Tim Thompson . . . Reflections

The Advent Conspiracy

2008-10-24T20:44:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I blogged anything on this site and I've been through a lot in that time. A renewed hobby has taken a lot of my time; a return to shift work in April didn't help although I have a lot more time off; a new grandson in June was wonderful.

I also left church behind last December and have redeveloped a pretty cynical view about organized religion but on occasion, something still stirs within. One Christian blogger that I still read points to The Advent Conspiracy. Worth looking at, worth viewing the video and certainly worth action. I'll have to let it speak deeply to me and renew that passion for the third world and maybe, spend less at Christmas in order to spend more on hope.

Hope, the best defense against cynicism.

Love

2008-02-11T18:14:00.001-08:00

I know that I haven't posted much of anything here for a long time and there are still a few of you who check this out from time to time. It's not that I don't have anything to say (I do - I've gotten a little radical in a couple of areas of belief over the last year) it's more that I don't have enough hours in the day to accomplish all I might like to do.

Photography has become a pretty major interest of late and on a recent trip to see family in Vernon, B.C. I decided to try and take a picture a day while I was there and post it on my photo blog (which also hasn't seen much in the way of blogging.)

I thought I would share this picture that I took of some candles that my daughter-in-law had sitting around because it is a great quote from the greatest explanation of love ever. (For a more detailed explanation of the shot check out Vernon PAD - Candles on my photo blog.)

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-16T14:29:00.000-08:00

Photo Blog

2007-07-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Those of you who still check this blog from time to time will know that I don't blog too often these days. I mentioned a month ago that my adult ADD (just a joke really, although people around me roll their eyes at my latest "interest") has taken me back into a serious interest in photography. So, I've started a new blog called Reflections II that will be focused on my photography hobby and maybe business. I thought the reflections title was still appropriate since photography is basically a reflection of what we see.

Currently, you will find only two posts over there and there just doesn't seem to be enough time to learn all I have to learn, to shoot photos and develop them. I shoot in RAW format so photos have to be "developed" by setting white balance and color saturation and all kinds of things even before you might venture into Photoshop manipulation. While RAW keeps all the data intact and allows for much greater control over the picture, it also requires an additional step to convert (or develop) them to jpegs. Since I took over 2000 photos over the last couple of weeks, I have a fair bit of stuff to work on. Fortunately, I'm not very good yet and so a lot of those photos can just be left and not bothered with at this time.

Some of the photos that I think are better (mainly because I like them or at least find them interesting) can be found on my Flickr Photo page.

Now, in case anyone thinks I've lost interest in things of faith that this blog has been mostly about, let me reassure you that I think my faith is fine, but I just am having trouble continuing to talk about all that's right or wrong about the Christian church these days. Let me just say that I have a lot of confidence, trust and faith in the amazing grace of God that will see me through and probably see a lot more people in this world through than most of the church thinks. For that, I am thankful to God for his love and a little discouraged with a church that is too judgmental for my tastes. Although, to avoid charges of hypocrisy, I have a fairly judgmental streak running through my bones, mainly pointed towards a church and christians (myself included) who don't exactly live and breath the grace of Jesus.

But, he knows what he's doing and the Spirit continues to be active and busy in this world. Sometimes we just don't see it because we refuse to open our eyes.

But, enough of this preaching stuff. It's too much like what I've spent too much time doing in the past. Time to go forward.

I love this quote from Mark Twain who no one would mistake for a Christian thinker:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

That's why I'm chasing photography again.

Catch you later.

Ferry Bomb Threat

2007-07-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was an interesting final day of holidays. My wife and I left on July 12 and headed to Kekuli Bay Provincial Park just outside of Vernon, B.C. My kids and grandkids are in Vernon and Kelowna so it was great to see them. We also had an opportunity to visit my daughter-in-law's family who arrived a few days after we did.

It was a pretty great week with the exception of having our awning ripped off by a freak windstorm on the first day. Lots of sightseeing, lots of pictures with my new camera (some 2000 plus) and overall a good couple of weeks.

Yesterday we returned after the final two nights in Manning Park and we caught the 3:15 ferry out of Tsawwassen (Vancouver) heading for Duke Point outside of Nanaimo. About 45 minutes into the trip an announcement came over the speakers that all passengers were to move to the rear of the boat. As we headed back the boat was rocking real bad and we all wondered what was going on. As it turned out, the boat was turning around and heading back to Tsawwassen. There had been an earlier announcement looking for the owner of a backpack that had been found and I suspected it had something to do with that.

Eventually, a crew member came into the cafeteria where we were all waiting and told us that there had been a bomb threat and we were returning to the Vancouver side so police could search the vessel. Later, I talked to another crew member and there had been a phone threat saying there was a bomb on a ferry that had sailed from Tsawwassen. They had done a sweep of the vessel and found the backpack but, after the announcement someone had come and claimed it. There was then a subsequent phone threat and that's when the decision had been made to go back to the ferry terminal.

After we got back to the terminal, we waited, and waited, and waited. The ferry across from us that was supposed to leave for Victoria had their passengers emptied out into the parking lot while the police searched the ferry using a dog trained to sniff out explosives (I guess). Eventually, they showed up on our ferry and we had to put any carry on luggage, purses, camera bags, off to the side for the dog to sniff. None of it seemed real efficient and I suspect it was pretty clear that it was a hoax, but they had to make sure.

Eventually, we were given the clearance to leave again and we got underway at 8:00 (remember, this was the original 3:15 ferry). According to the news sources there were no other ferries except ours and the one already loaded for Victoria that departed. We got to the other side by about 10:00 and finally got home at 11:30 last night.

All in all an interesting day, not one I want to experience too often. I don't panic easily and I was never too worried. I took lots of pictures of the event and we had a nice visit with a couple of vacationing families, one from Ontario and another from Calgary and that doesn't happen very often (visiting with strangers, I mean), (or being the victim of a bomb threat).

And that was our excitement for the day.

Renewed Interest

2007-06-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

My adult ADD has moved me back to a renewed interest in photography. I have always had an interest but I am now trying to take it to a different level including, possibly, getting involved in the wedding photography and portrait business.

To that end I am in a bit of a spending mode and recently purchased a Canon 30D digital SLR. My 1992 vintage Canon EOS Elan film camera has sat idle for a number of years, partly because I was starting to have some trouble with it working properly and partly because I always felt restricted by the film format because I was too cheap to shoot the amounts of shots you need to take sometimes to get what you are looking for (plus I probably got interested in something else). (At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.)

Digital works well with my computer interests and shooting in RAW allows an opportunity to start exploring the whole digital darkroom concept.

Anyway, if you want to view some of my photos here is the link to my Flickr page. Most of the pictures are still from my digital point and shoot Fuji camera but more and more will appear as time passes.

A love of God's glorious nature inspires me greatly and capturing that and his beautiful people provides multiple connections to those things that fascinate me about God and about faith.

That, plus getting out of the whole political aspects of church and union and work is highly therapeutic for me. It might even get me blogging again.

Great Foxworthy Speech

2007-04-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

As I said, I have pretty much taken a hiatus from blogging. Even if I wasn't, posts would have been infrequent because I'm on another one of those seemingly endless renovation projects. This time it's our bathroom. It's only a little 5x7 room but it's taking forever. Wish I was making $50-60 bucks an hour for my work. I'd be rich.

Anyway, the point of this post is to link to a great little speech by Jeff Foxworthy on the appeal of country music. Now I'm not much of a country music fan, and I don't consider myself a redneck (although I'm from a little town and I drive a pickup truck) but this is one great speech. My thanks to Joe Carter at the evangelical outpost for linking to Hot Air's post (in his post Thirty Three Things (v.8)).

Have a great week. I've just about got the drywall hung and ready to mud. Yep, a real redneck DIYer.

Deleted Post from (Blog) Red

2007-04-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

I use Bloglines for the blogs I want to follow and read. Occasionally, a post will show up in my feeds that has subsequently been deleted on the actual blog (as you can see by clicking on the first link below). The following post at (Blog) Red impressed me quite a bit with what is a forward campaign in Swaziland. I can only speculate why it has been removed from the blog, but I put it up here for you to look at.

Likusasa Ngelami - The Future Is Mine

By bn

Here's one of the ways that (RED) money works in Africa: Swaziland's National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDS, or NERCHA, targeted teachers with their "Likusasa Ngelami" ("the future is mine") campaign to encourage sexual abstinence and delay of sexual debut. Adele from the Global Fund sent over the posters for us to share.

That's not all NERCHA does to fight AIDS in Swaziland, of course. We first mentioned NERCHA last December with Adele's blog entry about her trip to Swaziland.

Here is an excerpt from her blog entry:

Swaziland has the highest infection rate in the world – about 34% of all adults are HIV-positive, and so many have already died that there are already over 70,000 orphans, and 15,000 child-headed households – in a country of only 1.2 million people. This has all happened very recently. In 1992, just under 4% of women attending prenatal clinics were HIV-positive, and by 2004 this had increased to over 42% -- that means that now, almost 1 out of every 2 pregnant women is HIV-positive. Life expectancy for Swazis has dropped to 39 years, and the number of orphans is expected to increase to 120,000 by 2010.

NERCHA’s role – with the help of (RED) money through the Global Fund grant – is to turn this terrifying trend around, ensuring that those already infected can get care and support, those who are still HIV-negative can remain that way through prevention education, and those who have lost their livelihoods because the family’s breadwinners have died, can survive, through community projects designed to support orphans by growing food for them and providing a safe space every day.

Read the rest of Adele's post here, and also a post from her follow-up visit to Swaziland last month.

Posted on: Fri, Apr 13 2007 7:45 AM
Updated: Sat, Apr 14 2007 1:31 PM

What We Call the News

2007-04-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Check out this new, funny, commentary on the news by the folks at Jib-Jab.

Evolution of a Worshiper

2007-03-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

Gotta love this!

With thanks to Steve Norris.

Now I have to go find a robe and a cross on a stick.

Tim's Trims

2007-03-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

I know I said that I was taking a break, and I am, but I found a new way to even more quickly throw up things on a blog that I stumble across and want to share.

It's called tumble blogging and I call mine Tim's Trims. It just makes it real easy to put up a link, a quote, video, or a picture that I might find in my internet searching. I've also linked to it in the sidebar.

It will probably be a real mishmash of stuff, but hopefully, with some value.

Try it out for yourself at Tumblr.

Taking a Break

2007-03-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

To those few readers who still check this blog out from time to time, I thought I should let you know that I'm taking a bit of a break to undertake a couple things.

I am still trying to figure out how to get back into prayer and that has to happen in the AM when I usually did most of my blogging.

The other project I'm undertaking is for my three children. I never shared much of my memories of my childhood with them and I am trying to get this down for them. The neat thing about this is that I created another blog, open just to them, where I can post these "memories" as I find time and interest.

The biggest thing that they have often been curious about is my father, who was killed in a plane crash when I was ten. I never talked much about him, partly because my memories are pretty slim. But I also never shared much with my kids about how it impacted me and what my thoughts have been.

So it's a good exercise for me. It also allows me to practice writing narrative style writing. And that's enjoyable.

I may still post from time to time, but I only have about 5 hits a day since I've really not had much of any substance to say of late. Mostly, I've just been whining and that isn't constructive. I think that I'm working things out, though, even considering participating once again in worship at my church. I'm trying to come to terms with a few things in that area, and I don't want to lead or step on anyone's toes. We'll have to see how that works out.

I will still read blogs and perhaps become a better commenter than blogger. A personal note to Steve Norris, I'll definitely be following your blog and commenting from time to time. I'm not letting this internet friendship disappear. I have too few friends as it is.

Blessings on everyone who came to visit. The blog's not dead, just not going to be too active for a while.

(Product) Red Interview

2007-03-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned the (Product) Red campaign previously as something that I think is worthwhile. You can read an interview with Rose Rwabasinga from Rwanda on the (BLOG) RED site.

My only caution in all of this is that you should not rush out and buy something you don't need or like just because some of the profits go to help others. Better to take even half of what you would spend and send it directly to the Global Fund or some other worthy organization.

But, if you are buying something and the (Product) Red item is satisfactory, then it's a great idea and I would say to do it.

Justice comes in many flavors and in many colors, red being one of them.

No Focus

2007-03-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

I've been scanning a few blogging tip blogs over the last couple of weeks, in part, I suppose, to try and figure out what blogging path I want to go down. I have used this blog to vent, to sometimes share what I think about church and the kingdom, and, all too often, to just whine and snivel about things that bother me. The bottom line? No real focus or direction. Kind of like my life right now.

I have another blog that I set up to communicate with union membership at the mill I work. But that gets posts pretty infrequently unless something is happening. Recently, I set up a blog for my union local that the President can post to and that I post to, also for communication, so it renders my other blog somewhat moot.

The blog tips suggest that a person find something that they are expert about and write about that. I'm not sure what I could write about. I like to think I know a little about a lot and certainly, people who know me know how opinionated I can be. But, I don't consider myself expert in any one thing.

So, I'm searching a bit for something that will grab my writing interest. I'll continue posting here but I'm struggling to find inspiration these days that goes beyond just whining and complaining. I guess you could say that I've got the blahs big time.

Just too much negative stuff happening all around me and it eats at me inside.

Hopefully, it's just winter time blues. Thanks for reading some of these nothing posts.

Have a great day and, if I don't post tomorrow, a great weekend.

Thoughts from Church

2007-03-06T06:47:00.000-08:00

I admit to a large degree of dissatisfaction with church these days. And, I will take a large part of the blame upon myself. I don't believe it is just related to my church but to the way that I see church being done all around (at least in my little town).

Lets take worship for example. Many of the worship songs that I taught and used to lead now seem trite, meaningless ritual. Quite a change from what I used to consider radical and new and meaningful. Obviously what has changed is me. Is that for the good or for the bad? I'm not really sure.

As I thought about worship in song on Sunday and about what worship songs would be acceptable to me I could only settle on songs that are directly from Scripture, especially the Psalms, and songs that are specifically about the great themes of the Bible.

Schmaltzy, sappy love songs to Jesus just don't speak to me anymore (if they ever really did) even though love is the greatest theme of God.

I'm not sure what I am looking for in worship. I acknowledge that it is important and that communal worship is important but I cannot find satisfaction in what I am currently seeing or experiencing. Again, quite possibly it is mostly my fault these days, for I am extremely critical of most of what I see.

A bit of irony to these thoughts came following the meeting as the pastor, with great care, approached me and asked if I would come and teach the worship team the Robin Mark song, The Wonder of Your Cross, because he wants to use it at Easter.

Silly me, I said yes.

Have a great day.

Children of Hurin

2007-03-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

Well, this is kind of cool. Here is the cover art for a new novel by Tolkien that he never finished but has now been completed by his son, Christopher. It will be available in April and I may soon just have to pre-order it. Infuze magazine has a few details about it. Check it out and order it at Amazon.ca (Canada) or Amazon.com (U.S.).

One Sentence on Prayer

2007-03-02T06:47:00.000-08:00

I am in the process of reading Philip Yancey's book on Prayer and I regularly bracket statements that make a valid point with me. This morning I have one sentence to share from page 166 of the book. Here it is, out of context and without preface, but read carefully, has something pretty important to say in my opinion.

Regular prayer helps me to protect inner space, to prevent the outer world from taking over.

Have a good day and a great weekend.

Eating at the Trough

2007-03-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

Steve Norris is reading the new book by Dallas Willard titled The Great Omission. Yesterday, I linked to this post by Steve and my the closing quote made such an impression on my wife she printed it off, showed a couple of other people she works with (at the church) and then showed it again to me. I do read the posts I link to, but sometimes too quickly and it is easy to miss the significance of a statement or quote. So here is the quote for you to read in case you didn't visit Steve's blog.

Take some time to think about it and consume it (pun intended). I had a pastor once who spoke about people who had to come to every meeting the church had, every Bible study, everything and still wanted more. He referred to them as spiritual pigs. Interesting.

Here's the quote and have a great day.

The will to obey is the engine that pulls the train of spirituality in Christ. But spirituality in many Christian circles has simply become another dimension of Christian consumerism. We have generated a body of people who consume Christian services and think that that is Christian faith. Consumption of Christian services replaces obedience to Christ. And spirituality is one more thing to consume.

What If We Can Be Different?

2007-02-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

Steve Norris is reading Dallas Willard's latest book and posts on an aspect of what he has to say in What If We Can Be Different?

Steve also posted earlier on this book here.

Have a great day.

Why Pray?

2007-02-27T06:54:00.000-08:00

Reading Philip Yancey's book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? refreshes my memory around the need for relationship with God. Sometimes that important point gets lost in all the worrying and annoyance and anger (sometimes) about all the things not right in this world. Of course, most of what impacts me, personally, has to do with church and work. I could put both under a list titled, Things That Stress Me Out.

I'm not talking about just going to work or going to church, I'm talking about involvement. This could be everything from active involvement in some form of leadership to simply just caring about what is being done and how it is being done.

And I think that this same thing applies to prayer. Prayer is not just uttering some simple, repetitious, list of requests, it is, rather, engaging with God, learning some of how he thinks and what he wills, and finding out how to play a role in seeing his will done on earth as in heaven.

Involvement is not easy. Easy is doing nothing, not being involved, not being engaged, not expressing opinion or passion or love. Easy is tempting. Easy is the wide path that leads to destruction.

But, even easy can be stressful. How long can one turn a blind eye to children dying for lack of water, food, antibiotics? How long can one ignore the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa? How long can one ignore the massive injustices that still occur in this world?

But, I think that if prayer is ignored, it starts to get easier and easier to ignore all these other things.

Why pray? To get into the flow of God's heart.

I need to relearn how to pray.

Have a great day!

Morning Blues

2007-02-26T06:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not feeling too inspired this morning. There are some stressful negotiations coming up at work and I'm meeting today with other union reps to discuss strategy, I guess.

The last couple of days, my wife and I have been going through some things, getting rid of some and storing other stuff away in boxes, trying to get a handle on the accumulation of years. Rena (my wife) had some emotional moments going through pictures and cards and school projects from our children. My moment came as I was packing away books, many purchased years ago, in order to relocate some shelving to my current office.

Most of these books were purchased when I was training to be a Salvation Army officer many long years ago (1974-1976). That career never really panned out but my thoughts strayed to what might have been or perhaps what should have been. A melancholy moment to be sure.

More important, I guess, and always a struggle, is what should be now and what should I be doing? There's lots of interests and lots of concerns, but too often, little energy and sliding passion and trouble connecting with people outside my immediate tiny circle.

Whine, whine, whine. Time to wake up.

Have a good day!

The Risky Business of Prayer

2007-02-22T06:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I typed in a few quotes from Philip Yancey's Prayer, Does It Make Any Difference?, highlighted them to move them into block quote form and...hit the space bar and they were gone. Plus, I didn't discover the right click|undo command until I had tried something else so I shut down, went and ate breakfast and went to work. So I'll try again today.

Here are the quotes:

Praying can be a risky enterprise, I have found, as the Spirit often convicts me of the very thing I am praying about. "Lord, help my neighbor, a single mother, in her hard life." Hmm, have I offered to take her son skiing lately? "Father, I pray for Brandon and Lisa's troubled marriage." What am I doing to support them, keep them together, hold them accountable? The inner voice of prayer expresses itself naturally in action, just as the inner voice of my brain guides all my bodily actions. (Page 126)

Sometimes, like the boy who asks his parents to solve a math problem while he plays video games, we ask God for things we should be doing ourselves. Israel cried out to God for yet another rescue, "Awake, awake! Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days gone by, as in generations of old." [Isaiah 51:9] In the next chapter comes the response, "Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength." [Isaiah 52:1] (Page 127)

Prayer may seem at first like disengagement, a reflective time to consider God's point of view. But that vantage presses us back to accomplish God's will, the work of the kingdom. We are God's fellow workers, and as such we turn to prayer to equip us for the partnership. Karl Barth, living in the crisis days of Nazi rule, declared prayer to be "the true and proper work of the Christian," and observed that "the most active workers and thinkers and fighters in the divine service in this world have at the same time, and manifestly, been the most active in prayer." (Page 128)

Risky indeed. Prayer may, no should, lead us to action. Easier not to pray don't you think? Certainly less risky and less challenging. This probably explains much of my difficulties with prayer.

Have a good day and a good weekend (I start mine tomorrow.)

Partnering with God

2007-02-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

In a post a few days back, I mentioned a personal thought by Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission, that was relayed in Philip Yancey's book, Prayer, Does It Make Any Difference? Here are those thoughts:

Justice Partners

Fresh out of college I worked with Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa confronting the crimes of apartheid, and later became a lawyer investigating genocide in Rwanda and police abuse in the United States. I became convinced that Christians need to serve on the front lines of justice, so I founded an organization (International Justice Mission) that focuses the light of God's truth - as well as legal pressure and powerful publicity - on specific cases of injustice. We operate in twelve countries, specializing in cases of human trafficking, slavery, illegal detention, and torture, as well as assisting widows and orphans.

From the very beginning, I believed we needed reminders that the work of justice is God's work, and that God is on our side in the battle for justice. Otherwise, we might get overwhelmed by the enormity of the evil we confront. I feared a slide toward what I call "prayerless striving." So every day our entire staff begins with thirty minutes of silence, in which we encourage prayer and meditation. We don't talk, we don't work. We sit at our desks and pray. In addition, every day we get together at eleven o'clock and spend thirty minutes praying for each other and the cases we're involved in. Our staff members often report this is the most meaningful part of their day.

Gary continues to talk about more than five thousand prayer partners they rely on and the once a year weekend prayer conference where these partners are updated and pray together.

In our prayers we appeal to God's own desires: "You're the one who loves this child in slavery in Thailand." And I could tell you many stories of apparently miraculous answers to prayer: for example, of victims who were pleading to God for help just before one of our lawyeres or social workers showed up.

Gary says sometimes their faith gets tested and relates a tale of nine women being held in prison in Southeast Asia. But they persevere in prayer for their release and in working hard to accomplish just that.

Prayer as partnering with God. I like that. I need to learn how to do it.

Struggling With Prayer

2007-02-19T06:51:00.000-08:00

I have struggled with prayer the last (what 2, 3 years?) little while (possibly my whole life). Today, I want to begin again. Inspired in part by some of what I'm reading in Yancey's book, Prayer, I want to try and focus primarily on others and especially on some of those who do battle against the things that generate a bit of passion in me. Third world hunger, (especially the children), AIDS in Africa and, inspired perhaps by the upcoming movie, Amazing Grace, but also from an awareness from a few years ago, the slave trade that still exists in this world, even in the west. One heinous aspect of today's slave trade involves the sex slave trade. A brief viewing of a few minutes of a CNN special indicates that girls as young as 9 (and probably younger in places) are victims of this crime.

So I will pray and try and align my thoughts, actions and thinking with that of a loving heavenly Father who weeps and grieves over these same things.

And in praying, I will try and focus very little on myself. That has too often in the past driven me from prayer, probably because it is selfish and sometimes self defeating. I will instead simply try and work on this relationship with God in a joint effort to care for this world by first of all praying for it.

Have a great day!

International Justice Mission

2007-02-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

Just a quick link this morning that comes from reading Philip Yancey's book on prayer. Scattered throughout the book are some personal thoughts from various individuals. The one I read this morning is by Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission. So I looked up the site and found that it relates very much to the Amazing Grace theme from the last couple of days. Gary recently received the 2007 Wilberforce Award and this group is involved in fighting the slavery that still exists in the world.

When I get a chance I'll try and relate his comments from Yancey's book. They are quite good and provide some good teaching on the subject of prayer.

Have a great weekend.