Sunday, I’ll once again be preaching at my home congregation.
Archives for August, 2008
AMC’s Mad Men is just an absolutely gorgeous show. Its construction of the early 1960’s world of Madison Avenue advertising is so meticulous that if it weren’t for the slick production values, you’d think you might be watching a documentary. Creator Matthew Weiner (who served a few seasons as a writer and producer of The Sopranos) has been extremely diligent with the show, adding subtleties to it that make it all the more authentic and the characters all the more compelling.
This video is the opening credits, which I absolutely LOVE. Season 2 is now available On Demand and Season 1 can be purchased on DVD or through iTunes.
My lovely wife celebrates another turn around the sun today. Let’s have fun!
Love you, babe. Hope your day is awesome.
That means it’s almost time for the new season of The Office.
Over the weekend, Alli and I headed up to her folks’ place to take our future nieces to the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo. We’ve been before (obviously, Alli, having been from the area has been several times…this was my 3rd trip), but each time we go, they seemingly have some new attraction for zoo-goers to peep.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day on Saturday and plenty of folks took advantage of the great weather to visit the zoo. We even ran into our friends Mike and Danielle on their way out of the zoo, which was funny because I hadn’t seen them here in KC for a long time.
It’s no surprise to run into folks from Kansas City 3 hours North at the Zoo. Omaha’s zoo puts Kansas City’s poor excuse for a zoo to absolute shame. The zoo in Omaha is accessible, clean and all the animals look comfortable (mostly) whereas the KC Zoo is a blight as far as zoos go.
I think that the KC Zoo would be better suited to close up shop, ship all its animals 3 hours North and put all its money into a high-speed train that runs to the Omaha Zoo. Because as far as zoos go, Omaha’s is one of the best.
One of the coolest things that Omaha has is a newer attraction called the Kingdoms of the Night, which has a slew of nocturnal animals and one specific section called The Swamp, which feels – predictably – like a swamp. It is the world’s largest indoor swamp and inside, the zoo has constructed a wooden bridge that takes you through sunken rowboats and trees in low light while alligators and beavers and other nocturnal animals mill about as if they were in the bayou of Louisiana. Along the way, you’ll get a glimpse of the crown jewel of the Omaha Zoo – the very rare White Alligator, one of only 13 in the world.
This display is just one example of how much better the Omaha Zoo is compared to ours. And to be honest, with the way that Kansas City, Missouri is run, it’s no surprise.
So for those of you who have never been, I would highly recommend you take the 3-hour trip North to Omaha, if only for the day. It’s completely worth it.
The Phoenix Affirmations
by Eric Elnes
Rating: 9 out of 10
It’s now been almost 2 weeks since Alli and I got back from the Congregational Life Workshop for our church. One of the wonderful things (of many) that was a part of the workshop was that we used The Phoenix Affirmations as a conversation starter for our early morning Living Room Group discussions.
The book is a really fascinating collection of “the new tenets” of Christianity that have been gathered ecumenically from across the country and were ceremoniously walked across the United States to Washington D.C. and “nailed to the doors of all the major religions” Martin-Luther-style.
As a strong believer in a living God, I think these affirmations are a wonderful step toward bringing Christianity back towards its original purpose.
This book is a very easy read, one that certainly will challenge the faith of some, but ultimately is a step in a great direction.
The affirmations are as follows:
- Being sincerely Christian without denying the legitimacy of other religions.
- Listening for God’s Word, which comes through praying, studying the Bible, and attending to God’s activity in the world.
- Celebrating the sanctity of God’s Creation, including Nature, the sacred and the secular, the Christian and non-Christian, etc.
- Worshipping in a way that is sincere, artful, and biblical.
- Treating all people as creations made in God’s image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, nationality, religion, physical or mental ability, etc., just as Jesus did.
- Standing up for the poor, for the margianalized, for the oppressed, seeking justice and peace for all.
- Preserving religious freedom and maintaining the separation of church and state.
- Humbly acknowledging our own shortcomings while sincerely trying to see and bring out the best in others, even if they consider us their enemy.
- Basing our lives on the faith that Christ restores all things and that all of us are loved beyond our wildest dreams.
- Recognizing the sanctity of both our minds and our hearts and that both science and faith, doubt and belief, serve the pursuit for truth.
- Realizing the benefits of prayer, worship, recreation, and healthiness in addition to work.
- Acting on the faith that we born with a purpose, a vocation that serves to strengthen God’s Kingdom and extend God’s love.
These affirmations match up very well to the latest counsel to our church and provided for some great discussions with a diverse group of people. If you are a believer, I’d suggest this book. It’s a great theological study. At times, the book can be repetitive and it is certainly challenging in sections, but ultimately, it’s a great read.
The 160GB hard drive on my five-year-old iMac G5 died a few days ago.
I’m not sure what happened. I’d like to blame Microsoft and I actually have some justification in doing it. For some reason, it froze in the middle of a Microsoft Office automatic update and it never recovered.
I’ve tried everything I can for free. I took it to the Apple Store on the Plaza…they couldn’t even see it. I bought a SATA to USB adapter on eBay that arrived today…it didn’t work either.
So I called a data recovery specialist. They told me that if they didn’t recover anything (which they assured me rarely happens), it would still cost me a $200 attempt fee, but if they did, it would be closer to $2,300! (They give you a range and the price is based on how much they recover – minimum $500, maximum $2,700.)
As much as I’d like to recover the data, I’m not down with dropping that much money. The only absolutely heart-breaking thing that I lost was a bunch of pictures. Fortunately, I moved many of the 10,000+ in my iPhoto library (especially the almost 2,000 from our Italy trip) to my Macbook and I’m thankful for that.
I’ll likely discover over time more of what’s missing, but what’s disheartening is that if I’d upgraded to Leopard I could have used Time Machine to automate the backups, but unfortunately I was still running Tiger.
If there’s one bright spot regarding the crash, it’s that the computer itself will still work and I can upgrade the drive to 320GB…twice the size of its predecessor. Still, it sucks.
Every few months I have to remind myself why I blog. Today, I’m here to tell you that I’m not sure I can answer that question to my own satisfaction anymore.
Last week, Alli and I had an amazing time at our church’s Congregational LIFE Workshop, a week dedicated to spiritual growth and helping leaders learn some tactics to implement in their own congregations. I’ve come back with a new look on a lot of things.
In sort-of-related news, I’ve been feeling a strange disconnection to my own blog lately and I’m realizing that I’m not doing it for the reasons I started it for originally. I’m not sure that I want to go back to how it was 4 years ago when I started, but I’m also feeling that I need a focus to my blog rather than it being all over the place. I’ve got some ideas, but nothing concrete yet.
I hope that helps explain my absence lately.
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