Big Dig Phase One

NOTICE: The Big Dig of Shute-Ho begins tomorrow.... in less than 12 hours.

The big scooper will arrive and attempt to locate (by means of a snake thru the septic tank??) and uncover our leach box. Yippee.... I can't wait to see our leach tank!! Imagine.... the anticipation and paying all that money to see our very own leach tank.

The inspector will come to view it as well... yippe yipee yipee... on Friday AM after the septic is pumped. Phew! So, for all you praying folks... pray hard that the inspector approves heartily of what he sees in our leach box.. or else we will be finding more exciting ways to spend our precious greenbacks on new and inventive methods of poop dispersal.

Stay tuned for more titillating updates (and hopefully pictures) of our excellent adventures in Shute-Ho.

The Un-Well

That is the big news for this week.

Our well drilling has been delayed at least until after Dec 9 because the conservation commission came out and said that we need to go thru a hearing process. This is required, they said, because of the little 1' wide stream that runs along the edge of our property and the wet area that feeds into it. Likely we will have to line the edges with bales of hay and such to protect it from any soil run off. This truly pristine water (as it bubbles right out of ther ground 100' away!) runs along our sanded and salted dirt road, directly into a beaver crap infested dead pond... so we must be very careful to not disturb the eco-system.
:-/

The public hearing about our well is now set for Dec 8. I had to call the excavator and driller and delay their arrival and then file more paper work at town hall and get a list of abutters and send them all notices and place an ad in the local paper...yada, yada...

Moral of the story is.... let's see...
Don't buy property with water on it unless it is large enough to swim or boat in so that at least you can offset any permit hassles with pleasures. How's that?

Any-who, sounds like the decent weather is going to hold a bit longer for the project. Here's hoping!

Thanksgiving 2005

A few inches of the wet white stuff greeted us on the morning of Thanksgiving 2005...giving it a "Merry" Thanksgiving feel. Despite the sloppy roads the gang all made it up the hill and down our road to enjoy our meal together.We were joined for dinner by Aaron, Jess, Ben, Michael, Carol (Greene), Julie, Kristin, Nathanael, and Katherine. It was a lovely day and evening. Pete and Pam joined us for desert and after a long tough competition, Pete eventually won the game of Name that Tune, with Ben following close behind.

New iBook Arrived!

My new G4 iBook arrived yesterday! WooHoo.. I now have lots of memory, a bigger screen, speed and even a space bar that functions too. Imagine that!! It took about 45 mintues for the total set up. Thx to Apple and a very handy Fire Wire cable, everything was transferred from my old G3 to the new baby in 28 minutes! Wow... gotta love Macs. Hope to have time this weekend to explore iLife, iWorks and MS Office. I imagine I will never fully master them, but I hope to have some fun with them... and... oh yeah... be productive with all my files and book keeping for my practice too. Right, of course!

Just Another Day in Shute-Ho

Yeah... just another typical day up here in Shute-Ho.... cutting down the woods, raking, digging ....
Normal stuff with normal people.

hint: for a closer look at the normal Shute-Ho people click on pic #1.
hahahahahaha

Happy Happy Happy

So this AM I woke up early.
Feeling it only right that I put that extra time to good use, I ordered my new iBook.
It should be here next week. Yipee!
Imagine........ (said gazing wistfully off at the sky..)...yes imagine....
a space bar that works every time...
and speeeeeeeed!
woohoo!

It is DONE!

Yeah.... woohoo... my grading for Dean's Book Fall 2005 is done!

Calvinism Preferred Over the "New" Social Vision??

Wow..I am reeling from what I heard from Marilynne Robinson on Sunday and then what I read today in her book of essays: The Death Of Adam. Robinson is an advocate for the ideas of John Calvin! In one essay: Puritans and Prigs, she first explains why the Puritans had nothing on the prigs of today! She goes on to explain on why the Calvinist doctine of the total depravity of man, is a leveling and freeing doctrine which is preferable to the social vision of today. She says today's social vision is nothing new, likening it to Stalinism and Leninism. She says Calvin's doctrine that we are all sinners gives us excellent grounds for forgiveness and self-forgiveness and is kindlier than any modern day expectation that we might be saints. She describes the social vision of today is an unsystematic, uncritical, unconscious perfectionism. She comments that the zealots of today are marked by priggishness.... zealots who in actuality develop class markers and "defend magnimity while asserting class advantage" -- "there is simple snobbery." (pg 162)

Later in the essay she writes: "Calvinists spoke of an elect, Leninists and suchlike have spoken of an elete. The 2 words come from the same root and mean the same thing. .... Our elites (today) are simply, in one way or another, advantaged. Those of us who have shared advantage know how little it assures, or that it assures nothing, or that it is a positive threat to one's moral soundness, attended as it is with so many encouragements to complacency and insensitivity." (pg 167)

Ok, well, this is such an inadequate overview of the essay that I am afraid an apology must accompany it. Robinson's writing is something that has to be experienced. She didn't win a Pulitzer for her novel Giliad or become an instructor at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop over 15 years ago, without excellent reason. I hope to digest more in the days and weeks to come. Stay tuned.

Why the Church Needs Calvin...

So on Sunday I went with Sarah and 3 others from First Church Hadley to hear Pulitzer award writer Marilynne Robinson speak at the UCC Church in Longmeadow. I thought she was going to talk about her book -- perhaps do a reading from her latest book Gilead. But no! In her afternoon talk she spoke to well over 200 people (a number of UCC pastors) about the declining numbers in the mainstream protestant churches and how the pastors need to stop being embarassed by Jesus and the Scriptures..that the pastors need to be concerned with the Blandness Factor in their sermons etc. It was pretty hard hitting....very intellectual and very Biblical. Also why they do NOT need to get lost in the: form a mega church, hire a band, dance in the aisle or tear out the pews... relativism.

In the evening she did a special dinner session for pastors and their guest. There were only about 20 of us there. She talked about Why the Church Needs Calvin. Turns out she is quite a Calvin Scholar and talked about the Congregationalist roots in Calvinism and how progressive Calvin was in his advocacy for a people group in France that was being terrorized and burned in the streets and other ways his quite progressive theology challenged the church of his day and endangered his life. It was packed full of information.... ties to Jonathan Edwards were also brought into it.

I understand her talks from this weekend are going to be made available on the church's web site. I will post the link when they are uploaded.

Anyway, I was amazed. Gave me much to consider and read up on.

The Bugger is Done!

After about 10 hours of work...the bugger is done. Now we can enjoy toasty days by the fire. Friends and family are always welcome! Picture #1, Baird around hour # 9, grunting and groaning thru the fireplace retro-fit installation. No wonder the installation guys charge so much and say it is like threading a needle blind. Picture#2, but the results are sure worth it.

My Kitty's Home

My little kitty Surely, age 19 months, is back home afer a little "surgical proceedure" and an overnight stay at the vets. I am supposed to be keeping her somewhat quiet, not letting her climb, jump, etc. HA! That is absolutely hopeless in this house and she is is such a money! I hope her sutures stay in place and heal very quickly.

My Mom's New Place

Most of you probably know that we moved my mom into elderly housing last weekend. Here are a couple of shots of the move in day. Pic #1, my brother Hank and his son Michael. Pic #2, my mom and me. Hank, Michael, Aaron, Jess, Ben, my sister Linda, her bf Jim, Baird and I were all there.

Aaron Ousted by Anderson!!

Aaaahhhh....Aaron Brown has been outsted from CNN by Anderson Cooper! I mean, I liked Anderson Cooper's 360 show at 6PM and I liked his coverage of Katrina..but...I really liked Aaron Brown's "quirky heady" 10 PM Nightline. During Katrina Cooper and Brown did a 2 hour 10pm-12am show that was a great combo..but then..the President of CNN-USA decided to keep Anderson in that slot and bid adieu to Aaron Brown. I discovered this huge disruption to my news life just tonight when I tuned in. Brown is.... GONE.... gone from CNN altogether. My "nightlife" is just not gonna be the same. Brown was more of a serious news show. Cooper is more of a news magazine. Guess I'll have to tune into BBC more.

PS someone's gotta tell CNN that the background screen flashing around behind Anderson and his guests is way over the top UGH!

Worship of Religion?

How willing am I to allow God to show me anything new? Do I think I have my Beliefs all sewed up? Am, I threatened by or defensive/ resistant to anything different from what I know and already understand? From what I feel safe with? If I am secure in my faith yet want to always understand more of the truth (after all I will never know it all in this life), then I should be willing to walk into the mystery, the unknown, the different and not be fearful and rejecting, right? Fearfulness and defensiveness spring from our uncertainty, I think. If I am too rigid in what I understand to be the truth then how am I any different that the Jews in 30AD who thought they had truth all sewed up...and then.... missed the Messiah. What pieces of God's truth am I missing?

I was reading an OOZE article today and this part caught my eye. A teacher is speaking to his followers about worshipping the Book rather than the Author of that Book and being too set in our limited interpetations:

“The harshness of the truth I speak to you; even now they worship the Book. They worship the words that speak of the Creator, as though such words were equal to the very essence of the Creator. Herein lies their sacred idolatry: they worship their faith, not the Creator who gave them faith. They place their faith in words and pages, not in the Creator who inspired the writing. They ascribe absolute truth onto mere words, and then settle for the truth they render from these words.

“Forgetting their ancestors who sought the Creator, they interpret the Book to explain the Creator. Forgetting their ancestors who knew the Creator before there was a Book, they claim the only way to know the Creator is through their rendition of the Book. They assert that knowledge of the Book is a prerequisite for communion with the Creator, yet it was communion which first brought the Book to life. They proclaim that the Book must be understood for faith to take root, yet faith is what gave root to the Book. The Book tells the stories of men, women and children who knew the Creator before the Book, and yet they claim the only way to know the Creator is through the Book.

“May it dawn upon this generation that the communion they seek with the Creator transcends even the scope of the Book. May they embrace and value the book above all others, yet not derive and measure the soul of their faith by their limited interpretations.”

complete article at:
http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1053

Bob Cat Crosses Our Path

Coming home today after church a bob cat crossed our path in Hadley! I think it was the first time I have seen one down in town. We used to have a smallish one here in our neighborhood when we first moved up here but this was on the divided part of RT 116 in Hadley, not up here in Shutesbury! It was quite large, too. It crossed the road, went off to the edge by a tree, turned around, sat down and looked straight back at me! I wish we could have stopped and snappped a picture but I am sure it would have run off if we even slowed down. My guess is they are probably attracted to the UMass horse/sheep farm on the other side of the street.

Wisdom the the Day

Lesson for today: don't pay Verizon Wireless thru their web based, WebPay. They can't find my payment from 6 weeks ago. It took 4 phone calls today and I still have to submit a fax of my bank statement for "review." The payment verification number I had was for some reason "not needed." This was after they shut my phone off and charged me $15, plus full payment of what THEY said was due, to turn it back on. My persistance today at least got the $15 credited to my account. Now to find the payment they lost.....and get that credited.

Today's Input

Today I did some reading here and there..between this and that. The this and that was mostly related to time over in Dalton helping my mom move into elderly housing. The big move day is this Saturday.

Here are a few samples of my reading feast:

Neil Cole- author of Organic Church (which I recently ordered) was interviewed by Next Wave this month.
http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue83/index.cfm?id=6&ref=COVERSTORY

In this interview he says many thought inspiring things. Here is just one part:

I think we are making a shift from the day of the ordained to the day of the ordinary. A day when common Christians are empowered to do extraordinary things for God and they are no longer going to wait for their pastors to say, “Go.”
I think the layers and layers of decision-makers between God’s people and God will be removed, so that God can have direct communication with His people without any filters, without any middlemen to interpret. When we reach that state we will see massive global implications.
I think God is setting us up that way. Some of the trends that are happening today are global in scale. They are not just regional or national, but all across the world people are saying and discovering these things. That has never happened in history, except maybe in the first century. We are on the verge of seeing something akin to the Book of Acts happening in our day, if we are faithful to God’s voice.

AND
Darrell Gruder - big missional church guy from Columbia Theological in GA - book I'm reading is called Missional Church.

In Chapter 7 he discusses - Leadership: Equipping God's people for Mission. Therein he provides a pretty heavy critique of modern seminaries and what they prepare pastors for. He proposes a complete overhaul of the pastoral education process including an extensive period as a novice, living in community and practicing the spiritual disciplines. He describes the church today as being on the margins, in exile ... which he says we should embrace and stop trying to reassert ourselves as the ones on top. He says we need to get past the solo pastor mode and rediscover the laity, teams and apostolic leadership which he says focuses on creating more leaders and on leading the way... actually practicing the mission... doing the service.... (not simply teaching and preaching to the converted and the interested). He describes church as a community... as a group of pilgrims, a journeying people. Well, as you can see.... in that one chapter alone he says more than I can possibly summarize here but, that gives you just a taste.

THEN
Tonight at Josh and Carrie's we listened to a sermon by Tim Keller (Redeemer Church, NYC) on Serving. That was powerful too. Too much to write but..worth listening to:

http://www.redeemer3.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=11
See heading: Serving. Title of sermon: Blueprint for Revival - Social Concern

That's all for today folks!

ttfn

Digging Again

I am digging again. I am back into reading stuff I was reading 2 and 3 years ago, before I got sidetracked by a huge trash heap that had looked like an answer to my search but which almost swallowed me alive. Alas, never take the easy road. That should have been my perpetual motto. Before that diversion, which brought me as close to spiritual death as I have ever been, I had a 10 year detour in mediocrity. Alas, I find myself digging back over 20 years to something which nourished for a few short years.

I began reading the OOZE site again and following links. I found Simple Church at http://www.simplechurch.co.uk/
Lots of interesting stuff there. Small, intimate, service (mission) oriented, simple... that is the spritual community for which I yearn. I felt that 20 plus years ago with the Elderly Care Mission Group I was in back in Ipswich. Probably the greatest time of spiritual growth for me. And we actually accomplished something outside ourselves too..something for others... a 32 unit elderly congregate housing project. The vision for that mission came from Church of the Savior in Washington DC. Small groups formed around both inward and outward missions. IBC in Ipswich was an imperfect implementation for sure, but it was radical non-the-less.

Spiritual mini-movments, is what Barna (in his new book Revolution) calls these smallish trends where people experience tremendous growth. He also says that when people who have experienced this try to bring it back, into their local churches (to which they desire to remain faithful) they are told not to try to introduce foreign elements into the church agenda. Imagine that!! Yup.... been there done that; except in my case it was met with: Oh, yes..wonderful...bring it on...we want to unleash you... and so I invested a tremendous amount of energy over several years and along with others, developed a mini-movement of sorts, within our local church. Then the church leaders got nasty. This was clearly NOT on their agenda. Among other things, it didn't fit with the single point leadership structure they were simultaneously putting in place (under the table). Got to keep the ole boys in thier leadership roles. It also wasn't safe nor controlled. Oh well, water over the dam. Barna could have saved me a lot of trouble if he had come out with his findings a couple of years ago. If I had beleived him. Ha! Guess I should have known it was too good to be true.

So, I have no idea where this is leading me. I will continue to search. I know I am drawn to the emerging church stuff and the simple church stuff and the missional basis of "church" and that I think the current "modern" model of the local church (based on modification of the Roman church) is hogwash and quite unlikely to be at all effective within the next 25 - 50 years. Thanks to Barna for the recent validation.

Well, I continue forward, eyes on the path yet gazing ahead to the horizons.

Nowhere to File This

I am spending some time this AM reading blogs and such. Joined the Ooze Community and was reading their blog. First entry there was this little piece below. Seems like a hoax but it is not. I investigated further. It is for real. I have nowhere to file info like this in my brain...so I will blog it.

Sunday, October 30
Some tragic news.
University Baptist Church, Waco pastor Kyle Lake died this morning as a result of injuries suffered in an electrocution during a baptism at his church in Waco, Texas .This is very tragic news for his wife Jen and his daughter and twin sons.
Please do whatever you can to pray and find ways to be supportive of Kyle's family. Kyle had written Understanding God's Will and the just released (Re)understanding Prayer: A Fresh Approach to Conversation With God.

I re-read this several times. Unimaginable! He was 33 years old. He was a leader in the emergent church movement. He was simply adjusting a mike while in the baptismal. Thankfully, the young woman he was about to baptise was not yet in the baptismal, but still.... what a horrendous memory!