Yesterday afternoon we drove out to Blind Slough for lunch and the afternoon. It was a very warm day – over 70F degrees. One of the summer traditions in Petersburg for many people is jumping off the bridge that crosses over the slough.
Shelley had jumped off a number of times in years past, but Amy never had (and neither has Elise or I). With great trepidation Amy leapt off, but after that first jump she proceeded to jump off nine more times. Elise joined in one of the jumps.
Over at the Spectrum blog an article was recently posted, Citing Apostasy, Michigan Conference Removes La Sierra University From Employee Subsidy.
I am not going to debate or opine whether or not they have or don’t have the right to do that, nor whether they were right or wrong in doing so. I am going to discuss a possible unintended consequence of the action.
For probably as long as the denomination has existed in an organized fashion, I’m sure people have questioned actions of its organizations and leaders. One of the few ways in which ordinary, individual members have any say is through tithes. Of course any church member knows the official position on the giving of tithe: The Conference is the “storehouse” and it is mandatory for members to give tithe to the Conference. All of us know that this has been disregarded throughout history, in greater or lesser numbers; perhaps greater in more recent years.
What the action of the Michigan Conference does is grant official legitimacy to withholding promised funds in order to express displeasure towards and to attempt to coerce change from an official denominational entity. It sets an official precedent that monetary means may be used by one church entity against another. It provides justification for all the members and churches in the past, present, and future who don’t approve of official policies and actions to withhold tithes and offerings.
The temperatures today rose into the 70’s and provided for a sunny, hot day. This is supposed to continue for one more day and then clouds are coming in and cooling down again.
I spent a bit of the morning washing our pickup truck. I can’t recall the last time it was done, so I’m pretty sure it’s been at least a year – maybe longer. The dirt around some of the lower panels are so encrusted that I don’t think it will every truly come off.
While washing the car the base of the wash wand that I was using (has a brush and nozzle combined) popped out and it would no longer stay in properly so I ended up using just the brush portion to scrub the vehicle. I tried to put it in but after it popped out again and I got one side of me all wet, I decided that I would not try that again. After the wash I took a look at it and if I push it all the way back in, it may stay in.
Also, the faucet handle broke apart in the middle of the wash while I was fighting the wand. It looks like I have a bit of plumbing work to do.
Today was nice beside the water. The breeze wasn’t too strong but there was enough for it to be cooling. Yesterday the breeze was quite strong and cold. Even so I spent a couple of hours out there fishing, even though it didn’t look very promising at all. I was right: I hooked two but didn’t actually catch anything.
Today was a different story. The waters were much calmer and I caught a couple small fish that I released. While releasing one of them, it decided to poop all over one pant leg – my nice clean jeans. I was just about to call it quits for the day and cast out one more time. I felt a strong tug then the line going away. I tightened the reel and began pulling and reeling. It was a good strong fight and in the end I landed another 18.5 inch Dolly.
I have lots of fish in the refrigerator now: 9 Dollies in the freezer, 1 in the refrigerator, and also in the freezer a small king salmon that one of our church friends brought over yesterday. I also have leftover fish curry that I made yesterday from three Dolly Vardens.
After two weeks of daily consumption of salted and fire grilled fish, not too surprisingly I was starting to get a little tired of it. It was time to move on to some different preparations.
This evening I put together a simple marinade/sauce of vegetable oil, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and lime juice. I placed the fish on a large piece of heavy-duty foil, sliced a few vertical incisions into the sides, then brushed the sauce on the inside and outside of the fish. I closed up the foil tightly around the fish and baked it in the oven at 425F for about 30 minutes.
The result was quite good. I finished one side of the fish this evening. As I took the other side off of the bones, placed the pieces in a different container, and poured the remaining sauce on top of them, I realized this was actually a fish curry of sorts. This may not be the usual way to cook curry, but it might be a good way to make curry out of a whole fish. It’s much easier to pull the flesh off the bones after it’s cooked. I still have more fish already in the refrigerator and freezer, and I’m sure I’ll be catching more so I have plenty of supplies with which to experiment.
I didn’t get very many bites, but the one I did get broke my previous personal best. The big one pictured is 18.5 inches and weighed in a 2 pounds. All of these were caught with various Kastmaster lures; the largest one with the biggest lure that I have – a 10 oz one.
The homeschool art class got together this evening to show off their projects they had worked on during the last several months and to sample foods from different cultures and/or eras. There were foods from Germany, the 1920’s USA, the Civil War, Spain, etc. Amy selected Japanese for our family.
I started some of the work yesterday, preparing sweet red bean paste (粒アン) and a salad in sweet vinegar (酢の物). For the salad I went out to the beach and foraged some sea lettuce. Although it comes from a different family of algae, it seemed close enough in texture to wakame (わかめ), a type of kelp.
This morning I started preparing sweet black beans (黒豆) at 5 a.m. I went out to fish at 6 a.m. and caught the two Dollies as reported earlier. After spending some time with the ministers in town, I returned home and resumed work on dinner.
I continued with making daifuku (大福) – mochi (though I used sweet rice flour) wrapped around the sweet red bean paste. I marinated some tofu for frying later in the afternoon. I cooked some carrots, eggs, and shiitake mushrooms to use in sushi. I cooked the rice (or rather, I washed the rice and the rice cooker cooked the rice). I prepared a spicy miso sauce to go over the tofu, and also chopped some green onions to go on top of that. I fried the tofu and set it aside for the assembly to be completed right before dinner.
While starting to take a brief breather, Shelley called and said she needed her costume for a play right now. So I tried to start the car, and it wouldn’t. I called Elise, she came over, picked up Amy and the costume, and left. Elise brought home some daikon and romaine lettuce. I shredded the daikon for use as a bed for a grilled fish, then shredded some carrots to use as accents. I went out and picked some dandelion blossoms, also to be used as decoration.
I got the sushi seasonings mixed into the rice and Elise went to work stuffing inari sushi. I put together futo-maki sushi after she finished her part.
I got the outdoor grill fired up and the fish salted and oiled. Then it went onto the grill and cooked nicely. When done it was placed on a platter with a bed of romaine lettuce and the shredded daikon on top of that. The carrots and dandelion blossoms would be arranged at location.
While this was going on, Amy was getting her kimono on and Shelley trying to get the obi tied properly. In the end, it probably didn’t get done quite right (Shelley wasn’t happy with it) but I don’t think anyone noticed that it wasn’t right.
We went to the Bible Church and set everything up, putting in the finishing touches. There was quite a crowd present. The children (and a few adults) were dressed up in cultural and period clothing. The food and company was good and a pleasant evening was had by all.
I awoke before 5 a.m. this morning and after doing a few things headed out with fishing rod at around 6 a.m. It was off and on sprinkle and drizzle, but not bad enough to turn back.
As I approached the water I could see fish jumping about all over the place. During the next hour I caught two, large Dollies. Both gave a great fight and was certainly worth the time I spent. The biggest one measured about 17-1/2 inches and weighed in a 1 lb. 10 oz.
I’m just curious why, with all the fish jumping about, these were the only two that bit… Ah well, that’s okay. The two that I got are nice and big. Especially in the larger one you can see the family resemblance to salmon (Dollies are in the same family as salmon).
Today was one of the main days of the four-day long Little Norway festival. This year marks the 100th year of Petersburg. Below are some of the sights on Main Street this afternoon.
I purchased a few new lures today and tried one out. It was a small-ish Kastmaster lure with a red stripe down one side. The result? I landed eight fish, but one came off the hook and escaped as I made a frantic effort to chase it down the beach, and another one was just too small to keep. In the end I came home with six fish.
While out there, a whole flock of bald eagles landed on the beach (apparently finding some edible stuff) not too far from me. I could swear some of them were eyeing the fish that I had caught as they flew above me. The photo below shows just three of them since most of them decided to fly up while I had the camera out.
I went out fishing for about an hour and a half today and caught what you see in the photo. The largest one there is 16 inches and 1.5 pounds. It was a nice, fat one. Today was the first time I caught more than one during a single outing. I have almost a week’s worth of fish now, unless I share them with someone :)
I came across this passage in my devotionals today:
Therefore, since we have this ministry, just as God has shown us mercy, we do not become discouraged. But we have rejected shameful hidden deeds, not behaving with deceptiveness or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God. (2 Cor. 4:1-2 NET)
Secrecy and manipulation is unbecoming (and according to this passage, is sin) of those who could call themselves Christians and of those who claim to work for the church.
Instead Christians ought to be more transparent, more open, allowing other Christians their freedom to act according to their conscience and as the Holy Spirit directs.
Today’s psalm is Psalm 94. It is very apropos for what I am currently feeling.
O Lord, the God who avenges! O God who avenges, reveal your splendor! Rise up, O judge of the earth! Pay back the proud…! He will pay them back for their sin. He will destroy them because of their evil; the Lord our God will destroy them.
Since late March I’ve been going down the block to see if any fish were out in the waters yet. I didn’t see any signs of them until yesterday afternoon when I saw schools of fish jumping about, but I didn’t catch anything.
This morning I changed the lure from a colorful spinner to a basic, metallic spoon. I went out and on my third cast caught my biggest Dolly so far – 17 inches long and 19 oz. I don’t have a pan big enough to fry it in, so I’ll have to either fire up the outside grill, or broil it in the oven.
I will be participating in the annual Blessing of the Fleet this afternoon. I hope the weather holds out for that. The forecast is rain, and the service is typically held outside.
Today marks over a week of continuous sunshine at this rainforest island. The temperature is in the lower 50s. I finally took down my bike for a spin out the road and back – about 1-1/2 hours. I caught a cold late last week and hadn’t felt completely well until today.
Shelley has been in Haines since the beginning of the week at ArtFest, a gathering of Southeast art teachers and students to learn about making different kinds of art. She is on her way back now and will arrive very early tomorrow morning.
This Saturday the Medical Center is hosting a Health Fair. We will have a booth there handing out small loaves of homemade bread.
On top of all that is already going on, I was involved in a minor auto accident yesterday. And then this morning I noticed that the water pressure was low. I made sure no fixture inside the house was running, then looked out the front window to see water running out of the ground…
It almost seems like life, the universe, and everything has decided to conspire against me.
Elise made me go see a doctor yesterday :)
A hypothesis from the visit is that the northern latitude and the associated darkness may be depleting Vitamin D stores and affecting serotonin levels, contributing to some of the problems I’ve been experiencing. We shall see how things go after a few weeks of treatments to begin correcting this.
When religion, its routines, traditions, and the whole culture around it becomes a source of negative stress, is it okay to take a break from it? What if God becomes so hopelessly intertwined with the sources of stress? Is it okay to let God go for a while?
This is basically where I am at now. I think that in order for spirituality to return to something healthy in my life, I may need to cast off all the religious traditions that have negative associations. I may need to start in a new place where I can view my past religious experiences as an outsider. Is it possible to get to a place where I no longer have any emotional attachments to religion?
I am well on my way to fearing daily living: interacting with people, phone calls, talking, sleeping. I want out of this misery and pain.
Mike Bonem over at LeadershipJournal.net writes in his article “Good to Great to Godly”:
"We need more structure in our decision making. Without that discipline, we'll never accomplish anything."
"We're a church, not a business. We need to rely on God. We can't operate like the corporate world."
Ever been on one side or the other of this argument? Or perhaps in the middle? The tensions are present in most churches in America today. As corporate "best practices" are applied to church life, church leaders struggle to make sense of it all.
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In the church, the "bottom line" is life transformation, which defies simple cost-benefit analysis. We wonder whether it's better to see one new convert or five believers who grow significantly in their faith. Or whether the dollar spent on children's programming produces more fruit than one spent on youth ministry. Or how to make the trade-off between music ministry or benevolence. So we wrestle with priorities and resource allocation, trying to make the right choices as we pursue a goal that is sometimes vague and elusive. What kind of leadership is needed to move from blurriness to clarity, from seeing through simple business lenses to seeing more as God sees?
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My experience is that church leaders—senior pastors, other staff, and laity—need a style that transcends both of these, a leadership approach that is spiritual and situational (sometimes legislative, sometimes executive). Even as we create structured processes for making important decisions, we must allow time and space for God to speak into the hearts of leaders. Sometimes it's the pastor who hears God most clearly; at other times one or more lay leaders may have a divine insight. In other words, the "best practices" from business have much to offer regarding decision making, but they omit the greatest asset available to congregational leaders—the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
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Jim Collins' monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors has an interesting line before the title: "Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer." Is Collins right? Yes and no. It's clear that the unfiltered, wholesale adoption of best practices from business is not the answer. The church is not a business, and if we run it like one, God might end up as just one of the constituents to be considered, not the One for whom the whole thing exists.
Three of us, Shelley, Amy, and myself, went to the Presbyterian church for brunch, an egg hunt, and service. (Elise went to bed.) The brunch was good, then Shelley and Amy got roped into helping hide the eggs for the younger children. We watched them look for the hidden eggs, some which were up on low roofs and in trees. We got to watch a young girl with her Easter dress go scamper up a tree in pursuit of eggs… Shelly and Amy returned home after that while I stayed for the service.
It was a frigid morning. Right at the freezing point. But unlike yesterday afternoon and evening, the clouds broke and the rains stopped. It was quite a picturesque morning.
There were perhaps close to 100 people at Sandy Beach Park, looking out over Frederick Sound and to the Horn Cliffs. It was mostly cloudy, but enough breaks in the clouds to let shafts of sunlight through onto the mountains and the water.
The sunrise service (okay, technically not sunrise since that is about 6 a.m. and the service started about 7 a.m.) was a reading of the resurrection account of John 20 with singing between passages.
I got to provide the reflection at the end of the service. Here is the text of what I spoke.
