What's Been Up

As the previous said posts are M-pendng. Actually, I think y 14 year old self ay have channeled into e for that one. It sees ore iature than usual.

Ah, finally.

After all that I sit here waiting for Madman Mundt with nothing but the cries of fishmongers and a Barton Fink feeling in spades.

Truth be told it's really Glen Kaiser's Blues Heaven that's furnishing the cries. I'm rather disappointed to have found that I don't have any recorded contemporary Christian music that really matches Springsteen and the Sessions Band live in Dublin for exuberance. I need some Rez band.

I saw the new Harry Potter movie tonight. It may be my new favorite. It manages to catch the brooding frustrating feel of the book very well. It streamlines the story well hitting most of the high points and dropping most of the exposition. I'm anxious to be able to see the end of the story and watch the two parts together to see how they work as one story. I also curious how the second part will work out without the emotional layer of Harry's struggle for the truth about Dumbledore unless that quest will be included there. Despite the action and the slight heart attack in Godric's Hollow and pretty much in direct opposition to most of my Potter reading I think my favorite parts were the more character intensive scenes as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, then Harry and Hermione, travelled the countryside trying to figure out what to do about the locket and how to find the horcruxes. Plus, Nick Cave and dancing. Some of that was really sweet and tense. I hadn't thought about it this way when I was reading the books, but tonight it reminded me of the Sam and Frodo sections of the Two Towers and Return of the King. Far less action oriented and more focused on the characters and how they keep going. Those were always my least favorite sections of LotR until suddenly they weren't. I can imagine how someone might think these sections of Deathly Hallows are just time filler and draggy, and I've read critics who seem to think so, but they really worked for me. And when it was all done I really wanted a beer, but alas, there was none, nor will be.

I know having said much had happened definitely implied I was going to tell what has been happening and implied so again in the title of this post. But I'm not going to tell much. There's both too little and too much. On the one hand there's not really been anything dramatic happening. I'm sure if you read back into other long term updates I've written you'll find almost the same elements as what I would say here or variants slight enough as to make no difference. I drive to and from Evanston every day listening to audiobooks and spend my day working. At home I watch t.v. I like, or read, or watch movies. I go to church, I spend time with youth and teach them about the Bible on occasion. I make lots of punnishing jokes and banter with Steve. Occasionally I go out and do something with friends. Occasionally I go walking along the Lake Michigan shore or watch a hundred geese fly overhead while hiking over glacial kames. It's not unheard of that there might be crazy improvisational dancing at a friend's birthday masquerade, or simultaneous prizes for sweetest and spiciest chili (same batch) at some other friends' party. Haikus happen sometimes, and even longer more thoughtful poems spring up and then don't get worked on. Maybe a friend's band releases an ep, maybe I go out for birthday pizza with only one new friend and no old ones. But it's not ever really dramatic except in that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases and His mercies never come to an end. Day to day He speaks and calls and warns and blesses and disciplines and convicts and loves and in each moment is doing something as dramatic as creation and as small and quiet as a precise caesura. "God in the tiniest infinite detail."

And now having all gotten all Finked up, I'll try to contain myself and not start any fights at USO dances. And I'll open the package.

Posting Soon

Watch this space for future developments. I mean it. Just keep staring here until you see something. Then let me know what it was. Much has happened, as how could it not when I give a three month interval. That's like 131,000 or so minutes or a quarter the opening of Rent. Anyway, posts are impending. Keep watching. NO blinking!

Job for Another Year

In case you get your news about me here instead of on Facebook (not any more reliable a source), email, or in person, I was told this morning that I will be able to continue at the Northwestern University Library full time for another year. Huzzah!

2nd Quarter Post

I really don't want these things to get so scarce as to be quarterly. Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

I've just returned from our church's family camp at Wesley Woods Camp in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. It was a fun time of volleyball, fishing, games, fellowship and worship. It's been a fun spring and summer. I attended Chicago's Celtic Fest in May with some friends, including Donna who was on her way back to Texas from Ireland. I found out that I'll have benefits and at least a half time job at the Northwestern University Library after the end of August (my current job situation is kind of complicated in that it's two separate half time jobs in the same department that combine to count as one full time position for benefits purposes; one of those jobs will definitely end in August, one won't). I had a fun trip down to Tennessee and Kentucky over Memorial Day. We took a group of youth to Moraine Hill State Park outside McHenry, Illinois for a day of hiking (were going to go to Starved Rock but the weather looked too prohibitive). I went with a team from my church to help rehab a house and serve dinner at a women's shelter through Roseland Christian Ministries on the South Side of Chicago (I learned to hang blinds). I started a Christian history book club group at my church and we've read Athanasius' On the Incarnation of the Word of God and an edition of the Apostolic Fathers (the first Christian writers in the era after the apostles). Now we're reading Augustine's Confessions.

Looking ahead for the summer I expect to make a trip to Minnesota over the fourth and my now traditional Labor Day swing through Tennessee and Kentucky to visit and to celebrate Cora and Cohen's birthdays. Otherwise I won't get to travel much because I just don't have much vacation time anymore. I also expect I'll get up to the Renaissance Faire some weekend and do some other fun stuff locally. There are movies to be seen (I'm way behind on my summer movie viewing), meats to grill, volleyballs to be bumped, set, spiked, served, blocked, and (more likely) whiffed; and of course there's lots of worship and praise yet to come.

Athanasius on the Death of the Word of God

Athanasius of Alexandria has this, among many other amazing things, to say about Jesus' life and death.

"For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all, and might, because of the Word which was come to dwell in it, remain incorruptible, and that thenceforth corruption might be stayed from all by the Grace of the Resurrection. Whence, by offering unto death the body He Himself had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from any stain, straightway He put away death from all His peers by the offering of an equivalent. For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption, by the promise of the resurrection. For the actual corruption in death has no longer holding-ground against men, by reason of the Word, which by his one body has come to dwell among them." (On the Incarnation of Our Lord, ch. 9, 1-2)

I hope you have a blessed Good Friday. Christ has Died. Easter is coming.

Out like some kind of Amazing Animal that's Way better than Some Dumb Lamb

In honor of the end of March I thought I'd revisit one of my all time favorite weather quotes from a friend.

"I feel like March came in like a lion, then turned into a lamb. Then another lion came along and ate the lamb and I'm afraid there won't be any more lambs."

That's not this March. This March has been pretty non-descript. However these last few days have been some of the most amazing March weather I can remember (almost like what I'm told the weather was like here when I was in San Antonio in March three years ago). It was bright sunny and in the mid-seventies today. I don't know exactly what animal this March is going out like but if it's a lamb it's some kind of uber-mega-lamb that all the other lambs bow down and do the we're not worthy bit to.
The forecast is calling for 80 degrees tomorrow so it will probably snow.

Finally

I can't believe I forgot to post this last week but our church is finally done with our interim period after our original senior pastor left in December 2007. On March 7 we passed our new constitution and bylaws and last Sunday we unanimously approved our new Pastoral Leadership Team and affirmed our interim elders as permanent elders. It's so good to be done with that process. I really believe that God led us through it and raised up a great group of godly men to be our elders.