I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
I have read both pro and con on Walmart. The con of Walmart, I read about at A Different Perspective. The pro of Walmart, I have read about from other business sites. And I have heard both pro and con on Fox News. I remained undecided about them, not sure of what I was the chain or what was individual stores with managers trying to make the headquarters happy. However, lately, I am beginning to sour on the place due to a couple of instances that have affected people that I now. Mary and I have been becoming less Walmart and more Kmart and Glen’s customers as of late due to these things. We are considering not going to Walmart anymore due to the things that we hear and the things that we know. The question is does lower prices really beat out the way they treat their employees?
I’ve been meaning to write more on this as of late, but due to the busyness of the season, I haven’t had the time. I am hoping that in the midst of Christmas and New Years, that I will be able to flesh out a few more posts on my thoughts. Like I said in my previous post on this subject, this is to help me gets some thoughts down on “paper” for the confirmation class that I will teach at church.
So I was listening to the “most emailed stories podcast” by NPR on my way into work and I found that I reflect on the stories that I hear with respect to the Bible. As I thought about it, I view the Old Testament through the New Testament. I had a roommate in college once tell me that he had a hard time with the Bible, because of the old Testament where everyone was kicking butt. During my early years in biblical understanding, I knew that view was not the one God had in mind. I didn’t understand what the purpose of the OT was until much later, and then I realized that you have to view the OT through the lens of the NT. When I have heard people say that there are all of these contradictions in the Bible, I have looked at the verses and usually find that they are taking them out of the context of what was happening then or in the way that God had intended us to do things.
So what does all this mean? That scripture is the inspired word of God; one of the legs of the quadrilateral that we as Methodists base our faith on ((1) the biblical perspective and how it is illuminated by (2) tradition found in Christian history, (3) reason, and (4) practical experience).
I haven’t done many personal posts as of late, and today seemed a good time.
Mary’s and My first Christmas together was a great one. It started last night, on Christmas eve as we ventured to Boyne City to Mary’s mom’s house. There we celebrated Christmas with Mary’s mom, brother Cory and his wife Jenny and kids Gary and Cory, and nephew Dustin. We gave personal gifts to each other, then in a rendition of the Lutz table game, we gave gifts again.
Mary and I came home last night got things ready for Christmas day. We got a late night call from Trisha asking if she, Ben, Kaleb, and Karlie could spend the night. Well, of course! The only problem was that I had to leave for work before they got there.
I worked my uneventful midnight shift and when I got home there was my family waiting to open presents. The only other to wait for was Brandon and his girlfriend Christina who arrived about a half hour later.
We then opened the presents, which we did one at a time over the next 2 hours. It was a great time. I survived the time, staying awake until about 1130 am then as the kids all prepared to leave, I headed up to bed.
This evening, Mary and I are just basking in the glow of a great Christmas. Mary remarked that this was her best ever. I liked it too! Time for me to go bask in the glow some more! Merry Christmas to you all!
As we say in Emmaus, “God loves you and so do I!”
Being Christ-like
I have been becoming acutely aware of what people do help others, like Christ asked us to do. In this case, I was listening to NPR’s Most Emailed Stories podcast when this story came up. We are to defend the orphans and widows. This is something that Wesley did during his time and something that I hear from the UMC today. I also hear it time and again from Mars Hill Bible Church. In fact, in listening to the Sunday sermon yesterday, Rob Bell made a great point, you can hope and even try to get the government to do something, but usually, the church is already there, having seen the need; is doing something about it. Mary and I try to do our part, especially during this time of year.
I was reading the winners and losers of the tech year on Yahoo! this morning and I saw the following statement:
EXTREME LOSER: Sony BMG Entertainment
Researchers at Information Security Partners recently identified a security flaw with SunnComm’s MediaMax, an alternative copy-protection scheme found on other Sony BMG CDs. The flaw could allow a remote attacker to hijack a user’s PC. This time, Sony responded with a patch almost immediately–which was quickly found to have the exact same flaw. Can you say “consumer boycott?”
I have talked about this in the past. It is time for the major record companies to go away. The true music comes from the artists and now with the technology in place, the artists can be their own record company and find alternate ways to promote and distribute their music. While I am sad to probably have to give up a few of my bands, like switchfoot and blindside, because they are with Sony BMG for now, but I’m planning on giving up my Sound and Spirit account (a Sony/BMG record club for Christian music). To me the big record companies are corrupt. To know how much the bands actually get from record sales, versus the indie bands that I have begun to listen to, who record, print, and distribute the records themselves and through podcasting(you know that I would work that in here) can promote it themselves.
The handwriting is on the wall RIAA, learn how to embrace the new technology and make money from it or become irrelevant (which is beginning).
Freeman Criticizes Black History Month (AP): “AP – Morgan Freeman says the concept of a month dedicated to black history is ‘ridiculous.’ ‘You’re going to relegate my history to a month?’ the 68-year-old actor says in an interview on CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ to air Sunday (7 p.m. EST). ‘I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.'”
I’ve always liked him as an actor. I like what he is saying here as well.
It seems when I marked this post the other day from Google’s RSS Reader, that it got posted to Mary’s where I am a team member, so I post it on mine where it was supposed to be.
What he said is a post by Donald Sensing about the execution of Tookie Williams. My feeling are much the same. There are times, when I feel like “an eye for an eye,” but am confronted by the Gospel as Rev. Sensing says. Read his post. Very insightful.
M&J – A little over two months
I wasn’t sure about what I was going to post on this. I realized, though that it is a topic that I haven’t written on in a while. Mary and I are doing great with things beginning to slow down from the initial rush of getting married and still trying to pull together some of the other things that we scheduled for the fall.
I realize, as she has moved in, that I now have a new set of eyes to view the world through. That helps me from getting too rooted in my routine. A routine that would usually get me trudging through life with my head down in a forced march or running at top speed past everything that life might have for me at the time. I just have a hard time stopping and smelling the flowers that God puts along the side of the path.
Over the past two months we have transformed the master bedroom so that two people can coexist in it, and by coexist, I mean that we can both function and get along in the smallish space that is the master bedroom. We have redone the living room, so that we now have a mini office space out here and a functional TV room with living space. The kitchen is more in the way of becoming better function for two cooks instead of the one that used to fix the meals (yes, we share that responsibility).
For me, though it has meant integration into a family that I have come to love. I now have gone from zero to four kids. Two are already out of the house, but we have two more to finish raising. That is and isn’t a challenge for me. I am used to the youth groups and Mary’s two youngest are teenagers. They are fun to be around and I enjoy them as if they were my own. There are the little sibling rivalry things which can drive any parent crazy at times, but most of the time, these are pretty minor in the scheme of life that God has granted us.
The biggest thing, though, is that I love Mary even more now than when I proposed to her a few months ago. Now some may say that we are still in the honeymoon phase, which we are, but there is something deeper there. The two of us are fond of saying that love is a choice and for me, besides choosing Christ this is the best choice I have made in a long time.
What I believe – Part 1
I was asked a few months ago, by my pastor, if I would teach the confirmation class for church. I considered it and accepted it tentatively, but am wondering due to time constraints, if I can do it. However, I couldn’t sleep early this morning so here I am in front of the computer posting some thoughts on a blog. I guess the main reason for this series is to get what I believe down on “paper,” so that I can help the kids find faith and become good followers of Christ that happen to be of one of the several Wesleyan traditions; in this case the Untied Methodist Church.
I guess this starts with kind of an affirmation of faith. The one that I usually hearken back to is the Apostle’s Creed (traditional). That’s probably because of all of the creeds and affirmations that our church recites, and there’s a fair number of them, I have recited this one since I was a kid, sitting in a pew of the Fennville United Methodist Church.
Our pastor, at First Church in Gaylord, did a series on the Apostle’s Creed last year. It was pretty good with the meaning of why we say what we say. As I have continued this year with some of the wonderings, I see how I have been shaped by my affirmation in Christ and how it has affected my decisions.
I also listen to the likes of Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI and he did a series on what their church believes. For him, it came down to the Nicene Creed. Of course, we who are Methodists also use that creed as an affirmation of faith.
So what do I believe? These two creeds should help form a basis, since as I have read them, they say the same thing. These both sum up what the Bible is about.
A Rant about Me
I just hate it when I get into a mood at work. What does that mean? That a series of emails from one of my more cantankerous colleagues got me upset. Now, maybe it was justified, but to me, there comes a time when you have to choose not to get upset and find another way to bleed of the negative energy. In my way, I think that I have come up with an idea to overcome the problem that spawned the emails in the first place. I guess my next step is to find a way to get past the anger faster.
I know about righteous anger that Jesus showed, but in this case I realize that the original problem comes from a person that, to me, shows all of the classic signs of someone who is unhappy in their job and can’t wait for the end to come. So in their way, they throw gasoline on every fire in the office that they can, when they feel that their domain is being threatened. That is the person that Jesus sought out and healed, and I believe that we are called to reach out to. The problem is that learning to love the unlovely, which is, trying to help someone, and not allowing yourself to get upset, because you know that you will become a target of their flame throwing.
Okay, time to go pray. That is obviously the first step.
