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bowling

today the family and i went bowling with baaji & sam our two adopted indian college students. who knew that the bowling alley on a saturday afternoon was the place to meet people? i saw four or five people that i knew. pam and i really enjoy spending time with baaji and sam – they’re basically cool people.

speaking of our indian friends i thought i would bring up a new agency that i personally think is worthy of support. dalit is the indian word for the “untouchables” of india. the word itself means “broken ones” and it is a classification that the dalits have given to themselves. they represent approximately 16% of the population of india. they are the lowest of the low and are treated as such. the dalit freedom network is an organization that is working to improve the lives of the dalit and insure them the same opportunities that everyone else within indian society has. you can read more about the dalit and the dalit freedom network by clicking here.

SIDE NOTE – pam is howling once again. as i’ve said before – my wife is psychotic.

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gmail

like everyone else in the world of gmail i have tons of “invites” left. so if you have been wanting to move up to the world of “gmail” then just email me at my gmail address or post a comment and i’ll send you one.

i’m presently watching my kids play halo 2. noah just picked up a “plasma rifle” and adam asked how he got it. noah’s response was “you have to kill somebody to get there go. it’s fun”. the n.r.a. would be proud. i however was a little disturbed, not disturbed enough to make them quite playing the game, but a little disturbed nonetheless. i think i’ll watch noah a little more closely.

SIDE NOTE – pam is howling again. my wife is psychotic.

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i can see right through you


if you read the flickr blog you’ve already seen these “transparent” computer screens. if you haven’t let me introduce you to the concept of a “transparent” computer screen. basically people take pictures of what is behind their computer and then place those images on their computer desktop and then take a picture of the environment containing the computer. when it is done correctly is makes it appear as though the computer screen is transparent – thus allowing you to see right through the computer screen. in my opinion it’s a pretty cool illusion. if you would like to see more of the images click here.

SIDE NOTE – the incredibles is an amazing movie. i love it when kids movies have such great themes (being who you are supposed to be, the struggles of the family, discrimination, working together, etc). “the incredibles” approach these themes in a very entertaining manner.

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the end of the minor prophets

at the beginning of the month of march i started a series of messages on the minor prophets. as a part of this series members of the youth ministry volunteered to set-up worship stations on each of the minor prophets that i did not talk about (eight in all). each station was an interactive interpretation of the major theme of the minor prophet that it covered. last night was the end of the series and thus the end of minor prophet stations. i can’t post pictures of the stations from last night because my camera’s battery was dead but they were the same as the previous weeks … amazing. i love the fact that the teens and adults involved within the student ministry participate so much within our worship. they’ll be more stations in the future.

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politics as normal

finally there’s a man running for political office that we can all get behind. he’s name is rob outhouse! i kid you not. a guy with the last name of outhouse ran for the position of sheriff in cayuga county, new york. i guess you could say that sheriff outhouse is one politician who is definitely “full of it.”

SIDE NOTE – since my camera’s battery died i don’t have pictures of the worship stations at the view last night but once again they were amazing. i’ve loved everything you guys and girls have done as a part of “the view.”

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whose not here


i’m usually not the largest fan of b.c. (i just don’t think it’s very funny) BUT i thought this comic was way too true. i mean why talk about the divorce and pornography that are within our churches when we could just talk about homosexuality? it’s so much “safer” to just focus on the homosexuals and you get so many more “amens” during those messages. or why not talk about how america has fallen because there is no prayer in schools rather than preaching about we followers of CHRIST being involved in social injustice and not making any difference in the world around us?

in his book blue like jazz donald miller talks about a time that he and some friends set up a booth on reeds college and asked forgiveness of the students that were there. maybe we should started asking forgiveness of the the world for so easily “preaching” about their “sins” and never mentioning our own.

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there’s a hole in my head

montana, my basset hound, hates straws. i learned this the hard way. awhile back i was drinking through a straw and montana saw it. the mere sight threw her into a rampage and she walked over and head butted the bottom of my cup. of course, she made the whole thing look like an accident but i know the real true – montana hates straws and thus she attacked. thankfully the straw made it through the attack. unfortunately, montana’s attack rammed the straw into the the inside of my top lip. thus i now had a cut on the inside of my front lip. if you know anything about cuts in the mouth then you know that a cut in the mouth can turn into one of the worse injuries a human can receive … a canker sore. that’s what happened too. i now have a monstrous canker sore on the inside of my top lip. it’s right on my two front teeth and it’s killing me. i hate canker sores.

when i was in college i once had a canker sore that was really killing me. i complained about it and a friend told me that he had a sure fire way to cure a canker sore. according to my friend all you had to do to get rid of a canker sore was pack the sore with table salt. he said that the salt “burned out” the bacteria that caused the canker sore. so that night i packed the sore with table salt. this was not one of the prouder moments in my life because packing a canker sore with table salt is not a very smart idea. it was the worse pain i have ever experienced and the sore was actually bigger in the morning. i told my friend about it not working and all he did was laugh. he laughed really hard over the whole thing. i don’t think i ever talked to that friend again.

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i have email

i feel the need to point out two things:

  • first, i have an email address that people can actually communicate with me through. the reason i feel the need to point this out is because recently some unnamed individuals have decided that the best way to communicate with me is by leaving comments on the blog that have nothing to do with the actual original post. now don’t get me wrong i love people posting comments on the blog entries i place up. while i have moved past the “comment mongering” stage of the blogging experience i still enjoy seeing what other people are thinking concerning the things i post about. i especially like it when an entry turns into a conversation and people comment and then reply to other comments. it’s just that recently i’ve gone to look at the comments on the blog only only to find out that someone (cough *hannah* cough *shelley*) has decided to use the comment section as a way to get in touch with me. this always seems to throw me off. it confuses me and throws off my whole day.
  • secondly, the blog has apparently become the world search haven for pictures of the elephant man. i made a post awhile back that contained a picture of the elephant man. apparently every other person that exists on this planet is looking for pictures of the elephant man. therefore, the blog now receives 10 hits or so a day from people looking for that picture. it would appear that if you want to increase traffic to your blog you really need to write regularly about the elephant man. who knew?

on a side note today i discovered google alerts and the photography of diane arbus. alerts as amazing and i really like them. alerts give you the ability to set up a filter on google to forward news articles and websites on a particular subject as they are created. for example i lovetony campolo so i created an alert to send me any news articles that are posted concerning campolo. it’s a cool thing.

arbus’s photography is like wise amazing though some of it is disturbing (amazing nonetheless). diane arbus took startling pictures of carnival sideshow “freaks,” and people who were at the time consider “odd” or culturally different. that’s why the photos of hers that i’ve seen are sometimes disturbing. the photos i have seen have made me want to see more because they remind me that to some extent we are all pretty much “freaks.”

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baptists withdraw invitation

baptists withdraw invitation

i haven’t read everything that mclaren has written so i can’t speak authoritatively on this incident in particular but i do have a good bit of history with southern baptist and therefore can attest that often we have “knee jerk” reactions and respond accordingly. according to the article mclaren was uninvited to the convention because of the statement that “there could be buddhist … (or) jewish or hindu followers of JESUS.” to the kentucky baptists this apparently smacked of “universalism” and therefore mclaren had to be excluded. if i understood mclaren’s point correctly when he made that statement in his book he was saying that it didn’t matter what you called yourself rather it was the belief you had and the practice of that belief that matters. in other words if you come out of a hindu background and still practice much of the culture associated with hinduism but you followed the way of CHRIST (faith in HIM as LORD and walked with HIM) then you were a followers of CHRIST and all good. it personally sounded very much like don richardson’s comments in “eternity in their hearts.”

of course, my kentuckian brethren didn’t take the time to actually discuss the statement with mclaren and find out what was meant. nope they had a “knee jerk” reaction and pulled him from the program. i love “true” baptist belief (meaning not automatically conservative evangelical right wing belief) but i hate the way we often practice it.