A New Painting

Saturday was another painting day. I'm sort of pleased with this one. I call it arbol tinieblas. Which is my poor Spanish translation for Tree of Darkness (Hell). As I painted there were a few thoughts going through my head. The first was the consumption of us in the west, and how we consume most of the world's resources while others go without. And so the person/monster on the left hand side (or West) represents a growing problem and darkness that cannot be ignored. The circle represents the earth and the battle of light and dark that is happening. And finally the Tree. In my other painting I also had a tree. Now there are two reasons for this. The first, it is the only thing that I can paint that actually sort of turns out. But as I painted I was drawn to how the tree is often a metaphor for things in the Bible. Starting with the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. and then moving on, into the psalms, and Jesus being the shoot that comes out of the stump in Isaiah. I think the idea of the tree is very fascinating, and it is interesting to think about the consequences of the fall and the things that result from that. So that's my painting.

It's Official

Niki and I are going on a date... yup a real one. And this isn't one of those were someone else is paying... nope it's a genuine $68.23 . We're going to go and hit up Switchfoot and Copeland on Feb 24th!! Nothing says I love you like a rock Concert :D Anyway I'm totally pumped to go and see Copeland in Concert, and hey Switchfoot isn't too bad either. And the fact that I am taking my best friend in the world is pretty sweet as well!!!!

Snowboarding went really well on Wednesday. It was nice to make it down the hill without falling. I can't wait to go again. Next step is learning how to switch from heel edge to toe edge... should be fun.

Yup that's all for now, back to sermon prep.

Love

So I've been working on my sermon this week on 1 Cor 13. I came across a few great quotes that I don't think are going to fit, so I thought I'd put them here.
Youth is going snowboarding tonight... so I'll let you know how that goes.... later

Che Guevara “Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”

Ghandi said, “If I have to chose between a violent person and a coward he would chose the violent person can be taught love. But very little can be done with a coward.

“I call on you not to hare, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair, and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.” Saddamm

"The world moves for love; it kneels before it in awe". ~ Edward Walker

Visiting a Friend

Last night I had the chance to go out for Coffee with a friend of mine, Dan King. He's out in Winnipeg from Saskatoon to teach a YWAM DTS so I figured since he was so close I had to try and get together with him. Which brought me to last night. We decided that I would come out to Winnipeg and pick him up from the YWAM house. So I ventured into the downtown area of Winnipeg looking for Furby Street. Thanks to Google Maps, I had my route all planned and it was going to be a simple task of turning off St. Mary's on to Portage followed by a nice and simple right turn.... well I'm not sure what happened but I never really did find Portage... after driving down a number of back roads, and one way streets I eventually did find 433 Furby Street. I looked at the house and my first thought was, "This can't be it!" It was a single story house that had boards over all the windows, and no lights at all. But the path up to the door was really beaten down so I thought, maybe…. With a little fear and a small bit of excitement I walked up to the house, and decided for sure that this was not the right place! For one thing there wasn't a door knob on the door, just a gapping whole where it used to be. I also decided that the big padlock on the door was another sign that YWAM wasn’t stationed there. At this point I decided that this definitely wasn't the YWAM house, it was more like a Crack house. So I got back in the car, looked at my map again and realized that I was supposed to be at 443 ten houses down. Much better!!! Anyway Dan and I had a good coffee in Tim's. It was good to share God stories, and talk about ministry and stuff with a solid Godly man. That whole iron sharpens iron thing. I really enjoy those times. Anyway it was a really solid time, and I enjoyed it a lot, and I’m looking forward to the next time I’m in Saskatoon so I can hunt him down again… It was a really good evening, and now I know that if you're looking to score some crack, 433 Furby street.

Grace

"Grace is contagious, just like violence. I alwasy say that if we believe terrorists are beyond redemption, we can rip out half of our New Testament, since it was written by a converted terrorist who became an extremist for grace. It's what happens when we discover that God has a desperate love for losers just like us." -Shane Claiborne

"These are extreme times, the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Saturday

This Saturday Niki and I decided to do something a little different. We drove into the city, and bought canvas, paint, and brushes, and tried our hand at painting. We've been talking about the need for a hobby for a while, so it was nice to do something... and for our first time I think they even turned out all right.

One Million A Week

Certainly the biggest news of the day is that David Beckham is moving across the pond, to L.A. He says that it is because he wants to give American kids who play soccer an icon to look up too... but seriously, at 250 MILLION Dollars (or a Million Dollars a week) it's got too be about the money. Interesting I heard a guy on T.V. talking about this and he said people in the U.K. don't even care any more. Beckham isn't on the National Team any more and spent a majority of last season sitting on the bench in Spain... Still... if Gretzky could make the L.A. Kings popular, maybe Beckham can do it for the Galaxy.... maybe...
And hey!!! IF it doesn't work out maybe Victoria will start up the spice girls again...

Kierkegaard

Reading Shane Claiborne's book right now and there is this quote that stuck out to me from Soren Kierkegaard which says,
"THe matter is simple. The Bible is very east to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand it, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except your pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herin lies the real place of Christian Scholarship. Chirstian scholoarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."
Shane goes on after this to say,
"I knew we were not going to win the masses to Christianity until we began to live it. So I went on a quest. I went looking for a Christian. I looked around hoping to find someone else who might be asking, What if Jesus meant the stuff he said> And I kept coming across dead people - the desert fathers and mothers of the fifth century, Fracis and Clare of Assisi, Dietrich Bonoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr..."

Presence-Centered Youth Ministry

Just finished reading Presence-Centered Youth Ministry by Mike King. To be honest I would have to say it is one of the best books on Youth Ministry I have ever read. He basic premise is that the world of youth ministry is changing and that we need to stop being event planners and start being guides to lead our youth into spiritual formation. Anyway incredible book, and I highly recommend taking some time to read it. Oh! And if you are one of my youth leaders, expect me to be handing you this book to read in the near future.

Snowboarding

So yesterday was a blast. I never got really good at it, nor did I manage to make it down the hill more than 20 feet at a time. And today I can't turn my head, and I have a killer pain in my rigth wrist, but it was totally worth it and I can't wait to go again later this month. Anyway here is a few shots of me trying my hand at snowboarding.

Canada 4 Russia 2

Just got back from watching the Canada/Russia hockey game. It was a pretty sweet game, and very awesome to see the Canadian Gold Rush continue.
Anyway here is a video of one of the most embarrassing things that can happen on the rink.... this will go down in history.

Sore

So I'm a little sore today... I started working out again the other day. I don't make new years resolutions, BUT, I did feel the need to start being more active and this seemed like as good a time as any to start back up. So far it has been very enjoyable... even if I can't lift my hands above my head now. I was looking online for some info to help me get some good results and I found this article on MSN about ten ways to get thin. Number three was pray the fat away. Apparently Christian men who report feeling greater intimacy with God through prayer are more likely to be physically active than other men. You can read the whole story (here)

But I'm told I'm in for a bit of an experience. On Sunday Niki and I are going snowboarding. Every one who's been before tells me to get ready to be VERY sore for the next few days after. I'm really excited to try this new experience. Niki and I have been talking about doing this since we met, so it's about time we just do it. I'll let you know how it goes.... if I can get out of bed on Monday.

3 things I like

So here are two new things that I like
The first is the WonderCafe they say that they are "the home of open-minded discussion and exploration of spiritual topics, moral issues and life's big questions" It is run (sort of) by the United Church of Canada. Things I like about it. It is a good way to discuss and share your thoughts with people, and have comments in return. The second thing I like about it is that it is specifically a Canadian thing. So anyway check it out if your are in the mood for some discussion.

The Next thing is my Uncles Blog/Art. If you want to check out some cool stuff you can go to his Blog or you can go to his ART. Both are worth Checking out.

Finally there is this awesome band I found through Relevant call Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly. They're from England, and I only wish I had the thirty bucks to buy their CD off Amazon.... but until then I'll satisfy myself with their few songs on their Myspace. And you can check out their video right here, thanks to the power of youtube.

Some Comments on the office.

So finally here are the pics I said I would get for you. As you can see it is quite different than it used to be. Right now I am very happy with it. It is a calming sort of color, it brings a sort of serenity to my office... that or it is the fact that it is finally clean.
Anyway the pictures (Below) are pretty self explanatory, but I thought I would comment on three things.
The first is the picture of all the paint on the carpet, is all my fault... I picked up the can to give shake, and it slipped out of my hands, and the whole can was dented into a oblong shape, and a third of it spilt onto the floor. Since it was a miss-tint color, Niki and I scrapped as much as we could back into the can, and hoped we would have enough to finish all the walls... which we did, but there was just barely enough to finish all we needed to do. As you can see though, we did do a pretty good job of getting the paint out of the floor.

Secondly those masks you see... are they not the coolest thing EVER!!! Niki doesn't like them that much so they couldn't really go into the house, but they look awesome here in my office... I have two more little ones that I'm going to put up still. They come from my grandma and grandpa McCorkindale, so they have some significance to me.

Finally the Hebrew Writing that you can see above my desk. The lettering I got from our friend Rebekah she has it as a tattoo (which I think is soo cool… I want it tattooed on my wrist, but I still haven’t convinced Niki that it is a good use of our money) and according to her, it means "Set Apart" which I thought was just the coolest reminder that we are a people set apart for the purposes of Christ. And the verse below it says, "You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own."
Well this is my office, come by some time and check it out.

The Painting Pics

WHY I’M MORE LIKE FRODO THAN GANDALF

So the other day I started reading Lord of the Rings again. It truly is a literary masterpiece. It is a great book to sit and read, and be carried away. Anyway during this reading I was struck by this conversation that happens between Frodo and Gandalf, about Gollum. As I read it I couldn’t stop thinking about the different things that are happening in the world, our churches, and my own life. So first the conversation and then some thoughts.

“Gollum!” Cried Frodo. ‘Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very Gollum-Creature that Bilbo met? How Loathsome!”

‘I think it is a sad story.’ Said the wizard, ‘and it might have happened to others, even to some hobbits that I have known.’

‘I can’t believe that Gollum was connected with hobbits, however distantly,’ said Frodo with some heat. ‘What an abominable notion!’

…. “Do you mean to say that you, and the elves have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound to the fate of the ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many- yours not least.”

I was thinking about how quick I am to judge people, especially people who are different, or perhaps more frighteningly, people like me. I am quick to judge, and throw down a verdict of guilty, while not seeing that we are connected. Gollum came from a people just like the Hobbits, but some bad decisions led him down a dark road. In the same way that the Stripper, drug dealer, ultra right wing conservative Christian, Saddam Hussein, and me, are all cut of the same cloth, designed and created in the image of God. Some of us have chosen paths that lead us to become stretched and thin, but there still resides within, the goodness of Christ. I’m not much of a new years resolution guy (why decide something that you won’t keep anyway) But this year I want to see people the way Gandalf does… the way Christ does. To see the goodness in people, to hope for the best, to hope that they can be changed. After all, in the end wouldn’t our fates be entwined with theirs?

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." -Matthew 25:31-40