Category: general news

best quote of the day:

“I didn’t think it would be all about politics…”
– Lisa, referring to why she isn’t liking the Bush School

second best quote of the day:

“Maybe it won’t be about politics. Maybe they just talked about that a lot today.”
– Lisa, attempting to justify why she might like the Bush School in the future.

had a fantastic time this weekend at jeff and lauren’s wedding. perhaps more thoughts from the weekend to come, but for now, suffice it to say that it was a great time.

hopefully i can steal some pics from ben and have them posted later

went down to houston last night for robbie’s release party. definitely good times. i should have pictures up at some point.

for those of you who don’t know, robbie is a featured artist on itunes, so download his free single “better days”. buy the album too – it supports a worthy cause.

my first impression of the album is that it’s fairly good – i prefer the older release i think, but no doubt because i am more familiar with it.

a couple of quick notes while i’m editing these pictures:

1) concert lighting is bad.
2) concert lighting is bad.
3) concert lighting is bad.

yeah, that should take care of it.

A quick note on fisherman pants:

Fisherman pants with strings vs. fisherman pants with elastic.

Each has strongpoints… For instance, the pants with strings are, I would say, in general more comfortable. However, they suffer from a few numerous drawbacks, one of which I hadn’t considered until just now: Fisherman pants with strings are prone to those strings getting in the toilet as you sit down to do your business, where as pants with elastic are not.

Carry on.

so the project for the day is a youth group video… i purchased a usb2 card since my laptop is currently not with me due to motherboard replacement. at any rate, i should be tied up with that for most of the day. if i don’t respond to email’s/instant messages, please forgive me as i’m running both of those applications on my work computer and don’t check it nearly as often when i don’t have a laptop in front of me…

(sadly)

i’ve been back a couple of days, getting adjusted and processing. i hope to organize all the pictures better and hopefully have a slideshow or something up soon. in addition, i’ve created a video portfolio of various pictures i’ve taken over the years, and i just need to get it uploaded… unfortunately my upload failed yesterday with about 30 seconds left to go, so i may just get frustrated and take it up to school on a cd or something… who knows.

anyway… i hope to see or talk to each of you soon.

just as a quick note, i’m heading to english camp tomorrow at cha-am and won’t be in internet contact until saturday night (here) at the earliest. i hope to have some good shots to post, but i don’t know what my internet situation in chaing-mai will be, so we’ll see how it goes.

take care.

new pictures are up at http://images.wisch.org/thailand.

for those of you who don’t know yet, i dropped my d70 down a flight of stairs this weekend… the camera is ok, but the lens that was on it was pretty banged up. it still takes pictures, but who knows for how long.

anyway, hope you are all being blessed.

so for those of you who don’t know, i’m spending three weeks in thailand. not a lot of time to report right now, but pictures are available at http://images.wisch.org/thailand.

enjoy. i’ll post more soon.

for those of you who haven’t picked up brian mclaren’s new book, a generous orthodoxy, do yourself a favor and grab a copy. i have only two chapters left after starting it this morning, and i’ll probably finish it soon. a seriously good book.

on discussing “personal salvation”:

1. Can’t seeking my personal salvation as the ultimate end become the ultimate consumerism or narcissism? In a self-centered and hell-centered salvation, doesn’t jesus – like every company and political party – appeal to me on the basis of self-interest so that I can have it all eternally and can do so cheaply, conveniently, easily, and quickly? Doesn’t this sound a bit shabby?

2. Doesn’t being preoccupied with our own individual salvation put is in danger of being like selfish people on the Titanic who were scrambling for the life rafts, more concerned about themselves than others? Doesn’t it make us less concerned about the possibility of saving the whole ship? Doesn’t it reinforce exactly the kind of “sanctified self-centeredness” that the real Jesus would have condemned?

3. Doesn’t the very importance of my personal salvation pose a kind of temptation – to want heaven more than I want good; to want escape from hell more than I want true reconciliation to God or my neighbors? An overweight man was concerned about his weight, so he had a stomach bypass surgery, after which he continued to eat unhealthy foods. In the end he died sooner from a heart attack than he would have died from obesity. Couldn’t this approcah to salvation tempt us to be like this man? By wanting thinness more than he wanted health, he ended up with neither – this is the danger of wanting personal salvation above all.

4. And doesn’t the preoccupation with hell tempt us to devalue other things that matter? in other words, isn’t hell such a grave “bottom line” that it devalues all other values? It so emphasizes the importance of life after death that it can unintentionally trivialize life before death.

deep stuff. more to come.