The Middle Ages

*sigh*

I'm doing a lot of sighing these days.

I'm getting old. Have I said that before?

It's amazing how much more difficult it is to get in shape the older you are. That's not even counting the fact that it takes all this extra time and money that's just floating around in the air, ready to be grabbed.

Or maybe that was a dream I had last night.

Find time to exercise - along with finding time for all the other important things I need to do.

And it's amazing how much more expensive it is - not to mention inconvient - to eat healthy. You can grab a box of Swiss Cake Rolls for a buck, and it makes a pretty filling meal. But, you want to eat healthy, it's going to cost you, and it's not going to be quite as quick. It takes more time and preparation to make a turkey-sausage-egg-cheese-hot-pepper-in-a-whole-wheat-tortilla burrito than to grab a sugar-laden breakfast bar.

And speaking of time, why does it go so fast now? Labor Day is next weekend?!? Didn't we just have Memorial Day?

Sheesh.


[pic from Friday night's commute home]

One more shot.

Late Again

On my way home from work (again). Stopped at Publix to see if they had a healthier selection of food (they did). I think I spent too long in there (I should be home already).

It's a Beautiful Mornin'!

What a beautiful day. I get to enjoy this car ride...listen to some tunes...work all day...be away from my family...stay cooped up in my office...

*sigh*

Getting Home Late

We so often miss the beauty right in front of us every single day.

August 14 Sunset

It's been awhile since I've had a good sunset pic. Hope this turns out.

Which god do you worship?

I believe that God created the earth, but claim to be pretty agnostic about how it all came about. I'm familiar with the evidence that leads people to believe that we came about through evolution, but I'm also familiar with the evidence that makes me believe in a God who created us. I don't believe that we need to intepret a literal "6-day creation" to have faith in God and the Bible; however, I also personally feel that based on how the Bible talks about God, and based on what Jesus taught, there must have been a literal Adam - not a metaphor representing the evolution from lower life forms to homo sapien. But again, I don't know what happened, though I believe I will one day.

The Creation Museum recently opened in Petersburg, KY. I've never been comfortable with the idea of a "creation science". Science is something that helps us learn about the natural world. I don't deny its usefulness in helping us come to a knowledge about the physical world around us. However, when we start talking about God and creation - that's all in the realm of the supernatural. By definition, outside the purview of science. In that sense, I would go along with the detractors in saying that "creation science" is an oxymoron. Not in the sense that science is "Good and Right" and creation is "False and Wrong", but in the sense that they lie in different worlds and are concerned with different ideas. I've been rather disappointed with what time I've spent reading creation science research. You can't call something science if explain away the holes in you theory by citing the supernatural power of God.

I don't think you can call that "science". As soon as you start to step into the world of the supernatural, or the realm of miracles, you leave the realm of science. Science cannot speak to those things. That doesn't make them any less true. But we've somehow bought into the notion that science is all powerful and if it cannot explain something, then that something cannot exist. Science did not always exist; it did not pre-date man. It is a useful tool we have to help us explain the world around us - it's not a magic box through which we can divine all the answers of the universe. Maybe there are some that believe that but it doesn't begin to make sense for someone who believes in God to believe it, too.

Creation Science seems to me to be predicated on the fact that science should hold this divine place in our lives. Once the world came under the view that science was the fount of all knowledge, suddenly, people who believe in God needed it to explain God. I don't know if it's an attempt to prove it to other people, or to ourselves. Suddenly, Science is more powerful than God. If Science cannot explain God, then *poof* - we have no faith, no premise for our beliefs. When did we start to worship this god, Science?

Now, I'm not saying that those who argue on the other side are any better. I've spent my time in the world of science and have seen enough folks using research to prove what they already believe to know that we all have this problem of wanting to be right.

But trying to marry these two different entities deifies science while reducing to God to something that needs to be explained by us. Philosophers and psychologists have libraries devoted to how and why man created God - why are we on the same road? It's a step backward; not a step forward. It's just another attempt by us to force God into a box.

This last quote from an article about the museum in the Florida Baptist Witness sums up my problem with this whole thing.

"Several museum displays assert that the debate over the origins of man comes down to a choice between human reason and God's Word."

Have we forgotten that human reason is pretty much synonymous with science? So if we are going to reject science, how can we call it science? I think it just makes God into a demigod subservient to Science, the true Supreme Being. This doesn't mean that I don't believe in a God that created the world; I just don't think that science can define God and prove creation. It's just too limited.

Join us next time as Jim argues that it doesn't make sense for Intelligent Design to be taught in science classes.

Flame on.

Extinction

I found this odd.

My friend Chris Haddock pointed out to me yesterday that the Times Daily (our local paper) ran an article about dead blogs last month. They pointed out his brother's blog (Heath's thanks for stating the obvious) and another blog I link to at the right (Brad Crisler's). They also noted that Jeremy Swindle (our new youth minister) has an abandoned shoutlife (a Christian MySpace) blog, but I'm not sure that counts.

So, is Web 2.0 fading, or just going in a different direction? I guess I don't really blog to connect with people (though that is a nice side benefit). I blog because I've always wanted to keep a journal, and need an outlet for the stuff that goes around in my head; because I like comic book movies and wanted to create a resource for other people who have the same interest; and because I like to track weird stuff I come across.

Though most of the people I know with links to the right seem to blog to keep in touch; so maybe it's not so dead after all.

What Time Is It?

Does anyone else get confused about what they're supposed to do and when? Are we just out of touch with God and His plans for us? Are we supposed to be this confused, or is this just part of the mystery of human life?

Mark taught an interesting class this morning about Judge and prophet Samuel and King Saul.

I empathize with stories like this one, or the one about Abraham and Sarah.

When Abraham was about 75 years old (and his wife Sarah about 65), God promised him children. When he was 86, childless and barren, he and Sarah thought, "well, obviously God's waiting on us to do something". So Sarah gave Abraham her maid to...well...you know. And they had a son; about 15 years before God's plan. They were supposed to wait on Him.

At one point in his reign, King Saul became impatient. The Israelites were at war with the Philistines, but Saul was to wait a week for Samuel to show up before giving some offerings to God to ask for help before attacking. After seven days, and seeing the Philistines assemble, and his men about to run scared, he gave the offerings himself. Again, the wrong thing to do - Samuel showed up and told him that because of his disobedience, his kingdom wouldn't last.

I am, by nature, a procrastinator. I put things off, and put them off. Krista knows this too well. So, when I tell her that I think I'm supposed to be waiting on God for something, her mouth says, "okay", but her eyes say, "yeah...uh-huh..."

I realize that nowhere in the Bible does it say, "God helps those who help themselves," but I also believe that God doesn't want us to sit on our hands and do nothing until he gives us a yellow-brick road to follow. So at what point do we get off our butts and actually do something? When do I know whether or not something is in my time, or in God's time? Is it something that we should know, but we don't because we're too out of touch with God?

Quote of the Day
Where I am right now is a direct result of God working in my life.
-Mark Killen

Helping the Helpless

Before I share this story, let me confess that my normal response, when I'm by myself and I see a stranded motorist is to assume that they'll be OK and that they're probably waiting on somebody they had just talked to on their cell phone. Fortunately, this time Krista was in the car with me and events took a different turn.

So, Sunday evening, in Chattanooga, we headed from the hotel over to the mall. We couldn't decide which way to go, so, looking at our handy map given to us at the hotel, we decided to cut through the middle of town even though there were larger roads going around the city. At that point the torrential downpour began. We were driving through 1/2 foot-puddles in the middle of 3rd Avenue in downtown Chattanooga.

It must have been providence, because we were diverted by standing water and trying to follow directions on the map, and ended up going over a large bridge where someone stood next to a car beneath a half-destroyed umbrella, getting drenched. When I saw them, I was sure they looked like they had just called and were waiting on someone - even though they weren't sitting in the car and were getting poured on. It's amazing at how well I analyze a situation. Well, Krista suggested we make a U-Turn and see if she needed help. We pulled up, and Shirley was standing there in the rain, out of gas, without any money, crying, with no one to help. So we got got a gas can at the station a block down the road and when we got back to her car, her hands were raised in the air and she was shouting, "Thank you, Jesus!" So, we took her to get her enough gas to get her home, and after telling us how we showed up after she prayed for God to send someone, she was on her way. I wondered on this Sunday evening, how many people that called themselves Christians drove by and had a good excuse to not stop. I think it wasn't until a while later that I realized that I was those people.

Ironically, I think that if we had actually ended up going to church that morning, we would have had a different day, and wouldn't have had that opportunity to actually do the Lord's work for a change.

I still wonder why I don't take what Matthew recorded Jesus saying in Matthew 22 or Matthew 25 more seriously.

Long, Crazy Weekend

Friday, July 13
Got back from Seattle - missed the family. Krista says something in or under the house smells bad. She's been through the whole house, cleaning every corner, especially in the kitchen and can't find anything. Something's rotten in the state of Manchester.

Saturday, July 14
Dragged all the crap left by previous owners out from the crawlspace under the house. Had to crawl what seemed like 20 feet in to find an 18-inch, half-melted, maggot-infested 'possum skeleton. When I showed Julianna, she told her Mommy it was a baby dragon. Actually, it does look kind of look like a baby dragon.

Sunday, July 15
Krista fell in the bathtub (happy birthday!) I think she's OK, but she's still feeling it. We left early for Chattanooga. The 3-hour trip seemed like it took 7. Krista and I never were quick travelers, but when you throw a 5-year-old and a 4-month-old in the mix, things take forever.
Sunday evening and most everything was closed, we headed over to the mall and were deciding where to go for a birthday dinner when we had a visit from God. Read more about that in my next post. We ended up at P.F. Chang's - Krista's favorite. Our server was great, and the cook even came out to share a hot sauce creation he had been working on for four days. Great food as usual.

Monday, July 16
Panera Bread, hazelnut coffee, asiago cheese bagels with cream cheese...mmm...breakfast. Checked out downtown Chattanooga and the RiverWalk. Loved Blue Skies - visit this little gift shop if you ever go to Chattanooga. Saw the carousel and let Julianna play in the fountain. Headed to Sticky Fingers for dinner. Not bad, but should have gone to Mellow Mushroom.

Tuesday, July 17
Another 3-turned 7-hour drive. Before we left, we had a late breakfast at the City Cafe Diner. The host could have been John Waters's twin. A little later, someone entered who could have been in a John Waters film - 50-something, fairly large, spilling out of her top, black eye make-up and a bowl cut. Hmmm...
Went to Candyland , a bit non-plussed (it looks way better in these pictures), then headed home, stopping by Unclaimed Baggage on the way. Picked up the original version of Vanilla Sky on DVD (a Spanish film - Abre los ojos). Skipped out on the $100 comic book statue. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

People unclear on the concept.

License plate in Scottsboro, AL.

I never meant this to be a place where I posted pictures of my kids, but this one is too funny not to share.

I'm reading Rob Bell's _Velvet Elvis_. It's making my brain do these weird flips in my head. But it resonates with me somewhere deep down in my gut. I think he's pointing to God.

Hollywood and Religion

Hollywood has a bad habit of oversimplifying what it means to believe in God - regardless if they are trying to put a negative or positive spin on things.

I was pleasantly surprised then, when I went to see Evan Almighty recently with my family, that it really wasn't watered down.

In the movie, God tries to impress upon Evan the importance of kindness. Of the need for us to randomly commit acts of kindness to others. I'm sure there are a lot of people who follow God, and a lot who follow Jesus (or say they do) that think this might be an oversimplification, but I'm not so sure.

It was the heart of the message of Jesus. If you're familiar with the Old Testament, then you know the Jews lived by a long list of rules that God had given them. Jesus was a Jewish teacher, and those who specialized in the rules tried to trick Him at one point, asking Him which of those commands was most important. And Jesus answers directly. The first is, Love God (found in Deuteronomy). The second is, Love others (found in Leviticus). Jesus says that these are the most important rules - that all the other rules hang on these.

He said other things, like, people will know you are my follower if you love each other. Or, if someone smacks you in the side of the face, give them the other side to smack; or if someone steals your jacket, give them your shirt, too; or if someone forces you to do some work, do twice as much as they're forcing you to do.

I know I've said a lot of this before, and maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but he even said kindness - caring for people in need - was what was going to separate the people going to Heaven from the people going to Hell.

Jesus was full of crazy stuff like that. Stuff we don't like to teach in church. Stuff that we don't think is very American. Stuff that tends to be real unpopular, except maybe as a fad every once in a while, but not to be really paid attention to.

Of course, Jesus walked the walk, too. Talking to the people no one else wanted to talk to. Spending time with the losers, outcasts, and those that church people thought were bad.

Being God's ambassadors, it's just something we so often skim over, and spend very little time on - it's interesting to see that secular entertainment hits the nail on the head.

So, am I trying to say that being kind is all there is to following Jesus? No. But, then again, He's the one that said it was most important.