a wonderful set of lego based recreations of famous photos. they’re great. each photo even has a “set up” photo showing you how it was done.
shoe polish – post #1
last week was spring break in wisconsin and so the family and i went to chicago to visit the windy city. it was a great time. i thought i would post about one incident over there.
my kids have been in and lived in big cities but they have all been southern cities. in other words, they were cities that required driving from spot to spot. they are not familiar with cities where the major forms of transportation are your feet and other public means of locomotion. it was all very interesting for them.
of course, all this interest also means that they experienced much more closely than ever people begging for money. the kids have joined pam and i as we’ve worked at shelters, or had supper with new friends who were struggling financially, or helped as we have interacted with numbers of other people who have been at desperate times within their lives. yet they have never had someone walk up to them and shake a cup in their faces while asking for spare change. it was a different experience for them.
however, this post is not about poverty, the causes of poverty, or possible solutions to poverty. instead, it is about one pan handler’s strategy for gathering spare change. while we were walking on the sidewalk to the chicago institute of art’s museum a casually dressed guy walked up to me and said “man your boots are really scuffed up.” i have to admit that i was not ready for a guy to walk up and say such a thing so my response was not very eloquent. i responded to the man by saying “huh?” as i said, i was’n’t really ready for the original statement.
anyhow, the guys stated once again that my boots were really scratched up. he then said that he had just the stuff necessary to fix scuffed up shoes. it was at this point that he pulled out a pill bottle which contained a gel (i’m assuming it was vaseline), bent down to my shoes, and began to rub some of the gel onto my left boot. it was at this point that i woke up and realized what was happening. i finally understood that the guy was trying to force some psuedo-shoe polishing on me and then hit me up for a “contribution” for his hard work on my “badly scuffed” boots.
like i said earlier this is not a post on the causes or solutions of poverty so please read this next part for what it is … a comment on the guy’s method. i hate it when someone pretends concerning one thing just to get me to do whatever it is they desire. for example, i hate it when a telemarketer calls saying they are conducting a survey, but in reality they are just trying to make a sale and not collecting information. it drives me nuts because i actually will answers the questions of a telephone survey every now and then, but when someone pulls this kind of “bait and switch” survey i can always guarantee you that i’m not going to buy from them no matter what the product is. it was the same with this guy. there was a decent chance that i might have given him a little money or maybe bought him a meal if he had asked. yet, the second he pulled the trick of putting valesine on my boots he lost any chance of me giving him anything. he hit one of my buttons. i told him i wasn’t interested in him doing anything to my shoes and i pulled away from him.
i’ll finished my comments on this tomorrow.
19 miles
today was my long run for the week. it was supposed to be 20 miles but i was REALLY hungry by the time i reached home with still a mile to go (i usually go a half mile past our home and then come back). when i got inside the house i was a little curious if i hand lost any weight during the run and therefore i jumped on the scales. 10 minutes before my run i had tipped the scales at 191.6. after running 19 miles i had lost 2 pounds and 6 onces. i registered 189.0 on the scale. it doesn’t seem like as big a deal when i type it but at least it made me laugh when i saw it on the scale.
SIDE NOTE – i am presently reading a book by bill easum & pete theodore called “the nomadic church: growing your church congregation without owning the building and while i have only reached chapter six i have to say that thus far i am quite impressed. i can’t yet speak from experience whether all the recommendations and thoughts within the book work (because we have launched public services yet) but i figure we’ll be able to try these things out soon enough (hopefully by next week i will be able to tell everyone a launch date). if i had a short list of books to recommend to future church planters right now this book would be on the list. of course, that could change in the next chapter, though i doubt it. i’ll post more after i finish it.
my run for the day
distance – 19.0 miles
time – 3:25:30
pace – 10:49/mile
weather – 36º
we are the champions!
last night was my final curling match for the 2007-08 season. it was the open tournament club championship and yes my team did win. woohoo! we had a great game where everything was clicking. it worked out even better when it turned out that the other team was having the exact opposite kind of night. it was sweet.
by the way, i thought i would also throw y’all another photo. this one is of the almost 20″ small mouth i caught yesterday.
haunted
yesterday i was attached by an onion poltergeist.
i didn’t really experience any onion visuals or onion movements, but i know that i was attacked by an onion poltergeist because of the smell. before i say anything else let me say that to my knowledge i was not within 20′ of an onion all day. i did not handle an onion during the day nor was i around someone who was handling an onion. so there is no way that i should have naturally smelled of onion.
yet i did smell of onion and the smell grew stronger and stronger as the day went on. the first smell was faint at best. it was when i was having my eyes check for new glasses. this was mid afternoon. hour by hour the smell grew stronger as the ghost gained strength. by the evening the smell of onion on my person was so strong that everyone in the room could smell it. it was amazing.
in order to end this haunting i had to strip down and quickly wash everything i was wearing, including my winter coat, in “all” laundry detergent and holy water (i bless the washing machine). the exorcism took an hour but thus far it seems to worked. i no longer smell strongly of onion.
i am not sure what i did to tick off this onion phantom but i will try my best not to do it again. walking around with smelling like a 6’1″ onion was not a pleasant experience.
d. min essay
as i posted earlier i am in the process of apply to new orleans seminary to work on a doctor of ministry degree. as a part of the application process i have to write an autobiographical essay which consists of:
- a brief statement of conversion and call – 1 page
- a brief description and evaluation of ministry experience – 2-3 pages
- discussion of philosophy of ministry – 2-4 pages
- a brief analysis of personality and leadership style 2-3 pages
- a discussion of 3 influential books (apart from the Bible) read in the past three years – 2-3 pages
- goals for personal and professional development – 1 page
so i’m working on this essay this week. i’m enthralled by the idea of electronic collaboration within then church and so my hope is to try and make this a collaborative effort. the only way i know to do that at this point is to set the file up as a google document and encourage people to help me edit it (once it’s written because right now there isn’t much that is written). you can view the document here. if you are interested in having access to edit the document please just email me at my name @gmail.com and i’ll add you to the editors. also if you think of another way that the essay could be even more collaborative please send that to me. i’m up for trying pretty much anything.
btw, since the document has to be done in the style of ole’ kate and i don’t know how to do such a thing in google documents, i will merely be using google docs to type out the meat of the essay and then transfering it to micro$oft word or open office for the actual formatting. this means the google document is a very incomplete document.
MAJORLY IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE
this essay is being written to a faith based institution and therefore i’ll be using the language of the evangelical subculture. hopefully i don’t usually talk like this but i understand what they are asking for and i am very afraid that they will not understand what i am trying to convey unless i describe it within evangelical language. thanks to a few youth laughing at me i have worked at trying to avoid such blatantly “churchy” language. i’ll have to use some of that language within this essay. once, i’m in the program they’ll know who i am and understand what i am trying to say. for now i need to speak in the language they will understand.
d.min
after searching through my options i have finally started applying to new orleans seminary to be a part of their d.min program. i would actually prefer to work on a ph.d because of it’s focus on research rather than the d.min’s focus on practicality but i simply can’t find an option that is viable with the amount of work required to plant tapestry. the closest ph.d program is two hours one way, would require me driving down to madison at least twice a week, and would cost us $10,000 a year for a minimum of two years. all the other ph.d programs i have looked into are completely on site and to far away. that’s not very realistic for for the reasons that i am wanting to further my education. i really enjoyed my seminary education. my years at southwestern seminary were wonderful. if you wanted it there was always an opportunity to go deeper. i don’t have any desire to try and teach at a school (for that i would need a ph.d) because it would take me away from doing what i really feel called to do – planting and pastoring tapestry. i just want a little more education and the d.min’s nature of 24/7 class for a solid week.
i have to admit that this has actually been a bit of a struggle for me because my pride is such that i actually want the harder more prestigious degree. plain and simple a ph.d. is viewed more favorably than a d.min. in truth it should be. my problem has been that i have a tendency to view professional degrees as “ego” degrees. yes, i know this is my problem. my masters is a professional degree (an m.div). my issue with professional degrees is that they are usually not as academic as their mainly teaching/research focused counterpart degrees (m.th). professional degrees are obviously focused on practice rather than theory. an example of this are the m.d’s and ph.d’s found at medical schools. the m.d.’s are for people who want to practice medicine while the ph.d’s are focused more on research (though m.d’s are involved in a great deal of research also). of course, the purpose of professional degrees is to help practice and therefore they should be inherently more practical. i know this but it’s always been a little bit of an issue for me. those of you who know me know that i can be a prideful guy. this is one stupid example of that pride.
i’ve finally reached the point where i’ve realized that my pride on this issue is stupid. my desire to study in a theological environment again is more important to me than the abbreviation of the degree. so i’m now in the process of applying to new orleans seminary to be a student in the fall trimester.
if some of y’all are interested i may try something different during my application process. i love the collaborative of so much of what happens on the net. i have to write a couple of things for my application. i haven’t read everything yet so i can’t say i can really do anything with the help of others but if i can i think it would be fun to try. so be ready, i may ask some of you to join me on google documents in writing some stuff together. it would be fun to try something new.
the jungle
i finished reading upton sinclair’s book “the jungle” yesterday. it was amazing. sure the socialism that is blatantly preached within the book has been proven a failure (the book was written during a time of socialist revival) but the book is still powerful. the book was great before i reached the last chapter but then it got better and better. even if the rest of the book sucked it would be worth reading for the last chapter.
“I am not defending the Vatican,” exclaimed Lucas, vehemently. “I am defending the word of God–which is one long cry of the human spirit for deliverance from the sway of oppression. Take the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Job, which I am accustomed to quote in my addresses as ‘the Bible upon the Beef Trust’; or take the words of Isaiah–or of the Master himself! Not the elegant prince of our debauched and vicious art, not the jeweled idol of our society churches–but the Jesus of the awful reality, the man of sorrow and pain, the outcast, despised of the world, who had nowhere to lay his head–”
“I will grant you Jesus,” interrupted the other.
“Well, then,” cried Lucas, “and why should Jesus have nothing to do with his church–why should his words and his life be of no authority among those who profess to adore him? Here is a man who was the world’s first revolutionist, the true founder of the Socialist movement; a man whose whole being was one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealth stands for,–for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and the tyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people, an associate of saloon-keepers and women of the town; who again and again, in the most explicit language, denounced wealth and the holding of wealth: ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!’–‘Sell that ye have and give alms!’–‘Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of Heaven!’–‘Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation!’–‘Verily, I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of Heaven!’ Who denounced in unmeasured terms the exploiters of his own time: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!’–‘Woe unto you also, you lawyers!’–‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ Who drove out the businessmen and brokers from the temple with a whip! Who was crucified–think of it–for an incendiary and a disturber of the social order! And this man they have made into the high priest of property and smug respectability, a divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercial civilization! Jeweled images are made of him, sensual priests burn incense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty divinity–”
“Bravo!” cried Schliemann, laughing. But the other was in full career–he had talked this subject every day for five years, and had never yet let himself be stopped. “This Jesus of Nazareth!” he cried. “This class-conscious working-man! This union carpenter! This agitator, law-breaker, firebrand, anarchist! He, the sovereign lord and master of a world which grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars–if he could come into the world this day and see the things that men have made in his name, would it not blast his soul with horror? Would he not go mad at the sight of it, he the Prince of Mercy and Love! That dreadful night when he lay in the Garden of Gethsemane and writhed in agony until he sweat blood–do you think that he saw anything worse than he might see tonight upon the plains of Manchuria, where men march out with a jeweled image of him before them, to do wholesale murder for the benefit of foul monsters of sensuality and cruelty? Do you not know that if he were in St. Petersburg now, he would take the whip with which he drove out the bankers from his temple–“
now i’m starting “the shack.” i guess i’ll finally find out if all the hype is true.
super tuesday
tomorrow will hopefully settle some politics for me. i’m politically independent. i know that my progressive friends think i am a fundamentalist and my conservative friends think i am a liberal. i’m okay with that because within the faith community my calvinist friends think i am armenian and my armenian friends think i am a calvinist. i am a man of mystery. “grin”
actually the issues that i am concerned about are broader than the partisan talking points of each of the political parties. in the past i have voted for republicans and i have voted for democrats. my problem right now is that there is a candidate on both sides (obama & mccain) that i could vote for and there is a candidate on both sides that i simply don’t trust and therefore wouldn’t vote for (clinton & romney). so today either makes my choice easy (one candidate i like & one i don’t), difficult (two candidates i like), or impossible (two candidates that i throughly don’t like). i’m hoping for “difficult.”
SIDE NOTE – i can not believe that hillary teared up again. don’t people see through this crap. i so hope barak kicks her butt.
SIDE SIDE NOTE – i wish to express condolences to my friend debbie at the lose she suffered last night. i know the fact that another new york team stole another boston team’s chance at making history has to be hard for her and the other bostonians. i would say i was sorry that the giants won but i can’t.
february prayer
here’s the monthly prayer email i send out for tapestry. if you do not receive this and would like to just let me know.