I want you to know that I am praying for you this week. I know that many of you are in the heat of preparing for and taking finals and I realize how hard that can be. Finals always had this weird anticlimactic feeling to me. It’s like there is no last party or get-together except for graduation, which is really just for seniors, but even then there are so many family members around it isn’t the same. It just feels like there is no real “goodbye.” No countdown at Times Square with confetti falling and air-horns bleating. Everyone just slowly goes away leaving behind a ghost town of a campus.
I used to have this feeling about Bonita Park too. That is until one of the wisest men I know, Bob Kirby, straightened me out. I was in the kitchen cooking, he stopped in to say “goodbye” and I told him how sad I was that he was leaving and that I wished he could be around all the time. He answered purely and simply by saying “that’s what heaven is for.” I think he was right. We don’t need to be sad when we say goodbye to our friends because the relationships we nourish here on earth will be continued infinitely and perfectly in heaven.
I am so excited to begin nourishing new relationships with all of you very soon. I look forward to working with Kyle this week, Brittany and many of the crowd from SNU next week, the Portales group the beginning of the week after, and I most of all look forward to all of us being together Friday the 22nd.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Velvet food for thought
As food for thought for your Tuesday here is a quote from Velvet Elvis, one of the books I am considering for our summer staff devotionals.
"Jesus is the arrangement. Jesus is the design. Jesus is the intelligence. For a Christian, Jesus’ teachings aren’t to be followed because they are a nice way to live a moral life. They are to be followed because they are the best possible insight into how the world really works. They teach us how things are.
I don’t follow Jesus because I think Christianity is the best religion. I follow Jesus because he leads me into ultimate reality. He teaches me to live in tune with how reality is. When Jesus said, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’, he was saying that his way, his words, his life is our connection to how things truly are at the deepest levels of existence. For Jesus then, the point of religion is to help us connect with ultimate reality, God. I love the way Paul puts it in the book of Colossians: These religious acts and rituals are shadows of the reality. ‘The reality...is found in Christ.’"
"Jesus is the arrangement. Jesus is the design. Jesus is the intelligence. For a Christian, Jesus’ teachings aren’t to be followed because they are a nice way to live a moral life. They are to be followed because they are the best possible insight into how the world really works. They teach us how things are.
I don’t follow Jesus because I think Christianity is the best religion. I follow Jesus because he leads me into ultimate reality. He teaches me to live in tune with how reality is. When Jesus said, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’, he was saying that his way, his words, his life is our connection to how things truly are at the deepest levels of existence. For Jesus then, the point of religion is to help us connect with ultimate reality, God. I love the way Paul puts it in the book of Colossians: These religious acts and rituals are shadows of the reality. ‘The reality...is found in Christ.’"
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Connor's epic fail
epic fail (ep'ic fāl)
noun
1. "Fail" is the name of a popular internet meme where users superimpose the word "fail" or "epic fail" onto embarrassing, ironic, or compromising photos or short videos.
2. What happened to Connor on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 when he tested the new, and never to be used again, zipline braking system.
catastrophic fail (ka-tə-strä-fik fāl)
noun
1. an "epic fail" that involves serious injury or death.
2. a cooler way to say "epic fail".
3. what would have happened if Connor's neck instead of his legs would have gotten wrapped up in the new, and never to be used again, zipline braking system at thirty miles an hour.
Hey all!
So, Eddie, Felecia and I tried to install the new zipline braking system yesterday. The idea was for us to lower and tighten the cable so that our participants would come screaming across the pond with no chance of getting stuck over the water. Theoretically this would also eliminate the need for a lift as the participants would end their ride nearly touching the ground.
The flaw of our design came in the braking system. As you can imagine if a rider were to come down the line without slowing at all the result would be, well, catastrophic. Our braking system consisted of a long, indestructable bungee cord which ran from anchors on the ground on either side of the zipline cable up to a "brake block" that was attached to the cable making an inverted "V" of bungee. The rider would, in theory, ride down, hit the brake block, the bungees would stretch, and the ride would be over. This all seemed good, until I tried it.
For the full story of what happened when you would have to ask Felecia or Eddie because I was so flipped around I mostly blacked out once I hit. What I remember is constantly accelerating up to what I guess was thirty miles an hour until I hit the brake block. At this point evidence and eye-witness reports suggest that I hit the brake block sideways with the backs of my legs draped over the bungee which caused my upper body to flip down and wrap around the bungee over and over again. I flipped so hard, in fact, that my sunglasses flew from where I stopped near the catch lift all the way to the catch tower.
Well that is my story. Needless to say we reverted to the old catch system and are considering plan B.
I have finished and love Blue Like Jazz. Buy it and read it yesterday. Here is a quote I paraphrased to help a guy jump off the zipline. "I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror or awe. And this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, because we want to be able to predict Him, to dissect Him, to carry Him around in our dog and pony show. We are too proud to feel awe and to fearful to feel terror. We reduce Him to math so we don't have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom. Does this mean God is going to hurt us? No. But I stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon once, behind a railing, and though I was never going to fall of the edge, I feared the thought of it. It is that big of a place, that wonderful of a landscape."
noun
1. "Fail" is the name of a popular internet meme where users superimpose the word "fail" or "epic fail" onto embarrassing, ironic, or compromising photos or short videos.
2. What happened to Connor on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 when he tested the new, and never to be used again, zipline braking system.
catastrophic fail (ka-tə-strä-fik fāl)
noun
1. an "epic fail" that involves serious injury or death.
2. a cooler way to say "epic fail".
3. what would have happened if Connor's neck instead of his legs would have gotten wrapped up in the new, and never to be used again, zipline braking system at thirty miles an hour.
Hey all!
So, Eddie, Felecia and I tried to install the new zipline braking system yesterday. The idea was for us to lower and tighten the cable so that our participants would come screaming across the pond with no chance of getting stuck over the water. Theoretically this would also eliminate the need for a lift as the participants would end their ride nearly touching the ground.
The flaw of our design came in the braking system. As you can imagine if a rider were to come down the line without slowing at all the result would be, well, catastrophic. Our braking system consisted of a long, indestructable bungee cord which ran from anchors on the ground on either side of the zipline cable up to a "brake block" that was attached to the cable making an inverted "V" of bungee. The rider would, in theory, ride down, hit the brake block, the bungees would stretch, and the ride would be over. This all seemed good, until I tried it.
For the full story of what happened when you would have to ask Felecia or Eddie because I was so flipped around I mostly blacked out once I hit. What I remember is constantly accelerating up to what I guess was thirty miles an hour until I hit the brake block. At this point evidence and eye-witness reports suggest that I hit the brake block sideways with the backs of my legs draped over the bungee which caused my upper body to flip down and wrap around the bungee over and over again. I flipped so hard, in fact, that my sunglasses flew from where I stopped near the catch lift all the way to the catch tower.
Well that is my story. Needless to say we reverted to the old catch system and are considering plan B.
I have finished and love Blue Like Jazz. Buy it and read it yesterday. Here is a quote I paraphrased to help a guy jump off the zipline. "I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror or awe. And this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, because we want to be able to predict Him, to dissect Him, to carry Him around in our dog and pony show. We are too proud to feel awe and to fearful to feel terror. We reduce Him to math so we don't have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom. Does this mean God is going to hurt us? No. But I stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon once, behind a railing, and though I was never going to fall of the edge, I feared the thought of it. It is that big of a place, that wonderful of a landscape."
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Good weekend, Blue Like Jazz
I hope your weekend was as good as mine. Saturday we had a great camp board meeting. Church on Sunday was awesome followed by lunch at Rick and Sue’s, a quick hop into Caiden Walls’ third birthday party, then the pièce de résistance, bouldering at South Fork with Mexican food to follow. Monday Thatcher had a doctor’s appointment in
Lately I have been reading through Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I am considering it for our summer devotionals, it is awesome. Here is a long quote as an appetizer and to make your brain work a little this week.
“In a recent radio interview I was sternly asked by the host, who did not consider himself a Christian, to defend Christianity. I told him that I couldn’t do it, and moreover, that I didn’t want to defend the term. He asked me if I was a Christian, and I told him yes. ‘Then why don’t you want to defend Christianity?’ he asked, confused. I told him I no longer knew what the term meant. Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity; they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent. To them, the term Christianity meant something that no Christian I know would defend. By fortifying the term, I am only making them more and more angry. I won’t do it. Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity, and they will give you ten different answers. How can I defend a term that means ten different things to ten different people? I told the radio show host that I would rather talk about Jesus and how I came to believe that Jesus exists and that he likes me. The host looked back at me with tears in his eyes. When we were done, he asked me if we could go get lunch together. He told me how much he didn’t like Christianity but how he had always wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God.”
Friday, February 20, 2009
Spring Break Availability
I hope all is going well for you. Things are good around here. We are looking forward to some board meetings this weekend. In the last board meeting Stan was announced as our new director. That was three months ago, he has been here almost two months, and I tell you, things have never run better. I am thrilled to have you work in this uplifting atmosphere.
I am excited that spring break is approaching and that I will get to see many of you during that time. If you will be available to work at all over your spring break please let me know. If you can work I will use you. I can probably use you forty hours a week! For those of you who have already expressed your availability, thank you. For the rest of you, please let me know your availability as soon as you can!
In church this Sunday Brenda Garber, some of you may know her, read this passage about how sometimes we express devotion with our mouths but not with our hearts. Let us not be those people. “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths thy express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not them into practice. When all this comes true — and it surely will — then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” Ezekiel 33:31-33
We miss what we have again
I hope yours has been a blessed week. I know mine has. Have you ever noticed that you don’t really realize how much you miss something until you have it again? This happened to me twice this week. We had not had groups around here for three weeks, then this weekend we did. I didn’t realize how much I missed having groups. They are the reason we work here and I missed serving them. Secondly we had a huge snow storm Tuesday. I didn’t realize how much I missed snow. It was awesome. Of course, I had to travel to
I hope you are getting excited for this summer. I am. It promises to be great. Something happens every May. Summer staff arrives and Bonita Park as a community realizes how much we missed you. You are the life of Bonita Park. You bring joy and new life to an exciting ministry.
I leave you with the closing words from one of my two favorite books, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, “For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.”
Solitary
Most of you know Brandon Hutchison our Outdoor Education Minister at Angus Church. Brandon and his wife Ashley have offered to host dinner and a devotional at their house every Thursday night this summer which is awesome.
What do you think? Is this something you might be interested in doing? I realize that this would be way out of all of our comfort zones, in fact it sounds downright uncomfortable, but like Jesus spent 40 days alone in the desert before he started his ministry it could be pretty great for us to spend one day alone in the woods. I appreciate your feedback.
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