"We’re Awakening"

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Posted 08 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category Jesus, Light, Movies, Spirituality

Last night I watched Awakenings, an older film from 1990 long been residing on my list of “I’d like to watch that someday, but its not to pressing right now.”

The movie tells an emotive story of a shut-in doctor, scared to engage with those around him. Taking a job caring for patients whom have been comatose for decades after surviving an encephalitis epidemic, proves first to challenge these tendencies. His gentleness and care with the patients tells of a deeply sensitive and caring man isolated by social insecurity. Upon trying an experimental drug his patients begin to awake from their coma-like-state hardly aware they had been gone. The gift of life, the simple things – taking a walk, dancing, singing are celebrated as they stir to life. The greatest awakening though happens in the doctor, who begins to live. To risk and engage with those around him.

Watching the movie provided an almost out-of-body experience, almost like watching the past years of my life. The doctor and I share some of the same story, a heart isolated but rescued to begin beating once again.

I was attempting to clean my room this morning when I came across a letter I wrote myself about 3 years ago at Ignite:

“God, you rescued my heart this conference. The process you began months ago by showing me the hardness of my heart and how closed off it has become has peaked here and now. Thank you for drawing me out and revealing wounds in my life and reasons for the state of my heart. You’ve brought me to the point where I am so completely frustrated with being emotionally cold to those around me and alone that I have no choice but to change. Hurting is at least feeling so at this point I’m ready to start the painful journey of healing. I want to live from a heart fully alive.”
Ignite closing reflections 2004

Three years have passed since my pen bled those words, life has taken me many places since then, but God’s leading has never been so apparent. This road is one of heart rescue.

—————-
Now playing: Eisley – Brightly Wound
via FoxyTunes

First Snow

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Posted 07 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category Creation, Jesus, Spirituality, Winter

(John street in front of the Dawg Haus)

As I sat on the couch tonight gazing out the window at the falling snow a smile came to my face. Snow always makes me smile. Snow brings with it a reminder of God’s grace – to see such beauty painted on the canvas of death the fall leaves reminds me of being born anew, reminds me of how God is putting the world back together, reminds me of going from death to life.

—————-
Now playing: Norah Jones – Don’t Miss You At All
via FoxyTunes

"We gotta have bean juice!"

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Posted 03 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category coffee, Friends, Fun

“bring me the bean juice, I’ve been a good boy, bring me bean juice!”

As Chris and I chatted this morning we came to a realization that coffee must only have half the usual amount of caffeine on Mondays; thus twice the usual needs consuming. Our conversation reminded me of this e-greeting card:

(click on the image to go to the card
make sure you move the pot around and listen)

The Hope of Dreams to Come

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Posted 03 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category Fun, Light, music

I’m not in the habit of over-sharing on this blog, nor vagary – some might refute that. Life has been sweet as of late:

“There’s this girl.
That I know.
That I see
in my dreams at night.

See her smile.
Hold her hand.
Touch her face
I know she cares.
She cares.”
~ Slingshot57

I haven’t listened to this song in years – probably since I was a freshmen in college. Yet, as sleep begins to swallow me, it has crept into my head.

It makes me smile and makes me hope for sweet dreams.

—————-
Now playing: Slingshot 57 – Crystal’s Song
via FoxyTunes

Free Rice

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Posted 30 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun, Light, Social Justice, Technology

While working intently on his paper, Ben came across this website: Free Rice I thought it a wonderful idea – I play a game (and develop my vocabulary) the outcome of which feeds hungry people around the world.

Now, I don’t need a game to remind me that my vocabulary isn’t much larger than that of a high school senior, but I’ll do my best to feed the poor and needy.

I played for about 10 minutes this evening and donated 300 grains of rice and received a vocab score of 42. Watch out Freerice.org, tomorrow is a Friday and I have a full work day to spend donating rice 🙂

O Tannenbaum

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Posted 27 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun, Winter

O Christmas Tree O, Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us.
They’re green when summer days are bright;
They’re green when winter snow is white.
O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!

Dawg Haus Christmas decorating 2007 shall live in infamy. Finding a tree proved a simple task this year – maybe due to fewer strongly opinionated Dawgs in this iteration. Even the controversial debate of white VS multicolored lights turned out a simple, civilized discussion. This is where the simplicity stopped though. At the end of the night (about 11:30PM) I had visited local stores on two occasions, once for lights and once for a tree stand. We replaced the old leaky stand after it leaked through the floor and onto Ben‘s Bed in the basement, Josh electrocuted himself with a rogue strand of lights and managed to cut up his fingers pretty good trying to fix said strand of lights.

As I give into sleep, I pray the tree stays standing through the night; part of me expects to awake to a loud crash as the tree topples to the floor.

Doggies

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Posted 26 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Family, Friends, Fun

Here are some of the friends I got to hang out with when I was home this past Thanksgiving:


Tyson: He’s about 4 years old I think, a Yorkshire Terrier, and my mom’s replacement for all us kids being gone. Tyson lives with my Mom and Stepdad. This guy is who I’m usually talking about when I say “my dog”. Tyson is very loyal and affectionate, you need to either be playing with him or he needs to be laying on/next to you while you pet him. We’re buds.


Wiggles: He’s about 3 years old I think, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and my Dad’s replacement for all us kids being gone. He is incredibly attached to my Dad. He needs to always be by his side, he likes to ride in the truck with my Dad and has been known to knock over drinks (of all sorts) and lap them up. Wiggles likes to give hugs, which actually I find very awkward, but cute.


Rascal: This guy is a new addition to the extended family. He’s still a puppy and getting potty trained. He’s the “child” of my cousin Tara and her fiance. Rascal and I met for the first time at Thanksgiving dinner, he was pretty distracted by all the people and scraps of food, so we didn’t bond as much as one might hope.

Toby: I didn’t get to see Toby this weekend because Chris and Lisa were busy. He’s a Silky Terrier puppy, still under a year I believe.

Leah: No, this is not a stuffed animal, she’s a Bichon Frise/Miniature Poodle hybrid (I didn’t realize dogs could be hybrids, but my sister-in-law says so). Leah and Toby live together so I also missed out on visiting with her this weekend.

I’m sorta getting into this pictures thing. I think I’ll ask for a camera for Christmas, but for now you’ll have to settle for pictures taken from my Treo and ripped off of facebook.

—————-
Now playing: Over the Rhine – Goodbye Charles
via FoxyTunes

"German Engineering in da Houz"

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Posted 24 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun, Jesus, Spirituality, Volkswagen

Photo Journalistic-esque:

My Friend Justin

His VW’s

Tonight I got to catch up with one of my bestest friends, Justin Sears (the original JP). Justin has been a long time VW enthusiast – even before I was. The one on the left is his ’83 Turbo-Diesel Jetta purchased when we were in high school, the one on the right is his ’03 Jetta GLI with the VR6 purchased not long after I bought my Rabbit. Justin’s a good friend, he brought me around to his church when we were kids and a major reason I’m following Jesus today. It was good to see him and get a chance to geek out about our irrational love for things VW and talk about important things too.

(Images stolen from JP’s website, and the book of faces)

—————-
Now playing: Scattertones – There There
via FoxyTunes

Heading ‘Somewhere North’

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Posted 21 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Family, music, Volkswagen

I don’t miss the driving
Seems like forever
And I’m always driving in my mind
And wearing out the road that gets me there

And I’m driving till my eyes just can’t see straight
But I suppose that it’s getting late

I may never find the sleep
I’ve lost all feeling in my hands and
Feet may touch the ground but
My mind’s somewhere north of here
~ Caedmon’s Call “Somewhere North”

In about 5 minutes I’ll be making the familiar drive up Interstate 57 to the Chicago Suburbs and then out to my Mom’s place – all in the comfort of my beautiful VW. The drive is familiar, the house familiar, the people familiar – yet I always find it so hard to get out the door and head home. Maybe it’s wanting to avoid the stress and tension of family brokenness, maybe it’s just not wanting to leave what feels like home now, maybe it’s being scared of feeling lonely with people who are supposed to know me well. Maybe I’m just over dramatic. I really do love my family and I’ve missed them a lot, I’m just trying to capture some of the inner tension right now.

Either way, here I go.

Is Evangelism Weak or Just Spiritual Formation?

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Posted 20 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality

Tonight I was together with some folks from my church, Illini Life. Our objective for the night consisted of discussing where we find ourselves as a ministry, listing our strengths and weaknesses and such.

It didn’t come as a surprise to most of us when we admitted that we are weak in evangelism and this potentially could be a major threat to the longevity of this group. As leaders and thinkers tend to do, I (and I suspect others) jumped to thinking about how we can fix this. How do we address this weakness?

Over the course of my Christian life I’ve heard a lot of teachings on evangelism and why I should be doing it more – the thing about these teachings though, I usually walk away feeling motivated by guilt. “I’m not a good enough Christian”, “I must not love God enough”, “Do I really have an ‘eternal perspective’?” These sorts of things haunt me as I walk through life and so I might share about Jesus with a friend, but probably more motivated by guilt then because I truly believe they need to the truth of The Gospel.

Continuing in that group conversation though: We stopped and listened to an interview with some respected Christian leaders and Church researchers. What struck me out of this interview – these guys addressed weakness in evangelism in another manner. Essentially they claimed churches who have a strong emphasis on spiritual formation and true discipleship – building Jesus Followers with a kingdom mindset – are seeing evangelism happening. The natural outward flow of someone Following Jesus is to bring others into that lifestyle. While this isn’t ground breaking, it caused me to think and question how we approach this weakness.

This raises questions for me, How much do I believe this idea? Do I trust this conclusion? And inversely, if our evangelism is weak, does that really mean our discipleship is weak? I welcome your thoughts and experiences – I’m processing so input is helpful.

—————-
Now playing: Clemson Impulse – Insomniac Mix 1
via FoxyTunes

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