D is for December. It is also for Decisions. Here’s some small d and some BIG D decisions I’ve recently come to:

Downsize:

• TWITTER is getting the minor axe. It can be consuming- too consuming for me. People in my world twitter in meetings, twitter in church, and I have been known to twitter- even while driving. I’ve decided I’m only going to use it once or twice a day. I’m no longer going to look at it throughout my day. It frankly takes up too much of my day and too many people on my following list use it as a public texting service back and forth to one another, twittering 15x a day, and yatta yatta. No big deal, but I’m cutting back. I’ll twitter as I start my day and likely closer to when I end it.

• BLOGS: I stopped reading blogs from people I don’t know. I just didn’t have the time- nor the interest and as bloglines kept piliing them up, I felt guilty for not reading them.

• STUFF: I’m going through stuff and getting rid of stuff. Stuff sucks. I hate stuff. I also love nice stuff. Regardless, I’m working hard to say peace out to stuff. Garage sale coming soon. I have too much stuff.

• LIGHTS: I’m sadly not putting up my christmas house lights this year. It’s costs me too much. Somewhere in the $200 range in electricity for the month. Can’t swing it. Maybe next year.

Intentionality:

• WORK OUT: Excercise: 4x a week. I have been lazy on this in november. I’m kicking it in to overdrive before I leave in January.

• SCHOOL: I’m not going back to Seminary until I decide for sure what I’m going for and if this school fits my needs. I’m going to meet with a few professors before I leave for Uganda. I’m praying for wisdom.

• MINISTRY: I’m seriously evaluating what and why I do what I do. I think we’re doing some stuff right. Some stuff wrong. But not a lot of GREAT stuff. I don’t like that feeling. I’m asking God to show up in some “only God coulda done that” ways in our ministry.

• WRITING: I have several writing projects I’ve been unable to get to. School is done, soccer is almost done, adoption paperwork is almost done so I’m going to add them into my life in the next month.

• READING: I’m making a reading list. I’m not buying any books. I have like 50 sitting around. I’ve got at least a 4 month break in school, so I’m gonna read a grip of them.

this is post #650. If you’re counting. I’m not, but blogger does. So I’m going to list 650 things I love here in honor of post #650.

Or not.

Happy 650 to me and you.

I could say a lot about seminary. I think it’s a system in need of some major reform. I have some time to think about what I’m going to do about that as I have completed my last class for a while last night. Our adoption process keeps me out of seminary for next quarter, so I’ll have to evaluate what to do next Spring.

Anyway, this seminary class was on the first 1600 years of church history. Here’s what I’ve been reminded of in my History Class- primarily in the 500 pages I read for the class:

1. Christianity has a long history, not all of it good. Not all of it I want to claim, but I can’t change the past, I can only influence the future.
2. Sin really screws things up in the church, society, government, and people.
3. “Christians” have killed a lot of people in defense of heresy. In fact, it seems as though to kill those who don’t believe in the orthodox way was pretty much universally accepted for centuries… and in some of the most horrific and ungodly ways imaginable. This is ridiculous in light of the fact that Christians were at one time the ones persecuted in this way before governments accepted it as part of the social fabric.
4. The Monastic movement was actually birthed out of the lack of persecution and people getting lazy with their convictions when it was no longer illegal to be a believer in Jesus.
5. People are willing to die for their religious convictions. Millions and millions of people have died for their faith beliefs throughout time.

Buy way of a so what clause, 5 questions I’m stewing on as a result:

1. Who would not want to claim my faith actions as part of their Christian History and would I be glad they did not?
2. How has sin influenced me?
3. What do I do as a Christian that is acceptable by Christendom today, but counter the teachings of Jesus?
4. How has the legality of my faith resulted in an unhealthy friendship with the world in me?
5. What convictions do I hold deeply enough to die for?

If you work with high school or college students, well Twilight is part of their world. I have a bunch o thoughts about this, but here’s 5:

1. WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THIS CRAZE COME FROM? with other movies, especially ones that are part of a series of books, I’ve at least heard of this ground swell, but it’s like a tidal wave that came out of nowhere- at least for me- and the books are 4 volumes deep already.
2. CHRISTIANS LOVE POP CULTURE AS MUCH AS ANYONE: I saw like 10 girls from our college group go see it Sunday after I taught at church.
3. THIS MOVIE GENRE IS WEIRD TO ME. Since when do students flock to a vampire love story? I’m fine with lots of genre’s of movies and books and I am fine with fantasy. My son TJ read the entire Harry Potter series in like 3 months straight. I have had a few Christians tell me this Vampire movie is from hell and has no redeeming qualities. I was also told some Mormon lady wrote it. I’m not sure where it is from really, but I’m highly doubting any of our students are like looking out for vampires at school now as a result of this movie or book. But I honestly don’t know enough to say what it’s impact will be. I’m gonna have to ask more questions I guess.
4. I MIGHT NOT CARE, BUT I ALSO CAN’T IGNORE THIS THING. I love students, but one part of my job that I’m not naturally good at is staying up on pop culture. In fact, I suck at it. The only way I make up for it to ask lots of questions of my students. I don’t watch enough TV, see enough movies, or listen to enough radio stations to get the scoop myself. So I just quiz people out of pure ignorance and genuine curiosity until I feel like I’m in the know. For example: I asked the college girls (several of which are on my leadership team) all kinds of questions about this movie and books and their appeal while they were waiting to get in line for this movie while I ate lunch with my kids in the mall. One question I asked was: what would the book be rated if the movie was true to it? I was told this: “It’s not like a Danielle Steele Novel. I’d say PG13 for the first 3 and R for the last one.”
5. MY RANDOM PREDICTION: Twilight or some tweaking there of will the be theme for a lot of summer camps this year.

ok…. I have no idea what this means just yet. But Twilight just found it’s way into my student world. Now what?

My grandma Delma would be turning 86 this next month on December 3rd. Her birthday is still in my calendar and her friendship still missed.

But while I cannot have coffee and ice cream with her at my house over thanksgiving, I did get a little piece of her world sent to me in the mail today.

It was my grandma’s paring knife!

It’s so cool to have this piece of history in my life. I’ve seen my grandma peel thousands of pieces of fruit and make countless meals with this knife in her hand. I spoke about it here in my tribute about her last September.

Here’s what I said about this knife in specific:

I once even remade the wooden handle for her on a kitchen paring kife she had sharpened and used so many times that the wooden handle was all but gone and the blade was nothing but a piece of tin. I offered to buy her a new one but she insisted on keeping that one, so I made her a new handle for it. I really wish I still had that knife, but I’m sure it was tossed by someone at some point in the past decade.

WELL I WAS WRONG! Someone had saved it. THANK YOU UNCLE CARL!

The knife on the top of this picture is one that she held onto that had a handle falling apart that my Uncle also sent me. However the one below is the one I replaced the handle for. It started with a blade like the one above, but after decades of peeling and sharpening, it has all but disappeared.