The coming of fall
The coming of fall
The shadows are lengthening earlier in the day, the trees are changing color, and the air is just a tad bit cooler in the morning as we come up on the brink of the last quarter of 2005. I like the fall season... perhaps partly because here in California, we don't really have a fall season per se... just "spring" and "summer." Still, I enjoy the imagery and symbolism of the preparation for and coming of death in the fall and winter, with the hope of new beginning in the spring. In a way, it's kind of a microcosm of Christ continually putting to death the old self in his people and building up the new body.
I'll be preaching the sermon at this Sunday's service. Preparation has been a bit slow, mostly because there's so much I could, so much I want to say. If you could, I'd appreciate any prayer for God's direction and refinement over the next few days as I hopefully am able to not screw up His Word. I'll be preaching on the tentative sermon title: "The Magnificence and Mystery of Creation." I'll perhaps post some notes sometime next week.
Last Sunday in Sunday School, Esther taught on the account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. The thing that always stands out to me most is Peter's initial reaction when his master gets down on his hands and feet - in short, "No way!" I think that I fall into this mindset almost by default, perhaps partly due to an Asian upbringing - most of the time, I would rather serve than be served, not out of any noble sentiment on my part, but because I don't want to feel like I then owe something to the other person ("bu yao ke chi"). However, it's important to learn how to be humble and appreciative enough to accept service as well as to give - because if no one is accepting service from another person in a way that honors God, then it provides that much fewer opportunities to serve another.
Picasa is an excellent and free image-editing program. I've been using it to go through the pics I took for my vacation to Spain, and it gives you a lot of freedom in enhancing some pics and rescuing some other ones with minor flaws. I think I'm probably not much of a purist if I'm editing my shots, but hey, it's fun!
Thus far, I'm aiming to take the train to work four out of five days this week. It's actually been quite refreshing making the brisk 10-minute walk to the station in the morning and reading Scripture on the 25-minute ride to the office, even if driving would cut the overall commute time by more than half. There's something that feels good about not burning gasoline and making better use of our communal resources, when we can. I even ran into an old men's group member, Kevin, on the train yesterday, on his way to Yahoo. I'm thinking that on future train rides, I could listen to sermons while sitting on the benches.
I've idly been thinking about getting an iPod. It usually takes me a lot of energy to overcome the inertia of getting into new technology (I was still faithfully listening to and using cassette tapes as late as junior year of college), but I know that eventually I'm going to get into digital music, and it wouldn't hurt to begin slowly transforming my 150+ CD collection into mp3s. Also, I need some way of backing up my pictures and other personal documents on my laptop, since the laptop doesn't actually belong to me. If there's a better, more scalable, and higher value solution to handle my issues (hard drive backup, eventually getting into digital music), I invite all the tech geeks reading this to give me some advice :-).
Chris has purchased season 1 of "Lost" and now I'm getting into it. It's been quite the distraction this week as I've been trying to work on the sermon though... heh. "Alias" starts up again this week and may or may not be worth continuing to follow... I guess we'll see soon enough.
I think I may have been bit by the fantasy football bug. I knew nothing about football coming into the season, and I still don't know much, but I'm now reading the occasional fantasy column and checking out the waiver wire every so often. Any FF experts out there want to give me some advice on my team? 10-team Yahoo league:
QB: Kerry Collins / RB Edgerrin James / RB Clinton Portis / RB Brian Westbrook / WR Steve Smith / WR Keenan McCardell / WR Michael Clayton / TE Courtney Anderson / K Rian Lindell / DEF Baltimore / BN Ben Roethlisberger / BN Ashley Lelie / BN Travis Taylor / BN Cedric Benson / BN Steve Heiden
The shadows are lengthening earlier in the day, the trees are changing color, and the air is just a tad bit cooler in the morning as we come up on the brink of the last quarter of 2005. I like the fall season... perhaps partly because here in California, we don't really have a fall season per se... just "spring" and "summer." Still, I enjoy the imagery and symbolism of the preparation for and coming of death in the fall and winter, with the hope of new beginning in the spring. In a way, it's kind of a microcosm of Christ continually putting to death the old self in his people and building up the new body.
I'll be preaching the sermon at this Sunday's service. Preparation has been a bit slow, mostly because there's so much I could, so much I want to say. If you could, I'd appreciate any prayer for God's direction and refinement over the next few days as I hopefully am able to not screw up His Word. I'll be preaching on the tentative sermon title: "The Magnificence and Mystery of Creation." I'll perhaps post some notes sometime next week.
Last Sunday in Sunday School, Esther taught on the account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. The thing that always stands out to me most is Peter's initial reaction when his master gets down on his hands and feet - in short, "No way!" I think that I fall into this mindset almost by default, perhaps partly due to an Asian upbringing - most of the time, I would rather serve than be served, not out of any noble sentiment on my part, but because I don't want to feel like I then owe something to the other person ("bu yao ke chi"). However, it's important to learn how to be humble and appreciative enough to accept service as well as to give - because if no one is accepting service from another person in a way that honors God, then it provides that much fewer opportunities to serve another.
Picasa is an excellent and free image-editing program. I've been using it to go through the pics I took for my vacation to Spain, and it gives you a lot of freedom in enhancing some pics and rescuing some other ones with minor flaws. I think I'm probably not much of a purist if I'm editing my shots, but hey, it's fun!
Thus far, I'm aiming to take the train to work four out of five days this week. It's actually been quite refreshing making the brisk 10-minute walk to the station in the morning and reading Scripture on the 25-minute ride to the office, even if driving would cut the overall commute time by more than half. There's something that feels good about not burning gasoline and making better use of our communal resources, when we can. I even ran into an old men's group member, Kevin, on the train yesterday, on his way to Yahoo. I'm thinking that on future train rides, I could listen to sermons while sitting on the benches.
I've idly been thinking about getting an iPod. It usually takes me a lot of energy to overcome the inertia of getting into new technology (I was still faithfully listening to and using cassette tapes as late as junior year of college), but I know that eventually I'm going to get into digital music, and it wouldn't hurt to begin slowly transforming my 150+ CD collection into mp3s. Also, I need some way of backing up my pictures and other personal documents on my laptop, since the laptop doesn't actually belong to me. If there's a better, more scalable, and higher value solution to handle my issues (hard drive backup, eventually getting into digital music), I invite all the tech geeks reading this to give me some advice :-).
Chris has purchased season 1 of "Lost" and now I'm getting into it. It's been quite the distraction this week as I've been trying to work on the sermon though... heh. "Alias" starts up again this week and may or may not be worth continuing to follow... I guess we'll see soon enough.
I think I may have been bit by the fantasy football bug. I knew nothing about football coming into the season, and I still don't know much, but I'm now reading the occasional fantasy column and checking out the waiver wire every so often. Any FF experts out there want to give me some advice on my team? 10-team Yahoo league:
QB: Kerry Collins / RB Edgerrin James / RB Clinton Portis / RB Brian Westbrook / WR Steve Smith / WR Keenan McCardell / WR Michael Clayton / TE Courtney Anderson / K Rian Lindell / DEF Baltimore / BN Ben Roethlisberger / BN Ashley Lelie / BN Travis Taylor / BN Cedric Benson / BN Steve Heiden
posted by Bob at
11:58 PM
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