Just Thinking

When things get dark.

One of my favorite books, you know, one of those ones you keep reading again and again, is “God Was In This Place & I Did Not Know It” by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. It’s a collection of various rabbis understandings and thoughts on the passage in Genesis 28:16 where Jacob wakes up from a dream and exclaims … well, he yells the title to Rabbi Lawrence’s book.  It has been a constant reminder to me to be aware of God’s presence with me at all times.  It always amazes me how blind we are to the miraculous that hides just behind the ordinary, and just beneath the mundane minutiae of our daily lives.  It’s one of the things about my character that I am most frustrated with.  This past week was another reminder for me. Read more…

I love this poster!

Lately, I’ve been struggling more than usual with the problem of procrastination.  I have big plans, and ideas, task lists, and dreams, but I just can’t seem to get them done.  It’s as if there’s always something else that needs doing, or that gets my attention.  It feels a bit like high school again, when the only time I would ever clean my room was when I had a paper due the next day, and cleaning my room was the last thing I could do to put off writing the paper just a little bit longer.  I’m intrigued by my struggle with procrastination and I’ve been wondering why it is that it’s been my constant companion for so many years.  A few days ago I did what I always do when I am intrigued by something, I bought a book on the subject.  It’s a nerdy practice, I know, but it has also led to the development of a pretty decent personal library.  I even have a book on the art of mind control practiced by the ancient ninjas.   Read more…

So a few weeks ago I was down in the states for a friends wedding.  My buddy Aaron and his fiance, Joanna, were scheduled to exchange their vows, and commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives and they felt that I should be present to witness this occasion.

Some people would have seen my role as a legal witness, others would have seen it as a spiritual witness, but I feel that my role was to look sexy in my tux (A role I feel I accomplished completely.) Read more…

A Very Silly Canadian.

So, I am on my way back from my friend’s Aaron and Jo’s wedding.  I had a great time hanging out in the Boise area with Ben, Tim, Robin, Shad, Chaya and the rest of the gang.  Ben and I decided that the best way to refer to the weekend as a whole would be to call it SillyFest 2009.  As those of you that know Ben can attest to, when he is around, things have a habit of getting silly all of a sudden.  This weekend, this was a great talent to have.  In fact, it was a good reminder that I need to remember to be more silly at regular intervals throughout my life.   My silly muscles are sore today, which only reinforces the fact that they haven’t been used enough lately. Read more…

When I was in grade three I got sent to the office by my teacher, Mrs. Campbell.   She had finally lost her patience with me because as she was trying to teach her lesson, and I was talking incessantly at the back of the class room.   I can still remember having to sit outside the principal’s office writing “I will not talk in class.” over and over again.   If I remember correctly I had to write it all of twenty-five times, which, for me, seemed like an impossible task at the time.  Mrs. Campbell told me that if I didn’t learn to stop talking all the time I was never going to get very far.  The irony of it is that these days I talk for a living.   “In your face, Mrs. Campbell.”  :)  I’m just kidding.   Actually, she was a very sweet lady.   She was one of those teachers that was always gruff and grumpy, but when you met her outside of class, she was a sweet, caring woman.   In fact, I remember she came up to me when I was in high school with a small toy car.   She had found it in the back of her desk, and was fairly certain she had confiscated it from me when I was in her class.   I couldn’t believe she could remember me that well.  I guess I made an impression. Read more…

No food allowed.

Why does fasting make time feel like it’s going slow?

Okay, so let me explain what’s going on in my head and heart these days.  I think God wants me to fast for a while this summer, and I don’t want to.

Last Monday, Carrie and I, and the kids all headed down to Toronto to visit the Science Centre for a family day.   As we were heading down the Don Valley Parkway, we drove by a skyscraper that had some window washers hanging off the side of the building.   These workers weren’t the ones that get to stand in those big huge metal cages, but instead they were sitting on what looked like an old wooden swing hanging hundreds of feet above the pavement below.  I was pumped.   I said to Carrie, that I would love to get a part-time job doing that in Toronto.  The truth is, I would probably even do it for free, just for the thrill of getting to rappel down the side of a building like that.  I was telling my friend Tim about that and he just quivered.   See, Tim is uncomfortable with heights.   I was going to say that he is afraid of heights, but that’s not really true anymore.   This summer he’s been working on the roof of a house he’s building, so that’s helped a little with his fear of heights, so I’d say that he’s graduated to just being extremely uncomfortable with heights.  We all have different fears. Read more…

Okay, so my buddy Robin Dugall got mad at me (okay, so he might just have made a comment on my facebook, but I’m overly sensitive) for not posting to my blog, so I thought I had better update my blog a bit before he unleashes a can of …  well, you know what comes in the can.

At the moment I’m down in Florida at a church planting conference.   I would tell you all the name, but I’m afraid I can’t remember it … I think it’s the exponential something or other.   So far it has been a pretty good experience.   I started the whole thing off with a seminar on creative communication led by Mark Batterson (he wrote “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day”) and it wasn’t too bad.  Today I got to listen to Erwin McManus chatting about the ways in which the church in North America has created, not only an irrelevant culture, but a way in which to make relevant people irrelevant.  I then enjoyed a presentation by Alan Hirsch that was primarily a repetition of the information I’ve already read in his books, and then a little trite information from a vineyard pastor in Boise, Idaho.