pumpkin extravaganza

my parents came into town last night, and we celebrated their arrival with a pumpkin extravaganza (my family is famous for extravaganzas.  i'll have to write about that another time).  we started with a fresh salad covered with freshly roasted pumpkin seeds, then moved to a main course of pumpkin pasta and pumpkin bread with pumpkin butter.  we finished with some homemade pumpkin pie with some pumpkin flavored coffee, and then brought in the actual pumpkins for some carving. 

hope everyone has a fun and safe (and possibly pumpkiny) halloween! 

the simple and the complex

the older i get, the less i know.  ever heard that before?  i remember hearing that when i was younger and being totally bewildered by such aa statement.  how can you possibly know less as you get older?  how can that possibly fit with an equally common phrase, "you learn something new everyday"?  i just didn't understand how if you keep learning throughout your life you could possibly know less at some point then you do now.  life, for me, was something of a puzzle in which the pieces came at you one at a time, sort of like a giant game of tetris.  it was very clear and obvious to me that whatever pieces came to you (whether good stuff or bad stuff, circumstances, information, events - anything that makes up your life) could be pieced together in a way that fit nicely and kept the game going. 

"risk vs. certianty" by lorrain lawson

but then i got older.  and i learned more.  in fact, everyday i kept learning something new.  and it seemed that the more i learned, the less clear things became.  what was once so clean and clear and smooth, upon further investigation was not nearly so.  instead, things became complicated.  things that were black and white, upon further review, were actually infinitely nuanced by shades of grey.  what was once so simple, was now so complicated.  this was, for a time, disorienting and overwhelming. 

but then i got older.  and i kept learning.  and one of the things i learned is that you can know everything about something, but not really know it at all.  like the teacher of the law who came to Jesus with a full knowledge of the whole law: when he asked Jesus what the greatest part of the Law was, Jesus gave him an answer that had very little to do with his complicated study of the law.  he told him to love God completely and love your neighbor limitlessly.  it was simple.  maybe not so simple to put into practice.  but certainly simple to understand. 

and so i have come full circle.  in terms of certainty, i recognize that life is not the giant game of tetris i once thought it was.  there are things that just don't fit nicely.  there are questions that i simply don't know the answer to.  there are events that just don't make sense.  there are grey areas that i cannot explain away or judge to be right or wrong.  there are huge chunks of life that are beyond my ability to understand completely.  in short, life is very complicated.  but i have also come to see that all that complexity and complication leads us back to a very simple truth: that we are not God.  that God alone is God and that God alone should be trusted to be God, to redeem and reconcile, and to love us.  and my response to that isn't complicated, either.  it is simple: to be loved and to love in return. 

“Permit me, sir, to give you one piece of advice. Be not so positive; especially with regard to things which are neither easy nor necessary to be determined. When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to man.” -John Wesley

a win-win situation

sunday was a good day for me.  we started off with some great worship led by our youth as we celebrated youth sunday.  after church i came home, ate some pumpkin pasta and settled in to see the steelers play the undefeated minnesota vikings.  it was yet another heart attack-inducing game, but in the end the steelers were the victors, thanks to two incredible defensive scores on turnovers.  i am particularly enjoying the pictures above where the indecisive one (favre) is watching our backup linebacker, keyaron fox, run down the field with the ball, and the one in which james harrison is driving favre into the heinz field turf.  it reminds me of something i blogged about.  anyway, the steelers won their fourth in a row, moved to 5-2, and now have a bye week to rest up before facing the denver broncos.  all in all, they are in a pretty good place for this point in the season. 

but my day wasn't over.  a few hours later was the first pitch in game 6 of the american league championship series, angels and yankees at yankee stadium in the bronx.  it was a beauty by andy pettitte, and the yankees were able to win their 40th pennant in team history, which sends them on to the world series on wednesday to face the phillies. 

i know some of you tire quickly of sports posts, but you need to just understand that i'm at an incredible time in my life as a sports fan.  some fans go through their whole lives without their team reaching the pinnacle of their sport.  here i am in 2009 with the steelers having won the last superbowl and the yankees one of the last two teams competing to win the world series  (not to mention that my favorite college football team - the gators - are the reigning champs and are ranked #1 right now).  i won't have this forever.  the steelers and the yankees were both awful in the 80's, and there will be dry spells like that again.  so i have to appreciate this while i have it! 

pumpkins and pork-fried rice

as you are likely figuring out by now, the boys and i went to a f arm yesterday to go pumpkin picking.  it was a gorgeous, warm fall day here yesterday, and it was my day off, so we headed up to orts farms and fed the animals and jumped on the hay stacks and took a hayride and picked a couple pumpkins.  we stopped for chinese food on the way home.  pumpkin picking and pork-fried rice.  the perfect combo.  actually anything with pork-fried rice is a perfect combo.  anyway, a great day was had by all, and here are some of the pictures to prove it.  have a great weekend!

too heavenly minded?

"don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good." 

ever hear that expression?  i have been pondering it a bit recently, and wanted to know what you think about it.  i have been reading several bloggers and others who react negatively to that sentiment, and who argue that it is impossible to be too heavenly minded.  they say we are supposed to be heavenly minded, that scripture tells us to have the mind of Christ. 

i certainly understand that, but i have always understood it a bit differently.  i always thought that the expression was literally talking about being "heavenly minded," that is, too preoccupied with heaven.  haven't you ever encountered a person of faith who was perhaps a bit too preoccupied with the afterlife?  or maybe you yourself have been?  i have.

i remember a season of my faith journey, when i was in high school, which was consumed with where i would go when i died.  i had a very legalistic faith at that time, and i truly believed that God was tallying my sin like a cosmic scorekeeper, and that i had better convince my sins regularly lest i die in some freak accident with an unconfessed sin, and end up burning for eternity in hell.  this fear literally drove me.  it guided me.  it was a prime mover in my faith, causing me to be incredibly concerned with right behavior.  i spent hours and hours trying to discern what words were okay to say, and which ones weren't; what things were okay to do with a girl, and which things weren't.  i spent an equal amount of time wrestling with guilt associated with all of this.  all of this spent time left me very little time for actually putting my faith into action.  in fact, one could argue that my faith was pretty much paralyzed by a performance issue.  i was worried about heaven and hell, so i became consumed with living correctly, which paradoxically, kept me from living the way Jesus clearly called us to live.  in short, i wasn't loving anyone besides perhaps myself.  this is not the Way Jesus describes in the gospel. 

i was so heavenly minded that i was no earthly good.  i think sometimes people also get too caught up on the glories to come, that they arren't willing to get their hands dirty in the world that is.  so i find that on both ends of this spectrum (heaven and hell) we can find ourselves too caught up in the afterlife to experience the abundant life that Jesus offers to us right here, right now.  frederick buechner writes, "you do not love God and live for him so you will go to heaven.  whichever side of the grave you happen to talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven." 

so those are my thoughts on the issue.  on this october wednesday, i'm just wondering what you think.  hit me up with a comment to let me know. 

you are loved.

"o flow"

greg lamarche

a pastor and preacher whom i deeply respect once told me that every preacher has one sermon that they essentially preach over and over again.  variations on a theme.  that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but his point is well-taken.  there are certainly a few "main things" for my ministry, but paramount among them is trying to help people understand just how wildly God loves them.  let me rephrase: i think a huge part of my ministry - the main part - is trying to understand just how wildly God loves me, and then sharing that with others along the journey.  i truly believe that is my calling. 

and so i keep preaching it.  if i'm preaching about baptism, or about the church, or about hope, or about sin, it just keeps coming back to the fact that we are infinitely and wildly and unbelievably and uncontrollably and deeply and widely and extravagantly and jealously and almost embarassingly loved by our maker.  not as we should be.  not even as we could be.  but just as we are.  with our wrinkles and stretch marks. with our moles and warts.  with our morning breath and evening gas.  with the skeletons both in and out of our closets.  with our heaviest guilt and our deepest shame.  those are often the things we see first when we think about how God sees us.  but the truth is that God sees everything clearly, and loves us for all of it.  if that blows your mind just a little, good.  if it blows your mind alot, even better.  it should.

my favorite passage of scripture (have i written this before?) is zephaniah 3:17, which paints such an aweseome picture of God, a picture so different from the judgmental, harsh, score-keeping god that many of us not only grew up with, but continue to imagine to this very day.  it is a picture of a God who is with us ("the Lord your God is with you," zephaniah writes), who journeys along side of us, who doesn't get exasperated with us and walk away (as most of us would with ourselves, if we had the chance).  zephaniah paints a picture of a God who sooths and quiets us; tells us to relax, like a parent holding a shaking child.  rich mullins once sang, "so hold me Jesus, cause i'm shakin' like a leaf..."  and i believe God answered his prayer, time and time again.  God holds us tightly, whispering words of comfort and assurance in our ears, speaking love into our lives through beauty and sacrifice and grace and hope. 

zephaniah also says that God 'takes great delight in us.'  did you get that?  because i believe that phrase is so counter cultural that it is a difficult pill for most christians to swallow.  we are so trained to approach God with a sin-first mentality, that is, focusing on how bad we are and how much we've messed up and all the things we have to confess.  and i'm not trying to belittle the reality of sin here, because truly sin continues to break God's heart and our own, but i'm trying to get us to see exactly what the bible says here about the radical love of God: that God takes great delight in us.  zephaniah could have said, "God puts up with you because of love."  or he could have written, "God really enjoys you when you are doing the right thing."  but he didn't say any of that.  he said, quite simply and amazingly, "God takes great delight in you."  simple.  great delight.  God laughs when God sees you.  God enjoys you.  so much so, says zephaniah, that God rejoices over you with singing.  that's right.  you read it here first (well, actually, in the Bible first, but let's not split hairs), the God of all creation sings songs of deep love and joy over you. 

we could spend the rest of our lives trying to sort that out.  and we should.  i am convinced that the more we allow ourselves to surrender our self-loathing, our guilt, our shame, and our childish insistence on holding onto an outdated picture of God, the more we will be able to experience the abundant life Jesus wants to give us (john 10:10), and the more we can live out the great center of our faith (loving god, loving others, and sharing this good news with others).  we love because God first loved us.  that's what the bible tells us.  but if we don't first try and understand just how loved we are, then we will not be all that effective in sharing it with one another. 

and so that's it for me.  that's my sermon.  that's my ministry in a nutshell.  i want you to know that you are beloved.  that you are sung over.  that you are celebrated.  that you are loved by the God who made you, who redeemed you, and who longs to journey forward with you in abundant living relationship.  and i want to say it over and over again, because we continue to need to hear it. 

you are loved.

my perfect (sports) storm

yeah, another monday, another sports post.  but this time, i really can't help myself.  i had the midas touch of sports this week.  every team that i wanted to win, won.  every team that i wanted to lose, lost.  i felt charmed or something.  it was truly my perfect storm. 

first of all, the first two games of the ALCS happened this weekend, and many people didn't even think they would get the games in, due to rain, but i wanted them to happen, so they happened (remember, this is my sports fantasy here).  the yankees won the first game with relative ease on friday night, and then played into the wee hours of sunday morning.  i stayed up and watched them battle back and forth with the angels until about 1:15 in the morning, when the yankees finally finished it, going up 2-0 in the series. 

by this time, i had already realized my luck.  the yanks won on friday.  pitt beat rutgers on friday night.  then on saturday both of my favorite college football teams won: penn state and florida.  heck, even our local high school team won on friday night.  then the yankees won again on saturday night, so i knew i was on a roll.  i was just hoping that it continued into sunday.

and it did.  oh, baby, did it ever!  the steelers beat the browns for like the 52nd time in a row.  but, what's more, the bengals and ravens lost!  plus all the other teams that i marginally don't like (can you say eagles?) also lost.  amazing.  too bad i didn't know this earlier, or i could have made a ton of money with this gift this weekend! 

in all seriousness, if you know me, you know i love sports (well, baseball and football, mostly, although i root for the penguins, too, and they also won this weekend) and so this was a really fun weekend for me.  so, smile for me, even if your team lost.  maybe your perfect storm is on the horizon.  have a good monday. 

saturday song: rain

given the weather here the last few days, i thought this would be an appropriate saturday song.  hope it's a bit drier where you are.  "i just want another chance to live..."




also:  good sports weekend.  the yankees defeated the halo's last night in game 1 of the alcs.  they are supposed to play again today if they can find some time when its not raining.  the steelers play the brownies tomorrow at 1.  pitt beat rutgers last night, and there is some more good college football on today.  i love this time of year.  i might just make a fire in the fireplace and get my sports on. 

apple picking, 2009

amazingly, it's that time of year again.  in fact, it's not only autumn, it seems to be nearly winter here already, as it is 37 degrees out as i write this, and we had a winter weather advisory in our area last night, with a chance of some snow.  unbelievable.  so, before we missed our chance, we went out to the orchard last weekend and did our annual apple picking.  cade is in the stage where he picks up every apple he can find and takes a bite of it, like some kind of orchard taste tester or something.  (if you go apple picking, check thoroughly for tiny little bites).  thought you might enjoy just a few of our pics from the day...

have a great weekend!

child-joy (dance like you mean it)

my sister mary recently shared this video with me, and i just have to pass it on to you because it will make you smile and i'm feeling like the whole world just needs to complain less and smile more right now, so here you go.  just enjoy the complete uninhibited freedom child-joy.  and see if you can discover some of your own, too.  maybe you could turn on a song you like and dance like you mean it.  that would at least be a good start.   have a great thursday.

studying the shack

i am in the middle of leading a ten-week course which is going through the astronomically popular novel The Shack, and taking a look at its themes by comparing what we find in the novel to what we find in scripture.  there are many who have argued that this novel presents such a dangerous threat to orthodox faith that people shouldn't even read it, but my take is that we ought to be able to speak the language of our culture, whether that be secular culture, or the various dialects of christianese that are widely spoken.  for me, that means that people should read this book, but read it, as it were, with the novel in one hand and the Bible in the other.  we don't have to take everything we read as Gospel.  we already have the Gospel!  on the other hand, it is a central part of my faith that God speaks to us through many media, even ones that may not be orthodox.

so we've spent the last five tuesday nights (we're averaging about 20 in the study) engaging in some really valuable discussions about the trinity, and Christ's divinity/humanity, and how we understand God and where God is in the midst of our suffering.  we have truly had some amazing conversations, and i have been blessed by our journey so far. 

we have had many interesting thoughts and questions that have arisen over these five weeks, but one of the most interesting, in my opinion, had to do with how we picture God.  many of us, if we are forced to try and picture God, can only conjure up an old, white-bearded wise man, or else some kind of nebulous ball of light and spirit.  neither of these images are wrong, per se, but they are certainly incomplete.  the whole width and breadth of God is something our finite minds cannot grasp in one fell swoop (or perhaps even in one lifetime).  God appears to Mack in The Shack as an exuberant African-American woman who likes to hug him and sing and cook and tell him that she's "particularly fond" of him.  the author has God appear to mack like this because he is trying to show that God is challenging mack, trying to stretch his understanding of the character and nature of God.  mack had really settled into the idea of a very stoic, male, and  stern God.  and i repeat, those things aren't necessarily wrong, just incomplete.  so, God's character is wider (and wilder) than we can possibly imagine. and so that poses a question for us:  if we were to approach the shack, as mack did, and raise our hand to knock on the door, what kind of image for God would greet us?  in other words, how might God appear to you to challenge your presuppositions and your expectations?  to answer really requires some pretty serious reflections on how you normally relate to God.  i would challenge you to spend some time thinking and searching your heart on this, because if you honestly work at this, you might open the door to discovering some aspects of God's character that you've been missing or ignoring or avoiding. 

oh, and for the one person who asked what i'm reading right now (thanks, crafty p), i'm reading this and this this, and just for fun i'm about to start this. 

columbus needs a day off

happy columbus day, everyone.  kind of a weird holiday, in my opinion, but as i am home with my family today, i will not complain about it.  judging from the picture above, it appears that ol' chris himself could have used a day off or two, or even a whole vacation.  maybe a nice cruise. 

here in the new world, i am waking up slowly on this monday morning, having stayed up fairly late cherishing a wonderful sunday that started off with worship, continued with buffalo wings with the family, proceeded with a steelers victory, a short nap, and commenced with the yankees finishing an ALDS sweep of the twins to move to the ALCS.  oh, i forgot to mention the icing on the cake: the red sox got swept! 

i'm not going to give a full account of the steelers game here.  i'll leave that to behind the steel curtain, one for the other thumb, mondesi's house, steelers gab, steelers today, and many others.  instead, let me just say that while i agree with most of steeler nation that it would have been nice if we won this by 4 touchdowns, i do not think that the steelers are as bad as you think.  there are some obvious problems with keeping their foot on the accelerator, along with providing ample coverage in the secondary sans troy polamalu, but there are some distinct advantages in exposing these problems in early october and being able to 'get back in the lab' as tomlin likes to say.  troy will return.  the offense will continue to roll.  arians will fine tune his play calling.  and the steelers will make a legitimate run once again.  you heard it here.  flex.

after the steelers won, i discovered the red sox had lost, which really made my afternoon.  i was really happy for the angels really satisfied that papelbon failed in the playoffs.  he wants to be mariano, but he will never be.  which leads us to our final sports story of the day, to complete the trifecta:

thhhheeeeeeee yaaaaaankeeeeeees wiiiiiiiinnnnnn!!!!  (that's a john sterling reference, for you non-yankee people).  in a dominating series, particularly from the pitching perspective, the yankees took care of the surging twins in 3 straight games.  credit must also be given to the captain derek jeter, who continued to get on base and make smart plays, and to arod, who had some huge clutch hits in the series, possibly (and finally) getting him off the postseason schnide.  the yanks get the angels next, starting friday night, which means we have 4 nights in a row without yankee baseball.  blech. 

so there you have it.  a recap of my particularly awesome sports day.  sorry if you don't like sports.  i'll try not to write about it tomorrow.  any requests?  that's what i thought.

saturday song: things you don't say

happy saturday, friends.  if your week has been anything like mine, it is about time for it.  unfortunately, it's a busy day  here today.  shannon is baking apple pies all morning at the church for a youth fundraiser, and then i've got a wedding meeting this afternoon, and then a wedding after that.  finally this evening i'll be doing a 3 hour acoustic concert with my friend justin down at friendly grounds coffeehouse in flemington, nj.  if you're in the area between 7 and 10 tonight, i would love it if you stopped by.  here's one of the songs we'll be singing:

schwitters

when i first started identifiying my unexplainable love of gluing things together, i did some research on the history of collage, and found that, at least as far as mainstream art is concerned, it hasn't had a very stellar reputation.  one exception, however, is the work of avant garde artist kurt schwitters (1887-1948) whose self-described "merz" art still inspires many folks today.  when i first discovered it, i fell in love with it.  to this day i am just as moved by a schwitters as any van gogh.  here is a pretty classic example of one of schwitters works:

so i recently thought i would try to somewhat imitate this great master of collage, just to see if i could pay a little homage (in my own way) to schwitters.  i had a great deal of fun doing this, as it is a bit of a different style for me (much more angular), and may do more of it in the future.  let me know what you think. 

"schwitters/rubens"

paper collage on cardboard panel

gregory a. milinovich

throwback thursday: choir

ah yes, here i am circa easter, 1992, singing in my church's youth choir.  we were called the revelation choir.  we were not only known for our singing classicly arranged Christian SATB pieces from the late 80's, but also for our progressive fashion sense.  look at those floral prints.  that's me right in the center of the back row, clearly in the middle of scratching out a pubescently pure-sounding "holy" or something like that.  i am one of the few revelation choir members actually looking at our conductor.  always the rule-follower.

in other news, the mlb playoffs started yesterday, which officially makes this the greatest part of the sports year for me.  baseball playoffs.  nfl season.  good stuff. 

in even better news, the yankees won their first game yesterday against the twins, which sets them up nicely for the rest of this series.  first team to 3 wins.  we'll see what happens, but i was proud of my boy derek jeter who played a great game, including a big 2-run home run.  let's go yankees!

for those wondering about max, they gave him steroids for the sculiosis, so he is now roughly the size of a WWII battle tank and he is inexplicably trying to hold a baseball bat.  also thinking about putting him in a giants jersey.  anyway, the roids are helping him alot.  he seems like nothing ever happened.  i hope that when this regiment of roids is over, he is still this good.  that would be great.  thanks for your thoughts.  it was hard seeing him in so much pain.

i don't know if most of you have already seen this website, but i feel obligated to share it with you, like it is my civil duty or something.  it is called people of walmart, and it is NOT for the easily offended.  the idea is that people who are shopping at walmart, when they might see someone dressed in an unusual way, or with an interesting haircut, take a picture and send it to this site.  they take the best of them, write some funny captions, and put them on the internets for the whole world to see just how classy we keep it here in america.  it is at once hilarious and nauseating.  go to it at your own risk. 

well, have a great thursday.  please think carefully about what you wear to the store, and don't stop singing. 

greg.

accordian craziness

this one's for you, dad.  enjoy!

seize the day (right here, right now)

As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.  For he says,   "In the time of my favor I heard you,  and in the day of salvation I helped you."  I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.  2 Corinthians 6:1-2

last sunday i preached on this text, suggesting that the church ought to be getting busy doing the work we are called to be doing right now.  i talked about how there are a bunch of very ambiguous words in our normal conversation, such as "later," "soon," and "maybe."  these words can be frustrating at times, as we try to navigate through people's expectations and deadlines that are often wrapped in ambiguity.  and that's why i love this little section of 2 Corinthians.  it isn't ambiguous.  it is very clear.  NOW.  now is not an ambiguous word.  as i said in my sermon on sunday, if i say, "get over here, now!" to my kids, they understand exactly what i mean.  no interpretation needed.  likewise, it seems pretty clear that this passage of scripture isn't leaving it up to our imaginations when we ought to making sure that God's grace isn't being recieved in vain.  not later.  not at some point down the road.  not tomorrow.  now.

reminds me of robin williams standing on his desk with barbaric yawps and whispering in those boys' ears: "carpe diem.  sieze the day." 

in another book i'm reading today's thought had to do with 'redefining normal," in terms of standing up against cultural prejudices and norms and determining to welcome the stranger, love the outcast, and embrace the wounded.  i found my spirit resonating with that message, because that is what i see exemplified by Jesus in the Bible. 

but then the Holy Spirit had to go and convict me: well then, do it.  seize the day.  you are so moved by loving the outcasts and welcoming the stranger?  you want to tear down walls of racism and sexism and ageism and classism and whatever else-ism?  when will you do it?  tomorrow?  when you're older?  when you're wiser?  when you've got a bigger budget?  now is the day of salvation.  now. 
in my head, the Holy Spirit talks in purple. 

many christians, when they think of this verse from 2 corinthians, think of those "turn or burn" signs on the highway in the middle of cornfields in pennsylvania. 

but i don't see it that way.  instead of picturing standing on the brink of eternity trying to make a decision, try to imagine standing on your desk.  or on your car.  or anything out of the normal, just to get a different perspective on life.  and see things a little differently.  and realize that the world isn't yet the way God wants it.  we still have a lot of work to do to build this kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.  we have a lot of people to love, and a ton of walls to tear down.  and we can't wait to do it.  the time is now.  keep this song in your head today, and being to seize the day. 

killer cat

hello friends.  sorry for the couple-day hiatus there.  life seems to be happening at a faster pace than ever this fall, and so i need to find some ways to adjust my schedule to still do things i want/need to do for my own sanity (i.e., blog).  at least my spirits are up this week as the steelers rebounded from their two-week losing streak and found a way to win at home against the chargers on sunday night.

props need to be given to this guy, rashard mendenhall (#34), last year's #1 draft pick out of illinois, who was a force in the game.  with fast willie out with turf toe, mendy filled in nicely and ran with some real determination and will.  it also needs to be said that the offensive line was awesome in all aspects of the game (until the penalties at the end), opening up nice holes for mendy and giving ben all kinds of time to make reads and throws.  all in all, it was a good game with a dominant first half.  at some point after it was 28-0 in the third qtr., i began texting people how happy i was to finally have a blowout win, that my heart needed a win that didn't involve last minute shananigans, and so forth.  the steelers then proceeded to put my heart through the wringer by making it much closer than it ever should have been, making some key mistakes.  BUT, they end up winning 38-28, and my sunday night was much better than it has been, thank you very much.  now they're 2-2, and looking forward to playing larry foote and the lions on sunday. 

in other news, i had the worst headache that maybe i've ever had yesterday.  it started in the back of my neck and just worked up.  medicine didn't seem to help.  i just wanted to lay down and not breathe (breathing hurt).  thankfully, it is over this morning, though i just feel like i had whiplash or something. 

the apple store gave me a new ipod on saturday.  so, while i am sad about the fact that i lost a close friend, i now have a new one, and have already started getting to know her. 

i had a dream last night that a very mean cat was living in our house and only came out when all the lights were off.  when i would get out of bed to go to the bathroom or go check on my kids, the cat would attack my ankles with an other-worldly fury.  stupid cat.

speaking of animals, our dog max isn't doing so well.  he is in all sorts of pain right now, but we can't quite figure out why.  the doc told us yesterday that he's got some pretty advanced sculiosis (no idea how to spell it) which means that some of the vertebre in his back are beginning to fuse together, which is like an arthritic thing.  still, that doesn't really explain it to me, as it seems his pain is more centralized in his abdomen and man-parts area.  all i know for sure is that it breaks my heart to see him lying there one minute and then crying out in pain the next minute, for no apparent reason.  poor guy.

hope everyone has a great tuesday. 

saturday song: heart it races

it's time for a saturday song.  here's a song that makes me happy everytime it comes up on my shuffle.  weird song.  weird lyrics.  weird video. weird  band.   but it sure does make me smile. 

hope you have a great saturday. 

it's grove city college's homecoming today, which means that it's my wife's 10-year college reunion.  yay.  we're getting old. 

draco's breakfast, sigur ros, and rehearsals

the other day i go to pour myself a bowl of delicious golden grahams, and i discover this on the back of my box.  that's right.  draco malfoy is now a spokesperson for the cereal we all love. 

okay, maybe not really.  but, admit it, if draco would ever smile, he would look like this.  at least, that's what my wife thinks.  that must be why she took the time to deface this cereal box with a sharpie. 

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in other news, i'm pretty convinced that there is one band who is making the most soul-wrenching, life-giving, God-inhabited music, and that  band is iceland's own sigur ros (pronounced sih-ur-rose).  if you have never heard of this band, please check them out.  their music is emotive and hopeful.  it is at once ethereal and heavenly, while somehow remaining distinctly human and earthy.  if i die and find myself walking down a tunnel towards a bright light, i fully expect that the soundtrack to that trek will be sigur ros. 

here is a version of a song of theirs called samskeyti, which could be translated as 'attachment,' and this video comes from a full length documentary of theirs called heima (home), which documents their return to iceland after a world tour, and their decision to play a series of unanounced concerts in small towns throughout iceland in places like abandoned factories and outdoors.  the film is an epic piece of visual and audio art.  i watched it last night and was completely mesmerized.  (if you are reading this in my facebook notes, and you can't see the video, please recognize that i don't write this in facebook.  this is my blog.  you can come check it out in its orange-ish entirity at http://www.agentorangerecords.blogspot.com/.  you will find the video embedded there.)

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it's a weekend of rehearsals.  i had a wedding rehearsal last night for a wedding i'm doing this evening.  then tomorrow morning we are having confirmation rehearsal for our 27 confirmands who will be confirmed on sunday morning.  it's an interesting activity, really, to rehearse worship.  in fact, some might argue that it robs the worship of its spirit when you have to rehearse it and get so tied up in details like where to stand and when to sit and which direction you should be facing, and so forth.  but i think it honors God, if done correctly.  when we rehearse, we are preparing.  we are suggesting that the upcoming moment is so important, so monumental, that we don't want to mess it up. we want to make sure the details are all worked out ahead of time, so that we can be fully present when the time arrives.  we ought to be as prepared for every worship service, every time we approach the One who turns the ordinary into holy ground. 

throwback thursday: cowboy

howdy, ya'll.  about ten years ago shannon and i were invited to a cowboy wedding, and so i tried to dress the part.  the bride entered the wedding riding a horse.  we had a blast, channeling our inner rednecks.  thought some of you might enjoy this picture. 

in other news, my ipod crashed last week, and i'm just now coming to terms with that.  i'm preparing to take it to the ipod store today to see what they can do with it.  i'm nervous.

also to be filed in the "things i'm just now coming to terms with" category is the fact that the steelers have lost two straight games.  i don't know what to make of that, especially with a very tough game coming up on sunday night.  nervous doesn't even come close to describing my state right now.

great quote i read on len sweet's facebook page yesterday:  Too many of us living out there as if Jesus were coming tomorrow when we should be living as if Jesus were here today. Because he is.

watched a movie last night: 21.  its about some MIT students who go to vegas and count cards.  i thought it was fun.  very hollywood.  but had a great little twisting surprise at the end which entertained me. 

shannon was watching the biggest loser the other night.  i'm not normally that into that show (the tear per minute ratio on that program is through the roof - people are crying the whole time.  easy with the waterworks, people.).  however, something really cool happened at the end of the show the other night.  if you dvr-ed the show, then stop reading this now (SPOILER), but i saw something that i just don't see much of in our culture today, particularly on reality television: self-sacrifice.  to keep it short: there were two teams of two that were "below the line" and could have been sent home.  one of the teams decided that the other team needed the support and discipline of continuing in the game more than they did, and so they sacrificed their time on the show, willingly sacrificing themselves and a chance to win a bunch of money, because they legitimately cared about one of the other players as a human being, not just as a competitor.  as much as i hate to admit it, i was very moved by the biggest loser.  we could certainly use some more of that kind of self-sacrifice.  one of the earliest hymns of the church identifies it as crucial, "consider others better than yourself" (phil. 2). 

have a great thursday.  i'll check you tomorrow. 

nervously,
greg.