortable, I think.  


As for perspective, I think the biggest thing I've been *trying* to work on is my attitude towards the kids; especially when I'm distracted and frustrated.  There's room for improvement, and as I reflected some on the type of person I want to model and become for my family - well, it was a good 'gut' check.


I am by no means done going through my photos, but here's a slideshow of a few images that I have gone through thus far, I will be adding to this gallery over the next little while (or long while as the case may be).

on me.

So it was pointed out to me recently that I often post very incomplete thoughts and allude to having things to say and then never say them (such as here).  So in an attempt to externalize some of the thoughts in my head, comes the following...

I want to be free.

Perhaps that sounds a little strange coming from me.  But like many, I struggle with my own abilities, wondering I can do all that I am called to do, all that I am asked to, all that I want to do.

I received an email recently that alluded to a list of things said at a graduation attributed to this one guy.  I generally check the validity of email forwards, not because I don't trust the people who send them to me, because, as a rule, the people who send me forwards have found something of value in them.  However, email forwards often become tall tales quickly.  The email looked very similar to this one that is set straight on Snopes.

The little tidbit that got me thinking the most was this quote,  (the rest is in the above link):

The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself

   The part of self esteem I struggle with is that I know that it's usually my own fear(s) that keep me back.  I'm self-aware enough to know that "there is no secret ingredient", and that almost everyone struggles with self-esteem.  Certainly some are less bothered, and others are crippled by it all.  Yet it is quite frustrating to know that your own lack of confidence, which resides entirely in your own head, is holding you back.  To know you are technically able to do something doesn't always seem to help when you feel the task is too important.

So what to do?  Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is to remind myself that I am free in Christ.  At first that sounds a little cheesy, even to me.  Yet, if I believe the Scriptures (I do), then when I feel trapped by circumstances and that I can't get done what I honestly feel should be done; I need to remember that I am free.  I am free to do what I need to.

 ¹It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. -Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

Today, I need to remember that I am free.  That I live in a world created by God, that I was created by God, and he knows who and what I am, and he is the one who called me, to be a disciple, a husband, a father, a friend, a pastor and all the other things in my life.

One of the things I hope to work on within myself is letting go of the self-doubt and simply move forward in the things I feel called to do.  We'll see how that goes.

The reason I'm including this photo, is that it was really something to see in person, and one felt a little like God's work is still good.

Vacation

So I've been on vacation for the last few weeks.  Still am actually.  In my mind I had made all kinds of wonderful and witty posts about our misadventures.  Never quite got them written out here though.  So, use your imagination.

more ramblings then thought today...

Today find me with some more random all over the place kind of thoughts, some of you may stop reading now...

a quiet place to sit and ramble on about the thoughts in my head.

on blogging:
I like the idea of blogging.  I feel like I need to write more to help learn how to communicate better.  Communicating better in writing should help me communicate verbally, especially in the teaching/preaching role I'm in.  Yet I find the hardest thing is finding out how to jump in*.  What thoughts should I share, what needs to stay locked up in my head so I don't get locked up for being crazy?  What is provocative thought?   What is ranting?  What is soap-boxing?  How does one create content that others will interact with?  How do stay consistent in all of this?
*hence today's random post.

on time and life and stuff:
helped with a grade eight graduation last night.  I'm still processing the funeral I officiated in Ottawa in May.  I turned 36 at the end of May.  Put the three together and I wonder how I have progressed from grade eight to now and where do I need to grow before I'm 97?  What are the things that are personality traits and what are character weaknesses?  Why is change so welcome in some areas of our lives and so difficult in others?  What do we have control over and what do we not have control over?

on some of my Scripture study as of late:
I've been chewing on the book of Ephesians.
Chapter 3:16-17

 ¹⁶ I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. ¹⁷ Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.  (NLT)

How much do I trust Jesus?  What does that trust look like?

Was talking to one of the teachers the other night at the school.  Her students have been given netbooks to study with.  Most of her students don't see the potential of what kind of learning could happen with those machines.  Nor do they see all that they could do with them.  The class was to have made a presentation to play on the screen during their grad.  It was clear that not a lot of effort was put into that presentation.  I'm not trying to criticize, but to put it in perspective, it was black type on purple, which looked like an indigo kind of blue on the screen.  Difficult to read, rather dull to look at.  With even a modest amount of effort, that presentation could have been improved greatly.

Now, that might sound like I'm bashing here a bit, I think I do the same thing at times in my spiritual walk.  I do the bare minimum to get by.  I say to myself, that it was good enough for what I'm trying to do.  Are the goals I have for myself high enough? How am I doing in pursuing those goals?  What happens when I miss a goal?

I heard a line in a song a bit ago that said:

"It’s my habits that made my fingers weak, when my chances came I couldn’t grab them." 

 -from the song "Train Song" by Listener. (You can listen to the "Train Song" here, I recommend trying the "original" version, which is numbered 5)

on how different people see the world:

sometimes I feel double minded in that I see that positive thinking and exerting effort  to focus on the good can help move our lives forward.  Conversely, there are times where just pushing forward trying to focus on good things (I mean good in the largest most positive sense of the word) feels hollow, as if it's ignoring all the people and things that are so broken in this world.  

Maybe the road less travelled weaves between feeling the pain of the brokenness of this world and feeling the joy and hope of the gospel and of redemption.  Which is easier said than done.  More than that, we avoid the richness of experience, because the difference between those lows and those highs feel like too much to bear.  So we do our best to live in the middle.

on photos:

I am enjoying taking pictures.  I've been taking lots of pictures.  Where I've been struggling is editing them in a timely fashion.  Part of that is the ongoing technical challenge of all these files and finding solutions to sort them all out.  Mostly though, my default state of disorganization extends even to my computer files.  Although I'm better than I used to be.

on who I create content for:

if you have ever blogged, written a note for facebook or posted a picture on the web to share with people, you likely know that it's fun to see how other people react to what you are saying, creating and putting out there.

You can end up spending a lot of time looking at the number of comments or page hits, or views or whatever and less time thinking about the content.

For the record... all of my photos and all of my on-line writing is for me.  It is a cathartic process for me to share what's on my heart and head and to get it beyond just my thoughts, and my journal.  But I'm human.  I think we all like to see people comment on things.  I confess to be frustrated about the whole blogging thing because of a lack of response.  I also realize that infrequent posting and long posts (like this one) make following along harder.

Family Photo Progression.

We tried to take a family photo yesterday.  Here's how it panned out.  You should be able to click on it large to see the expressions in each photo.

Love these guys!

On waiting

Sometimes things don't work out the way you expect.  Things don't really take off the way you had expected. Problems come up.  Parts break, you get distracted, you make a little tiny mistake at the wrong time, the weather makes issues, people can't get there because life happens, we forget stuff.  And so, something doesn't happen the way you hope.  There are times to give up, realize that the cost is not worth it.  Other times though, you just need to keep going.  Because, when you're learning to fly, there are bumps and bruises along the way, but chances are... once you're gliding in the clouds.... you'll forget the little bumps.  

Dream. 

Pray.  

Love.  

Live.  

Or not. 

I keep dreaming of the clouds though.

this week

A quick view at the email I got from the weather network this morning telling me what the weather will be like.  I'll (just me, family staying home) be heading to Ottawa for the greater part of the week... hope it's nice there too.  Let summer come....

Owen's larger world

Owen's riding a two wheeler.  

He rocks.