Mississippi

Ah the memories.

Who wants to be a pastor?

Wanted: Pastor for Average North American ChurchAverage North American congregation(Sunday morning attendance about 200) in North American town (population 60, 000) seeks pastor. Must be pleasant-looking, although not distractingly beautiful. No obese, skinny, deformed, or otherwise unsightly person need apply.

Must have a strong personal presence, able to reassure the timid,intimidate the critical, and stroke the powerful. Must not come on too strong, however, so as not to make anyone feel insecure.Must have solid academic training and must study constantly as to preach substantial sermons each week, supervise purchases by the church library, and answer any question raised by a senior, university student, professional person, or child. Must not be too "intellectual,"though, so as not to speak over the heads of parishioners and annoy those who are defensive about their lack of education.

Must be able to relate to a wide range of people. Must be athletic,able to play basketball, hockey, softball, volleyball, and touch football with the youth. Must be folksy, able to talk cattle/corn/wheat/fruit/vegetables and fondly reminisce about his or her own days in the barns/fields/orchards.

Must be sophisticated, ableto discuss literature, the arts, and current events and fondly reminisce about his or her own visits to museums, concerts, and galleries. Must be hardheaded about finances, able to talk turkey with the accountants, CEOs, and other practical people in the church. Mustbe terrific with children, able to coo with the babies and debate cloth verses disposable with new parents.

Must be psychologically adept to handle anyone who desires counseling, from young couples considering marriage to older couples considering divorce, from adolescents coping with sexual tempation to adults coping with sexual abuse, and from parents concerned about their aging parents.Must be well versed in music (both classical and contemporary),poetry, drama, and liturgy so as to direct all worship services.

Must be able to select three or four songs each week for congregational singing that perfectly match the day's readings and sermon subject. Must be able to sort out conflicts gracefully among the organist,worship leader, choir director, and youth band.

Must be a brilliant teacher: witty yet reverent, profound yet simple,and erudite yet humble -whether teaching kindergartners in VacationBible School, young people at camp, or seniors in Sunday school. Must always be ready to step in when, on Saturday night or Sunday morning,a teacher phones to say her or she can't show up for a class.

Must have an infinitely flexible schedule to allow for interruptionsby phone or vist, at work or home, day or night; to see parishioners at their request but also at their convenience; and to attend every function of the church so that no one feels the event is unimportant to the pastor.

Must be politically astute so as to cope with constant criticism andto fend of periodic attempts at ouster or wage reduction. Must know how to prepare to jump ship at another church just before being castadrift with two weeks' notice in the middle of winter.Must work for a living wage with few other benefits: nothing fancy, ofcourse, since pastors, after all, are spiritual people - and, let'sface it what do they do all day anyhow?

- John G. Stackhouse Jr. The Church (66-69)

Snowmobiling

Beautiful Sunset.

Preparing for a long night of sledding.

Group shot.

Litte stop at Redeemer.

Good Laughs

• Breaking three windows playing a clean game of darts from 20 meters away
• Trying to explain to Eileen why we didn't take the dart board down after we broke the first window
• Popping Jimmy's bike tire with a dart
• Jimmy deciding to run into and break our bathroom door
• Finding termites in a bongo
• Not doing anything about it
• Realizing later that the termites were eating other wooden objects in the room aswell
• Joel Haas' failure to carry out his utopian study idea's (This happens every year, soon he'll blame it on the dorm environment and go home second semester)
• Trying to convince our porch mates that one of us was blind
• Convincing first years that we were first years . . . which came way to easily
• Joel Martin's reluctancy to finally be known as 'superman' . . . he now responds to it
• Trying to keep a straight face when attempting to kick girls (specifically Ashley and Sonya) out of our dorm after 12:00
• The sick amount of coffee that our dorm consumes.
• Making mashed potatoes, which somehow became garlic-cheese-mashed-potato-soup
• Cooking up 7 1/2 pounds of other people's bacon
• Not being able to see through the smoke in the kitchen afterwards
• Realizing that our fire alarms don't work
• Eric buying 4 liters of mayonnaise
• Joel accepting a $100 bet to eat 2 Liters of mayonnaise
• 4 parking warnings in 3 nights
• Jimmy shopping for the weekend, and only buying cookies
• Tom waking up to the sound of Jimmy applying hand cream
• Tom's dances, which is a list in itself
• Joel's ridiculously morbid bedtime stories
• Dennis and Jimmy putting conscious effort into making situations akward for example: throwing the word 'naked' at the end of stories. . or any other sentence
• Taking everything too far
• Kevin's ability to laugh at our lame jokes, even though he thinks they suck, and that we really aren't funny

The list goes on, I'll try to keep it updated throughout the year.

Blunt people

Recently I went golfing with some friends (to whom I lost horribly to), and it was on the 7th green when I was reminded how good it can be to hear what a person actually thinks.

It was a 20 foot putt for quad bogie, and I really wanted to sink that stupid white ball. I practiced 7 times and missed horribly (I think I lost yards). The comments I heard were "not bad" and "that's still playable", then there was a pause. I look at Joel Haas and he just stares at me and says "you are a horrible golfer."

So from that I was reminded that even though blunt people can be really annoying, and sometimes you just want to throw your club at them, it's nice to hear what is actually on one's mind.

Work

After many discussions with quite a few people about their jobs and what their view on work is, I found this article. I dedicate this article to all those who hate work.

Work: The Meaning of your life

1) Work is Everyman's artistry, a kind of poetry of the world for through it is woven the delicate and balanced rhythmic structure of culture and civilization. Work is Everyman as artist. For through our work each of us not only fashions good and services pleasing to another, but each in the same process sculpts himself, or herself, into the unltimate destiny we are really seeking. Work makes an artist's studio out of shop, kitchen, office, wherever.

2) Work liberates: because work frees its product from dispersion in a miscellany of raw materials just as the artistry of the sculptor frees his stature from the cold embrace of marble.

3) World molds: a wilderness into a garden, nature into a city. Human history begins in the Garden of Eden, and culminates in the New Jerusalem; man's history wends its way from one to the other on the bent backs, active minds, vivid imaginations, and straining sinews of human labor.

4) Work mediates: between a field and a harvest, between a harvest and human nourishment. WOrk unites fibres into cloth, and transforms trees into homes. Work flies the skies, defies the darkness, explores the moon and the planets. Work is the storehouse of today's riches and tommorow's secrets.

5) Work, said Marx, "is the language of real life." Those who escape work avoid using that language and therefore confuse merely existing with truly living.

6) Work is the mystery which provides us with far more than we could ever provide ourselves.

7) Work gives an idea a time and place. Work endows vision with reality, and hope with substance.

8) Work exerts the discipline of nature upon the development of the workers self - steel will not be treated like plastic, nor wood like liquid. Through work man obeys nature's laws, and thus transforms nature into his servant, and himself into a work of art.

9) Work joins man with God in the development of the universe. And this leads us to a final perspective from which to "see" work - our own work - as it really is. We can put that perspective in a sentence:

Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to man and thus to God.

By Lester De Koster
Christian Renewal

Jill Hermanson

After recieving a call from Jill last night, and being chastised by her for not blogging frequently enough, I thought I'd blog about Jill. (to be written as a dating ad;)

Jill Hermanson is a single female student who has just completed her first year at Redeemer University College. Jill is quite tall in comparison to her not-so-tall friend from the middle east. She has black hair, and greenish eyes. In her spare time Jill likes to outblog dave, do art, juggle two jobs, write poetry, play classical guitar, sing, impersonate animals/Cher, and make sarcastic remarks about everything. Jill is a fun loving girl who likes to dress wierd, tap on her steering wheel, and drive faster than gaurdian angels fly. Jill also enjoys watching the OC (without blinking) and shorts sprints on the beach.

If interested, Please call: 445-0267
(between 3:00-3:45 on Tuesdays/Thursdays)

To those who label me a workaholic

I am not alone, Joel haas also has joined the i-work-to-much bandwagon. So in all fairness, he should also be ridiculed.