Someone should sign this guy

Did anyone see the 'Wendy's Kick For A Million' during the half-time of the Argos game on Thursday night? After the guy missed the first three kicks from 20, 30 and 40 yards I thought to myself that he was going home with nothing. The look on his face as the 50 yard kick went straight over the goalpost was priceless.

There's been a few struggling kickers in the CFL this year. Maybe this guy should be given a chance?

Hello, Hello. I'm At A Place Called Vertigo

Wow, what can I say. It's Tuesday in Auburn Hills (Detroit). It's U2 on the Vertigo 05 tour. What a show! Here's what they played for us:

Main Set: City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, Elevation, I Will Follow, Gloria, The Ocean, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Beautiful Day, Miracle Drug, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Love and Peace or Else, Sunday Bloody Sunday - Get Up Stand Up, Bullet the Blue Sky, Miss Sarajevo, Pride, Where the Streets Have No Name, One - MLK

Encore(s): The First Time, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, With or Without You, Crumbs From Your Table, Bad

Right from the start you knew it was going to be a special night. There was a great mixture of old and new stuff. To have 'Gloria', 'Who's Gonna Ride Your wild Horses' and 'Crumbs From Your Table' all on the same night was special.

Poignant moments included Bono's story about his dad conducting the stereo with his mum's knitting needles, then dedicating 'Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own' to him. Also the tribute to Rosa Parks (God Bless you in your rest), who had passed away the day before in Detroit, was very moving - MLK had the hairs standing on end!

Some of the new songs work really well live - the ellipse light show with 'Vertigo' being one of the best. Of the older songs, 'Bullet The Blue Sky' still takes a lot to beat for me, especially Edge's playing in the middle.

It was a great night and I'm sorry I won't be able to catch them again on this tour.

Unos, dos, tres, catorce!

I'm off to Auburn Hills in 30 minutes to see U2 in concert.

Will report tomorrow...

Monday Musings

What is it about Mondays? I always seem to feel so blah on Monday morning. Maybe it's post-Sunday blues or something. Or I could be just too psyched about going to see U2 tomorrow.

Things were going well. I got the kids dropped off at school and daycare and was about to have my second coffee of the day when the doorbell went. There was a guy there who wanted to come in and read the Bible with me. It wasn't one of our church people (too bad) and I soon discovered that he was from the JW's up the road. Not wanting to be too rude, but also not wanting to spend any time with him, I was able to get rid of him fairly easily.

Church went fairly well yesterday, although I feel rather uneasy and unsettled these days about the whole church thing. A couple of things I read last week have got me thinking about this whole thing of church (check them out here and here). We'll see how things unfold in the next few months, but there needs to be some change and a new direction. We've started the ball rolling and we'll see where it goes.

Anyway, back to the day...

Argos!

I had hoped to post something about the Leafs dominating the Flyers and continuing their winning streak, but there was nothing worth reporting there.

Instead, what about those Argos? In what had been dubbed the battle of the east, the Argos, and especially Damon Allen, dominated the Alouettes in front of over 50,000 fans in Montreal (most of whom had left long before the end).

Allen found Arland Bruce, R. Jay Soward, Robert Baker and fullback Jeff Johnson for TD passes, while Noel Prefontaine booted four field goals for Toronto. The Argos made Anthony Calvillo look very ordinary. It was great stuff to watch. Could be a Grey Cup repeat in Vancouver on November 27. Don't miss it!

The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Went to see the Wallace and Gromit movie tonight. It was a funny movie - lots of good British humour. I'll need to see it a few times more just to get all the jokes. If you are a fan of the W&G shorts, then you won't be disappointed. Aardman, the creators of W&G, just suffered a major fire at their headquarters and a lot of their material was lost in the fire. If you are stuck for something to do this weekend go and see this movie.

Good Times!

Yesterday, my wife did something really nice for me (not that she doesn't normally do nice things for me). She phoned my best buddy in Scotland without telling me and gave me the phone.

I met David at an SA camp in '76 when we were both 10 years old. We kept in touch over the years and were each others best man when we both got married in 1990.

We spoke for almost an hour on the phone, just catching up and recounting good times from the past - trip to the US in '85, U2 concert in '87 (drove over 400 miles with no clutch on the car so that we wouldn't miss the concert), and various other road trips.

Time really flies when you're having fun, but sometimes it's just great to recall good times. More good times are ahead. Next week I'm off on another road trip to Detroit to see U2 again on the Vertigo Tour. I can't wait...

The View From Here

This is the view from our front door today. It's a street in a town where not that much happens. The most exciting thing to happen in our street lately is that the ditches have been filled in and proper drainage has been installed.

Sometimes we complain, or hear complaints, that there's not a lot going on around here. To some extent that's true (maybe a Second Cup or Starbucks, or a decent bookstore would help), but there is plenty to do if you look hard enough. When I look at today's headlines: 'More than 60 dead in wave of Chechen attacks', 'Big aftershock rattles quake survivors, rescuers', 'Teachers union leader refuses to back down despite threat of huge court fines', and there are many others, then I am glad that I do live in a place where it seems that nothing much happens.

We just celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend and I think that there are times when we take so much for granted that giving thanks to God becomes something do without really thinking about it. One of the things we thought about in church last week was that it is easy for us to give thanks because we have an abundance, but would we still be as thankful if all that we have now was taken away from us? It may never happen, but it is worth thinking about.

I am thankful for living in a place where my kids can play safely enough (except for the odd bear that passes through), where neighbours look out for each other. But I'm more thankful for all that God has done for me - his love, his grace, his forgiveness, the sacrifice of his Son, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the list could go on and on and on....

Give Thanks!

And It's Goodnight From Him...

British comedian, Ronnie Barker, star of such great shows as The Two Ronnies, Porridge, and Open All Hours, died this week.

He was one of Britains most loved stars. I grew up watching him and always had a good laugh. He and Ronnie Corbett were a great team. It wouldn't be wrong to call him a legend.

Here are some of his famous lines. Hope you enjoy them:

• Following the dispute with the domestic servants' union at Buckingham Palace today, the Queen, a radiant figure in a white silk gown and crimson robe, swept down the main staircase and through the hall. She then dusted the cloak room and vacuumed the lounge.
• And we had hoped to have been bringing you Arthur the Human Chameleon, but this afternoon, he crawled across a tartan rug and died of exhaustion. But first, the news: The House of Commons was sealed off today after police chased an escaped lunatic through the front door during Prime Minister's question time. A spokesman at Scotland Yard said it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
• Good evening. I am the president of the Loyal Society for the Relief of Suffers from Pismronunciation, for the relief of people who can't say their worms correctly, or who use the wrong worms entirely, so that other people cannot underhand a bird they are spraying. It's just that you open your mouse, and the worms come turbling out in wuck a say that you dick not what you're thugging to be, and it's very distressing.
• "The man who invented the zip fastener was today honoured with a lifetime peerage. He will now be known as the Lord of the Flies."
• "The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on."
• "In a packed program tonight we will be talking to an out-of-work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet."
• "Many old music hall fans were present at the funeral today of Fred 'Chuckles' Jenkins, Britain's oldest and unfunniest comedian. In tribute, the vicar read out one of Fred's jokes, and the congregation had two minutes silence."
• "This kitchen appliance completely replaces the milkman, unless you're the woman at 14 Catbury Drive with the green door."
• In The Two Ronnies, Barker and sidekick Ronnie Corbett ended each programme with a spoof news broadcast. Ronnie Corbett: "It's a good night from me." Ronnie Barker: "And it's a good night from him."

Great stuff! He will be missed.

Turkeys?$#@!?!#^&*?

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! Turkeys almost prevented me from enjoying some deliocious homemade pizza for supper last night.

The weekly local rag had just been delivered, so I thought I'd sit down and enjoy supper whilst playing my weekly game of count the spelling and grammatical errors. And there it was the headline to spoil the pizza - 'Food bank cannot afford turkeys for Christmas'. The background to this is that our church is one of the local churches that together form the board of the local food bank. In the article it stated "This motion was made at our last board of directors meeting and was approved by all the churches." Whoa! What the heck! Wait a minute! Okay, so the motion was approved at the board meeting, but our church didn't agree and I made sure that the secretary minuted our disagreement.

I tried to eat my pizza, but I couldn't. I phoned the purchasing director quoted in the article and asked 'What the heck?' After some PR and backtracking he agreed to get the paper to put in a correction next week (although I fear that the damage may already be done). With this task I was able to sit down and finally enjoy my (lukewarm) homemade pizza.

So you may ask yourself what's my point? Well now we are part of a food bank that can no longer tell our clients that 'we provide a full turkey Christmas dinner'. We are now the food bank that 'provides a full turkey Christmas dinner minus the turkey'. Maybe we could tell those regular clients to think back to last year and remember the turkey they enjoyed then.

The part of the article that bothered me the most was when the purchasing director claimed that 'We felt bad that the money is not there.' In the immediate sense this was partly true, but in the big picture there were reserves that could have been dipped into to make some kind of Christmassy hamper available. I suggested turkeys only for larger families with chickens or hams for the smaller ones.

Our food bank is a Christian organisation, with only churches allowed to participate as members and volunteers. I am concerned about the integrity of the food bank and how this could affect the integrity of the churches on the board. We have already had somebody blast one of our Thrift Store volunteers about how we could send all these turkeys to New Orleans instead of keeping them in the community (the spiralling gas prices after Hurricane Katrina were given as the reason for the food bank not to be able to afford turkeys this year). Our volunteer was, thankfully, able to clear that one up. I don't think we've heard the end of this one.

Needless to say, next time we have homemade pizza on a Wednesday I'm going to leave the paper in the mailbox until after I've eaten it.

Go Leafs Go?

Well, it was almost a dream start for the big E. Things could have been worse, but they could also have been better. The Leafs get the record for being the first team to lose an NHL game by a shootout. Would've been better to have been the winner, but what can you do. The power play definitely needs to be better and it was too bad to lose Sundin so early in the game.

Saturday's coming. Bring on the Habs!

Trapped?

Went to Winnipeg this summer for two weeks of summer school. This was at our denomination Bible college there (okay, yes, it is the Salvation Army). Came home with a sense of feeling trapped. I don't want to sound too judgemental, because there were some great people there, but as I looked around and listened to what some of the people were saying I thought 'is this something I want to be a part of for the rest of my life?' Scary thoughts, as this has been my life.

Trapped? This would suggest that I'm somewhere that I don't want to be, but that's not really how I feel. In spite of the fact that I have joked to my wife that if I was able to choose I wouldn't go to the church that we pastor, I do love the people there (even though most of them are older than my parents - hey, they need Christ, too!).

Anyway, I think that someone may have unlocked the trap door and hidden the key. For four years of being here a lot of what we have had to do has been the joy of administration (if you don't know me - I have the gift of sarcasm), refereeing fights, trying to run outdated programs and running out of steam. Much of this may have led to the retreat into the trap, but we're going to escape that trap! Someone has stepped forward who really enjoys that administrative stuff and offered to take a large chunk of it out of my hands. Most of the scrappers have found other congregations to fight with. Some people have discovered that if they want their cherished program to operate in the way they want it to be that the easiest way to do this is to offer to take on the leadership and this has started to happen. A number of people have stepped forward and offered their homes as venues for small groups - no more shivering in the cold church basement with a handful of the 'faithful' this winter!

Then last night my wife came home from taking our daughter to her swimming club and said that quite a number of the parents there want to talk about God. They don't want to do the church thing in the traditional sense, but just want to hang out and talk about life and how God fits into that today. So my wife just said, yeah, that's soemthing my husband has been wanting to do for ages.

So, the door of the trap has opened. All I have to do now is to step out...

Community

I set up this blog months ago, but never really sat down and thought about what I was going to do with it. So here goes (hopefully).

Over the past little while my thoughts have been returning more and more to the concept of community. I have never really considered myself to be much of a community person.

Part of the training and ordination process of the denomination that my wife and I serve with involves living in community with the rest of the class and also with another class for almost 2 years. Although I made some great friends there, I don't think that I really got into the 'community' thing that much.

I used to rationalise this by saying that these years were just something we all had to get through so that we could get on with what we all felt we had been called to do. On days when I didn't really want to be there I would say to my wife that the only thing we all really had in common was that we all just happened to have applied and been accepted at the same time and once we were finished we would all go our own separate ways.

Now, if anybody from those days is reading this then I aplogise for this. Over the past few months and especially over the past week it has dawned on me that what we experienced during those short two years was probably some of the best 'community' living that we have had over the years. During the past week most of us have been sharing via e-mails and although we are distant by the miles it has proved that there is a special bond there. It has led to a blog being set up where we can all come and check in and share with each other as that community we had still really exists in spite of each of our locations. I have also realised that this community is one that can be enjoyed not endured. So I'm catching up with it again and I intend to make the most of it from now on.