A minor reason for the season

This Christmas was proof that it pays to blog. And it pays to whine and complain. Many weeks ago I told the sad tale of having no right glove. I'm sure many were moved. I know I was. In the subsequent days since that blog, I searched high and low, and even at waist level, for a companion to any of my lefties. But none has appeared.

But lo and behold, beneath a Christmas tree in Tennessee, a pair (both left and right) of gloves were found bearing my name. And they were in my color and my size and I felt like Cinderella. I am now ready to go outdoors, pull my hands out of my pockets, and wave them frantically to all I see, letting all the world know that my blogging adventures were not in vain. And Christmas is not only for children or maybe I'm still a kid.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good week. (Pray for us as our daughter turns 16 on Tuesday.)

From Tennessee

I would like to wish everyone everywhere all day long a very happy Holiday Eve.

We're here and I'm remotely blogging

We arrived in Tennessee and I wrote this sentence (of which I am quite pleased), but I was unable to get online to add it to my blog until Saturday.

Shopping/Chopping/Hopping

Took a break from diagramming to shop, shop, shop with my wife, wife, wife at some store, store, stores with lots of crowds, crowds, crowds all scurrying, and racing, and darting to and fro, and here and there. So now I have no energy to blog, blog, blog.

Time to go fishing again

Well I suppose it’s time for an easy one and then I might call it quits. Besides, I should be encouraging the purchase of such a wonderful book; and what better Christmas gift than a book about fish? The last fish, sporting the Z’s, I thought was funny because I’m assuming the author was making fun of himself and his faith tradition. He labeled it “Presbyterian.” And with a name like MacCullum I thought it might not be too big of a leap to assume that Presby might be his background, Scottish don’t ya know. Maybe I’m all wet, but he seems like someone that might not take himself too seriously.

This current and last fish is one of my favorites.

who (as in a category) is this bottom feeder? 

Five Things People Don’t Know About Me

1. I’ve Been Tagged. I didn’t know this about me either for awhile. My faithful Reader, i.e. the Warden, i. e. my wife brought me up to speed on the fact that I’m too slow and therefore got caught. And since I’ve been tagged, this seems like a good place to start. How many people knew that I was tagged? Of course many literate, computer-savvy confessional Lutherans probably got the word (no pun intended.) But I’m not sure of the overlap between those folks and the circles in which I run in circles.

Now to those who know me at all, they know that that’s about all I know for now. I guess a better way to say it is that one thing at a time is about all that I can handle. I can't blame it on being ADHD. Rather, being Norwegian from the neck up, I just can’t think fast enough to rattle off five things in one sitting. So please accept my first humble entry of baring my soul.

Diagramming 2

Still diagramming.

Yet more free plugs for J. MacCallum's book. Is this an easy one? 

What Kind of Fish Are You?

I know this might seem a little fishy, but I want to brag about a book that I have actually read three times from cover to cover. And in case you’re wondering about the ambiguity of that last sentence—do I mean to brag on myself or brag about the book? I think both. I’m proud of my stick-to-it-ivness.

Now I don’t know if it’s kosher to copy a whole page of a book without getting permission from the author, but I’m going to do it anyways. I checked amazon.com and they didn’t have the book listed, so I wasn’t able to link there. Cause, as you probably know, Amazon does that kind of stuff, letting you read just long enough to get hooked on a book. And then the next page is missing.

Concerning my new fishy book, they're just not enlightened enough to include it in their vast collection. Or they've actually read it and refuse to sink to such a level. But it's not there. So if I don’t, who will? And if I don’t provide actual pictures, what I write will seem very obscure. So here goes. The book is written & illustrated by Jess MacCallum. It was published by In Ardua Tendit Press in 2003. And I betcha can’t even find it on ebay. Oh yeah, the title is “A Handy Guide to Swimming with the Fishes.”

So anyways, for the first one I’ll give the answer. After that you’re on your own.

really, really, really, really good Christian 

I'm not allowed to disclose the title for this one yet.

Diagramming

Still Diagramming

Trying to Stay Focused on One Line of Reasoning or Getting Distracted and Going Completely Different Directions Because You Forgot what Your original

Point Was Or Something Like That


I had thought about flushing out some of Boykin’s thinking in setting the p-word as the antithesis of love. And then in turn I had thought about asking myself how that all relates to the two great commandments (love God—love neighbor) and then how those two relate to each other.

But then I got distracted. Saturday’s Minneapolis StarTribune, in its Faith and Values section, had an interesting article about a local author’s connection to last month’s (I think it was then) electrocution of the Texas pastor. Being Baptist, this pastor had stepped into a large tank of water on the podium to baptize a congregant. When he reached for the cordless microphone something went terribly wrong and he died shortly thereafter.

I had heard a brief description of this event, but the article did a good job filling in some of the details surrounding that fateful day. The theme for the day (and subsequent month) at this church was based on Terry Esau’s book “Surprise Me.” The church was to start a 30-day faith experiment. Each day they were to ask God for a surprise and then log (or maybe even blog, although it doesn’t say that in the article and this is merely my editorial comment perhaps as a way to relieve tension when discussing a very somber event as some are apt to do when they face issues of ultimate importance and aren’t quite sure how to deal with them or even if they want to deal with them so then they change the topic or try to make a joke out of it even though they mean no disrespect) their experience.

Of course no one foresaw the tragedy of that morning, but the very theme of the day begs the question of God’s involvement. And this question is actually the main focus of Boykin’s book “The Gospel of Coincidence,” which raised that initial question of love’s opposite. This book, now out-of-print and commanding some decent prices on e-bay (like $ 50, I should have invested in copies of this book instead of Enron), does a great job of posing some intriguing and ancient questions and an even greater job of alienating most of his “friends” with his answers. (I’m still surprised that Zondervan would publish it.)

His argument in a nutshell (although I know this is an oversimplification) is that God works primarily through people’s hearts and minds without undue coercion and not by micromanaging every detail of the universe. Most “happenings” of this world are the results of free people acting to cause them. Taking people’s free will out of the equation or focusing too much on a divine preference for everything is tantamount to reading tea leaves. Taken to its extreme (where people spend too much time and energy trying to discern God’s will for everything, e.g. a preferred parking spot for them) ultimately leads one to inaction in the “things that really matter” and things that are clear to us.

I haven’t come to any firm decisions on the arguments he presents, but I did have fun reading the book and I think he provides a healthy balance to those who venture too close to a deterministic view of the world. And since people have argued this issue from the beginning of time, and I’m sure not going to come up with any original insights, it’s probably time to quit typing and do something productive, like reading (at least I didn’t say TV.)

For the love of lions

I have this strong controlling feeling welled up inside me, because I know the answer to my question. And you don’t. But it’s time I swallow my you-know-what and let on to the answer I had in mind. As I’ve said, I’m not completely convinced that this answer is definitive, but I can’t come up with a better one. It seems to capture underneath its umbrella of influence those other "deadly" sins, such as selfishness and apathy and inaction and a whole host of other no-noes. (I need to consult Dan Quayle to see if I should have put an “e” in that last word of the previous sentence.) But as far as the king of transgressions, the opposite of love, that’s what I had in mind. Or I should say that’s what this John Boykin character had in mind in his book. And it seems to make sense.

E-V-O-L

First of all, I must admit that I don’t read my sister-in-law Cheri’s blog everyday either. She’s always there, being that beacon of consistent light, but who knows where I’m at, and what excuse I’ve concocted for myself. I haven’t read my e-mail in over a week. How sad is that!

Second, I should have known that this first-born would come up with a fabulous response, not that the other responses (written and un-written [I’m still imagining other responses]) are that far from the imaginary mark. But selfishness sure is antithetical to a spirit of love. And I love that answer. But. . .

Un-love

So if it’s not hate and not apathy, could it be judgmentalism? Maybe not, since I don’t think that’s even a word. But I think I’ve read some writers who try to set up such a contrast.

As a sidebar, I was thinking too: is the absence of something the same as the opposite of something?

I agree with D C Talk that “love is a verb.” Might the opposite of love not be a verb, or must it be a verb?

I’m not trying to be persnickety. (Heck, I don’t even know what that means.) But I really have thought about this a lot this past week or so. And I do think that love is very central to the entire message of Scripture.

In the Tuesday evening Bible study I’ve been attending the past few months, we’ve read through Romans. I usually don’t think about Romans being about love, justification maybe, or sin, but not love. However, a huge chunk of the last third of the book deals with the issue of love. So it’s been on my mind. And smack dab in the middle of that section on love is the passage on submitting to authority. So what does that have to do about love? The 13th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians makes a lot of sense, but it’s a little fuzzier in Romans.

So what else might be an opposite of love? If I keep on rambling, a good choice will be this blog.

What’s the opposite of opposite?

For kids (and adults) who play the opposite game: hot/cold, day/night, etc., it seems like "hate" would first pop into people’s head as a response to "love." But I don’t think that’s a good answer. I think I’ve heard shrinks talk about love and hate being very similar in the amount of passion they stir up within a person.

If my sister-in-law cared, and if I felt like being generous with compliments, I would say that “apathy” makes a lot of sense. Love and hate are hot, whereas apathy is cold. But, I had something else in mind. The author of a book I recently finished argues for a different opposite to love. And it’s not asparagus.

Cold

I got to walk the dog this morning. And I’m glad, very glad. I got to taste a little of my wife’s morning addiction. The fresh snow was not only beautiful (cleaning up everything, even my dirty truck,) but it crunched. It was a sound that the little Rice Crispies guys could appreciate. The lack of any wind made the walk pleasant, even though the mercury was just a few notches kinder than biting. The little weather icon at the bottom right hand corner of my monitor still flashes “6.” To my international kids that’s a whopping -17 or so. But cold is good. It allows me to run and not get weary. And it makes it easier to chip away at the hardened snow on the driveway. And it gives me a chance to wear my best fashion statement—my leather and rabbit bomber hat.

So along with a healthy dose of gratitude to my Creator and a gladness of heart that comes with the pinks and blues of a morning sunrise, came a sense of sorrow for those who don’t get to experience a multitude of seasons. Winter rocks! Oh snow birds, what are you thinking?

Opposites

I’ve thought about posting this question for some time. It is actually Sunday today as I'm writing this, but I think I’ll slip it in as a Saturday post. Last time I checked there was still room under Saturday, December 3, 2005. And if you’re actually reading this, then I was able to squeeze it in. The living proof is right before your eyes—and now literally right between your ears (unless I’ve forced you to zone out by now.) Oh yeah, the question: what is it? (How’s this for a build up?) Actually I’m just filling up space, making a visit to this sight worth the energy you exerted in clicking away on your mouse. Plus, I’m a little curious as to how much room there really is under this Saturday’s date.

OK, now for the question, I hope it’s not now anticlimactic. What is the opposite of love? Any thoughts—right or wrong answers that pop into your head? The Warden is not allowed to comment, as we’ve hashed this over a little.

Sparky

One of the “joys,” or should I say challenges, of working on people’s soon-to-be-brand-new kitchens is the frantic nature of it all. Remodeling contractors are usually tempted to underplay the difficulty of living without a kitchen for an extended period of time. And the sometimes promised eight to ten weeks usually turns into twelve to sixteen or more. I still feel sorry sometimes when I see people set up a temporary kitchen in their laundry room or bathroom, washing their dishes amongst less pleasant surroundings.

Such was the case today as I headed to a small kitchen remodel in Minneapolis. My original start date was this previous Monday. But as things often go, “unexpected” delays pushed my drywall installation back until today, Thursday. Or so I thought. I picked up the necessary sheets and planned to begin the installation this afternoon. The electrician should easily be done by the middle of the day, I was told. I should know better, but still I arrived around three, ready to work.

I imagined a jobsite completely ready for me to start, but instead I found “Sparky,” the electrician still buried in wires and boxes and tools and insulation and half demo-ed walls and ceilings. Not only was he not close to finishing, the inspector was not even lined up until Friday, who knows when.

As I asked him when he would be done and where I could leave the sheetrock, he started in on his tirade of the many woes of the electrician: fishing wires through tight spaces, insulation falling in your face, and unexpected problems buried beneath the old walls. Then he caught himself. “Am I whining too much,” he asked rhetorically. I assured him he wasn’t. I could relate. It did remind him of a story though, a personal true one at that.

The electrician told me about his brother-in-law who is a sheet-rocker. This sheet-rocker, in thinking about his back-breaking job, once told Sparky that he had always wanted to be an electrician, but wasn’t allowed to become one because of a medical condition. He claimed to fail the electrician's health exam. Knowing that there is no such exam for electricians, Sparky was confused and pried for more information. The sheet-rocker, knowing that he had Sparky wrapped around his little finger, told Sparky that he wasn’t allowed to be an electrician because his tear ducts weren’t adequate. Zing, zing. There went the slam against electricians who are often known for their highly developed ability to whine and feel sorry for themselves.

However, Sparky was able to come back with a very healthy response. He told his sheet-rocking brother-in-law that when he was growing up he always wanted to hang drywall, but his parents wouldn’t let him drop out of high school. Touché.

So in short, I wasn’t able to start working on that job today. It’s probably going to mess up my schedule on other jobs. It will probably mean some weekend work. But, hey, I did get a laugh out of the deal. But maybe you had to be there.