>I’m lying in bed with my wife last night (you know a real funny joke is coming with that start) and she says, “I could read the nutritional content of Aidyn’s poop today.” And I begin guessing what food our baby ate, peas, carrotts…
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Read the news headlines about what is happening and while wild and worrisome it is not that interesting to me. What is interesting is the story behind the story. For instance all the economic and government drama doesn’t really add up to a hill of beans for me until today when five people from my company get laid off. How this will impact their family, partners, and life is captivating to me, yet that is the story behind the story. Ed Burns captures this well.
Last Sunday something inspired me during the service that was enough for me to think, “We should end church here because what just happen was amazing.” The headline would read, Volunteer Reader doesn’t show. But the story that God wrote behind that amazed me.
First there was a long awkward silence, that seem to last as long as a woman in labor to me and I would think everyone else that is even partially engaged in the service. It took either the pastor complete and utter disconnection to what was happening (which I doubt) or leaders who were comfortable enough with letting it sit. They are fully capable of stepping in and reading scripture and yet it is not their duty in that moment so an able minded/bodied person would need to step up.
The person who ended stepping up was the Children’s Minister. Her entire life, and that of her husband, is spent filling in gaps and serving people who may never even know who they are. They are a beautiful picture of the people who make church happen, and get very little in return. On a side not it was also a great opportunity for me to see her great new hair cut, but it was clear that her stepping into the moment was completely about serving.
What brought tears to my eyes and a chill to my back was when she began to read and it was Phil 4, Have in you the same mind as Christ…A passage completely about selflessness and caring for others. I could not think of a more incarnate picture than this young lady and then reading this passage in that particular circumstance.
Just as you thought God was going to return on the cloud or had because it was such a transcendent heavenly moment, as she finished reading she gracefully slipped as she walked down the steps, not a full on fall, just a trip. Enough of a bump to remind you that the entire moment was real, and sometime real is beautiful and sometimes it is embarrassing.
In all of that I was grateful to have been around enough to know the story behind the story, and I felt sad for people who it was their first Sunday at our church. They missed God showing up, and how hard is it to figure out if you belong in a place or understand it’s true meaning and nature when you only see the headline story. What really matters is the story behind the story.
Technorati Tags: Church,Grace Seattle,Community,Theology
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An amazing line that takes so long to get to, but worth every moment. Last night, now that family has gone back to Maryland, we sat down to enjoy a movie together. There Will be Blood lived up to all of my hopes, actually it was better. I was expecting an extremely violent movie, while the violence was detailed and intimate it was not unnecessary. In other words it made it’s point. I also was expecting over the top freakiness from the characters, as strange and disturbed as they were it seemed true to me, not a caricature at all, but believable people.
The part of the movie that I was looking forward to the most was the music. Jonny Greenwood (aka Radiohead’s guitarist) 
did an amazing job, some may say heavy handed, but I loved it. There were moments where the music was so loud and powerful it overtook the dialogue, it was the musical version of mud/blood hitting the camera which was also done in this movie. I like the reminders that we are watching a creation rather than being fooled we are participants. Anyway I cannot remember a movie since The Shining that so creeped me out by the music. I know my recommendation/review comes well after most have probably seen it, but if you have waited like we did you won’t be disappointed.
>Jumpcut – Trees and Shrubs and Other Things
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If you haven’t my friend Steph has started a new, and incredibly funny (and cynical but true) blog,
Stuff Christian Culture Likes. Check it out when you have a chance or sooner:)
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Recently I have been thinking about where all my data is kept, the cloud is the hip new phrase for it. This happened because of the crash of my home laptop’s hard drive. I had very poor backup. Currently I have Time Machine running and have a backup on my desk. But like most people my information is all over the web, perhaps I am alittle more extreme than most. I am currently using Google’s Cloud, which starts with gmail and leads all the way through to Google docs. I have had a .mac membership which is now switched over to MobileMe. My data is backed up there as well. Also Microsoft’s Cloud service, Mesh, is a third place where I am currently placing files. I also include Facebook in that mix because I put my photos there, also twitter and facebook is where I do most of my sharing.
What does all this mean. First I am hedging my bets, I’m not sure which service is going to be the best and which one will win the space so I’m in all of them. Second, while I have everything backed up it is not consistent, and things are left all over the place. It is like having three or four different offices and each one varying to some extent.
So the benefit of the iPhone? I am sycing all of these. because I back up my Outlook Exchange, then push that information up to MobileMe, Both Facebook and Google have amazing apps for the phone! So despite of all these companies being all over the map, the device is still important, and in my opinion is king. Yes work on a PC at work and could set up the same thing with MobileMe, currently Mesh does not have a connection to Mobile or Mac Computers so my personal computer is left out of the loop except through Parallels, which seems like a very lame work around to me. Where will all this end up? I don’t know I need to have more time figuring out my own personal workflow between all of this, at this point I have only done that which is easy for my iPhone. I would like a world where I could have multiple clouds connected so that I am not dependent upon one single device.
Web Theologian 