Category: random thoughts

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is your dna in it?

photo used by permission of the weding couple (the schoberts) and photographers (the oberstadhs)

i just finished listening to an npr “talk of the nation” episode called “a guide to an insanity-free, practical wedding” and it was pretty good. i don’t do a ton of weddings but i do officiate a fair number. over twenty years of ministry i guess i have officiated 20-30ish. this is enough ceremonies for me to have seen quite a few wedding ceremonies of varying complexity and cost.  i am pleased to say that i am proud to have been involved in all the weddings that i have officiated. i do however believe that much of what is encouraged in many wedding ceremonies goes against creating healthy marriages. here are some of the wedding myths that i believe actually work against successful marriages:

  • it’s the best day of your life – when our boys were young i used to teach them to shout at the t.v. when they saw a commercial that was a blatant lie (which is the majority). they would shout as loud as they could “that’s a lie.” this myth is something that i would hope my boys would shout at. if your wedding day is the best day of your life then you probably have a terrible marriage. our wedding day was a wonderful day of celebration but it isn’t the best day of my life nor do i believe it is pam’s best day. the commitments we made to each other on that day SET UP the best days of our lives.
  • you’ll only do this once so you should spare no expense – i hear this as an excuse to over spend on a wedding ceremony. i have news for you, if you over spend on a wedding ceremony and more importantly what is good for you to spend then you probably won’t just do this once. supposedly the average cost of a wedding in the u.s. of a. is $26, 542. lavishly spending to start a marriage can’t help strengthen a marriage when arguments concerning money are a leading reason for divorce. why start off a marriage with money issues?
  • 3 months salary on an engagement ring – really? come on folks. this is absurd!

there are a ton more lies i could talk about but instead i really want to focus on your dna being in the ceremony. i think things and events that are important to us should have part of us in them. they should reflect who we are and should have our finger prints all over them.

the most beautiful weddings i have been to or been a part of have often been the least expensive ones. the weddings were so amazing because the couple’s, and their families’, fingerprints were all over it both literally and figuratively. the wedding reflected who they were and such reflection is very costly though money is rarely a part of such cost. the thought, labor, and time are the cost. these ceremonies involved great creativity and amazing effort both from the couples and from their families. the time and effort made the wedding ceremony something that they did together, which is a wonderful way to start a marriage. in my opinion money often serves as a pale substitute for such creativity and effort. when that happens it is usually someone else’s dna that is to be found in the ceremony.

i think my favorite part of the podcast i mentioned above is when the guest tells people that they should spend the majority of their budget on parts of the wedding that reflect them rather than just spreading it around. she tells the story of a couple who spent all their budget money on a swing band. they saved money on everything else, pot lucking the meal, etc., etc.,  so that they could splurge on the music and dance the night away. i think it is a great idea. know who you are and put the focus there. maybe you love photography so you put the money on the images, or you love people eating together and so you focus the budget there, or you focus on any number of other things that reflect who you are. it is smart to direct your resources. once again this helps to make sure the couple’s fingerprints are present.

well planned ceremonies that reflect a couple’s nature are a beautiful thing to witness. the creativity and effort of such weddings are a thing of beauty.

SSIDE NOTE – thanks to the schoberts and the oberstadts for the use of the above photo.

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small airplanes & snow

i know that flying is statistically safer than driving and i am not afraid of flying BUT i am not the biggest fan of smaller commuter planes. this is basically because of the fact that i can feel turbulence much more dramatically when i am in a small plane.

i fly to syracuse, new york today to officiate devon s’s wedding. we would have the first decent snow storm of the winter season on the day that i am flying out of central wisconsin airport on a small commuter plane. i’ve never flown in any plane while it was snowing, let alone a small plane. this should be interested.

SIDE NOTE – i think i have adequately freaked my mom out now. i did at least keep the video for this post calm 🙂

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the right to bear arms

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this is a graphic from a busted tees t-shirt. i think it is quite funny. if the 2nd amendment discussion was about you and me having the arms of a bear it would be awesome.

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it’s trash night

while editing the audio from sunday night’s worship gathering for the podcast of the messages in the tapestry i discovered that eric g left a message for me. the picture i used in the above video is my payback for him messing with me.

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the third question

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when i discuss interpreting scripture with people (i.e. the study of hermeneutics) i summarize what is involved by asking people to consider 3 things whenever they approach what GOD is saying in and through scripture. these questions are:

  1. what did this passage mean to the first people to hear it?
  2. what does this passage mean to a modern reader?
  3. what does this passage mean for me?

the first two questions aren’t really what i want to discuss right now. i will say that they primarily deal with understanding the story that you are reading in scripture. for example, while i have picked peanuts (a story for another time) i have never threshed wheat before. if i am reading the story of gideon it is important for me to understand that it would not be common for someone to thresh wheat in a winepress because that reveals something important concerning gideon and the situation he is in. it is also important for me to understand that there are modern correlations to gideon threshing wheat in a winepress and how i connect with them.

right now i want to mention the third question because i have been running into it a lot recently. the third question “what does this passage mean for me” could be rephrased as “how do i now live in light of this passage?” involving ourselves with GOD word should be an interactive rather than a passive experience. GOD wants to introduce HIS SON to us through scripture and when we meet JESUS, and see WHO HE is, then we have to respond to HIM. how does this passage change me? how does this passage challenge me? how does this passage encourage me in my present circumstances? what does this passage say about my life right now?

the small group study that pam and i are a part of on wednesday nights is presently reading through mark buchanan’s book “your GOD is too safe” (an excellent read that i thoroughly recommend). last night we went through chapters 7 & 8 which are kind of depressing. it kind of left the entire group in a bit of a bummer mood. we agreed with what buchanan wrote and that left us all a little down. at the end of the evening adam h asked “so what do we do with this now?” in other words, this has us all down because we believe it is true so how do we now live in light of what we have just learned. it really was the perfect question.

it is also a question that i feel like is far to often changed to “so what should someone else do with this now?” it often seems that we treat the bible as a list of instructions that other people should be changed by rather than something that we should be changed by. what a crock! first and foremost i am the one who needs to be changed by my interaction with GOD. yes, ever now and then i might be a part of GOD changing others but that has to come out of a great deal of humility which has been developed by GOD constantly transforming me and removing the planks from my own eyes.

encountering GOD through HIS word should be a dangerous experience for us because it is one of the prime ways that GOD builds us into the ones HE knows we can become. construction zones are considered hard hat areas because the work of building something up involves a great deal of risk. asking the third question puts me in construction zone mindset. what needs to be changed? what needs to be removed? what needs to be begun?

my hope is that 2012 is a big third question year for me and everyone in tapestry.

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most creative show on tv

Community

just in case you don’t know this, in my opinion “community” is the most creative show on television right now. i love the show because they are always trying something different. the only thing that is predictable about “community” is that they are going to try something different each week. i love the imagination they use in making the show.

shouldn’t church be this creative? shouldn’t church be a group of people who are so secure in our worth because of what GOD has said about us that we aren’t afraid to imagine and take HUGE risks?

the small group that i am a part of each wednesday night is presently going through mark buchanan’s great book “your GOD is to safe." i love this book. we’ve recently gone through his chapter dealing with imagination in faith. in that chapter he states the following:

imagination is anemic today, and nowhere is this more evident than in most of our churches

unfortunately i think buchanan is correct here. a lot of CHRISTian churches don’t involve imagination in the way they do church gatherings or live out their faith. i think this is because change/imagination involves risk and most of us don’t like risk. we would rather do things that merely look creative. instead of actually “creating” anything new and thereby following in the shoes of our creator GOD we stay with the safe, predictable, and boring.

right now i feel like we at tapestry use a great deal of imagination in how we live our faith. my hope is that we continue to do so.

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all things can work for the good

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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.

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why i am deer hunting this year

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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.

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hermes’ rear

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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.

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day 28–question 28

why don’t i take my oldest son’s recommendations more often?

i guess this is more a statement of bafflement than a question. it just seems that almost every time adam recommends something it turns out that i like it. the most recent example of this is the new doctor who series. adam has ben telling me for quite some time that i should watch this show. i’m not sure why i didn’t listen to him sooner. i just started watching the series and it is great. i should have listened to him earlier.