Year / 2008

by Greg

Super Full (Super Fun!) Weekend

Whew! That’s how we felt late last night when we went to bed. Well, Jen may have felt a little “Ughhh” as well, bring very pregnant and all. But MAN did we pack a lot in!

It all started on Saturday morning. I woke up a tad early for a Saturday (8ish) and got ready to head over to our friends’ house for a big prepare-the-house-for-sale clean up day. Jen stayed home with the kids to get ready to send them off with her parents for the weekend. Originally was just going to be overnight, but they asked if they could keep them till Monday. We thought it was a good idea, too. 😉

From 9:30 till around 12:30pm I cleaned, fixed, moved, and more at our friends’ house until Jen was dropped off there by her parents, who were on their way back home to Buffalo with our kids. I came out and said good bye to the kids, and then with a “second shift” of help arriving right about that same time, decided to pack up and get on to some other stuff for the day with Jen.

We got home and had a nice quiet lunch. No kids!! Then got to working on doing our taxes. Did that for a couple hours, while I baked bread for a party we were going to later that night. Once the bread was ready, we packed up and headed out.

It was a surprise 40th birthday party – for a friend who would not be described as a “people person” really – and it was about a 40-minute drive to somewhere we’d never been. But again… we had no kids, so all was well. 🙂 We stopped by the house where the cleaning party had been to deliver something they needed, and to see the progress. Very nice! Got to see another friend there whom we had not seen in quite a while, too. So, a nice – yet very short – visit there, and we were on to the party.

We were on time… until we got to where we were going. Unbeknownst to us, shortly before this weekend, the road sign (along with a light pole and a power line pole) had been taken out by a rogue milk truck! So, we drove at least 5 miles past where we were supposed to turn, going past the next little village. From what we saw on Google Maps, that could not possibly be right. We didn’t have their phone number, but knew that it just couldn’t be right. Already a bit late – and needing to not be since it was a surprise party!! – we turned around and hoped we could see their road a second time.

With eagle eyes we scanned the side of the road where our turn was supposed to be. Nothing. We had seen all of these roads before, and for the second time, none were the road we needed. We did find one road that was definitely NOT labeled, but being in a time crunch, I was not going to drive down an unmarked road! We found a gas station not far from there and found out that our unmarked road was indeed the one we wanted, so finally – just about 15 minutes later than we were supposed to be there – we arrived at our destination.

Oh, and I forgot. On the way there, we were traveling down a very rural, country road… just having a nice conversation, enjoying the music on the iPod, when I caught a glimpse of some shadows directly ahead of us. FOUR DEER crossing the road… and more coming. No way we were NOT going to hit them. I just asked God to make it not too bad!

I guess he did. 🙂

I hit the brakes (not too hard as it was snowing, and skidding would be equally as bad) and three deer managed to cross to our left and “magically” one deer just stopped and created a gap for us to drive through. Don’t know if there were more behind that one deer, but glad for him stopping – or perhaps an angel standing in his way? However it happened, we were thankful for safe passage.

The rest of the evening was fun. Besides two couples, we didn’t really know many of the people there very well. But we were welcomed in their circle (they kind of knew us from our days leading worship at Crosswinds) and had a great evening. We introduced them to Dutch Blitz. Super fun card game! And ate lots of good food, and had lots of fun. Our “not a people person” friend also was quite surprised and seem to really enjoy it. We got to have a few good conversations throughout the night about life with the church as well. Several are in a similar place with all that as we are. Good to think it out together.

We didn’t leave till 11:30 that night – which was so nice! Didn’t have to worry about getting home for the baby sitter! We did go to bed rather exhausted though! Super fun day.

But the weekend wasn’t over!!

Sunday we woke up on our own – NO KIDS WAKING US UP! – and I said to Jen at around 10am or so, “I’m taking you out for breakfast!” So we got up and ready to go in like 10 minutes! Ha! So funny to parents of four young kids. 🙂

The funny part of the breakfast plan was that we were headed to Victor (a nearby town) and we also had an appointment there at 5:30pm. (We also had plans to have lunch with some friends there around 1:30 or so.) So, really, we were heading out for most of the day! But again, we had no kids!!! So we were very much looking forward to it! 🙂

As we left the house, I said, “Oh cool, it’s snowing!” A nice light dusting was on the ground, and some nice fluffy lake effect snow was softly falling. It was pretty cold, and supposed to get colder – and very windy – but for now, wasn’t too bad. We headed down the road toward our destination, and decided to take the Thruway (the main interstate highway) to get there a bit more directly, and quickly.

The snow kept getting a little worse, but still not too bad on the roads. I was glad we left when we did. For about two more minutes. 🙂

Not long after getting on the Thruway, we found it more and more difficult to see, with much more accumulation on the roads. I ended up needing to follow the tracks from the car(s) who went before me. As a small truck tried to pass us on the left, I began to feel the vehicle losing traction, and shimmy a bit. So I slowed down for the truck to pass and realized that I couldn’t really see very far in front of us. Not far at all. Within another minute or two, I really couldn’t!. It was a HUGE white out! Seriously couldn’t see five seconds in front of us, so we slowed way down, hoping to not be hit from behind.

Thankfully I happened to catch a glimpse of the green highway exit sign as we passed (surprised I could see it that far away!) and decided to exit. With a large semi behind us, I just signaled and HOPED I was getting off on the exit! Could NOT see it!!! Slowed to almost a stop and found the road. (Quite glad for those reflectors for the snow plows!) We slowly approached the toll booth and literally could see nothing. NOTHING. Finally, once we were about 50 feet from the toll plaza, we saw the flashing yellow light. I tried to center the van under the light (so we could go through the toll booth) and we made it through… but then couldn’t see the road on the other side!! 🙂

We practically inched ahead for a while till I saw a McDonald’s sign on the right. I said to Jen, “How about McDonald’s instead??” 🙂 She agreed, and I pulled in where I THOUGHT the road was!! Still couldn’t see it! Finally got into a parking spot and went in and enjoyed some breakfast. CRAZY snow!!!

The snow died down rather quickly. Was a super fast white out. I was thankful later that we were again granted safe passage. It did not turn out as well for many to the west of us in Rochester. A multi-car pile up resulted from the same white outs, and killed one girl, and injured a bunch more. So we were grateful to be safely eating breakfast at McDonald’s.

From there, here’s the rest of the day…

We went to the 11:15am service at Willowbrook to see friends and family, then joined some of them for lunch at Wendy’s shortly after that. Not having kids, we just enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch and chat with the two families there. Good times! Then, with three hours to “kill” we headed up to the mall to do a few things we needed to before my 5:30pm appointment at the Apple store.

First, we just SAT and talked. 🙂 There’s a nice sitting area at the front/center of the mall. So, we just sat and talked 🙂 (MAN! Pretending you don’t have kids is FUN!) 🙂 After a bit of that we went to a store to look for jeans for me, but were unsuccessful. But, while we were there we checked out the couches. Ours are about 22 years old, and probably nearing the end of their life… 🙂

After that we headed over to Sears to pick up Ian’s 9th birthday photos. Since Friendly’s is right there – and Jen seemed to need a break – we stopped to get some ice cream. 🙂 Again. Even more fun without kids. 🙂

When we were done with our ice cream it was almost time for my Apple store appointment, so we headed that way and thanks to me knowing most of the people there, I got in about 20 minutes earlier than my appointment. That went very quickly which was good. (And, I did get to play with the new MacBook Air a bit… so it was a fun visit, too!) Having finished a very full day out, we decided to head home.

On our way home however, I remembered that Jen’s brother had said we could maybe get together with them after 8pm… so we called and confirmed and made plans to head BACK to Victor around eight that night. 🙂

We got home at 6:30… Jen crashed. I ate dinner.. then crashed while watching the TiVo delayed Pro Bowl. We both woke up after a nap – somewhat refreshed – and ready for more! (OK, I needed aspirin to be ready… but, after that, I was ready!) We headed out at about 8:30, and ended up chatting with Jen’s bro and his wife till midnight! We swapped photos and stories from our trips the past fall (hadn’t gotten to do that yet!) and just had a nice, kid-less time.

I finished the Pro Bowl after we got home – AFC lost 🙁 – and even watched another show, and finally got to bed around 3am!

CRAZY SUPER FUN WEEKEND!

Tonight, Grandma & Grandpa are bringing the kids back, and I can’t wait to see them. But getting a couple days without them is definitely a very good, enjoyable thing. 🙂

by Greg

Freedom

A couple times this weekend, the concept of freedom came up in conversation. It was in relation to the church, and life together as followers of Jesus. And really, it starts with life as an individual follower of Jesus.

When speaking with some friends who are equally saddened by the focus of the American church on numbers and programs and an institutional view of discipleship – and yet, who strangely feel the need to still be part of that social structure – we talked about freedom. One friend brought up the scripture where Jesus says he came to “set us free“. He said that it really helped him break out of the “need” – the obligation – to be at a worship service on Sunday mornings. He realized that he was not free. And God helped him realize that through that Scripture.

I think that’s true for a lot of people. And much beyond their attendance at weekly (or more frequent) worship gatherings. It does not mean that you are not free if you “go to church” on Sundays. It could, but it doesn’t inherently mean that. Where we lack freedom is in really understanding that God does not want us to live life out of obligations to him, but in relationship to him.

I was reading a little book to my boys that paraphrases scripture verses, and one we read last week was taken from the verse in Micah that says, “…and this is what he requires: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” The last part caught my attention this time. What God “requires” is that we walk (humbly) with him. He wants us to just follow him. To be with him. Every day.

God doesn’t want us to always do what’s right just because it’s right. He wants us to learn to be like him. To live in the freedom of not having to perform for him, to earn his love, or his favor – or to avoid the fires of Hell. What he wants is for us to love as we have been loved. (Love God, and love your neighbor.)

All of the above “requirements” were also written/said during a time when Jesus had not completed the restoration of our relationship with Father God! That’s so great! While people were toiling under this idea that sacrifices and following rules would somehow “gain favor” with God, God was telling them, no… just be fair, just, merciful, and follow humbly in his steps. Pretty cool.

Yet today, even though Jesus has once and for all abolished the code of law that restricted and even enslaved us, we still live as slaves to sin and the law. We do not experience the freedom of his grace, and his full and complete love. We don’t live as children but as slaves (as that linked passage above refers to). That permeates every bit of how we relate to our Father, and I’m learning more and more that it’s not how he wants it to be.

He wants us to walk with him. He calls us friends. He has adopted us as his children, full heirs of everything he has. And he is not a Father who demands strict obedience at the end of a punishing hand, but the Father of the prodigal son who allows us to choose to follow him, to humbly receive his love and live in his freedom.

I’m not sure how we can really break out of the cycle of feeling the need to please him, or even the obligation to “get it right”, but oh how I long for that in me, and in you. Shame is a powerful thing over us, and causes us to submit to God out of obligation and out of a perceived relational “debt”. But there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus. The Bible tells me so.

It also tells me this:

If the son has set you free, you are free indeed.

by Greg

Pondering

There are a few things that I am currently pondering regarding life with God and his church. I thought I’d just jot them down here, in a sort of short hand way. Perhaps you are pondering them as well and might add to my ponderings, but really I am putting them down here to look back later and see what I was pondering in 2008. 🙂

  • Worship:
    Do we need to publicly and corporately set God apart from all else, with or without musical aid?
  • Evangelism:
    Should I have more of an urgent desire to help people know they are loved by their Father?
  • Praying:
    With other people, I mean. How do I make an ongoing conversation with God easily flow into conversation with other believers – and my family.
  • Communion:
    It’s important to some people. Really important. But to me, just meaningless. Does it matter? How?

The things I am beginning to understand more: (and usually write about here)

  • Freedom:
    For me, and giving freedom to others.
  • Grace:
    For me, and treating other people with grace.
  • God’s love:
    Again, for me, and learning to give that to others.
  • Reality of God’s presence:
    Learning to live with Jesus every day.
  • Who Jesus is:
    The Word of God, my brother, God in flesh, “watching” him interact with people in the stories of the gospels

When I look at those lists, the first one mostly just seems silly, but to many people – including me for much of my life perhaps? – they are not silly but almost essential. Funny how perspective changes. Who knows the lists might change again after a while. They might be completely different. We’ll see.

by Greg

Relationality

This morning the boys and I continued our trek through the book of Matthew, with a tiny chunk from chapter five. I was just going to reference it, but I thought perhaps you might like to read the whole bit together for the context of what we saw in it today.

Matthew 5:21-25 (CEV)
You know that our ancestors were told, “Do not murder” and “A murderer must be brought to trial.” But I promise you that if you are angry with someone, you will have to stand trial. If you call someone a fool, you will be taken to court. And if you say that someone is worthless, you will be in danger of the fires of hell.

So if you are about to place your gift on the altar and remember that someone is angry with you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. Make peace with that person, then come back and offer your gift to God.

Before you are dragged into court, make friends with the person who has accused you of doing wrong. If you don’t, you will be handed over to the judge and then to the officer who will put you in jail.

Did you see it? What stood out to you about those three situations? I asked my boys, “What was the most important thing in all of those stories?”

At first they said excitedly, “Don’t be mad!” I said, “That’s part of it…” hoping they would continue. They did. And actually, not too many thoughts later, they hit on what I was probing for.

“Relationship,” said Ian. (At that point I knew that he has been listening to me before this morning.) 🙂 “That’s right! In each of these stories, the relationship was the most important!”

You and I have read that story, perhaps mainly that verse, many times over. Anger is the same as murder. Don’t call your brother a “fool”… or else! Don’t bring any offerings before you fix your argument with your brother. But in the bigger picture–the context–I saw that a common theme ran through all of the stories.

But before I get to that, did you notice who bears the relational “responsibility” in the second story? In the first story, Jesus says, “Don’t get mad at people.” While being so hard to obey it’s almost absurd, it’s certainly understandable. We all know it’s wrong, or at least no the best to treat someone badly in our anger. But who is the relational instigator in the second story? The one who is angry? No! The one with whom someone is angry!

This was a key piece for me. The first one makes sense because we’re good at trying to clean up our own act. That makes sense. It at least seems doable, whether it actually is, or not. But the second set of circumstances requires that the one who has not necessarily done any wrong be the one to correct the situation.

So if you are about to place your gift on the altar and remember that someone is angry with you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. Make peace with that person, then come back and offer your gift to God.

Doesn’t that sound like we’re putting people before God? And perhaps petty, selfish people as well? (It doesn’t say “admit that you were wrong” or anything like that. It just says go and make peace.) The paramount concern is not the “more spiritual” offering to God, but rather peace between brothers.

I told the boys that this is true for me as well. I love it when I see my kids getting along, having fun together. I love it even more when I see them making peace with each other (especially without my intervention). It brings me great joy to see peace, harmony, and genuine loving friendship between my children. And I’m sure (from this story Jesus told, and others) that the same is true of our Father.

When I noticed this relational priority, I sort of stepped back and looked at all three stories together. Sure enough, the thread through all three was that relationships are paramount. The first story says don’t cloud relationships with angry words. Get over yourself. The second story, as I’ve mentioned, focuses on the “responsibility” of the “innocent” person to initiate and maintain a peaceful relationship.

The third story is perhaps a more practical application of how relational we are, and may have been played out a bit later in the day. (No, I was not taken to court…)

In the third scene, we have Jesus saying that if we were to find ourselves in court, the best course of action is to make friends with our accuser. On the surface, that makes no sense! Especially if we are innocent, but even if we are not. They’re our accuser!!! These are not people we want to reach out to. But the practical side of this is, yes, we do. Jesus implies that if you do, you may avoid the consequences, they may not press charges.

A little relationality goes a long way…

Today I received an order from Amazon.com. They have Big Train Chai at the cheapest price around. When I run out, I usually order two packs of three bags of chai. (They only ship them in sets of three.) I get two because that qualifies it for free shipping as well. 🙂

When I very excitedly brought in my package from the super cold porch, I noticed that some powdered chai was pouring out the corners of the box! “Oh no!” I thought perhaps a bag had inadvertently been cut open somehow. I was hopeful that most of them were still intact.

I gingerly cut into the tape at the top of the box, opening it very slowly, checking for any evidence of the cut bag. I brushed off the powder from all of the bags (it had gotten all over everything, even though it was only at most a couple tablespoons of chai) and finally found the culprit. One bag had a very small opening, right near the crease in the bottom. No big deal, but I figured I’d call Amazon and see if they could replace that bag for me.

I got on the phone with a lady who did not speak much English, but seemed very willing to help. I explained my situation calmly, and just asked, “Is there any way you could ship me out one replacement bag? Do you need me to package up and return the defective one?” After a few quick questions – and my friendly answers – she said, “Wait a few moments, and I will process a replacement for you.”

I sat on hold for just a few moments, as she had requested, and sure enough, when she came back on the phone she gave me an order ID for the replacement chai! I was thrilled to be getting a little bit of bonus chai. (I really do love this stuff!)

Not long after hanging up the phone, I decided to check the order number at Amazon and see when it would be coming and exactly what they were shipping. What to my wondering eyes should appear, but THREE BAGS OF CHAI in my “recently placed orders”! Whoo-hooo!

Now, I don’t know that this lady did anything out of the ordinary. It could be standard policy to just ship the full “package” that was defective. (They do ship as individual bags, so certainly they could have shipped just one.) And I do not know for sure her motivations. But I’d like to think this is a living example of what I saw Jesus saying today.

Relationship is paramount. I was not being taken to court, but I was approaching a situation that did not merit an overly generous response. You can say it is good business to make sure the customer is satisfied, but if I had laid into the first person who answered, demanding a replacement (and/or more?) do you think that the customer service rep’s first thought would be to (happily) replace my item? Probably not. Probably there would be some resistance. I have tried the other way – justifiable anger – and I am here to say… it just don’t work.

We are made for relationality. If we live it, if we practice it, life goes better.

1 Thessalonians 5:13b (NIV)
Live in peace with each other.

There may be things that seem more important. (Including looking out for ourselves, or doing stuff for God.) But it would seem from these three stories Jesus told to his disciples that the thing that should top the list is to live in healthy, unbroken relationship with each other. And, be the initiator of that. Not just the recipient.

Relationality starts with me.

by Greg

Buffalo Bills Things

Toronto, CanadaFor those of you who do not regularly follow along at my Buffalo Bills podcast website… I posted a few things there this week and just thought I’d link to them here. First I wrote an article responding to all the speculation about the Bills moving to Toronto. Then we did a special edition of the BBR where we talked about that and more.

Check it out if you are so inclined…

by Greg

Can’t Sleep

Not sure what it was about last night, but it was not our night to sleep 🙂

First, we got our Mac Mini back from the Apple store (replacing a defective hard drive) and hooked it up right away, even used it. But then, not-so-smart, plays-with-too-many-settings Dad tinkered with the display resolution one too many times and the TV just started flickering. A LOT. Could barely see anything… couldn’t find the cursor well enough to get it back to the right resolution. I tried everything, but to no avail.

So, since it was essentially a brand new drive with brand new settings – I reinstalled the OS. 🙂 (That takes a long time…)

As I was installing it, I watched a TV show I had downloaded from iTunes, and then put in Star Trek Insurrection which I had been wanting to watch for a long time.

The update was going along just fine, even downloaded all of the software updates from the internet once the original OS was on the disk. And all the while, Jen must have woken up a good three or four times. I had to go upstairs one time to find out why Alex was kicking the bar that keeps him from falling out of bed. Jen told me then that both boys had been talking and/or moaning in their sleep. Pretty funny.

I finally went to bed at 4am. (Later than usual…) and Jen was up again. Not long after that, the girls were needing help. I’m not sure if Julia did, but Kirstie wasn’t feeling that great, so she came in a few times. Jen got her a drink around 7:15? and then I did around 7:30. At that point, Julia was awake as well.

I finally just got up and took a shower at 8:30, and Alex wandered in the bathroom somewhere around 8:50 or so. Everyone is sorta/kinda awake right now (which is early for everyone else) and I can’t wait to see what kind of day we have… 🙂

So… perhaps naps are in order, and an early bed time!

OH! Funniest part? Around 8am I did go back to sleep, only to dream that all six of us were in a tiny two room place … NOT SLEEPING! It was 6am or so in my dream, and everyone was awake!! I was thinking – we all need to be sleeping!!! And Jen (in the dream) was just fine with everyone being awake.

I was awoken by Kirstie needing more help (around 8:30) and just had to chuckle. Dream was imitating reality, or vice versa.

I think we just need some sleep. 🙂

by Greg

UBA

Red Robin: Unbridled Acts of Kindness
I saw a pretty cool thing on the Red Robin website today. We love their food, and celebrate all of our birthdays there, but now I will also be visiting their website.

It’s called UnBridled Acts (of kindness), and just features stories of their employees going way above and beyond their normal duties. I read two, and there was a neat one about a Red Robin employee just paying for the coffee for the car behind him, which started a crazy chain reaction that ended up coming back to that same guy…

Check it out. Always cool to see selflessness in action. Wish that was more the norm than an “amazing story”.

(But then, it wouldn’t make for as cool a web page…) 🙂

by Greg

Powerful Thoughts?

I don’t know if this is for real, but I got it from a friend on Facebook and thought it might be possible? 🙂 Does mind over matter include over other matter? 🙂 Also, can’t you affect how a plant grows by how you talk to it?

The rest of the experiment (says the video) is at www.themanifeststation.com/intention

(I don’t think I’m on the same page as the folks at that site… but the video was interesting anyway…) 🙂