being raised along the gulf coast i had a love/hate relationship with hurricanes. the love part was that usually they were no big deal – a lot of precaution and then typically nothing major. everyone had to prepare for the potential hurricane. it was important that you planned for the worst. so you bought a good bit of food, made sure that everything that could be blown around was safely put up, generally prepped your house for the storm and then talked with your neighbors about all of their precautions. the hate part of the relationship was that every now and then the hurricane would actually end up being as bad or worse than it had been predicted. when that happened it was awful.
it turns out that snow storms in the midwest are kind of similar. we’re in the midst of a minor blizzard and it has been quite a bit of fun with the family. it also made for a very challenging run this afternoon and at least three times of using the snow blower to clear our driveway.
SIDE NOTE – i doubt seriously that the weather will affect tapestry tomorrow but if it does i will make sure and send word out to everyone.
monday i was listening to a talk of the nation episode discussing the increasing trend of young couples without higher education to postpone marriage but not kids. the trends have swapped between people with higher education and people without higher education. those who have four year degrees or greater are now more likely to get married and less likely to get divorced than those without four year degrees. while there are multiple reasons for for this trend the one that has been bouncing around in my head deals with the cost of wedding ceremonies. many of the couples postponing getting married said that a large part of their wait was because they could not presently afford the wedding ceremony they wanted.
this has been killing me the more i think about it. tapestry has been involved in advent conspiracy because we believe that the present manner in which the u.s. celebrates CHRISTmas needs to be challenged and confronted. obviously there are probably issues other than the cost of a wedding ceremony that are keeping many of these couples from getting married that should be dealt with. yet i wonder if the church needs to begin confronting societal expectations concerning the costs of wedding ceremonies while also dealing with these other issues. for example, the average cost of a wedding in plover is between $14,030 and $23,384. shouldn’t the bride of CHRIST (i.e. the church) offer a different and more reasonable model of what a beautiful wedding ceremony is? how can we expect young couples to start healthy marriages when many are going into debt for their wedding ceremony?
the most beautiful wedding that pam and i have ever been a part of is also one of the least expensive ones we have ever been to. it was the wedding of the daughter of two of our friends in missouri. the ceremony took place on a small hill overlooking a wheat field and it was amazing. it was also very inexpensive. the whole thing depended upon the creativity, love, and effort of their family and friends. it would be a wonderful example and model for others hoping to have a meaningful yet inexpensive wedding ceremony.
i’m beginning to contemplate whether there is a way that tapestry can offer something different to our community in regards to wedding ceremonies. we have 3 pro photographers and tons of wonderfully creative people in our church. what if churches began to offer their resources to young couples in such a way that the expectation of an expensive wedding ceremony was challenged? i don’t know what it would look like for us to confront the cost of wedding ceremonies in our present age but it is something i am interested in exploring. i do think that the community of faith has a ton to offer in regards to “creativity, love, and effort” and i have already seen the beauty that those three resources bring to a wedding ceremony. again i am not sure what they would look like but it is something that i am pondering and would like to enter into conversations concerning.
my friend josh jonesposted this link to a page describing 10 music videos made on iphones. these videos are pretty impressive in and of themselves but all the more so when you realize they were made with a cellphone. i find them all the more fascinating because they are wonderful examples of how much more important talent and creativity are over equipment and resources. having good equipment for what you are doing (photography, fishing, running, computer work, etc.) is nice but it is by no means the most important thing. the most important thing is the attitude, talent, and creativity of the person using the equipment. the same is true with resources like money – it’s nice if you have it but it is more important to have the talent and creativity.
ansel adams once said
a good photograph is knowing where to stand
a good photograph is not having the best equipment, the right light meter, amazing strobes. nope it is all about the talent and knowledge of the one behind the camera. this is why i’ve seen some amazing photos on flickr taken with $5 cameras. adams knew this and his photos were amazing. he used good equipment but he realized that his photos weren’t great because of his equipment. supposedly adams also once said that the photographer’s must important piece of equipment was his mind but i couldn’t verify this quote.
now i’m sure good equipment helps you do a better job in most things. for example, i had a much easier time learning to play guitar on a good guitar than i did initially trying to learn on a pretty cruddy guitar. the action (the distance between the strings and frets) was much smaller on the better guitar and thus easier on my fingers when i was pushing the strings down.
i’m excluding from this utterly terribly equipment. yet even then i would assume that someone who is truly talented could so good stuff with it.
SIDE NOTE – i’m amazed by people on twitter who retweet when someone replies positively concerning something they have tweeted. it’s like they are saying “hey world, look at me. someone thinks i said something important and you should too.” i’ve only recently begun to notice this but it drives me crazy. thankfully i only follow a few people who do this regularly. i think i am going to institute an “unfollow the reply retweeter” rule. if you retweet a reply to you from someone else just because they say something nice about you then your head is probably too big for me to care about what you have to say. i will unfollow you.
eric g asked me to go hunting with him today in neilsville (about 45 minutes away). i told him that i couldn’t because i might not make it back in time for the iron bowl (the alabama/auburn game for those not in the know). he simply couldn’t understand this. why would i choose to watch a college football game when i could be hunting (which for wisconsin is the only thing that many people will miss a packers’ game for), especially when i haven’t killed a deer this year.
if you were born in bama or have lived in bama for awhile then you are probably more flummoxed by eric’s desire to go deer hunting instead of watching the game.
SIDE NOTE – thanks to my mother-n-law for the iron bowl shirt for my birthday.
i’m not a lebron fan. i wasn’t while he was in cleveland and then after the way he left the cleveland i learned to dislike him even more. i don’t begrudge him leaving for “greener fields” but the way he did it was cowardly. then nike and james produced the “what should i do” commercial which paints lebron as a victim. he was not a vitcim … he was and is a jerk. i love cleveland’s above response.
the whole thing makes me glad that i wear ASICS and sad that noah, my youngest, still likes lebron!
i went to a lecture at uwsp tonight from tim keady from team sweat concerning nike’s use of sweatshop labor. it was excellent and i will probably post more about it later. for now i will say that you can watch this video and get the basic idea behind the lecture.
during the lecture keady brought up an interesting point – why do student athletes have to wear uniforms with advertisements/logos on them? 20 years ago every college uniform didn’t have a nike, adidas, or any other corporate logo on them. many coaches would have thrown a fit over the idea of their uniforms being defaced. why do universities allow it now? obviously the answer is money – i’m sure of that. i could understand smaller school sports programs being willing to sell advertising space on their uniforms (desperate need can make it easier to sell you soul) but do the larger schools and sports programs really need to do this? why would a school want to turn it’s athletes into billboards? what happens if a scholarshiped athlete is convicted that it is against his/her religious beliefs to wear the logo of a company that is doing something against his/her faith? i doubt the student would be allowed to cover the logo. i would understand that in a business uniform but i’m not sure i would in a university one. also why would public institutions want to have their representatives advertising for corporations?
i’m not sure what i think about all of this but the question of why is rolling through my mind. is it all just for a little more money?
i am supposed to be in minnesota right now for the MWBC annual meeting. i was going to be sharing a little bit concerning the cool things that have been happening within tapestry over the past summer. it was going to be a good time because i get to brag on what GOD has been doing within tapestry and see some people that i really like.
like i said i was supposed to be there right now but this morning i apparently turned my alarm clock off rather than hitting snooze button for only 5 more minutes of sleep. instead of waking up at 3:30 a.m. i woke up at 7:15 a.m. bloomington, minnesota is 4 hours away from point and since 8:30 a.m. was when it all began i realized quickly that i wasn’t going to be there and called to let them know they could start making fun of me. i’m sure they are.
i do have a an excuse that makes me feel a little better. you see, i was pretty tired from saving pam from zombies all night. that is the dream that i remember form the evening of sleep. pam and i were in a mall and i was having to save her from the zombies that were constantly invading the building (this sounds a little familiar doesn’t it?). it was a very tiring night. zombies, while slow and dumb, are very tiresome. you will be excited to know that my weapon of choice was a machete because you never have to reload a machete. i used other weapons to keep the zombie horde at bay but it always came back to the machete.
obviously my dream was probably connected with the uwsp zombie shamble that i watched part of last night. seeing zombies waddle down main street ruined my r.e.m. sleep and cost me the trip to minnesota. so i guess i am really blame the threads you sent me invites to the shamble. thanks guys and girls. 😉
it is fall in wisconsin and along with cooler weather we have a diminishing amount of light during the day. one of the things that surprised pam and i when we moved to wisconsin was how short the days were during the winter compared to the south. of course, we are spoiled during the summer when it is daylight until almost 10 p.m. yet the summer is over and it is now starting to get dark much earlier. in addition, since point is an incredibly safe area in which to live we don’t have the need for many street lights. therefore, our neighborhood is VERY dark when the sun goes down and the sun is setting earlier and earlier. we are kind of used to this now that is is our 4th fall in wisconsin.
what i am not used to and never will be used to is people walking in the middle of a dark street while wearing dark clothes. i mean really! WALKING RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD WHILE IT IS DARK AND THE WALKER IS WEARING REALLY DARK CLOTHES! why would you do this? i just don’t understand.
a while back we had a lady in stevens point who was arrested for shooting people with a blow dart gun in downtown point. oh yeah we are real proud. anyway, this woman said she shot people with the blow gun because she simply liked to hear people say “ouch.” i kind of think that if she had just been shooting people who wore dark clothes and walked down the middle of dark streets then no one would have seen her actions as a problem. at least, i would have been on her side.
SIDE NOTE – my wonderful wife wrote a great post on the top ten reasons she loves tapestry. i agree with most of her reasons, except for the one about the pastor being “easy on the eyes.” i tend to think the pastor’s wife is the one who is easy on the eyes. here’s her post.
SIDE SIDE NOTE – bama, why did you have to lose?
SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – packers, i have the same question for you too.
some of you may have heard our community on the national news recently. central wisconsin is flooding and that includes the point area. at the moment it is not community wide. there have been a few homes really hurt by the flooding, others have been evacuated from their homes for fear of flooding, but thankfully the waters haven’t completely torn our town up. hopefully the rain will stop for awhile and the wisconsin river can go back to its normal banks. prayers for a stop in the rain in central wisconsin and north of us would be greatly appreciated.
here are some photos i took of the wisconsin and plover rivers today. it’s the highest i’ve ever seen either of them. to my knowledge no one within the tapestry community has needed to be evacuated yet but if anyone else is looking for a place to stay the people of tapestry would love to help.
btw, the top photo is a pano made of 5 photos. if you click on it it will show you a LARGE photo of the wisconsin river. the river is truly kicking it.
there are a couple of us threads that are members of the stevens point curling club and supposedly there are a few others that want to join this year. so here’s your first notice. if you are interested in trying the great sport of curling we have a few open houses coming up so you can try it out. our open houses are:
