Easter weekend recap
Good Friday - see below for some thoughts. After service, a bunch of us watched The Rookie, with Dennis Quaid portraying the real-life story of Jim Morris, who pitched in the major leagues a few years ago for the first time at age 36. Some more thoughts to come.
Saturday
Praise band practice in the morning. Afterwards, visited Guitar Center with Byron, Karen and Joy, where we sampled the various percussion instruments, checked out how cheap the electric guitars are (planning to buy one for church usage), and wistfully strummed away at the high-end acoustics. Finally picked up some new strings to replace the set that I broke that morning. Interestingly, for as often as I play, I don't break too many strings. Grabbed falafels from a well-known hole-in-the-wall in San Jose for lunch... tasty.
After Easter drama practice, a bunch of us went bike riding/rollerblading/jogging in Mountain View, following the Stevens Creek trail to Shoreline Park. I'm not as fit as I used to be.
Hung out with my bro that night, catching up and watching some NBA playoff basketball. Go Spurs!
Sunday
Woke up bright and early at 6:45 am in order to be at church at 7:30 for the final Easter drama run-through and band rehearsal. For the past few months, we'd been planning and praying for Easter Sunday because societally speaking, it's one of the two "Christian" holidays on the calendar (Christmas being the other) where a non-churchgoer will likely consent to going to church. While I still strongly believe that the majority of active evangelism takes place outside the church doors and in our own circles of influence, it was still neat to prepare and pray intentionally for Easter and also to encourage and keep accountable the members of the congregation to inviting family and friends. We had some great times of corporate worship through song, Jamie and I performed "Love Song" by Third Day, acted out an Easter musical drama entitled "Redeemer" in which I played the character of Jesus (more on this to come in a following post), Pastor Dan preached about the relevancy of the Gospel message to ordinary lives, several people were baptized, two infants were dedicated, a church member gave his testimony, and oh yeah, the children's choir came up and charmed everyone's socks off. Whew. To top that all off, afterwards we had a splendid Easter brunch prepared by some of the sisters in our congregation. The spread ranged from Chinese dan bing to congee to a variation on McDonalds' Fruit N' Yogurt Parfait, along with many other delicious items. Had the chance to catch up for a few minutes with Alan and Kain, and spent some more time with my bro. In total, we had around 150 people show up for service, about 67% more than usual. I'll be praying for our congregation as we follow up with family and friends who may have heard the Good News for the first time.
[thwack]
Had an extremely scary experience Sunday afternoon after consistory meeting, when several of us were playing ball. 4-on-4 halfcourt, and the other team had Hubert (a 6'3" skilled big man in the mold of Duncan or Yao - we call him Yao)... so, our team had to guard him with a much smaller player and immediately bring a help defender over when he got the ball.
On one such play, I rotated over to contest an entry pass into the middle of the lane where Hubert was posting up. The pass was to the hand I was moving towards, and while I was in the air, I got clotheslined (probably by his arm and shoulder that were positioned to catch the pass). My feet flew out in front of me and I landed hard on my back, and then felt my head bounce off the concrete driveway, making the noise mentioned in the title of this subsection.
Right after I hit, fear coursed through me when I realized that it was my head and not some other body part that was hurting. Looking back now, it seems somewhat obvious that I wasn't seriously hurt because I was able to think rationally about the dangers of head injuries, but at the time I was frantically trying to test my short-term memory - the names of the guys surrounding me, what songs I had led in that morning's worship time, and so on so forth. As I passed each of my own tests and the tests that the guys around me gave (number of fingers, date, etc.), my panic gradually lessened until I just felt a dull pain/soreness in my skull, but otherwise I seemed to be all right. In fact, after a few minutes, I continued playing. Love of the game and all that. Maybe I do have a hard head.
I think part of my panic was from seeing another church ballplayer bang his head on the ground last year, and he suffered a minor concussion - short-term memory loss and everything else. He'd ask a question, we'd answer it, and then two minutes later he'd ask it again. I think I've read somewhere that brain tissue doesn't really regenerate - perhaps one of you aspiring physicians out there can confirm that for me.
Regardless, it's not an experience I'm eager to repeat. I'm thankful that I seem to have come out of it with nothing more than a sore neck due to a mild case of whiplash, but yeah... not fun.
Good weekend overall, I'd have to say.
Good Friday - see below for some thoughts. After service, a bunch of us watched The Rookie, with Dennis Quaid portraying the real-life story of Jim Morris, who pitched in the major leagues a few years ago for the first time at age 36. Some more thoughts to come.
Saturday
Praise band practice in the morning. Afterwards, visited Guitar Center with Byron, Karen and Joy, where we sampled the various percussion instruments, checked out how cheap the electric guitars are (planning to buy one for church usage), and wistfully strummed away at the high-end acoustics. Finally picked up some new strings to replace the set that I broke that morning. Interestingly, for as often as I play, I don't break too many strings. Grabbed falafels from a well-known hole-in-the-wall in San Jose for lunch... tasty.
After Easter drama practice, a bunch of us went bike riding/rollerblading/jogging in Mountain View, following the Stevens Creek trail to Shoreline Park. I'm not as fit as I used to be.
Hung out with my bro that night, catching up and watching some NBA playoff basketball. Go Spurs!
Sunday
Woke up bright and early at 6:45 am in order to be at church at 7:30 for the final Easter drama run-through and band rehearsal. For the past few months, we'd been planning and praying for Easter Sunday because societally speaking, it's one of the two "Christian" holidays on the calendar (Christmas being the other) where a non-churchgoer will likely consent to going to church. While I still strongly believe that the majority of active evangelism takes place outside the church doors and in our own circles of influence, it was still neat to prepare and pray intentionally for Easter and also to encourage and keep accountable the members of the congregation to inviting family and friends. We had some great times of corporate worship through song, Jamie and I performed "Love Song" by Third Day, acted out an Easter musical drama entitled "Redeemer" in which I played the character of Jesus (more on this to come in a following post), Pastor Dan preached about the relevancy of the Gospel message to ordinary lives, several people were baptized, two infants were dedicated, a church member gave his testimony, and oh yeah, the children's choir came up and charmed everyone's socks off. Whew. To top that all off, afterwards we had a splendid Easter brunch prepared by some of the sisters in our congregation. The spread ranged from Chinese dan bing to congee to a variation on McDonalds' Fruit N' Yogurt Parfait, along with many other delicious items. Had the chance to catch up for a few minutes with Alan and Kain, and spent some more time with my bro. In total, we had around 150 people show up for service, about 67% more than usual. I'll be praying for our congregation as we follow up with family and friends who may have heard the Good News for the first time.
[thwack]
Had an extremely scary experience Sunday afternoon after consistory meeting, when several of us were playing ball. 4-on-4 halfcourt, and the other team had Hubert (a 6'3" skilled big man in the mold of Duncan or Yao - we call him Yao)... so, our team had to guard him with a much smaller player and immediately bring a help defender over when he got the ball.
On one such play, I rotated over to contest an entry pass into the middle of the lane where Hubert was posting up. The pass was to the hand I was moving towards, and while I was in the air, I got clotheslined (probably by his arm and shoulder that were positioned to catch the pass). My feet flew out in front of me and I landed hard on my back, and then felt my head bounce off the concrete driveway, making the noise mentioned in the title of this subsection.
Right after I hit, fear coursed through me when I realized that it was my head and not some other body part that was hurting. Looking back now, it seems somewhat obvious that I wasn't seriously hurt because I was able to think rationally about the dangers of head injuries, but at the time I was frantically trying to test my short-term memory - the names of the guys surrounding me, what songs I had led in that morning's worship time, and so on so forth. As I passed each of my own tests and the tests that the guys around me gave (number of fingers, date, etc.), my panic gradually lessened until I just felt a dull pain/soreness in my skull, but otherwise I seemed to be all right. In fact, after a few minutes, I continued playing. Love of the game and all that. Maybe I do have a hard head.
I think part of my panic was from seeing another church ballplayer bang his head on the ground last year, and he suffered a minor concussion - short-term memory loss and everything else. He'd ask a question, we'd answer it, and then two minutes later he'd ask it again. I think I've read somewhere that brain tissue doesn't really regenerate - perhaps one of you aspiring physicians out there can confirm that for me.
Regardless, it's not an experience I'm eager to repeat. I'm thankful that I seem to have come out of it with nothing more than a sore neck due to a mild case of whiplash, but yeah... not fun.
Good weekend overall, I'd have to say.
posted by Bob at
12:44 AM
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