not moved

not moved. i've been reading colossians 1 this morning and i came across those words. paul is talking about the incredible thing Jesus did on the cross - reconciliation! - putting us, who were alienated, into right relationship with God. and then paul wants to encourage us to stay connected to that awesomeness and he says (in the NIV) in verse 23, that we need to continue - not moved from our hope. not moved. another translation (NLT) says that we shouldn't "drift away" from our assurance.

i like this 'drift away' metaphor because i can easily picture my life as aa boat, which can so casually be moved by the current or the tides. it all happens gradually, but at some point i find myself somewhere i did not intend to be, just sort of floating by in life. it would seem that the obvious answer to this situation - the way to make sure we are not moved and not drifting away - is to put down anchor. it would seem we should remember the joy of our salvation; recall the circumstances around our conversion and try to maintain or recreate them.

but i am convinced that is ABSOLUTELY NOT what paul had in mind.

paul isn't advocating spiritual paraylysis. paul isn't suggesting stagnation. he is just urging us to be careful about who is moving us. that's why i prefer the message translation here: 'stay grounded and steady...constantly tuned in...careful not to be distracted or diverted.' i saw a great quote on twitter yesterday by len sweet which said, "what if we were more open to being sent on The Way than set in our ways?"

and that is the crux of the issue, isn't it? i mean, some of us aren't experiencing the fulness of relationship with God because we've drifted away; we've been distracted and diverted, moved by the current. but i am convinced that others of us are lacking intimacy with God and growth in spirit because we won't move at all - we're anchored down - clinging tight-fisted to a place where God was once present in our life. This place may have once been a garden of growth for us, but if we're honest with ourselves we'd have to admit that it has become a rut where we are stuck. paul says in another book that we must continue 'to work out our salvation with fear and trembling,' which is another way of saying that this relationship with God thing isn't so much about anchors as it is about awareness - keeping on the lookout for God - and willingness - having the guts to go there. my prayer today is that i would find the courage to pull up old anchors and be willing to use the oars to move to whatever new places God has in store.

costa rica, part 3 (crabs)

costa rica has crabs. and lots of them. as long as you are lying still on the beach, you can see hundreds (thousands?) of them all over the beach, scouring the sand for something to eat, leaving behind them a maze of little balls of sand, a kind of natural art that will soon be washed away by high tide. but as soon as you stand up they all scurry to their tiny little holes that take them somewhere beneath the surface of the sand. if you were casually walking the beach, you wouldn't even know they were there. but they are there.

what lies beneath? it's a fair question, at least for my own life. what lies beneath the surface of my life? what am i missing as i walk through my calendar? what would i find if i took the time to be still and know....?

enjoy these pictures of costa rican crabs, and take the time today to be still and know, even if just for a moment, what lies beneath the surface of the landscape of your life.

keys to the kingdom

every once in a while i see a simple scene in a movie - a simple, mundane type of scene, but set to music - like a family at the dinner table or something, and i feel a sense of longing in me. that somehow i wish my life was that romantic. that i want to capture the moments of my life and set them to a soundtrack for the world to see. i want the life i live to be worth watching again. and then i tend to shelve that emotion among the dreams and unreachables in my soul.

but then i have days like this thursday, and i realize that i am living that life, if only i would just pay attention.

thursday was my day off. i woke up early and did some reading and praying, before the kids got up. they got up earlier than expected, because one of them peed the bed, so i took care of that mess, and then we watched cartoons in bed for awhile until breakfast. shannon uses my day off to get some much needed work done for her business, so i got jack and cade dressed and we headed over to the library, where we looked at books, played with puzzles and puppets, and ended up borrowing books, cd's and a dvd. then we headed down to the church, where i sat in a lawn chair listening to coldplay and drinking coffee while the boys rode around the parking lot on their bike/scooter/big wheel. our driveway at our house is pretty steep, and they can't really ride very well there, so we spent the rest of the morning on a variety of wheels at the church. while they rode i finished a book i've been reading ("my beautiful idol," by pete gall), and by then it was noon, so we went through the drive-thru at mcdonald's and took our chicken mcnuggets to the park for a picnic. after enjoying our chicken-ish product and golden fries, they played on the swings and slides and so on for another hour. i watched them run and laugh. i pushed them on the swings and touched their little backs as they arched back towards me, like metronomes counting out their perfectly joyful day.

after the park we headed home, where we played with bubbles. after we were all sufficiently covered in soap, cade took a nap and jack took his 'quiet time,' during which i worked on and finished this collage.

"keys to the kingdom"

mixed media assemblage in a cigar box lid, keys, game pieces, buttons, etc.

gregory a. milinovich

jack was beat from all the playing so he fell asleep during his quiet time. i let him sleep a little, and then woke him up and showed him my collage. he liked it and wanted to make one with me, so we made this little fun one together:

"mr. green"

cardboard game piece collage on hardcover book panel

jackson a. and gregory a. milinovich

after caedmon woke up from his nap, we watched an episode of meerkat manor and then decided to exercise together by having a dance party. we danced like monkeys who had downed a few too many red bulls, laughing all the while. after i sweated off the weight of a third child, shannon called us up for a wonderful dinner, which she had been upstairs making: homemade crab cakes with a tropical sauce, rice and beans and fried plantains. yum! we ate and talked and, at one point, laughed until we snorted and cried. the kids had no idea what was so funny, but they laughed right along anyway.

after dinner we went to rita's for some italian ice. in the car on the way to and from rita's, we rolled down the windows and sang and felt the air in our faces. then home for bath. it was shannon's night to put the kids in bed, but as i sat on my bed watching the yankees game, jack poked his head around the door and said, "i love you so much, daddy."

you know, days don't get much more romantic than that. yeah, there were tears and a few sibling fights along the way. there are the inevitable wet beds and scraped knees, but there was also unbridled, unbuyable unfilmable joy. just a family laughing, loving, and living their way through another day. i didn't capture it on film, and i won't be able to set it to some song with a nice emotional string part, but i did live it. i danced. i laughed. i sang. and i loved as fully as i could. that is a day - a life - worth living. and i have a feeling it is what God envisions for all of us as God's children. and what we mean when we pray, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." the keys to that kingdom are loving wildly and freely, and living abundantly right now in the midst of whatever day in which you find yourself.

ten years

it has hard for me to believe that these pictures were taken 10 years ago today, on the hottest day in recorded history. ten years ago?!?

wow. but its been a great ten years, full of just about every kind of up and down that can fit into ten years. but standing at this point in the journey, looking back, i know still what i knew on that fiery day in 1999: that i am one lucky guy. thank you, my love, for these 10 years; for putting up with me; for loving me with all your amazing self; and for the wonderful prospect of many years yet to journey through.

father's day favorites

one of my father's day gifts was an interview that shannon did with jack about my favorite things. she thought it would be fun to capture his 4-year old's version of what i love in life, and it turns out she was absolutely right. check it out.

my daddy's favorites
by jackson, age 4

favorite sport - steelers (he got this one right! it's hard for him to forget that one!)
favorite game - don't break the ice (ummm...not so much)
favorite song - twinkle twinkle little star (maybe if coldplay sang it)
favorite book - the cat in the hat (he knows i love reading him dr. seuss books)
favorite restaurant - mcdonalds (absolutely not)
favorite movie - alvin and the chipmunks (never seen it, but i guarantee it would not be my fave)
favorite tv show - lord of the rings, but he doesn't like randolph (okay, first of all, he normally calls it 'lord of the beans,' and last night he told me that the two main characters are grandolph and dodo, so he hasn't totally grasped this yet. but he's right that lord of the rings is a favorite of mine. he's wrong, however, about any disdain for 'randolph.' i love me some pipe-smoking wizards. [which reminds me of another post i've been thinking about: gandolph vs. dumbledore in a cage match...who wins?])
favorite food - oranges (he's getting color and food mixed up.)
favorite friend - tyler (tyler, if you even read my blog, i'll bet you're surprised! i was!)
favorite animal - cheetah (this is because i tell him that i love him faster than a cheetah runs)
favorite toy - dinosaurs and legos (i'm a lego maniac)
favorite drink - orange drink from mcdonalds (this is the worst one of all. i HATE orange drink from mcdonalds. shannon loves it. i think it is disgusting.)
favorite cereal - trix (nah. trix are for kids. i prefer cinnamon toast crunch or apple jacks or peanut butter captain crunch)

so, basically, my son has no idea who i am. great. i've got some work to do so that next year for father's day i don't open up gift certificates to mcdonald's in an alvin and the chipmunks musical card.

jazz for breakfast: king of the trombone

lest you think we've abandoned our jazz for breakfast (we haven't), here is today's offering: jack teagarden.

hope you are finding ways to pass good culture on to your children, or at least share it with other people, so it doesn't get lost among the miley cyrus's and jonas brothers' of the world. if we don't fall in love with bach and basie again, and share that love with the next generations, who will?

crazy shot

i love being a human, because stuff like this is possible. amazing!

what doesn't happen

a few weeks ago i was driving down the highway at about 75 mph (if you are part of law enforcement and you are reading this, please read 75 as 65, you know, artistic license and all), and i was all safe and secure inside my 2000 mazda protege. zoom zoom. when out of nowhere, this bolt comes kicking off the road in front of me, from under the tires of whatever vehicle i was behind, and i see it rise up in the air and then return to earth with on a forceful arch, coming right at me. i flinched out of the way as if my windshield didn't even exist and the metal might hit me in the face, but as it hit the windshield i quickly realized that this was going to mean a costly repair, at the very least. but amazingly, although it hit the windshield with cataclysmic pop, it did no damage to my car. it just rolled down the windshield and onto my wiper blade. and it just sat there. for the duration of my trip. when i got home i pulled it off and took it inside, resolved to keep it as a reminder of just how many accidents i am so close to having all the time. when i drive. when i cross the street. when i forget to wash my hands. when my son rides his scooter down the driveway. when i mow the lawn with my sandals on. and so on and so forth. accidents are all around us and we just barely miss them. they could come crashing down on us on a forceful arch, but, by the grace of God, we survive most of these unscathed. not always. sometimes life hits us hard and the windshields break. and we have to learn and grow through those moments. but we should also appreciate all the accidents we don't have. we should give thanks each time we get out of our car and each time we get out of bed and each time we get out of another day with all our limbs and all our children and all our capacities to say "thank you." so, today, be thankful. and watch out for falling hardware.

las flores de costa rica

being in the rain forest, one of the things that we were awed by in costa rica was the range of vegetation and color and flowers. for one thing, the world there is green. green is everywhere. whatever is not sky is basically green, decorated with bits of colorful flowers and birds. the world seems to be teeming with life, like the earth can barely contain all the energy bursting forth from it. it is truly awesome. here are some of our pics of the flora we found in costa rica.

happy father's day!

happy father's day to all the dad's out there. whether you dad is still around or not, or you think he was a good father or not, today is a good day to remember the good things about your father - the parts of you that you carry with you today. as for me, i've been blessed with a wonderful father (that's him grinning in the above picture), and i celebrate his joy and his playfulness and his intensity and his modeling what it means to be a father. thanks, dad. happy father's day.

bowling

went bowling yesterday with the fam. fun day. here are a few pics of our experience at the lanes. please do enjoy that sweet polyester shirt that i busted out of the back of the closet just for fun. go ahead and make your comments.

costa rica, part 2

one of our favorite things about costa rica was its idyllic beaches, which we spent a fair amount of time on. we had hoped to find beautifully tropic-looking pacific beaches and we were not disappointed. not only that, but we pretty much had every beach to ourselves to explore and bask in. enjoy these pictures from our time at the beach.

the drama of a psalm

i'm pretty sure God is strong. i mean, i've never really doubted that. i look at the world around me, at the vastness of oceans and the majesty of mountains and the expanse of the sky and all of it strikes me as a song of strength. so it seemed like pretty standard stuff when i recently came across psalm 46 and the poet is talking about how God is our refuge and strength, and we have no reason to be afraid. i find myself reading quickly because "i already know all this." but as i made an intentional effort to slow down and let it sink into my thick skull, i was moved by the drama of it all.

first of all, the notes at the beginning of the psalm ("alamoth, which means "young women") may mean that it was a song set for soprano voices. that's right - don't forget that a psalm is first and foremost a song, meant to be set to music and sung and heard and danced to or prayed to or cried to, or at the very least turned up to 11 on the dial. its music. and then i love the idea that this song was made for the soaring sound of sopranos. so as i'm reading it again i'm hearing a dramatic soundtrack, like the sound of a climactic moment in some summer blockbuster, a white-knuckled apex of action. this is the critical moment, and the music makes sure you don't miss it.

so the sopranos are singing this song, and they start off by singing that God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help us in times of trouble (verse 1), and that we should not fear, even in the midst of earthquakes, or if the mountains should crumble to pieces and topple into the sea, or if the oceans start boiling over and surging at us. and so on. suddenly it occured to me that this song is about the most fearful, God-awful things that they could imagine happening, sung in john williams-style drama with sweeping strings and epic horns. i mean, they never saw the mountains crumble into the sea, but they are singing a song that says even if they did, they wouldn't have to be afraid.

what would this song say in our context? maybe that we don't need to be afraid even if the polar ice caps all melt and new york city looks to become a really big public pool. that we don't need to be scared, even if north korea aims something at us. that we don't have to shake with fear about the stock market or H1N1. you don't need to be afraid.

or what if you interpret it a bit more personally? that you don't need to be afraid, even if that temptation rears its ugly head again, or your spouse gets angry, or the bill collectors call for the third time this week. even if your life feels like a tempest, like a tornado, like an earthquake, like a tsumami, like a hurricane, chaos swirling around you, when not even the strongest things (mountains) seem certain anymore, you don't need to be afraid. why? because God is strong and mighty - a refuge. a safe place. always ready to help when trouble blows in. later in the song, the sopranos sing (twice, actually) that God is here among us! not out there somewhere, but right here - our fortress. don't be afraid, even if the worst happens. God is here. and God is strong.

victory parades

you know it is a good year to be a fan of sports in pittsburgh, when an article in today's post gazette starts off by saying, "do we know how to do a victory parade or what?"

awesome.

the article goes on to point out that we've had 11 victory parades in the last 45 years. cleveland, just down the road from pittsburgh, has had exactly none in that time. none. this isn't to harass cleveland and make them feel bad at all, but to indicate just how fortunate i am as a pittsburgh fan. i have written about it before, a kind of embarassment of riches. still, while i feel bad for cleveland fans (and also admire them for sticking with their teams regardless), i am so happy to be a pittsburgh fan.

city of champions!

the birds (not the hitchcock kind)

one of the things we did in costa rica was watch birds. the place where we stayed was called villa de las aves, which means that we were staying in villas of the birds. and it is appropriately named. there are so many birds there, in so many varities and so many colors. thankfully i was able to borrow a pair of binoculars before we left and they helped tremendously in seeing some of them closely, but here are just some of the pics of birds we saw. we also saw many toucans, but i am saving those pics for another day.

costa rica, part 1

well, i promised that i'd have more pics and stuff from our trip to costa rica, so this week i'll be putting up some pics each day this week. as i've already said, we had an awesome time there, but i really don't have tons to say about it because the agenda each day was really simple: wake up; relax; eat breakfast; go to beach; relax; home for lunch; relax/sleep; out to dinner; home to relax; sleep. repeat as necessary.

i will tell you that our plane arrived in san jose pretty late, and by the time we got through customs and rented our car, it was around midnight. we were supposed to be staying in the downtown best western, but we were feeling a bit anxious about this as every local we talked to gave us a wide-eyed look and a poignant warning when we told them we were heading there. they told us to be careful with our stuff. they also told us that the streets have no signs, so we would need to count 5 blocks past the hospital then turn left and go three blocks. okay. no problem. so we took off in our 4wd kia sportage (diesel), and headed downtown. they were not exaggerating. there are no signs. on the highway they had signs, but of course they were all in spanish. but once we got downtown, we saw no signs or hotels. only ominous looking nightowls and people practicing the world's oldest profession. shannon was getting more scared and upset by the second, so we finally decided to head back out of town towards the airport and stay at another best western. so our first taste of costa rica wasn't what we had hoped for. but it got better from there....

happy flag day

happy flag day

we are the champions

congrats to sid the kid and all the penguins for winning the stanley cup last night with their game 7 victory over the red wings. i'm not a huge hockey fan, but i enjoy following the playoffs when the penguins are in it. they were a really fun team to watch this year, and i'm happy for them, and for all of pittsburgh, who after the steelers superbowl victory and now this, is once again the city of champions (cue queen song here). now if only the pirates would take notes and follow suit. that would be awesome. but since that isn't likely, i'll take another steelers superbowl in lieu of it.

we're back!

hey friends. i thought i would put up a quick post tolet you know that we are back from costa rica, safe and sound. getting back into the routine is proving a bit hairy, as the world clearly didn't stop while we were away (how dare it?), so i don't have tons of time for reflection at the moment, but suffice it to say that it was an awesome vacation, full of wildlife, potholes, idyllic beaches, really good food, awkward situations (well, just one in particular), unbelievable views, relaxation, and yes, plenty of recreation. we had a great time, and i'll share more soon. hasta manana.

self

"self"

paper collage on cardboard backing

gregory a. milinovich

For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

-romans 6:10-11

villa de las aves

just thought you might want to see some pics of where we are staying in uvita, costa rica. it is the villa de las aves, or home of the birds. there are tons of birds in costa rica, and hopefully we are seeing many of them. and not being kept awake by them. or being pooped on by them. i'll let you know. check out our place here.