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.’"
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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."
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