Pho Real

Today was a glorious day.  It  marks the end of a crazy few weeks at church and school, my mom arrives tonight, and it’s our first Christmas in Florida.  To top if off I enjoyed a giant steaming bowl of Pho for the first time in a year.  Today I took, Jacob, a student in our youth group, and fellow food lover for his first ever bowl of Pho.  This wasn’t my first Orlando Pho experience, but it was the best.  Unlike Fresno, we do not have an entire part of town dedicated to this soup of the Gods.  We do however have a couple of blocks just past downtown Orland that is basically a Little Saigon of sorts.  Today we ventured into Pho 88.  It was clean (to clean in my opinion for a Pho place), the service was good, and the Pho was off the charts.  We started the meal with two spring rolls.  Basically rice noodles, lettuce, and shrimp wrapped in a clear rice wrapper.  Dip this a few times in peanut sauce and this is a great way to start any meal.  Follow up with an Xlarge bowl of Rare steak Pho and the world is happy.  If you haven’t had Pho, please call me and I will share this amazing meal with you.

A Prayer for Today

 

Covenant Prayer

From John Wesley’s Covenant Service , 1780

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

Seminary

It looks like this semester is finally coming to a close.  THANK GOODNESS!  For whatever reason it has been the hardest one yet to stay focused on.  If I didn’t have Greek, which requires focus, I might have had a really bad semester grade wise. 

In looking to my next round of classes, I have made the decision to not take a class during Christmas break.  I think I just need a break from school for a few weeks.  As for Spring, I was finally cleared to register and I am really pumped about the classes for next semester.

I have registered for the following: 

1.  “Theology of Servant Leadership” – I’m hoping this is a good class, although it sounds like it might be a bit predictable.

2.  “Seminar on Atonement” – Can’t wait for this one.  According to the professor it is about 2000 pages of reading.  He also said it is a lot of church history and theology.  This excites me. 

3.  “Church History 1″ – I’m taking this one online so I’m not sure what to expect.  Church History is pretty straight forward and I think my undergrad has given me a pretty strong foundation to take on this.

You may notice that this is one more class than normal.  I am attempting three next semester in hopes of speeding up the process.  Every extra class moves me that much closer to finishing the never ending Masters of Divinity.  Which by the way is one of the biggest stinking degrees ever thought up.

A New Day

A busier but simpler day.  No political posts for me today.  No iron sharpening iron for me today.  If you read the “about” section on this blogyou’ll see that it’s geared towards family, theology, ministry, and gardening.  Yes gardening.  So in an attempt to post something in the exact opposite of yesterdays post I thought I would give you all a little update on our fall garden.  Not that a dead plant that you have raised since a seed can’t make you insane, but overall gardens are much happier than politics.

As of today my garden (third one I’ve ever done) is going pretty darn good.  Our compost that has come from our suburban compost bin is working and turning our Florida sand into somewhat decent soil.  Yeah! for garbage.  I have two booming tomato plants.  One is a random one that grew up after my last garden and the second is one I bought at ace hardware for $1.49.  it was a small little thing at the time, now it stand almost 4 feet tall and it has 20 or so tomatoes on it.  I have two other small tomatoes, but they are sad and just not doing well.  Add to all of this one lonely, yet thriving bell pepper plant and things are looking good.  I am very excited about the bell pepper, because my first few attempts at growing these little guys has ended in failure.  Hopefully I will be able to get some pics up soon.

I would like to throw out a challenge for all of you.  While I know that now is not the time to plant in most of the country, it is the time to consider and plan a garden.  I would love to see one or two of you decide to join me in this task of growing your own.  You can’t get more local then your own back yard.  Start thinking about the where and the how.  You can even begin preparing the soil or building the raised bed (my recommendation).  Add to this some compost over the next few months and there you have it, a garden. 

The nice thing about a garden is that a garden isn’t political at all.  Or is it????

Congrats America

You’ve elected a new President.   Out of your zeal to have your problems fixed for you and the mess your greed made cleaned up, you picked the man that will do it.  You picked the man that most major media outlets told you to pick.  You picked the man who never once had to answer a hard question about past associations, inappropriate dealings, or the things he said. You picked Robin Hood as your President.  He promised you the world and you believed him.  Oh, he’ll give you a tax break and you can spend it right up untill you have no job.  You see that tax break came on the backs of the evil rich.  You know the one who owns the company you work for.  The one that as a result of being taxed more won’t decide to sell that boat, he’ll just lay you off.  But don’t fear, he’ll just tax the rich more and then he’ll give you more money to keep you happy and in line.  You won’t need to do anything for yourself ever again.  We will have created the perfect society.  Congrats America on giving socialism a try.  I guess capitalism isn’t working for you so why not try socialism.  I mean it has worked everywhere else right???  The welfare state has worked so well in cities ran by all Democrats.  See New Orleans or Detroit.  O.K. so it’s failed miserably there, but why not try it out on the entire nation.  Heres to us for trying.

Oh yes and congrats for finally proving that we really are the Brittany Spears nation that the rest of the world thinks we are.  Did we elect a President or did we elect a pop star.  Good grief, I haven’t seen people go crazy for something without thinking about why or what or who since parachute pants.  I hope six months from now when the buzz wears off and we are all done patting ourselves on the back because we voted for “change” that we don’t look down at our parachute pants and wonder what the crap we did.  Fads are fine for pants and music, but people die when they are the most powerful man in the world.

So here’s to you America.  Let’s celebrate history.  Every terrorist group and major dictator is celebrating today as a win, so why shouldn’t we.  Good job and Good luck!

I Knew It Was Coming

After the last few months of really great youth groups, this last Sunday night sucked.  Yeah I used that word.  It was like everything just went sideways.  Half of the praise band was feeling negative and out of sorts, the sound system was being goofy.  I wish I could give our sound guy a million dollars for all the headaches that our sound system gives him.  What stinks is that we are almost there with it.  We have enough new equipment to be in reach of it working great, but not enough money to get it the rest of the way.  Oh well, if that’s the only thing being wacky, I could deal with it, but oh no.  Add to out of sorts equipment and out of sorts praise band member, kids that just don’t want to pay attention.  I felt like I was preaching to myself.  I must say there were a few moments I just wanted to run.  Praise God for my leaders who stick with nights like last night.  I can’t run, it’s my job, but they can and they choose to stay.  Here’s praying that next week is a better week.

Sunday Busy Sunday

Lame title, I know.  Sundays are certainly a busy non stop thrill ride for me.  Today’s is beginning with some final touches on tonight’s message for youth and this blog post.  Soon it will be off to church for the Widlund family.  We go to the 9:30 contemporary service at our church.  It’s a good service, but to be honest there are some days that I wish I could attend the traditional one.  I just dig that vibe for a change.  But youth Sunday school or Praxis as we call it is during that block of time.

Chelsea (new Middle school director) and I are kicking of a new series today based on the book “The Revolution”.   It’s basically a book that is covering a ton of social justice issues.  Today we start with the issue of Clean Water and the disconnect between the bazillion choices of bottled water that we have as opposed to the one choice of parasite filled water many people have.  The book makes the statement that the choice most people have is “don’t drink the water and die or drink the water and after a while, die.”  Ugh.  My desire is that students will see how ridiculous our lives are sometimes.  I know kids who won’t touch tap water.  They ask if we have any water for sale in the cafe and I’ll say no, but there is some in the sink and they look at me like I just told them to drink from the toilet.  Along with shacking their worldview, I hope that maybe this issue will lay heavy on one or more of their hearts and as a result they will be one more person who leads the charge for clean water.

As for the rest of the day, it’s skate park, praise band, “church conference” (it’s a Methodist annual meeting of sorts), and youth.

At Church Conference I will be officially getting voted on in regards to me becoming a Declared Candidate for Ordination in the Methodist Church.  The excited first official step to becoming and ordained elder in the Methodist Church.  WOO HOO!

So all this to justify the title of this post.

Ramblings 2.0

If you’ve made it this far then you’ve made it to the site for my blog.  The move was really a $ issue.  It didn’t make sense to pay for typepad when I have been a bit lax on the whole blog thing.  So I’m trying WordPress.  So far it’s not that bad.  I just wish that I could change the order of the lists at the left.  If anyone knows how, let me know.

Blogging and Such

My lack of blogging had been obvious to anyone who reads this silly thing on a regular basis.  For that I apologize.  Things have just been a bit nutty around here and I just can't seem to put thoughts onto paper.  I have been going non stop for weeks now and it took getting the flu last week for me to actually take a break.  Of course the flu break just caused me to be more behind.  Oh well. 

As for this blog, I am seriously considering just doing away with it.  Samantha has agreed to let me guest blog on her blog and so I may just do that.  It's not that I don't ever haveanything to say, because I am fairly opinionated and I have a lot say.  It's just that when I think about sitting down and blogging it, my brain just doesn't work. I've prepared a ton of reactionary political blog posts, but none have been written.  They'd just piss people off anyway, so why do it.

So I guess it's back to work and back to trying to write a paper for school that I don't want to write.  Ugh.  Too many things to do and not enough time, motivation, or energy to do them.  Maybe after the election things will get easier.  I mean,I am sure to have more time on my hands.  Being Middle Class is going to kick butt under Obama.  More money in my pocket, better health insurance, a new car, more time on my hands, no more global warming, and darn it, peace on earth.  No more having to worry about my blog posts having bad grammar or bad spelling, because I think the censors will take care of that.  No more evil rich people and no more poor people.  Just middle class people enjoying the benefits of a government that will take care of all my needs.  Do you think this summer my lawn can get mowed.  I just can't handle another 4 years of having to do it myself.  Anyway, it's going to be great.  Well at least that's what I've been told by the talking box in my front room.  The assimilation into the collective is almost complete and it feels good.

Sometimes

Things just suck!  Today I found out that a friend of mine from CA lost his beautiful wife to what I hear was a heart attack.  My heart is breaking for him and I wish above all else that I could get on plane and go and just be with him.  I can't, so I will pray and ask God to bring comfort and peace to a situation that just blows.  I am not even sure what to say in a situation like this.  I've read thousands of pages and I've written a number on the subject of "why" these things happen.  None of it does justice to the reality of a something like this.  So my heart goes out and I ask that you pray.  God is good and I know he is still in control.