A foggy week so far

Last Saturday I made the comment that we hadn't seen much in the way of fog since our arrival in September. It almost seems like Weather was listening and just to either humor or punish me, I don't know which, we've been kind of socked in with fog since Sunday. Although so far, it's nothing of the soupy kind that I know from the Wilamette Valley, or Central California. Now that I've written that, I wonder if Weather is subscribed to this blog's RSS feed and is, as you read, just scheming to send a thick blanket of fog down here soon.

What's awful is that the weather forecast was calling for a dry, sunny week. But I guess everyone in Petersburg can blame me for bringing in the fog. The forecasters are still saying Petersburg is sunny today... A couple of hundred feet above us, sure.

Insomnia?

Lately, I've been having real problems falling asleep and staying asleep. I've had troubles for many years now, but in the last couple of weeks it has seemed to get much worse.

It seems that the brain does most of the sorting and thinking at night. The problem is that these subconscious processes don't stay subconscious. All of the things I've been reading, seeing, studying, hearing -- they begin to sort themselves out at night, when it's quiet and dark. When I realize it's going on, I find myself having to engage my thoughts, and I conscisously wander about in my subconscious (if that makes any sense). It's a fascinating experience, but one that doesn't lend itself to promoting sleep. The most annoying thing is that even after I think I've buried the wanderings back down into just the subconscious, just as I feel myself falling asleep, something pops back up and I discover myself engaging my thoughts once more.

If trying to fall asleep while doing that wasn't bad enough, I frequently find myself restless at night, even when I'm asleep, as it seems that my conscious brain is half awake, trying to engage the subconscious. And then I wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for two or three hours. It's altogether very annoying.

I've tried melatonin in the past, and while it seems to help me (sometimes) with the initial getting to sleep, it doesn't keep me asleep. In fact it seems that when I do awake in the middle of the night, I stay awake even longer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to keep my conscious mind from engaging the subconscious at night?

Bible Reading 2007, Week 5

Moses and Israel in Egypt

This week we are reading Exodus 1-18; Leviticus 1-17; and Psalms 11, 20, and 78.

Sermon, Jan. 27: Which Kingdom?

Click on above title link for audio.

Today's sermon is a study of Judas Iscariot, his ambitions and goals, his desire to help establish and manage the kingdom he thought should come about, and his ultimate failure. I touch upon the lessons and parallels that we can learn and see in our world and lives today.

A memorial service

One more blog post today.

We attended the memorial service of the lady, that I mentioned a few postings back, who suddenly died a couple of weeks ago. It's just amazing that in a very short time we've come to know so many people and one of them happened to be this lady and family. A couple of months ago, there was another woman that had died. At that time we didn't realize that she was a sister of one of our church members until all the services had already passed by.

The service was at the Lighthouse Church, and it was packed past overflow. The pastor had mentioned to some of us earlier in the week that he usually likes holding memorial services, because it is one of the best times for an evangelistic sermon. People who normally wouldn't come to church are there, people in general are more aware of mortality and the meaninglessness of earthly life, and people are more open to hearing about hope. So true to his word, his words today were those of looking towards a future hope, of those still alive coming to Jesus, for us to choose Him as Lord of our lives while there is still time.

January cooking class

We held our first cooking class last evening. We had a total of eleven individuals, including us. There were four ladies from the community present that are not church members.

Earlier on, there seemed to be a possibility of many more coming, but it turned out to be a smaller number. I think that for our first one, this was a good size to discover how things would work out. Deloris was really worried about how she would do, teaching the class. But there was really nothing to be worried about. She did a great job.

The class lasted two hours and the participants were able to try out working with the bread dough and sampling some of the bread and the granola and baked oatmeal that were demonstrated in the class. It seemed to be a hit with the four non-members and they expressed appreciation to us for having held this event. It seems that they would be interested in other types of cooking and health-related classes.

I think that as we begin to regularly hold different health-related events, the community will become more accustomed to them and in turn anticipate them, hopefully leading to increased turnout at these events.

So now it's on to figuring out what we can do in February.

Few images from a cold and clear day

Yesterday was clear and cold. On the way to the church, I stopped to get the image of the frozen slough. After getting back home, I found the Coast Guard vessel in the middle of the water, stopped to repair one of the buoys. The birds in flight was at around the same time. I'm not sure what species they are -- they might be scoters.

Health education

For a little while now, I've been pondering about what our church could feasibly handle in providing the community with tangible evidences of God's grace. General community service type work is handled by the Salvation Army. The Bible Church and the Lutheran Church already have programs that provide for the needs of young children and mothers.

As I've been pondering, it seems that the ponderings usually go in the direction of health education. Tomorrow evening, we are holding a bread and cereal making class. That could be a start for regular classes and seminars on health. Or perhaps something like a Valentine's Day dinner featuring appetizing and good food that is also more healthy than common American dinner fare.

If anyone had told me a year ago, or even six months ago, that I'd be leading out in and planning health-related ministries, I'd have laughed and replied that they were out of their minds. In my mind, at least then, health education is run by health kooks and nuts who are (in my opinion after observing them and listening to them) over-zealous, where to them health issues are black and white, and even have moral overtones. And what average person would want to go to one of those where they come away feeling condemned and given a nearly deified view of what healthy living looks like?

So then the thought slowly developed in my mind: I'm not the perfect ideal example of healthy living. But maybe the imperfection is actually the better example. I like a good (and by good, I don't mean Starbucks) cup of coffee, I don't like my vegetables too raw, I love fish, I enjoy a good steak or roast chicken every now and then, and sometimes I have to satisfy cravings for junk food. Maybe, just maybe, people might be willing to listen because I am more like them -- wanting to do and be better, but not willing or able to change everything -- at least not all at once. And what can we realistically do in a place where it is difficult or nigh impossible to follow some of the practices that are suggested (or is mandated a better term for describing some of the books and lectures)?

With those thoughts, I've begun to formulate plans to hold a one to three-evening seminars on steps that can be taken to move towards living a healthier life. The emphasis is on each person's health journey -- i.e., making progress in each preson's journey towards living a life that God would like us to have -- to provide tangible evidence that health is a grace of God that can be had by each one of us when we choose to bring our habits and behaviors closer in line with God's original plans for us. I think that when a person begins to see tangible evidence from changing just a few things, that person will more likely be inclined to make other changes. At least that's the way it is with me.

I survived the first evening with kids

I came out of children's choir this evening mostly intact. I ended up with a familiar feeling -- one that I used to get after giving a sermon -- tense shoulders, sore neck, and a back ache -- symptoms of stress. At least it is only a very mild one this time.

We had eight kids, ranging from about four all the way up to the teens. Having to make sure there is something for everyone in such a wide range of ages is to say the least, a challenge. We did some rhythm exercises, talked about and demonstrated how different pitches look and sound different in music, did some follow-the-leader movements to music, and also started to learn one song.

Now that the first session is done and out of the way, I'm critiquing myself. Being probably my harshest critic, I feel like I could have and should have been better prepared. There was one boy who just didn't seem to engage very well, though outside of the instruction period itself, he was certainly interested in sharing things about himself to me. I realize that this being the absolutely first time I've done anything quite like this, and only self-taught from a few videos that I've watched recently on music instruction, I shouldn't expect myself to do everything as smoothly and well as the instructor on the video who's had decades of experience. But even so, there's that tinge of questioning -- Could it have gone better? Did the kids deserve better?

One of the girls certainly got into what happened tonight. As my instructional video said to expect, there are kids who just get into music, and there are ones who don't. One of the reasons for children's choir is to develop people with lifelong appreciation and participation in music. That may not necessarily be singing. It could be in some other aspects of music such as percussion, movement or dance, or other things. The secret is to find ways to engage everone.

Another important point made by the instructional video is to set goals. So what are my goals?

For the kids:

1. Teach kids that music is fun (have fun!)
2. Through music, help the kids get to know God
3. Help the kids to make music a lifelong part of their lives
4. Help the kids to become proficient enough in reading music

For myself:

1. Work towards accomplishing above goals
2. Gain experience in dealing with groups of kids
3. Learn how to teach music
4. Learn how to handle energetic young boys (perhaps this should be #1....)

Since I've not had any real experience (except say, with Danny) with active young boys, #4 is going to be a real challenge. My personality tends greatly towards the quiet, sedate, and contemplative, and boys apparently are often on the opposite side of the spectrum.

I can see that this is going to be a huge learning experience for me. It's yet another one of those things that will shove my way outside my tiny, litttle comfort zone and expand my boundaries. It's an experience I get go through only because we are in such a small and closed town. In most any other place, including where we came from, a church would consider starting a children's choir only if the church itself had a sufficient number of children. And it would be an internal ministry to the church family. On the other hand, we started this with no guarantee of attracting kids beyond our two, and not for ourselves, but to provide a place for some of the younger children in town to have a place to sing and learn music.

I'll continue to need all the support I can get. Your words of encouragement and prayers are greatly appreciated.

Sunny day photos

Today happened to be one of the rare, dry and sunny days here. I've learned that the Narrows just outside of our apartment gets the afternoon winter sun about 2 hours prior to sunset before it goes and hides behind the hills about an hour prior. So I went out to capture a few sunny images. It was rather cold though -- around freezing point -- and I discovered that battery life falls off quite dramatically. Fortunately it was about the time I started to think about heading back because I was starting to feel the cold all the way through to my bones.

The duck in flight image was one of the captures that I managed on the low battery after I popped open the battery cover and then put the same battery back in. Doing that sometimes gives me just enough power (fools the camera battery meter) for three or four shots before the camera wises back up and realizes it's been fooled.

Escaping troubles

I received news from our old home that reinforces and builds confidence that we made the right decision to make the move here four months (can you believe that!?) ago, despite the unknowns and uncertainties.

Without going into all the specifics, had we remained, I can see and feel the stress that we would be experiencing. God, in his omniscience, knowing my personality saw fit to remove me from the storms and waves that would have hit me squarely. My personality includes both a golden retriever kind of loyalty as well a pit-bull like tenacity, so that if a huge hole opens up, I feel the need to remain there to fill it until the job is done, even if I'm the only one working, and even when the job seems hopeless.

When we left Portland, there were certainly uncertainties, but things weren't in a red-alert, crisis mode around us. Now it seems like some things down there are. And if I was there, there would be no way we would be making a move here until things settled down -- which could be many more months.

Our original plan was to wait on moving until our house sold... Well, if we had, we would still be there. We would be dealing with various negative emotions. But instead, we are far away, and instead of feeling like treading water, we have a sense that we are starting to make a real difference through our work here.

Now if we could only figure out and see ahead to understand why our house still hasn't sold yet... I believe and trust that God's timing is impeccable, but the waiting is horribly difficult.

A Concert

The Petersburg Arts Council held a fundraising concert tonight. Musical styles ranged from classical to bluegrass. Okay, so it likely wasn't Carnegie Hall, but there are quite a few talented musicians here.

Elise counted the seats in the auditorium, and estimates that it seats about 300. Since the population here is a bit over 3,000, that means that the auditorium seats nearly 10% of the town. In comparison, Portland (just the city) has a population of probably close to 600,000 and once the entire metro area is included, the population balloons to north of 2 million. One of the largest venues in the area, the Rose Garden arena, seats approximately 20,000, or less than 1% of the total population base. It's just an interesting observation.

Sermon, Jan. 20: Adoption and Rebirth

Click on the above title to get to the sermon audio.

Based on John 1:9-13.

When a person receives Jesus as Savior and Lord of his or her life, everything changes. The individual's standing and relationship with God changes. His or her perspective on life, how the world is viewed, and howhe or she relates to the world and the people in it begins to be transformed.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 4

The reading for next week is

• Genesis 37-50
• Proverbs 5-8
• Song of Solomon

Friday happenings

The last few days have been fairly uneventful. That's one reason why you haven't seen more frequent posts -- I haven't had anything particularly interesting to write about.

Shelley had her sixth fiddle lesson this morning. Her playing is becoming more recognizable, she has a number of songs going well, and she is beginning to figure out the fine art of intonation. String instruments are particularly troublesome in this respect because as you might know, you can place your fingers pretty much anywhere on the strings and make a sound. Even if you have the right fingering, it can sound quite off.

I don't have prefect pitch, but I do have a rather precise relative pitch; i.e., given a starting pitch, I can tell you whether or not another pitch is on or off, even if it's just a tiny little bit. (And yes, that means that out-of-tune and off-pitch notes really aggravate me; it's worse than intentional dissonance.) Was I born with this, or did it come from my early string instrument experience, or is it a combination of both? It's just fascinating for me to ponder this as I think back to my earlier years.

Much of my late morning and afternoon was spent in sermon preparation. I'm giving it the title Adoption and Rebirth, based on John 1:9-13.

I received unexpected sad news this evening. The wife of the family living across the street from the church passed away unexpectedly, perhaps from heart attack. They were the family that came to our Christmas service a month ago. I had just spoken to the husband yesterday afternoon as I was heading back home from the church. Everything was fine then, but in just a little over a day the world has changed for the worse for him. I left a message for the pastor of the church that he usually attends to see how we might coordinate any efforts to assist.

Those of us that are still young and healthy don't think much about our lives ending, but if there is one thing that is guaranteed, it is that there is no guarantee as to our future on this earth. It could be a sudden health problem, a freak accident, or some other unexpected event that could quickly end any of our lives. Would I be living any differently if I knew that my life would end today? Would you? If the answer is yes, then perhaps we should be making those changes today, while we still can.

A few more recent photos

Here are a few more recent photos from Petersburg. The fair weather shot is from Jan 7. The two snow photos were captured this morning.

Moving along

Again, just a few tidbits today...

It looks like Elise will be able to get a temporary RN license while awaiting the remaining paperwork and such to go through for the permanent license. The months-long leg of this particular journey is nearing the end -- the end is in sight.

Today I got the children's choir music that I ordered a couple of weeks ago. With the music, I also ordered a "Director's Resource Kit" binder that contains detailed instructions on activities, musical and spiritual lessons associated with each song, and motions and props that can be used. The first "coming together" and "rehearsal" will occur next Tuesday evening. Looking at the materials, I feel a little more confident now that I'm not biting off more than I can chew.

A number of the Alaska public libraries, including ours, is part of an online audio lending library called ListenAlaska. Many of the books have a waiting list, so I've placed a hold on several of them. I was able to check out a history of Impressionism in Paris that was immediately available. It's a 15 hour book. I really don't know whether or not I'll find it interesting.

Amy has been composing poetry over the last few months. To my untrained, poetry-averse eyes and mind, they seem pretty well done. The library is sponsoring an annual Poet Laureate search, and it looks like Amy will be submitting several of her poems into the search. They may be displayed at the library and read during the spring poetry celebration in April. We don't seriously expect Amy to be named the Laureate, but whatever happens, it would be a good experience for her, and maybe get a little bit of recognition...

A little bit here and there

Tonight, it's a whole slew of miscellaneous updates --

Elise is nearly done with the clinical portion of the RN refresher. She goes in tomorrow for a few more hours, and then it's more paperwork to pass around.

How many of you have cats with a sweet tooth? Our big mongrel, Stripey, feels the need to maintain his rather oblong, rubeneseque figure and tries to sneak away cookies, candies, pies, cakes, frosting, whatever is nice and sweet. That is when he isn't chewing on plastic bags for a fit of bulimia. Anyway, Shelley's old gingerbread house (just the roof now) is still around. It was brought down from atop the refridgerator onto the table, and I caught Stripey savoring the wonderful delights contained thereon.

Last week, while I was away, Petersburg got some bitterly cold weather. Apparently this has moved farther down south. I hear that Oregon is now about 15-20 degrees colder than we are. We're getting lots of rain, washing away much of the snow that had built up last week.

I inquired a bit about the woman mentioned in a recent, previous post. She has a history of problems, so simply giving handouts probably isn't the best answer. I'll need to do more thinking and getting some advice from a few other people here to figure out what to do. Giving up shouldn't be an option.

Listening to Garrison Keillor is part of my job -- at least that's my interpretation of what Dr. David Thomas said last week during one of the sessions. He said it's important for pastors to be exposed to different aspects of current culture, and Garrison Keillor was mentioned specifically by name. So I spent several hours today listening to some of the recent broadcasts that are available on archive.

Real Estate activity in Portland has picked up just slightly. There's been itsy, bitsy, teensy, weensy bit of activity on our house. But obviously nowhere near enough because it still for sale. We could lower the price, but at this point it doesn't seem like that would really do anything. I think we're simply going to have to wait some more.

The days are getting longer. It's no longer dark at 3:30 p.m. There's still twilight at 4:00 p.m. As long as it isn't overcast and raining.

I guess that will do it for now.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 3

I just noticed I hadn't posted week 2 -- that was

• Genesis 11:10 - 25:8
• Psalms 61, 62, 66, 67, and 73

For this week the reading is

• Genesis 25:9 - chapter 36
• Proverbs 3
• Psalms 1, 3, and 68-70

Odds and Ends

Have I used the above title already for one of the previous posts? Well, if so, it just goes to show that there's nothing new under the sun (c.f., Eccl. 1).

Last evening, we went to see the movie Eragon. It was the movie of the weekend here in Petersburg. It's also the first movie we've watched here. I know I've previously mentioned how we get one recent movie each weekend (unless the auditorium is being used for some other event). The girls (all three of them) had read the book and wanted to see it.

Do any of you recall watching movies in a high school auditorium? Well, it hasn't changed all that much. The seats are much better -- real, authentic, theater seats. But unlike what one finds inside a cineplex, the atmosphere was -- for lack of a better term -- homey. You're bound to know someone, or many somebodies, in the room. All the kids know pretty much everyone else. So prior to the showing, the place was quite noisy -- lots of conversations, people milling about, walking in and out to get concessions.

The movie itself, well, the reviewers are probably right. It's a case of "ignorance is bliss" (c.f., Eccl. 1 towards the end of the chapter where the Teacher laments that meaninglessness of knowledge). I hadn't read the book, so I had no idea where and how badly the movie deviated from the book. Even then, I thought the whole thing was pretty shallow, dialogue seemed almost contrived and very simple, and the plot not entirely believable. I came away with the impressions that it wasn't very good, but not horrifically bad, and it was sufficiently entertaining. Now for those who were wise and knowledgeable in the ways of Eragon, it might have been like taking in a laxative -- not very good going in, and not very good going... well you know.

This afternoon I went and visited a woman who had written in to It Is Written. I've been trying to visit her since before Christmas, but it was only today that I was finally able to do so.

She is suffering from a number of health issues making it impossible for her to work. She lives on Social Security and lives with her son. There's a friend that comes by to help. With heating and electricity costs skyrocketing, she is finding it very difficult to make ends meet, meaning she often has to do without basic staples. Most of her family cares little for, or is hostile to, spiritual matters.

The skeptical and cynical side of me says that her family really ought to pitch in more to help. Or that maybe she could make some changes to her life in order to free up some cash flow.

And then I'm reminded of the story of the Good Samaritan, and also where Jesus says, "What you do to the least of these... you've done it to Me." And I think of God's grace... God doesn't ask any of us to change before grace is offered. It's because we've received grace that we are able to make any changes.

So it may sound foolish when common sense or conventional wisdom is considered, but I don't think I have a choice -- for whatever reason, God is asking me to help this individual when no one else will. I'll ask around to see if there is any assistance from other places that are available for long-term purposes, but ultimately, it seems God is asking me to be responsible. All I can say is, "Freely I've received, freely I choose to give." And who knows, perhaps I've been called to paint a more accurate picture of Jesus for her family.