My Day As A Muslim Warrior

Well my job at Starlight is interesting all right. One day I am working on a Time Machine, the next I am attaching an acordian to a "Perfect kid Maker". But today was new I converted. I became a Muslim Warrior. It was really an easy choi. . . What? . . . What wa. . . OH!!!! My bad! Today I became a muslin warrior. Little difference. Today Jake and I Mesured, Folded, unfolded, inventoried, selected, and sewed about 3000 inches of muslin. That is almost 300 feet!! And most of it was previously cut off pieces that were laying around. (They had close to 300 feet of muslin "Just laying around" not to mention the new roll of muslin.)

Well we had fun with the cut offs. Made some headbands, and some belts, and sashes, and stuff. Inv Here is a pic.And here is one of the time machine before the accessories.
And here is one of boss sewing. :)

Caught gray-handed

Well I started working at Rock Valley College's "Starlight Theater" Last week, doing all things stage crew, and I am loving it. It is a full-time job (8-5) and takes alot of of you, but I get to work for a great boss, with my best friend, doing something theatrical, and I will have most of my bill payed for next semester, so I am loving it.

But the reason that I am blogging is that today I caught, on film(OK so it is digital, but. . .), a rare sight. Jake says that this "NEVER happens".Boss was painting. I have the pic to prove it.
Well not as exciting as I would like, I thought MBBC stage monkeys would get a kick out of it.

I am planning to write a longer blog on my recent trip to Canada/Alaska, but that will be in a few days.

The Actor's Reflection

Actors are blessed. We can put on airs and pretend to fit in with any situation. We can smile at people we detest
and even carry on whole conversations with people that we don't know, without them realaising our ignorance. we can act happy when we are sad, act sad while in extacy, be angry while laughing, and be jovial whildst meloncolie. Some are so good that when they aren't acting people think they are, and when they are acting people think they are not. Using this power we can fit in in any situation. We can get away from people we would rather not spend time with, and wheedle our way into people's company that we would. These airs can become so second nature that we don't even know we are using them. And yet. . .

In all of this ability to hide our true selves, there is one audiance that we cannot hide from. When standing in the throne room of the King of Kings I can hide nothing. All my well crafted venere is sloughed off, all the accents and manerisims that so cloke my form from human eyes, enough that I can pass myself off as whatever, are gone. When standing before the throne of God I dare and can only be myself.

When preaching I am offten made to cry because I can finaly see myself as I really am (a worthless sinner that deserves hell) my God as He really is (words fail me here), and I can't "Become" someone else to hide my emotions. And yet. . .

Actors are blessed. We can use our abilities to bring glory to God in any situation. We can witness to people we detest, and carry on whole conversations with people that we don't even know. We can act happy with those that are happy, and sad with those that are sad, be angry and not show it, be overjoyed and remain calm. Using this power we can witness in any situation. We can flee people that are bad influnces, and wheedle our way into the company of good counsel. . .

. . .And Yet. . .

This gift is not mine. It is God's and I only use it while He lends it to me. I dare not take glory for myself in it, but rather give all glory to God.

Re-Lent

Wednesday Feb. the 21st 2007 was Ash Wednesday. For those of you who don't know Ash Wednesday is a Catholic holiday celebrated 40 days before Easter. It is also the start of lent. To celebrate this holiday catholics will smudge ash on their foreheads and dedicate that they will give up some food or activity for the 40 days leading up to Easter. For us as Baptists this kind of behavior is odd and unnatural. "Why give up some sort of food? It is there to be eaten, and the Bible never mentions lent." is the cry from the Baptist.

For me I celebrated Ash Wednesday by smudging some pencil lead on my forehead, and dressing like a Lutheran priest(Notice the Pic). I was having a blast mocking the catholics. But where did Lent come from?

Lent started as a preparation to celebrate Easter. 40-60 days were set aside to prepare one's body and mind for Easter. These days would be spent working and fasting (except for Sundays and Saturdays). The idea was that the hunger would be a constant reminder to focus on God, and stay away from sin, and if you have ever fasted you know it works. So it was started as a good Godly thing, something that we should be glad to join in on. Something to remind us of what Christ did on the Cross. So why don't we celebrate this holyday?

As Baptists we don't celebrate Lent for three main reasons. First we don't do it because the Catholics do, and we don't want to be like the C's. Secondly we don't celebrate Lent because since Lent was started it has changed. Lent is now a ritual that is done because good catholics "do Lent" and bad catholics don't. Like the pharisees catholicism has added Lent to their list of do's and don't's. It has lost it's meaning. The third reason that most Baptists don't do this type of thing is that they don't have the will for it. We are not willing to give something up for that long. It is quite sad that those, that have no hope, can love their traditions more than those, that have all hope, love their God.

Don't get me wrong, Baptists should not celebrate Lent. But Baptists should revive the idea behind Lent. The idea that we can, and should, love to live without something for a short time if it will just remind us of what Christ did for us, and if it will just focus our attention on God.

So what are you giving up for Lent?

Well It is cold

You got to love Wisconsin. A few weeks ago the state had everyone convinced of global warming, then 5ish days of snow, and now the second ice-age has hit. As I write this it is -11 without wind-chill!!

But the cold is not what I am writing about. Rewind to the snow part. It snowed for 5 days. Sure it would stop every now and then but every day for 5 days in a row it snowed. Some of it was small and bead shaped, some was large and clumpy, and yet more was mid-sized and snowish. But it snowed.

Now I know you all are thinking "Joy. Now he is going to tell us what bad days those were, because that is always what he does when he talks about snow." But NO!!! Those were great days!!
I had fun, got lots of work done, tried out for and got into a play, even got a fair amount of sleep. And whenever I awoke there was snow falling. Those days were such a blessing.

You see, as the snow fell, some people complained, and griped, and worried, and were miserable. But some people were happy, and took the snow in stride, and liked the snow. Yet either way the snow fell. Some grew tired of the snow and forgot to enjoy its' intrinsic beauty. Others could not help but smile as they saw the snow dance its' graceful dance. And yet the snow fell.

It reminds me of God's blessing. Psalms reminds us "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah." The blessings of the Lord come daily. And they come in great abundance. We are so surounded by the Lord's goodness! Praise the Lord!
Yet all too often we see the things He brings and we gripe about all the things that are happening. Sometimes we even get so focused on the good things that are happening we forget to look to the One who sent them.

I love snow, but I love the God of the snow better. . . Yet not enough. . .

Praise the Lord that He Is

Saw this and thought of you

Well, I was online and found this: http://oinkzwurgl.org/stuff/yoda/yoda.jpg

So I just had to let you all know about it.

Commitments and Codes

Well I finaly did it. I havce been teaching myself PHP scripting for web site design for the past year or so. I have been modifying a game called Solar Empires. It is a free online game of web based, space combat, trade, empire building, and hopefully, sometime, politics.

It is kind of a hobby for me, but something that I can use in the ministry. It allows me to make good looking solid websites with a direct connection to a database easily.

But until the other day I had only hosted it on my personal compy. Now I have uploaded it to the web for all my friends to play. It is not perfect, and I still have some great ideas on how to make it better, but it is fully playable and, as the testing group two semesters ago can state, quite fun.

So check it out at: http://tecslicer.awardspace.com/

I will also be adding a forum to it sometime but I have to find a good forum script first.