In her blog entry, Krista writes about gift giving, and the anticipation surrounding receiving gifts.

Instead of posting my lengthy comment on her blog, I’ll instead post it here, it is somewhat long, and I need to start posting more here anyway.

So here goes:

I was thinking about this last night while trying not to fall asleep on my couch (I failed), and have come to the conclusion that I am not feeling much anticipation, neither for Christmas-the-holiday, nor the return of Christ.

It’s pretty sad, actually – I can understand my lack of anticipation for Christmas, as in my mind it’s become just another capitalistic holiday. I know it’s the celebration of the birth of Christ, and we should be as happy as to celebrate that – but I’m finding that the current culture and society has done a good job of eradicating any joy I might have.

As for anticipating the return of Christ as our king – your friend made a great comment that you quoted around the time of the elections, which keeps sitting in my mind: “One day we’ll get the king we don’t deserve.”

In a way, I intellectually know that one day he’ll return, and things will be awesome and all that (well, for some/most of us, anyway) – but on the other hand, I don’t FEEL it, and thus probably don’t 100% (or more) believe it.

I have no doubt that God will work on me in his baffling ways and suddenly one day it’ll all make gobs of sense, but until then, I’ll have to work to muster the amount of anticipation that I’ve mustered so far.

This is well worth watching – pay special attention to the last line.

Clicky here

The introduction of my grandfather’s book starts with this:

It is the first two decades of a man’s life that shape him. What he learns during this time of love and hate, justice and injustice, right and wrong — stays with him a lifetime.

I knew that this was true, but never really experienced it. While I grew up in a strict family, I was never abused or beaten while I grew up — sure, I was disciplined at times, but nothing beyond that.

However, I was made fun of relentlessly when I was younger, for various reasons — being gullible, being relatively nice to people in general, and most of all… probably just having one of those easily-teased personalities.

So imagine my surprise when I came to the realization that this harassment from 20+ years ago cost me my recent relationship of 5 years.

Oh, yes — I’m diggin’ the irony here. Mr. I-never-had-any-baggage taken captive by his own baggage.

I’ve started meeting with a shrinktherapist, so we’ll see how that goes.

How’s that for some unexpected insight?

🙂

Every so often a meme comes along that I can jump aboard with. So here goes:

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

My Result:

Mack felt like he was moving in slow motion inside the eye of a hurricane of activity happening around him.

– William P. Young, The Shack

A recent disaster that swept through southern and central Texas got me to think more about something that’s been on my heart for a while.

Typically, when there is a disaster or some sort of situation, there is never a lack of people to volunteer with helping out. Whether this means caring for people, searching for people, delivering food or blankets, doesn’t matter.

Among non-christians, there is often the perception that we only do these things for the purpose of pushing our beliefs (or, in some cases, religion).

While there are christians out there who have this m.o, I’d like to think that for most of us, it’s about helping, caring and loving people, and not about “the numbers.”

So I think it’s important to evaluate our heart and our intentions as we get involved with helping and caring for people – the act of helping, caring and loving them should be in the forefront of your mind, not the feeling of obligation that you have to share the gospel or your faith with the people you are helping.

Remember, it’s about loving people, not converting them.

This is what we did at work thursday:

Indicate on this page how many inches of rain
you think we'll get, and how many GW's you put
on your guess.

(We'll audit the edit history -
no last-minute changes saturday through monday)

    * 3.00" - D***** - $1
    * 0.5" - M***** - $1
    * 2.78" - M***** - $1
    * 0.00" - R***** - $1,000,000 (real money)
    * 1.5" - C***** - $1
    * 1.6" - C***** - 1 latte (true currency)
    * 1.4" - C***** - $1
    * 3.5" - B***** - $1
    * 0.75" @ ABIA - S***** - $1
    * Trace - R***** - $1

On the flip side, the last 3 days have been spent coming up with disaster scenarios and how to keep hospital systems running despite any disasters…

I figured we needed a break for some silliness.

“What has happened to the children who once played freely on the streets?”

This question was asked by british artist Bruno Taylor, as part of a new project to explore public spaces, and their use.

“71% of adults used to play on the streets when they were young. 21% of children do so now. Are we designing children and play out of the public realm?

This project is a study into different ways of bringing play back into public space. It focuses on ways of incorporating incidental play in the public realm by not so much as having separate play equipment that dictates the users but by using existing furniture and architectural elements that indicate playful behaviour for all.

It asks us to question the current framework for public space and whether it is sufficient while also giving permission for young people to play in public.

Play as you go…”

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