This Sunday afternoon a group of guys from church went go-karting just for fun. We ended up going on the fast track, with go-karts that can get over 35/mph – which may not sound like a lot, but it certainly feels like a lot when you are in a small go-kart and nearly sitting on the ground! I (Seth) went along and talked a lot beforehand about how I was going to beat everyone (as you do) even though I have very little experience with such things. But it turns out I’m not all talk – my go-kart ate up the pavement in style, drifting around corners and passing its way to a first place finish. Maybe I should look in to going pro… or maybe not.
Category: miscellaneous (Page 2 of 12)
This past weekend we attended the funeral of a close friend here in Youghal. It’s not as if we needed more evidence that the world is broken, but Death certainly proves the point. I simply can’t imagine staring that Thief in the face without knowing the reality of Resurrection. The stakes are high: “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
The weight of all the world
On my Origami Heart
Is more than it can take
Without falling apart
The crushing heel of worry
The tearing claw of fear
Are more than my heart’s paper
Pillars possibly could bear
And even on the inside
A darkness deep and hidden
Protected in my parapets
Still threatens my undoing
Oh wretched man am I!
Destroyer and destroyed
Who will save my paper heart
before it comes unglued?
Oh thanks be unto God!
Through Jesus Christ the Lord
Who does not paste my paper heart
But gives me new for old
Seth’s parents visited us this past week, and it was great to see them! It was supposed to be a normal visit, but a few days in Seth’s Dad suggested that we might be able to fit a floor in the space above the stairs in our house, effectively giving us a small extra room. One thing led to another, and by the time they left a few days later, the room was mostly built! It’s going to be a great space for an office and bookshelves, with a nice built-in desk and all. Since Seth has been using a corner of the bedroom for his office up until now, he is quite excited about the whole thing!
Every night last week Seth and Daniel were part of the cast for the Youghal Musical Society’s production of “A Trip Down Broadway”, which wasn’t really a musical, but included tons of songs from musicals. Daniel’s favourite piece to be involved in was a song from Matilda and Seth thoroughly enjoyed playing Bert from Mary Poppins. We were wrecked (very tired, in American English) after all of it, but we definitely enjoyed it and made some new friends as well. We’re looking forward to next year, but also glad to have our evenings back!
I used to think that I was free
When no one made a choice for me
When I defined my goals and dreams
Proclaiming independence
By the power of my will
I bent the world, and pushing still
I bent myself into my dreams
A painful independence
But when my dreams were in my hand,
My golden glitter turned to sand
My golden chest of all my dreams
Was empty independence
And I, misshapen from the fight,
Straining on to catch a sight
Straining on to find new dreams
To fill my independence
But now I see what I called free
Was really only slavery
Was really chaining all my dreams
To lying independence
Now giving up autonomy
I find that You are freedom’s key
I find Your path to fuller dreams
Is freedom in dependence
After living in Ireland these seven years, I am getting used to grey skies. It doesn’t surprise me at all anymore to go a week or even two without seeing the actual sun. When I painted the mural on Rebekah’s wall, she asked what the blue was for. I told her it was the sky, and she said “No, Daddy, the sky is grey!” Still, there is enough light to do what needs doing, and what more can you really ask for? It strikes me that much of our lives are spent in a similar sort of partly-clouded fogginess, as far from the warmth of wonder as they are from the storms of real pain. It’s not because the world changes: it has been wonderful ever since God said it was good, and has been terrible ever since woman and man said He was not. Ever since then, beauty and horror are as tangled as a spider’s web that glistens in the morning sun even as it waits to kill. Of course, taking shelter from storms is completely natural. You can’t blame anyone for that. But has our hiding place also blocked the sun? What perverse self-protection could cause us to somehow forget the incredible wonder of our existence? To look at people, each as deep and teeming with life as any ocean, and walk away after skimming a few stones? To breath, taste, and touch daily treasures we could never have imagined ourselves, yet remain deaf to the symphony of Creation? The Fall has brought us pain, to be sure, but I am beginning to believe that the real power of it’s destruction was in blinding our eyes to the awesome beauty that constantly assaults our every God-given sense. It is my personal opinion that God sometimes provides us a dose of pain as if it were a medicine to heal our wonder-starved souls: since we refuse to see it in it’s embarrassing excess, He mercifully draws our attention through scarcity. And still we choose the fog.
Yesterday Seth was at a local Christmas event, where an Irishman asked if he was from South Africa. We’ve been called Canadian before, but this was new. Evidently his mixed up ‘transatlantic’ accent includes more of that ocean than we thought.
If you come to a place where you believe
Greatness can never be achieved
Don’t quit at all on account of that
Which eyes, exactly, are you trying to please?
If your talents are shining most often in secret
On the concert hall floor, you feel like a cricket
Keep playing the music wherever you are,
Which ears, my child, did you want to hear it?
If you work your hands right to the bone
But no one sets up a commemorative stone
Don’t throw down your tools and walk away
Which mouth did you want to hear say “Well done”?
This weekend Jessica was sick, which is thankfully a very rare occurrence. Seth did his best to make life continue as normally as possible, but God seems to know his limitations, because He provided in a unique way: Seth was about to leave one evening and the neighbour stopped him and said her sister’s freezer had broken and would we like a few of the frozen things from it because there was no sense letting it go to waste and she didn’t have room for it all. And just like that, dinner was sorted for the next couple of days while Jessica recovered. It’s pretty cool (sometimes even frozen) to see God work in the little details of life.
