my wife needs a job

carmel was working a couple of part time jobs before we went to van, but one of them costs us more money in gas than it pays and the other one just fizzled out.

i'm tempted to advocate for her saying something like "anyone need a beautiful, talented, intelligent lady for a reasonable price"...but i think i might attract the wrong kind of interest.

anyway - if you know of any part time work, let us know!

how did we miss it?

i've been thinking a lot lately about how we really seem to have missed the mark as christians.

especially in the west, we've required christianity to reprioritize itself away from the teachings of scripture and towards the conservative preferences of white people.

i say this, btw, as a fairly conservative white person :)

when i went home this time around, i was often saddened by how much of my "christianity" seems to have been lost. by this i don't, of course, mean that i'm any less devoted to jesus, or the teachings of the apostles in scripture, or that my prayer life is suffering somehow or that i'm not deeply concerned with living so as to hear "well done, g&fs"

just that everything "christian" these days seems to be stuff that isn't A-priority important in scripture (or, even, in christian history and tradition)

so, these days, christians have to be tithers, advocates of intelligent design theory, disengaged from the world, own only "christian" media, dress right, talk right, and persist in forcing their opinions relentlessly.

(you'll notice, p.s., i've left all the "obvious" ones out here...being republican, going to church every sunday, etc...)

but i'm forced to wonder...

can you be a christian and watch R-rated movies, listen to coldplay (or even rage against the machine), dress down, speak normally, think critically about what the bible is actually teaching in regards to creation and/or money and/or sexuality and/or faithfulness.

well, obviously i believe you can.

it's just that it makes me so sad to see how such a belief is truly a minority opinion...most christians just do all these things and then lie about it to each other, or - only slightly better - lie about it on sundays.

as a reminder, i like the creeds for remembering what it means to follow jesus in our beliefs, and i like to use jesus' words to the 70 as a reminder about what it means to follow him in deed.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

Luke 10.2-9
Jesus told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

"When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.'"

top 5 worst things about leaving vancouver (this time...not counting family and friends)

5. no more mountains...honestly, michigan looks like 220 grit sand paper

4. no more clancy's deli...good bye apple-sausages, i will savor your memory always

3. no more days of staying in my pajamas until noon (even at westwinds you can't do THAT)

2. no more sleeping in my grandmother's bedroom (actually, i'm glad not to be sleeping there...that bed is creepy and creaky in all the wrong ways)

1. my kids go to bed in pacific standard time, but continue to wake up eastern...curse you adorable, beautiful, demons!

top 5 best things about being home in michigan

5. small spiders...seriously, those monsters in vancouver must be on crank

4. cheap golf (with my good buddy craig playford)...great courses here for almost no money

3. my imac (why did i ever leave you, baby - you know daddy loves you)

2. my trailer-trash above ground pool (p.s. only i am allowed to make fun of my pool...if you make fun of it i'll drown you in 5,000 gallons of toddler pee)

1. i'm still not dieting

x-files movie the worst ever

i love the x-files

i've watched every episode. i've fantasized about having 'i want to believe' tattooed on my back.

i even thought gillian anderson was pretty when she had SHORT hair (that, btw, makes me a true believer)

but this movie is the worst movie ever. it's almost as bad as learning that Jvo sang karaoke Billy Joel to the crowd at lollapalooza ("uptown girl"...seriously, dude, we need to have a talk about what kinds of things are gay).

anyway,
x-files has the following dumb-ness en force:

* a pedophile priest...
* who brings mulder and scully out of their 10-yr affair in a shack in the woods...
* via his god-given visions of dismemberment...
* which leads to a woe-begotten tale of a same sex marriage gone wrong...
* because husband #1 is dying...
* and requires husband #2, who is a russian (of course) scientist (of course x2) to save his life...
* through means of his top-secret head-transplant research (yup, you saw that correctly)...
* which has so far only been successful on dogs (oh yeah, there is a two-headed(double the success) guard dog in here that bites mulder, presumably for having a beard that looks like big bob's baptist church threw away after using it for joseph at christmas)...
* but they're stopped just in the knick of time so that mulder and scully can look longingly at other failed tv show pilots and b-movies


my favorite part? the fact that husband #2 transplants husband #1's head onto the body of a women, as if to say "i really, really love you, man...but maybe i'd prefer your wiskers if they were attached to breasts"

do not go see this stupid movie.

publishing

just spent about an hour talking with my good friend (and editor) caleb seeling at navpress. he told me some good news, that navpress has decided to publish my work on genesis + the imago dei.

look for "jerm" by yours truly in the summer of 2010.

back in traction

we arrived home around 4am and i shot off to work at the winds around 11.

i love this place.

i love the staff. i love the people. i love the smell of the building, the uneven tile, the rusty concrete scultpures, and the 600 emails waiting eagerly for me to 'delete all' without any feelings of guilt whatsoever.

it's good to be back.