Category: personal

Actually I never really stopped blogging. I just haven’t blogged in the past month, which is a long time for me to not write something. The problem has been that every thing that I have wanted to blog about was a bigger issue that would require me to think a decent amount and then write a correspondingly decent amount. That’s fine and dandy, but I figure Pam, my parents, and I are the only ones who read this blog, and I don’t think any of us want to read many of my longer thoughts. At least I know I don’t. So I would see or hear something and think “Oh I should blog about that” and then decided that it would take too long and I could find something better to do. The blogging equivalent of my bassets seeing a squirrel.

I’ll give you an example of the subjects I have been thinking about. I have been scouring craigslist looking for a “new to us” car for Adam or Noah (or me if I could find a nice Volvo 240 wagon which I have become fascinated with). Two things have been humorous to me in my searches.

1. The people who list all the money they have spent repairing their car as justification for asking more than market value for the vehicle. They usually say in their post something like, “I just want to get my money back,” Huh? Why should I pay extra for your car so you can get your money back? The market is the market.

2. The people who have extreme misunderstandings of the value of their vehicles. I read one post where a person bought a 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan for $4,000 two months prior and then had a bad head on collision and thought their vehicle was now worth $3,200 because they were pretty sure you could get the parts necessary to fix the vehicle at a junk yard for $500. The person stressed that “low ballers” shouldn’t reply. What a deal.

Any how, both such instances have lead to some fun conversations with Pam concerning how we value our things and ourselves. Basically people tend to be the heroes or our own stories and therefore think better of ourselves and our possessions than we probably ought too. Like I said earlier, too big of a subject for me to want to regularly blog about.

It is once again Terrell No TV month, which doesn’t really mean just no TV as much as it does a lessening of our reliance upon electronics (TV, media, computers, etc.). Therefore, I thought I would focus on blogging more this month – yes blogging involves a computer, but creative endeavors are encouraged during No TV month. So I guess I’ll try to write something, big or small, most of the days of August. We’ll see what happens.

One of the things the Point area does well is music in the parks. Tomorrow starts the annual Riverfront Rendezvous, which will be 3 days of constant activity. Tonight was the weekly city bands concert. It is usually in the band shell but that was taken for the setup for tomorrow.

I do love the Point area.

There is a guy who walks in our neighborhood that Noah and I called Wisconsin Man. The reason for this is that rain or shine, cold or hot, sunny or overcast he wears red Wisconsin Badger gear head to toe as he walks all over Plover. Seriously, I can’t see his shoes or socks too well as I see him when I am driving but everything I can see is UW-Madison gear. If I were a betting man I would place money that the socks are Badger socks. Usually it is warmups that he wears, but it can be other things too, as long as it is Badger gear. Seven years of seeing him and I’ve never seen him dressed in anything except red Badger gear. It is kind of fun to see him and Noah and I both point him out as soon as we see him. It’s kind of like a Plover version of Where’s Waldo.

Yesterday he betrayed us. He was wearing black warmup pants. That was a big enough deal but I was at least initially able to assum that they were badger gear too. It was strange enough that I slowed down so I could get a look in for any logos. Oh there was a logo and it was for the RAIDERS!

You have crushed me Wisconsin man. Crushed! Judas!

I get to listen to a lot of very interesting podcasts during my drive to the various companies for which I chaplain. To The Best of Our Knowledge by Wisconsin Public Radio. Today one of their segments that I listened to was Touching Sound, an interview with Dame Evelyn Glennie who is one of the world’s leading percussionist and profoundly deaf.

While she is talking about music she is primarily talking about listening. She makes great points that we listen with our being, not just with our ears. She talks about learning to “touch sound.” To rephrase her words a little, I think we have to constantly focus on learning to be touched by the sound from the people and environments in our lives.

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Pam regularly gets calls from professional “head hunters.” It is a part of her being awesome and in a profession that has a high value and need. She received another call today. She doesn’t even know about most of the calls she gets because I know she loves being a professor, so I just delete most of the calls she receives, while telling her every now and then that she received a call, just so she knows she is incredible.

While I understand them in professions, I have always been thrown off by ministerial “head hunting.” Every now and then I receive emails or phone calls from some ministerial search company. I’ve received two from ministersearch.com this week. To be honest I kind of get mad every time I receive one of these blind, cold call emails/calls.

Why? Well if the gospel is about the relational God wanting to redeem fallen people into relationship with Him, then the way those gathered together as His people should function is relationally. In other words, the church should functionally relationally because we belong to the relational God. I can’t imagine calling someone to lead a church in such a non-relational manner and expecting good things to happen. We should function out of who we are, and this type of heading hunting functioning makes me worry about who such churches are.

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