One final post:

Robin’s shaver camera

Robin’s camera somehow got messed up. Every time it advances, it makes a buzzing sound not unlike an electric shaver. This is even more accentuated when the whole roll rewinds. So when it happened right before the wedding, she ran it up and down my dad’s balding head like she was shaving it. The whole group of us was falling down laughing.

So now you’ve heard the more humorous highlights of the trip. There’s more in the way of spiritual reflection. Maybe I’ll post it later. Or maybe not.

Paul and his Wedding

The wedding was the alltime fastest church wedding I have ever seen or heard of. I lit the candles at 5:57 and the bridesmaids and the relatives were all down the aisle by 6:23. But he’s off and running for his honeymoon.

This was my first time ever standing up in a wedding. It was a new perspective.

Paul decided to paint his own car for the honeymoon - and he put “HOTTEST WOMAN” on the passenger side with an arrow pointing to the front passenger seat. He was absolutely hyper by the end of the evening.

God bless them in their marriage. Help them to grow to love each other more and more and continue to put you first.

SWAT Team Hostages

Wednesday morning, Grant & Dad & I were sitting on the patio outside the hotel, next to the convention center. Two cops on bikes approached us and told us that they were going to have a SWAT team training exercise and that if we saw guys with guns not to worry, they were just training.

About 15 minutes later or so, two other cops came up to us in the all-black combat gear that seems to be their standard uniform. They repeated to us that there would be an exercise, and invited us to participate in their exercise as “hostages.” We agreed.

The scenario was that we were to run out of the doorway of the convention center pretending to be handcuffed to one of the two cops. The other was to join dad & I in the exercise. Grant was the photographer. All went as planned, and Grant got a few pictures. We fell onto the ground when the “bad guy” was “hit” and the SWAT team swarmed in and peeled us off the “dead bad guy” and thanked us for our trouble.

As we turned to walk away, we got second thoughts and asked if we could take our picture with the SWAT team. They gladly complied, so somewhere there’s a great shot of all of us surrounded by lethal weaponry.

All of a sudden, one of the bike cops came up and said that there was a felony arrest going down about 2 blocks away. The team all adjusted their weapons (I don’t know if they chambered any rounds or not) and hustled down the street in formation.

We ran to the curb to see what was going on two blocks away. We could hear the “step away from the passenger side of the van” coming over a loudspeaker. Some pedestrians were pushed out of the way by the SWAT team.

All the time, we thought this was another part of the training exercise. So we decided to try to get closer to see what was going on. But someone stopped us. This was for real! They soon had a guy in a red shirt down on the pavement, cuffed, and put in an unmarked car. The SWAT team covered the regular cops throughout the whole incident.

A fellow observer commented that, “Those guys picked the wrong day to rob the bank… they’ve got to be sh—ing bricks about now.”

We concurred.

So I suppose that this is the second “Strange encounter with the cops” that I’ve had in a few weeks’ time. I rather enjoyed this one (more so than the last).

Grandpa’s Dirty Laundry

Thursday morning, Grandpa announced to us that he’d mailed his dirty laundry back home so as to reduce the number of bags he had to carry. This was, well, very practical. It also strikes me as very funny, in a good sort of way.

The Winding Road

When we were coming back down from the mountains to head back to Visalia, we decided to take an “alternate route” down the mountain. I think it was CA 245. About a quarter mile down the road, we saw one of those yellow caution signs with the double s-curve marked on it, and in bold print below, read “Next 31 Miles.” We decided to go for it.

By the time we made it down to the valley, we were all a bit carsick and rattled from the extreme descent in 2nd gear all the way down from 7000 feet back to the 300 feet-above-sea-level of the valley. It was a lot of fun, though, and we saw some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever looked at. And I think the brakes on the rental van are still good.

Grant & The Big Trees

Yesterday (Friday) we went up from the Valley where we’d been staying to see the Giant Sequoias up in the mountains. In a space of about 20 minutes, we went from 350 feet above sea level to around 7000 feet. Thus, we went from temps in the 70s to the upper 30s or lower 40s. There was still snow on the ground in places up there.

Anyhow, we went to the area known as Grant’s grove. We got pictures of Grant next to the “General Grant” tree, which is the biggest around of all of them at over 40 feet in diameter at the base. Kinda funny seeing that Grant is the smallest around in our family.

No, I don’t have any pictures developed yet. Maybe I’ll post them here when I do. Meanwhile, you’ll just have to laugh to yourselves without the visual cue.

We also took a picture of my sister trying to hug one of the trees so that she could tell her friends she’s a tree-hugger. She looks like she’s sprawled out on a climbing wall or something.

Those trees were just awesome. God, you’re so cool…

Ok… Grant & Airplanes:

On the way to O’Hare, Grant announced to the whole carload of us that he was going to turn over a new leaf and “experience by not doing.” By this he meant (primarily) that he was not going to use the bathroom on the airplane. He hadn’t used it to and from Honduras last spring, so this 4-hour flight would be nothing.

Congratulations, Grant-man, you did it! But why?!?

I’ve returned to Chicago after an excellent week in California. It was a bit of a shock to the system to go from wading in the surf in Santa Monica last evening to snow flurries late this afternoon during a long walk in the Herrick Lake Forest Preserve just southwest of Wheaton. But it was a great trip.

I’ve got a few stories to tell, and I’ll split them up post-wise so that they’re more blog-readable…

1. Grant & Airplanes
2. Grant & big trees
3. The winding road
4. Grandpa and his dirty laundry
5. SWAT team hostages
6. Paul and his wedding
7. Robin’s shaver camera

Since it’s spring break, and I had a lot of time in vehicles yesterday, I’ve finally been able to begin reading my first Bob Webber book. I’ve had three classes with him now, including an independent study, and I’ve never read a word of his - except what he assigned in a couple of his classes. Now I’ve picked up The Younger Evangelicals and I really like it. I’m about 50 pages in.

He really helps to put words to the discussions I have with my dad over how I think ministry needs to be done vs. how he thinks ministry should be done. We talk about that a lot, I suppose. Webber basically puts us in two different categories in his book - and we fit quite nicely. I’m pretty classically one of Webber’s “Younger Evangelicals,” I suppose. But I don’t fit perfectly. I suppose no one would. Dr. Webber has told me that a lot of things I’ve been saying both inside and outside of class are things that many other people are saying. Now that I’m reading his book, I understand better what he means. The funny thing is that I think most of us kinda had to feel our way through this and into this on our own, and now we’ve all arrived at a similar place. I know that I’ve not been party to the “younger evangelical” discussion until very recently, but that I’ve discovered that there are a lot of people out there that share similar views. So it’s kinda cool to see that. I’m not alone in it anymore.

It’s cool to be a part of something big - and small at the same time.

Just glanced at an article on Relevant Magazine… it strikes me as a bit odd about the whole Hollywood gag rule at the Oscars on the war.

For once, Hollywood is trying not to be controversial? Come, now!

Heh heh heh… I found an Internet café here in Visalia, CA, where we are staying for a few days to get P— married off. I’ve finally met my future sister-in-law, and she’s really sweet. We’ve spent a lot of time in the air and on the car. Four hours + from O’Hare to LAX and then 4 1/2 hours in the car out of LA up the valley to just an hour south of Fresno. The valley is about as flat as good ol’ central Illinois, and the smog’s so thick that we can’t see the mountains that supposedly frame us to the east and west. This is a cool first trip to California. We might get to see the Sequoia Nat’l Park if all goes well. Unfortunately, we won’t get to see the Pacific Ocean - which I’ve never seen before.

All in all, it’s a good trip so far. Wedding’s Thursday.

Well, it’s only a few hours ’til I fly out of here for my li’l bro’s wedding… Pro’ly won’t be postin’ here much ’til Saturday. But, you never know…

Part 2 of 2:

What’s the connection? If we have in fact been crucified with Christ so that it is no longer we who live but Christ living in us, then Christ is our very life. We have no other life outside of him. Thus, for the disciple, this passage in Mark could speak to our lives in Christ! Thus, our life is our salvation.

Perhaps “believing in Jesus so that we can go to heaven when we die” is a good starting point for a life of Christian discipleship, but it is not fully the way of the cross. It still operates in the “self-protection” mode. It is risk-averse discipleship. It is also self-centered. Instead, the Christlike love of God and others in the discipleship of the cross lives in a way that is willing to forego communion with God so that someone else can.

Perhaps one of the reasons my evangelism has been so ineffective is because I am not willing to risk my own salvation for the sake of those in my community. Due to the perspective of the Christian subculture, many kinds of evangelism are not even tried because they might risk our perceived “saved” status within the Christian community.

But the words of Brother Lawrence echo in my head… “whatever becomes of me, whether I be lost or saved, I will always continue to act purely for the love of God.” (Second Conversation, 2nd paragraph. Spire Ed., p. 18)

So now, tell me, what do you think?

Part 1 of 2:

I promised that I would start to post some talking points for ministry. I have a list of 90 on a paper I just turned in. Obviously, no one would read all 90 at once in a blog format, and I don’t have the webspace to put it up whole right now.

So here’s your deep thought for the evening: (this one is number 72) -

We should be willing to risk our own salvation for God’s sake and for the sake of the Gospel.

Let me re-word that: we should be willing to give up our own salvation for God’s sake and for the sake of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Let me explain. I see this as the ultimate way of the cross. I’ll walk you through my journey to this statement.

“I am speaking the truth in Christ - I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit - I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people…” (Romans 9:1 - 3, NRSV)

Paul, who argues that he is the example of Christlikeness to both the Corinthians and the Philippians, prefers his own demise to the loss of his people.

Next, there is Philippians 2:5 - 8. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in apperance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!” (NIV)

We who are Christians all would acknowledge that Christ gave up his glory to become human - somehow still remaining fully God, and in so doing provided salvation for the world. Yet we rarely connect this with our own call. It seems that perhaps Paul connects these two ideas in his statement in Romans. Paul conformed to the likeness of Christ so closely that he was willing to give up what was his in Christ to save the people he loved.

Some might argue, “Of course - he’s Paul! He can do this. That’s not for us. He’s one of those really super Christians.” In so doing, such people argue that Paul is somehow more than the rest of us - more than human.

We are all called to have Paul’s attitude. “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus said, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8:34 - 35, NRSV)

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum -

Or actually, when I was in an athletic shoe store this afternoon buying a new pair of shoes for daily use. The salesman that helped me asked me if I wanted to enter a contest to be a model for their company. Ha! Sure, why not? I have to write a 250 word essay on how I live a sport lifestyle. I guess I really don’t. But it was kinda funny to be asked, no?

Maybe I’ll sign up anyway…