My divorce date was not a date of celebration. When the documents came in the mail I didn't shout, I breathed a shallow, short breath as I held the papers, tears in my eyes. I have no criticism for anyone with a more exuberant experience, but this is my story. When I saw a friend later that day I was quietly congratulated. I responded that it wasn't a thing to be congratulated on, but a thing to be grieved. The goal and dream I had since a teen, of being with one person until death was totally gone.
the rest here.

it's actually kind of scary...


via

last night is was 17 years clean time for me. 17 years since an addiction to cocaine and pot.
my wife annette arranged to have a group of friends come to club. friends whom i have shared a bit of life with, all of whom i have known for over ten years. that may not seem significant to most readers, but as a military kid and churchplanter i have never lived in one place for ten years in my entire life. 10 years. 17 years.

my friend mark spoke at the end of club about me. he said that the measure of a person is not just found in the friends they had, but also in the people they offend. true greatness always tends to piss some people off. he felt i had that pretty well covered. it was funny, funny because it was true.

in the room last night i had friends who have chosen to love me inspite of who i am, inspite of issues i have faced. maybe they have not always agreed with everything i have done, but they have chosen not to walk away. i was very touched.

17 years. in a few hours i will head out to miracle valley for work - a place where most of the men have about 17 days clean time, not years. they remind me, time and again, how close i still am to that person so many years ago. that pastor who stole from the offering plate to support his drug habit. that dude who lied to his wife and family, lived a double life, tried to live in two worlds.

17 years. here's to 17 more.

Am I willing to love you enough to have only one conversation about you and to have that conversation face to face with you?
more here.

one women said, "well we do have a great deal of homeless people in the area and they are always coming by for help. so we had the doors replaced so they could not just walk in." well, God forbid a homeless person should ever approach a church for help; i mean what are they thinking? do they actually think we care? do they actually think we are to welcome "those" people into our clean, well kept, over priced church? after all, they did not have anything to do with the building of the church.

the rest of this bizarre story here.

The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal "adventure" in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-'em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac's relationship with "fun".

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality.
the rest, via jordon, here.

fav jack handey quotes:
Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you've never known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and bitter. Wait. It's not love I'm describing. I'm thinking of a monorail.

Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk.

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown who make people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has severe diarrhea.

read this on mike's blog. it's disturbing...
darfur is dying online game.

there is a stunning story in the bible about the king known as david. a giant, though not in stature, he led the jews during an important juncture of their history. courageous, powerful, and committed. but like most of us, a screw up when it came to sexuality and relationships. it's an encouraging thought really - the greatest among us still suffer from the same issues. money, power, even faith doesn't seem to keep us from making a mess of our lives. for every billy graham there are a thousand haggards and swaggarts. maybe ten thousand.

plastic christians make me sick. that's why i enjoyed this interview on 100 huntley street so much. as you can well imagine, i'm not even sure how to spell huntley, i don't exactly watch. like so many other squeaky clean religious broadcasts, it represents the worst in faith, not the best. makeup and facelifts and the litany of success stories - they simply do not wash in real life. most of us are not air-brushed. most of our prayers remain unanswered. our faith is a series of struggles. most of us don't spend hours basking in the presence of god. we tend to screw up alot. faith is a journey, the destination remains over the next hilltop. it's not that christianity is a losing proposition, it's just that it's not the fix all that the hyper-charismatics and tv preachers have led us to believe.

watch the interviews.

In the report, he says there have been numerous examples of "excessive risk aversion" in schools which must be stamped out if children are to develop properly. Head teachers have forced children to wear goggles when playing conkers and outlawed the backstroke in case pupils hit each other in the swimming pool, he says.

A survey of science teachers recently revealed that 87 per cent had not allowed students to take part in experiments in case they were injured.

Sir Digby says: "We hear of school sports days where there are no winners for fear of causing permanent damage to the self-esteem and emotional development of the 'losers'. One of my colleagues at the CBI told me that when his eight-year-old was winning a race he was instructed to hold back to give his fellow competitors the chance to catch up.

"There have even been reports of schools banning ball games and teachers refusing to referee matches for fear of the consequences of injury."

According to Sir Digby, the prevailing culture of risk aversion "is potentially fatal to our economics and social wellbeing".

via

i've been saying it for years, most coddled generation of all time. apparently parents think there is a child-molester waiting outside every playground. hopefully someone will wake up to the fact that our kids need to be wearing helmets in bed. what if they hit their head on a pillow?

spent all of yesterday in the clean and sober world. first an 8 hour shift at miracle valley, then club followed by a sober-riders dance at the club. it was a full day. one of the highlights was having my eldest son do a bulk of the speaking during club. one of our up and coming singers started to take over my position. great to see. it doesn't hurt that 4 people in my family were in the band either. worked on a new song by the fray (how to save a life) but couldn't pull it off yet. mellow but powerful

tomorrow nite we have 15 confirmed for the first 'greenhouse' in langley at kelseys. of course i work a straight job at acs first.
sometime this week i need to set up a new wholesale contract for coffee as well. life is kinda full.

oh ya it's valentine's week. have a little something planned. wanted to redo our engagement (which was on valentines last year) until i remembered the plane trip to the island was like 400 bucks.

went and saw 'night at the museum' this afternoon with most of the fam. it was surprisingly good, came home feeling good about the day. that's always a plus.

at least it's sunny and 12 C here, not -37 like in saskatoon... losers...

i was sad because i had no shoes till i met a man who had no feet. so i said, "got any shoes you're not using"
i pulled up to a 24 hour gas station and the guy was just closing. i said, "i thought this was a 24 hour station". he said, "ya, but not in a row."

i'd kill for a noble peace prize
steven wright

Mingle with the filthy rich and the dirt poor. Dig up all the roots of terror. Make hunger, disease, cruelty, lust, greed, self preservation and genocide your roommates. Then, when you run out of money and can't take it anymore, fly back home. Look in the mirror. Face your fears, your weaknesses, your strengths, your imminent demise. Then, when all this begins to gel into a master narrative in front of your eyes, go get a job.'
lori shares the rest here.

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life.
--the fray

working on this song for club, and it strikes home. h
ow many people come and go from your life, some by chance, others by choice.
how many poor decisions, actions that seemed right at the time.
how many miles walked with another, only remembered in the distance.
how many excuses made, how much blame assigned. how quick we judge.

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it’s just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life.

you're the alpha, the omega, the redeemer from on high;
we fall down, at your feet, oh glorious adonai.
as our hearts unfold we lift our hands
we rejoice with the heavenly throng;
that's how easy it is to write
a cliche christian song.

Last week at church we had a fashion show highlighting horrible labour practises around the world. A friend of mine said that sweatshops exist here too, relative to our employment standards. That is probably true. I can't do something about everything, but I can do a few small things. I can't reverse the greenhouse effect, especially by myself. And I'm not a soapbox person. I just agree with a couple of my friends who say we can't tackle the world, but we can make choices with parts of our actions. I won't live in the bush, growing my own garden, using an alternative heat source that reduces emissions, weaving my own hemp clothes. But I can wash with hot water a little less, make fewer trips in the car, look at options for some "sweatshopless" clothes. Maybe that makes me a hippie.

annette goes psychedelic here.

The hardest part about forgiving is that it isn't a one-time thing. I can forgive someone today, but chances are that if the hurt is deep, I'll have to forgive them again tomorrow.

the rest from dash here.

kelsey's on 200th in langley
monday, 7:30 pm.

Once you have rid yourself of the fear of the oppressor, his prisons, his police, his army, there is nothing much they can do to you. You are free. (Nelson Mandela)

via darryl

pepsi sucks. everyone knows that. yet that day, back in the day, i was tempted to screw up on the pepsi challenge in order to get on tv. i knew which one was the coke, anyone who drinks coke can tell, unless it's out of a fountain. if it doesn't sting a bit going down, it's pepsi. sugary piss water pepsi.

recently i was having an online discussion with my good friend jordon about selling out. i jokingly mentioned that i was always for sale, it's just that no one is buying.

most of us are for sale. some of us just haven't negotiated the proper price yet. i often wonder what my price is - is it a monetary deal, a sexual deal. maybe it's a pride deal, a popularity deal, a power deal. sometimes it's a religious deal. even a bitterness deal.

lately some friends and i have talked about the club selling out. what would that look like? i often wonder what i am willing to do in order to be popular. the drive to be successful by outside standards is often overwhelming.

it's easy to drive the high highway of integrity when everything is going your way. it's harder to dig yourself out of a hole and not still feel dirty.
it's easy, when you are popular, to not care about popularity. it's harder to keep going when you finally realize people hate you.
it's easy to belittle people for not spending enough time on religious activity when you are paid to go to church.
it's easy to berate people's priorities from a pulpit, knowing full well you get to do what you want all week and no one is going to hold you accountable. it's true, we just love to sugarcoat it all the time.
it's easy to say that marketing the church is stupid, or that you don't care about money, when you have a guaranteed income. i don't believe in church marketing and constantly look for ways to promote what we are doing...

it's easy to write blogs about spending 20-40 hours in sermon prep when you don't have a real job. truth is most ministers shouldn't speak 4 minutes, forget about 40. i've heard maybe a handful of speakers i can tolerate more than ten minutes before drifting off. that includes pretty much all the pastors i've worked with over the years (except 2). why do pastors think they need to speak for 40 minutes anyway? chances are you aren't as good as your groupies or your mom tell you.

it's harder to be true to your dreams when it's not popular.
it's hard to live life without selling out. everyday.

I dread Sunday mornings. For a variety of reasons I haven't been to church in weeks. I almost went this morning. My wife grew up in the church. I did not. Even so, I have bought into the lie that not going to church on Sunday (or Saturday night or whatever) makes you a bad Christian. I told my wife that I would go this morning and "do my time". We did not go.

I miss church. I miss feeling that I am part of the Body, that I am known and valued as a spiritual being by other believers. I miss corporate worship, even though it seldom feels worshipful to me. I even miss sermons, even though I listen to at least a couple of them each week on podcasts. And, even though I always felt that the 40-minute sermons at the church where we've been hiding out for the past six months, were about 20 minutes too long.

the rest here.

bnl concert rocked.
annette was beautiful, we had floor seats, the ladies rocked.

Greenhouses are basically organic networks for church planters and those interested in creating new forms of church.
more here.

floor seats
13th row