Month: February 2011

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Happy V-Day

Its Valentines Day, and so I think its appropriate for a little romantic poem:

Rose are Red
Violets are blue
I like to blog
but I stink at Haiku!

Many moons ago on this very day, Amy and I enjoyed our first date together – Dinner at Dalt’s and movie. Yeah, I know – pretty cheesy right – first date on Valentines, but let me tell that night quickly pushed my previous best Valentines memory to the background – the memory of being in the fourth grade and it finally being my turn to have one of my drawings copied of the old mimeograph machine. I still remember drawing old Snoopy and Woodstock on that blue paper, with the words Happy V-Day in the talking bubble. Anyway, the very best part of that first date with Amy, besides being lucky enough to be allowed to spend the evening with her, was that there was another one the very next day, and they haven’t stopped since!

So, it’s the day we remember and recognize our love for others. I hope you take a moment to confirm that to those around you whether it be with flowers, chocolate or a simple note or word. It’s important for us to hear and to tell those around us how we feel.

Also take a moment to remember where love comes from. Enjoy the Day!

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11 (New International Version, ©2010)

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Content and Hopeful

I was bouncing around considering what I could post about today – as there are finally several thoughts in one once thoughtless brain. Well, I am probably still thoughtless most of the time.
Anyway, I have posted lots about work this week, and making it fun – but one of the then that I have struggled with this week, as many of us do if finding the place of contentment. So, I was bouncing through some places this morning and I stopped here at the 131 psalm. It simple, yet complicated, but I think it is a nice prayer for simplicity, contentment and hope.

1 My heart is not proud, LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

3 Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore. Psalm 131 (New International Version, ©2010)

That is where I am trying to be as far as approaching things in this little life – having fun, being content and sharing the hope with love. Now, if we can master that. What do you think?

1God, I’m not trying to rule the roost, I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.

2 I’ve kept my feet on the ground,
I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
my soul is a baby content.

3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
;Hope now; hope always! (Psalm 131, The Message)

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The Greatest

My wee little brain is still circling around the whole having fun at work thing.  What I do know from my first attempts this week, I am not very good at it!  :).  Anyway, there is still loads of merit to the idea, and I think with a little practice and a shift in thinking each day ( maybe a little buffeting of the mind?) I think it will work.  I was thinking however here may be one critical component to everything that we do.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (New International Version, ©2010)

In this month of hearts and pink, flowers and chocolate, remember that love is greatest that all of them.

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Where’s the Fun

Way back in December of 2009 I posted about the Volkswagen fun theory. This has been something I have been thinking about a lot lately, and it was brought back to my mind with earnest first by this interesting quote that appeared on Amy’s daily calendar last week

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. -George Scialabba

and then by two very innovative Volkswagen commercials that have made the scene in recent weeks, The Force and the Black Beetle.  Both of these commercials are fill of innovation and fun.

I have often thought about this whole concept of the fun theory over the last 14 months.  Trying to see how to apply it to my home life, my church life, and my work life.  Hey 2 out of 3 aint bad – is it?  Well, that would probably be ok if it wasn’t that the 1/3 that is sans fun accounts for oh 2/3 of my waking hours. It seems sometimes that we I forget that enjoyment of our days is all that we I have.  There is so much to this fun theory, yet it is so incredibly easy to assume that there is something else that we are striving for.   I am all for getting the job done, working hard, and producing a product that brings glory to our Lord,  however, it has to so much better when there is an element of fun involved.

But unfortunately some time the creative is eaten up by the mundane, and the imagination is stymied in process and procedures.  Yesterday was one of those days where I wanted to reach through the telephone and produce untold damage on some of the people of the other end.  Fun.. well not really.  It was actually the farthest thing from fun. I guess that could be viewed as extreme, but is was not fun and as produces a very unpleasant working experience.  It shouldn’t have to be that way.

I have posted about the whole concept of work and my reliance on the writer of Ecclesiastics for a sign of hope before ( here, here and well here.  Or here for the whole list), and once again I go back to the well for some direction on having fun and enjoying the days.  The old man of wisdom says this

24 So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. Ecclesiastes 2:24 (New Living Translation)

and in the even more contemporary Message paraphrase

24-26 The best you can do with your life is have a good time and get by the best you can. The way I see it, that’s it—divine fate. Whether we feast or fast, it’s up to God. God may give wisdom and knowledge and joy to his favorites, but sinners are assigned a life of hard labor, and end up turning their wages over to God’s favorites. Nothing but smoke—and spitting into the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:24, The Message)

Let’s not let our God given intelligence go unused. Let us use let that intelligence have fun and let our imaginations take over. I strongly believe it will make the toil of work so different and that it will produce the satisfaction that many of us ( er me) long for each day when we head off the exchange our time for money.

Be creative, have fun , let your imagination run wild and bring glory to God.

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The End of the Ideas?

I think I have done it. I think I have arrive at the end of the my ideas. All my ideas, used up, washed up, done. For the last two days it seems my brain is an vast empty dark space, void of creativity and thought.

So this morning while I was shaving ( speaking of something that never ends!), I mentioned to Amy that my thinker was all washed up – done. kaput. over. Her response was immediate and fitting.  She said no, you can never run out of ideas – remember what Dr. Seuss says:

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

Of course at that moment she went off in song – singing parts of the Seussical Musical for the remainder of the morning.

But could it be? Could it be that arriving at the end of your ideas is really like arriving at the end of the internet – completely impossible?

Maybe, so on Jules Verne’s 183rd birthday, maybe I should let my brain head deep under sea to explore.  However, I have strange feeling that I don’t have to go that far to find what I am looking for. I think I may just ponder this thought today, and see where he leads me instead.

4 Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 (New International Version, ©2010)