you will be set free

So anyone else think blogging is losing it's stature and priority in my life? How can you tell? Is it the weeks between blogs? Is it the quick and meaninless nature of the blogs i do write? Is it my chest hair? Who knows! Oh well, life has continued strangley enough. So, i have a confession to make, i have watched every episode of "Canada's next Top Model" and now it is over. I'm a little disappointed with the winner, but TV (except in DVD format) has become a perpetual disappointment to me. Something else was perpetuated today, but i can't quite remember what it was, oh yes, i was having an internal monologue about perpetuating racial steretypes. It didn't go very far, basically i just wanted to use the word perpetuating. I am listening to Derek Webb again, i haven't in a while, i've been focused on Radiohead and Counting Crows, and of course Cash. So i'm getting ready to go back to Vancouver again. This time for real for my dad's surgery. I'm scared. I think everyone's a little scared. Who knows how it will turn out. The hard part is being able to tell God that i want what he wants. Meaning if God sees fit to not have the situation the way i want it, then i need to want that. Like i said in a recent sermon, it's ok to have desires, but eventually, at the end of the day, we have to be able to put that aside and want what God wants, trusting that what he has for us is best, despite how it may feel or seem at the time. It's a continually humbling experiance and humility is the key to trusting God.
I've taken up drinking Caesers. Not in copius amounts, but what can i say, they are my favorite right now, and they are so spicy. I don't know what i shared that, maybe just because it's 11:39pm, and i've already run out of things to say. I'm finally reading "The Organic Church". It's challenging for sure, but i haven't figured out to do with the challenges, and or how i can fit the challenges and the answers into the context within which i know and love church. Maybe i can't reconsile the two? I don't know yet, i don't have anything concrete for you, i may have to read it twice and really try and pull some deep stuff out of it for you and for me, but it has been challenging to say the least, and exciting actually, part of me would like to be a part of something like that, but part of me realizes how much i have a hard time dealing with street people, and drug dealers, and drug addicts, so basically those people he so readily describes as good soil, i think i work better with people who are shallow soil, but then also i am trying to figure out what kind of soil I am and was? Was i actually good soil that produced fruit, or was it persistant love and care from a gardener or farmer that coaxed me out of bad soil? I haven't figured it out yet, and for those of you who haven't read the book (everyone besides Kyle and Jon Kramer) you have no bloody idea what i am talking about, but luckily i am starting to feel my eyes get heavy so it means i can head to bed now. I want to know what's going to happen with my dad, i really do so i can start preparing for it, but God is telling me to live now, live in the present because it's all we get. I guess i'd better stop looking forward and start focusing on the here and now, which once again means i should sleep.
much love, bring the lebenese canadians home!
ps. I was at Sammy's this last weekend and had the worst service i have ever had the misfortune of having at this fine Vermilion dining establishment in my life. Luckily it wasn't any of my regulars, but beware of the Saturday night staff, they were a disappointment. Although Troy will just think it's par for the course, negative experiances are not the regular occurance of Samuels (Sammy's).

My Hero/Messiah Complex took a hit today

Ok, well maybe calling it partially a messiah complex is a bit over the top, but in case you didn't know, i definitly have a hero complex. I've fantasized about it. Placeing people i care about in precarious positions, only to have myself save them and be the hero. I have a wild imagination.

So i was at work today (at the peril of all those around me who have yet to contract my horrible bronchial disease), and i was on my break. I like breaks. Anyway, one of my co-workers enters the staff room and makes me aware of a shifty customer she would like me to come check out and keep an eye on. Being the macho macho man that i am i lay down my reading matieral or soda can or whatever and head where the action is. Upon re-entering the store i am led toward a twitchy, half retarded looking young man who is pacing violently as if being persued...and he was, by Christian Publications staff. I struck up a conversation with him twice, attempted to build a relationship that would hopefully keep him from his expected goal which was of couse shoplifting.

He moved around a couple times and i kept an eye, and didn't see him steal anything, but then he went towards our DVD's and he was mostly out of my sight, but luckily my side kick Faith motioned to me that he had grabbed something, so i went to intercept him at the door, not wanting to cause a scene in the store, but as soon as he got to the door (before my fat slow ass) he was gone, i yelled after him, but he took off. The truth is, i hesitated. I didn't know how to proceed, or what was within my rights to do, and because of these things, he was not apprehended. So anyway, i had a chance to fulfill my hero fantasy and i blew it. How lame is that, i felt like a total loser after that. And i will find it difficult to ever make fun of Tim H. again for not grabbing the kid who stole McRitchies X-Box and Tim's backpack.

As Gordon Lightfoot wrote, and Johnny Cash so beautifully and recently conveyed via his post-humous release "American V: A Hundred Highways" on the song "If you could read my mind"

"If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind that drugstores sel
lWhen you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you wont read that book again
Because the endings just too hard to take"

Anyway, Johnny's new album is possibly his best in the American series and i mean that with every ounce of musical credibility i have, however large or small. I love you all.

Back in Black?

Hello Sportsfans. I'm back. I was in Vancouver for six days. While I was there i got married. It was a good time. Still come to the one in august though, most people who would find themselves reading this blog probably were not at the one in Vancouver. We got married in Vancouver to make sure that no matter what happens with my dad's surgery, he would be there to take part in our wedding. Anyway, it was an awesome day. Stop by and look at some pictures sometime if you want.

So last night, I was getting ready to go to sleep and was speaking with my wife about what i should preach about in Vermilion in a week and a half when i have to be there to preach. I was thinking about preaching on the subject of peace, not like war and peace, but more like the peace of God that transecends all understanding. Anyway, i wasn't totally sold on the idea, and then Cara said, "why don't you preach about trusting God?". And a light went off in my head and a bell started going "ding ding ding ding ding ding ding". That was it. This whole having a wife thing is paying off already!

Anyway, so i need to get working on a sermon, also i am very very sick. But before i get to my sermon, i am going to try and call my wife at work and also call my friend Jeff.

We'll talk again another time.