The Visit of Wilbert and Hilda Friesen

So we just sent my Mom and Dad back down the road to Winkler. Hopefully they arrive there in good shape tonight. We spent the weekend with them. It was a treat. We were introduced to the KNIFTY KNITTER. The boys ‘latched’ on to that quick – especially Jared. He finished two touques in the weekend Jesse did one and Levi did one. So mom and dad graciously left behind the tools so the boys could keep on knitting.
Aside: you know knitting could save the world. Except that Chuck Norris does not knit… He always lives with no strings attached. (See Chuck Norris Mind Games)
Of course because my folks have been in ministry all their lives we always talk a lot about church stuff. We were debating whether to go to church on Sunday or not but decided against it. Instead we planned our own ‘service’ at home. Although not legal sanctioned by the Conference of Bedside Baptists we figured that the presence of two paid pastors should make the service legit. (It’s a holiness quotient that it actually based on a complex spiritual formula of various algorithms and logistical prognoses: I’ll include it some time) Our kids came up with two skits. The first was done by Jared and Levi. It was called…




Jared called it a politically incorrect Bible story of David and Goliath. An army of Rescueheros were the Babylonians (of course in the original account they were Philistines) and little Levi had to use his rubberband gun to pick off the slashing and thrashing Jared who was wearing the Touque of Doom.
Jesse and Lukas meanwhile did a version of the Good Samaritan. With Lukas stepping out of his usually sunny disposition to play the beaten up traveller while Jesse ran back and forth changing clothes and playing every other role in the story. Eventually Jesse lifted Lukas onto his shoulders – a feat not lost on the fact that they are essentially the same size. (even though Lukas is younger by 2 years)
A sword drill, some memory work and some awesome testimonies later and we were ready for Ming’s House of Cat.
It was a good weekend. Mom started off by baking cinnamon buns – so Char spent the rest of her weekend trying to find a way to justify eating one while still honouring her lent. Unfortunately the perogies did not go over so well with our boys – but I had couple. Mom seemed to be quite taken with our mini schnauzer and it seemed like Deri was quite taken with her.

She even jumped up on their bed this morning to wake them up so I guess Dad has to start retracting his promise to not have an indoor dog… Mom and I had a good late night conversation focused around postmodernism and post-Foundationalism.
Dad and the boys and I went to the Hurricanes game against the Hitmen. It was the first time I had a chance to see Justin Pogge in action. Quite a treat. The Canes played well but had a 7 minute lapse in the third period to let Calgary back in the game which they eventually won in a shootout…
Dad and I did some repairs around the house and built a set of drying racks/closets for Char’s Hutterite Laundry Emporium.
We watched the Brier together on Sunday night and watched as the Quebecoise beat Ontario for the title.
Sunday we discovered Google fights and decided that it would be a great way to settle ecclesiological disputes in staff meetings or church council meetings…
And Dad by the way here’s a link to that book I was talking about by Katie Funk Wiebe.
It was a good weekend. A great chance to reconnect. I am truly blessed to have been raised by my parents. Thank-you for carrying on the legacy
If anyone would a Friesen original touque just say so the line are now open…
Anyways it’s back to the books for me

Serendipity

Yes every so often things show up in my life completely unexpectedly. It’s funny saying that ‘cause I realize how much control I have exerted to keep from dealing too directly with unexpected circumstances. Anyways I’ll pull myself off the blogging analyst couch and get on with it…
I went to check on my mailbox at church to see if anything was there…
Jammed into the church mailbox was a small brown paper bag. I pulled it out and read this short note:

Hi Dale and Char,
We stayed & visited with Dr.
Weigelt, a coffee grower
in Hawaii. His harvest was done and we saw these
bags and bags of beans. He
offered to roast us some. We couldn’t help but
think of your love for coffee.
Here is 1/2lb. of 100% Kona Coffee. You be
the judge as to how you wish to blend
it, just enjoy it.
Bruno and
Helen

Well you can only imagine my delight. Some time ago after Tanya and Everett went to Cuba they brought back some Cubita. As in that case I was ecstatic. You can not imagine the pure joy that just filled me.
The coffee itself is fabulous.
To be honest I am not much of Kona Coffee fan. I have suspected that the issue was in the roast (usually over roasted). This coffee was the lightest roast I have seen on Kona. Now you need to understand that this coffee typically sells for about $30.00 per pound. The roast was so light that many of the beans are still noticeably ‘green’ on the inside.
Obviously I have done extensive work on the coffee
On its own it is very creamy. It is not sweet but has a deep mahogany color. Beautiful. Obviously with as light a roast as it is there isn’t even a hint of the typical bitterness that is so common in many North American roasts/blends. So unlike the Cubita it does not need to jump the dark roast hurdle. As a result there are wonderfully complex flavours throughout the cup. For those with the chocolate/mocha tones, they are not present here. Instead the brew fills your mouth with strong hoppy tones. It is a coffee to get lost in. Cubita is more like a party exploding in your mouth. This is more like a allowing your tastes buds to walk gently down a garden path slowly saturating with the wonders of sight and smell.
Come on over for a cup if you can make it – it won’t last long.
Thank-you Bruno and Helen
It really is wonderful…

Round up

Looks like in my absence (from my abode) the world has continued spinning…
Under the category of:
…the more things change the more they stay the same… I understand that our collective litigiousness is not waning. Apparently a little girl find a cup has her friend roll up the rim and runs home to show her folks. Of course, the parents of the girl who so kindly helped the younger child want a piece of the pie but now so does the guy who originally flapped his lips across the paper cup and then discarded it – at his own folly…
Moral of the story: does it really pay to drink and drive?

...in a related story apparently there is some spurious new research that would claim to put coffee into the shadows of suspicion. It claims that your genetics might affect how receptive your heart might be to withstand the jolt of caffeine brought on by caffeine. Personally, I would suggest from my purely unscientific approach that the addition of cream and sugar may well account for any ‘problems’ coffee might have on the heart. It’s curious isn’t it that tea has well escaped the target of assault. Prissy tea drinkers guzzling gallons down their
EEZO FAGUSSES… (little mention of the fact that per volume most tea holds almost twice as much caffeine as coffee…)
I don’t care. To be honest I was a little uncomfortable with the notion that coffee might enjoy healthy status. It’s re-entry into the ‘vice’ category is both familiar and welcome for me.

and speaking of beverages…
apparently these types of 'miracles' still do happen…
according to this story perhaps beverages can still transmogrify despite current dispensational propositions – okay so maybe it was just stupid plumbing but hey. I gotta wonder what I woulda been thinking when the golden stuff came outta my taps.
Truth is, like this reporter suggests, I might like to get to know this plumber and introduce him to some of those people who might be convinces by the 'morphing in thier taps that the apocalypse was near…
Nasty by fun...



One more thing…
I just signed up my kids for soccer here in Coaldale. Here’s what happened. They made me write a check for June 30 (the end of the soccer season) in the amount of $20.00. Here’s how it was presented. I pay $20.00 to register for the opportunity to volunteer (as a coach). If in the end I do not volunteer the association will deposit my check and I can consider the money as an additional fee for the registration of my children. If however I do volunteer I get my money back. Now its only $20.00 so suck it up and pay the dough – Right?
Fine but…
What this does is turn me into a paid coach. How? No doubt there will be parents of children on the team I will coach who will have just paid the 20 and decided not to volunteer. I am sure that their expectations now will be higher (if only marginally) because they have paid for a service that they felt they did not have time to invest in. so what does this do to the dynamics of off-field parental antics? Make them better? Less antagonistically competitive? I doubt it! Essentially we have professionalized the volunteers in the program. Again maybe it’s insignificant but to me it is another reason to be critical of the hands off approach so many adults have to involvement with children and youth. So I’ll suck it up. And I will be proud to report in June that the parents of the children on my team will receive their money’s worth. Nothing less than a championship! Ole Ole Ole Ole!

private vs public continued...

check out the continued conversation on MY BROTHER"S BLOG

::Rejoinder::

Just wanted to clarify a few comments:
Natasha called me on a contextual problem of problems that I made in my last post:
I really wasn’t talking about the nature of “Calling” as it pertains to giftedness, ability or perceived direction from God on life’s vocation or intention. Instead I was specifically referring to people who have walked away from youth ministry as a volunteer or whatever and have used the excuse that they were not “Called” to do this. It was a comment on how we tend to put a spiritual spin on our excuses so that we can get out of situations without a guilt complex. But you raise a few good points
First yes people are going offer different focal points for the activity of their lives but in a very real way whether you are going to be an environmentalist, a social justice person, whatever... I would hope that the reason we are going to get involved is to help future generations experience a better future. So in that way hopefully we are all working toward helping youth…
Unfortunately too many people are only living for their own benefit.
My intention was not to make you or anyone else for not rushing out an signing up for the closest youth program as a volunteer. I don’t want you to think that you are garbage for not being a youth worker. I was expressing my frustration about selfish people really don’t care about the future generation.
Pat – I don’t want you to be mad at me but I’m probably not going to back away from my comments too much. I know private schools are not perfect and need evangelizing. And that they themselves can be considered as a light into their own communities. But I have to say that the core reason behind sending your kids to private or home school is out of some sort of protectionism. Some of that protectionism may be warranted out of a desire to have the best for our kids. I can understand that motivation. I can also see that there is frustration with the academic standards of the public school system. But even there I guess that there is something interesting going on. It makes me ask the question about whether we as Christians are willing to lay down our “Rights” to have our kids in better education?
I’m sorry if my comments came across judgementally – I’m not trying to make myself look better than you or anyone else. I am just really tired of the escapism, and excusism that is so prevalent in Christian culture. You probably need to evaluate whether this is your rationale or not. That’s not my job. I assume you have thought about these things and know how your choices are not escapist and I would be interested in hearing them.
Sorry for the confusion and the perceived accusation

thursday a turning point

This week has been one of those turning point times for me…
The class has been weighted toward the side of pathology (the deviant, often disturbing side of adolescent reality). Now please hear me – I AM NOT INTERESTED IN STICKING MY HEAD IN THE SAND… so when we talk about sexually deviant behaviour like hooking up (not for the easily frightened!) or the unbelievably high occurrence of sexual abuse. Stats like 70% of all youth leave high school – NOT as virgins. One kid (the college joined us seminary students) in the class said she has noticed that kids are not even using terms like “slut” or “whore” to describe promiscuous kids anymore – suggesting that sleeping around is becoming okay. On top of that add issues of violence, and co-dependence and you start getting the overwhelming picture that has started to be a recurring theme in the class. And you can start to see how my sceptical mind starts kicking in. I know how crucial it is that we intervene and I DO NOT DENY that this stuff exists. BUT… I know that it is always terrible to create solutions and ministry strategies out of the motivation of fear. Scared decisions are always the wrong ones.
But I know that this stuff needs to be brought up be cause so many of us get lulled into thinking that this stuff is barely real. It’s easy to ignore! Why because adults are basically selfish self centered brats who have relegated their kids to the outskirts of our lives. Abandoned kids are ones who are desperate for real love.
This week has reminded me why I am in this business (Youth Ministry). I love youth. I love their desperate lives of anxiety. I love their honesty and craving for authenticity. I love their passion. I love their spontaneity. But you know if it would stop there I should stop doing what I do. I love youth because they need/want love and I can love them. My heart breaks when over and over again (and it has seemed often lately) that I’ve heard of kids who have made some crappy choices with their lives and are obviously still searching for the unmet “CORE THIRST”. I have cried this week – for broken souls – reminders of kids who are using shallow empty wells to meet love needs that no one had permission to fill anymore.
Blame broken families, blame feminization of males (this is a bigger deal than I had realized at first), blame marketing, blame the sexualization of culture, blame access to sin, and we will miss the main point. We are ignoring our kids because we are more important than they are.
We can be alarmed – and maybe the nightmare so many families are living in should make us think of at least opening our eyes.
Alarm does little… You know what alarm has done so far. Well the church has thought that the answer to the alarm they feel have created programs…
Come on people they want our time
Our bloody time (sorry mom)
“Jesus, I don’t know if I have any business asking anything from you but… would you please give your little lambs people who would love them.”
I don’t know how many times Mark and I have driven back and forth from Lethbridge with tears over kids and their destructive behaviour. I don’t know how many times I have clenched my teeth over the over protective responses that so many Christians want to employ to keep their salt and light kids out of the public school system. It makes me angry how much we don’t really care about the ones who are starving for love out there…
Church crap can get the best of us beaten down. You tear your heart out for kids and then the church takes the rest and stops all over it with politics and stupid requests to change silly things like the amount we say God in our prayers. But this is not a pity party. It just boils my blood when I hear people say that they don’t feel called to youth ministry. It’s a load of crap. Just say I don’t care.
I’m rambling
Alright I should go back to bed
i got some good marks on my last course you know...

Day Two

Okay this one might be a bit shorter…
Check out these websites that specialize in digital enhancement and then you can stop wondering why your wife/girlfriend spends so much time in front of the mirror…
And trust me it’s not for your benefit buddy…
o http://www.newfaces.com/shop/digital-photo-enhancement.php
o http://www.touchofglamour.com/Photo_Retouching.htm
Did you know that women’s internal organs are double in size during adolescence. And that they are substantially larger than men’s. No wonder they can hold those farts for so long – they’ve got the room!
We had a discussion on the factors that prevent adolescents from making the transition to adult thinking. There were a number of good factors presented in class including the role of the parent, and education. We spent a considerable amount of time talking about responsibility – primarily that youth don’t take any. Some one said that young people wanted all the frills without the work – the emergent church was destined to fail as a result. Hmmm! What I found on the contrary is that we as adults have not really challenged our youth to take on more responsibility. Like for instance – I tell my kids hey the chairs need to be stacked after the youth meeting. They do it! But of course if I just start stacking chairs and don’t inform them of their responsibility they don’t get it. So we have to tell them to do stuff when we expect that it should just come naturally. Well how should they know what to do if most of their life is handed to them – without the interaction of their own responsibility.
Another factor that I wanted to explore is how low SES, ethnicity, and nutrition might be causal factors in poor cognitive development. Marv seemed a little reluctant to go there – probably for a number of reasons including being perceived to place limitations on people affected by these factors so…
I think it is a shamefully unavoidable reality that we need to own. Our treatment of aboriginal Canadians is terrible. When you see the conditions that many of our brothers and sisters live with, it truly is a miracle when some of them achieve higher levels of cognitive skills. Let me be clear I’m not suggesting that they are less human or anything. I wish we would spend more time on this topic at some level cause I think we are responsible for this…
One other thing
Ron Taffel’s book “The Second Family” is deeply arresting – not for the faint of heart. I don’t know if I am going to let you read it Char. I feel guilty and messed up as a parent when I read that book.
I decided today that I want to live out a prayer every day – to connect my kids to my undivided attention everyday…
… now if you want to “give something up” for lent – great! This is what I am giving up. I am giving up be self centered just long enough each day to give my wife and family my undivided attention for as long as they need it each day. Wow! We’ll see what happens after lent…
Any way back to editing my paper.
out

correction notice

on the january 23 posting i misquoted Dale Dirksen
he did NOT say "orthodox kiss idols." he DID say, "orthodox kiss icons."
it seems a trivial thing to some of you I am sure but it does change the meaning alot. thanks to the blood hound who found it...

Briercrest Trip #3

So this time, I am staying at Sundbo Place (a residence/dormitory for mature men – ironically). It smells like old stinky cheese – I was in flash back mode for the first 30 minutes so…
I quickly ground up some coffee and made a pot and voila things are smelling better already…
Today’s class was an interesting one since the first part of the morning was a lot of review from the course I took in fall but there were a few interesting highlights along the way today.
Our Prof: Marv Penner outlined some presuppositions that he was going to use throughout the course. It was interesting what showed up because undoubtedly he has chosen these over and against some others that might have competed for his attention.
Human development continues throughout the lifespan
This one I would have thought was a no brainer. Obviously people continue to develop though out their lives.
Human development is cumulative. Again to say that our development builds off of itself seems a little redundant but he said there are other ways of seeing yourself. I suppose one could isolate certain developmental phases and consider them closed or no applicable to the rest of life. That seems so counter intuitive. What is interesting is that when you look at the type of redemption that Christianity has ‘sold’ over the last number of years, I can see how we have compartmentalized how it all works. We’ve said that our sin is wiped out after conversion. We say that Christ removes our sin when we confess, repent. Forgiven and forgotten. That would seem to be where we have dropped on the theology side of things. But is it really that way? Can we ever really transcend our past to the extent that it no longer affects us? If we can not humanly walk away from our past with all its complexities is teaching the kind of theology that we do merely a form of escapism. We never actually have to deal with our past. That’s why we can take kids to Mexico or wherever and a few years down the road they really are not that different – they don’t have to be.
Regarding Keeping up with culture. If you go to my brothers blog you will notice that he has given up trying to keep up with the changes in culture. (Who can blame him?) what Marv said was interesting. He said he was glad that people like Walt Mueller as willing to watch culture so that people like him didn’t have to. That’s all fine and good as far as it goes. The question that pops into my head how do you know who to trust? We all get our culture from different sources. Gil checks Alqueda and Ryan reads Theologist Weekly and Mark finds stuff out from the kids themselves and Paul… …well Paul has not quite found anything printed in Russian yet so… But do you know what I mean. In this agenda driven world who do you trust to get your source material from. And on top of that you put our natural tendency to just read the stuff that we agree with, NOW what are you left with. I think it’s pretty easy to just stick our heads in the sand thinking all the while that that is precisely what we are not doing. I got no answers here just makes me a lot more humble. Its like when I heard that somebody was reporting that students were going home at lunch time and having group sex all the time. The thing is that if that stuff was really happening kids would know about it and would be talking about it – somebody would be bragging about it. And either mark or I would have heard about it by now. But obviously some got some information somewhere to indicate that this was going on and because of their agenda of fear decided to basically spread lies. Stupid. Have ther ever been kids who go home at lunch to have group sex at Kate Andrews? Well it very well possibly could be. But to say that this is in any way typical or the growing trend among young people is just not true. Maybe some day it will be but for now…
And to me that just shows that we choose to believe whatever we want to about culture and are not very open to have our opinions changed.
Marv also talked about adult reaction to adolescents
In that discussion he said, “they are gonna rebel against something but you as a parent can decide what that something is gonna be! So let them rebel!”
He said when he sees some of the body modification e-zines it’s like a giant middle finger to adults
He said most parents are terrified of screwing up their kids with bad parenting. His advice get over it. You’re gonna screw up – you’re human. Fear is crappy motivator. So maybe we gotta get over our preoccupation with messing up our kids and realize that the most important thing is to have a good relationship with them.
We also spent some time talking about the way teens are perpetually abandoned. Given over to institutions to care for, fix, entertain, teach, and build faith. Expectations are high because parents who are detached from their kids need to be reassured that their ambivalence is not hurting their kid. So if their kid starts malfunctioning they come back to the institution to “get their money back.” I know that is what I have felt often in the church. And I am sure Bonny and Jessica and Gil find that in their work as teachers. It is unfair that parents have dropped their kids off and then expect us to pick up the pieces. It’s like they’ve forgotten that when you drop something it usually gets dented or broken.
That’s about it for day one.
Char might be interested to note that I ran Dale Dirksen and asked him if he would read past page 15. he said he would but that it would not help my mark any. Whatever? I guess I have some revising to do tonight back at Sundbo cheese shop.
Peace to all of you

In the Spirit of the Academy Awards...

I am sending out another CLEAR MUG to Paul Morgun. Paul has accepted Chuck Norris into his life as his personal martial arts guru. Paul doesn't remeber exactly when this all took place which has made his acceptance into the CHURCH OF CHUCK NORRIS a contentious issue for exissiting members. Paul made up for his lack of date and time by kissing this picture of CHUCK NORRIS.

For many years Paul wandered in darkness acknowledging only Chuck Girard. A hip Christian crooner of early eighties. But Paul has seen the light - no that's not it. the light has been magnitized by reality of CHUCK NORRIS in Paul's life. Sorry.

So way to go Paul - you get the cup.

Stay tuned more cups to be awarded soon...