ash wednesday

and so begins lent.

brooke and i went down to the church service at st. luke's catholic church. it was my first time in an actual catholic service (i've been to a couple of weddings) and i felt close to home when many of the liturgical phrases were the same as those used in the episcopal services i've occasionally frequented. the priest's sermon was very good - started with some humor and had more sprinkled throughout, quoted some early church fathers and added one of their stories, and towards the end had a point about welcoming criticism with an open ear that hit home. they had a deacon at the back who administered the ashes and then we went ahead and slipped out. a well spent 30-40 minutes that started what could be a very trying lent for me.

mardi gras

before embarking on lent, we got fat and sassy on fat tuesday.

brooke and her friend matt visited his home in new orleans a couple of weeks ago and brought back a treat - authentic gumbo. for our own little mardi gras, we had that and jambalaya and topped the night off with homemade beignets (pastries that taste just like carnival funnel cakes).

why the little party? well, in thinking and praying about something to fast for lent, i remembered a story from last fall about a couple who attempted to eat on $1 per day. i started researching some on global poverty and found that nearly half of the world *lives* (not only eats, but lives) on $2.50 per day.

so there it is. a solid choice for lent. the couple managed it really well and the hunger wasn't terribly bad. i hope, in the process, i can also find some ways to publicize not only global poverty, but also local poverty.

jake's birthday and bbq

jake turns 5 years old!! (oh and we made homemade bbq)

man, this kid sure is growing up. i try to remember what he was like a year ago. it's kind of hard because it's not night and day or anything. kids change so slightly day by day. I've got a few 4 year old pictures of him around and the biggest difference is more of a baby look in his face to more of a kid look in his face. one of the other main changes is the ability to converse with him more and more. so often (earlier in his life), he could tel you things, but if you tried to tell him something, he'd just cock his head and look at you like you were silly.

anywho, jake starts public school in the fall and we had a fun birthday party for him with just family (one more time - we'll probably do a party with a bunch of kids some year soon). for the party, lindsay cooked some delicious homemade barbecue meat (that is, pulled pork) and i made my world famous (well, at least in our house) barbecue sauce. affectionately known as 'scooter sauce', now available for $5 per 16oz. bottle (just joking. ok, not really. seems like a fun idea.). the meat was incredibly tender and moist after hours braising in our dutch oven (got it for christmas, finally put it to good use). the sauce topped it off and took your tastebuds on a whirlwind adventure (exaggeration? i think not. ).

jake received some fun new toys, books, and clothes and his first big boy bike. as soon as the weather warms up some more, i'm sure we'll be trying it out more.

valentine's two dates

on st. valentine's weekend, we had two dates - both a bit out of the norm.

on friday (the 13th), lindsay and a friend at church were in charge of organizing the church valentine's day dinner. they put on a great event! we had lasagna and garlic bread, an awesome salad bar, and delicious cake and desserts. they had a couple of games prepared that provided plenty of entertainment after the food was gone. brooke watched jake for us so this date was just the two of us (plus all of the church).

on saturday (the 14th), all three of us went out for a valentine's dinner. late in the day we decided to drive into lexington and go to joe bologna's (pizza place). however, traffic was worse than rush hour in the morning and the wait was long so we just got some fried zucchini and went to find somewhere quicker. on the way out of lexington, we spotted a panera and realized it had been a while since we had eaten there. it didn't disappoint. we sat by a fireplace, had soup and sandwich, and enjoyed our time together. afterwards, we went over to some friends' house - matt and jenna from lifebridge. it had been too long so we caught up over some peanut butter cookies and then played monopoly until late in the evening. good times!

recent devotionals

perhaps this is what you get when i already have the sermon for the week completed: more blog posts.

really, i had just been in a rut for a while and found some things to blab about. i'm sure i'll run out soon enough. anywho, a couple of thoughts from recent entries in a new morning devotional book that i got for christmas that hit me hard and i'd like to share.

summarized: your family needs both quality time and quantity time. invest large quantities of your time and energy in caring and nurturing your family and keep God in the center of your household. "never give your family the leftovers and crumbs of your time." -charles swindoll (OUCH!!)

number two: "do everything without grumbling or arguing" -philippians 2:14 make it a practice to count your blessings, not your hardships.

the wrestler

taking advantage of a rare opportunity, i went to see a movie yesterday afternoon.

with the economic junk going on these days, there's no overtime at all. so since i usually get to work at 7:30 or 8:00am, it's often time for me to leave around 3:30 or 4:00pm (i still just always eat lunch at my desk). brooke was picking up jake, L had patients and wouldn't be home til after 6:00pm, and we were having dinner a bit later anyways. so on the way home, i caught the 4:10pm showing of the wrestler.

i had been looking forward to it after buzz about the lead actor, mickey rourke (he won the golden globe for this performance) and [this article] on the movie (http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3773747) from bill simmons. plus i spent well over a decade of my life avidly following professional wrestling each and every week.

the wrestler is a small run film that released in ny and la before the end of the year (in order to be considered for 2008 awards) and made its way to lexington on jan. 23rd. it details the fictional account (inspired by countless similar stories) of a professional wrestler, 20 years past his prime and still trying to make a (very meager) living. his body is scarred with injuries of years past and creaking as if it were many years older.

a big match is coming up soon for him - a rematch of his biggest feud from his glory days - so he starts to intensify his training and doing more shows to publicize the big match. one thing leads to another and he gets hurt seriously and really begins to re-evaluate his life. he retires from pro wrestling and begins to succeed at mending some broken relationships in his life. inevitably though, he screws those up again and heads back down a downward spiral.

i love movies, but i don't normally reflect and write on them (though i could / should and it would be fun). as a pastor, many of the things i view (or the world as a whole, really) is filtered through the lens of looking at the human condition. looking for sin and salvation, hopelessness and hope, despair and delight. the protagonist of this movie lives a life of self-destruction. when he tries to fix things, he fails and flees to the only place where he has found happiness and glory: the wrestling ring. however, after that one big final match he ... involuntarily retires.

(pastoral conclusion: Christ is the only cure for the self-destruction of sin in our lives. we, in our own strength are incapable of curing ourselves. )

(takeaway thought for reflection: where do you find 'happiness' and 'glory' in life ?)

p.s. i wouldn't recommend the film for all my readers - it's definitely r-rated.

stopping to smell the roses, part eleventy hundred

i've done a post or few like this before and there are countless other stories that i should have jotted down as well.

so i made it home from work, picking up one of jake's birthday gifts (from L's parents), and picking up jake from school by around 4:30pm. jake was excited to play some baseball outside, but he said he didn't want to do 'the catching.' what a surprise, he never really liked that last season either. well, he needn't have worried because we couldn't find his glove anyways. the one that was easy to find is the big one that is the next size up.

jake wanted to do 'the hitting' so we got the tee contraption (this wild espn one that will load balls for you but we've never really messed with that feature) outside with the one ball of three that we could find. remind me to have a stern chat with the equipment manager (oh, that's probably me.). after hitting a few dribbling grounders, jake started lacing some hard hits and generally not where i was standing. he tried to tell me where to stand and then would sneakily hit it way away from me. i think he remembered something from last season! indeed, he naturally remembered how to stand with a more open stance so that his hits would go toward third base instead of up the middle or towards first (this standard t-ball strategy gives the kids more time to make it to first. no, i never thought of it before last season either.).

once he tired of that, we had planned to take a walk / jog. i asked if he wanted to ride his elmo bike (though i wondered if he would be too big for it). he certainly did, but whaddya know, we couldn't find it either. turns out we sold it last summer in a garage sale because it had gotten too small. i tell ya what, my old steel trap gets pretty rusty sometimes. anywho, we found a diego tricycle and he had a blast as we made a long lap around the neighborhood. we stayed on the sidewalk and he got a bit frustrated with the people who park their cars (in their own driveway) across the sidewalk. he asked me to 'teach' him how to go around them. i also had him go down the 'ramps' of the driveways and sidewalks, but it took quite a while for him to realize that i was telling him it was ok to go in the road. oftentimes he would only do it if i was holding his hand.

i titled this post 'stopping to smell the roses' because, as he so often does, jake taught me about life. i, as per my norm, had a tight agenda for our afternoon playtime. we had done the baseball thing and i wanted us to go faster on our walk/jog so that i could get some actual exercise. however, as per his norm, jake often would stop and listen to the cows out back or stop to say hello to someone (ok, everyone) or stop and just look at something he found interesting. i found myself - again, as per my norm - telling jake to 'hurry up' and 'come on jake come on'. but then it hit me: if life is constantly filled with 'hurry up' and 'come on' when will we ever get to enjoy wherever it was that we were heading so fast? when will we ever have 'arrived'? goals in life are a good thing, but we can't drive so hard toward them that we forget to enjoy the scenery of life on the way.

sabbath on a monday

so i've been looking for a way to be more intentional about keeping Sabbath.

it gets hard when you're working every day of the week. but i'm getting pretty tired so that forces the issue. over the past few weeks, i've tried to get on in to work on monday (though i'm usually wiped out at the end of Sunday) and get out asap. sometimes i have other work for church to do on monday evening, but today i'm laying out a schedule (in part due to beautiful weather) of playing baseball and jogging with jake. when i asked him this morning if he'd like to do that, he was beyond excited.

once it starts to get dark (or jake gets tired), we'll go inside and i'll make some dinner. i really enjoy cooking, but with busy schedules we often end up just warming something up. plus, when cooking from scratch it always feels like it costs more for all the individual ingredients. i guess it doesn't once you have more on hand though.

we'll watch some tv that was tivo'ed from last night and then i may read a bit, but hopefully get to bed early again to end the day.

flying by the seat of my pants

this evening i preached an unprepared sermon on the fly.

i had a sermon all ready to go, but after a couple of testimonies (people standing up and sharing something on their heart), i felt the need to change the sermon to a different passage (1 cor 9:19-23). sure, the passage is close to my heart and i have pondered over it for years, but it was wild to walk up to the pulpit with just 5 minutes of mental outline preparation.

it went really well and it felt great to follow the leading of the Spirit in the matter.

speaking of preaching, i (obviously) haven't been posting here much in recent weeks, but it has been going really well. i've generally been preaching once per sunday while occasionally preaching both (if the pastor isn't feeling well) or neither (if he preaches in the morning and we have a special service in the evening). almost all of my sermons have followed the revised common lectionary where four scripture passages are read (and usually) integrated together. over the course of the three year cycle, the congregation ends up hearing approximately 75% of the Bible.