The graphic to the left is the probability for 8″ or more. We do stand a decent shot at it.  So be alert for the snow on Thursday. Not to mention that there will be some lake effect snow into Friday behind the storm. so the 36-48 hour snowfall amounts COULD be close to 12″. We will see. I’ll post updates at my Microblog. Here is my weather briefing from this morning.

Life as story

What I am reading

What did we get for Christmas?

• Mic stand!
• Steelers watch.

What did I learn this season?

• our story is crazy
• We forget that God became a man and started out as a baby
• We treat unmarried mothers so horribly wrong – The Nativity
• Very few of us would recognize Jesus if he came this way again

New Schedule at work

• Pros – start end times
• Cons – 4 person rotation – 4weeks

• Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead – The Reboot Website which goes with the movie. http://jointhereboot.com/
• New schedule for us at work. Looks good for now, but down side is every 4 weeks will  be the mid/evening.
• Christmas is coming. I’m not as cynical as I have been. I still wan to try and do something with the Advent Conspiracy.

Listening to it on after I recorded it, I’ll leave it as is, but I’m looking at ways to do a little post-production to clean up the recordings. I’m still learning Audacity.

Update! Let me know if this link to the podcast isn’t working. I’ll provide a direct link to my microblog where it is hosted for the time being until I can figure the issues out.

I’m thinking that I’ve been living a boring, mundane story. In some ways, I have, but there have been memorable scenes of conversations over the past 7 years since I met Mary and her kids. I know that I’m not always living a boring story. I’m trying to get into a more interesting one now, again.

In the book, Don talks about a bike trip that he initially didn’t want to do. I would turn into an epic story as he and a group of others were going to ride from Los Angeles, to Washington, D.C. on bikes, for charity. He equated that the beginning would be exciting, but that the middle would seem like they weren’t going anywhere. It would be easy to give up, chose an easier story. Not every story has a payoff. Some just lead into another story.

So, I’m trying not to abandon my story, it seems that there is a part that seems to go on forever. Like the story has come to a halt. I don’t want to abandon it. I need to be on the look out for memorable scenes to have meaningful conversations. I’m trying to be intentional about how my story, and those close to me, how their stories will evolve. That their character arc will bring change into their lives.

I highly recommend this book. I still have more to listen to. I may have to listen to it again.

I don’t disagree that Joe Paterno should have done more, he has said that himself. I think that it was time that Joe step down, and the retirement at the end of the season sufficed. However, ESPN went after Penn State and Joe with abandon, only to find out that ESPN was sitting on a tape that they say they couldn’t corroborate, so they didn’t turn it into the police.

At the behest of another PSU alum, and a friend, I wrote and complained. I received an email and was pointed to a blog post on ESPN.com about their reasons for not coming forward. It was lame.  I found this comment and many more like it in the comment section. (This is not me)

“Let me get this straight. ESPN is saying that if Joe Paterno had been a journalist, his actions would have been considered completely acceptable. Paterno had no real knowledge of the abuse, was told by a single person who’s story could not be confirmed by a third party, and did not go to police with potential evidence that at the time he didn’t believe was creditable enough to report. But Joe wasn’t a journalist, so he got crucified for it.”

If they were doing an investigative piece or not, they should have done more. So let me drag their name through the mud, well, yeah like my little piece here will do anything. So I  sent this reply:

“I’m sorry, but I went to your link. The explanation is weak, and my thoughts are pretty much in line with most of the people that commented on the blog post. Due to your failures, I will no longer be frequenting your pages, nor will I subscribe or use your cable stations, when I have the chance. Not to mention, I will avoid ABC or Disney if at all possible, as well.”

So there it is. ESPN (ABC or Disney) you are no longer welcome here. My own personal boycott.

First, a little background. One of the last podcasts that I listened to from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Shane Hipps preached about how the age of reason, that has brought us a lot of cool tools, it has hampered our ability to heal based on faith.

Then, as I listened to Brian Zahnd preach at Word of Life Church, in St. Joseph, MO I realized that his idea of the sense of sacredness was one of the things that is missing out of the American church. That sacredness, like that of communion, leads to a faith that believes in what I witnessed tonight.

At the Journey to Bethlehem, I realized at each step, how whacked out the story of how our savior was born. I mean, an angel appears to Mary and Joseph, pretty much telling them that Mary will be an unwed mother, that Joseph will marry her. Then as the night of the birth is upon them, angels pop up and tell these shepherds that the savior is born. I mean really? Okay, I buy into it, but I also partake in communion, where we are eating His body and drinking His blood. As we continue to wonder how to market our churches what if we made those things like baptism and communion, the focus. I we don’t, then we are just singing some uplifting songs, and listening to how to be moral, just like the secular world.

Update: We got into the Ticket City Bowl! One Defensive player was passed over as an All American for one organization as well.

The Thinker by Dano, on Flickr

I feel like I have been down this road a few times. I guess I’m wrestling with God, but He hasn’t put my hip out of joint, yet (I have been listening to Imago Dei Community series called “Wrestling with God”) Or did I just tap out? I’m not sure. I think that I am getting to a point where I am clinging to Him, but I haven’t asked for a blessing. Or have I? I keep asking for the blessing of a loving family, but not just that. I keep asking for a whole family, one that has been healed of it’s wounds. Maybe, in that respect, I am still wrestling with God. I keep hearkening back to the Shane Hipps sermon (Mars Hill, Grandville) on how reasoning in the western world has slowed down faith healing. So, I constantly have to meditate on the passage from Mark, “I believe, help my unbelief.” I usually say this when I feel down, when I don’t think that I’m getting physically healed, or when my family or myself needs to be healed.

I’m beginning to think that my hip socket has been put out of joint, and I am to be renamed.  I’m beginning to think that the “Wrestling with God” series has sparked in me something that says that what I have been doing is about to be completed and I’ll be moving onto something else in my faith.

I’ve seen so much in the last 5 years. I sometimes wish I could go back 3 or 4 years, and start over with some things, but I don’t dwell on it. I can’t go back, and I don’t need another time through it all. I’m coming out on the other side of this reborn, renamed, and with a limp that causes me to seek God, and cling to Him more than where I am now. I want the world, and specifically teenagers to know this difference. I want them to know that if they persevere with their faith, that the wrestling is worth it. I have seen too many “tap out” in favor of what the world tells them. I can think of several off the top of my head that God has me pray for still. I know that God isn’t done with me.

I may add more to the post in the future as I still have to re-listen to Rick Bezet at New Life Church in Little Rock, AR, “I Have Decided To Love His Church.”

Maybe I do know…

If anyone happened to catch my post on Facebook the other day, I'm starting an at-home recording project. Everything was drastically reduced in price from the summer, so for the amount I got my original mixer, I got a larger mixer with effects built in, a mic and xlr cable, and a good pair of headphones. Nice thing is it can all be used at church on Sunday. I need one more cable to plug my iPod into the mixer and I'll have what I need. Not to do some research on the reading materials for my project.