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Showing posts from 2013

Unexpected Santa

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I'm sure that you couldn't tell by my youthful appearance and slim, disciplined physique ...whatever... that I once upon a time held a job with high holiday esteem.  Two weeks ago I was reminded of this when observing a friends Christmas display and about a dozen photos of her children in their growing years sitting on the lap of a jolly fat man with a white beard.  No it wasn't someone's uncle Earl, it was Santa himself.  Some photos contained the real Santa I'm pretty sure, but some were obviously the "fill ins".  That's right, I was Santa.... Or at least a good fill in.  It occurred to me, for literally the first time, that in numerous homes somewhere, probably on the East coast, there are moms, grandma's etc with photos of me in their living rooms at this time of year.  Let me clarify ... They are photos of me in a red suit with their children on my lap.  Anyway, it was a fairly distant memory and only a fleeting thought, until quite by chanc

Watch this

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I'm having a "never saw this coming" moment...actually several of them seemingly coming in waves.  There are moments in everyone's life that, if you could have stepped outside of your stream and looked in on yourself, should have been quite obvious.  The reality is that few are able to step out of the flow that is rapidly ushering us through life, so every once in awhile we come face to face with those moments.  Our lives flowed fairly nicely through Thanksgiving only to land us on the doorstep of Advent where we encountered an obvious reality that had not yet clearly presented itself.  All of a sudden Joanne and I were struck with a reflection that this year, for the first time in 22 years of pastoral artistry, we are not leading others on a journey towards the birth of Christ.  Simply put, we have no church.  For me there is no wrestling with the birth narratives, praying and being led to extract new and timely hope to people clinging to it.  For Joanne, there is

Perception

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I'm sitting with a new view... This morning I have the Space Needle, a Tesla dealership, and 3 industrial cranes as a backdrop to the stream of amazonians filing by.  I'm not judging, as this morning I could be perceived as one of them...in fact I was by the barista crafting my drink.  I can quite easily blend in and join their ranks, set apart from the other groups who comprise a good deal of the neighborhood.  From my window seat I can watch throngs of "badge people" passing by throngs of "orange vests" passing by "cart pushers".  If one had the desire, these groups could easily be defined in these terms...this neighborhood perhaps more than any other that I've been part of.  It would be a tragic mistake though.   Much of life around here is more about perception than reality.  Again not judging, as it is most likely that way wherever you happen to be reading this. I was reminded of this even before leaving the house this morning as I sat

Just saying "thank you"

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Although I have a few to choose from, it seems like my new home away from home has been found.  Café Torino, in the heart of my new neighborhood, has quickly become my "go to" spot for some strategic work moments, as well as those moments which have nothing to do with anything besides sitting in an Italian coffee shop contemplating their offering of classes in Italian.  I'm as grateful for the provision of this place as I am for their skill in caramel latte's.  From here I can literally look upon our new residence and, this afternoon, I can look upon the latest gift provided once again by God's grace and the generosity of amazing people who choose to follow his lead.  Parked outside the window is our exit strategy from the world of Zip Car.  In other words we, after more than 18 months spent in our mass transportation odyssey, are back to the world of car ownership.  Not only is it a wonderful vehicle, the best part of it is that we didn't have to go through t

Searching and 50 years ...

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A few weeks ago, my gorgeous wife and I spent a wonderful Northwest Summer day celebrating our 29th anniversary.  In a few days I will celebrate the day that my AARP card mailings have been seeking to validate...otherwise known as a half of a century of life on this planet.  If you are a friend or have read anything from me lately you also know that last month ended 13+ years of serving a wonderful community of faith because 3 days ago we began the journey of nurturing a new one into existence.  10 days from now we move from our home (75 years old,4 bedrooms and a yard) of 12 years to a townhouse (1 month old, 2 bedrooms and a sidewalk).  Whether you can keep up on all of the math or not, you must be able to sense a climate of change in our life.  As my wife and I have reflected on all of this during a number of happy hours recently, one thing continues to resonate with us.  The only thing predictable about our journey is that it tends to be very unpredictable.  We are both alright

Mirror numbering

Depending on the layout of the city, town, or rural roads that mark the place of your inhabitance, you may have experienced the system of what I have come to term "mirror numbering".  I'm sure there is probably a more technical term given to it by some traffic engineer...I've just never bothered to investigate .  As is the case in many other situations, I prefer to come up with my own metaphor that explains it.  Mirror numbering is simply the method of having street address numbers proceed in opposite directions from a specific point of origin.  In other words, 1st avenue north and 1st avenue south both originate in one point and there is a 100 block on either side of that point.  As you progress to the middle from either direction you are moving towards zero and at the meeting point you begin to again move away from zero without even changing the direction that you were originally heading.  I have discovered this phenomenon to be true even within some life journey

Fashion ... Northwest style

It seems that I have been blessed to live in a place that considers exercise clothing to be appropriate fashion for the rest of daily living.  I'm not sure when this became acceptable but I'm guessing that it was around the same time that underwear became a statement.  I want all to know that I would never claim to be any kind of authority in fashion, but I do recognize poor taste and bad choices when I see it.  For example, the guy grabbing his two extra hot americano's who is obviously not running, yet wearing his running shorts tight and high.  How do I know he's not in the running mood this morning?  It was probably the tight leather jacket over a tighter top, gold chains with sandals to finish off the ensemble... All in black I might add.  Can I just say that unless you might be Johnny Cash, it is very difficult to pull this off.  This was shortly after a visit from the woman who obviously is under the impression that tights also can double as jeans when you are no

Retreat

This morning I have been blessed by being able to sit down in a very beautiful place, which is, considering the earthly location that I call home, a very big statement indeed.  I'm in a place called Sun River, in the high deserts of central Oregon.  I'm here simply because God has blessed us with a relationship with a group who understands that retreat is healthy and sometimes there is no greater blessing that you could give to someone than a chance to retreat. So, by virtue of their generosity, here I sit and rock in a chair on a deck looking over a golf course shadowed by the majestically snow covered Mt. Bachelor.  I'm sitting and watching the world and the golfers go by because, even though I'm a golfer, golf itself would not be a retreat.  My wife is getting spoiled by skilled hands in the spa, while I get spoiled by the evidence of God right in front of me.  A literal procession of golf carts roll by and I hardly notice for the view.  I need the reminder of the v

By faith ?

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Last week I was reading through a passage in the book of books that I'm sure was meant to be encouraging but, can I say this, it just wasn't....to me anyway.  Each phrase mentioned a great hero of the faith, in olden days, who did something incredible...at least incredible enough to be written in a book thousands of years old.  They all were involved in different things but each had one thing in common.  Each person was said to have embarked on their journey to immortality " by faith".  That was the only thing ascribed to them.  "By faith" they all wandered away from typical and into the pages of the best selling book of all time.  I've heard this passage taught in many, many contexts.  I've taught it myself.  In each instance, including my own, the implication was that "they did it so why not you?".  Just turn on your " by faith" switch, hike up your pants and get moving.  Apparently all one needs to break out of a typical life

On writing and living

I came down to visit an old friend this morning.  My honey is spending some time with a friend on the East coast this week during Spring break...and by East Coast Spring Break I'm not referring to Panama City or any sort of beach like destination.  I, however, am at the beach; my friend being my Starbucks hangout of former days.  The sun is out and glowing a faint orange on the snow caps and the ambitious ones are on bikes or on foot.  I wasn't intending to write anything this morning...just going to hang for some early coffee before entering the realm of office, work and all things pastoral.  It's pretty unavoidable though, the writing I mean, when you are sitting as a spectator before a sight like this.  It makes me feel better in the days when my better half is not around.  It makes me, even though I fight it, not want to be a spectator.  I see the runners pacing themselves along the sea wall.  I see the cyclists optimistically pumping their way downtown.  I even see a d

High maintenance

In the place where most of my writing takes place lately, I have a ring side seat to listen in on the various ways that people want their coffee prepared.  Two words generally come to mind each and every morning that I sit here.  "High maintenance".  I mean really, who came up with the thousands of variations of drink/flavor/milk/temp options?  And how many tries does it take the average person to come up with a 3 minute spiel for a single order?  And what did we possibly do before it was discovered that when one was finished smoking hemp, one could actually drink it as milk?  How do you milk a hemp plant?  Maybe that was in one of the out takes from "Meet the Parents".  The longer that I sit here, the more I admire the baristas who juggle these orders from people who obviously desperately need them.  I feel very boring when I can walk in and know that my drink can come lovingly without me even speaking it.  Not only that, they know what drink that I'm needing m

Setting spam filters

So yesterday my wife started a new 2 year lockdown with Sprint by getting a new phone.  She has now joined me in the land of iPhone.  It seemed like a logical step considering her love affair with her iPad.  Anyway...we really only intended to "look" at new phone options in the midst of a walk past our neighborhood Sprint portal.  We were going to look, leave, consider, return, purchase.  However, in communicating her desire to spend literally nearly nothing on this exchange due to the near mortgage cost of her current but disappointing EVO, the customer service rep made a brilliantly calculated move.  He offered her the iPhone (remember the iPad ) for free.  Since I'm the only one alive who would jump at that quicker than she,  needless to say, he had her at free.  Remember that I have already stated that we were not prepared to actually grab a new phone...we were on a walk after all... And if you realized my age, you'd appreciate how important that it was to continu

Same journey, next chapter

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"One of the hazards of being a pastor is that you are continually exposed to Gods prompting and movement.   It may be through the constant evaluation of His word, through sermons offered and received.   It might be through prayers offered and answered.   It might be through interaction with people whose paths you cross.   It may be a combination of them all.   Joanne and I have discovered in our lives that these promptings can begin as whispers, but eventually can become a relentless pushing that becomes difficult to ignore.   The process has been the same every time we've been led in our ministry lives.   It's how I ended up leaving an engineering career to pursue ministry.   It's how we landed at a younger church in New York.   It's how we ended up at an older church in West Seattle.   Over the course of 24 years we've learned what it feels like to be called.   It is important for you to know that Pastors are not immune to God's word.   It has the sam

the truth about Good Friday

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Today for me, along with those who share my faith, is known as Good Friday.  I must confess that for a good deal of my growing up years I was mystified by why this was called Good Friday.  I mean really...from Jesus' perspective on a cross it couldn't have been "good" could it?  It was about death and dying.  I always wondered why this day wasn't known as "Black Friday" instead of the day after Thanksgiving.  Shouldn't Easter Sunday have been named "Good Sunday"?  The only thing that I could possibly see as "good" about it was that, in my day, it was a holiday from School.  Now in these days of tolerance and equal time and all, the most that even Christian schools can seem to get away with is a half day off.  I guess its really a wonder, with this depth of understanding, that I ever entered into the field of pastoral artistry.  Fortunately I have come to see the relevance of the "good" in Good Friday.  The "good&q

Zipping through life

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So it's been nearly a year today since we've surrendered our "God given" right to owning a vehicle that we could call our own.  If you weren't aware, the selling of our SUV and a subsequent blown head gasket on our econo car led us to the place of considering our ability to really urbanize our lives and walk, literally, away from car ownership for an undetermined  amount of time.  It was the grand experiment.  Quite honestly I thought that it would last a few months, and most certainly not beyond the rains of a Seattle winter.  It's been a year now and, although nothing is ever certain, I don't see a vehicle anytime in the foreseeable future. We can walk to most anything.  We zip around in Zip cars when necessary, we recently joined the smart car fleet from Car2go, and if needed, Enterprise is always ready to pick us up.  All of this adds up to more intentional trips and far less cost.  When we began this experiment, there were many questions that we ha

Waiting on Joy

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As a pastoral artist, and more importantly as a follower of Jesus, I often find unexpected and sometimes long forgotten promises tucked away in the pages of the great Book of Books.  I admit that I don't find them as often as I'd like, and mainly because I am not exposed to them as often as I should be.  These past months though I have been in a season of searching and being more than I have been in recent memory.  I will tell you that in these seasons that I have experienced from time to time, He is faithful to deliver.  I'd often like it to be sooner than later, but I am also reminded by Gandalf that " a wizard is never late...He arrives exactly when he means to".  In the dark night of the soul as some would term it, that commentary is often not very comforting.  But comforting or not, I do believe it to be true.  In reading through some wisdom in the book of Psalms I have run across one of these hidden promises.  Psalm 30:5 promises those in trying times that

Weakness

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Ok so I'll be upfront for those who know that I'm in the midst of the H2O project ...I am taking the morning off from the water only consumption.  I am enjoying a special drink made with love at my home away from home known as Hotwire.  It goes along with the double chocolate donut that also probably doesn't factor into many people's view of a Lenten fasting.  I know, I know...I'm sure it's not the best example for someone leading a community of faith in this season of sacrifice.  So get it all out ... "Don't do as I do....", " practice what you preach" , " you are a leader...you have a higher level of expectation".  Yes, yes, and yes.  I've heard it all, know it all, said it all.  My penance for this infraction will be to add the amount spent twice and offer it for the sake of clean water.  It's not that I don't believe in the cause.  It's not even that I couldn't probably push through for a few more days.

Good news

I'm downtown at the moment...at a Starbucks in the center of it all...Westlake Center, taking in the lunchtime flow of so many lives intersecting in one relatively small space.  I'm taking this opportunity to write before my latest observation of Lent begins tomorrow with the project known as H2O .  For the next 10 days the community of faith that I am privileged to lead has committed ourselves to not drink anything besides water and, at the end, dedicate the money saved to give clean water through our partnership with Living Water International.  Anyone wishing to join me in this can take the challenge and then donate as well through our clean water site  or theirs . We often, as a common humanity, can get behind something larger than ourselves for the greater good.  Unfortunately, it doesn't often happen naturally and we are indebted to those organizations who, by their very nature, have the greater good as their focus.  So as we begin this next challenge, I am painfully

Noise

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I was watching a report this morning which was pointing out what may be obvious to most already; we are a culture that cannot escape noise...or will not.  It seems that even in places where there is no noise, we find creative ways to expose ourselves to it anyway.  I am old enough and private enough to not only remember the days, but to long for a return to the days when you could not be reached by phone unless you were in your own home next to a phone permanently attached to a wire.  You could not be reached in the car.  You could not be reached at the store.  You could not be reached during a quiet walk in the woods.  We are a culture of walking headphones.  I write this while Pandora is streaming through my own set. In the community of faith that I lead, we recently had a discussion that centered around the profound effects of the ministry of Jesus, marked by both the proximity and presence that placed God himself directly into the neighborhood of humanity.  In theological terms

more than half of me

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Friday marks another beginning of the annual event in our house known as Valentines.  Many of you who know me, know what this means.  Some of you wish that you didn't.  Some of my guy friends wish that their wives didn't.  For the rest, let me just say that this isn't your grandmothers version.  I'm not talking about the once a year, flowers, chocolates and dinner reservations type of event.  I decided long ago that I didn't need FTD, Hallmark, or Yelp to drive my observation of the holiday.  This isn't meant to be judgement on the rest...it's simply a reflection of the least I can do to honor my soul mate and the best half of my life.  Simply put, our celebration goes from the 1st to the 14th.  It does include flowers, dinner, and cards.  The biggest part of it though is the daily, intentional demonstration of love and honor through little expressions and experiences that, quite honestly, are not costly at all, unless you count the investment of yourself.

Ghost writing

So last week I had the privilege of being in the enchanting realm of the mouse.  While my Seattle friends were suffering  through some particularly frigid temperatures, I was tagging along with my wife at her conference in the wonderful world of Disney.  It's a tough life, but occasionally I can bear the burden.  Anyway, it afforded me the opportunity to take part in some very insightful and sometimes inspirational people watching.... Sometimes not so inspirational. One of the sadder trends that I've observed over the years is one facilitated by the tsunami of social media.  In a place that almost screams presence, many are not at all...present I mean.  In their desire to be connected to their circles, they become disconnected to their surroundings.  I often wonder how they are tweeting and facebooking the experiences that they are not actually taking part in.  This year, in particular, I was witness to, in my opinion, a great casualty of living your life online.  This event t

Breath

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It's a frosty clear winter morning here in the great Northwest...the kind of morning that really separates those native to Seattle and those from all points elsewhere.  The natives, while uncomfortable, are drawn to the elusive sight of the sun like moths to a flame.  Those from sunny points south, not at all impressed by the sunlight, have all but disappeared under the fleece and down filled jackets, shivering like their hairless dogs that share the same attire.  Meanwhile, those of us from places that experience real winter for significant parts of the calendar wander with wistful memories of days past in former lives, remembering fondly the otherwise bite of sub freezing air entering our lungs.  In other words, we are enjoying these days in an auld Lang syne kind of way.  Being from the snow belt of upstate New York, I represent the latter view. One sign of the cold that I can't get enough of is watching my own breath leave its place of warmth to react quite dramatically

On writing a new page

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Jaywalked my way across the street to Red Cup this morning because I was in more of a hurry than usual.  I got up late....well it was late for me anyway, later than I had planned...and we all know what the plan means to me.  The plan is everything.  I love it when a plan comes together...and consequently, when it doesn't, I can get desperate.  It can force me to jaywalk.  Mine is once again a do as I say, not as I do kind of day.  It's a bit ironic since I had "planned" to get up earlier because I had "planned" to write something about what I had "planned" to pursue this coming year.  So I'm laughing at the irony...seriously I'm laughing here, just me and my americano.  For those of you not versed in coffee culture, that's a drink, not some US tourist in Latin America. One of my "plans" for 2013 is actually to change my drink of choice over to these.  It's better for my waistline.  It's better for my cholesterol.  I