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A week ago we started Lent, like every year we started it with Ash Wednesday.
I have 2 reflections of Ash Wednesday 2010
[Reflection #1]
JACK :: it was his first Ash Wednesday service. I carried him in my arms as i went down to get the imposition of ashes reminding me from dust i have come and to dust i will return. As i knelt to receive the ashes with my 6 week old son in arm my pastor, Father Thomas McKenzie says, “Want me to get him?” Pointing at Jack. My response was, “Sure, why not.” And ashes were applied. Kinda fitting… from ashes we came, right! And I thought the picture was AWESOME as well.
[Reflection #2]
When I lived in California my friend Nate had a boat and this got him into some really interesting situations, and sometimes he invited me along.
One of the more interesting situations was with his neighbor, well actually his neighbors friend. We will call him Bill. Bill’s dad had died and he had been sitting on his ashes for a couple years. His dad has said he wanted to have his ashes spread over the sea. Lucky enough Bill lived in Oceanside CA but he didn’t have a boat to make it happen. And this is where and Nate comes in. Apparently Bill had been talking about wanting to get rid of his dad’s ashes, probably as he and said neighbor were smoking pot in the garage, but who knows. Well Nate’s neighbor said, I know a guy who has a boat. Nate said he would do it and decided he needed backup.
So we’re in this boat and Bill is telling us about his dad and how he was actually a bastard (bill’s words now mine) for most of his life. How he wasn’t close to his, didn’t really even like him but how he somehow ended up with his ashes anyhow. He kept ranting about the negative qualities of his father and he didn’t want to end up like him. Bill made a point to tell us that neither he nor his dad were religious but he thought someone should say something “religious”. And Nate, the good friend he is, having boated us 30 min off the coast says, “Erik…” And nods his head at me. That’s called putting a friend on the spot.
So here I am, watching Bill, who i just met, let the ashes of his dead father slip through his fingers, some of them blowing into the ocean and some of them blowing back onto his shirt, wanting someone to say something “religious” about his father…
All I could think of was Ash Wednesday and “From ash we came and to ashes we will return.”
Lent is a season of self-examination, thinking about who we are and hoping that there is some way to be raised from this life of death and decay we find ourselves living every day. The struggles and the bent toward our self and our desires, Lent is the season for self-mortification so that we can somehow participate in the resurrection that we are anticipating and are preparing for, that is Easter.
I was able to tell Bill that from ashes we came and to ashes we will return. Our lives are fleeting and we only a little time in between to live well.
This Lent I am looking inward so that I can live outward as I participate in the resurrection, here and how!
Grace, peace, and ashes
Erik
For the first time in my Lenten experience I celebrated Shrove Tuesday. Some call it Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras but we celebrated it as Shrove Tuesday.,
You can read the details here (Wiki) but my community group meets on Tuesday night anyway and one of our members is from Ireland. He suggested that we do a traditional Shrove Tuesday festival, Pancakes and all.
As you can see we did!
Apparently the English used a lot of flour, butter, eggs, etc. and to get rid of them before Lent started they not only ate pancakes they had fun with them.
So that’s what we decided to do.
A GREAT way to start the Lenten season.
Feasting before fasting!
(The official word :: according the BBC)
During Lent there are many foods that some Christians – historically and today – would not eat: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods.
So that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn’t last the forty days of Lent without going off.
The need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras (’fat Tuesday’). Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour
And here’s another video for your enjoyment!
It’s the first week of Lent so I will stick with the theme of confession…
I DON”T GET IT!
Poetry, at least the little of it I have read, baffles me. I read but I don’t often really get the point. Maybe that’s the point some times but that makes it really hard for me to get into.
We had a book of Poetry by famous poet T.S. Eliot laying around. I decided I needed to broaden my reading scope so I picked it up. It’s a collection with his famous poem The Waste Land and a bunch of his other work (buy on Amazon). Now I enjoyed bits and pieces, but like I said, for the most part I didn’t get it.
It reminds me a bit of the parables of Jesus.
They are often a bit cryptic, they make you think, they engage your imagination. And this is much of their point. They don’t want to make a clear cut statement, they want to lead you to imagine the beauty and challenge that is between the lines, that is in the middle of the letters and words… a parable leads you into a prophetic imagination of how God created you to live, breath, and interact with the world. Maybe poetry, at it best has a similar purpose. To engage your imagination and stir you to think things you wouldn’t have thought otherwise. And lead you in a way that doesn’t give you the answer but rather helps you to find it yourself.
Or maybe they are just cryptic ramblings… poems that is, not parables.
With all that said, I bought another book of poems. I was talking with my friend Brandon Heath at the coffee shop a while back and he recommend a book of poetry by author Billy Collins entitle, Sailing Alone Around the Room. Last night I saw it Barnes and Noble and picked it up. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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A poem fitting for LENT (maybe)
By T.S. Eliot
The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues the circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
I perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearer to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to Dust.
Well this year I am not giving up my social media practices like I did last year. Thank God! This year I am giving up something way more pointless that consumes WAY to much of my time. Games.
(This is my phone :: LOTS of apps, most of them really stupid games)
(MY CONFESSION)
Games on my phone primarily, but the computer, PS2 and things like that. But primarily games that I play on my phone. I have WAY to many games / apps on my phone (as you can see above :: and yes, it’s a little embarrassing) . If there is ever a still moment in my day I am usually playing one them. Even when I am sitting on the pot (sorry for the horrible mental picture there) but even then I am probably playing a game on my phone. Most nights before I go to bed I play a game or two, although lately I’ve tried to start reading instead. But yea, you get my point, this distraction is way to prevalent in my life… So for Lent I will be giving up games.
For my Lenten practices I have made it a point to give something up and take something on. Last year I took on what I called “The principle of first things” with the idea being that the first thing I do everyday of the Lenten season would be to read, pray, and most importantly spend time with Jesus. I plan on doing that again.
So part of my confession here is that I spend way to much time on my phone, and that I far to often push my spiritual life aside to be productive and/or distracted. This Lent I hope to journey into a death of these things so that my soul can be raised to life with Jesus on Easter Sunday.
In part, Lent is a journey of the cross that culminates in a participation in the resurrection.
I look forward to resurrection.
But first, [ LENT ]
Grace and peace,
Prayer and fasting,
Erik
Some of my previous Lenten posts that remind me of my journey…
Lenten practices and my wandering mind…
LENT :: a practice in fasting
Tags: Lent
My first finished book of the year was by author Eric Geiger and was entitled :: Identity; Who You Are In Christ.
This book was as much research for some preaching and writing I’m doing as it was anything but I took a few nuggets away for myself as well.
Honestly, I’m only giving this book a 2 1/2 maybe 3 (***) our of 5 stars. It wasn’t really that great but definitely had some solid points to it.
If you are wanting to read / study a book with a group of people who maybe need some foundational insight and a reminder that they are not what they do but who they know… this would be a solid book. Very basic but solid.
Eric pretty much uses 1 Peter 2:9-11 “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge yo, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.”
He uses these verses to outline his book, walking you through what it means to be a chosen people, a royal priesthood, holy nation, etc.
Not extremely creative or orginal or profound but like I said, solid. And if you have a group that just needs some basic foundation stuff to walk through this would be a great book.
So I recommend it… for the right group.
Enjoy and if you going to get it get it here…
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Well my friends, I am partnering with BooksChristian.com to help you buy all your 2010 reading material!
BooksChristian obviously jump on the band wagon a little late and Christian Books .com was taken but regardless of that they do offer some pretty sweet deals.
AND
If you buy a book from them it contributes to this blog! I get a little love for every book you buy. Now if your like me you enjoying buying all your stuff on Amazon but amazon isn’t helping me out so BooksChristian it is. I would love for you to join in!
I’ll be updating my shelf in the next week or 2. I’ll have what I’m reading and looking forward to reading, along with all the links so that you buy them on BooksChristian and help a brother out!
Thanks!
And here’s the link…. Click on it and buy away!
Well Andrea and i are having a blast with Jack!
It’s kinda crazy, you love this stage and don’t want him to get any bigger but at the same time you can’t wait for him to grow a tad bit and start responding more and interacting more, even crawling and walking… all that good stuff.
For now, we’ll take a smile! PRICELESS!
I really hope to be better at blogging and even plan on doing some video blogging here in the new year. With said, i am also a slacker and haven’t started despite the fact that we are a month into the new year.
I do have a few thought provoking blogs to post here soon. Some reading that has been done in the new year that i would like to share and a cool partnership that is being formed. All kinds of blogs – a – brewing!
TONIGHT!
My wife and i are having out first date night since the kiddo came along. Jack will be hanging out with his Nashville grandparents while Andrea and i go out for a night on the town. Actually we are attending a banquet for a non profit organization that i really thing is doing some amazing thing and that i want to find ways to partner with in the next year.
The organization is Global Support Mission and they are doing some amazing thing on the ground all over the world. Their Know.Think.Act initiative is a really tangible way to enable people to get involved in the specific needs of real people. LOVE IT! i love it because it’s enable people to Live Love!
Hoping to think of some creative ways for eMinistries to partner with these guys in the future!
So that’s the scoop!
Grace and peace – and blog to come!
Erik
Tags: iLiveLove, marriage, ministry
if you know me you know I’m a pretty huge Vikings fan.
Well the Vikings are about to play in the NFC championship game, 1 game from the superbowl!
last time the Vikings made it this far I was a freshman in college. I remember it vividly, our kicker, who hadn’t missed a kick in 2 seasons missed a kick and we lost to the falcons. my friends thought it would be funny to run down the hall and taunt me (I was watching the game by myself // intense) well that was a bad idea, as they opened my dorm room door I turned and threw a Vikings Alarm clock helmet at them, as it shattered agaist the wall, quiet fell upon the dorm room and I was left alone for the next week.
we are hoping for a different ending this time around!
GO VIKINGS!!!
So, 2009 was a really slow year… in just about every way. I mean it ended strong (click here) but over all, pretty slow.
One of the ways i quantify this is via my reading list.
Most years i read a good list of books, or at least a good list of half read books and a few fully ready books. My goal in 09′ was to read 12 book, well to finish 12 books (one per month).
I DIDN’T SUCCEED.
(like i said, slow year)
In 09′ i read 7 books and 2 of them hardly even count.
:: My List ::
#1. The Holy Longing : the search for A Christian Spirituality
Ronald Rolheiser
#2. Life Together : The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#3. Flickering Pixels : How Technology Effects your Faith
Shane Hipps
#4. Take Your Best Shot : Do Something Bigger Than Yourself
Austin Gutwein
#5. Where the Wild Things Are
Marurice Sendak
#6. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Don Miller
#7. My Secret: A PostSecret Book
Frank Warren
All these books were pretty good. I would note The Holy Longing and Million Miles, those 2 are must reads. And if your in youth ministry you MUST READ My Secret. There are few Post Secret books but this one focuses on youth and young adults. Startling, eye opening, and a book that evokes compassion for sure!
GO READ!
I also listened to a handful of books
(according to Brad Goode these books count :: i don’t think so)
#1 #2. #3. Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis
#4. Generous Orthodoxy
Brian McLaren
#5. Tribes
Seth Godin
SO… 2010 will be a better year. i’m already about through 1 book, (easy read and i had a 4 hour plane ride.)
There were also about a dozen half read books in 2009, i will read those early in 2010, start the year off right!
So yea, let’s get rolling, i mean reading!
Peace
Erik