1st Day Report

Westin came home and had had a wonderful day. He reported that he even made two friends - didn't know their names yet, but made two friends. Went off to school easily and happily today. Thank you Lord for taking care of him (and me).

The Next Hard Part of Our Move

He's eight now. Today is the first day of thrid grade for him. He's scared. He started crying quitely when I said it was time for me to go. He kept up a strong front as long as I stood there beside him. He's old enough to be self-conscious about crying. But it's tough being eight, moving to a new town because of Dad's job, starting a new school where you don't know anyone. I know he'll be fine, but I want it to be easy for him. I want him to have a great year and make great friends. I asked the boy sitting next to him if he liked video games. "I like football video games." Westin's eyes lit up. "I have a football video game." (But we hardly ever play it - was my silent thought.) Westin tried, "Do you like Sonic?" (His current favorite). The other little boy shook his head no. The conversation died. My heart broke. Dear Lord, let this year go well. Please take care of my boy.

Vacation - all I never wanted

I'm trying not to get labeled for our family vacations, and yet I'm not sure that we aren't already well past that point with those who keep up with ours. You know how you have "accident prone" friends or acquaintances? We're becoming one of those in the vacation category.

A brief history...

About five years ago, Westin ran into a pointing out corner, split his head open, and had to get five stitches in the middle of his forehead on the first night we were at my sister's house in Alabama.

Last summer we had a great time at Guadalupe River State Park until we noticed Daniel, our youngest, not feeling so well. When we got home the doctor said he had pneumonia.

This spring break we took the pop-up to Rusk State Park to ride on the Texas State Railroad and spend the week. At the end of the first full 24 hours I had the flu and ran a high fever for the next five days.

This summer, we made plans to go to Port Aransas with one of my wife's college roommates and her family. But then we moved that week, so we decided to do something low impact. We went to her parents' cabin arriving late Monday night. Before noon on Tuesday, our dog, Argon had gotten bitten by a copperhead, and we were racing to the vet. He's fine, but later that afternoon when we saw a snake swimming in the pond while we were swimming, we sure didn't feel safe going back in there for the lazy days of floating and relaxing we had planned.

This list is depressing. For sometime I've been planning a newsletter article about how vacation helps me be better at my first ministry to my family and helps me keep in perspective that God is God and I'm just the pastor of the church. I don't know that that will get written.

Maybe it can be traced to getting the dog. I think the first vacation with significant problems was the one where he ran under the mobile home that was being loaned to us and pulling the phone wires out from it. Was it that same trip when the steering cables broke on the boat being loaned to us by the same person?

Vacation - all I never wanted. And yet, I keep looking forward to them.

Oh, all of this summer's vacation wasn't a complete bust. Fortunately we found Lake Tejas (http://www.esc5.net/laketejas/), and it was great, but we finally just decided just to come on home, do some unpacking, maybe squeeze in some dissertation work, read Harry Potter, catch a movie. We're also planning some day trips - Moody Gardens, Houston Museum of Natural Science, etc. to finish out the time. Pray for us.

The Deceptiveness of Cabinetry

We’re moving. The truck shows up in 4 days. So, more technically, we’re packing. My wife has been working diligently on the kitchen this evening. After she quit and was getting ready for bed, I went walking toward the kitchen via the dining room aka the box staging area. There were several new kitchen related boxes that I nearly stumbled over. Rather than being frustrated that something was in the walkway, it was exciting because we were closer to being ready than the last time I walked through.

In the next step I was in the kitchen which looked exactly as it had hours before – clean and tidy, but not empty. Talk about deflation. That’s when I realized that cabinetry is deceptive. At least the doors are. Whether it is hiding your disorganized pots and pans, or it is failing to show the lack of the same, the doors on the cabinetry keep you from seeing what’s really going on.

I thought about the shells that we run around with in our lives and especially the ones we wear to church. Shells specially designed by years of trial and error to keep the world seeing the neat and tidy us and not showing the real state of our hearts at all. I thought of Jesus condemning the Pharisees for being like “whitewashed tombs” – pretty on the outside, but nasty on the inside (Matthew 23:27). Deceptive.

Our shells and cabinetry doors (during periods of moving) need to go.

NLT Matthew 23:27 "How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs-- beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.

Thoughts on Theology

Theology (without going to a dictionary - because really what fun would that be) is basically studying God and the things of God. I guess if I were to be literal it would be "the study of God" (theos-God & -ology-study of), however it is more commonly used in the broader sense.

By the time I was done with seminary theology was not a very pleasant word. The primary books we read in my systematic theology (a very organized structured way of studying The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) class were written in a way that said something about God, restated it, quoted a few people who had said the same thing, and then referred back to that same statement a few pages later. (At least it seemed that way. It took a whole lot of caffeine to get through those things.)

Other people have recognized problems with the whole word "theology." An article in the April 2007 article of Catalyst (http://www.catalystresources.org/) felt that the word "theology" had been so co-opted that the author attempted to open up a discussion about "Thinking Christianly" as a wider way to look at life from a Christian perspective than merely the academic framing of theology.

Without a doubt, theology can be extremely boring.

I much prefer Paul Wesley Chilcote's statement about John and Charles Wesley's take on theology. "For the Wesleys, theology was never meant to be either boring or irrelevant. The ultimate purpose of theology is transformation. And central to this understanding was their view that everyone is called to be a theologian. As you live out your life daily, you are continually acting out and reflecting upon who you are and to whom you belong. For the Christian, Jesus Christ is the central reference point in that ongoing process, the goal of which is to be changed by God into more loving, more Christlike people. This is theology, and nothing could be more exciting or relevant in our lives. Everyone has a legitimate role to play in this unfolding, transformative process within the community of faith." (Recapturing the Wesley's Vision, p. 15-16)

When I was fresh out of seminary my mentor told me that as a pastor I was going to be the resident theologian of the churches I served. I thought he was nuts. I didn't want to be as boring or as repetitive as the books I had read. However, if theology is really about "reflecting upon who [we] are and to whom [we] belong," I can get into that.