What'd you get?

Well, the unwrapping is done. It can be pretty overwhelming. I'm trying to think of everything I received. I don't think I even know where it all is anymore. After a few rounds of cleaning up the house stuff gets put away here and there and if you're not the put-awayer then it might take a while to find it all.

Here's some of what I got:

CD - THE Essential CLASH (listening to it right now)

CD - The Essential BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

CD - George Strait (his second Christmas CD)

a couple of books (don't recall any title right now)

a couple of pairs of pyjamas

a sweatshirt (wearing it now)

Season 8 of M*A*S*H on DVD

a 2450 piece Mega-Blok (like LEGO) submarine

a beautiful multicoloured stole bought at Ten Thousand Villages (Guatemalan I think)

Lord Of The Rings Trivial Pursuit

extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD

a couple of crossword books

a music book of Disney Theme Park music

an insulated picnic backpack

a generous monetary gift to invest in an RRSP

I'm sure I've forgotten some gifts but that's the list I can remember from here in my office. My favourite is probably the stole. No offense to the other givers but it's absolutely gorgeous.

Nativity of Our Lord

Nativity of Our Lord
December 24, 2005
Luke 2.1-14 [15-20]
Thomas Arth

I’ve sometimes heard the saying
that Christmas is for children.
Now I don’t think that’s entirely true,
but I can see where the people who make that statement
are coming from.
I have to admit that the excitement and wonder and joy
that children show at Christmas
can be infectious.
The decorations start to come out,
Santa Claus appears in the malls,
you start hearing Christmas carols and songs,
seeing Christmas specials on TV,
and you can’t miss the advertising
that tells you what you really have to buy
to make your loved ones happy.
It’s not just kids that get caught up in the frenzy of Christmas.
The kids don’t have much money to spend.
But when they know Christmas is coming
they start making their lists.
The song says that Santa Claus is making a list and checking it twice,
but that’s the naughty and nice list.
The kids start writing their "I want" lists.
They can start to get kind of greedy
and some parents start to think
they have to get them everything on their list.
I don’t see any harm in giving and receiving presents at Christmas
except when it starts to go overboard
and people allow themselves to get into more and more debt.
That ends up missing the point, the reason,
and the spirit of Christmas entirely.

There’s a popular song
that has been recorded by a number of artists
called "My Grownup Christmas List."
The words go like this:

Do you remember me
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you
With childhood fantasies

Well, I’m all grown up now
And still need help somehow
I’m not a child
But my heart still can dream

So here’s my lifelong wish
My grown up Christmas list
Not for myself
But for a world in need.

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown up Christmas list.

As children we believed
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely
Wrapped beneath our tree

Well heaven only knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal
A hurting human soul

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown up Christmas list.

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth?
Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth
(there’d be)

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end, oh,
This is my grown up Christmas list.

Maybe some of those things are on our grown up Christmas lists
instead of video games or doll houses.
I read a story recently where a scrooge-like character hated Christmas
and complained that "it was simply ‘Outrageous and overdone.’
It was ‘Too commercial.’
It avoided ‘The real issues of life.’
It led to ‘Extravagance’
and caused ‘Jealousy and anger.’
There was ‘No peace on earth, or good will to anyone.’
Even at family gatherings.
To top it all off, Christmas had been celebrated for centuries
and there were still ‘Wars, poverty,
violence and injustice’ happening all around."

There’s some truth to all of that.
And no matter that our grown up Christmas list asks
for no more lives torn apart, that wars would never start, etc.
we don’t seem to get what we’re wishing for.

When we see what human beings can do to one another,
when we see the effects of our broken lives on our relationships
and even on our planet,
it can bring sadness.
It’s not only we who are sad,
but God is saddened by it too.
We were created to live in friendship with God,
with each other,
and with all creation,
but we decided we could find joy in other ways.
Daniel Erlander writes:
"God groaned. Planet Earth groaned. All living things groaned.
The whole universe, its harmony disrupted
by the egoism of the human species, wept.
Sorrow filled the cosmos.
God thought about destroying Planet Earth
or at least snuffing out the humans.
However, when considering the destruction of the human race,
God wept and said, ‘I will not!
Can a mother destroy her child, her delight, her joy?’
God thought of another way.
The Creator said, ‘I’ll open the sky and reveal my splendor.
I’ll terrorize the human species into submission!’
God thought for a while and then cried out, ‘I will not! I cannot!
Then I would use their method—acting like a big deal.
I do not want groveling subjects!’
The Creator, in passionate love, decided on another way.
It is a long story—
a story of friendship, passion, promise, disappointment,
hope, and self-giving love."

Our grown up Christmas list
has been the wish of some throughout history.
God hears our cries and comes down to us.
It happened on the first Christmas night
and it happens to us over and over.
Mary gave birth while she and Joseph, her fiancé,
were lodged in a stable.
She held her newborn in her arms
and repeated the song she had sung
when the child was conceived:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my savior;
You have routed the arrogant.
You have cast down the mighty from their thrones
and have lifted up the lowly!
Mary placed the little baby in a feedbox.
Angels sang.
Animals smiled.
The trees clapped their hands,
and all creation rejoiced.
Lowly shepherds, informed by angels,
came and found the child in the feedbox.
God smiled.
In this baby the creator of the universe was present—
with creation, with the poor, one of the poor,
good news to the poor!
Because of this child God’s dream would come true,
a society where people lived in relationship with God,
with each other, and with all creation.

We’re not there yet so we still cry out with our grown up Christmas lists.

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end.

On that first Christmas night our Lord came to us
in the form of a baby.
Every time we celebrate Holy Communion
he comes to us again in a very real way,
present in, with, and under the form of bread and wine.
In that wafer of bread on our tongues
and that sip of wine on our lips
we have a foretaste of the fulfillment
of our Christmas wishes.

We’ve come to this night. The time is fulfilled.
The baby is born and with him
a whole new world and a whole new life for us.
It is the birth of hope, the birth of promise.
God has come into our midst and the world won’t be the same.
Jesus came to bring reconciliation,
to bring peace,
to bring new life.
It’s the beginning of fulfilment of our grown up Christmas list.
It is time now for the celebrations to begin.
Put aside restraint.
Mound up the wrapping paper from ravished presents.
Put out the best food on your finest china.
Use your best manners.
Enjoy the relatives.
Sing the carols, hear the story, light the candles,
eat the bread, drink the wine—
bearing to us the fleshy presence of the infant Lord.
Amen

Queenie Died

We had an early Christmas celebration yesterday afternoon at my parents’ place with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their families from my dad’s side of the family. It was good seeing everyone again. Some of them I only see once a year.

When we got home, my wife went upstairs to change and then called me because one of our cockatiels was lying dead in the bottom of the cage. Both King and Queenie are pretty old. Cockatiels only live for about 15 years and that’s about how old Queenie was. We got her shortly after we got married 15 years ago. King is probably about a year younger so he’s an old man too. Well, "J," our 10 year old daughter took it hard. She cried and cried. Later she said she was worried that if she like this to the loss of a pet bird, how would she handle it if she lost one of her parents or grandparents?

I have to admit, I don’t get how people get so emotionally attached to pets. I’m not unfeeling or emotionally cold but losing my pet cockatiel of nearly 15 years didn’t make me particularly sad. I feel for people who do take the loss of a pet hard, as I did for my daughter. My wife did most of the consoling but I plan to tell "J" that it’s okay to be sad, and when she eventually does lose a grandparent or a parent (hopefully not for a very long time) she’ll feel even more sadness and it will last a long time. I serve a church with many old people and I’ve done a lot of funerals in my 3½ years here (31). Now she’ll have, in a small way, an idea of what they’re going through.

I’m not looking forward to when King goes.

Mein Doppelgänger

I Googled my name last week and found a few places on church sites that had my name, a lot of items on an American football player who plays on some European NFL team in England. Then I found a guy in Germany who has a computer business. I sent him an email introducing myself and some of my family background. He wrote back and thinks we might be related somehow. His father’s family is from Yugoslavia like mine. My dad thinks a possible connection might be that my grandfather and this German guy’s great-grandfather were cousins. I’m going to keep in touch with the other me and try to work out if and/or how we might be related.

December 6, 1989

In our house, December 6 is St. Nicholas Day. During the night St. Nicholas comes and leaves a plate of chocolates under everyone’s bed for us to find in the morning.

For years now I’ve always remembered that December 6 is also the anniversary of the Montréal Massacre. This year I forgot until I was reminded by the nightly news before I went to bed. On December 6, 1989 a man walked into an engineering classroom, separated the men from the women, then opened fire on the women saying he hates feminists. 27 people were shot, 13 survived leaving 14 dead. Year after year we hear the name of the murderer on the news. It’s good that the media continues to remember the massacre but we rarely, if ever, hear the names of the dead women.

I’m not going to mention the murderer’s name but I want to remember the women who died that day.

Anne St-Arneault, 23
Geneviève Bergeron, 21
Hélène Colgan, 23
Nathalie Croteau, 23
Barbara Daigneault, 22
Anne-Marie Edward, 21
Maud Haviernick, 29
Barbara Klueznick, 31
Maryse Laganière, 25
Maryse Leclair, 23
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22
Sonia Pelletier, 23
Michèle Richard, 21
Annie Turcotte, 21

Heeeere's Tom

Does this look at all like me? I picked the most appropriate (IMO) choices for my appearance. The workstation in the background isn't nearly messy enough. I keep meaning to eventually put a picture of myself in my profile but we always download our pictures onto the kids' computer at home and I forget to bring one to the office.

Stereotypes

They're stereotypes, sure, but funny IMO.

A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure.

In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.

In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant.

In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.

In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.

In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.

In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant.

And in the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.

Birthday Gospel

LutheranChik gave me this idea. Give it a try. See what the four gospels say in your birth month chapter and birth day verse. Here're mine.

Matthew 10.14 "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town."

Mark 10.14 "But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, 'Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.'"

Luke 10.14 "But at the judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you."

John 10.14 "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me."

Advent and Christmas Message

A scripture reading in Advent cries out "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!" (Isa 64:1). It sounds kind of impatient. At this time of year many children are feeling just like that about Christmas. "O that Christmas morning would just get here!"

During Advent we in the church put our brakes on, we try not to rush to Christmas morning the way much of the world does. We often lament the commercialization of Christmas. It seems that many stores hang the Christmas decorations and start playing the Christmas music earlier every year. I heard a news report this year that said some retailers were getting an early start on the Christmas season to get us out spending our money before we're shocked by the expected increase in our heating bills.

Isaiah's cry was that God would come down, that we would see God's powerful presence, that God would appear and we would mend our sinful ways. When we look at the state of our world, at wars happening in numerous places, at corrupt governments causing their people to suffer, when we see people hungry, people dying from preventable diseases, sometimes we want to call God down to straighten the whole mess out.

In Advent we look forward to God coming down. We look forward to the celebration of Christmas when the Son of God emptied himself and was born as one of us, as a poor baby without much of a roof over his head. Not exactly shock and awe, not exactly a powerful presence forcing us to mend our sinful ways.

We await the child in the manger and we await the glorious Son of God returning at the end of time. The first coming was a gift that reconciled us to God and each other. The second coming will restore all that we've messed up. That's not to say we sit back now and wait. We, who have been saved by God's grace, ought to communicate that Good News far and wide and work for the health and well being of our community and our world.

The Advent season is a time of anticipation but we're not waiting for something unknown. We know that for Christians the expectations of the prophets were fulfilled in the manger. We know how Advent ends but we always greet Christmas and greet Christ with amazement and delight. We also know that Christmas is a beginning, not an ending. We sing "Christ, the Saviour, is born!" and we proclaim "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." The anticipation continues.

God bless your Advent and may you have a Merry Christmas.

Christ the King

Christ the King
November 20, 2005
Matthew 25.31-46

I read about a party game.
I’ve never played it but reading about it
I can imagine how it might play out.
The setting could be any kind of party,
maybe a pot-luck,
maybe one of the many Christmas parties
that will be happening in the next month.
To play the game, you set up for a party
with punch bowls, finger foods, hors d’oeuvres, and so on.
Every person in the room gets a sign taped to his or her back,
reading "monarch," "courtier," "servant," or "beggar."
Once everyone has their sign you start the party.
The game is to try to guess what sign is on your back,
and try to help others guess what’s on their backs,
by treating each other
as you think someone of their status should be treated.
It also depends on what you think might be on your back.
If your sign says "monarch,"
the vast majority of guests are going to flatter you
and offer you treats.
If the sign on your back says "beggar,"
you’re probably going to be treated like trash—
especially if you have the nerve to act
as if you were equal to others with higher status.
It’s a game that can also teach you something.
You can discuss how it felt to be treated a certain way,
or how it felt having to treat others
according to the signs on their backs.

But what would it be like to live in a community,
to live in a world, where everyone,
even the beggars
who get spit on by the high and mighty in our world,
everyone were treated
as if the sign on their back said "monarch."

Today, on Christ the King Sunday,
we hear this strange and difficult parable-like story
of the final judgment.
It’s a story that can make us uncomfortable.
According to Jesus, one day we will stand
before the King of the Universe
and hear his judgment on our lives.
He’ll sort us into two groups—goats to the left and sheep to the right,
the goats to be punished forever
and the sheep to have eternal life.
What do we do with a story like that?
Do we review our lists?
Read it carefully.
You need at least one hungry person, one thirsty one,
one stranger, one naked person,
one sick person, and one prisoner
so that you can supply food, drink,
a warm welcome, some clothes,
a hospital visit, and a prison visit.
So does that mean that you’ll be one of the sheep
and not one of the goats?

I have a book called Good Goats.
In it the writer relates the following:
A few years ago, we made a presentation
to a group of elderly retired Roman Catholic nuns.
One sister raised her hand and asked,
"What about the story of the sheep and the goats?
It says right there that the sheep go to heaven
and the goats go to hell."

The presenter responded by asking the whole group,
"How many of you, even once in your life,
have done what Jesus asks at the beginning of that passage
and fed a hungry person, clothed a naked person
or visited a person in prison?"
All the sisters raised their hands.
He said, "That’s wonderful! You’re all sheep."
Then he asked, "How many of you, even once in your life,
have walked by a hungry person,
failed to clothe a naked person,
or not visited someone in prison?"
Slowly, all the sisters raised their hands.
He said, "That’s too bad. You’re all goats."

The sisters looked worried and perplexed.
Then suddenly one very old sister’s hand shot up.
She blurted out, "I get it! We’re all good goats!"

If you listen carefully to the sheep and the goats in the gospel reading
you’ll discover something. Listen to the sheep:
"When did we give you something to eat or drink?
When did we welcome you as a stranger
or give you clothes to wear
or visit you while you were sick or in jail?"
And listen to the goats:
"Lord, when did we fail to help you
when you were hungry or thirsty or a stranger
or naked or sick or in jail?"
Do you notice that both the sheep and the goats
are surprised to hear
that they did or didn’t do those things for Jesus?
It’s not about checking off one hungry person, one thirsty one,
one sick one, and one in prison as if it’s a scavenger hunt list.
It’s not about tossing a quarter or a loonie into a panhandler’s cup
and calling it done.
"There! There’s my good deed for the day,
my ticket to eternity with the sheep!"
That would be using people for your own gain.
And then what about those days when you walk by,
maybe because you’re in a hurry
or because you don’t have any change
or because you’re in a foul mood
and don’t feel like helping.
Then do you end up being a goat?
Are you back at square one?

I don’t know if this story was meant to scare us,
to make us worry about which side we’ll be on.
Are we sheep or are we goats?
Are we going to be sent away to eternal punishment
or to eternal life?
Well, the story might scare us or make us worry
but there’s good news in the story too.
Jesus is here.
How many of you have ever met a king or a queen,
a prime minister or a president?
Whatever we might think of our leaders,
I think it would be an honour.
How many of you have ever met the King of kings,
the Son of God?
Well, he’s with you every day.
Jesus is present in every single person whose path crosses ours,
and particularly in the least ones, the lost ones,
the last ones we would ever have expected.
So how do we live, knowing that?
Now maybe that makes us more afraid
or more worried than before.
Some Christians talk about
"a personal relationship with your Lord and Saviour."
Well, where do we find a relationship like that?
Jesus is so present with us,
that we’ve got unlimited opportunities
to have a relationship like that,
opportunities to meet him and to serve him.
We forget, or maybe we don’t even understand,
that everything we do or don’t do
affects our relationship with our Lord.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
"The only way to tell if they are really Jesus’ eyes
is to look into them,
to risk that moment of recognition that may break your heart,
or change your mind, or make you mad,
or make you amend your life.
Whatever effect it has on you,
that seems to be one thing the sheep know how to do
that the goats have never tried:
to look, to see, to seek Christ
in the last, the lost, the least.
The food, the drink, the welcome, the visit—
all those things will follow in their own good time.
They are necessary for life;
they are not optional,
but by themselves they are just quarters in a cup.
Charity is no substitute for kinship.
We are not called to be philanthropists or social workers,
but brothers and sisters.
We are called into relationship,
even when that relationship is unlikely, momentary, or sad.
We are called to look at each other and see Christ,
who promises to be there where our eyes meet,
and in that glance
to teach us something we need to know."

What we need to do is look, look into the eyes of Jesus.
Why are the goats in this story condemned?
They’re not condemned for doing bad things, remember,
but for doing nothing.
They didn’t kick the beggar in the street.
They didn’t spit on the lonely stranger.
They didn’t curse at the homeless person.
They simply didn’t see any relationship between their lives
and the lives of the least.
If we have faith, if we are people of faith
then we claim to have a relationship with our Lord and Saviour.
It’s up to us to decide what we’re going to do about it.

If we look into the eyes of Christ in our neighbour,
in the eyes of the least,
then we might just find out that we are one of them.
We all have a sign on our backs that says "beggar."
Our problem is when we see "beggar" on someone else’s back
and we assume our sign says "courtier" or "monarch"
and we feel like we’re at some higher station than they are.
If we truly look into the eyes of Christ in our neighbour
we’ll see that they’re not so different from us,
or rather, that we’re not so different from them.
Martin Luther’s last written words were
"It’s true. We’re beggars."

But our gospel reading today teaches us another thing.
They ask "When did we give you something to eat or drink?
When did we welcome you as a stranger
or give you clothes to wear
or visit you while you were sick or in jail?"
The king will answer,
"When ever you did it for any of my people,
no matter how unimportant they seemed,
you did it for me."
All those beggars out there,
including you and me,
we all have a "monarch" sign taped to our backs.
When we look into the eyes of our neighbour in need
we see our Lord, our King.

We’ve come to the end of our church year,
a cycle we’ll begin again next Sunday.
Throughout the year we’ve found God in a manger,
among lepers and the blind,
in strange stories with unexpected twists,
hanging on a cross,
and missing from a vacated tomb!
"When did we see you Lord?"
Squint hard and stare
at the most God-forsaken person you can find.
Then offer a cup of water,
a gentle and assuring pat on the back,
a handshake of welcome.
Greet your hidden Lord!
Amen

Baby It's Cold Outside

Last night we had our first dusting of snow for this winter. We had rain off and on during the day and then after dark it turned to snow. The grass, the cars, the roofs were all white but the roads and sidewalks were clear.

This morning was the first time this season that the temperature has been below freezing as I walked the kids to school. They like crunching the ice that forms over puddles. They race each other to be the first one to crunch the ice. I'm not dressing for the cold yet. I'm still wearing a ball cap instead of a toque and I don't even know if I've got a pair of gloves around. It was less than a month ago that we left Florida and now there's snow and ice on the ground.

And in church I'm starting to plan and think about Advent and Christmas. In church I try to let Advent be Advent and not jump the gun toward Christmas but at home I can't help it. I've already started to play carols on the piano. I had a rule about not playing any Christmas music until the First Sunday in Advent or December 1, whichever comes first, but I've broken it for a few years now. My wife was wrapping some presents last night and put a Christmas episode of Vicar of Dibley on the TV to get into the mood. The older I get the less I'm enjoying winter but I like the feel of the cold air, and hopefully the crunch of snow under my feet when Christmas comes.

On the First Sunday in Advent we're doing Advent lessons and carols in church. The Friday after that the Fellowship Group is planning an intergenerational potluck supper and Christmas caroling after that. This Sunday afternoon is Toronto's Santa Claus Parade and we've got a family tradition of watching it on TV with the in-laws. It's all come so fast and just as quickly it'll be over, the earth will be wobbling back on its axis so that the northern hemisphere will be tilted back toward the sun, but for now, well, it's cold outside but I like it.

Mark 6:4 not always true

But Jesus said, "Prophets are honoured by everyone, except the people of their hometown and their relatives and their own family."

I went back home this past Sunday. The church I’m serving is only the second congregation I’ve ever belonged to. I was baptized when I was 2½ months old at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hamilton, Ontario. That’s where my faith was born and grew. I attended Sunday School, confirmation classes, went to youth group (where I met my wife), got married, and had my 3 oldest kids baptized there. It was people there who prayed for me and encouraged me to follow my calling by going to seminary and becoming a pastor. When I was 35½ years old I was called to serve First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Port Colborne, Ontario and here I still am.

Well, this past Sunday I went home, so to speak. I participated in a pulpit exchange with their pastor. He came to Port Colborne and I went to Hamilton. I was kind of nervous and excited about going back. I’ve been back there from time to time to attend a wedding, a funeral, a conference meeting, the installation of their new pastor, and maybe one or two other things, but it was my first time since being ordained that I preached in that pulpit and presided at worship in that chancel. The congregation has two pastors, one who serves the German speaking part of the congregation and one who serves the English speaking. There are of course some overlaps but that’s the main gist of it. The pulpit exchange was with the English pastor. I went to the German worship service as well and read the lessons there. My German is good enough to read and to understand but not to preach.

It was a great experience. Only one thing would have made it better and that would have been presiding at Holy Communion. That congregation doesn’t have weekly communion yet and I happened to come on a non-communion Sunday. We did the Service of Word and Prayer out of the worship book With One Voice.

I was welcomed warmly and enthusiastically by the people of my old church. Many of the old folks remember me from childhood on (for good or bad). So, this preacher was honoured by the people of his hometown, by his relatives, and his own family. I’ll never forget it.

The Lutheran Handbook

I finally did it! I got my hands on The Lutheran Handbook. I ordered copies for myself and the confirmation class (along with Baptized We Live and CEV Bibles). I've been leafing through the handbook today and it's a riot. There are totally serious sections and others that have made me lol.

For instance, the section titled HOW TO BANISH THE DEVIL FROM YOUR PRESENCE gives 7 points:

1. Laugh out loud.
2. Make the sign of the cross.
3. Seek the company of other believers.
4. Serve those who have less than you.
5. Confess your sins.
6. Break wind.
7. Consider what you might be doing to invite the devil into your life.

Then there's the section HOW TO AVOID GETTING BURNED AT THE STAKE which concludes with

• If there is no hope of escape, request dry wood and plenty of dry kindling. Green wood burns slower, smokier, and at lower temperatures, causing a more painful death.

The Lutheran Handbook is an Augsburg Fortress publication. ISBN 0-8066-5179-2. I highly recommend it and I've barely read anything in it but it puts some fun back into Christianity, fun that often gets sucked out by serious Christians.

I'm Baaack

I know, I know. It's been a long time since I've posted anything. Partly because I find it hard to make the time to do this. Partly because I was on vacation.

The family and I loaded up the Windstar and headed south on October 6. We picked up our breakfast at Tim Horton's and were on our way. We crossed the Peace Bridge into New York then drove through New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, then spent our first night in Virginia. The next day we continued through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, then spent the second night in Georgia. On October 8 we arrived in Florida and spent a couple of weeks in a condo outside of Walt Disney World. The weather was great. Our first week the temperature hit 90 a few times (that's 32 C) and the second week was only a few degrees cooler, 86-88 (30-31). The only rain we encountered was on the trip down.

We made the same trek last year and bought annual passes for Disney so when we went this year our admission to the parks was already paid for. On the 13th we went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. My wife dressed as Mary Poppins, the girls were a vampire and Sleeping Beauty, and the boys and I were the Three Musketeers. We had a ball. I know a lot of people are down on Disney because of all its excesses, artificiality, etc., but it's a whole lot of fun.

We left Florida in the evening on the 21st and made it across the border into Georgia. The next day we drove as far as northern West Virginia, almost into Pennsylvania. On the 23rd we were home by about 1:30 pm. It was a wonderful, relaxing vacation. I rarely thought about work. I finally read the Da Vinci Code (I thought it was awesome!). I trusted that the people in my church were in good hands.

We won't be doing the Disney thing again for a few years. Next summer we plan to spend a little more time camping with our trailer (there's a great campground in the Finger Lakes Region of New York that we like). We've been talking about a Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI trip ever since we read Anne of Green Gables to the kids. We might get to that in '07.

It was a refreshing time (if not relaxing). It's good to be back home and back to work (I like my job most of the time). Things are busy. Confirmation classes start this week. Our Fall Conference Event takes place this Saturday. And all of a sudden we're in Advent and things just go nuts with the approach of Christmas. I know a lot of clergy take time off after a busy season to catch their breath but I've found that it helped me to take time before things got hectic.

So, I'm back and I'll try to find the time to put my thoughts up on this blog from time to time.

Shalom

Food Bank Challenge Update

Well, the month of September is over and the friendly competition between ourselves and the LCC church around the corner is finished. The grand totals for the entire month came to 972 lbs of food donations collected by them and 909 lbs of food donations collected by us. All totalled we're just 119 lbs short of a ton, 1881 lbs from our two little churches.

That final week brought in amazing results. By the third Sunday of the month we were leading 467 to 369 so we added 442 lbs and they added an incredible 603 lbs.

What's important is that we did so much, together, to fill the shelves at the food bank. The need never goes away. Thankfully on a Saturday in November the Lions Club does a city wide blitz going door to collect donations. That big push manages to last almost a year but by the summer time and into the fall there starts to be a shortage. That's why we decided on September for our competition.

What needs to be done is to put food banks out of business by giving social assistance recipients enough to live on and helping them get good paying jobs so that the phrase "working poor" doesn't have to exist anymore. The director of the food bank reminded me that Jesus said, "you will always have the poor with you" but I've heard Christians use that as an excuse not to try to do anything to help the poor get out of their situation, as if that's their lot in life and Jesus even said so. That's not what the director meant. She agreed that welfare cheques don't go far enough. Often they barely cover the rent. That's why our little city of 18 500 or so needs a food bank and a number of soup kitchens around town. We'll always have the poor but we ought to advocate for them so that there don't have to be so many of them.

Shalom

Lousy Preaching

In my brief time in ministry as a pastor (just over 3 years), I’ve preached a few good sermons (likely very few). I don’t know if it’s lazyness or if I’m just not a gifted preacher but I don’t hear a lot of "good sermon pastor" when people are walking out the door and shaking my hand after worship.

When I came to the congregation I’m serving, most of my week was spent trying to come up with a sermon. I’d pore over commentaries, read homiletics texts to try to remember how to write a sermon, and stare for ages at the computer screen pecking out a sentence here, a thought there, racking my brain to come up with even a slightly interesting illustration, and by the end of the week I’d have a sermon in place but not a very good one, at least in my opinion.

Lately I’ve decided that I can’t spend that much time coming up with a sermon for Sunday. There are other things to do in my ministry. So for some time now I’ve been cheating. I patch together things from various sermon helps, books, online stuff, and come up with something decent, certainly faster, but it doesn’t sound like me. I’m not satisfied. I feel like I’m cheating myself and my hearers. And I’m not hearing "good sermon pastor." I don’t need to hear that for my ego but it helps to know that what I’m saying means something to someone out there.

I was reading yesterday from The Evangelizing Church: A Lutheran Contribution (Augsburg Fortress, 2005) in a chapter by Richard H. Bliese called "Addressing Captives in Babylon." In part of this chapter he’s discussing a common lament "Since Jesus in no longer living with us bodily, how can we actually ‘hear’ his voice or ‘feel’ his healing touch?" Then he writes:

The heart of evangelical theology and preaching is that Christ is alive and present among us—concretely and unmistakably. Jesus’ word and presence are real, direct, graspable, and available for us—today! If faith means anything, it means grasping hold of a sermon or a forgiving word from a friend and declaring, "Amen, I believe these are Jesus’ words for me." Clarity on this point is vital for evangelizing. We do not act as if Jesus Christ were present in the Christian community. The gospel message is that Jesus, actually, is alive and is really present with us in Christian community as he promised. That’s the good news. It’s the great gift of salvation.

That’s a lot of pressure. Christ comes to us through Word and Sacrament and Christian Community. My words are to become The Word(?). I’ve always felt privileged to be able to share the Gospel with God’s people. I still do, but I’m kind of intimidated as well. It’s not that I don’t want to make the effort to write a good sermon. Maybe I’m just not a good preacher and that’s such an important part of a pastor’s ministry.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Food Drive Challenge

There are a few things, some quite major things, that our Lutheran Church (ELCIC) and the Lutheran Church-Canada (LCC) don't agree on. We both call ourselves Lutheran but there's deep animosity between our churches.

Well, we're working together with the LCC church around the corner to help the poor in our community. Last year their church set a goal for themselves, to collect a certain amount of food for our local food bank. The shelves there get pretty empty around this time of year so they set their goal to help restock the shelves.

This year they thought it would be fun to involve another church. They called and asked if we'd be up for a friendly competition, to see which church could collect the most during the month of September. I said I'd think about it, maybe talk to some of the church council to see what they thought, then moments later I called back, having made the decision on my own, and said "Let's do it. It'll be fun and it can only help the food bank."

We've got two members of our congregation who faithfully bring a bag of canned goods for the food bank week after week. Others might bring something sporadically. More will bring something when we put a big push on around Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving or when there's an emergency because the cupboard is bare.

I've been encouraging the congregation week after week to bring their donations. Week One brought in 72 pounds (the weighing isn't really very accurate. I plop a box or bag of groceries on a bathroom scale but each time I place it on the scale I get a slightly different number). Week Two brought in 155 pounds, and Week Three we collected 240 pounds. At this point we contacted a local paper to see if they wanted to put something in about our competition. The other pastor, the chairwoman of their social ministry committee, and I had our picture taken at the food bank in front of a shelf with a few boxes of Mac and Cheese and a few cans of Pork and Beans. We were up to 467 pounds. They were up to 369 pounds.

I didn't think we could top the 240 pounds we collected in Week Three but this morning I weighed and delivered our collections from this past Sunday and in Week Four we had 309 pounds bringing our total to 776 pounds. The other church did even better than us this time with 365 pounds bringing their total to 734 pounds. They've certainly narrowed the gap and they're hoping some people will bring things to the church by Friday to see if they can catch up and/or overtake us.

I don't really care who wins. Neither of us are huge churches. Our average attendance on a Sunday is about 50 and they're somewhere in that neighbourhood too. Our little churches have colleced 1510 pounds total. It's awesome! This is neighbour love. This is thanksgiving for all that we've been given. This is help for the poor.

It's a shame that we have to have a food bank. I'd love it, and so would the volunteers who work there, if that food bank would go out of business. But there are working poor and people on social assistance in our community who always end up with more month left at the end of the money. Bishop Preibisch of the British Columbia Synod (http://www.bcsynod.org) reminded us recently that in 1990 the House of Commons unanimously resloved to "seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000" yet today more than one million Canadian children (nearly one child in six) still live in poverty. In November 2003 Prime Minister Paul Martin said,

"We must measure our progress by the standard of care that we set for the least privileged among us . . . . The true challenge of leadership is to rally a nation to its unfulfilled promise. To build a society based on equality, not privilege; on duty, not entitlement. A society based on compassion and caring; not indifference or neglect."

Nice words but where's the action? It looks like we'll be challenging our people to donate food to the food bank more and more. As Bishop Preibisch has said, "We can take up the Prime Minister's challenge by rallying our nation to fulfill the promise to end child poverty." Amen

No Barbershopping

The church that was holding the benefit concert for hurricane relief efforts ended up delaying the concert by two weeks and half of our quartet can't make it on that day so our group has disbanded before it even banded.

Sigh! I was looking forward to it. I thought it would be fun. Alas, perhaps it wasn't meant to be.

We have started choir practices at church though. My wife joined the choir this year. Now we're 5 sopranos, 2 altos (my wife doubled the size of the alto section), 1 tenor (me) and 1 bass. It's fun although our organist/choir director is somewhat challenged when it comes to organization. There have been threats of members quitting our already tiny choir because his lack of organization skills can be frustrating.

He's a good guy though. And the choir members like him. I like him too. Maybe it's an artistic thing because I've heard of other musicians lacking in that department.

Anyway, no quartet but I can sing with the choir. I gotta sing.

RSVP

Why don't people RSVP. I invited a bunch of pastors from my own denomination to my church for a morning of Bible Study, Fellowship, and Worship with Holy Communion. I asked them to let me know if they would be coming. A few sent their regrets but encouraged me to hold another gathering in the future. Some said they would come and most of those actually showed up. Most of those invited didn't bother to reply.

I had no idea how many would come so I made a perk with 24 cups of coffee, bought a carton each of lemonade and iced tea, cut up a coffee cake, prepared a worship service (today is Holy Cross Day), bought a freshly baked loaf of sunflower rye bread for Communion, and waited. Well, out of 25 invitees, 3 showed up.

We read and discussed 1 Corinthians 1.18-24, had some nice fellowship together, and ended by going into the church and sharing the Lord's Supper.

I was frustrated and disappointed. Some had valid reasons for being away and they let me know about them. One pastor who sent his regrets wrote,

Even if only a few gather, I encourage your action of bringing the clergy together and hope you will strive to establish a sense of “family” within our Conference. I have concluded that our denomination is in danger of self destruction, not caused by issues, but, by the growing sense of separation from one another.

We no longer care for, or are interested in each other. The rim has come off the wheel. While it would be easy to blame the lack of leadership direction and vision, I think it is much more fundamental. We are adrift because too many are paddling their own canoe with only the like minded in the boat. While one group calls the others "crazies," the other calls the other "heretics." We have stopped talking and have circled the wagons in different circles.

A gathering such as you have called is a mental health opportunity. However to unburden my soul I must know and trust my fellow clergy. Keep drawing us together. Unity can not be created by ignorance.

He's a retired pastor and I'll take what he says as wisdom from one who has seen a lot and been through a lot. I guess I just have to not give up. The three who came thanked me greatly for inviting them and planning the morning. That's encouraging anyway.

Sigh.

Barbershopping

This past Sunday morning, just before I left to walk across the driveway to church, the phone rang. I could tell by the ring that it was a local call, which could be bad news at that time on a Sunday morning. It wasn't. It was the local Baptist minister's wife calling to ask me to announce that they were planning a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina disaster relief for the evening of the 18th. I said I'd be happy to announce it and I did.

Then I got an idea in my head. After worship, on his way out the door, I stopped our organist and asked if he heard my announcement about the concert. He said if I wanted to sing he'd be happy to accompany me. I said my idea was to form a quartet to sing at the concert, me and him being two of the voices. He said he'd be all for it. I said I'd look for the other two voices.

First I called the Baptist minister's wife back and asked if the lineup for the concert was set or if she was still looking for acts. She said she was in the process of formulating the lineup and we could sing. She offered to let us sing 2 songs. Okay. Now to find a quartet.

I called the organist from an Anglican church 20 minutes down the highway and asked if he was interested in singing and if he could find a fourth. He thought it would be fun and when he mentioned it to his priest he got the impression he might be interested, otherwise he could find another man from one of the choirs he directs to be the fourth voice in our quartet. If Anglican priest wants to sing with us we could be called "Two Pastors And Their Organists."

I'm getting excited about this! I love to sing. I'm leaving the song selection up to the two organists. Maybe I'll suggest something Bach. I love Bach. He is the 5th evangelist for us Lutherans after all. We'll see how it all works out.

Back To The Old Routine

Well, the kids are back at school and I have to set the alarm again. All summer I didn't have to get up until the sun on my face drove me out of bed, and even then I could hide in a shadow somewhere for a while. Now the kids are back to school and I have to get up with them.

T is in grade 7 now. New teacher but the same kids. J is in grade 5, her first year in the Extended French program, and she's one of 12 kids from her old class and 17 new kids coming from other schools for this special program. A is in grade 2. He's got the same grade 2 teacher that J had but his best friend is in a different class this year.

My wife says that about the only good thing about having the kids at school is that when she cleans part of the house it's clean until at least 4 o'clock when the come through the door, kick their shoes off anywhere, dump their backpacks anywhere else, and start making themselves an afternoon snack.

The morning routine is that the alarm wakes me at 7:30. After the news, sports, and weather I wake any kids who aren't up yet, go downstairs and make them breakfast (they can do it themselves but they're lazy), have my own breakfast, chase anyone who hasn't made their way back upstairs to get up there and brush their teeth and get dressed. While we're upstairs making ourselves presentable my wife has had about 15 minutes more sleep and comes downstairs and packs lunches. By this time it's getting close to time to leave and I'm yelling at the slowpokes chasing them downstairs where they search for shoes and tell us at the last minute that they need some field trip form signed, or some money for something or other. I walk the kids to school, wait until the youngest is safely inside (I don't worry so much about the older ones anymore) then come to the office and get to work.

I miss the lazy pace of summer already, and it's only been one day. School's only the beginning. Tomorrow night is the first congregational council meeting since June 1. I convinced them when I came here 3 years ago this past June that we don't need to meet in July or August and they went for it. Thursday night choir practice starts again. This year my wife is joining the choir. T is old enough to babysit her younger siblings for the hour or 90 minutes of choir practice, and besides, we live next door to the church. The July and August calendars were so beautifully empty, and September is all scribbled in already.

But, there's good news awaiting us only a month away. Yesterday, Labour Day, the last day of summer, J was crying because she didn't want it to end. We were planning to spring the good news on them this morning but seeing her tears was just too sad. We've been making plans and reservations for months without the kids knowing. Yesterday afternoon I told the kids that I heard DQ calling so we went for ice cream. My wife doesn't go for ice cream much so she stayed home. When we returned she was ready with the video camera to capture their reaction when they came in and saw a new t-shirt for each of them along with a card that said:

Walt Disney World

Been There, Done That, Going Back

October 6, 2005

We are all so excited! We can't wait! It's exactly a month away. Four weeks from this Thursday. I don't know how long the wait is going to be. It's really not a long time from now but it's going to seem like forever.

Katrina's Gone ... Back To School

The remnants of Hurricane Katrina went through here last night and this morning. No longer a hurricane or tropical storm or tropical depression, it was no more than a low pressure system, you know, one of those red Ls on the weather map surrounded by a lot of clouds. It sure rained a lot. Started around supper time yesterday and didn't stop until just before lunch time today.

But man, it's hard to imagine, even when you see bits and pieces on TV, what's still going on down south. What's going to happen to all those people and to those cities? Is New Orleans going to be like Atlantis? Just disappear under the water? Or do you somehow rebuild the levees, pump the water out, and rebuild? I mean, is anything going to be recoverable after that flooding or do you start from scratch?

Like so many things that you only experience through the glow of the TV screen, it affects so many people but it barely touches so many more, if at all. We had a lot of rain last night but it ran into the sewers and out into Lake Erie or the Welland Canal. I don't know anybody along the Gulf Coast. Except for the pangs of sympathy, compassion, pity that I have for the people down there it's life as usual for me and mine.

In fact, today I took some time off to run a bunch of errands with my wife and kids and to have a bit of fun. First stop was the Orthodontist with J. Then it was to the mall, back to school supplies at Zellers. Then it was to the doctor so that A could get his Mumps/Measles/Rubella booster and his vaccinations would be up to date. Then it was to Costco (I'm never sure what we're going in there for but we always come out with a bunch of stuff). Then it was back to the mall for more back to school shopping, lunch in the food court, and then a big treat, taking a family of 6 to the movies (we saw Sky High, a fun movie with a soundtrack full of remakes of 80s tunes that took me back to my high school and university days).

Am I a jerk because I can blow a wad of cash shopping all morning and then blow even more to see a fun movie with the kids while so many people are suffering along the Gulf Coast? The last time I went to the movies there were a thousands or millions of people suffering and dying in many and various places in the world too. What do I do? I wear a white wrist band and type on my new blog. Ugh!

Shalom (please God)

New Orleans is sinking man and I don't wanna swim

The following prayers, from a Danish Lutheran missionary manual, have been used for decades in parts of the Caribbean.

O Lord God, heavenly Father, in this perilous season of the year our land is often visited with tempests and gales, calamities and distresses by land and sea. From such evil spare us, we pray.

But if you loosen the wings of the gale and the earth trembles at your bidding--your will, O Lord, be done. Almighty Creator and heavenly Father, keep us in your mercy through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and rules with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one true God, forever and ever. Amen


O merciful God and heavenly Father, you asked us to call upon you in all our need and distress, and moreover, you promised to hear our prayers and to help us, thereby causing us to give thanks. During this perilous season, we have felt nature weigh heavily upon us. Keep us from anger, that we might turn our hearts to you, as the ruinous gale passes over us and the earth trembles.

We give ourselves to you with humble hearts, and pray that you will graciously grant by your Holy Spirit, that we are found thankful, not only in word, but also in deed and in truth, that our lives may give glory and praise to you, through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one true God, forever and ever. Amen

Welcome or not?

I’m in the midst of a sermon series on the Five Guiding Principles put together by Kelly Fryer and Cross of Glory Lutheran Church in Lockport, Illinois to clarify who and what they are as a congregation. The five principles are:
1. Jesus Is Lord
2. Everyone Is Welcome
3. Love Changes People
4. Everybody Has Something to Offer
5. The World Needs What We Have
Copyright © Kelly A. Fryer and Cross of Glory Lutheran Church.

We’re still reading the lessons and chanting the psalm each week according to the Revised Common Lectionary, it’s just that I’m not preaching any of those lessons during these five weeks. Yesterday we looked at principle #2, Everyone Is Welcome. It’s not something that a lot of people might disagree with but our practices don’t always mirror our ideals.

After worship one parishioner pointed out something that seemed a strange juxtaposition. The psalm, according to the lectionary, was Psalm 105.1-6, 23-26. Those verses were a fitting response to the first lesson (Ex 3.1-15) where Moses has his conversation with God at the burning bush. This parishioner read on through some of the verses that were omitted from the psalm and mentioned such things as "He struck down the firstborn of their land, the firstfruits of all their strength." "He gave his people the lands of the nations, and they took the fruit of others’ toil,...." "Hallelujah!" None of which sounds as inclusive as the Everyone Is Welcome message of my sermon.

He never said whether he agreed with my sermon message or whether he took to the message of the psalm verses that seemed to show God’s favour for Israel at the expense of the Egyptians "who rebelled against his words" and the Canaanites whose land and fruit they took.
Strange juxtaposition indeed. I’ll lead with the love foot rather than the law foot; with the grace foot rather than the judgment foot.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2.8-9).

Shalom

Get Lost Pat!

This little tidbit was in Friday's paper.

FINNISH TV DROPS TELEVANGELIST'S SHOW

The only Christian TV channel in Finland said Thursday it will stop airing shows by American televangelist Pat Robertson because of his call to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The channel said its purpose was to spread a Christian message, not indulge in politics.

"It's sad that a leading Christian figure makes these kinds of statements," said the channel's executive, Martti Ojares. "The American style of mixing politics and Christian faith is also foreign to Finnish culture."

I'm glad they've stood up and done this. I sometimes see Robertson in the morning on the CBS affiliate and I don't know why they don't just boot his butt off the air for saying these kinds of moronic things. Are they that desperate for advertising revenue? Can't they find anything better than him to put on the air?

I also think Christian leaders who have their heads screwed on right and who get sick to their stomachs hearing Robertson's kind of blather ought to say something about his nonsense as well. In fact, if I can come up with the right words I might just send a letter off to our local paper(s) letting people know that he doesn't speak for the majority of level-headed Christians.

Shalom

Friendly Competition

Our food bank in town is largely supported by area churches, hence the name Inter-Church Emergency Food Bank. It also receives great support from the local Lions Club who do a city-wide blitz on one day every November collecting door-to-door. Their blitz along with the consistent support of our churches keeps the shelves stocked at the food bank.

Around this time every year, at the end of summer and leading up to the Lions' blitz in November, the shelves start to get bare. Last year we started a garden behind the church. We roto-tilled part of the lawn and planted tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. The peppers didn't produce anything but we had a great crop of tomatoes and cucumbers that we took to the foodbank as they ripened. This spring we enlarged the garden, planted more tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and this year added peas, beans, and radishes. The radishes were done early. The peas produced one crop and then this summer's drought dried them up. Now the cucumbers, tomatoes and beans are producing like crazy. The food bank is open Tuesday and Friday mornings so on those mornings my wife picks whatever is ripe and one of us takes it down to be distributed.

But for the canned goods, peanut butter, jam, and cereal that is running out we're going to put a push on for the month of September. The Lutheran church around the corner (the other flavour from ours) challenged us to a friendly competition for one month to see which congregation can collect the most for the food bank. It think it's a good idea and we can have some fun with it while doing some good.

A few of our parishioners volunteer at the food bank and they say that now, in the summer, clients come in with their kids because they're not in school. It breaks your heart to see that. It angers me that we, in wealthy Canada, need food banks in our cities, and that there are families with kids who have to make use of them. More reason to Make Poverty History.

Shalom

White Band

I've been wearing my white wristband since just after the Live8 concerts. In Canada you can buy them at Roots stores and at Ten Thousand Villages. I think the campaign in the U.S. is the ONE campaign (www.one.org). Here in Canada we're part of the Make Poverty History campaign (www.makepovertyhistory.ca). I've sent e-mails to Prime Minister Martin and my Member of Parliament, both before the G8 summit and now leading up to the United Nations Special Summit on the Millennium Development Goals.

September 10 is Global White Band Day 2. We ought to make ourselves heard and let our governments and the world know that we're not just fat, lazy, and greedy here in the north but that we care and want to do something to make the world better, starting with removing the crippling debt burden on the poorest of the poor. Wear a wrist band. On September 10 put white bands around the trees in your front yard. Write to the mayor and city council to endorse or proclaim 2005 the year to Make Poverty History. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Barrie, Ontario and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island have already done so.

The next thing to do is support and push fair trade but that's for another posting.

Huh?

I was at a discount store last month and came across a boxed set of William Faulkner novels that was being read by Oprah's Book Club this summer. As I Lay Dying was being read in June, The Sound and the Fury in July, and Light in August in August.

I've never read Faulkner before. I'd heard of him but never knew anything about him or his novels. So, I bought the boxed set and started reading. Now, I'm a slow reader and I'm usually reading a few different things (newspapers, Golf magazines, theological books for sermon prep., etc.) so it's taking some time to get through these books.

I've read As I Lay Dying. I thought it was a good story. It was interesting reading the story from different characters' perspectives. I often didn't know what he/they was/were talking about. Some had said the topic was a little morbid for light summer reading but that doesn't bother me. Now I'm trying to read The Sound and the Fury. This is a different kind of book! I'm really confused. This is a prize-winning novel and so far I'm not getting it. Maybe I'll have to get Coles notes (the Canadian counterpart to Cliffs' notes) to be able to read this book.

Well, it's a challenge anyway.

Shalom

Here I Am

Well, this is my first post. I know some people who've got blogs and I've often thought of starting my own. I don't know what I'm going to write here. I don't know how often I'll be posting. I hope this doesn't end up eating a whole lot of my time that could be used constructively in other ways. We'll see how it goes and whether anyone comes to read it or even cares what I've been thinking.

Shalom