fun in shushan

This Wednesday through Saturday we were in Shushan, NY spending time with her dad and the rest of her family. We had an engagement party for one of her cousins. When we were up for Christmas I started making home made meatballs and continued the trend making 63 for the party. In addition to seeing family we did some decluttering of the house. The best part for me was bringing along my .22 (same gun as the one pictured) and getting to shoot at cans. While I'm not going to be recruited by special forces any time soon, I was able to hit a few cans, which is very rewarding. I got to shoot a little with Hillary's uncle who said we could shoot skeet sometime when I'm up over the summer. It's been a while and I really enjoy skeet shooting, so that was an exciting proposition. While it was good to be up in NY it was a little hectic leaving town, as well as coming back. March is going to be an exciting month of baby showers and seeing family, but we're both a little bit wary of the busyness which will likely ensue. Cheers

rethinking Noah and learning to roll

In youth group we are going through a series on the covenants in the bible. Basically, at key points God formalizes his relationship with his people and these are called covenants. These were the contracts of the Ancient Near East and used between business partners, kings and their vassals, friends, spouses, and in similar settings. This week we looked at God's covenant with Noah and in my preparation I had a slight paradigm shift. When you are a little kid, most of your interaction with Noah comes from cute pictures where this old guy with a beard loads animals onto an ark. As I was thinking about the account of the flood God's rescue of Noah in the ark images from the various hurricanes and the tsunami in SE Asia came to mind. The idea of a world-wide flood is hard to imagine and puts God's promise to Noah to never again flood the earth in a totally different context. Another thing which surprised me is the Bible's later use of the flood to describe cleansing. While the flood brought destruction, it also brought cleansing and New Testament authors take up this theme at different places and speak of God's coming cleansing of this world. This has given me a new way to look back at the account of Noah to look forward to what God will do. And though this is only related by the theme of water, I'm going to attend an instructional session put on by the Appalachian Mountain Club of CT, this Saturday and learn how to Eskimo Roll in my kayak. I'm pretty excited.

reading plan 2009

This year I've got a plan to read a bunch of different books and it was really exciting to put the final touches on it this morning. Ever since I was a kid I have loved to read, and it is an endeavor which still keeps me up till the early morning every now and then. What I figured is that I would share with you some of the ones I'm excited about for the next year.

-I just finished this one a few weeks ago and it examines the Puritan's view of the future and how this affected the world around them. They had an optimistic viewpoint which saw the gospel spreading through the world with great effect. God would work through a serries of revivals to spread his reing through out the world and after this Christ would return. It is very interesting to see how this view of human history played out on a variety of fronts. It is well worth the read.

-There are all sorts of books on depression that are out there, but this is one of the few you can actually give to someone who is depressed. Hillary recently finished this one and it is now on my list. She spoke very highly of the book and said it has a very balanced and helpful perspective.

-This is my "thinking book" for the year. I'm going to try and read something more scholarly so I remember the large words which I learned in seminary. I've seen some excerts from this book and am intrigued. Wright considers the centrality of the ressurection for the growth and spread of the church. He looks at the uniqueness of the idea of a man rising again from the dead and how this fits into the the cultural context of that time. I'll be able to tell you more once I read it. That is if I finish it and I can explain it lucidly.

And, just so you don't think I'm too committed to my reading or going overboard with the books, I've included my most recent aquisition...