Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: Good is sharing a piece of sunshine - literally or figuratively - with one another. This past week this sunshine was shared with me - & hopefully therefore with others - through the many encounters with others. I heard or read more than once in the past week that seeing another person & living with them is seeing & living with God. This makes perfect sense to me as I have been continually returning to Genesis 1:27 recently. Come, Holy Spirit, come. All in all this past week was a good mix of my many commitments to ministry leadership. There is much excitement in the air for things yet to come!

BAD: The drive of consumerism for more, more, more. With recent cell phone hiccups & a spouse who still owns an old flip phone (gasp!) the workers at the store jump on us like hawks on prey. Seriously people, a phone that makes calls & texts is the basic desire we have. We don't need all your special plans to be able to recycle these phones that much faster when you're companies are already charging an arm & a leg. With as many people that are only using cell phones now & doing away with land lines, I truly think it would only be right if cell phone companies made phones to last more than two years. We don't buy land line phones thinking they'll only last two years so why would we want a cell phone that does that? Good grief!

AWESOME: Julia Child was once quoted for saying, "People who love to eat are always the best people." I'm SO glad to report that according to Julia I am ONE of the best people. Now let's be real, there are hundreds of us who are the best people. This past week though, I hit a wall with appetite & creativity to make new meals. That creativity is stirring making new ideas & new inspiration though already. All I needed was a trip to the produce section at Meijer! Grapefruit Goodness!

WORD: I'm given the opportunity to preach in a couple of weeks, but we have some fun adventures in between so I'm starting to sit with the passages for the week of February 8th. Aside from that, look up at the "GOOD" of today to see a little more!

coming up: Hopefully a continued nice mix of a little work with this call & a little work with that call. It's all about balance! Head up, Heart out, Move to the beat!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: Last Sunday kicked off a very busy week with a going away pot-luck meal for one colleague, a bridal shower for friend, & prep to move into that one colleague's office. The move started Tuesday with only a few boxes. I was eager, but doing my best to keep some boundaries of not officially starting till Wednesday. Wednesday I spent all day cleaning. Thursday was a day "off" and Friday was another full day of adventures on the new job.

BAD: Last week I mentioned I hadn't heard of much lately so I felt like there were some things hiding in the shadows. I was right! Hong Kong has been up in arms & to watch the videos is alarming & frightening (especially if you are certain you know people that are there & that I am). Not to mention the continued news on the Ebola Virus.

AWESOME: Conviction that comes from deep within one's being is awesome. It's so deep within oneself that you know it's not of you, but you can't separate it from yourself. Watching this, breathing this, living with this conviction is awesome.

WORD: Working Preacher is where I spent most of my week reading & listening.

coming up: a full week of work as Coordinator of Youth & Family Ministries!

Sunday Snippits: the GOOD, BAD, & UGLY

It's Sunday Funday again! Wow time seems to be flying by lately!

This week is moving week, so in lieu of needing to pack some more, this is going to be short & sweet.

GOOD: In the last week the Holy Spirit worked in some pretty curious & scary, but fun ways in my life. Z & I have gained some much needed clarity on where we are being called into ministry. We will know more about specifics & what we can share in about 2 weeks. So keep hanging in there with me 'cause I have to & need you to do the same! Outside of that hubbub we helped more friends move, enjoyed seeing pictures pop up on FB of friends getting ordained (Congrats DF & WS!) We made some serious progress in our own packing & got rid of around 60 books.

BAD: Locally an elderly woman got killed by a group of teenage boys before she had a chance to go to her weekly volunteering time at her church.

UGLY: One of the boys that killed the elderly lady was her grandson.

WORDs to dwell on: John 20:29 "Jesus said to Thomas, 'Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.'"

Coming up: MOVING & 10 year class reunion

Sunday Snippits: the good, bad, & ugly!

Happy Sunday! 

WORDs to chew on: Jesus says, Follow me. Luke 9:51-62 The Message or Luke 9:51-62 NRSV

Recapping the week & jumping into this week with...

GOOD: Life has been restful & celebratory in the month of June. Monday night we enjoyed a night out at the Saint Paul Saints Baseball with a group of good friends. AND in the last minutes of the game the Saints got a homerun & WON! On Tuesday (T) I woke up to a voicemail announcing the birth of my childhood best friends' 2nd baby. Just one day before his mom's b-day & all are happy & healthy! Wednesday was then Tray's b-day & our niece's EJ's 1st b-day! Aunt Juls (& Uncle Z) had a LOT of fun gifting her a tutu! Z & I had a few days off so we cleaned the apartment & took a trip to visit Ma & Pa N. We also got to do several loads of laundry, watch the first 4 or 5 episodes of Downton Abbey season 3, & get new rear struts on Mandela (our car). Oh, AND we brought back our air con unit. Back to work on R & F with some fun outtings to say g'bye to friends moving this weekend. 

The Holy Spirit is moving in new & unknown ways, while scary, nonetheless it is exciting! 

BAD: Our friends are moving! This wave of sadness hovers in the air & enters our souls periodically. We're very excited for everybody's new adventures. We also are blessed with a great community here of people not moving yet because they've just finished their first year of seminary.

UGLY: Over 45,000 people were without power much of last week. I don't believe they fixed all the power outages till last Wednesday. It was a mess to say the least. In our life, the ugly is being restless. We're trying to embrace old hobbies that we had gotten away from doing, so yesterday we went & bought a basketball (this is a hobbies of Z's, not mine). 

THIS WEEK: Today is my cousin Lolo's birthday & my friend RW's ordination day! Our "golden" anniversary is Tuesday! AND the rest of the week is filled with fun wedding festivities for RM & CG.!

SOMETHING TO TRY: And because I think others should try this, we also made some yummy treats like Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding to fill our time.