100,000 Miles

I recently saw this on a friend's blog, and thought that I would flatter him with a copy-cat post.

While driving the youth to the snow last weekend, I looked down at my odometer and noticed that I was about 100 miles from hitting the 100,000 mile mark in my (family's) truck. My Grandpa passed the truck on to us with about 67,000 miles, and now about three years later, I made our caravan of 5 cars pull over on a busy highway so that I could take a picture with the truck...pretty silly, Alexa never really figured out why I would take a picture with my truck, but here it is:

Amazing art

I came across this art today and was blown away as the artist uses only bic pens. I am a horrible student. I like to learn, but I can't sit still for the life of me. I kept all of my old notebooks from both undergraduate and graduate school, and if you were to flip through them, you might find more doodles in the margins than notes on the lines. However, I'm not only a horrible student, I'm also a pretty crappy artist. My drawings suck. They were usually of waves, or mountains, or islands. As a matter of fact they always had to do with where I would rather be...
I know how hard drawing with a bic pen is, but praise God that I am not as a good of an artist as this guy, because then there is no way I would have ever taken any notes if I could draw like this.

If you click on the picture you will go to his webpage, but he is an artist, and some of his drawings may be NSFW.

Geek Cred

Just to keep my geek cred active with Matt, I'm posting to vent my frustrations over Firefox crashing lately...a lot. Matt uses Safari. I use Safari sometimes, usually when listening to music online. I use Flock for MySpace, but Firefox is my go to browser. I might be in the market for a new browser though, if Firefox keeps letting me down.

Afaid of the Light

Not Silverstein, but Plato:

‘We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.’

I think that the tragedy comes because children are very aware of the fear of the dark...heck, I'm aware of my fear of the dark. Fear of the light is much different, and more dangerous, because we aren't always aware of it. We find ourselves digging our heals in, and out of discomfort shift our attention away from the light.
I can think of many times when I rejected the light out of fear. I remember denying the existence of dinosaurs, (BTW, I don't think that there are any real scholars that deny the existence of dinosaurs) because my theology didn't have room for dinosaurs.
I've been told a story of a Christian who rejected the miracle of someone being healed, because their "theology didn't allow it."

We are called to live in the light, let us be excited to emerge for the dark into the light. May our false presuppositions be revealed to be exactly that, and may we run into the marvelous light.

The Gospel by Sage:

I saw a movie at church today,
it was about Jesus.
He died on the cross because strangers killed him. 
But it was ok, because Jesus had to die for us.
But why did Jesus have to die for us?

----------------------------

Why did Jesus die for us? As a pastor you'd think that Sage would have found the perfect audience for this question, but what she didn't know was that her daddy had been struggling with the same question all morning.


It wasn't until college that anyone had really asked me that question in a way that 'for our sins' wouldn't suffice.
The question as to how Jesus' death on the cross provides atonement isn't a new one, but it is a question that the Church hasn't come to a consensus on.

N.T. Wright writes, "I am one of those who think it good that the church has never formally defined 'the atonement', partly because I firmly believe that when Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn't give them a theory, he gave them a meal."

As my daughter begins now to ask me the same question that professors asked me 10 years ago, I find myself with even more questions, as the mystery of Jesus' mysterious death is more a mystery than ever.
Although I think that I have a theologically acceptable answer to Sage's question, I hope that she will be equipped to handle the mystery of the crucifixion, and be ok with having questions answered with more questions and stories.

Proud Papa

Aspen, (23 months) made me so proud yesterday. After watching Dora with her, she walked over to the TV, and said, "TV off." She then turned off the television, I told her to turn off the 'blue button' too, (which powers the receiver/speakers) and I smiled with contentment as she walked over and completed a task that most of her grandparents couldn't have pulled off.
I initially laughed at myself for getting so excited that my almost two-year old could power on and off our entertainment system, but then I got to be truly proud when after turning off the receiver she told Amber that she wanted to wear her "Jesus Shirt."

Is Christmas about compassion or consumerism?

Yesterday we went shopping. In our defense we started out shopping for children off of the Angel Tree at church, but as often is the case, included shopping for our own kids, as well as for ourselves. As we walked through aisles and aisles of plastic crap, the weight of Christmas consumerism was overwhelming.
This year we made the decision to match what we spend on our family with spending on others. That feels like a start, maybe start that will move from 50/50, to 30/70, and eventually 10/90.
Some relatives ask me what the girls need/want for Christmas, and my mind is blank. There is really nothing more that they need, but I can think of a lot other people who do have needs.

Today I read about the Advent Conspiracy, is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion, not consumption. They point out that Christmas, at its core, is about changing the world, not about buying more and more things.

It's one thing to celebrate the festivities of this winter holiday, to go and look at lights, to cut down a tree, to decorate the house...but it's another thing to continue to worship this false god of consumerism. As we study Colossians at Community, and as I talk to students and hear from them how tight of a grip consumerism has over them, I worry about using this day recognized as the birth of our revolutionary Jesus, to fuel the fire of the adversary.

Now...back to Christmas shopping.

Update: Lisa asked me to elaborate as to what I mean by 50/50
For every dollar that we spend on someone that we know, we aim to spend a dollar on someone with needs who we don't know. Orphans, kids whose parents are in jail, children of migrant workers, etc. The idea is that however much money we spend on our own family/friends, we also spend on "the least of these."