whatever you do.

I’m sitting in the Lynden Park Mall near Pam’s Coffee and Tea sipping on a cappuccino. Just finished putting stamps on the wedding invites and am being still for a moment before I walk them back to the Canada Post desk in Shoppers. As still as you can be while typing your thoughts anyway.

Summer is going to prove to be very beautiful. Long hot days, a wedding, a long vacation with my Amy… it’s going to be quite literally lovely.

So…
1. Churches booked — DONE
2. Amy’s dress picked out — DONE
3. Bridesmaid dresses picked out — DONE
4. Catering and decorations sorted — DONE (i think.. i have very little to do with this)
5. wedding invites — DONE

what is left…
1. wardrobe for me and the boys.
2. wedding bands purchased and sized
3. show up.

once i get me and the boys sorted with our spiffies I will feel like I’m on top things…
that’s next on my list anyway.

well, i’m off to the post.

Late Edit:
Amy has brought it to my attention that I have no sweet clue about weddings. Apparently there are still a million things to do, not the least of which is to actually obtain a wedding license. That one may be the least bit important!

As my computer uploads about 10,000 book covers to amazon and indigo I will otherwise entertain myself here.

I ordered quite a few books from previously mentioned amazon the other day… One that I am especially interested in reading is Myth of a Christian Nation…

“The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church” (Gregory A. Boyd)

I heard a sermon that Gregory Boyd preached at Mars Hill - April 29th on Christus Victor (Christ is Victorious). The theme of atonement… what Christ DID on the Cross and WHY.

Why did Jesus have to die on the Cross?
Today we say… To save me from my sins and take away the separation that sin creates… the me and my personal Jesus Christianity

In the first century they said… To destroy the Devil and his works.

The BAD difference, Greg suggests, is the increasing individualism of Christian religion.

Greg suggests that the GOOD NEWS of Jesus death includes our own personal salvation, but goes FAR beyond that.

I’m finding a lot of encouragement and hope in this whole Kingdom Movement that is going on…

Beautiful singings from the heart of the Bellwoods crew.

Ohbijou is like your young sibling who always finds a cat to pet, no matter where you go.

Do yourself a HUGE favour. Buy the album, learn the songs and sing along!

How long before I quit my job and head off to school… keeps running through my mind. Amy and I both have designs on something, um, grander(?), more luminous(?) more spiritual(?), or maybe just different.

_______

So I’m surfing various themes trying to find something that fits.
I like this one from here. I may try some alterations.

edit… since I am STILL jumping around looking at various themes and seeing how the looks and feels fit my purposes, the current visualization of this page may not be aligned with the above hyperlink…

Oh my goodness!


Evil Dead: The Musical

The more serious I get about passionately following the teachings of Jesus, the more I find myself at odds with the majority of Christians in my local church. I’m becoming somewhat convinced that protestant evangelical tradition has done just as much to hinder the actual “Gospel” as it has to help sustain it.

I was passed a copy of a conservative evangelical propaganda piece trying to dismantle the Emergent conversation as a cult. And strangely I found the quotes proffered as evidence for the sinfulness of Brian McLaren and Tony Jones to be wonderful, uplifting and REAL voices of leaders to whom we should be paying more attention to.

I think the article was based on an essay or radio program by Dr. John MacArthur, who seems to have a BIG problem with the emerging church. MacArthur’s main concern is over the supposedly Postmodern influenced “wishy-washy” spiritualism that he sees in Emergent. To be honest I don’t see it at all. What I see and hear from Emergent is a call for us to reach an even deeper REALITY of the GOOD NEWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ON EARTH that needs to be rediscovered and reinvented (or just simply discovered) otherwise known as the Gospel.

I love this quote which, incidently, was offered as a proof text of the Un-Christian-ness of Brian McLaren. It makes me giggle and clap! This is the opening argument against McLaren and Emergent

I present a short excerpt from the article Interview with Brian McLaren about the previous ‘A Letter to Friends of Emergent’, from McLaren’s own website as an illustration and example of his denial of the Lord he says he serves and the Jesus he says he follows. The anonymous interviewer asks Pastor McLaren:

Interviewer: You wrote, “Which reminds us that none of us has a complete grasp of the gospel… It’s very dangerous to assume you’ve perfectly contained the gospel in your little formula.” I think with all the other change going on, one thing we’ve got to hold firm on is the gospel.

McLaren: What do you mean when you say “the gospel?”

Interviewer: You know, justification by grace through faith in the finished atoning work of Christ on the cross.

McLaren: Are you sure that’s the gospel?

Interviewer: Of course. Aren’t you?

McLaren: I’m sure that’s a facet of the gospel, and it’s the facet that modern evangelical protestants have assumed is the whole gospel, the heart of the gospel. But what’s the point of that gospel?

And so I am completely satisfied with Brian McLaren’s answer to this critic and that seems to make me wishy-washy. I really think I am very much more stern about the gospel than what is assumed by such an answer.

continued…

Amy and I had a wonderful, long talk about spiritual things tonight. This may sound scary to some, and hopeful to others… and I’m not going to elaborate right now… Mostly our conversation revolved around my recent frustrations with Christians thinking they have truth all wrapped up. We talked about how in many places around the world, including right here that Christians are what is actually hindering people from finding a relationship with God. They see us living with such pride and hypocritical attitudes and anger and fear and judgementalism and they say… “if this is jesus then see ya later”.

know what i mean.?

maybe not, but, like I said, I’m not going into it further right now.

g’night.

I’ve come to a fairly obvious conclusion. The right and left hemispheres of my brain do not like each other. I think I personally get along fairly well with both, but together, they do not want to play nicely. I came to this realization over the last few weeks in this place I now call home… the cubical near the front of the office at Cook where the whir of the laser printer prevents me from fully enjoying my music.

So I’ve been consumed with very technical tasks such as data entry, editing, text layout, orderforms and html over the last few weeks. During this time I was also responsible for a few scattered creative projects (all these projects are creative in some regard, but that said, there is still a distinction to be made) that now have either passed their expected due date or have been passed on to outside design houses. Why did this happen? I can assure you, not because I am not able to create the lovely pieces, but because I can’t start them! I am finding it impossible to switch my brain between the two worlds. I’ve tried to work on one creative piece over and over and it keeps looking like a spreadsheet or something!

So, today, I delivered an ultimatum to myself. Well, I delivered a few… One, I will go home at 6pm. No buts. Two, I will only work on creative projects and keep the printer going. Guess what! The pressure seems to be off! I’m nearing completion of the creative piece. All morning I poured myself into it. I allowed myself to drift around, to experiment, to undo, undo, undo… and I’m now getting somewhere!

I should have the piece done tomorrow, but I will not go back to orderforms until it is in the can. I can not go back and forth. It really drastically affects my creative output. It makes me feel bad about the process too… When doing an orderform you just keep moving. More and more fills the page. But with a creative project there are many points where a once colourful page gets erased and you start over and start over and start over. When in techno-mode I start to believe that maybe I’m failing when actually, it is just part of the process… but it is so easy to forget.

So, my tea is yummy, my artwork is pretty, and there are only 2 hours left in the workday! I feel a bit more successful.