the unlikely orange

after mentioning christmas lights in my last post, a thread began to emerge in the comments regarding the validity of blue lights for christmas. noting that this is of utmost theological importance, i thought it would be a valuable blogersation (can i just make up a word like that?). so, here's the question: is blue a legitimate color for christmas lights? discuss. greg.

it is finished. yesterday afternoon i went to the postal annex and overnighted all of my paperwork to the conference office. its not due until monday, but i really wanted to get it to the office early so that i was absolutely sure it got there and there are no issues with it. it is a box with 20 paper copies of all my paperwork, a cd with all my paperwork, and a video of my sermon. i had expected that when i sent that all to the conference office i would breathe a deep sigh of relief. but it wasn't quite like that. as i drove home from the postal annex my anxiety began to rise (if you've been around me the last few weeks you are probably wondering how my anxiety level could possibly rise). i mean, when i was holding onto it i still had some control over it. yeah, it meant hard and sometimes tedious work, but it also meant that i could fix anything with it. now that it is gone i have no control. i can only sit here and hope that it is right. and hope isn't such a b...

so this is a crazy week in the milinovich house. not only do we have the normal insanity of maintainting a livable household with a toddler and an infant, but we have several other things to attend to. tonight is our annual church conference, which means, among other things, that our district superintendent will be walking through the parsonage this afternoon. what this means for me is, well, not a whole lot. what this means for shannon, however, is cleaning up every dust mite, whether real or imagined. i believe she is cleaning away the potential of dirt. she is really into this cleaning thing. when i dust, i use my hand to brush away the most visible offenders. you know what i mean - the quarter-inch thick layer of dust on your dresser. this i wipe with my hand. shannon, on the other hand (no pun intended), removes everything from the dresser and uses a rag with some cleaning agent on it. this is far too much effort for me. --- its not just the church conference. as you know i hav...

all i really have to say today is, "whew," said while wiping the sweat from my brow.

(i started this post on saturday but didn't finish it until today) hey friends. i'm sitting at a laptop at my parents' dining room table out in western pennsylvania. we've been here for thanksgiving, and while we will journey east today back to 'jack's house' as he calls it, i thought i would just check in and give you a glimpse of a 'milinovich family thanksgiving.' we got here on wednesday evening. one of the first things we did was eat. we ate well. we also talked quite a bit, and played a little game we like to call 'music jeopardy' where we simply use the digital music channels and try to guess song, artist and album as quickly as possible. fun game. thursday is a day of gluttony, at least for me. each year i tell myself that i am not going to eat too much, but each year the food keeps getting piled higher and higher on my plate until i need a shovel more than a fork and a cow's stomach more than my own. after over-consumption of del...

"the leader of the band" oil pastels, oil paint, and paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich i haven't been doing as much with my art the last couple of weeks, because of all my work for ordination, but i had some folks in my office last night who were looking through a book of some of my art, and, simple as that might seem, it was just a very affirming exercise for me to share it with someone else. it is relatively easy to share it here online because i don't have to see your reaction. when you look at it and cringe and scrunch up your nose like you just ate an entire bushel of lemons, i don't have to see it. so there's a built-in distance that makes it all seem less intimate and scary. but sitting with some people, face-to-face, looking at my work was a completely different sensation. at least they had to be polite. anyway, i say all that to say that it rekindled in my the joy that my collages bring me and my struggle about sharing them ...

give thanks, o greg. shout out, almost irreverently, your great gratitude. there is joy in your house, give thanks! there are smiles on your children's faces, give thanks! there is coffee in your mug, give thanks! there is newness in your morning, give thanks! there is music all around you, Spirit all in you, and life everywhere. give thanks, you fortunate husband. give thanks, you first-born son. give thanks, you father of song and smile. give thanks, now and always, for you are blessed beyond your knowing. greg.

"in our image" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich hello friends. happy saturday morning. don't know what you are up to today but i hope it involves some measure of noticing the leaves strewn all about your feet like rose petals at a wedding. the trees, even in settling into a solemn sleep, still celebrate and make their joyous noises. i hope your day includes breathing. and noticing it. and thanking your maker for it. and remembering just how freaking amazing it is that all of us in all our diversity are scurrying around on this planet like ants sharing this same air. the collage above is one i made this week. i didn't really have any intentions when i started it, but as it began to take shape it became about creation for me. often when i make a collage it isn't a theological statement so much as a visual reflection. do i believe God has hundreds of people in God's hair? no. do i believe God looks like a human woman (taken fr...

here is jack and i at the toys-r-us in new york city with a'ndrea and jacqueline wilp. yes, we got the my little pony car. and i'm still smiling.

psalm 145:1 i will extol you my God and king, and bless your name for ever and ever. we often sing songs in worship about blessing God's name. i distinctly remember one particular time when we did and this woman came up to me after the service a bit upset about the song. "how can we possibly bless God?" she asked. "isn't God so much greater than us, and shouldn't he be the one doing the blessing?" i thought that was an interesting question, and one that reveals a lack of understanding about what it means to bless. but i heard this verse from psalm 145 last week, and it really got me thinking about what it means to bless God's name. here was/is my train of thought. choo choo. a child doesn't really do much of anythign if she says to her parent, "i bless you, mom and dad." i mean, it would be pretty cute, no doubt about it, but it doesn't really mean much if it isn't backed up with something more than words, some real bles...

i don't have as much time as i'd like to blog today (see post below about my ordination journey), but i would be remiss if i didn't at least put a picture here of the steelers browns game. for those of you who don't like football or don't understand my passion for it, sorry. it is what it is. i love it. and i especially love a steelers victory. however it comes. i would prefer if they could win 55-0 every week. i often think that in heaven, the steelers play every day of the week (except the sabbath, of course) and they dominate every game. for me, that's heaven. still, if they can't blow a team out; if they must be losing at halftime; if they have to make a fourth quarter comeback (twice) to win the game; i'll take it. as long as they win. if heath miller happens to punch some defensive back in the face as he picks up a first down along the way, that's just icing on the cake. hey, its a 'stiff arm.' anyway, the steelers beat the brownies ...

so last night was an awesome night that i want to share with you. we got a call yesterday morning that some friends of ours (the wilps) were going to see the little mermaid on broadway and had extra tickets and would like us to come. as it turned out, we knew there was no way caedmon could go into the city all day and sit in a theater for so long, so we decided that just jackson and i would go. i'm am so grateful that they invited us and so glad that we accepted because it was an awesome day! we left town around 2:30, picked up their daughter, andrea, at her school and then drove to weehawken to pick up the ferry. jack loved the ferry, as he always seems to love all forms of transportation. he kept looking at all the boats on the river and saying, "after i'm done on this boat, i'm riding that boat!" we got over to the city, and took a bus to times square. now this is jack's first time in the city in about a year, so i was concerned that he might be a little ov...

in the united methodist church the ordination process is just that: a process. it's a journey that i've been on pretty actively since 1998. i assume that very people have any understanding of that process, and most of you probably don't care to. but i also assume that not many of you understand where i am on that journey, and so i thought i would share a little bit about that today, since i am at a pretty critical juncture. at my annual conference (the 3 or 4-day meeting of clergy and lay representatives from my whole conference which is all of new jersey) in 2005 i was commissioned as a probationary elder. that probationary status lasts at least three years. during this time i have been involved in mentoring, continuing study, and annual review. the three years will be up at this coming annual conference in june of 2008, at which time i would be a candidate for ordination. what this means is that i have been busy this fall. there are a ton of necessary preparations...

as i continue to study the psalms this year, i continue to write my own. but this one, this is one that i found in an old journal. one that i wrote in october of 1995, over 12 years ago. i was 19. psalm 42 _______ The lonely deep inside me calls deeper still - to slide carelessly off this sliver of a crescent moon that shadows my pain, into this washing stream i pant longingly for to quench the thirst on my powdered tongue by the weeping rain. The ominous waves sweep over the tears i drink. The roar of this waterfall crushes my bones of fragile, cracked clay. My shipwrecked soul sinks from the surface to the drowning depths of my miserable mourning where i begin to pray. Now i will praise You, my Savior and my God! You show me Your love in the sunlight that shines even here in this dark deep. And so I willingly give to You any fragment of hope left in me, and in the hum of the darkness Your song of healing gives my weary soul sleep. You are t...

as you ought to know, the steelers played some monday night football last night, and even though the game was in pittsburgh, we were absolutely ready for it here in new jersey. some of you realize what a crazy fan i am of this team, but many of you may not. so, during the game last night i just jotted down some of my thoughts so that you can see just how ridiculously into this i get. enjoy. 1. could it possibly rain any harder? 2. james harrison now has a sack and a forced fumble on the ravens first possession. all i heard about before the game was the incredible and inspired ravens defense, led by thug, um, i mean ray lewis and the heralded bart scott and trevor pryce. the latter was unable to bring down big ben who made him look silly before throwing a touchdown pass. this is sweet! 3. three and out on the ravens 2nd possession? McNair looks old. Big Ben looks alive and strong. 4. james harrison is really using his head - two forced fumbles...with his helmet! 5. is it j...

we went trick-or-treating again this year. wednesday night was the big night, and jack had been talking about it for days. well, weeks really. he's been telling us that he wanted to be a tiger (insert loud ear-damaging roar here) for a long time. and so, after hearing "hold your horses," "be patient," and "only a few more days," too many times, he finally got to pull on the tiger costume, get his face painted, and head out the door armed with an empty plastic pumpkin and a flashlight. cade was a lion. someone said that shannon and i should have been bears, but i thought it wouldn't make sense to say "lion and tiger and bears, oh my!" so instead, shannon and i dressed up as if we were on safari. we were not about to spend big money on costumes, so the only thing we could find (besides our $.99 plastic safari hats) were these khaki fishing vests. we thought they worked. but most people who saw us thought that we were "lion and tiger an...