I love the cinema

Two movie reviews this weekend.

Millions. This is a movie that came out earlier this year that I caught over the weekend at Messiah. This was an enjoyable movie. The storyline is that a young boy, who has recently lost his mother, gets L250,000 literally dropped in his lap. As you can probably imagine, things happen when a ten year-old comes into all that money. The fact that he is an authority on saints makes things all the more interesting. It’s a light and funny British comedy that will surely give you a few chuckles. It’s available now on DVD (or VHS if you still have one of those).

Grizzly Man. Here’s another indie flick that’s gotten a lot of buzz in the film community. It’s the story of Timothy Treadwell, a former actor who became crazy for grizzly bears. He spends his summers out in Alaska with his friends Roddy, Mr. Chocolate, and Timmy the fox. This guy is truly out there. He literally starts to turn into a bear himself. He rails against humans and the US Park Service and makes bears his life. Tragically, and almost self-fullingly, he and his girlfriend were actually mauled to death in October of 2003. If you are interested in a fascinating look into the psyche of an animal fanatic, I’d recommend this movie. I’d also recommend it if you like wild animals (like I do). He got some fascinating video footage of bears that is truly awesome.

And in other news, I’m going on a blog fast, starting tonight.

One of these things is not like the other

So this was big news yesterday in the airline biz. If you hadn't heard about it, take a look at the front wheels and then take a look at the rear wheels. Notice anything strange? When the nose gear came down, the tires did not turn down like they were supposed to.



So as you can imagine, that made landing this bird lots more fun for the flight crew.

I can be an observant fellow. Sometimes

Things I noticed last night at powerhouse:

-While singing the hymn "Be Thou My Vision," these two lines struck me hard:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:

Riches and praise are both things that I seek out. But God is my inheritance. The riches will get spent and the praises will be forgotten. And God will still be there. And that excites me.

-While singing "In Christ Alone," as soon as we had finished the first verse I immediately could not wait to get to this verse:

There in the ground, His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth, in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me
For I am in His, and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

This too gets me excited. I like to sing loudly, bordering on yelling, the last four lines. Good good stuff.

-Finally, women who worship God, are hot. I'm all about the Proverbs 31 lady.

A poorly structured blog entry.

If I didn't tell you, Grizzly Man is playing this weekend at the Carlisle Theatre.

Point for thought: Next time you say to someone "You're missing the point.", make sure that you have made your point crystal clear. Because if not, that's the reason why they're missing the point.

Derek Webb tonight at Messiah. 10:00 in the PM at the Larsen.

Fall arrives tomorrow at 6.23PM. Don't forget to make appropriate celebratory plans.

Hey, y'all remember back in June when my Entertainment Weekly subscription ran out? I talked about how they wanted me to renew, but for around $30.00. And I said that I was going to wait because I felt certain that I could get a new subscription for less than $20.00. Well, it's going to be $20.00 even. I got an email last week from EW, asking me to come back. Forty issues for twenty bucks. I'll take that deal. Yay for patience.

Alias starts its sydicated run on Monday on TNT.

On Saturday night, 10/08, TobyMac and Third Day are playing down on the mall in DC. I'm going because it's free. And you're invited. It's part of the Luis Palau DC Festival being held 10/08-10/09. I've seen TobyMac before, so I'm not really going to see him. But I always enjoy listening to Third Day play and they are the reason I'm going. You should go. Unless you shouldn't.

And that's everything that I had written down to make note of.

It's the coolest thing...

This is a wonderful idea. Couldn't happen here in the states..

Yearning

So on Sunday, I asked the question "What does your heart yearn for?" There is a song that goes around in Christian circles which includes the phrase "It is the cry of my heart to follow You." And that's what got me to thinking. And as I got to thinking, I started to see something interesting.

I thought my heart was yearning for challenging work, a wife, a well-paying job and for my friends and loved ones to be taken care of. But then I realized that it was my head that was yearning for all these things. None of the material things I yearn for have any bearing on satisfying my heart's desire. Material things are good for putting your mind at ease, but they do nothing for your heart. I want more of Jesus. I want to be holy. That is what my heart yearns for.

There's a connection between the heart and the head and beyond the spinal cord, I'm still not quite sure what it is. I think your heart has to drive your mind, so that your mind reflects your heart. But how does it do that?

I have a camera.

With it, I take pictures. Here are some pictures from Busch Gardens, which I visited on Saturday.

Oh the questions..

Just a question for you to ponder while I throw together a decent post.

What does your heart yearn for?

no title yet

Mundane Service Activities that I thought of yesterday

Taking out the trash
Putting more paper in the copier
Picking up garbage
Doing the dishes
Vacuuming
Any other household chore
Buying breakfast for the co-workers
Putting quarters in other people’s meters
Scraping the snow off of someone’s car
Babysitting

I thought that Zathura looked a lot like Jumanji when I saw the preview. Then I found out it WAS Jumanji. In space.

Tonight, I dine at Chick-fil-A. And I'm excited.

My office doesn't recycle.

Recycling should probably become a law. At least something primitive which says you need to recycle all metals or plastics. But we don't recycle anything. Perhaps I should seek employment elsewhere in protest.

If anyone is interested, Christ Community Church is putting on a production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this weekend and next. I was hoping to go next Friday but discovered this morning it was sold out. So I'll have to try another night.

Also, my parents have a 13-inch color tv they are giving away. Lemme know if you're interested.

Two cheers to the Red Robin in the Paxton Town Center. They messed up my burger, but fixed it and gave it to me for free.

Which brings this to mind. Do you ever think about how you correct somebody? Do you even correct people? How do you correct people so that you don't ridicule their words or them as a person? Do you even bother to think about the best way to suggest correction? Or do you just correct them? If we do it, however we do it, we've got to show love.

Tonight my small group will talk about servanthood. Here's a little anecdote that I found while searching on the topic:

When we read of the discipline of servanthood, people usually have a few things in mind.
The first is the ministry of the mundane. Like Dorcas, we can find ways to make "coats and garments for the widows" or, as Jesus said, we can offer somebody cups of cold water in Jesus’ name. Practical things in which we put our self-interests aside, and serve somebody else.

Richard Foster, who has written a wonderful book called Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, tells this true story: During the frantic, final throes of writing his doctrinal dissertation, he received a call from a friend.
His wife had taken the car, and he wondered if Richard could take him on a number of errands. Trapped, he consented, inwardly cursing his luck. On the way out he grabbed a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Life Together, thinking that he might have a chance to read it. At each errand, he inwardly fumed at the loss of time.
Finally, at the supermarket, he waved his friend on, saying that he would wait in his car and read. He opened his book to the bookmark, and here is what he read:

The second service that one should perform in the Christian community is active helpfulness. This means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time that such petty, outward acts of helpfulness entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly.

Ouch! One of the best ways we can become servants is to see a need and fill it.
Drive someone to the bank. Do their laundry. It’s the ministry of the mundane, and if you’re too busy to engage in it, you’re too busy!

In my spare time today, I'm working a list of mundane service activies. I'll post them tomorrow.

Prayer Request Updates

From my friend who went down to Baton Rouge over the weekend:

Hi all,
Thanks again for your prayers for our trip. I really felt that God orchestrated everything perfectly. I wanted to fill you in on the details, but I apologize if this e-mail is incoherent...I'm exhausted!

The three of us (my roommate L and her boyfriend K) left at 3AM Friday morning. We each took a 6 or so hour driving shift, and arrived in Baton Rouge at 10 PM (they are on central time, an hour behind the east coast). K was born and raised in Baton Rouge, so he was able to find us a place to stay with one of his friends, and he was a great navigator in our endeavors.

On Saturday we woke up early and went to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where we became part of the "Chainsaw Brigade" that went to Covington, LA, 40 miles north of where the storm hit. They still don't have power there, and who knows how long it will be before they do. Trees and power lines were down everywhere you looked. It was a mess that can't possibly be cleaned up anytime soon. We worked for 6 hours in the hot Louisiana sun, clearing trees from a woman's driveway. She had a huge tree fall through her attic and into the second story of her home. We had a crew of about 15 people, 4 chainsaws, and a tractor, and it still took us all six hours just to clear her driveway. I was exhausted and a bit dehydrated, despite drinking 12 bottles of gatorade/water during that time. But it felt good to work that hard. Afterward, a man from the church made us jambalaya and gumbo. I had never been that far south before, and had to be educated on the difference between the two. :) They were both delicious!

Sunday morning we went to Broadmoor Baptist Church, K's home church, for the service. They are hosting 120 Red Cross disaster relief personell at their facility. Afterwards, we went to Florida Blvd Baptist Church, a major distribution center in Baton Rouge for hurricane relief efforts. They serve meals every day, and hand out supplies/clothing. We helped sort clothes, and helped some of the evacuees find the clothing they needed among the boxes and boxes of donations. We met one woman who was staying with her cousin in Baton Rouge in a small house with 17 other people and only one bathroom. Baton Rouge's population has more than doubled to 1.2 million since the storm hit, which made traffic a bit slow, but we're used to that kind of thing. :)

Monday morning we volunteered at the makeshift animal shelter at LSU's agricultural center. They are housing 1100 animals. We walked, fed, and loved on lots of dogs. They expect the shelter to be open for at least another month. We left there at 10:30 AM Monday and made it back this morning at 8:30. We slept for a few hours, and then Laura and I headed back to work this afternoon. The trip was definitely worth the exhaustion, but pray that we recover quickly.

The greatest thing to see there was how so many people came together to help out. There were lots of local folks, and many from far away (Montana, Oklahoma, Alexandria VA). We met a lot of great people. Those affected by the hurricane are going to need help for a long time to come. Please contact your local Red Cross to see how you can help. Thanks to those of you who have already contributed your time, efforts, and prayers to those in need.

And from my friend's wife who was ready to have her baby already:

Yo, man. You probably saw the text message, but just formally wanted to let you know that we welcomed Joshua David into our family on Thursday evening last week. He came home saturday, and we've been adjusting and not sleeping since :)

Thank you for your prayers.

TBA

Ed Rendell is upset because more school districts didn't choose to sign up for the slots revenue (which in turn would lower property tax). Now he wants to make it mandatory.

I read a fun quote today. Roughly interpolated, it said "friends are the accessories of daily life." And I thought, "how great is that?" When you think about accessories, you see them as a compliment to something, whether it be for your hair, your car or your playstation. So I interpret it to say that friends make daily life that much better. Yay for friends!

I went to a women's volleyball game tonight. The Messiah College Falconettes played the Lebanon Valley College Flying Dutchgirls. The Dutchies romped. Messiah needs to recruit some tall players. Who can block. The LVC fans in attendance had brought along thunder stix. People wanted to hurt them because they were annoying. I found myself not liking them. But then I realized that probably wasn't right.

I'm going to Busch Gardens this weekend. But I seriously need to find a place to rest my head. As well as the heads of those people coming along for the five to six hour ride.

Just deserts

Dear Mrs. _________,

I messed up. I admit it. I didn’t do my job. So I went to you. I could have sent an email, but I walked over to your office myself. I apologized and informed you of my error. The least you could do was verbally accept my apology after you reamed me out.

Deflated,
MTG

Tell me how it ends!

This morning, my pastor spoke on the first commandment. If you’ve forgotten, that’s the one that says “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Phil spoke on the use of the word “You” and how it not only denotes a group application (speaking to you all), but also denotes single, personal application (you). How God was speaking directly to each of His people. He helped tie it in by discussing the relationship between the father and the older son in the parable of The Prodigal Son.

He talked about how the father and the son each had different interpretations of the father/son relationship. From the father’s perspective, it was all about love. His love for his son and his desire to provide for him. But as far as the son was concerned, it was about rules and obligations. He felt that to curry his father’s favor, he had to be the “good son” and follow all the rules.

Now as I write this, I have to confess that I’m not exactly sure how that all ties in with the first commandment. One of the disadvantages about how I serve in the church is that I miss the last 10-15 minutes in the first service. So I can’t tell you how it all ties in. Just that I was struck by the difference in how differently the father and the son each viewed the same relationship.

I’ll leave you with the words to this hymn:

How Deep the Father’s Love For Us
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I knoww that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

-Stuart Townend

a friend...

will join you in eating over-priced German cuisine from well-intentioned Lutherans.

Shoes

So I was going to hold off on this entry for a while longer, but because it got a lot of attention in the past 24 hours from various parties, I put it on the fast track.

If you can correctly guess the number of pairs of shoes I own, you will win a prize. But you have to guess exactly. I will tell you that my collection includes sandals, dress shoes, casual shoes, athletic shoes and non-snow boots.

My favorite color for non-athletic shoes is brown. My favorite color for athletic shoes is white. Favorite secondary colors for athletic shoes are blue and grey.

My favorite type of shoe is the slip-on.

My favorite athletic shoe company is Adidas. My least favorite shoe company is Nike.

Favorite non-athletic shoe company is a toss-up between Nunn Bush and Bass.

I don’t like tassels on my shoes. Buckles are okay, provided they serve a purpose.

Ladies, when it comes to dress and casual shoes, I like it when your heel is covered. All of it. This means that I don’t like strappy shoes (especially slingbacks) and I don’t like those sandals or wedges or whatever you call those shoes where you have a heel and no back. I don’t have a problem with sandals, provided that they are flats. It is permissible for flat sandals to have no heel strap.

My favorite ladies shoe is the Mary Jane. My least favorite is the stiletto. Why you ladies feel like you have to balance on heels more than two inches high is beyond me.

And that's what I have to say about shoes. Join us next time when we talk about socks and hosiery!

Media Round-up

Check out the trailer for AeonFlux. It actually looks good. And I'm not just saying that because Charlize is in it.

There is also a trailer up now for Doom, which is the next groundbreaking movie for "The Rock." If you've ever played the game, you will enjoy this trailer as it features a lot of things that you'll remember from the game, even down to the first-person view.

The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio is the winner for longest movie title this fall. But I do like period pieces..

A reminder that the season premiere of The Simpsons airs THIS Sunday. That is, if you watch that sort of thing. No more waiting till after Halloween for the Treehouse of Horror episode. Woo Hoo!!

I'm also reminded that it's been a while since I plugged Passion '06. Consider it plugged.

Prayer Requests

Please Pray:

*For the Ziegler kids, who are on their way to Houston.

*For the two Duke fans I know (I'm pretty sure I only know two of you), who are headed down to Baton Rouge.

*For my friend's wife who wants to hurry up and have her baby already.

Danke

Fun is being part of the family that's all heart.

I was listening to a sermon last week by Donald Miller, who you may know from “Blue Like Jazz” fame. And he made a comment which I don’t remember word for word, but which I’ll try to explain.

Ya know what happens if you start hanging around the same people for a while? You may start to pick up some of their mannerisms, begin to use phrases they do, or similar body-language. You also begin to get an idea of their likes and dislikes. And sometimes you may even adopt some of their likes and dislikes.

That’s how it’s got to be with me and Christ. The closer I am to Him, the more in tune I am to His heart. His likes. His dislikes. His ideas. If we’re not on the same page, then I’m not living like I should be. I need to catch his fire. In high school, one of my coach’s favorite sayings was “I want to know what flavor of gum he’s chewing.” I was not supposed to ask my opponent about his gum, rather I was supposed to maintain contact that was close enough to figure out what kinda gum he’s got.

I’ve gotten a whiff of the gum He’s chewing, but I can’t quite figure out what the flavor is. And I shouldn’t rest until I know for certain.

Your morning exhortation

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

I Peter 4.8

Where there's smoke, I'm thinkin'

Okay, you've probably already heard about what Kanye West said. I'm not even going to touch that.

There's been a lot of talk about how crappy the government's response is. I've been thinking about stuff. This may well be the largest natural disaster that the country has ever faced. I think there was a pretty bad earthquake out in Cali back in early early 1900's, but I'm not sure of all the facts there. Anywho. Our country has never seen something like this. As such, we had no clue as to how to plan for it. How can you ever imagine that whole cities would be destroyed? I don't think you could. So I think people deserve all the credit in the world for what they've been doing. There's always going to be critics. It's a sad fact of life. And I for one, will not criticize the government response.

I've also been thinking about the charges that the delayed response was because 67% of NOLA is black. I think that's crap. Please refer to the paragraph above about why the response has been what it's been. I know most people are not in the position to, but cut these people some slack. If the government was racist, why are we going to the trouble of getting people out of the city? We're not just pullin' out the white folks. We're pullin' out everybody we can get to. And that's all I have to say about that.

One more thing. This thought first caught my eye when it was posted as a comment to someone's post. Here it is. What if Katrina was a result of the wrath of God? Now it's hard for me to even fathom the depth of God's wrath. All I have is what was told of in the Old Testament. Now I don't think that anyone would argue with me that there was a quite a bit of sinnin' that occured in NOLA. I'm not even going to bring up the alchohol. But what about all that voodoo that is associated with NOLA? I don't even know that God would do something like this. I mean, I wouldn't put it past him, but does he still do stuff like this? I dunno. Thoughts?

Come on everybody, jump on!

It's been a while since I had heard from a certain Michael Moore. He emailed me today:

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Biloxi Before And Afters

BEFORE

AFTER

Pontification

I was thinking about how I would feel if a hurricane had roared through my neighborhood. First, I would have evacuated. I'm fairly certain that I could understand that human life was more important then my posessions. Now I actually say that with no sarcasm. If you've ever helped me move, you know I'm holding on to some stuff. Old yearbooks, notes that were passed in high school, baseball cards, etc.. I know I would be tempted to bring stuff with me. But I don't think that I would be tempted to stay behind because of my posessions. That's what homeowners insurance is for. So I would definitely get out. And I probably wouldn't wait until the last minute. If you know me, the fact that I would leave three or four days before landfall would probably not suprise you. After the hurricane tore through, I would be devastated. The damage not only to my posessions, but to that of my neighbors and community would be horrible. I don't know if I would want to rebuild. I might just want to move to Colorado...or Europe.

I gave some flowers to a girl yesterday. She said "you know I kill things, right?" Then I lied and said "yes." In reality, I didn't realize that she killed things. Though that's good to know for future reference..

The Never-Ending Bowl of Pasta is back at the Olive Garden. I'd like to try that five-cheese marinara as well as that creamy garlic. Who's with me?

Here's some Q&A from today's USA Today about the gas situation. Or lack thereof.

I'm giving serious thought to using public transportation to get to work. If gas continues on the up-and-up, I have to. I commute 24 miles to work each way. To fill my tank right now would cost me over $45.00. A monthly bus pass would cost me $50.00. So I'm thinking about it.

And I'm sorry about the lying that was mentioned in paragraph two.

502

Just thought I'd do a little before and after of NOLA (couldn't find one for Gulfport or Biloxi).
BEFORE

AFTER


Clicking on the pics should give you the super-sized photos.

Paging Helen Hunt...

This photo was taken this morning on Stumpstown Road. Remnants of the F1 that came through the area on Tuesday night.