I mispell things!
i made it back home form DC for Q last night. i have about 40 pages of notes in my journal that i need to go through to fully debrief. my thoughts on what i learned and experienced this year will probably make it up on my blog eventually. for now i’ll just post some quick final thoughts concerning my three days in washington.
last night i found a new website addiction. every day carry is a website that people send photos to of the “tools/equipment” they carry with them every day. i tend to think that most of the photos are from people who, in my opinion, spend way too much money on their “every day carry” (edc). while i might not care about my stuff being this cool i still really enjoy seeing what people consider their edc.
so the photo above is of my edc. while i carry other things with me in the messenger bag that holds my netbook (an old land’s end convertible messenger bag/backpack that noah used as a school bag when he was in 3rd or 4th grade) the photo above is of the things that i pretty much always have on me when i step out the front door of my home.
here’s a list of the items in the photo
& old original rapala lure on it 
with 2 bandages of course, i have tons of other “necessary things” in the messenger bag which is usually with me but the above list are my true edc’s.
anyone who knows the terrell philosophy of the 4 things with which a man can fix almost any problem (something my dad taught me and i have passed down to adam and noah) will notice them all present.
SIDE NOTE – after years of trying and failing, when the servers crashed, tonight i was finally able to buy a “BOG” (bandolier of carrots) from woot. i am sure that it will be awesome when i get it.
for lent this year i am reading through the gospel according to matthew through a reading plan on youversion.com called “lent for everyone.” in addition to the daily reading from matthew there are some thoughts from n.t. wright. here is part of what he said from today’s reading (matthew 21:23-46).
i was taking a service in a local church when this passage was the second reading. over at the side of the church was a family with a three-year-old boy who appeared to be playing with his toys, taking no notice of the service. but when the reader finished this parable, about the wicked tenants who beat up the owner’s messengers and finally kill his son, there was a momentary pause; and, in the silence, the boy’s voice stood out loud and clear: ‘that’s not a very nice story!’
well, no, it isn’t, and that’s part of the point. we come to the gospels hoping and imagining that they are going to be ‘nice’; that we will find a JESUS WHO tells us it’s all right, we don’t have to worry, nobody’s going to get hurt, no one will even be cross. but with the world the way it is, if GOD doesn’t get cross about it HE is not a good GOD. if HE doesn’t do something about it, sooner or later, HE’s quite simply not GOD.
i hope you know the GOD WHO is rightfully cross every now (while always loving) and the gospel that isn’t just nice, safe, and comfortable.
today was the 2012 point bock run, which is one of my favorite runs. there is always a great atmosphere around it and i end up seeing lots of friends in the race. i ran the race today not really expecting much since i’ve only been running about 30-40 miles a month for the past 4 months. not enough miles to really improve from my personal best from last year of 40:36 (8:08 per mile). i was just hoping to keep a pace of 9:45 per mile (around 48:45 for the 5 mile course). i figured i couldn’t do much better than that considering how little running i have done.
i was pretty pleased when i crossed the finish line at 46:34 (9:17 per mile). my overall time and the fact that my last mile was at an 8:43 per mile pace encourages me to think that with the proper practice i might get close to my half marathon personal best (1:58:40 – 9:04 per mile) by the time of the oshkosh half marathon on april 22.
as you can see from the above time stats i am a slow runner. i realize that i am not one of the speed demons and i don’t try to pretend like i am. i try to start in a position in the pack that is appropriate for my speed level. that is why it drives me nuts how many people who walk the race decide that they should be in the front of the pack for the starting gun. i’m sure they have very valid reasons in their minds for why they should start at the front of the pack. for example, they might think…
or perhaps they have less noble reasons like not caring. i really don’t begrudge them being slow. after all i am slow. and i’m definitely not talking about people who are doing the galloway run/walk system. i completely understand the run/walk system and i don’t blame them at all when i see them walking (mainly because they will probably pass me later). i’m talking about the people who walk the entire race. why would any such walker start the race in the 6:00 per mile pace group? i can’t imagine a good reason (though there may be one and if so please forgive me and explain it to me). all i know is that they clogged up the beginning of the bock run and slowed down my first 2 miles.
here are my mile breaks:
notice how every mile was faster? i tend to think this is because of all the time i ended up being stuck behind walkers in the first two miles. this happened more times than i care to remember.
please don’t think that i am down on people walking races. i am not. i think it is great for people to walk races. just start at a reasonable part of the pack. i figured i would run around 9:45 per mile so i started at the 10:00 per mile pace group. when i went faster it didn’t cause anyone any trouble. people, just pick an appropriate spot in the pack people. come on!
SIDE NOTE – i think my tv is going to begin thinking that we are british because of all the bbc tv series pam has been watching recently. eat least it is fun to watch the guys fight in these british dramas. every argument seems to end with someone saying sternly “i say good day to you sir.” if it continues that say even louder “i said good day sir!” i think i will start doing this.
i love goofy traditions. therefore i love that each year people (primarily high school and college students) camp out be the first in line when belt’s soft serve ice cream opens. they do it to get the ice cream first and a free t-shirt or glass depending upon where they are in line. when we moved to point i started bringing coffee, on behalf of tapestry, to those who camped out. like i said pam and i love goofy traditions and therefore we want to support those who are a part of them.
since this year is adam’s senior year of high school we let him skip school to sleep at belt’s and be one of the first in line. so he and some friends slept out in the parking lot last night with a low of 14º to be ready for the opening. he was the third one in line. he says it was a fun night. i tend to believe him and i’m glad he did it. noah is already planning for 2015 and his senior year. adam shows up at around the 1:30 mark in the above video.
yeah for random traditions!
SIDE NOTE – we really haven’t had much snow this winter which is not really a good thing. i haven’t been cross country skiing once this winter because there hasn’t been a good base. anyhow this past week has been fun with the snow we have been receiving. this is what it was like this afternoon.
here’s the full quote from søren kierkegaard from which the partial quote on tonight’s tapestry bulletin came from.
“the matter is quite simple. the bible is very easy to understand. but we CHRISTians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. we pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. take any words in the new testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. my GOD, you will say, if i do that my whole life will be ruined. how would i ever get on in the world? herein lies the real place of CHRISTian scholarship. CHRISTian scholarship is the church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good CHRISTians without the bible coming too close. oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living GOD. yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the new testament.”
― søren kierkegaard, provocations: spiritual writings of kierkegaard
obviously as a philsopher and theologian kierkegaard didn’t completely dismiss scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge. still he recognized how it could be used, and often is used, to avoid the claims of CHRIST. i think we often do the same thing with our bible studies in the modern, wstern CHRISTian world. we says to ourselves “surely CHRIST couldn’t mean that … it would ruin me” and then we spiritualize, intellectualize, and generally bounce around the statements of JESUS till we can figure out a way to look like we are following HIS word while not really doing anything other than what we want to do.
“surely when JESUS said for me to love my enemy HE didn’t mean them. if i treat them with love they will merely hurt others.”
“surely JESUS never said that i should give that much”
“JESUS never meant for CHRISTians to help the poor that much. that would keep them from helping themselves”
etc., etc. etc.
it should be “dreadful … to fall into the hands of the living GOD. yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the new testament.” it is scary to me when i find that it isn’t difficult to me, because i usually find that at those times i am no longer really listening to the words of JESUS.
i posted last week that mayor halverson had responded to my request to have coffee with him and allow me to ask him four questions. today was the day scheduled for our conversation. i’ll try my best here to summarize here most of what we talked about. i want to start off by saying that i really enjoyed my conversation with him. since i live in plover i “have no dog” in the stevens point political system. mayor halverson wouldn’t really gain any political traction by meeting with me, the pastor of a small church who doesn’t even have the ability to personally vote in stevens point political issues. he could have therefore thought that spending an hour with me was a waste of his time but he didn’t and i am very appreciative of his graciousness. my conversation with him was one that went down a lot of paths and one that i really enjoyed.
here’s a reminder of the 4 questions i wanted to ask him.
our conversation bounced around from practical city issues to sociology, so it is a little difficult to write down definite answers to each of these questions but i’ll still try to summarize what we talked about.
question #1 – what do you think are the biggest needs in the point area and how do you think the churches of the area can be a part of the solution to these needs?
mayor halverson described the history of the point area in regards to economic recessions. people around here do a pretty decent job of living within their means rather than living off credit. this means that recessions are usually slower to hit the point area but eventually do when jobs are lost as a result of the national economic changes. for point this means the job losses we’ve more recently been having from plant and business closings. point is slow to go into recessions and also slow to recover from them as a result. point will eventually recover economically and that is where mayor halverson sees that churches can help. his worry is that people will lose faith and hope in the midst of the recession and he believes that churches can help here. i’ll discuss this now in the second question i wanted to ask him.
question #2 – what do you wish a church in the area would do?
the answer to this question is actually hodge podged together from our discussion of the first question, because we kind of bounce into other areas of discussion based on this question (like i said earlier it was an enjoyable conversation and for me that usually means “rabbit chasing”). mayor halverson said that there were a fair number of people in the community who are being hurt by the recession who don’t have the resources to recover as well as others. his request of a church would be to help, along with other organizations such as operation bootstrap and food pantries, provide the “safety net” (my phrase) for this group while also helping people to struggle through the question of “why.” he worries that people might lose faith and hope that tomorrow can be better and he thinks churches can really help provide answers in regards to struggles with “why”.
question #3 – what is the best kept secret in the point area?
mayor halverson’s first answer to this question surprised me. he said the best kept secret in the point area is the giving nature of the community. i’m not surprised that i live in a giving community. instead, i was surprised by how much giving happens in point. apparently point is in the top third of communities nation-wide in giving to the united way. i didn’t realize this. the mayor then went on to describe other wonderful aspects of point such as the green circle and uwsp, which i would completely agree with, but i was most surprised by the extent of the giving nature.
question #4 – can you tell me three other people who love the area that you think i should take out for coffee and a conversation?
i won’t mention the names that he told me contact. i will say that he did direct me to three other people i should talk to and this is the part that i was most excited about. i’ll be contacting these individuals soon asking them out for coffee in the hopes of hearing their answers to these same four questions.
i really enjoyed my conversation with the mayor and learned a good bit form him. i am possibly most thankful for what he said at the end. when our conversation was ending mayor halverson invited me to call him anytime i had questions concerning the history and development of some part of point. this will be incredibly helpful.
as pastor of tapestry i hope all the “threads” will do this same thing. take someone out for coffee and ask them questions concerning our community and what we as a church can do to help it. then do the most important thing and listen. JESUS taught that we love GOD when we love our neighbors. we’ll do a better job of that when we are constantly listening to those around us.
i’m personally glad to know this car unlocking technique, yet i am also scared of ever again leaving anything in any of the family cars that have these types of locks. this was way to easy and it makes perfect sense why it would be so easy. unlocking a car like this could be a life safer for someone who has locked his/her keys in their car but it could be used for evil far too easily. brilliant and scary.
i don’t read perry noble’s blog and i basically know nothing about the guy (i’m not very good at knowing much about CHRISTian celebrities) but but my friend grant posted one of noble’s blog posts on his twitter account concerning girls you shouldn’t date. i thought it was great. so here it is. i’ll share noble’s main points but i would highly encourage you to go read his full post.
noble says you shouldn’t date a girl if …