Visiting my dear sister's home -- the one that her husband prepared for her to join him in this past summer -- is always pleasant because so many things inside of it are as they should be. It is inspiring!
My dear sister's home has a floor area on the order of 450 square feet, yet she was better able to host her eight Christmas guests on Christmas day than were our nearby relatives who's home has a floor area on the order of 3000 square feet (and greater ceiling height).
Amazing is the cumulative force of all of the correct relationships between the people and things inside of that home. If you have experienced such a thing, you probably know what it is that I have been describing. If not, perhaps you'll know it when you see it.
On Tuesday I did go for a walk with my mother and I did pack up all of my things and I did drive from my parent's home to my own in Silverdale while listening to #2 in the atonement/Christ on the Cross series by pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church. There's nothing like that sermon to make me want to run to Jesus (at least not that I can think of right now). I did arrive home safely.
Maybe next time I'll talk about my driving.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Christmas 2
On Monday I arose later than I had in a long time and after a while we all went off to Denny's for our Christmas breakfast. There was quite a line, but my dear sister and her husband did most of the waiting for the rest of us. I had a good old time sitting next to one of my dear sisters and talking on and on and enjoying the fact that we both have the same diet and didn't have to listen to people talking on and on about how terrible it must be to be as oppressed as I am and so on. The only problem with the whole meal that I can think of was how rude and obnoxious I was to my dad who was trying to make sure that I got something to eat.
But I did get something to eat and I did get around getting my father's forgiveness a day or two later. The rest of the celebration was spent at my dear sister's house. My gifts went over very well and I believe that I can use all of the things that I received (except the drill press which my dad just wanted to get out of his garage), particularly the new pants that fit me (I have may never have been so happy about receiving new clothes in my whole life). Then we all played a game which was somewhat similar to Apples to Apples (which I did not win) and then I took a nap and then we all watched a movie which I did not want to watch called Ice Princess. It was actually not boring (probably because the star was a young woman). It made me think thankful thoughts about how my parents managed to control any worldly desire they may have had about having their children fulfill their parent's dreams for them. I did bring myself to wonder whether or not this might be an issue that Disney took to the extreme, i.e. maybe it is alright for parents to inspire their children and push them to do certain things. After this was all over, we loaded up the gifts and drove home.
But I did get something to eat and I did get around getting my father's forgiveness a day or two later. The rest of the celebration was spent at my dear sister's house. My gifts went over very well and I believe that I can use all of the things that I received (except the drill press which my dad just wanted to get out of his garage), particularly the new pants that fit me (I have may never have been so happy about receiving new clothes in my whole life). Then we all played a game which was somewhat similar to Apples to Apples (which I did not win) and then I took a nap and then we all watched a movie which I did not want to watch called Ice Princess. It was actually not boring (probably because the star was a young woman). It made me think thankful thoughts about how my parents managed to control any worldly desire they may have had about having their children fulfill their parent's dreams for them. I did bring myself to wonder whether or not this might be an issue that Disney took to the extreme, i.e. maybe it is alright for parents to inspire their children and push them to do certain things. After this was all over, we loaded up the gifts and drove home.
Christmas 1
I got out of worship practice without trying and the wireless internet signal that I use at home is back, so I have decided to type something here.
I left Sliverdale (Silverdale) on Friday the 23rd of December. I left a bit after 8 pm because I wanted to avoid the worst of the traffic. I succeeded for the most part, but I was slowed down by a convoy of cherry picker trucks around the junction of 520 and 405. I am glad that they were out fixing power connections though.
I arrived at my parents home around ten thirty and did some talking to my dad about various things, kinda like I did when I visited him for the thanksgiving holiday. He was positively impressed with some of the writing that I had done along those lines (no, I don't mean the thanksgiving blogging).
I spent most of the next day with my friend whom many people would label as ultra-conservative. We didn't do a whole lot, but he convinced me to give Christmas gifts to members of my family instead of going with my interpretation of Proverbs 22:16. Oh yes, we did do something: we got all muddy by successfully trying to fix a water pipe for his apartment building because he is the landlord. So that was Saturday.
On Christmas Eve Sunday I got up during the morning and took my shower before church, and as I was exiting the shower or shortly thereafter, I realized how little affection I have for a whole bunch the saints at my home church. Of course, I think that this is a bad thing because of the first chapter of Philippians 1, but I did have my dad pray about it on the way and I think that I managed to not bite anyone's head off while I was in the church building. At any rate, I don't remember finding myself being judgmental about particular things that people did in the past (these things aren't usually even sinful, so I know that I am just trying to make myself feel like I am better than them (evil!)) so that is something.
After church I accompanied my dad to his mother's apartment and we visited with her for much longer than expected to. There was some discussion about where the Christmas celebration would be held the following day. I am told that this discussion had been going on for some time. I think that the basic idea was that everyone except my grandmother had decided that the bulk of the celebrating would be done at my dear sister's home, but that my grandmother was still sure that it should be done at her own home, even though this majority was supposed to have been explained to her numerous times. So someone (I actually don't know who) must have got the idea that we should show up at her apartment on Christmas Eve in an effort to make her feel better. The problem was that she was quite tired and didn't really want to see us all right just then. Even so, my dad and my grandmother and I all waited around for the rest of my family to be show up with cookies and such. I didn't know about all of this when I walked in the door and I was quite hungry the whole time and then all there was to eat were candy and M&Ms.
There was also the UNO game which had all sorts of new rules that I didn't like and I began to behave in accordance what Paul Adams told me is passive-aggressiveness by drawing many, many cards from the draw pile whenever I was made to draw. I did this in an effort to make people feel bad, but it didn't work. I did finally manage to decide to control myself and learn the new rules and play the game right. I wonder if that had anything to do with the sermon which was about self control. I don't remember thinking about the sermon very much that afternoon.
I left Sliverdale (Silverdale) on Friday the 23rd of December. I left a bit after 8 pm because I wanted to avoid the worst of the traffic. I succeeded for the most part, but I was slowed down by a convoy of cherry picker trucks around the junction of 520 and 405. I am glad that they were out fixing power connections though.
I arrived at my parents home around ten thirty and did some talking to my dad about various things, kinda like I did when I visited him for the thanksgiving holiday. He was positively impressed with some of the writing that I had done along those lines (no, I don't mean the thanksgiving blogging).
I spent most of the next day with my friend whom many people would label as ultra-conservative. We didn't do a whole lot, but he convinced me to give Christmas gifts to members of my family instead of going with my interpretation of Proverbs 22:16. Oh yes, we did do something: we got all muddy by successfully trying to fix a water pipe for his apartment building because he is the landlord. So that was Saturday.
On Christmas Eve Sunday I got up during the morning and took my shower before church, and as I was exiting the shower or shortly thereafter, I realized how little affection I have for a whole bunch the saints at my home church. Of course, I think that this is a bad thing because of the first chapter of Philippians 1, but I did have my dad pray about it on the way and I think that I managed to not bite anyone's head off while I was in the church building. At any rate, I don't remember finding myself being judgmental about particular things that people did in the past (these things aren't usually even sinful, so I know that I am just trying to make myself feel like I am better than them (evil!)) so that is something.
After church I accompanied my dad to his mother's apartment and we visited with her for much longer than expected to. There was some discussion about where the Christmas celebration would be held the following day. I am told that this discussion had been going on for some time. I think that the basic idea was that everyone except my grandmother had decided that the bulk of the celebrating would be done at my dear sister's home, but that my grandmother was still sure that it should be done at her own home, even though this majority was supposed to have been explained to her numerous times. So someone (I actually don't know who) must have got the idea that we should show up at her apartment on Christmas Eve in an effort to make her feel better. The problem was that she was quite tired and didn't really want to see us all right just then. Even so, my dad and my grandmother and I all waited around for the rest of my family to be show up with cookies and such. I didn't know about all of this when I walked in the door and I was quite hungry the whole time and then all there was to eat were candy and M&Ms.
There was also the UNO game which had all sorts of new rules that I didn't like and I began to behave in accordance what Paul Adams told me is passive-aggressiveness by drawing many, many cards from the draw pile whenever I was made to draw. I did this in an effort to make people feel bad, but it didn't work. I did finally manage to decide to control myself and learn the new rules and play the game right. I wonder if that had anything to do with the sermon which was about self control. I don't remember thinking about the sermon very much that afternoon.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Lots of exciting things to not talk about
You'd think that since so many exciting things have been happening to me, I would be able to type about them. Well, I guess that you probably wouldn't think that since I haven't typed any of them for you to know about. I guess that I will just tell you about my visit from my friend Brandon who visited me on Saturday and Sunday. Please note that this is not the Brandon who visited me several months ago and was married to Virgiliana (I still think that Virgiliana is a killer good name!).
Brandon and I used the same room for sleeping during a particular school year in Pullman when both of us were undergraduate students at Washington State University. After Brandon was recognized by a particular person at Seaside Church and he found out that I had managed to live near Brandon for a whole school year, he told me that his respect for me had increased, as though I had just gone to war in Iraq with a contentious woman as my close companion.
What this Seaside Church attender didn't know is that the reason that I met Brandon was this: I was attending a Christian college group for the first time and I offended his roommate so much that he became weary of speaking with me and referred me to Brandon. All three of us can get along great these days, but I was the person who couldn't experience anything marginally unpleasant without exclaiming, "Sue!" I had been living by myself for a school year before I moved into Brandon's room and I needed to learn how to come home from school and think about someone besides myself (I could write a blog entry just about that). Brandon could see that I needed a lot of help, and that is why he decided to put me in his room as opposed to someone else's.
My, wasn't that fun? Let me also mention that if cleanliness is next to godliness, I don't want any part of it because godliness is a unit. Why in the world would you want to go doing things outside of godliness (that just sounds evil)? If you have godliness you should be content with it and enjoy the profit (1 Cor 6:6).
So Brandon and I ate dinner and watched Pride and Prejudice because it is a killer good movie and he hadn't seen it yet and then we walked to the park in the freezing weather and had two fights (the latter of which I won!) and we read 1 Timothy and we read 2 Timothy and we prayed and we slept (in separate rooms). Oh, I forgot to type that we walked back from the park in the freezing weather?
I had some pictures taken at church, but they look quite lame, so let me refer you to this old picture.
Brandon and I used the same room for sleeping during a particular school year in Pullman when both of us were undergraduate students at Washington State University. After Brandon was recognized by a particular person at Seaside Church and he found out that I had managed to live near Brandon for a whole school year, he told me that his respect for me had increased, as though I had just gone to war in Iraq with a contentious woman as my close companion.
What this Seaside Church attender didn't know is that the reason that I met Brandon was this: I was attending a Christian college group for the first time and I offended his roommate so much that he became weary of speaking with me and referred me to Brandon. All three of us can get along great these days, but I was the person who couldn't experience anything marginally unpleasant without exclaiming, "Sue!" I had been living by myself for a school year before I moved into Brandon's room and I needed to learn how to come home from school and think about someone besides myself (I could write a blog entry just about that). Brandon could see that I needed a lot of help, and that is why he decided to put me in his room as opposed to someone else's.
My, wasn't that fun? Let me also mention that if cleanliness is next to godliness, I don't want any part of it because godliness is a unit. Why in the world would you want to go doing things outside of godliness (that just sounds evil)? If you have godliness you should be content with it and enjoy the profit (1 Cor 6:6).
So Brandon and I ate dinner and watched Pride and Prejudice because it is a killer good movie and he hadn't seen it yet and then we walked to the park in the freezing weather and had two fights (the latter of which I won!) and we read 1 Timothy and we read 2 Timothy and we prayed and we slept (in separate rooms). Oh, I forgot to type that we walked back from the park in the freezing weather?
I had some pictures taken at church, but they look quite lame, so let me refer you to this old picture.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Spiritual blog #1
My spiritual posting on my church's pastor's blog.
http://wakingthesleeper.blogspot.com/2006/12/while-thy-servant-was-doing-his-own.html
http://wakingthesleeper.blogspot.com/2006/12/while-thy-servant-was-doing-his-own.html
Monday, December 04, 2006
Messages
On Friday I decided to leave work a whole half-hour early. I was glad that I did so because as I was driving home, my cellular telephone informed me that someone was trying to call me and I decided to answer it even though I didn't know who was trying to call me. Sometimes the people who call my cellular telephone are hoping to communicate with the person who posessed my cellular telephone before my grandparents purchased it from at a garage sale and gave it to me for my birthday. The text messages that they send me are kind funny:
"hey babe I miss u i wish i could b there to watch moview with u and charles"
"Hey wuts us bey go sorry i was such a jerk but the only reason i was being puff was because well u were being very rude as well for no apparent reason an"
"d i was just trying to defend my self i think we could be nicer to each other"
"y arnt u talkin back to me"
"this is chris if u couldn't figure that out"
I think that some poor teenager had her cellular telephone confinscated by her parents who sold it because of her (possibly worthless) friends wouldn't leave her alone. Oh well. I think that talking to these people and telling them that the cellular telephone is now all mine is kind of fun.
I was actually being called by Alan from Seaside Church who was calling to invite me to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Pacific Science Center which is in Seattle. It seems that Luke and Jamie from Seaside Church had purchased tickets from Jamie's employer or something like that, and were unable to use them because of a schedule conflict.
So on Saturday I drove to Alan's house and we boarded a ferry and traveled to Seattle for the display which was difficult to see because only dim lights could be shone on the documents, and then intermittently.
Unfortunately, I have never been to utilize the hebrew language in any direct way. A lot of the writing wa quite faint and may have been difficult to see, even in good light, but there was a big long peice of psalms with perhaps five entirely intact columns which was nice to see, and the annotations beside the artifacts were quite well done so that people who had enough time could figure out which verses of english text corresponded to a particular line on the scrolls.
If you are entierly ignorant about the Dead Sea Scrolls as was a lady whom I met in Junior college who had determined that the Bible had been corrupted by the Catholic Church in the middle ages so that we could never know what God wanted to tell us, please go and find out about them. I won't pretend to be smart enough to tell you all about them, but I am telling you, "It is worth your time."
"hey babe I miss u i wish i could b there to watch moview with u and charles"
"Hey wuts us bey go sorry i was such a jerk but the only reason i was being puff was because well u were being very rude as well for no apparent reason an"
"d i was just trying to defend my self i think we could be nicer to each other"
"y arnt u talkin back to me"
"this is chris if u couldn't figure that out"
I think that some poor teenager had her cellular telephone confinscated by her parents who sold it because of her (possibly worthless) friends wouldn't leave her alone. Oh well. I think that talking to these people and telling them that the cellular telephone is now all mine is kind of fun.
I was actually being called by Alan from Seaside Church who was calling to invite me to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Pacific Science Center which is in Seattle. It seems that Luke and Jamie from Seaside Church had purchased tickets from Jamie's employer or something like that, and were unable to use them because of a schedule conflict.
So on Saturday I drove to Alan's house and we boarded a ferry and traveled to Seattle for the display which was difficult to see because only dim lights could be shone on the documents, and then intermittently.
Unfortunately, I have never been to utilize the hebrew language in any direct way. A lot of the writing wa quite faint and may have been difficult to see, even in good light, but there was a big long peice of psalms with perhaps five entirely intact columns which was nice to see, and the annotations beside the artifacts were quite well done so that people who had enough time could figure out which verses of english text corresponded to a particular line on the scrolls.
If you are entierly ignorant about the Dead Sea Scrolls as was a lady whom I met in Junior college who had determined that the Bible had been corrupted by the Catholic Church in the middle ages so that we could never know what God wanted to tell us, please go and find out about them. I won't pretend to be smart enough to tell you all about them, but I am telling you, "It is worth your time."
Saturday, December 02, 2006
I got syndicated
Well, sort of. Alright, not really. But I did get invited to type into one of the blogs that my pastor uses, which is also linked to my church's cultural links page. I started it out with links to several of the posts which I built for this blog.
Because of this new blog, it is likely that my future blogging which turns out to be directly related to spiritual things will be appear at:
http://www.wakingthesleeper.blogspot.com
Because of this new blog, it is likely that my future blogging which turns out to be directly related to spiritual things will be appear at:
http://www.wakingthesleeper.blogspot.com
Friday, December 01, 2006
Plug plug plug
On Tuesday I received a telephone call that I never expected to receive. This call came from a pastor of Adult Ministries in Pullman who is named Ceasar Paul. Strangly enough, I worked under him as a children's church teacher at the Evangelical Free Church of Pullman which I attended for three years while I also attended Washington State University.
The reason for his call was inquiry regarding my employment, spiritual development, general well being, etc. I am still suprised that a pastor of a medium-sized church which, last I checked, was short on leadership, in a busy university town where people are coming and going all of the time, had time to make sure that I hadn't forgotten about Jesus even though he had no particular reason to think that he would ever do ministry with me again.
So let me go ahead and advertise for this local church body thusly:
It is most convenient that WSU, which was the only University that I wanted to go to (for reasons pertaining to my major, the amount of money that I wanted to spend, location, etc.) was the only University that would accept me (by the time that I got around to applying to universities, the University of Washington wasn't even looking undergraduate engineer's applications). All of that is to say that I didn't go to a bunch of different Universities and visit churches and rank them. All that I could really do regarding my spiritual leadership was to pray. And I did pray because I had heard enough stories about people attending colleges, even "Christian" colleges and falling away from godly behavior and spiritual disciplines and fellowship with Jesus for various reasons. These reasons included not having a decent church to attend.
God did answered my prayer just the way that I wanted Him to (it must have been a good thing to pray for huh?). The man who was the pastor at my local church body in Monroe at the time told me which church to visit first and I was able to determine immediately that I did not need to go church shopping. I found out later that the Evangelical Free Church of Pullman is not the only local church body in Pullman that seems to work, so there is no excuse for college students in Pullman who somehow manage to forget about Jesus while they are there.
Oh, let me brag about the Senior pastor there for a minute (Lead pastor for you Acts 29 people) who is truly a pastor's pastor--both in practice and in qualifications. You may have heard Pastor Mark Driscoll tell the story of Porno Boy Vs. Hebrew Man toward the beginning of a sermon series from 1st Corinthians which was called Christians Gone Wild. I don't know exactly which Porno Boy Pastor Mark was talking about, but I do know which pastor he was talking about, and it is just amazing to me that this hyper-educated (both in science and in theology) person has whatever it takes to run around and teach loads of Bible studies to biblical ignoramuses, many of whom can't see their own ignorance (particularly some of those King James only people).
So don't skip church when you're in Pullman. Oh, and look for the Foundations for Marriage class on Tuesdays @ One Way books.
Oh, let me also say that having an elder of my church sitting just a few rows away from me during my graduation, decorated so that everyone could see that his academic acheivments were quite extensive was quite a pleasant suprise for me. I think that Christians should be everywhere.
The reason for his call was inquiry regarding my employment, spiritual development, general well being, etc. I am still suprised that a pastor of a medium-sized church which, last I checked, was short on leadership, in a busy university town where people are coming and going all of the time, had time to make sure that I hadn't forgotten about Jesus even though he had no particular reason to think that he would ever do ministry with me again.
So let me go ahead and advertise for this local church body thusly:
It is most convenient that WSU, which was the only University that I wanted to go to (for reasons pertaining to my major, the amount of money that I wanted to spend, location, etc.) was the only University that would accept me (by the time that I got around to applying to universities, the University of Washington wasn't even looking undergraduate engineer's applications). All of that is to say that I didn't go to a bunch of different Universities and visit churches and rank them. All that I could really do regarding my spiritual leadership was to pray. And I did pray because I had heard enough stories about people attending colleges, even "Christian" colleges and falling away from godly behavior and spiritual disciplines and fellowship with Jesus for various reasons. These reasons included not having a decent church to attend.
God did answered my prayer just the way that I wanted Him to (it must have been a good thing to pray for huh?). The man who was the pastor at my local church body in Monroe at the time told me which church to visit first and I was able to determine immediately that I did not need to go church shopping. I found out later that the Evangelical Free Church of Pullman is not the only local church body in Pullman that seems to work, so there is no excuse for college students in Pullman who somehow manage to forget about Jesus while they are there.
Oh, let me brag about the Senior pastor there for a minute (Lead pastor for you Acts 29 people) who is truly a pastor's pastor--both in practice and in qualifications. You may have heard Pastor Mark Driscoll tell the story of Porno Boy Vs. Hebrew Man toward the beginning of a sermon series from 1st Corinthians which was called Christians Gone Wild. I don't know exactly which Porno Boy Pastor Mark was talking about, but I do know which pastor he was talking about, and it is just amazing to me that this hyper-educated (both in science and in theology) person has whatever it takes to run around and teach loads of Bible studies to biblical ignoramuses, many of whom can't see their own ignorance (particularly some of those King James only people).
So don't skip church when you're in Pullman. Oh, and look for the Foundations for Marriage class on Tuesdays @ One Way books.
Oh, let me also say that having an elder of my church sitting just a few rows away from me during my graduation, decorated so that everyone could see that his academic acheivments were quite extensive was quite a pleasant suprise for me. I think that Christians should be everywhere.
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