This is a melancholy day. Outside – it’s like the slow silent tears of an old woman beside the casket. Maybe Fall is Spring’s grief.
Cold Play – Parachutes
Phil Collins – Testify
Pedro the Lion (see side bar)
Sarah MacLachlan – Afterglow
and
John Mayer – Continuum
So the music matches the mood (except KLF is poised in my Itunes player and on YouTube…)



But I digress…
Yesterday…
Now before you all start chiming in with those ego boosting comments just hang on…
I have been convinced that we need to do more teaching on the Kingdom of God. So that topic is what we are pushing all throughout fall. Now how do you talk about the Kingdom realities without reverting to the all too convenient use of the war imagery? So yesterday I caved in and talked about agents/soldiers of redemption. I really wanna impress on the kids that following Jesus is not a save-your-own-butt strategy. I want to inspire them to think about taking up the biggest challenges of their lives. Last night I told them God was calling them to be redeemers (a term we have usually reserved for Jesus).
Anyways after some of the difficulties of the last few months I guess there was a fair bit of self doubt that sat around the corners of my consciousness. I didn’t even realize it was there until last night. I guess I had wondered if I still had it. You know the ability to take the ideas and thoughts I have been processing and convert them into digestible bits for youth to consume and connect with. To see the Holy Spirit open their hearts and somehow transform my jumbled ramblings into something that changes hearts. And Monday nights is Junior High no less.
I was pretty amazing to see the kids actually interacting with the concepts and actually giving thoughtful responses. Small group discussion did not degenerate into drivel. Shoot I cried all the way home…stupid I know but yeah there it is…
And after youth I was webcamming on MSN with Mark so we talked about the recent school shootings. I just commented that it seems like the staff at the schools seem really on edge and I wondered if it was cause of the suspicion that these incidents raise. And it does not help that media is all up in the freak out fear mongering with stories about increased need for security, peripheral lock downs, and other freak out freak crap. It really makes me mad. Check out any of these stories on the CBC and you find just how awesomely sickening it is to glorify the horror and the depth of grief for the media.
After talking together we figured out that we are going to write a letter to the schools. We want to thank them for allowing us onto the campuses of our local community. Not more than three years ago we had out own incident where a kid stormed out of KA and shot himself at home in town here. Taber is only a half hour away. You get the picture. Ironically when all this stuff went down we got calls from the school principals asking us to spend more time at the schools. We have a pretty sweet set up here. The last few days when I have been on campus I have felt weirded out from the looks that especially some of the new staff give me as I am hanging out at the school. And I realize that I can’t take this privilege for granted at all. It makes me sad to see the fear in the eyes of the teachers and staff at the school.
Well, its time to get off my arse and walk the dog – maybe the clouds will pause long enough to do that…