happy new year

Well, happy new year, everybody.

We just spent a great evening at home with our good friends- Matt, Cheryl, and Natalie. A perfect way to bring in the new year.

Some good news: It turns out I won't have to break out the chainsaw. Whew.

Reading back over that post I see that I had rented Charlie and the Chocolate factory for new years last year. Wanna guess what's in the blockbuster bag on top of the tv? Weird. It makes me wonder if I really ever do anything truly original in my life anymore- or is it all pre-programmed and I'm just following instructions? There are probably some dudes with really big veiny heads out there somewhere watching me on a wide screen and commenting on how well their experiment is going.

It's going to take my back a while to get over all the Christmas traveling we did this week, but it was good and now we're home.

I've got some stuff in my head that I don't know how to share with you since I don't blog anonymously, but I'll try to figure a way. See you next year.

Christmas Card

May the spirit of Christ so dwell in you
that the manger remains ever in your heart-
and in your home.

Merry Christmas, Friends.

getting to God bless us everyone

Jordon links to James Suroweicki in the New Yorker :

"We might actually be happier— and we’d certainly be wealthier —if we exchanged small, well-considered gifts rather than haunting the malls. Calculating the deadweight loss of Christmas gifts is a coldhearted project, but it leads to a paradoxically warmhearted conclusion: the fact of giving may be more important than what you give. Start with “Bah, humbug” and you somehow end up with “God bless us, every one.”"

I broke my own rule -- I went shopping in town twice this week. I didn't order everything online because I was slow making up my mind on a couple of things. At one point I heard myself think, "I hate my sister."

I don't hate my sister. I hate Christmas shopping.

Having decided not to shop anymore, I'm feeling much more Christmasy-- as my daughter would say. This morning i dried some oregano and took the time to watch the carolina wrens in the backyard. Plus, we just made the UPS guy's day by giving him a box of cookies. Today I'll be cleaning the house and we'll wrap the last of the gifts. Maybe bake a few more batches of cookies.

God bless us everyone.

5 things

Grace tagged me. I'm going to defer to a similar post I made last year about this time- which also came via Grace. Hmmm...

If I get a chance after Christmas I'll see if there is anything else remotely interesting about myself. I doubt it.

I'm working on your e-christmas card. Check back in a day or 2 after I get the kinks worked out.

how the week started

this morning i found out that our friend Donny died. and that his funeral was yesterday. so that's how the week started.

breast cancer rates dropping

Reversing Trend, Big Drop Is Seen in Breast Cancer

This is great news! The apparent connection between breast cancer and estrogen supplements is not such great news, but we need to know.

In 2000 I had a lump removed that proved to be benign. Since I was nursing my daughter at the time, the process from discovery to removal took about 4 months. That's 4 months of increasing anxiety over the nature of the thing. The non-surgical biopsies came out "inconclusive." So, while I haven't had cancer, I know the fear of thinking I might.

mission and worship

As I mentioned in comments on my last post, I've recently read a couple of interesting perspectives on the question of how to balance out intentional missionality and worship in church communities.

Read Wade Hodges' Missions is the New Worship
and Ben Sternke's Liturgical Theology 3 | Liturgy = Ecclesiology

Let me know what you think.

reaction

Scot McNight has an interesting post called An Emerging Character: Inclusion Reaction. In short, he discusses the tendency of emerging church folk to react negatively to their evangelical church roots while being much more generous towards those traditions which have been typically denounced by evangelicalism. It's definitely worth a read.

Scot's post has me thinking about reactionary actions in general and wondering how much in the world is truly new and how much more is mere reaction. For instance, if I climb on top of my car because there is a copperhead snake in the driveway, I've done something new in that i've never climbed on my car before. But, I didn't climb up there because I wanted to do something new; I did it out of instinctive reaction to danger. (This hasn't happened, but I did enoucnter a young copperhead by my car a couple of years ago.)

I know that the following are not new thoughts, but I need to work through them. It's clear that a lot of what the emerging church is, is less new in the sense that someone felt an inclination from God to go to go in a new way, but more of a reaction to negative experiences in the evangelical church. We feel compelled to climb out of the situation like I hypothetically climbed onto my car.

This doesn't mean that the climbing is wrong or not within God's will. If I had to climb on my car for safety, then I would thank God for providing for my safety, as I thank Him now for the emerging church. But, as Scot's post suggest, it's a fully worthwhile (and needful) endeavor to try to understand what part of our changing methods and/or theology is reactionary rather than new; why we're reacting; and to be certain we don't react negatively to things we aren't really against. I might climb on my car if I saw a lizard in the driveway, but that would be needless since lizards aren't poisonous-- and possibly even damaging to the car. Then I'd have to spend unnecessary time and energy climbing back down and feeling quite embarrassed, not to mention angry with myself if I happened to scratch the paint in the process of going up or down.

Just some early thoughts on a foggy morning.

messy worship

In Emerging Churches by Gibbs and Bolger they write:

"... a first century Christian would have been puzzled by the question, 'Where do you go to church?' for church was a network of people to which one belonged. It was not a once- or twice-a-week association but rather a community of continuous interaction that included a range of activities related to every aspect of life...

"For Three Nails (Pittsburgh), community took precedence over ordered or stylish worship. 'Our worship gatherings are messy,' Holly Rankin Zaher confesses. 'Our focus is on connecting with one another.' Three Nails puts a higher priority on community formation than the church service. 'We have such a pool of talent in our church that we could have a totally kickin' worship gathering, if that is where we wanted to place our energy. However, we made an intentional decision not to make that happen. "

I think of the early church, and it almost seems inevitable that their worship was indeed messy. As is the worship of just about any new congregation or even new service within an existing congregation. When the service I'm involved with began it was pretty messy. Two and a half years in, it's -by nature of having done it so many times- a lot less messy. And I suppose I work towards that end.

I've recently mentioned excellence in worship as being important to me, pointing out the rich vestments ordained by God for the Tabernacle worship. Yet, even that worship was frequently adorned with live animal sacrifices which certainly added to the messiness factor in a big way.

What do you think? I'd like to see your comments on messy worship.

with righteousness and fairness

I've been reading for advent with my daughter from her New International Reader's Version. This week we read Is. 11:4

"He will always do what is right when he judges those who are in need. He'll be completely fair when he makes decisions about poor people."

Now that differs slightly from the more accurate translations, but it caused me to stop and re-read several times. In fact, this children's version seared into my thoughts and hasn't let go.

I find this prophecy to be infintely comforting. It's our call and the deep desire of many of us to serve those in need. But "to be completely fair in decisions about poor people", we generally feel inadequate, don't we? What a beautiful rendtion this is.

The passage goes on, of course, to talk about his fairness in all punishment, etc. Which is also quite miraculous. Somehow fairness with the poor speaks to me most in this Christmas season.

I think it was Gordon MacDonald (forgive me for not looking this up) who recently wrote that the test to know if we give enough to the poor is whether we give until it hurts. We try to do that in our household, but find that qualification is still quite difficult to parse out. Yet Christ will always do what is what is right and will be completely fair when he makes decisions about poor people. Praise be to God for His infinite wisdom and unending mercy.

JT

I bought James Taylor's new Christmas CD the other day. If you like JT, you'll love it. He has a fantastic version of In the Bleak Midwinter, but the best track is Go Tell it on the Mountain.

i'll give you some music to remember

Since Robby and Grace are touting their favorite oldies, I was encouraged by my dear husband to ask if anybody's heard Hayseed Dixie's version of... well, anything. You can buy their songs on itunes. If you dare spend the $.99, you won't be sorry. I say this in all seriousness. You may never admit to anyone that you bought it, and you certainly won't tell you anyone you liked it, but you will surely never be the same. Let me recommend Highway to Hell or Back in Black for starters. Even I can appreciate the irony.

That said, my husband and I don't have identical musical tastes. We both love Ray (C.) and James (T.) and Bob (S. of course) and lots more. But then, we take different routes at a point. While I'm incurably smitten with Mississipi Delta blues, bluegrass and country music are generally beyond my ability to stomach. (Remember I live in Alabama, so not liking country music makes me a freak here. I don't like football either, so I'm really an alien freak, but that's another post.) BTW, bluegrass and country are not to be confused with authentic folk music. Big difference.

Anyway, I've learned some things about my husband since he's been working at home. (His fondness for Hayseed Dixie is one of them.) There are some things it's best not to know. But what is done is done, I'm afraid. For instance, one day I walked into the room where he was working, and he was listening to some music from his computer. I started half humming along in that non-thinking kind of way that you do when some music just seeps into your head unnoticed. Then I stopped -- frozen. It couldn't be. Gasp. Horror! I looked at him with terror in my eyes, and said, "It can't be!??! Please tell me it isn't. And that I wasn't humming along!" I wanted to scream, but no more sound would come out. I was in shock. I had been humming along with...

Dolly Parton singing Stairway to Heaven. I know, I know. Don't forget to breathe.

I was finally able to ask, "did you pay actual money for that?" Knowing the answer, but hoping against hope it was a free download that he was forced at gunpoint to accept. "Yep," he answered, cheerily.

Like I said, some things you should never have to learn about your spouse. For anyone making such a list, mark this down in the "Downside to working from home" column.

So that's my addition to this week's posts on music. I know you're grateful that I've expanded your horizons.

never knew how to pronounce this

The Word of the Day for December 9 is:

nonpareil   \nahn-puh-RELL\   adjective
   : having no equal

Example sentence:
   Matilda is known as an all-around excellent cook, but her blueberry pie, in particular, is nonpareil.

Did you know?
   Trace "nonpareil" back to its Middle French origins and you'll find that it comes from a term meaning "not equal." "Pareil" itself comes from a Vulgar Latin form of "par," which means "equal." "Nonpareil" has served as an English adjective since the 15th century, and since the late 16th century it has also functioned as a noun describing an individual of unequaled excellence. In 1612, Captain John Smith used the term in that noun sense (but with a now-archaic spelling): "Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter... was the very Nomparell of his kingdome, and at most not past 13 or 14 years of age." And as you may know, "nonpareil" is also the name of a chocolate candy covered with white sugar pellets.

to subscribe to the html
version of Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, featuring audio
pronunciations, please visit:

http://www.startsampling.com/sm/wod/changeofaddress.iphtml

(c) 2006 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

cow in pool

ZACHARY, La. (AP) - It took four men, a bunch of rope, and a pickup truck to pull a nearly one thousand pound cow from a swimming pool in Zachary, Louisiana.

The cow was not injured.

article here

Wesleyans and the emerging church

Pernell Goodyear points to an article on why Wesleyans should support the emerging church.

And still no room at the inn

Be sure to read old bill's story of the Robertson's Last Christmas Pageant. via bro. maynard

Not so much grace to be found here

Dan Kimball posts a kind and generous retort to John MacArthur's unfounded and very public criticisms of the emerging church. Please take the time to read both and respond accordingly.

Christmas Favorites

Bruce got tagged to list his favorite Christmas songs. He didn't tag anyone else, but this is one gig I'm thrilled to get in on. I never ever ask to sing. I wait to be asked. Except at Christmas. If there is no presented opportunity, I will boldly ask for a chance to sing. If it weren't for the music, I don't think I'd make it through the Christmas season. The music imbues me with what I need to remember in order to keep it all in check. We sing Christmas carols after lighting our advent wreath each night. That time each evening is the very best part of the season for me. Here is a list off the cuff.

• Christ Child Lullaby is a hands down first

• In the Bleak Midwinter

• O Holy Night- especially by Gary Morris- really, go to itunes and get it now. It isn't what you expect.

• Any carol by Nat King Cole- especially I Saw Three Ships

• If Bing sings it, I love it

• We Three Kings
  
  
• Carol of the Bells
  
  
• O Little Town of Bethlehem
  
  
• Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella
  

network

Since hubby is working from home now (insert primal scream here), he felt that we needed to have an in-house network. So now we're on a network. For those of you like me who won't admit it but don't really know what that means, there is now a little gadget sitting on the shelf over my desk with a blinky green light. And my husband no longer emails me from the office during the day; he has Netmeeting chats with me from upstairs. And occasionally the printer starts to print right out of the blue. That and sometimes, even though Keith refuses to accept it, the network turns my processes into sludge. I may not understand it, but I have learned how to disable it. ;-)

The Nina

Saturday we drove to Tuscaloosa, AL. to see the replica of Christopher Columbus' Nina, which is touring the country. We forgot the camera, but there are photos on the web site above. It was interesting. Smaller than we expected, but very interesting. The captain's private quarters consisted of a tiny square of space in the hull, accessed from deck, with no ventilation and only 4' headroom. Makes tying oneself onto the deck for the night sound pretty good, if you ask me.

Biblical Resources Center

Last week I posted about our visit to the ANTIQUITY BIBLICAL MUSEUM in LaGrange, GA. I finally got the photos from the camera. Here are a few.







Here is part of the farm/olive garden area and the working aquaduct










This is a stone sheepfold/stable. The area on the left is for the goats, on the right is for the sheep. (sic) The opening at the front is where the shepherd would lie down to sleep.












Here is a stone manger inside the doorway shown in the above stable.













And this is Pedro. A rooster destined for greatness...