In one of the preschool classrooms there hangs a poster entitled, "Let's Get Along". This poster should be displayed in every office, on every billboard, and in every room of every house. Here's what it says:
Use kind words.
Be quick to forgive.
Listen.
Share.
Encourage others.
Take turns.
Think before acting.
Talk it over.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
For David
I am so changing my name!
By From the First To Last
hope it's something worth the waiting
It’s the only time that I ever feel
Real Thunderstorms could never stop me.
'Cause there's no one in the world like Emily.
By Bowling for Soup
Emily, you saved the day
Emily, when you threw me away
She was always such a pretty girl
Nobody like her in the world
A little piece of heavenly
That no one else could stand
I see her in my dreams at night
I see you when I close my eyes
I just can't seem to shake you, Emily
By Nine Days
Now Emily hides in a way
She is waiting for a
Knight in shining armor
And I know that nothing I'd say
Could make her see me as a man of honor
But I am
By Beth Nielsen Chapman
Best friends are made through smiles and tears
And sometimes that fades over miles and years
But i knew right away when i saw you again
Emily, we'll always be friends
By Manic Street Preachers
Emily, Emily your gift to me
Emily, a modern sense of beauty
Emily, as precious as your memory:
A simple word called liberty
By Michael W. Smith
On the wire
Balancing your dreams
Hoping ends will meet their means
But you feel alone
Uninspired
Well does it help you to
Know that I believe in you
You're an angel waiting for wings...Emily
By From the First To Last
hope it's something worth the waiting
It’s the only time that I ever feel
Real Thunderstorms could never stop me.
'Cause there's no one in the world like Emily.
By Bowling for Soup
Emily, you saved the day
Emily, when you threw me away
She was always such a pretty girl
Nobody like her in the world
A little piece of heavenly
That no one else could stand
I see her in my dreams at night
I see you when I close my eyes
I just can't seem to shake you, Emily
By Nine Days
Now Emily hides in a way
She is waiting for a
Knight in shining armor
And I know that nothing I'd say
Could make her see me as a man of honor
But I am
By Beth Nielsen Chapman
Best friends are made through smiles and tears
And sometimes that fades over miles and years
But i knew right away when i saw you again
Emily, we'll always be friends
By Manic Street Preachers
Emily, Emily your gift to me
Emily, a modern sense of beauty
Emily, as precious as your memory:
A simple word called liberty
By Michael W. Smith
On the wire
Balancing your dreams
Hoping ends will meet their means
But you feel alone
Uninspired
Well does it help you to
Know that I believe in you
You're an angel waiting for wings...Emily
Sunday, August 05, 2007
For Deanne
At the beginning of Lamentations Chapter 3, Jeremiah is talking about how the wrath of God is being poured down on him.
"I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of [God's] fury," he says.
"Against me alone he turns his hand again and again, all day.
He has worn away my skin and flesh, he has broken my bones.
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship...
He has walled me in, so I can't escape; he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I cry out, pleading for help, he shuts out my prayer...
I'm a laughingstock to all my people, the butt of their taunts all day long...
I have been so deprived of peace, I have so forgotten what happiness is, that I think, "My strength is gone, and so is my hope in the Lord..."
They are always on my mind; this is why I am so depressed."
The man is just plain whining. It's poetic, but it's whining. It's okay to whine sometimes. We need it. This world is just plain miserable; it's cursed, and so sometimes we feel like, damn THIS SUCKS.
But check it out. That's not the end. Verse 21-23.
But in my mind I keep returning to something, something that gives me hope -
that the grace of the Lord is not exhausted, that His compassion has not ended.
[On the contrary,] they are new every morning! How great your faithfulness!
"The Lord is all I have," I say; "therefore I will put my hope in Him."
Whine away. We need friends for ears and sometimes for buckets to dump on. But in the end, God's there.
You won't realize that God is all you need, until God is all you have.
I love you, beautiful. You're a princess.
"I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of [God's] fury," he says.
"Against me alone he turns his hand again and again, all day.
He has worn away my skin and flesh, he has broken my bones.
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship...
He has walled me in, so I can't escape; he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I cry out, pleading for help, he shuts out my prayer...
I'm a laughingstock to all my people, the butt of their taunts all day long...
I have been so deprived of peace, I have so forgotten what happiness is, that I think, "My strength is gone, and so is my hope in the Lord..."
They are always on my mind; this is why I am so depressed."
The man is just plain whining. It's poetic, but it's whining. It's okay to whine sometimes. We need it. This world is just plain miserable; it's cursed, and so sometimes we feel like, damn THIS SUCKS.
But check it out. That's not the end. Verse 21-23.
But in my mind I keep returning to something, something that gives me hope -
that the grace of the Lord is not exhausted, that His compassion has not ended.
[On the contrary,] they are new every morning! How great your faithfulness!
"The Lord is all I have," I say; "therefore I will put my hope in Him."
Whine away. We need friends for ears and sometimes for buckets to dump on. But in the end, God's there.
You won't realize that God is all you need, until God is all you have.
I love you, beautiful. You're a princess.
When God Provides.
I've been really tight on cash. I mean, really tight. And rent was due Today.
Not tomorrow. Not, eh, in a couple days. Today.
So I prayed rather severely, knowing that God would provide and then I went to church. My paycheck which I was supposed to get on Friday wasn't ready because the person who was supposed to sign them didn't come in on time. So I talked to my boss (who goes to my church) and asked her if there was any way I could get the paycheck because my rent was due Today.
Suzie said, "Let me see what I can do. We're having one of those months, too, where it's like 'I need it now!' and it's just not there." She ran and cut me a new check, canceled the unsigned one, and got the new one signed. It was more than I expected. While I was waiting for the check to be made out, a lady in the church came to me and handed me an envelope. "Here," she said. "I want to give this to you. Not to your missions fund. To you personally." I thanked her several times and stuffed the envelope in my Bible.
My check in my hand, I headed to the bank to deposit the money. I knew it wasn't all going to show up in my account balance, so I just prayed that it would be enough to go buy a money order. "God, I need $350. Please just make it be there!"
The receipt from my deposit spit out of the ATM. $317.26. My heart beating hard, I took it back to my car and stared at the envelope the lady had given me. Sighing, I opened it and noticed $10 bills folded up. Four of them. $40.
"God, you're good."
Not tomorrow. Not, eh, in a couple days. Today.
So I prayed rather severely, knowing that God would provide and then I went to church. My paycheck which I was supposed to get on Friday wasn't ready because the person who was supposed to sign them didn't come in on time. So I talked to my boss (who goes to my church) and asked her if there was any way I could get the paycheck because my rent was due Today.
Suzie said, "Let me see what I can do. We're having one of those months, too, where it's like 'I need it now!' and it's just not there." She ran and cut me a new check, canceled the unsigned one, and got the new one signed. It was more than I expected. While I was waiting for the check to be made out, a lady in the church came to me and handed me an envelope. "Here," she said. "I want to give this to you. Not to your missions fund. To you personally." I thanked her several times and stuffed the envelope in my Bible.
My check in my hand, I headed to the bank to deposit the money. I knew it wasn't all going to show up in my account balance, so I just prayed that it would be enough to go buy a money order. "God, I need $350. Please just make it be there!"
The receipt from my deposit spit out of the ATM. $317.26. My heart beating hard, I took it back to my car and stared at the envelope the lady had given me. Sighing, I opened it and noticed $10 bills folded up. Four of them. $40.
"God, you're good."
Friday, August 03, 2007
I need help.
A couple of months ago and in one of those all-too-frequent moments of temporary insanity, I agreed to revamp my church's website. Recreate, in fact.
You see, the website appeared about a year ago. One of the ladies in the church created it and though her effort is laudable, the result is sad. So when someone at the church found out that I made a website for my previous employer, they asked me to fix the church's. I had no job at the time, and I agreed.
Now, having spent countless hours on it, I can't help being fairly disgusted by the outcome, which I don't even have the guts to upload.
You see, I used Frontpage to create it. I like the program; it's easy to use. I like easy. But when I went on the Microsoft website to check on updates, I was vexed to find that Frontpage is being discontinued to clear the way for Expressions. To quote a fellow blogger, "mother puss bucket bastards."
So now I've been scouring the web for a simple and cheap web design program that I can use to quickly recreate the already recreated website, and that is simple enough for the rather technophobic staff at my church to update themselves when I am in Africa.
So, if you know anyone or any program that can help me, please let me know! I'm ready to shave my head, dress in sackcloth, and cover myself in ashes.
You see, the website appeared about a year ago. One of the ladies in the church created it and though her effort is laudable, the result is sad. So when someone at the church found out that I made a website for my previous employer, they asked me to fix the church's. I had no job at the time, and I agreed.
Now, having spent countless hours on it, I can't help being fairly disgusted by the outcome, which I don't even have the guts to upload.
You see, I used Frontpage to create it. I like the program; it's easy to use. I like easy. But when I went on the Microsoft website to check on updates, I was vexed to find that Frontpage is being discontinued to clear the way for Expressions. To quote a fellow blogger, "mother puss bucket bastards."
So now I've been scouring the web for a simple and cheap web design program that I can use to quickly recreate the already recreated website, and that is simple enough for the rather technophobic staff at my church to update themselves when I am in Africa.
So, if you know anyone or any program that can help me, please let me know! I'm ready to shave my head, dress in sackcloth, and cover myself in ashes.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Hope springs eternal
At least once every two years, the sky turns grey, then orange, then brown. A hot haze creeps across the ground like a weed let loose. Warm flaky grey snow falls on us as we exit our businesses and sniff the dark air.
It's always very hot on those days. The air is thick with carbon; our lungs, unaccustomed to it even after several years, rebel against the influx. Sounds fill the atmosphere: fire engines rushing toward the catastrophe, helicopter rotors slicing viciously across the sky, angry drivers cursing each other, each as helpless as the next in the situation.
Fires are part of our culture in Southern California. We're not surprised by their arrival nor are we deterred from continuing our lives. But every time it happens, we get just that little bit concerned. We discuss our escape routes. We plan what to take and what to leave, in case we need to flee the indiscriminate flames.
Rich and poor they displace, violent and ruthless in their fury. The feed on life, on memories, on structure. They consume and destroy; with each piece of fuel the fire grows, but doesn't realize that it's killing itself. The more it destroys, the less there is to destroy. Utter annihilation is left in its path, and it can't retreat across its wasted battlefield.
But when the fires have died out, when the flames become cannibals and vanish, the charred, smoking refuse of their slaughter remains.
Somewhere amidst the destruction, green erupts from the blackened earth. It births a tiny white and yellow sun that begins to sing. The lifesong shakes the earth, sends ripples across the ground, and jolts the great mother back into her life-giving cycle, spilling forth her very being into the grasses, the flowers, the trees that despite the heat have come through and will rise again.
They all join in the song until the sound is deafening. It rocks our hearts and stirs our souls, melts the stars in the sky, pointing us to the Creator.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
It's always very hot on those days. The air is thick with carbon; our lungs, unaccustomed to it even after several years, rebel against the influx. Sounds fill the atmosphere: fire engines rushing toward the catastrophe, helicopter rotors slicing viciously across the sky, angry drivers cursing each other, each as helpless as the next in the situation.
Fires are part of our culture in Southern California. We're not surprised by their arrival nor are we deterred from continuing our lives. But every time it happens, we get just that little bit concerned. We discuss our escape routes. We plan what to take and what to leave, in case we need to flee the indiscriminate flames.
Rich and poor they displace, violent and ruthless in their fury. The feed on life, on memories, on structure. They consume and destroy; with each piece of fuel the fire grows, but doesn't realize that it's killing itself. The more it destroys, the less there is to destroy. Utter annihilation is left in its path, and it can't retreat across its wasted battlefield.
But when the fires have died out, when the flames become cannibals and vanish, the charred, smoking refuse of their slaughter remains.
Somewhere amidst the destruction, green erupts from the blackened earth. It births a tiny white and yellow sun that begins to sing. The lifesong shakes the earth, sends ripples across the ground, and jolts the great mother back into her life-giving cycle, spilling forth her very being into the grasses, the flowers, the trees that despite the heat have come through and will rise again.
They all join in the song until the sound is deafening. It rocks our hearts and stirs our souls, melts the stars in the sky, pointing us to the Creator.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Beautiful Words
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
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