out of luck

Cell phones are a continual source of frustration to me. I always forget to plug mine in. I get frustrated when it runs out of batteries. I feel like, I already plugged it in once, why do I have to do it again. I get sick of the cyclical.

record setting

26 people at our house

it was a great time. We celebrated the end of winter two days after 4 inches fell. It was a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for a barbecue and despite the 40 degree weather, flip flops, shorts and hawaiian shirts were in abundance. A good time was had by all.

I know I know, it's ironical

Technology frustrates me. I don't understand it....ok I guess that's technically untrue...I mean toilets and shovels are technology of a certain sort, and I understand them. I had this book when I was younger called The Way Things Work. It was a good book, I learned a lot from it...until my physics teacher stole it (literally) from me.

Anyway, it didn't really have much about computers in it. And the parts it did have didn't make a lot of sense to me. It seems like computers should make sense to me. I mean really all it is is a bunch of ones and zeros floating around in space.

Technology comes with great promise...it saves time, it helps you communicate, it makes life easier....more more more


Somebody once said there's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon about everything. (at least I assume someone has said that...it seems like it might be true, and it would make you sound smart if you said it...maybe) There's one about this too...you should check it out.


Communication via cyberspace is a cheap substitute for the telephone, which is a cheap substitute for letter writing, which is a cheap substitute for carving inscriptions on clay tablets, which is a cheap substitute of whacking your neighbor on the head with a club and grunting with satisfaction.


As for timesaving, if you add in all the hours I've spent trying to get computers to work, waiting for them to restart, throwing them across the room in frustration, trying to put them together again, and pounding them with clubs while grunting with satisfaction...I haven't saved any time at all. In fact Bill Gates probably owes me several thousand hours of wasted time.

As for making life easier...when a computer can bring me breakfast in bed for a full year in a row without me even having to look at it, then and only then will I concede that point.

I was listening to the classical music station today on my way to school. and Huepongo came on.

That is one of my favorite songs of all time. And not just because It has a trombone solo I played once....ok that's part of it. But really It's a great song. Probably my favorite trombone solo I played.

Anyway...as I was going to say before my train of thought got derailed is...it's fun to sing along to songs on the radio

I suppose I should qualify my statements. I like the church we attend, I love the people there, I have great respect for the pastoral team. I did not mean my comments as a condemnation. I just want to register the feeling I had. They probably didn't intend the purposes I ascribed to them.

But that said, the way it came across to someone who sees modern sound and video equipment as less than desirable, was as crassly materialistic.

Betrayed

Three or four weeks ago, the church we attend started a new series called Consumed. We were presented with a central question...what consumes you? Christ? Money? Something else?

The opening message centered on Galatians 5: Stand free and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery...do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, serve one another in love...the acts of the sinful nature are...the fruit of the spirit is...

For me the central question became how do you position yourself before God. How I position myself before God and other people communicates my feelings towards them. Everyone tries to present themselves in a certain way, both to other people and to God(even when we know we can't). And for very few (or none) of us is that image that we portray, the image that we see when we look in the mirror. All of this is, I think, usually unconscious. So it is good to reevaluate ourselves on a regular basis, in order to understand our relationship with God. Also it is healthy to try to realign our actions with our mental priorities.

I know that the last paragraph doesn't make perfect sense...you try to compress two weeks of thought into a paragraph.

Anyway...I found the first few weeks at least mildly stimulating...then last week the theme of the sermon was Debt is Bondage. Impressive title I know. But I had some issues with it. Don't get me wrong, I thin kdebt is bondage, and I try to avoid it. I would like to not owe any money on our condo. But the sermon focused on on Credit Card Debt, and ignored everything else. This was the safe choice. In a church as rich as the one we go to lots of people have debt, and most f it isn't credit card debt. Also I have a hunch that the decision was made because the church owes a lot of money. I'm not sure of that, but I would be surprised if it wasn't true.

So that was ok...a little disappointing...but not that bad.

This week the sermon was on Stepping into generosity. Which is a worthy goal...I am not nearly as generous as I wish I was.

But the focus was on giving money to the church...which is ok...but the proposed spending really got me
Special Spending Projects: around 30,000 for a variety of missions projects...and 300,000 for a remodeled sanctuary...in addition to normal costs.

When I realized what this is all about I have to admit I felt betrayed. I felt like I had been led into this series under false pretenses. Because it seems that ultimately the idea behind this series is to use people's guilt about their own spending and materialism to fund a spiffy new sanctuary, itself a manifestation of the very materialism that makes it possible.

So instead of helping people overcome their involvement in materialism...we fuel their addiction...nice