Happy Earth Day

This image was on another blog...however, it is worth resharing:

As part of your Earth Day activities consider turning off the lights and TV and computer earlier today, and sit outside, breathe deeply and gaze up into the sky.

Then tomorrow if you have Netflix or some other way of watching movies instantly, watch "Food, Inc." This documentary is heart-wrenching. What we've done to farming (and to farmers) and livestock: chicken, cows, pigs, is horrific.

The Earth Day picture got the smirky laugh, but when it comes to our planet, and how we as a global humanity treat each other, Earth is stuck with Stupid. It can leave you feeling paralyzed, the destruction we've grown to see as the norm; I keep reminding myself that we can repent (turn around), we can change.

So thank you to the journalists who risk their lives, thank you to the documentarist who's passion is to tell us a truth we might otherwise turn blind eyes to, thank you to politicians who put what's right ahead of staying elected, and thank you to the everyday person who makes a decision to make the better choices with how and where they spend their money and place theirs votes.

Up!

I really like the movie Up! and I've shared that before, but it has so many layers to it. I've now seen it 3 times and could watch it 3 more; I saw it again this weekend because my wife hadn't seen it yet. There aren't many movies I could say that of (well, hmmm, actually that was before children).

But, I'm thinking of seeing if the Pastoral Care team I'm a part of would be interested in watching parts of it. There are alot of moments in the film that we could use as jumping off points. When the wife, Ellie, dies, and the husband, Carl, is now on his own. When he's being forced to move out of his own home and into a retirement/assisted living facility. The questions about what it means to have lived a fulfilled life? The guilt/regret Carl carries because he feels he didn't keep his promise to his wife.

Then there's the bonding that happens between the boy, Russell, and Carl; the two age groups I think that often feel unheard and under-valued; give meaning to each others life; they save each other literally and spiritually.

Then there's zen moments about attachment to things and realizing what really matters. Russell's capacity for love and innocence is beautiful.

I'd like to watch it again by myself and slowly.

Lists: I'm going to topple over under the weight of sticky notes

So, I've got a like too many lists running through my head. There's the moving list, the change of address list, the order to move rooms in list, the application lists, the discernment lists, the not really a list but calendar where is my head supposed to be today guide.

I've got the family traveling next weekend. Then I've got checklist with the new landlord (oh missed that list in my list above) -- hoping to get keys that day. So, that I can start moving la familia into the home.

I've got traveling to NY City for a training that I must have for the process, cause who knows when my hometown will have this training, not even slotted to happen in 2010, but maybe sometime 2011ish...so off to NY. No, there will be no fun had...6 hour drive and 2 days of 8hr training. Leave Saturday late afternoon to return to my own state oh around midnightish. So that Sunday I can continue moving.

The following weekend after NY, friends helping me and la familia move big heavy items into new home.

In the midst of this must keep key ministries moving along. End of May pass out from exhaustion.

I have one last discernment meeting (yes in May) and then I go into a holding pattern until my pastor returns. However, between now and then I plan to have as much of my applications to seminaries done as is possible while I'm in said holding pattern. I do know what the outcome of my PDC is, but until my May meeting, I am not counting my eggs.

I've also decided most brilliantly to try to relearn Spanish. I've got a couple of books I want read before September, I've essays to write, lists to maintain, and exercising to do, oh yeah and a family to hang out with, and pets to walk, and ministries I love. I think I've just encountered the rest of my life :)

Natalie Merchant on TED Talks

I've been a fan of Natalie Merchant's for years, and on TED she does a live performance well worth listening to and watching.

Enjoy:

Finding My Way Home

Last night for me was Maundy Thursday. At our church we have the meal within the nave of the church, we sit in a U-shaped formation, we eat soup and bread, some cheese and nuts. A simple meal. After the meal, and the dishes are all cleared away the service begins. At a certain point in the service as the altar is stripped down, so are the tables we just ate at. Then as the service draws closer to the end we begin to wash each others feet. It is amazingly beautiful and hard to wash another person's feet.

During the meal I was asked how the process was going for me, had it started, and I said that it was and where I was in the process and what parts were left. She asked if I had decided on a seminary and I said I was considering two, and one I had seen already and felt very drawn too. She asked where it was located, and I told her...then she said so you guys really left your hearts in Texas. My reply was, well, you know there's enough love for both places.

But, I think my southern heart hurts here alittle bit, the square peg that has managed to slip into the rectangular slot.

My family and I are moving once again within the same town we've lived in for the last 2 years. Then we'll have another move at the end of next summer (hopefully to seminary), and another move after that (first placement), and possibly another move after that. There is no place to come home to anymore except to be home where I (and the family) are at. There are no more roots just seeds, at least that's what the next 7-10 years look like. And I wonder how that will shape my children, what joys and sorrows will go with them, how that will shape how they form and maintain relationships? Perhaps the question is really my own.

My next discernment meeting is approaching, and I'm worried that my theology is too simple, but we shall see.

A blessed crucifixion and resurection to you all.