highlights from a road trip

We just returned from a road trip that included New York City, Philadelphia, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Toronto, Ontario. Here are a few of the world famous things we saw:

the Statue of Liberty, the National Constitution Center, Niagara Falls, and Cassie, the best dog in Brooklyn. Okay, Cassie might not be world-reknowned, but she should be.

If you asked me what the highlights were of the trip, however, they would probably not include these famous sites. They would include brunch with Mike and Char who always manage to mix fun and wisdom in wonderful proportion. They would include making a helium balloon bouquet for Ryan and chasing it down the parking lot (alas it was lost in an updraft). They would include cooking a French meal for Constance who was somewhat confounded not to be in the kitchen but just able to sit and talk while someone else did the serving for a change.

They would be listening to Jana talk about her confidence in Jesus to guide her future. They would be seeing the look on Greg's face when he received the gift of a beautiful musical instrument. They would be noticing Dean relax more and more each day as the company of good friends and the extravagance of a good God erased all the worries and responsibilities of business and church for a time. It would be a short motorcycle ride with Dean that reminded me of all the good reasons for being on this unpredictable journey.

It would be going to sleep every night with contentment and rising every morning with expectation. It would be knowing that there are more people in the world who love us and consider us part of their family than I had thought us worthy of. It would be the stretching of my heart as once again I see how much bigger God's heart is than I could ever imagine. *sigh of gratitude*

Comments

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ Consider but a sampling o

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim

outWORD by Matte Downey

Search This Blog