hi

my name is greg. but, odds are pretty good you already know that… being my first blog and all… you probably got a direct invitation to come check it out…

well cool. glad you’re here. 🙂

i guess i just figure i have a lot to say, and i didn’t really have a great place to say it all… so… all the random and wandering stuff will find its way here… as the title may already suggest to you…

I did have a pretty interesting thought recently…

We LOVE board games. All kinds (though we are especially fond of any word games… those are fun…) So, we discovered a while back that you can get great board games (and even cool older, more rare games) at your friendly neighborhood thrift stores! So that’s like one of the first sections we visit upon entering any given thrift store. We even found one place in Redding, CA that had games on sale when we were there… FORTY CENTS!!! HA!!! That was AWESOME! We got NINE. 🙂

So I was thinking… why are there always SO many board games at thrift stores? Perhaps some well-meaning relative bought one or two for Christmas… perhaps EVERY Christmas… 🙂 Perhaps someone really just needed more space, and those were the things to go? But… I think more likely, it’s that no one has time to play a board game. You may want to… but no one can really “justify” sitting down to play a board game… so… off to the thrift store with ya….

But, last night… at the end of one of the busiest weeks of my life… (granted this was our day off, but even that was “busy” trying to catch up with all the stuff we’d missed in our busy week) I just thought… we need to play a board game. We have well over 50 displayed on our game shelf… and I said to my wife, Jen… “We’re gonna play a board game!”

We did not have the time for that! I needed to do the dishes… I needed to watch football! (We’re big football fans) I needed to do A MILLION things … but… It was time to play a game. Before I am tempted to send them off to the thrift store… it’s time to play.

We need to make time to play our board games. Other things can wait. They will be there when we are done. Really. (I know that from much experience…) We often get so wrapped up in our own stuff that that’s all we can think about. But we just need to stop and have fun with the folks who are closest to us… spouses, kids… what have you.

So… that’s what I was thinking… instead of a trip to the thrift store to drop off your lonely and abandoned board games… break one out, blow off the dust… and enjoy some time with your closest family or friends.

Really. Make time for the board games.

more later…

This whole world is just temporary

Everything is just passing me by

One day you’re here

The next you’re not with me

And all the while I am lost in the temporary

The pressures of this day pretend to thrill me

Another mountain scaled today

And while I’m conq’ring

I am missing

The precious little lives that are right at my feet

Can I get it into my head

Without the pain of death

The only things that matter at all

Are made in the image of you

Given the privlege to do

Life in you

This whole life is just slipping away

Tomorrow is never a guarantee

I can’t hold onto any piece of it

Cause it’s only a shadow – it’s just temporary

Can I get it into my head

Without the pain of death

The only things that matter at all

Are made in the image of you

Given the privlege to do

Life in you

Lord open my eyes

Wider than I thought possible

Help me realize

That our hope is not temporary

That you are not temporary

That I am not tempoary

Pain is just temporary

Our hope is in you

Our hope is in you

Give me hope

Beyond the temporary

Lift my eyes

From this temporary

Today

© 2003 Greg Campbell.

---

(the tune and words will be solidified later, but this is what was coming to mind today. my friend joe (who already sounds almost world-famous if your frame of reference is this blog…) lost his sister-in-law (was his wife’s brother’s wife) to cancer yesterday. life must be hard there. it certainly made me appreciate that i got to wake up with my wife today. and made me realize how life is so temporary. thank you jesus for the hope of more.

Concert was good tonight. Lots of people. Believers and non-believers alike… having fun and hopefully experiencing God in a very public community event. Very cool. more later… (probably should check out our main web page for more on that… if I ever get to writing our news page!!! http://www.basicmm.com — http://www.basicmm.com/news

dude

i am so totally bummed

totally

i can not even explain it

writing a song to me is probably a lot like childbirth. (sorry to offend you mom’s out there… i do have less physical pain… usually)

the ideas form, take shape, grow, kick around, and finally emerge a new creation – almost a new life.

and i love each one. each one is different. each one is a piece of me.

well… i just wrote one, called Temporary right here on my blog….

and i lost it.

it feels a bit like i lost a child. (i don’t mean to trivialize that… i am serious… i suppose it’s hard to understand if you are not a song writer)

even worse – the song was in some way intended as a gift.

i read my friend joe’s blog from last night (if your frame of reference was this blog, you might think that joe is quite a world-famous dude…)

his sister-in-law died last night. his wife’s brother’s wife.

not supposed to happen that way. opened my eyes again to the temporary-ness of this life.

and to how lucky i was to wake up next to my wife today

boy am i sad

for deb’s family (that’s famous joe’s wife)

and that i lost that song (which may have been somewhat healing for them?)

boy

(this is where joe might swear…)

(just had to get joe in there one more time…)

🙂

Well… perhaps another time.

I did happen to copy the chorus… here’s that:

Can I get it into my head

Without the pain of death

The only things that matter at all

Are made in the image of you

Given the privlege to do

Life in you

I’ll see what happens when i re-visit the piano tonight.

Had a good concert tonight. Lots of folks there. Good kingdom presence in the middle of a Mormon town. (We live in Palmyra, NY – birthplace of mormonism… mormons there tonight…. that was good.) This little light of mine… I’m gonna let it shine…

I think Jesus was honored tonight.

That’s good.

Wow

ok

somehow, God brought my blog back from the dead

I am new here… cut me some slack

no longer as bummed

somehow the song made it up there???

how is that possible… i never published it?

thanks God

may that song bring you glory, and others comfort and hope

So… just today I was calling up a friend just to say hello, and make fun of them for not being at our concert last night… just joking around… and she tells me a horrible story of how they almost lost their youngest daughter last night. The daughter is actually doing fine now! But she had a seizure and it was really really scary I guess. I told her (my friend) that I had just been thinking about how things like that really wake us up to what is important in life. (see the song Temporary below)…. craziness… thanks God for keeping Emma around.

Well, the other stuff I was thinking about partly falls in the temporary/doesn’t matter category… but i am not so sure…

You ever feel like you are part of History? All this stuff about the Ten Commandments being in a public place and … well… just about everything in politics and law making and the general presentation of who we are by the media… all points to our society’s decline. It’s like we’re watching the slide to the ugliness that Sodom & Gomorrah became… we’re not there yet… but close. It goes fast I think. We, a nation founded by God-fearing folks… are systematically removing Him from EVERYTHING in our country. And, you know what… He’ll leave.

Rom 1 says:

Rom. 1:28 ¶ Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

Rom. 1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,

Rom. 1:30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;

Rom. 1:31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Rom. 1:32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

There’s lots more in that whole chapter. Pretty telling of what’s happening now.

So, what do we do about that? I guess I am just gonna keep living for Jesus and letting other people know about how life’s really supposed to be. Should we be “activists”? Should we be trying to keep the 10 Commandments monument displayed publicly? or…. should we be loving our neighbor … i mean really loving them… and doing our best to live every step with Jesus. If we did that, wouldn’t he change the world around us?

It’s very interesting being in the middle of history. Wonder how this one’s gonna turn out?

Well, you know what… it was overall a good day. Started out crazy again as some friends of ours were having a rough time dealing with some pretty serious illness in their little 1 yr old daughter… she is on the mend… and so are they. I got to make dinner for them tonight… was very cool to be able to help them like that. Happened to be a day I could do that. I love to help people.

Also got to see the Bills play tonight. They showed the home preseason games for the first time this year, so I think we got to see ALL four Bills preseason games this year! Awesome! Now, if we were only less busy during the regular season… 🙂 (I think the first game we’ll see for sure will be on November 30th…. that is my birthday, so I guess that’s pretty cool…)

But, the other thing that was just sorta disturbing today was just feeling like I’m not getting through to my kids. It was just one of those days where both of our boys were doing everything exactly the way we tell them NOT to do it. Disrespecting us, and their stuff, and bad attitudes and defiance and… you name it. And I just kept wanting them to leave. I was just over the edge… didn’t want to deal with little boys (especially ones in the condition they were in…) But I was reminded over and over again how much I really love them. Really. Everytime I was mad at them, I thought about our friends who were just going through that awful dreadful time of not even knowing if their little girl was going to live. And all their disobedience seemed less annoying. I am thankful for the two (no.. three) lives that God has given me to steer toward life in Him. I sure hope I can do it. I know God will help me. And that does give me a bit of peace. Just hope I don’t mess it up…

Well, told ya this would be random and wandering stuff from greg’s head…

🙂

I think that’s awesome! I always have stuff coursing through my brain… not right now. We had an interesting practice tonight.. we didn’t really need to be there, we all needed to be elsewhere. like, I needed to be home fixing our electric… had a little electrical fire today… all is well… but that was interesting. It would be sad if our house burned down.

Been re-designing the website today. Everytime I do that, I get lost in that world. That’s why I am so spacey right now. Well… I’ll just have to come back later. 🙂

Actually, reason I opened this was I had a bunch of different topics flowing through my head… but… now… they are all gone. 🙂

Well, I will say this, if you are not yet a Bills fan, perhaps you will be this season? Check em out. www.buffalobills.com. Jen & I are excited. Should be a fun year.

More later…

Why is there so much to do?

Why do I not have any down time?

Why must I fill my schedule with things, and feel guilty if I don’t?

Why do I feel the weight of 10 things pulling me at once in different urgent directions?

Why do I not have time for the special little things in life?

Why do *I* have to do so much?

Why do I *want* to do so much?

I still have several things I “have” to finish today… why? What is it that makes me so busy? Am I that important? Are the things I am doing that important? Much of the busyness revolves around people… Jesus never seemed… busy. What is it?? Must I cut out all the extra things I do for fun? (Star Trek, movies, Vintage Video game collecting & playing, random other fun things usually involving NFL football…) Or, do I need to cut out other things?

I am definitely frustrated.

I imagine you are too.

What should we do?

I feel crazy. Unsettled. On edge.

You know why? Cause I expect a perfect day. I expect everything I do to go perfectly… not only that… I expect the perfection to happen when I want it to.

It’s been a good day. I have done things I really love doing, and had a bunch of success doing that. Found out our van is not in as bad a shape as I thought it was… and got to visit with some friends we haven’t seen in about a month… good day.

And yet I’m unsettled… cause I was not able to be perfect. There are several things that are slightly out of my control that I could not master today… and that is the part that dominates my thoughts and emotions.

What am I thinking? 🙂

I am going to choose to enjoy a football game with my wife and to talk about all the good stuff that happened today. The other stuff will work out tomorrow.

Or not.

Life is not perfect.

🙂

That’s perfect.

Vacation is coming soon… starts sunday evening…

I think i may blog then…

Till then, check out my new blogging friend Mike Muscarella. He’s also linked to your left.

Been doing a web site design all week. Check out ours – been doing that. Old and new integrated there… link to the left.

Site I worked on all week… currently at http://irwinsinecuador.com.ivchost3.com/ — domain transfer coming soon.

Lemme know what you think … e-mail