Month: November 2011

i listen to a lot of stories during my day. i listen to random people’s stories to get to know them and i also listen to stories in the media to find connects for better conveying the truth of GOD’s love to people who i believe desperately need to know of HIS love. today while listening to radiolab i heard the fascinating story of l’inconnue de la seine (the unknown woman of the seine).

she was a young woman who was found dead in the seine river in the late 1880s. it is presumed that she took her own life and drowned. the pathologist was so taken by her beauty that he made a death mask of her face, a practice that was common at that time. copies of the mask spread until eventually “the unknown woman of the seine” became a cultural phenomenon.

i am not writing about the tragic cultural use of a young woman’s death. instead i want to focus on the eventual use of the young lady’s image. it is a use in which over 300 million people have participated. while norwegian toy maker asmund laerdal was developing rescue annie doll for use in CPR training he saw a replica of the “the unknown woman of the seine” and was convinced that this should be the face of rescue annie. this young woman’s face has been the face of rescue annie ever since then.

romans 8:28 says …

and we know that in all things GOD works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

i’ve heard this verse abused on many occasions to say that everything will become good for those who love GOD. that’s not what the verse says and it’s definitely not what we see in our lives. that young woman’s death in the seine river wasn’t a good thing and never will be. still good has come in spite of the evil that happened in her life. countless lives have been saved because of the 300 million people who have been trained in CPR by practicing saving the image of “the unknown woman of the seine.” i wish someone had been there to save her on that day but now others are saved in spite of the evil that happened to her. you see GOD’s goodness is just like that. it is so great that it takes even the evil that we do and that is around us and finds ways for good to still happen. that’s the point of romans 8:28, not that GOD will erase the evil that has happened in our lives, but that HE will defeat it and cause good to happen through what was meant for evil. HE is just that good.

i don’t know what evil has happened in your life. i don’t know what evil you have done or what evil has been done to you. i do, however, know that GOD is bigger and more powerful than that evil do matter what it is. HE can twist its desire for malicious ends to instead lead to good. HE is just that good.

SIDE NOTE – if you are not presently listening to radiolab you should start now.

i have only been deer hunting a few times in my life. my dad raised me fishing and dove hunting. we did a great deal of that. i loved it and still do though i don’t really dove hunt in wisconsin because there aren’t very many here. to my memory i never actually went deer hunting with my dad. i remember walking through the woods a few times hoping to find a deer while my dad fell a tree but that is as close as i came to deer hunting with him. i went once with my brother and a few other times with friends. i never really enjoyed deer hunting because it is so slow.

this year is different because i heard a professor from uw-madison speak about the need for a different deer hunter. he described deer as “rats with antlers,” saying that they were the most destructive species to the wisconsin natural environment. this professor had not been a hunter before moving up to wisconsin. then after seeing what they did to the environment up here he started hunting. he decided to hunt like a wolf rather than a hunter. you see hunters typically go after the biggest and best (nobody brags about killing the smallest) while wolves try to kill the smallest, weakest, easiest prey. going after the smallest and weakest makes a bigger impact and actually improves the deer herd. this professor made some very solid arguments for deer hunting with a different mindset. it was enough to convince me.

so this year i decided to go deer hunting and kill bambi’s mom or maybe even bambi. of course, i have to see bambi’s mom before i can kill her. i went earlier today and saw plenty of deer sign but no actual deer. hopefully i will see something later in the week.

this is a sneak peek of joe & kaylin’s wedding tomorrow. i am honored to officiate it which thrills me because joe & kaylin are very awesome people. the wedding is at the villa terrace decorative arts museum which is amazing. joe & kaylin (mainly kaylin) found a great spot of the wedding. the above photo is my view for the vast majority of the wedding. as the officiate i will facing joe & kaylin and thus facing the rear of the room for almost the entire ceremony. this means that every time i look up i will see hermes’ rear smiling back at me. if you are here tomorrow and i randomly laugh you will now that i once again noticed that i was being mooned by the messenger of the gods.

of course, it could be worse … i could be seeing hermes’ other side every time i look up.

SIDE NOTE – my desktop is up and running now but i haven’t looked for my blog drafts on it yet. i replaced the cpu heatsink fan and everything seems to be working now. then i left for milwaukee for joe and kaylin’s wedding. i have found three partial drafts on the netbook i am presently using so i am posting them.