Category: personal

since the glazes have been gone to alaska for the summer and jodi, joel, and brad have ben graciously filling in for the leadership of tapestry’s music each sunday night i have often been playing percussion. i’m an adequate djembe player with dreams of actually being funky. those of you who were a part of the parkview student ministry will remember that i would often pretend that i was a good drummer when our normal percussionist were missing. i’ve found myself enjoying filling in on the djembe this summer and i have now convinced myself i can move on to a new instrument, the cajon. it’s a wooden box with guitar strings on the inside. it produces an enormous amount of bass. i desperately want to play one of these things well. even though i probably won’t ever be able to play it well doesn’t mean that i’m not going to try. how hard can it be to play a wooden box?

after i learn how to play the wooden box (a.k.a. cajon) i’m moving on to a mandolin 🙂

i posted awhile back about working a directed study concerning moltmann’s theology of the TRINITY as a part of my d.min program. well it kind of back fired on me. since the dean of the d.min program was on vacation at the time i was having trouble getting in touch with him for the purpose of getting my directed study approved . his signature would be the last step necessary to make the directed study happen. i therefore emailed him saying that since it didn’t look  like i would be able to get everything approved for this trimester i want to see about having it approved for the next. i then went ahead and registered for another seminar (family counseling) for this trimester. unfortunately for my dr. ogea is a really nice guy and fast tracked everything during his vacation. he was able to get me registered for the directed study. now instead of my normal one doctoral level seminar i am now taking two. should make for a busy summer. woohoo!

here’s the syllabus for my directed study and the works that i will now begin studying.

• the TRINITY and the kingdom by jurgen moltmann
• pilgrimage of love: moltmann on the TRINITY and CHRISTian Life by joy ann mcdougall
• the TRINITY, creation and pastoral ministry: imaging the perichoretic GOD by graham buxton

as i posted yesterday clint and eric, friends from baton rouge, are presently visiting the terrell family. clint is a former youth intern and friend and eric is a former student and friend. this morning i was pretty pumped about getting to take them on part of the green circle trail. the green circle is 30 miles of trails that link a ton of parks together around the point area. pam, the boys, and i love riding on it. so i took eric and clint out to the plover river trail portion of the green circle. it didn’t turn out as fantastic as i had hoped. in fact all three of us had a pretty bad time.

i was going to fast into a turn at the bottom of a hill and my front tire slide out on me. i now have trail rash all over my right side and i learned why helmets are important. i smashed my head into the ground cracking my helmet in two spots on the right side. this actually scared me a little because while i have taken some solid hits in my life i have never hit my head hard enough to cause any problems. i had a few minutes of trouble visually focusing on things and then everything cleared out. clint was trained as an emt years ago so he checked me out and seemed to think i was ok. therefore we decided to finish the last 5 miles of the bike ride.

when we hit the half way point that is when clint and eric’s troubles began. clint began to feel sick and was sure that he needed to throw up. so he did. i didn’t know this about eric but he is a sympathetic puker. this means that when he hears or see someone else losing their lunch then he begins to feel the need to also throw up. so clint was on my right about 20’ away spewing chunks and eric was 20’ away on my left having the dry heaves. when they finished we hopped back on the bikes and started back to the car.

when we got to the car we headed to pam’s office to clean my wounds. i asked her if her office had any first aide supplies. she grabbed some small packages and said they were disinfectants. she ripped one open and started to clean my arm. that’s when incredible pain began to shoot through my body. turns out that my nice wife had wiped my arm with an alcohol hand cleaning wipe. she says she didn’t do it on purpose but i have questions about that. i think i must have done something wrong and she decided to pay me back.

we’re going on a canoe ride tomorrow. i hope it turns out better.

yesterday was a really good day. let me detail the wonderful things that happened:

• i spent the morning at emy j’s studying  the second chapter of james.
• i ended up meeting a couple of threads and having a great discussion.
• i took the boys to play a little disc golf and ended up finishing with a –1 for the course.
• i ran 8 miles in schmeeckle reserve and then rode another 8 miles home.
• pam cooked pinto bean soup for me – which makes me VERY happy
• i went with pam on her run for the day.
• i ended the day with a little fishing and caught a decent size smallie on a jitterbug – my favorite lure for fishing

all of this happened during a day that had wonderful weather. it was a good day. i like days like yesterday.

i have a pretty awesome mom and her birthday is today. happy birthday mom!

whoever is doing the fake bp public relations twitter page is hilarious. here’s an example:

We’re paying Google a lot of money to make sure you only have access to the best possible info on the oil spill: our info.

bpglobalpr

i have never read or heard the back story of the tin man but this short film is incredible. really it’s worth the 20 minutes it will take for you to watch it. i wonder how many people are forced into efficiency because of things placed on them, decided they like that efficiency, and then lose sight of who/what they were working for in the first place. as a pastor i know this this is personally a temptation for me. it is real easy to work to reach, provide, care, etc. for people  you love and in the process begin to focus more on the work than on the ones that you were working for. it is real easy for us to lose our “hearts.”

i hope and pray that all those who have lost their “heart” will find it again. even better than that – i hope and pray that non of us ever lose our “hearts” in the first place.

tonight i watched the movie “JESUS camp” for at least the third time. the uwsp “students for freethought” showed it at the dreyfus university center’s theater. i wanted to see how they would respond to the documentary.

if you have never seen “JESUS camp” i would recommend watching it. it is an interesting look at a far right fundamentalist approach to evangelical CHRISTianity and its indoctrination of its children. if you are a follower of JESUS CHRIST and you have watched “JESUS camp” but never watched it with a group of non-evangelicals then i would highly recommend going to tomorrow night’s re-showing of the film.

i enjoyed hearing the “students forfreethought” responses concerning the documentary and most particularly their thoughts concerning some of the language used by the main character of the documentary. the children’s minister who is the main subject of the film uses some pretty extreme military language in describing faith. since i am a part of the evangelical world i understand the metaphorical nature of this language. those outside the evangelical world don’t filter this talk through the same filter that evangelicals do and therefore often find the language a little scary. i can’t always say i disagree with such fears.  i think it is really important for those of us who claim to follow CHRIST to know how our language may be interpreted or misinterpreted by those outside of the church culture. therefore, if you’ve never watched the movie before or have never watched it with people unfamiliar with the evangelical culture i would highly recommend that you go to uwsp’s dreyfus university center theater at 7 p.m. tomorrow and then stay for the discussion afterward. listen to what they say and consider why they may be saying it. do they have reason to be scared? have we communicated things that we never really meant to communicate?

SIDE NOTE – i talked to some members of the “student for freethought” group concerning the possibility of them doing something like this with tapestry. they were all for it. therefore we are going to discuss the possibility of doing a showing together next year with a little more formal debate afterward. i think it will be fun.

first, it snowed this evening in the point area and it is predicted that we may get as much as 1-3” before it is through. i love living in point where spring can change into winter in a matter of minutes.

second, i grabbed the boys after they got back home from school and took them to see “iron man 2.” i loved the original “iron man” mainly because of robert downey jr’.’s narcissistic portrayal of tony stark. downey may not be one of the world’s better people but he is perfect for tony stark.  i was a little concerned that the sequel would not be any good. thankfully it was a great film. i would say it was just as good as the first one and maybe even just a little better. i love a good superhero flick.

third, it was homemade pizza and movie night at the terrell house. we watched “the fantastic mr. fox” and i am now wondering how i have missed the wonderful little movie. it was amazing. pam, noah, and i laughed the whole way through. now i know that beagles love blueberries and that has made my life better.

finally, i really like nbc’s show “community.” i look forward to all the movie and television show references within it. this week’s paintball war was a great homage to apocalyptic films.