Archives for May 2007

FIRST SD WEDDING

May 16, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

Well, last weekend I went to my first wedding. Shannon coordinated it. It was a wedding for Jared and Emily. Two of the first people I met here in San Diego. Emily and Jared were dating then and Emily was a senior when I got here, leading worship in high school. Here’s the highlights:

It was a fun outdoor wedding in a great park on Coronado Island. That’s where every wedding should be I think.

The reception was on the Mission Bay waterfront.

They invited a guy named John. I loved the braided foo man he had on his face. You gotta love this guys commitment to facial hair. 4 1/2 years. I know I’m supposed to be watching the bride, but this dude’s face totally distracted me in the audience.

The father of the bride performed the wedding. I think that’s cool. I wonder if my kids will ask me to do their wedding…. maybe?

here’s a photo set…. check out John’s mug in the top left.

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MIXED EMOTIONS

May 15, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

This caused mixed emotions in me.

Much of me disagreed with sooooo much with what this guy had to say. I often found myself wishing he’d stop saying anything at all to the press (at least on behalf of Christianity), that I confess, I was glad it was over.

Not long after that feeling though… I felt bad. I know…

I certainly don’t wish death on anyone. I feel for his family and friends that saw sides of him I never did. I trust there was much I did not understand.

But, then again, there are days when I think the Lord should return so my family can go home too. Truly home. The longer I live and work on this ball of dirt… the more I truly pray that heaven comes to earth. Fast. I’m trying to bring it. I’m really trying. But I feel like I fail most days in that endeavour. Instead I just do what I’ve always done and get stuck in a rut. (I had a professor who once said that, “a rut is nothing but a grave with the ends kicked out.” )

On mother’s day I felt, yet again, that I was preaching to detention center in high school.

I HATE THAT FEELING. I’d rather preach to passionate lovers, or angry hatters, or cynical critics… but apathetic forced sleepers…. UGH.

I haven’t felt it in a while. I felt it almost my entire first year here. I do not want to bore students with the gospel or Jesus. I don’t want this to be my legacy: decades of talking to a wall. We were talking about the feeding of the 5000 and how God can do great things through us when they let him and well…. I think I could have been talking about the physics of printing press for all they seemed to care. I quit after church. Then I went to the wild animal park with my wife, kids, and the in-laws.

I re-hired myself Tuesday morning for one more week. But on one prayer, “Lord, please bring heaven here every day and help these students to see it and embrace it and bring it SOON!!! And no fair doing that ‘soon’ thing Jesus did. I mean…. ‘soon’ like when my wife wants me home in time to help with the kids. SOON!!!”

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COMMENTS

May 13, 2007 by Brian Berry 1 Comment

Tonight a friend of mine said there were no comments available on my treehouse post. I thought, “that’s kinda random.” Sure enough… they were turned off for that one blog entry. Go figure. So- for whatever it’s worth… I turned them back on for that entry. Not like I get a lot of comments, but it was quite the crazy building project and you at least deserve the chance to say something if you wanted to.

By way of an update… Mark has been adding cedar shingles to the side and the roof way up in the tree tops and I should be getting some lovely pictures of the “pseudo finished” project (it’s a constant work in progress ya know) and the interior soon. I’ll post them when they come.

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HARDER THAN IT SHOULD BE

May 12, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

Ever wonder why life seems harder than it should be? I do.

I talked with a friend whose divorce was finalized this week. We concurred: Life is hard. Marriage can be harder. Harder than it should be.

I had a drop-in counseling appointment with a mom of 4 in my office this week. All four kids have different fathers. She has a long list of medications and issues and fears and ….. She has a long list of regrets… dating all the way back to her own childhood. The longer she sat and cried and clenched her hands, the more I realized her life is hard. Harder than it should be.

Our church is in a weekend teaching series that is challenging every level of our being: spiritual, emotional, physical, financial, mental, relational, philosophical… etc. It’s challenging us as a community and me in specific, to rethink again what I really think this thing we call life is all about. It’s hard to think eternally. It’s even harder to live eternally today. It’s hard. Harder than it should be.

Some days as a father, life is hard. Some days I feel that way as a pastor. Some days I feel that way as a boss. Some days I feel that way as an athlete, a mentor, a neighbor, a husband, a home owner, a friend, a seminary student, a … well a lot of roles. It’s hard to be me without letting others down. It’s just plain hard. Harder than it should be.

This week, while reading Hosea, I ran across this small poetic statement if chapter 4, verse 16:

The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer.
How then can the LORD pasture them like lambs in a meadow?

You know what that verse says to me? It says that God wants to feed us and provide for us and protect us like lambs in a meadow. But he can’t.

You know why he can’t? My own stubborn rebellious heart.

Know what that does? It makes life hard. Harder than it should be.

I wonder: How much of life’s difficulty is not brought on by the desire of God, but instead is necessitated by the stubbornness of his children?

I wonder: How much longer Jesus will wait to return? Sometimes, when life is hard- Harder than it should be- I ask Jesus to come. Now. So life can become as it was intended to be and so he can feed us like he desires instead of as he must…. like lambs in a meadow.

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DRIVE DREAM LIST

May 8, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

I have a small dream list of vehicles I’d like to drive/operate. I’ve driven the following: both random and amazing…

several tractors
big bucket loader
a lot of buses
… in mexico. (You have not really driven a bus if it did not include dodging potholes and breaking down a few times and parking in crazy spots and brake checks and such in a Mexico)
two different types of double decker buses
a harley or two
a BMW 735i for a week and then to my senior prom. I felt like a king.
Some kind of really fast jaguar. I had a friend who was lent it and he let me drive it. It was fast. It was a jag.
a 1965 Shelby GT 500 ford mustang (its loud, fast, and nostalgic)
A 2005 Dodge Viper (very fast. stops even faster.)

On my dream list:

a ferrari or a lotus… but in needs to have doors that open up, not out.
a nascar race car at one of those training camp things. I have a friend who just did this with Mario Andretti’s school. That sounds like a rush.
a crane- maybe one where you get to drop a car at the end onto a big pile of other cars.
a semi-truck and trailer
anything in a country where I drive on the left side of the road
and the Ford GT40 that I snapped a pick of as it drove past my kids baseball practice. You can go here to find all it’s stats. I’ve seen one 3x in here in San Diego. No idea if it’s the same one, just always passes me up going the opposite direction so I never get more than 3 seconds to drool. I think if I was single. I might sell my house and live in this car.