New Year's Eve and Happy New Year!

I've gotten my days and nights mixed up. I didn't know it at the time, but it all started Saturday morning when I began to develop a headache. I tried taking a few pills but it didn't help. It stayed with me all day, into the night, and all through the night. It kept me from getting much sleep and it was just as bad in the morning. It may have been worse because all I got done was to unload the dishwasher before I felt too sick to stay upright.

I took a few more pills, and then went back to bed. I must have slept a bit better because it was early afternoon when I finally awoke. The headache was still there, but I was no longer feeling sick.

The problem is that because I slept all yesterday morning, I couldn't sleep well last night. Which just means that I won't have any problems staying awake for midnight to roll around this evening. That is really not a happy thought.

Our landscape has been quite snowy the last several days. It isn't terribly cold, but cold enough (low to mid 30's) to keep the snow around. It was dry all day today and overcast. However, the distant mountains on the mainland were visible (including Devil's Thumb) so the clouds were quite high. The snow covered mountains were highlighted against a deep blue background (rather than the gray clouds).

The only Japanese noodles we are able to get here are somen noodles. This morning I searched the web to look for instructions on making udon. I found some -- from a little bit complicated to really, really complicated. It sounded like an all day affair so I dropped that idea.

But in the process I stumbled across recipes for some of the traditional New Year celebration foods. I spent the afternoon putting together some kuromame, datemaki, and kurikinton. I did not use the rusty nails in the kuromame, and I don't have a cast iron pot, so the beans came out brown, rather than black. The chestnuts for the kurikinton were not of the highest quality. And I had to start with the raw chestnuts -- shell them, and then cook them in sugar. There are no Asian food stores here so no way to purchase pre-packaged chestnuts. And what I had were yams rather than sweet potatoes, so it turned out red rather than yellow. As for the mochi, the only thing I could find in town was a box of mochiko, so I did the best I could with it. It comes out rather soft and mushy. All in all, an approximation of a few of the Japanese New Year's dishes.

As I write, there are just 4 or so hours left in 2007. There are just two more time zones beyond ours, and there isn't much in the way of population in those two time zones. So I think I'm pretty safe in wishing everyone a Happy New Year at this time.

Sermon: A New Thing

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

This last sermon of 2007 is on the topic of God desiring to do new things in the lives of his people.

I brought together four passages in the Bible, the common theme being that of water and the life that it brings. The passages are Exodus 15:22-26, 2 Kings 2:19-22, Isaiah 43:16-21, and John 4:10-15.

Christmas Tales 2007

It's now two days after Christmas -- enough time to recover from all the happenings of Christmas Day. Here are just a few notes from the past few days.

Christmas Eve

Last year, I didn't go out into town on Christmas Eve. This year, I decided that I really should experience Julebukking. The main street was the most crowded I've seen. There was no parking available along the main thoroughfare -- I had to park a whole block up!

My first stop was Rexall Drugs, which every year offers a hot pastrami sandwich. The longest line was at this location. By the time I got there, it was no longer snaking out of the store and onto the sidewalk. It started just at the door. The Oxford Carolers came into the store and performed a couple of numbers. After waiting for some 20 minutes, I secured my sandwich and then walked back to the car to leave it there while I did my rounds at some of the other stores.

I made my way to the Hammer & Wikan hardware store where I sampled deli slices, cheeses, some smoked salmon, and a cookie. From there I went to the Trading Union for more of similar foods. While making my way from one place to another, I once again crossed paths with the Oxford Carolers.

My final stop was at the bookstore on Sing Lee Alley. While sampling their offerings, the carolers came in again, their final stop.

On the way back home, I swung by the home where Amy's new bicycle was being held for the last few weeks.

For supper, I made a Sweet Potato (Yam) and Apple Gratin. The sweetness of the yams and the maple syrup combines nicely with the tartness of the Granny Smith apples. It's a pretty simple recipe and doesn't take very much in the way of preparation. It does bake for about an hour, so you need to make sure that there is plenty of time for that.

In the evening we watched the last three North American Division Christmas specials: All is Bright (2005), Love's Pure Light (2006), and Christmas at Cadillac Jack's. The first one was mostly music set to a storyline. The second year seemed to be more drama, but still quite a bit of music. This year's was a Christmas drama and not really much in the way of music, except in the background. I thought all three were very well done. They are well worth watching, if you get the chance.

After the children had been tucked away, Elise got busy filling their stockings while I got busy installing fenders on Amy's bicycle. I discovered that the fenders that I got were for 26-inch wheels whereas the bicycle uses 700c wheels (slightly larger). The front wasn't a problem, but I had to finesse the back one to make sure the wheel didn't rub the fender. Once they were installed and I got the wheels back onto the bicycle, I discovered that the brakes either had never been adjusted correctly, or in the process of my work had knocked them slightly out. The wheels rubbed against the brakes, so I worked the adjustment screws until they spun freely. With that done, Elise put together a treasure hunt for Amy for in the morning, with the first clue placed in an envelope underneath the tree.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day began at 6 a.m. when the children awoke (or more accurately, were allowed to go downstairs to look for their stockings). After some searching they were found and they pulled out the contents to their delight.

It was not a white Christmas day. It was another of the gray and wet ones.

We had a quick breakfast and then went on to opening all of the presents under the tree. Amy's large gift was the bicycle (the black one). Shelley received a new bedding set, red and black, plus a mirror to mount somewhere on the wall.

Elise received two sets of Corelle dinnerware sets (for a total of 8 settings). The set of dishes and such that we originally started with, 15 years ago at our wedding, has nearly been depleted due to breakage and chipping. So now, we have a new set of matching dinnerware.

I got some books, including a recipe book for chocolate truffles; and a large, wooden cutting board. (Earlier, for my birthday, I got a 8-inch blade kitchen knife.)

Of course, there were many other gifts from numerous others.

Armed with a new knife and cutting board, I put together a Greek Orzo and Spinach Salad for the Christmas dinner to which we were invited. I also baked a small rib roast. Elise, meanwhile, put together some dinner rolls.

We went to the Christmas dinner and spent the remainder of the afternoon there. We returned home in the evening, and Elise went to work. I did a bit of cleaning about the kitchen before heading off early to bed.

White Day After Christmas

The snow came a day late. But because it was warmer, the snow was also quite wet and heavy. It quickly turned into slush, making the roads quite messy. I went out on my bicycle. The snow felt a bit like glue, making the pedaling effort more difficult, and with the ruts in the wet snow, there were times when the bike wanted to go its own way.

Today

The skies were somewhat clear overnight, so the temperatures dropped and all that nasty slush turned into ice.

Photos

Here are a few photos from this past week.

Middle Harbor about a week ago...

Glowing Petersburg Mountain from our front window...

Scenes before the chaos...

After the chaos...

Reader's Theater: A Census Without Sense

The Bible Church held their Christmas program this evening. The drama class and group, Mum's the Word, was a part of this and presented their Reader's Theater drama, A Census Without Sense. It is a Christmas drama set in the little town of Bethlehem...

Click HERE for video (Windows Media Video, 7.1 MB, 8 minutes).

Bible Reading 2007, Week 52

The Bible Reading for the remainder of December is Revelation 2-3, 5-18; Psalm 75; and Malachi 4.

Christmas Greetings 2007

It is hard to believe that we are soon to close out our first full calendar year in Southeast Alaska. Thanks to the many encouraging words and prayers, we’ve made it through.

Earlier this year we didn’t think our house in Oregon would ever sell, but it did, and then a couple of nerve-wracking months (okay, so for those that strictly interpret "couple" as "two," it was a "few" months) later, we were able to move in to a wonderfully old and new home.

Last winter was one of the snowiest winters on record, but we survived. We haven’t seen nearly as much snow so far this winter—we hope it stays that way.

Elise completed her RN re-licensing and is now a valued member of the city medical center staff. Shelley is now taller than Dad (as you might notice in the above photo), and Amy is quickly closing in. They continue to be home-schooled, though not necessarily enjoying every minute of it.

A recent highlight was the community Messiah performance in which both Mark and Shelley sang. Mark also sang the opening solo.

We hope you have a blessed and joyful holiday season.

Sermon: Three Kings

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

This sermon is probably not your typical Christmas sermon. It is taken from Matthew 2, in which King Herod (the Great) is actually the most prominent character.

The sermon discusses the responses of individuals and groups of people mentioned in Matthew 2 to the arrival of Jesus Christ. The application is in regards to the continued presence of "Herods" in the world today.

Snow, Toffee, and a Christmas Party

It's been snowing again. Yesterday saw a couple of inches, and today another couple more. It's been the extremely light, fluffy kind.

The current Sunset magazine has a salted chocolate pecan toffee recipe. It seemed simple enough for even a newbie to candy making to follow, so I thought I would try it out. I thought the pecans were too expensive, and the Costco package was sold out. The next best thing was almonds. I thought they would make an acceptable replacement. There was no way I'd use walnuts. (I don't like them.) So yesterday I toasted the almonds and chopped them up. I measured the sugar and was about to start working with it when I started to read more of the recipe and discovered I'd need a candy thermometer. I also discovered we don't have one, or if we do, I don't know where it is. So I temporarily placed the toffee making on hold.

Last night, I spent a couple of hours creating a composite portrait out of two separate photos. One of our church families recently had their daughter get married. For some reason, the wedding pictures have not yet shown up. They really wanted a Christmas photo with the couple and their daughter, but there just wasn't one. They had photos from their camera and found two images that they thought might work. One was of the groom in outside, bright overcast conditions. The second was the bride and the groom's daughter sitting in the back seat of a car, taken with a flash and the yellowish dome light shining on the bride's hair.

I did a rough cut and paste to see if the composite could be composed in such a way to make it work reasonably well, and it fit surprisingly well together. So I spent the next couple of hours doing a finer cut of the bride and daughter and pasting them on top of the groom, blending the edges, adjusting the color tones, fixing the bride's hair color, matching the overall lighting intensity, etc.. The car seat was gray and so was the groom's tuxedo. That was fortunate because the bride's veil's background and the tuxedo more or less matched in color. At the start I wasn't too sure I could get it to work out, but in the end, I was happy with the result.

The photo story is actually connected with the toffee making story. When asked what I wanted in exchange for the photo work, I replied, "A candy thermometer." And so last night, I was lent one with a permanent one possibly following later.

Earlier today I went out to the church, on my bicycle, with studded tires, on the snow and ice. It's actually not that bad when the snow is fresh and there aren't too many ruts and berms.

Upon returning from the church I resumed the toffee making. I started the sugar and butter mixture in a what I thought was a large enough saucepan. Well, it wasn't. Once the mixture started to boil and froth, I quickly realized I needed a much larger pot. So quickly I transferred it to our largest pot. The problem now though was that the candy thermometer would no longer reach the mixture when it was clipped to the side of the pot. So, donning heavy rubber work gloves, I continued to stir the mixture while holding the thermometer in it.

The rest of the process went as the recipe said it should. I got the toffee poured into the baking sheet, then the chocolate on top of that, and then almonds and salt.

Once done and broken into pieces, I packaged about half of the toffee into a dozen little packages to be given out this Sabbath after church. The rest I am going to have to keep a close eye on and ration to the rest of my family. If left alone, they're going to disappear quite quickly, I'm afraid.

This evening, we hosted a Christmas party for the kids. We had a dozen girls, ranging in age from about 5 to 15. There was English Muffin pizzas, mozzarella fingers, and jalapeno poppers. They played a game of Christmas carol Pictionary, had some ice cream sundaes and banana splits, and then a game of Cranium. The evening concluded with a gift exchange.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 51

This week, the readings are in 1 and 2 Peter; James; Psalms 117-118, 120-123, 125-127.

Mime performance video

Here is the video. It is about 2MB in size in Windows Media Video format.

Amy is the fifth mime to enter, and Shelley is the sixth.

A busy weekend

I think the weekend we just had was the busiest of this season. And I hope it remains the busiest. I don't think I can handle another one like that for another 12 months.

Friday was all about finishing the decorating touches on the church and cleaning up the decorating process that inevitably remains on the floor and tables.

Sabbath morning started out early, getting everything we needed for the brunch and program, and going off to church. Once there we had to get everything set up, and the remaining food cooked and placed on the tables.

We had waffles with strawberry sauce and cream, eggs, fruit, yogurt, bread, cookies, and some turkey. I used about a dozen of the frozen waffles I made earlier and I made another dozen or so more on site.

The worship happened as planned and at the right time. I planned the whole thing to last in the vicinity of 90 minutes and I think it came pretty close to that. As is often the case, our family were the primarily participants, though there were a few more helping to make sure it didn't look like we were the only ones participating.

In spite of all the unknowns and worries I might have harbored, the morning seemed to go well. The kids' singing was well received. Shelley's solo went well, even though we decided that morning to do it and I was basically sight-reading the accompaniment.

From church, we rushed home for our girls to get ready for their drama performances at the library. The library hosts a Christmas program of music and literary arts. Among the performances, there were carols sung by the Oxford Carolers, readings of poetry and short stories, and a Reader's Theatre and mime performances by the drama group.

In the evening, two girls came to stay overnight, and as part of it to bake a cake for their mother and in the morning, go and purchase both birthday and Christmas gifts for her. So Sunday morning, Elise spent a large part of it dealing with our sleep-over guests.

In the meantime, I was reading the video recording of the Sabbath program into the computer for later editing.

Sunday afternoon, the drama group had a mime performance at the museum as part of the Christmas program there. It was similar to the program at the library. I had a video camera this time, so I was able to record the mime performance.

Our new dishwasher was delivered after we returned home. Even though delivery was free, there is no such thing as free or discounted installation and haul-away. So Elise and I spent the next couple of hours trying to get it installed. In past appliance purchases, I never really looked at the installation guide, since it was always done by someone else. I never realized how cryptic the guide can be. There are very few words and mostly diagrams and pictures. For someone who only does this once every few years, if ever, it was like trying to decipher a foreign language.

I discovered we needed a little "L" shaped elbow connector to connect the supply line to the dishwasher. Elise went out to get it. Then we discovered that the part fit the dishwasher, but not the hose. Fortunately, the old dishwasher that we'd taken outside, whose similar connector I thought was frozen onto it, after some yanks with a wrench, did come off. This fit both the dishwasher and the hose and so used it instead of the new part. Even though the supply connection on the new unit was in the opposite corner from the old one, we were able to get the old hose to connect (just barely).

Before I could drill in the securing screws to the cabinet frame, it was time to go to the Christmas dinner and theatre at the Presbyterian church. That was actually quite fortunate because our kitchen was in no shape to prepare dinner.

Elise worked, so after a quick dinner, walked out to the hospital while the rest of us stayed to enjoy dessert and the program. The program was about a number of the characters that did or might have played a part in the original Christmas story coming to talk with the audience about their parts in the story. And by doing so they each introduced a Christmas carol that we then sang.

After we returned home, I finished the dishwasher installation. As far as I can tell, there are no leaks, and I certainly hope it stays that way. The good news is that we now have a dishwasher that matches the other kitchen appliances.

I spent the rest of Sunday evening editing the Sabbath worship video -- cutting out dead space and other uninteresting portions, putting in fades and transitions, putting in DVD markers, etc., and then setting the computer to transcode the video into a DVD file while I slept.

I awoke early this morning and discovered that light snow was once again falling on the landscape. I burned a few copies of the DVD, and then extracted the audio and uploaded that to my web site.

I think things might return to a fairly normal state this week -- though there is a kid's Christmas party occurring on Tuesday evening. Okay, so other than that, this week looks more routine than the last.

Church Christmas Program 2007

(Click HERE for MP3 audio. Length: 1 hour 18 minutes. Size: 10 MB)

Including guests, we had twenty-two in attendance Sabbath morning for our Christmas worship service. The audio recording linked above has been edited to remove the dead space that occurs while participants are coming on and off and parts that don't translate well to a recording. The program graphic above should give you a general idea of what you are hearing on the recording. The middle section contains a smorgasbord of participatory elements of singing, music, and stories.

The recording appears to be mostly intelligible. I wasn't sure how it would turn out since it is taken from the video camera that was sitting at the back corner.

Approaching Christmas

I haven't posted much this week to this blog, simply because there hasn't been much going on. The cold and clear turned to snow and then to ice, and now it's just rain. There's still a bit of ice left, making things slick, but it's mostly back to good ol' Petersburg mud. There's snow in the forecast for next week.

I shoveled the driveway on Monday. I probably didn't need to, but by thinning the snow, it help prevent the snow from turning into ice, and allows the snow to melt away more quickly. Last year, I learned what happens when you don't do that. Last year, the church parking lot turned into one huge sheet of ice that took a very long time to thaw.

Also on Monday, I got around to changing over my bicycle wheels to studded tires. Even so, bicycling in slush is difficult -- a bit like trying to pedal through thick sand and mud.

The girls are in a homeschool drama class. The class is held at a home about 4 miles out. The driveway is quite steep and curved. On Monday, after the snow and then with the rain, it was quite slippery. Going up wasn't too bad, but coming down the driveway, I felt the back end of the pickup sliding out and towards a shallow ditch. Fortunately it stopped and I made it down. As soon as I returned home, I hauled 8 cinder blocks into two moving boxes that I placed into the pickup bed. Elise said that she didn't feel the back end slipping when she went to pick the girls up later in the afternoon.

Our dishwasher went "lights out" again. I tried taking apart the water circulation system to see about the piece that got loose the last time around. Either I couldn't find it, something else is starting to fail, or the part that I thought was the one wasn't it. So it looks like the Christmas present for me this year is a new dishwasher. I'd much rather have gotten a replacement camera body (for the one that is also comatose...) While browsing the limited selection of dishwashers in town, I found a really, really nice cook top, convection oven, and warming oven unit -- for $1600. It has a really big burner that would fit my really big saucepan. Ah, some other time... (or never... sigh...)

Tomorrow is our second annual Christmas brunch followed by our Christmas worship service. We are supplying waffles. I made and froze 30 waffles. In the morning, I plan to make another 20 or so at the church. The frozen ones are for "just in case" more people come than are expected.

We've received quite a number of packages and deliveries this week. I discovered that some retailers' free shipping offers do apply to our address. Some of them must have special arrangements with UPS, because the retail counter rates for 2nd Day Air service (which in reality means it takes about a week to get here) are horrendous (say $40 for a 1 pound package). A great number of online merchants refuse to ship to PO Boxes. UPS or FedEx is the only way to get packages shipped to a street address here.

Amy continues her morning trek out to the hospital to take and deliver coffee orders. Shelley works out at the Trading Union about 3 days a week. And Elise keeps busy with her work at the hospital.

This pretty much wraps up our week.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 50

We are quickly approaching the end of the year.

The readings this week are found in the book of Hebrews, all chapters except 3 and 4.

Next year, 2008, we will be going through the book of Revelation using the new devotional book by Jon Paulien, The Gospel from Patmos.

First real snow of the winter

The snow started this morning, and it's been falling all day. For most of the day, the weather forecast has insisted that accumulation would only be about an inch. Now that there's a few inches on the ground, the forecast has changed to, "Oh by the way, expect 2 to 4 inches."

The air is supposed to warm up this week. It already has up to about 30F. So the snow may be short-lived. I may not have to put my as-yet-unused snow shovel to use quite yet.

The rest of this week was just very cold and dry. Shelley did go out to skate on the large pond at the ball field. Her skates are a bit too tight on her, so after about 30 minutes her feet are too sore to continue. We are looking on e-Bay to see about getting a larger, good, used pair of skates.

I am not a skater. I can propel myself around on the ice, but it isn't very pretty to see. I don't fall, but neither do I glide on the blades. I'm still trying to figure out how to hold my ankles and feet in order to get a better glide without doing so much scraping of the ice.

Our upcoming Sabbath will be our annual Christmas brunch and worship service. This year I'm trying something a little risky -- a worship potluck. In other words, everyone who wants to is invited to bring something to share during the worship time: a song or two, a story, poetry, or perhaps a Christmas memory. There won't be much in the way of pre-planned items or structure -- as the Spirit moves, those who are present will participate. Similar to a potluck of food, where you don't know quite what you'll find or experience, I'm hoping that the worship will be a delightful mix of surprise and discovery.

That doesn't mean I get the week off, however. The few young people we have will be singing a Christmas sketch, I'll need to prepare a few musical items, and perhaps keep a short story or message in the back pocket in case there isn't enough other participation.

Sermon: Season of Blessing

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon looks at Psalm 103 -- a psalm of David in which he extols all of the benefits that God provides to his people.

I think it is quite apropos to the Christmas season -- after all, isn't God giving himself, incarnate in Jesus, (using a cliche) the reason for the season?

The sermon looks at some of the blessings and gifts that God provides, and then discusses what our response ought to be.

Brrr... cold, and a party

It is getting quite cold outside. The outside thermometer is showing about 16 degrees.

Tonight we hosted a retirement party for one of the nurses. We managed to fit a total of 25 people (including a baby) in our house. It was quite packed with people setting up chairs and sitting in the kitchen. It was a potluck dinner. There was so much food that the dining table was full, the buffet/sideboard (which is actually a couch table) was also full, three TV trays had to be set up, and there was still more food that some of it spilled over onto the kitchen counters.

We learned that the city's skating rink (portable rink on the ballfield) was up and running today. Since the forecast is still cold for a few more days, as long as the girls are able to get their schoolwork done and have some time left, they should be able to do some skating. This being outdoors, skating has to be done during daylight hours, which for us now (including twilight) is from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

I've discovered that our backyard has quite a bit of a slope. So my attempts at creating a small rink is not going so well. I'm going to have to rethink tactics to try to see if I can manage something out there this winter. If not, I'll have to try something else next year. I wonder how much it would cost to get a contractor to come out and level out the yard... Probably way too much. Though at the same time that would take care of some of the skunk cabbage growing in the lawn...

Bible Reading 2007, Week 49

The weeks remaining in this year are just a handful. This week the readings are in 1 and 2 Timothy and Philippians.

The Nutcracker in Petersburg

Shelley, Amy, and I went to see the performance of The Nutcracker presented by the local dance studio. It was a full house -- there were only a few isolated seats empty in the auditorium.

The previous two performances that I saw were by the Oregon Ballet Theatre a couple years back, and one performed by the San Francisco Ballet nearly fifteen years ago.

Of the three performances that I recall in my memory, I think by far, tonight's performance was the most, truly enjoyable one. It's almost absurd to compare this with the professional performances, but it's hard not to. When it comes to technical difficulty, precision, and accuracy; and the elaborateness of the costumes and the sets -- there is absolutely no comparison. The million dollar budgets of the professional companies win hands down.

But the absolute love and joy of performing that shows through -- I think that our local company can stand proudly with the world's best.

I didn't think The Nutcracker was supposed to be comedy, but there were certainly places in tonight's performance that elicited laughter from the audience. Most of it, I'm quite sure, was not intentionally that way. But when you've got a bunch of wee little kids (perhaps as young as 3 or 4 years old) as part of the choreography, the unexpected has to be expected. They run when they're supposed to sway, they sway in all different directions, and when going off stage, they forget to take their props with them and so one of them runs back on stage to pick up his prop. Or, how many Nutcracker performances include a dance to the song, O Christmas Tree?

Amy, who in the past has not shown too much enjoyment of ballet type performances, agreed that tonight's was enjoyable. I guess it's the magic and charm of a small town. We know the performers, and we can identify, if just a bit, with them as they perform. Strangely enough, it may be the imperfections that create the "magic."

What wasn't so magical was afterwards, going out to the car (borrowed) to go back home, it wouldn't start. I immediately realized that I had left the lights on. Our own pickup automatically shuts the lights off, and if the switch is left in the "Always On" position, the warning chimes. But the borrowed car has neither, and as habits are (obviously) hard to break, I simply left the lights on.

The other "magic" of the small town is that everything is close by. Elise is working tonight and the hospital is just a block away from where we parked. So we trudged up the hill, got the key from Elise, and drove back. Tomorrow morning when I go to pick up Elise, I'll have to stop by the car and jump start it.

The temperature has dropped into the low 20's. The weather forecast says it will get even colder over the next couple of days. Shelley insists it isn't that cold. She went to church and to The Nutcracker in a knee-length, sleeveless dress. Tonight, she was reluctantly convinced to also wear a jacket.

Our basement is reaching refrigerator temperatures. That isn't actually a good thing, because if it gets into the freezer temperature range, the pipes will start to freeze. So, reluctantly, I fired up the big heater for a few minutes this evening to warm the basement with some of the escaping heat. I'll have more "opportunity" to use this heater tomorrow when we host a retirement party for one of the nurses.

Sermon: Season of Dedication

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon is based on the incident involving Jesus and the Jewish leaders that took place during the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) at the temple in Jerusalem. It is recorded in John 10:22-42.

The primary question in this incident is: Who and what is the Messiah (Christ)? The Jewish leaders want and expect a certain answer. Jesus' response is altogether different -- he is a different kind of Messiah.

During the Christmas season, just now starting, what kind of Messiah or Christ are we desiring and seeking? Is it a worldly, material kind? Or the one that is found in Jesus, the Son of God? What do our words and actions (our works) show to the world who our real Messiah is? Are our claims and our works congruent?

Attempting a backyard skating rink

The "secret project" I mentioned yesterday is a ice skating rink. The girls finally figured it out today. It took Amy a bit longer: she thought it had something to do with a water slide or a slip 'n slide type of thing. I'm not sure where the logic of playing in water in below-freezing temps came from, but that was her explanation until this evening. That's when she went out and discovered that the water had started to freeze.

I found some instructions for building a backyard ice rink. As a first time trial attempt at building one, I decided to stay small and go with a 16'x 32' size. Even then, the slope of the yard is such that I discovered this evening that I'm going to have to install another board on top of the one at the lower elevation in order for the water depth to be sufficient to cover the whole enclosed area. (I wonder what sort of fortune it would take to have a contractor come in and level the backyard...) Fortunately, the previous owners left several hundred dollars' worth of pressure-treated lumber, so building supplies aren't a problem. The only problem is braving the cold to do the building work.

I must be getting better acclimated to the cold, because I was out and about in below-freezing temperatures today with just a light sweatshirt. It was quite dry, so that wasn't a problem. If it was raining or snowing, it would be a different story.

Anyway, I hope that the construction, the filling, and the freezing can all take place before the weather warms up by the middle of next week. It would be nice for Shelley to be able to skate at least one day before it gets too warm and we have to wait for the next cold snap.

Christianity Today Movies on The Golden Compass

Christianity Today posted an article on the soon-to-be-released movie, The Golden Compass, that has been recently generating a considerable number of fear and rumor e-mails as well as blog posts. (The longer blog post by Jeffrey Overstreet from which the article was condensed can be found HERE.)

Here is an excerpt:

Should Christians be afraid of The Golden Compass? Should anybody?

“I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief,” said Philip Pullman, describing his fantasy trilogy to The Washington Post in 2001.

But mercy, no. Let’s not be afraid. Discerning, yes. But not afraid.

Remember all of that hysteria about the movie version of The Da Vinci Code? Christians got all worked up about it… and it turned out to be the most boring movie of the year. In retrospect, our “concern” probably helped the movie become a financial success in spite of how lame it was...

... Do not get hysterical, mount massive boycotts, or behave in ways that the Magisterium in Pullman’s books would behave. You’ll just make Pullman’s stories more persuasive, and you’ll confirm for the culture around us that Christians only really get excited when they’re condemning something.

My own take was similar to Jeffrey Overstreet's comments. Here is the link to my blog post from a month ago.

Some cold weather coming this way

Earlier this afternoon (though when I say "afternoon" in this northern context, it can be getting dark already) while out on the back deck, I slipped and fell on a thin layer of ice that had already formed. Fortunately, no bumps, bruises, or breaks.

Over the next several days, the weather forecast is showing lows dropping into the teens and twenties, and the highs not going above the freezing point. Our first winter cold snap is coming upon us.

Shelley would like to see the city set up an outdoor skating rink. Last year it couldn't be done because there was so much snow that fell before the first really cold weather came in. This year, there is no snow yet on the ground.

I've been busy working on a secret little project that the kids are seeing, but they don't yet know what it is. It involves power tools, with which I share no natural affinity. Can you believe that in my life so far, today was the first time I had ever used a circular saw? But I survived the hideous ordeal and discovered that the way the saw just slices through lumber could be a reason why some people enjoy the likes of this beast...

A busy few days

This past weekend was quite full for us, primarily due to the Messiah performances on Saturday and Sunday.

It all began Friday afternoon at about noon for me. The run-through rehearsal of the performance began at 2 p.m., but since my solo is the very first item after the overture, I had to start warming up my voice around noon. It takes a minimum of one hour (and preferably 1.5 hours) of warming up to get all of the muscles responding and air passages cleared up. So with that done Shelley and I went to the rehearsal. Overall the rehearsal went well.

Immediately afterwards was the city's Christmas tree lighting with a parade. The parade is one in which anyone who wants to participate is welcome. The little kids get glo-sticks and the older ones and adults get candles. With each person bearing a light, we walk from the north end of the city to the center, where the tree is located, about a quarter mile. There was a little proclamation, the tree was lit, the high school band played a few carols, and then we were done. Free hot apple cider was provided.

Sabbath, of course, meant I led out the Sabbath School and had the sermon. We had a quick, though not necessarily light, lunch. I tried to avoid most dairy products which could affect my singing in adverse ways.

Since the performance was at 7 p.m. with all participants gathering at 6 p.m., that meant I began my warm up at 4 p.m. That is enough time to go through about 20 minutes of vocal exercises, and then sing through the all of the choruses we would perform in the Messiah. Shelley and I were dropped off at the auditorium at 6 p.m. We went through some last minute items and then we were off to the first performance.

I felt quite nervous leading up to the solo. But as I began, I calmed down a bit and everything went very well. It was probably the best I had sung this piece. The rest of the performance went quite well also. The auditorium was mostly full, probably around 300-320 in attendance.

Sunday's performance was a matinee, starting at 3 p.m. We were to gather at 2 p.m. so my warm up began at noon. I felt much more relaxed this time -- perhaps too much -- because when I began the solo, I must not have had enough tension or concentration because I squeaked a bit on an E, and then that mistake distracted me and I lost count for a bit at the bottom of the first page. Fortunately that was enough to increase the tension and concentration. I spent the next page making sure I was concentrating and counting, and then the rest went fine.

I think two previous days of hard singing was starting to take its toll on my entire vocal system. My lower back and diaphragm muscles didn't seem to have quite the strength they did the day before. For me, the first half of this afternoon's performance felt so-so. Not bad, but not great. The second half seemed to go much better though.

Following the performance, we had refreshments. Apparently the night before, refreshments had run out. With our church providing some 30+ dozen cookies and some others also providing, there was plenty to go around Sunday afternoon. In fact the remaining cookies were divided into three large platters and we brought one of them home.

Yesterday evening, the appliance repairman came by to look at the dishwasher. After taking it apart, things did not look very good. It looked as if we would be going out today to purchase a replacement. But as luck might have it, when he attempted to tighten what was probably a stripped bolt on the impeller, it managed to catch and he was able to tighten it. I'm running a load right now to see if it properly washes a load.

So that's my tale of the past few days.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 48

This week we are reading through Colossians and Titus.

Sermon: Grace-Thanks-Giving

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

This last Sabbath, we looked at the close relationship between grace, thanks, and giving. We looked at Psalm 49, Luke 12:13-21, and 2 Corinthians 8-9.

Can you really grill a turkey?

Yes you can.

This whole week, whenever I mentioned to someone that I'd be grilling my turkey in a Weber, I'd get questioning looks. Follow up questions often are, "How does it work?" or "How does it turn out?" Elise told me that when she mentioned that to a coworker, she got the response that, "Well, it might work if the turkey is first boiled."

From my experience, grilling a turkey is much easier than roasting it in an indoor oven. All I do is take the thawed turkey, salt it, and then throw it on to the heated grill. I need to add extra charcoal during the process (the grill with the sides that open up for adding charcoal really helps). That's all there is. No basting, no oiling, nothing else. After the set time, double check internal temperature with a meat thermometer, take off the grill, let it rest, then carve. Take the pan drippings out for gravy (though I was too tired yesterday to do this step).

The outside of the turkey ends up resembling jerky -- dry and very flavorful, particularly if you used good, hardwood charcoal. (For this, skip the bargain charcoal and go for quality.) The inside remains tender and juicy. Even if you overcook the turkey some, because the outside cooks to a crisp, it seals in all of the juices and keeps the inside tender.

In my opinion, I prefer how the grilled turkey turns out over over roasted ones.

I'm tired!

I've been on my feet much of the day, cooking up our Thanksgiving dinner. The menu for today was --

Appetizers:

• Tofu stuffed mushrooms (my earlier recipe)
• Baked, creamed spinach with toasted bread strips

Salad with curry vinaigrette, topped with pear (canned) slices and dried currants

Soup: Green soup (a creamed pea soup, Indian style)

Main course:

• Turkey, grilled over coals
• Yam and squash lasagna with black olive butter

Side dishes:

• Bread stuffing (Stove Top boxed) with apples and cranberries
• Green bean casserole
• Mashed red potatoes
• Cranberry sauce

Dessert: Pumpkin pie (purchased, not made)

Drinks: Martinellis

Elise helped out with some of the preparation and put together the green bean casserole. Amy cooked the cranberries to turn it into sauce.

All of the food ended up being enough to probably serve 15-20 people. Hardly a dent was made in the side dishes, and much of the main courses were left to be served another day.

In the middle of the day, our dishwasher started to give up the ghost. I tried to see if it would run one more load, but there just doesn't seem to be enough water pressure through the nozzles. I suspect that the pump might be going out, as something is making strange noises, like it is struggling to operate. So we are back to hand washing all of the dishes. I guess I'll call the city's appliance repair guy and see if this is something that can be fixed, given that the dishwasher is a vintage model. If not, I guess we might be replacing it earlier than I thought.

This being Thanksgiving and the appropriate thing to be thankful in all things, I'm trying to figure out how a malfunctioning dishwasher fits into the giving of thanks...

Links to some Thanksgiving thoughts

Since my sermon will be on the topic of thanksgiving, I thought I'd save my thoughts on it until then and post a couple links to other blog posts on the topic.

• From Faith in Context, Monte Sahlin has a post under the title Thanks Be to God.
• From Lifestream, Wayne Jacobsen has a post under the title Living Thankfully.

(If I come across some others that I enjoy, I'll add them to the above list.)

Doorway booster fan

Elise mom safely arrived here yesterday afternoon. She brought with her a few items that I had ordered and had delivered to her address (saves MUCH on shipping from some online retailers). Some of those items were doorway booster fans to improve air circulation from the area of the heater into the remote areas of the house.

Installation was simple, even for someone like me who finds screws and nails a challenge. The main issue, as some of the reviews note, is that these fans are quite loud. I have two right next to each other at the end of the hallway where two rooms join, so they are probably extra loud. They do come with on/off switches so if you need quiet, it can be had with a flick of a switch.

The big question is: Does it work? My preliminary observation is that it does. The temp in the corner of the living room, prior to installing the fan, had been falling to 55-56 at night. It only fell to about 58-59 last night -- just a degree or two lower than the heater's thermostat seting. And in order to get the room warm enough during the day, I had been using two electric heaters. I removed one of those and the room seems to be getting warmer, just from the one plus the heated air now forced in from the hallway.

Cold, Clear Dawn

It's definitely late fall, early winter here in Petersburg. Today is one of those days when I know why I live here rather than some other place, particularly some bland suburbia.

It's chilly this morning, right around the freezing point, but the light show was something else. Even though I've seen the same thing multiple times in the past, I don't think I'll ever tire seeing the mountain tops appearing to be "on fire" like they did today.

 

A bit more snowfall

Overnight, we got a thin layer of snow on the ground. I bought a snow shovel a few weeks ago. I hope that I don't have to actually use it this year. So I guess you might consider it a sort of a "charm" to keep away the snow...

This being Thanksgiving week, family flying up from Oregon, and the Messiah performances over this coming weekend, it will be quite busy, particularly towards the end of the week. I need to get the bulk of the Sabbath School discussion and sermon preparations done by the end of Tuesday to make sure I'm not pressed for time.

The Ministerial Association has been asked to provide the refreshments for the Messiah concert goers. Our church agreed to provide some of the refreshments for the Sunday performance. So Elise, Amy, and Deloris are busy today, and probably next Sunday, baking cookies.

Through the early hours of the morning, I couldn't figure out why our bedroom temperature was only reading 61F or so. Usually, it would be around 64 or 65. I discovered the reason this morning: Sometime during the night, our downstairs heater unit had overheated and shut itself off. Turning it off and back on fixed the problem, or so I thought. Just a little while ago I saw it shut itself off again, after running for a few hours. I hadn't seen it do this before. The only suspicious item was a folded bath towel placed atop the unit, right above the burner area. I checked all the other things that the operator's manual recommended checking and nothing else seemed to be a problem. I removed the towel, turned the unit back on, and am now waiting to see if the problem recurs.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 47

The total quantity of reading assigned this week is rather short -- perfect for a busy, holiday week.

This week, the readings are in 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Sermon: Will the Real Abundant Life, Please Stand

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

The sermon today comes from John 10:1-21, with an emphasis on vs. 10. This is the verse where Jesus proclaims, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." What is "life abundantly?" How does one get it and for what purpose?

I attempt to provide some possible answers to these questions by taking a look at this passage and this verse in the context of John chapters 7-9 that immediately precede today's passage. My contention is that today's passage is the climax and the summary of the previous three chapters and it is best understood within the context leading up to it. So whatever the abundant life is, it is related to something already provided in John's writings.

Cocoa taste test

The December 2007 issue of Consumer Reports has a small article on cocoa drink/hot chocolate mixes. I noticed that the lowest rated ones are the ones we have in our house.

Just for kicks, I decided to taste test the two that we have and compare it against a custom blend built up from raw cocoa powder. The result was exactly as expected from the article. When compared to the rich, thick, bitter-sweet, chocolatey taste of my custom blend, the mixes were like drinking syrupy sweet, thin, runny, colored water. When I concentrated hard enough, I could almost pick out the chocolate flavor in the mixes.

Elise tells me it isn't really about how close these mixes come to tasting like chocolate. She says it's about comfort and familiarity, and about being nice and warm. For myself, I prefer the chocolate -- as does Shelley. But Amy seems to prefer the mix. She says my blend tastes too much like dark chocolate (and we are not talking about Hershey's Special Dark, which I find much too sweet).

Just when I'm about to give up...

Just when I'm about to give up on my attempts to continue the children's choir due to lack of interest... both in terms of hardly anyone coming, and of those that coming, not showing much interest when they're there... things seem to improve, if just a bit.

For the last couple of months, other than our children (and Shelley works Thursday evenings, so she only comes for the last little bit, when she chooses to do so), it's just been a couple others. They were present in body, but their minds, for the most part, have been elsewhere. So I had been getting more and more discouraged about the whole thing, wondering if my efforts were being swallowed up into a black hole, and if my energies would be better utilized elsewhere.

So tonight, since I hadn't heard from them or anyone else about coming to our choir rehearsal, I kind of let it go. When 7:00 p.m. came and went without a peep from anyone, I figured that no one had come. And then some eight or nine minutes later, I get a call from the church wondering where we were...

In a rush Elise, Amy, and I dashed out the door, into the car, and hurried along at 25 mph towards the church. Once there I was quite surprised to see four girls already there. It took me a several minutes to get my mind into choir mode, but once there, things got better. All the kids seemed to be more into the rehearal, and I could actually hear singing from them.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, so we won't meet again for two weeks. Tonight gave me a little boost in motivation to continue for at least a little bit longer. If the girls that were present tonight continue, we just might have enough to put on the little Christmas musical that we've been working on.

Recipe: Tofu Stuffed Mushroom

Our children went to friends for dinner tonight, so I got to experiment with a dish that only Elise and I would like -- nice, big, juicy mushrooms!

In the past, whenever we'd go out to eat, Elise would find stuffed mushrooms on the menu, but the stuffing usually consists of some sort of seafood or meat. So she'd end up a bit disappointed and have to settle for something else.

I had about 5 oz. of tofu left from some other dish I cooked a few days ago. It was crying out to be used before it spoiled. The idea of stuffed mushrooms came to mind. I browsed a few online recipes to get the general composition of the stuffing material and then went to work.

The final result, even to my tastebuds which clearly know the difference between meat and meatless stuff, was quite acceptable as a replacement for meat-based stuffing. I think the tofu would likely not be recognized by someone just casually popping it in their mouth.

I had some stuffing left after the mushrooms were stuffed, and I had a bit of kale sitting around, so I stir-fried them together (with a bit of lemon juice) to create a second dish.

(I forgot the heavy cream in the original blog post.)

---

Tofu Stuffed Mushrooms

Makes 6 stuffed mushrooms

Ingredients

• 6 fresh, large, white mushrooms with tender stems
• 5 oz. firm tofu
• 1/2 tsp. each dried rosemary, basil, and thyme
• 1/4 tsp. dried sage
• 2 tbsp. olive oil, plus a little extra
• 1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
• 5 oz. yellow onion, chopped very fine
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp. heavy cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Wipe mushroom caps with a clean towel or paper towel. Carefully pluck the stems off of the mushrooms. Slice and discard any woody portions from the stems. Mince the tender stems and set aside.
3. Drain and rinse tofu. Wrap tofu in clean paper towel, place on plate and microwave for about 2 minutes. (This helps remove some of the moisture from the tofu.) Finely chop the tofu and set aside.
4. Place rosemary, basil, thyme, and sage in mortar and with pestle grind into fine powder. Set aside.
5. In a frying pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. When hot, add garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Add onions and saute until tender. Add the mushroom stems, tofu, and bread crumbs and stir to combine. Add the herb mixture, salt, and pepper. Stir. Add cream and stir to combine all ingredients well. Taste for salt. (It should be on the salty side.) Remove stuffing mixture from heat.
6. Lightly oil the bottom of a baking dish or pan. Stuff each mushroom cap with the stuffing mixture, making a small hill, and place into the baking dish. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until mushroom caps are tender. Serve immediately.

A bit of family history

In the Fall 2007 issue (not yet online) of Pacific Union College's Alumni journal, ViewPoint, the text of the commencement address delivered in June 2007 by Dr. Julius Nam, assistant professor of religion at Loma Linda University School of Religion, is published. (The audio of the address is available HERE.)

In the address, he recounts the story of Teruhiko Okohira who came to the United States from Japan, and ended up at Healdsburg College (which later became Pacific Union College). From there Okohira-san, with William Grainger, returned to Japan as missionaries.

Towards the end of the address, Dr. Nam recounts the following:

Third, this story shows how we all are historically, existentially, and organically connected to each other. Let me tell you the rest of the Okohira-Grainger story. Through their work in Tokyo, a young soldier named Hide Kuniya became an Adventist and joined the work of the church. In May of 1904, two Koreans in Japan -- waiting for their ship to Hawaii in a few days' time -- met Kuniya and became Adventists. One went on to Hawaii, but the other returned to Korea. On the ferry back to Korea, the man, Mr. Sohn, met an educated gentleman named Mr. Lim, who became an Adventist by the end of the voyage. Lim established the first Adventist church in Korea and his ministry resulted in a Mr. Kim becoming an Adventist. Kim shared Adventism with another Kim, who introduced Adventism to a Mr. Bon, who became an evangelist and went around Korea preaching the Sabbath and second coming of Jesus -- including to a Mrs. Lee, who passed on Adventism to her three children -- the eldest among them, my mom. So here I stand today because of the uncommon passion and service of Okohira and Grainger.

Hide Kuniya happens to be my great-great-grandfather's brother (am I off by a generation?), one of the first Seventh-day Adventists and an Adventist pastor in Japan.

I just found it interesting to find a bit of family history in a place I wouldn't have expected. So maybe it is a small world, after all.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 46

The Bible Reading for the week of November 11-17 is in Ephesians; Philemon; and Psalms 107-110.

Children's Story: Blind Spots

Props:

• A half-sheet of paper for each person
• Pens or pencils

Outline:

• Introduce the subject of blind spots
• Pass out paper and pens/pencils
• Have each person draw a large dot on the left and an "X" about 3 inches to the right
• Have each person hold the sheet of paper out at arm's length
• Have each person close their left eye, and then with the right eye look at the left dot
• Slowly move the paper in toward the face
• At some point, the "X" should disappear, and then reappear as the paper is moved closer in
• Talk about the fact that we all are born with physical blind spots (due to the optical nerve connection, no light receptors are present at that point, resulting in the blind spot)
• Switch gears a bit and discuss blind spots as they relate to driving
• Start with walking and how there really aren't any blind spots because it is easy to turn around and see everything behind
• Move up to a bicycle and observe that it is still relatively easy to look all around
• Now move to a small car and all of sudden, there are areas which cannot be seen no matter how hard one turns about and regardless of how well the mirrors are adjusted
• Move to a large pickup/van, an 18-wheeler -- the blind spots get bigger and bigger
• Relate these ideas to the concept that as a person becomes more self-absorbed, self-centered, selfish, and proud, the box they live in become bigger and bigger, and their blind spots bigger and bigger
• As the spiritual blind spots get bigger, it becomes more difficult to see the needs of the world and its people, and a person becomes less and less loving and caring, and consequently less and less useful to God
• The Bible doesn't say anything about God or Jesus riding with us in chariots (since cars and such hadn't been developed yet), but has a lot to say about walking with him.
• (Perhaps a bit too much of reading something into the Bible, but hey...) Maybe that's because God wants to remove the blind spots that plague us and the only way to do that is to slow us down and make us travel at a pace and in a mode where we are fully aware of the world around us.

Sermon: Am I Also Blind?

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon is based on John 9. This is the story of the blind man from birth whose sight is restored by Jesus.

This sermon discusses the relationship of blindness to a person's response to Jesus and what he says and does.

Sermon: Two Great Sinners

(Click HERE to listen to MP3 sermon audio.)

(The web hosting provider that hosts my sermon audio files has been moving their servers over the weekend. That's why this is being posted today and why if anyone has tried to access audio over the weekend, it wasn't working.)

I started the voice recorder about a minute into the sermon. What happened before the recording starts is I asked a couple of questions: Have you ever been misunderstood? Have you ever misunderstood someone? And then I gave a couple of examples of cross-cultural misunderstandings. Where the recording starts, I'm struggling to find some other examples -- which is why you hear a lot of long pauses.

The sermon itself is based on Luke 7:36-50. This is the story of the sinful woman who washes, kisses, and anoints Jesus' feet during a dinner at a Pharisee's (Simon) house.

I discuss some of the cultural nuances I learned about this story from reading Kenneth Bailey's Through Peasant Eyes. These details help explain and amplify the significance of the woman's actions and the contrast between her and Simon. It also helps show Jesus was quite a counter-cultural person.

The message brought out in the sermon is nothing new. My reason for speaking on this topic is to present a relatively familiar story in a fresh light to discover some motifs that we might have missed earlier. And by doing so to find new ways to incorporate the messages of the story into our daily lives.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 45

This week we will be reading through 1 and 2 Corinthians.

Recipe: Navy Bean Chowder

Today was one of those "happy accident" days. I was looking around trying to figure out how to prepare some dry navy beans that I had purchased. I found a recipe that gave me some inspiration. I did some major alterations to it, and then I overcooked the beans so that it was too mushy to be useful as a side dish item. But hey, it looked like it could be turned into decent soup... which is what I did.

---

Makes about 4 cups
Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups dry navy beans
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp. each dried thyme, rosemary, and basil
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• Salt (1/2 to 1 tbsp.) and ground white pepper (1/2 - 1 tsp.) to taste

Instructions

1. Soak dry beans according to bag directions. Drain and rinse.
2. Place beans into a medium pot, fill with water so that beans are covered by 2-inches of water on top. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 30 to 60 minutes until slightly less than desired tenderness is reached.
3. While the beans are cooking in step 2, chop onion and mince garlic (or use garlic press). In a mortar and pestle, finely grind thyme, rosemary, and basil.
4. When ready, place chopped onions, minced garlic, and ground spices into pot. Stir to mix, bring back to slight boil, then cover and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.
5. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking liquid and drain the rest. Place beans and reserved liquid back into the pot, and add 1/2 cup of heavy cream, butter, and olive oil. Stir to mix and bring to boil on medium heat, then simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 5 more minutes.

Time change snafus and such

I woke up this morning and as I normally so, wonder what the time is. Now earlier, Elise's alarm had gone off (presumably at 5:30 a.m.) because she works today. My alarm had gone off at 6:30 a.m. (again, presumably), because I like to be up and about by 7 a.m.

So when I started to reach for the clock, I suddenly realized that the time had changed from Daylight Savings to Standard Time during the night. I looked at my clock (which gets its time from the atomic clock radio signal) and it was off by 2 hours. Elise's clock still read the old DST time.

I finally gathered that it was actually about 6:30 a.m. I wondered if Elise had figured out the change. Since she was no longer in the house, I assumed she had gone off to work an hour early. Just a little while ago, she called and part of the conversation was that indeed, she had gone in early... as did the other day shift nurse. So the night shift nurses got to go off work early this morning.

I've never been a fan of DST. I've always thought it was a dumb idea and couldn't figure out why it was supposed to "save energy." I got part of an answer in Friday's WSJ column. The whole exercise is based on stale data and assumptions that have likely changed since the research was last done over 3 decades ago.

This year was particularly annoying because of the extra 4 weeks of DST -- 3 weeks in the spring, and 1 week in the fall. Quite a bit of time-based electronics (such as VCRs) are hard-wired in their DST changes and the VCR at our church missed recording a program because it changed the time back one week early this year. I have a sneaky suspicion this wasn't the only unit that experienced this particular snafu.

We are having a bit of dry-ish days here. The constant, heavy rains over two weeks resulted in quite a bit of water to seep up into parts of our basement. That is now finally receding with the help of the dehumidifier that runs 24/7.

All of us are suffering, to varying degrees, the cold that was gifted to us a week ago. It feels like I'm over the worst of it, which was nowhere near what our girls experienced. They had some nasty coughts, but I haven't had that and hopefully will not.

I don't like upgrading PCs

Yesterday, I was forced into upgrading our oldest desktop PC. For quite a while now, whenever we'd try to start it up, the boot process failed early and it would try to boot up from the floppy drive. I tried changing the CMOS battery but it didn't make a difference. The thing has been getting progressively worse. It used to only take a dozen or so startup attempts before it would recognize that there was a bootable hard drive and boot up. Lately it was getting to 20 and 30 tries. Yesterday, it exceeded those numbers and I finally decided to bite the bullet and do a motherboard upgrade.

In anticipation of having to do this, I had a case and power supply brought up some months ago. Because I've always found motherboard replacements to be so unpredictable in what happens to the operating system, I was holding off on this upgrade as long as I possibly could.

The hardware part of the upgrade was actually quite painless. The instructions for the case were pretty good, and the diagrams in the motherboard manuals were also quite good. I got everything hooked up, the CPU and heat sink installed, the video card installed, and was amazed that when powered up, the boot screen appeared. (I've had more than one instance in the past where the initial power-on did not succeed, for various reasons.)

Then the troubles started. I moved the hard drive from the old PC to the new. I also moved the CD-RW drive over. I booted the computer again, and Windows actually came up. It started encountering new hardware and asked for driver disks. Uh, oh... I had forgotten plug in the CD-RW power cable... I shut Windows down so I could plug it in...

That done I booted up -- and Windows almost started. Right before the login window, it popped up an error about the Registry having problems flushing its writes, etc. Ha! I've written error messages like that before in software I've worked on. It's one of those error messages that really says, "I haven't a clue what went wrong, but something did, and I can't continue," but in more technical terms. I searched the web for a solutions but couldn't find any. So I went to bed, annoyed and frustrated at being so close, yet so far.

This morning I started working on it again. This OS, being an upgrade from Windows ME many years ago (though the drive is only a few years old, having had to replace it at one point), the main file system was still FAT32. I'll get back to this in a little while.

I first tried a repair install of Windows XP, but I couldn't even use that option because the OS partition didn't have enough free space left. I then tried the Recovery Console to attempt to salvage the Registry files. That too, was not successful. I tried to install an upgrade of Windows Vista, but the upgrade I have requires the upgrade to be started from within Windows XP... Catch-22!

I'm sure I tried a few other things. Oh, and in the process of all this, Windows activation expired. Normally when major hardware changes are made, the OS gives you 3 days to re-activate. My mucking with trying to recover the Registry and such caused an immediate activation. I was not able to activate at startup because, as I later suspected, I have a web filtering program that requires sign-on before it allows Internet connectivity. If activation is required before applications start, but an application is needed before activation can access the Internet... Another Catch-22.

Throughout all this, Windows would occasionally boot up. That's how I encountered the immediate activation requirement. I finally used the phone to call in the activation, and that was successful. I still didn't have much hope for Windows to successfully boot up consistently.

But I decided, what the heck, I'll convert the FAT32 partitions to NTFS (because NTFS is more reliable) and see what happens. Of course that requires a restart. So I did that and went away to let the conversion happen.

After quite some time, Shelley informed me that something was happening on the PC. I looked and the restart worked and Windows was at the login screen. Well, maybe the darn thing is really working, I thought.

There were numerous updates that had to be applied, and some of them required restarts. And what do you know? The computer has been working now without error.

Adding up the time, I think I spent a good 7 hours on this upgrade. Which is why I was holding off on it, and which is why I don't like performing major computer surgery. And no, I still have no idea why it didn't work last night and it is working this afternoon.

Some thoughts on The Golden Compass

A couple of months ago, one of the pastors in town brought attention to a movie, The Golden Compass, coming out in December. It is based on a book of the same title, first the His Dark Materials trilogy.

At that time, I decided to find out for myself what Philip Pullman, the author, really wrote. When something can be of such controversial nature as this book trilogy and movie are, I believe it is important to not place too much faith on information from other sources (which are far too often biased in one extreme or another). I checked out all three volumes and read through them, in the span of around 15 hours.

I bring this up again because today, I received an e-mail (a forward of a forward) from the Alaska Conference regarding the upcoming movie release. In the forwarded section of the e-mail, a reference was made to The Golden Compass being anti-Narnia and also it about being "killing God."

Mr. Pullman, in interviews and in his own essays, has voiced his disdain for C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. However, to leap from that to saying that his trilogy is anti-Narnia seems a difficult logical leap... I suppose one can say it is anti-Narnia because Narnia is based on the presupposition that divinity exists and the supernatural is at work, whereas Pullman's work presupposes only naturalism (as any good atheist would).

In regards to "killing God," if God was really like the god described by the trilogy, and if religion was really like what it depicted in the books, I would be an atheist and anti-religion also. In my opinion, the trilogy isn't about killing God or gods... Based on the presupposition that God and gods don't exist anyway, it's about putting away the notion that divinity exists.

If Christians believe that this world was created and is sustained by God, Pullman believes that science (naturalism) can and will eventually explain everything. If Christians have faith in God's workings, Pullman places his faith in the workings of science and nature.It's just the object of faith that is different. Just as Christians seek to understand more the object of their faith, the characters in Pullman's work also tries to understand better their objects of faith. In this respect, my opinion is that the trilogy is very much about the need for humans to have faith in something. For Pullman, again, it is naturalism.

Another major criticism laid against Pullman, the trilogy, and the movie is that it is anti-Christian, and particularly anti-Catholic. I'll agree that it can easily be interpreted that way. But primarily, Pullman is writing a polemic against religion's abuses and about how (religious) systems seek to serve and protect itself. Throughout the trilogy I found myself nodding in agreement with Pullman's criticisms of religion, religious systems, and one of their specific examples: Christianity. Catholicism, being the largest, most visible, and having the longest history in Christianity, naturally bears the brunt of criticisms. It's not that the Catholic church is necessary worse than any other religious system -- it's one that is most easily identified and criticized.

One final point to consider before moving on to how I think Christians ought to respond...

Some of the online criticisms I've read note that Pullman is trying to "evangelize" children into atheism. That may be true. And if so I believe he has as much right as anyone else to try to "evangelize." If the Christian belief system is so fragile that it cannot withstand the assaults of atheism, then Christianity has no business claiming to be a worldview, let alone claiming to be the best.

I don't ever recall Jesus asking his disciples to go into all the world and "defend me and the Father." What I see recorded in the Bible is Jesus saying, "Go into all the world and speak the truth about me -- speak about how I've changed your life." I'm reminded also of Daniel 3 -- the story of the three Jews in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace on the plains of Dura. Their response was basically the same: Nebuchadnezzar, your challenge is against our God. We don't need to defend him. He is powerful enough to defend himself. But even if he chooses not to, we will remain loyal to him.

I think what I mentioned in the previous paragraph should inform and shape our response as Christians. If we react impulsively (and in fear)against the movie and the trilogy, we only prove the author (and other atheists) correct in their arguments that Christians (and other people of faith) are narrow-minded, judgmental, opposed to freedom of information and choice, controlling, seek to quash anything that threatens their beliefs, etc.

My opinion is that Christians should use incidents and works of this nature to inform us, to instruct us where we might deserve criticism, and to open dialogue with those who might think differently. We should use these opportunities to humbly admit that we as individual Christians have failed to live up to Christ's standard, that we as a group (the Church) have also failed to live up to Christ's standard. And then we should try to direct the conversation to the ideal of love.

Underneath all that Pullman writes in the trilogy, the main theme is the importance of love and compassion. (This comes through in the third book, at least in my mind.) I don't know if what he writes is his personal belief, but I read somewhere regarding authors of novels that they are revealing their inner self in their works. If that is true, then Pullman wants to believe that the universe runs on love and compassion. When these are violated, the universe falls apart. This is common ground that true Christ-followers share with Pullman, and perhaps many other atheists. Rather than attacking and criticizing them, this can be a starting point for further conversations.

An interesting additional point, particularly for Seventh-day Adventists is in regards to the Christian beliefs of the body, soul, and spirit. Many Christians believe in these three being distinct and, as the teachings about the spirit going to heaven right after death show, the implication is that each can survive separately. The first book in the trilogy takes this doctrine to its logical conclusion. If the body is evil and the soul is good, why not actively bring about their separation? (Where the spirit goes is addressed in the second book.)

Adventist Christians (most -- I leave room for those that don't) believe in the wholism of the person -- that the soul described in the Bible consists of both the body and breath of life (spirit) -- that one cannot be separated from another, and together form the living entity that we call soul. As soon as one element disappears, all cease their existence, except in the mind of God. In a backwards way, Pullman's work shows the absurdity of believing in the idea of separate body, soul, and spirit; and affirms the Adventist belief on this matter.

I end this series of thoughts on The Golden Compass with the warning I began: If you are going to discuss this topic with someone, I encourage you to personally and carefully examine the primary materials (i.e., all three books of the His Dark Materials trilogy) and reach your own conclusions. Depending on hearsay (or hearsay of a hearsay) will undermine your own credibility and the credibility of Christians in general. (And that goes for using my thoughts here. These are meant to encourage you to examine the work for yourself.)

Halloween visitors

Since today is November 1, yesterday must have been Halloween. When we moved into this house, we were warned to have plenty of candy available on Halloween. The street on which we live is one of the traditional trick-or-treating avenues. This being Petersburg (which means it's usually wet), most of the kids get driven from one section of the street to another, where they pile out, knock on the four or five doors about, get their treats, then pile back in and drive a few more yards down.

We lit a few candles in the windows, and turned down the lights to give a bit of ambience. I didn't keep count, but my guess is that we probably had around 50-60 youngsters, from tots to teens, visit us last night. The city sets an official trick-or-treating period of 2 hours, from 6 to 8 p.m. During that time, homes that are giving treats out are to turn on the porch light. That is really convenient for everyone because it means that those who don't want to participate don't have to, and those that do know when to start and when to cut off.

Elise's mom called during that time and we were reminded of how different things were back in the Portland area. I recall that there wasn't much in the way of trick-or-treating by small children anymore. Most of them were taken to shopping malls to go around the different stores to collect their goodies. Those that came around to houses were typically those within the neighborhood. Older kids might come around, but they weren't really dressed up.

Here, Halloween is still similar to what I recall from my kid days. It still has an innocent fun and a community feeling to it. (The bars have parties for adults.) Our kids were down with nasty colds, so they stayed home last night.

Gift of Colds

Grandpa Tom and Danny came last Thursday and left yesterday. It was wet the entire time. But they and Amy spent quite a bit of time wandering about outdoors, getting wet and muddy (and cold...)

While here, Grandpa Tom developed a cold. (I think it came from the Lower 48... Someone forgot to quarantine it...) Anyway, Amy is down and out with it today; and Shelley is also starting to feel it.

Since I know I've been exposed to this bug, the question now is a matter of if I come down with symptoms, and if I do, how long and severe it will be. I've been using Zicam Oral Spray in hopes that it will reduce both the length and severity.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 44

This week we are reading through Romans and Psalms 96-101.

Sermon: Righteousness and Mercy

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon comes from Daniel 4. This is the story of (actually a proclamation by) Nebuchadnezzar about his dream of a great tree and his humbling experience.

The scripture reading was Matthew 5:7, and the key text within the sermon was Daniel 4:27.

In this sermon I explore a possible response to the question, "What kind of worship does God want from us?"

In attempting to find a response, I explore several related areas:

• What does it mean to "not sin" or "stop sinning?"
• What is righteousness?
• What is true conversion?

Responses to these questions help provide a response to the main question. (Hint: I end the sermon with Micah 6:8 which I find to be an apt summary of Daniel 4.)

Morning Snow Pics

As dawn breaks across the landscape, here's what I saw. (Our front windows face the northwest.)

"No Accumulation?"

Here's the current short-term forecast (emphasis mine):

Nowcast as of 9:00 PM ADT on October 23, 2007 Now Rain mixed with snow tonight. No accumulation expected. Patchy fog forming by midnight. Visibility decreasing to less than 2 miles at time. Wind variable with gusts to 20 mph becoming northwest 10 to 20 mph around midnight.

 

The forecast gets it wrong again! I don't know what you see, but I see accumulation... Maybe it won't stay long, but it's there.

I had been reading and had just turned out all the lights. The thought crossed my mind: I wonder what happened to the snowfall? Even though the blinds are all down, there is some light (from the streetlight) that comes through around the edges. And they sure seemed brighter than usual. I peeked around the blind at the head of the bed (to the backyard -- no lights) and I could see the lawn... or what used to be lawn (okay, there's a lot of moss, too). It was of a much lighter color.

I got up to take a look at the front of the house... Yup, snow. I walked into Amy's bedroom (has the best view out) and could definitely see snow blanketing the landscape. And of course I couldn't just let it go and try to go to sleep without first recording it. So here you have it.

Checking my blog records, the first snow like this in 2006 was November 5. If the city was hoping for a less severe winter, tonight is not a good omen of the winter to come...

Winter approaches Is Here

Just now, while driving about I noticed that some of the raindrops falling onto the windshield wasn't quite smooth. They looked downright slushy... Not very many, but a few. Autumn is quickly making way for winter. Everyone here is hoping that this winter won't be nearly as snowy as last.

Well, the occasional slush has turned into actual snow tonight. It's very wet and mixed with rain so it isn't sticking. (Except for a bit of slush coating the roof surface.) But we are seeing the first snowfall of the season in October. I just checked my blogs from last year and this year the first snow is a week earlier. Last year, I noted that the first snowflakes were seen on October 30.

Stormy Day (video)

The wind has picked up even more. I don't know if there's been a more windy day than today since we've been here.

Click HERE to download a 26 sec. Windows Media video clip of the trees violently swaying in our backyard.

Stormy day

Yesterday was dry, very clear and cold. It all changed by this morning. Today it is still chilly (thought not quite as cold), but very windy and quite wet. There is a wind advisory posted for the remainder of the day, and for good reason. The Narrows are very choppy with whitecaps where it joins the Sound.

Yesterday, when we were out walking, Shelley decided it was warm enough to be out in a sleeveless shirt. The thermometer read 40F. And then later, back inside, she is wearing a jacket. She says it's all about expectations -- since she expects it to be cold outside, it doesn't actually feel that cold. It's supposed to be warm inside, but it isn't, so it feels cold. I'm not quite sure what to make of this...

Elise is on her way to Anchorage today to attend an Alaska nurses' convention. I'm sure the weather will make the flight quite interesting (and not in a good way).

A doe and her fawn (no spots anymore) have been lazily strolling and resting in our yard, feeding on various plant bits. The salmonberry canes are dying off for the winter. The skunk cabbage leaves have all died off and are quickly rotting away. The huge fern leaves are also dead and brown, though being of harder material, they don't decompose quite so quickly. Nearly all the deciduous trees have shed all their leaves.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 43

This week's readings are in the book of Acts. (Chapter 7 was read during week 10.)