Vancouver - day 5

Kayaking in the ocean...This is "Deep Cove" where we spent most of our day...
We took two double kayaks into Deep Cove this morning, which is just East of the English Bay. It was probably the most beautiful thing we've seen since we've been up here. This first pic is from the back of our kayak.There are seals and sea lions in the ocean bay that we were kayaking in, we saw a couple in the water with us but they were too fast to get a good picture of. These four bay seals were just hanging out soaking up the sun. They didn't mind us at all and actually allowed us to get really close, it was great.

peace,
glo

Vancouver - Day 4

We started the day by going to Tara and Caleb's church here in Vancouver and then we were off to Queen Elizabeth park to have a picnic with their Canadian grandma. There is a botanical garden there in what used to be a rock quarry, it was gorgeous. This is a picture we took in the botanical garden with Tara and Caleb. It was a great afternoon.
After the picnic in the park we went to the Vancouver Aquarium. It's famous for the otters that hold hands while they're floating in the water. We saw the famous otters, they weren't holding hands, but were very playful. The aquarium was amazing, it was just as good as the one in Chicago, if not better. This is a picture I took of some of the jellyfish from one of many of the displays they had. The most entertaining part was definitely the feeding of the sea lion. He was huge and we just happened to be waking by when they were getting ready to feed them, it was great.OH YEAH! Here's what we're having for dessert tonight. They have a place that only sells gourmet cupcakes and they are supposed to be amazing, we haven't had them yet. They actually sell cupcakes in that little shop that are big enough to feed three people.

peace,
glo

Vancouver - Day 3

Today was a great day! We started the morning off by having breakfast with some friends of Tara and Caleb's in their apartment in downtown Vancouver, there was a golf course right across the street, so the view was beautiful. If you look at the picture below you'll notice all the electrical lines in the intersection. Almost all the buses for mass transit in Vancouver are electric, it's a very clean city.
After breakfast we went to Lighthouse park in West Vancouver. It's a wonderful natural park that is on the side of a mountain in an "old growth" forest the meets right up against the ocean. We took picnic stuff with us on our hike and below is the view we were able to enjoy while eating our lunch together. Caleb and I got to climb out on the rocks and I saw a seal swimming in the ocean right underneath us when we were eating. It's been absolutely beautiful all day today, mid 70's and partly cloudy.
After lunch we headed to Lynn Cove. It's a old forest in East Vancouver that has one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen. That wasn't the most exciting part of the afternoon though. In order to get back to the waterfall you have to walk across this crazy suspension bridge that is over 150 feet up in the air over a ravine with a creek running through the middle of it. I don't like heights, so it wasn't the most pleasant experience for me, especially when a mother in front of me had the wonderful idea to jump up and down on the bridge to make it swing back and forth. It was pretty much the closest I've come to vomiting in about two years. Below is a picture I took while panicking on the suspension bridge...Tonight we are headed off to see a fireworks show put on by Canada, yeah the country. They have an international competition every year and it's supposed to be amazing, tonight is Canada's turn to represent so we're going to go check them out.

peace,
glo

Vancouver - Day 2

Here's the update from our adventures today...

This is Commercial Street, it's an awesome little part of Vancouver that has some great unique shops that my wife loved and some awesome ethnic restaurants that I loved, we had Cuban food for lunch today from a place called "The Havana", it was great.





Vancouver has the second largest "China Town" in North America, so we went there. Actually over 50% of the population in Vancouver is Asian, pretty cool!
We finished up the day playing the greatest game on Earth. Ultimate Frisbee! I quickly came to the realization that I am no longer young and fast. Ultimate Frisbee + Me + Seminary students = Me breathing really hard and not running very much. We had a great game of 5 on 5 going with students from Regent Seminary. There were two players from Australia, one from England, two from Japan, two native Vancouver residents and three of us Americans, it was great!

I think we're going to finish up tonight after dinner by walking along the Frasier River...

peace,
glo

Vancouver - Day 1

So Vancouver is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Here's a few images from our first 24 hours here...

This is the cottage we are staying in. We are literally surrounded by a botanical garden, the temperature was in the 70's all day, we were able to sleep with the windows open, wake up to the birds chirping and horses walking down the road beside our cottage...it was simply amazing.
















My friend Caleb and I walking in the ocean, it was low tide so we were able to walk really far out into the ocean without it getting above our knees.


Here's the forest we walked through, there are over 30 miles of trails for walking, running or riding your bike through this amazing forest. Some of the trees are over 100 feet tall, it was one of the most amazing places I've ever been to.








Check back tomorrow for more pictures from our adventures north of the border...

caio,
glo

The Big Announcement!

So we went in today to see if we're having a baby boy or baby girl...

and







we're




having


a


baby













girl!!!!!!!

prayerfully consider? Whatever.

The New Testament writers tell us that God never "leaves or forsakes" us, no matter what life circumstance we may be going through. I know I've been through a few storms that have made that difficult to believe and I know others who have had the same experience or are having a similar experience right now spiritually speaking. So I've been thinking about it for a while and I keep thinking about the people that didn't recognize Jesus after His resurrection, more specifically three instances that have stuck in my mind. I wanted to share my thoughts on the first instance today...I'll post about the other two in the days to come.

1. Peter went back to fishing. (John 21:1-11) To be fair, none of the other disciples recognized Jesus either. I don't believe that it was because Jesus had put on some spiritual mask or something that prevented them from recognizing Him. I think it's just as simple as they were out on the water and He was standing at the sea shore and they just couldn't recognize Him from how far out they were. These guys had all seen amazing things while they were with Jesus for 3 years and here they were just hanging out, fishing because they really didn't have anything better to do. I can't help but think they were probably just apathetic because they didn't have any specific direction. I think too many of us don't realize that God is right here with us, wanting to speak into our lives, to give us purpose and direction...but we're too apathetic to do anything about it, so we just go back to doing whatever it was we were doing before.

I'm probably coming at this from this perspective because of a book I've been reading by Erwin McMannus. In it, he talks about a friend of his who graduated from seminary and was prayerfully considering which option to take of all the job opportunities that his education had afforded him. His friend was talking about how he kept waiting for God to give him the "green light" so he wouldn't fall out of the will of God and offend His sovereignty. McMannus makes a great counter to his friends position. He simply asks him why he thinks he would offend the sovereignty of God? Did Hitler or Stalin affect the sovereignty of God with any of the choices they made? Of course not. God is still God. So, if someone with such evil motivations as that couldn't hurt God's sovereignty why do we think that we might do that by simply following our hearts if we have a genuine and living relationship with God?

A more simple way to put it is this. We already have the green light, just go. Augustine said it best when he said "Love, then do what you please." How often have we missed opportunities because we were sitting on our butts "prayerfully considering" something. What does that even mean? If we have a relationship with God through Christ then we shouldn't have to have a prayer meeting every time something comes up that we want to do. If God doesn't want us to do it, He'll stop us. I can't help but think when someone tells me they'll have to prayerfully consider something for two weeks that they probably need to learn how to pray first. I understand using wisdom and not rushing into things, but if we have failed it hasn't been on that side of the fence...

Jesus
simply
said
GO.

peace,
glo

Rubber ducks

From "The Sun"
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007290671,00.html

A FLEET of 29,000 rubber ducks is set to wash up on Britain’s shores after a 15-year, 17,000-mile epic journey.

They are expected on Cornwall beaches in late summer.

The bath toys were set adrift in the Pacific after a container was washed off a cargo ship in 1992.

The sea corroded packaging, freeing the Chinese yellow ducks, plus blue turtles, red beavers and green frogs. Their colour has since faded to white.

Experts have tracked them across the world, spotting them in Alaska, Siberia, Japan, Iceland and Canada.

Oceans scientist Curtis Ebbesmeyer said: “They’ll turn up on English beaches.” Collectors pay up to £500 for the toys which have The First Years stamped on them.

Can you imagine someone asking you what you do for a living and saying "I'm an expert rubber duck ocean tracker". Someone has that job...they are the newest addition to my hero list.

peace,
glo

awesome video

crazy wheelchair stunts

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4 years

4 years ago today I married the most beautiful woman in the world. We've been through quite a bit in the last four years, both great and difficult, but through it all she has just continued to become more and more amazing to me.

I've read stories of couples that are more in love in their sixties and seventies than ever and I realize that I've found the woman that I can live that out with. We're still in the beginning stages of our journey together, but it's already been the best trip I could possible imagine.


Jen, I love you...more today than ever before.

peace,
glo

O.A. Revisited

A while ago I posted about the concept of "Ordo Amoris", which St. Augustine defined as "the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it." I've been wrestling with the concept for quite sometime now and seem to have had an epiphany while sitting in my chair this afternoon doing some studying.

The question is what "kind and degree of love" is appropriate for us to offer to God? I think Paul sums it up quite well in Romans 12, verse 1...

I therefore urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices that are holy and pleasing to God, for this is the reasonable way for you to worship.

That's it. Nothing less, nothing more. I think the problem most of us have with this idea of "living sacrifice" is that we think it's the end of our lives. It isn't at all. It's actually just the beginning. The obvious place to go with this line of thought is to reference how Jesus came into His kingdom by the resurrection, after the cross...which was His ultimate sacrifice. But I want you to think of it another way. Think of someone you respect, they can be someone you know personally or just someone you know of. They can be alive or have been dead for hundreds of years...just put this person in your mind.

Now, why do you respect them?

Is it because of all the cool stuff they own(ed) in life? How about because of how well educated they were or the home they live in? If it's someone that is alive today do you respect them because of the car they drive?

I would venture to guess that your respect for said person is not based off what they have or have accomplished for themselves in their life. You probably respect them because of what they have given or accomplished for others.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mother Theresa

The whole crew of "Extreme Home Makeover"

"insert your hero here"

These people and the people you are thinking of are remembered because of the sacrifice they made for others. For the things they accomplished for others...

Not

For

Themselves!

What have you done for someone else lately? What "living sacrifice" (as Paul would say) have you lived out?

Are you living for yourself? If so, you will live a shallow and meaningless life, filled with empty regrets. If you don't believe me just look at human history, it speaks more poignantly than I.

Live for others. It's the only way
to
truly
live
at
all.

peace,
glo

Article of the Month!

You have to read this...it's awesome!

Shortly before landing, Bob Hayden and a flight attendant had agreed on a signal: When she waved the plastic handcuffs, he would discreetly leave his seat and restrain an unruly passenger who had frightened some of the 150 people on board a Minneapolis-to-Boston flight Saturday night with erratic behavior.

Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out to be a former US Marine.

"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation."

The incident on Northwest Airlines Flight 720 ended peacefully, but not before Hayden, a former Boston police deputy superintendent and former Lawrence police chief, and the retired Marine had handcuffed one man and stood guard over another until the plane touched down safely at Logan International Airport around 7:50 p.m.

State Police troopers escorted two men off the flight. Trooper Thomas Murphy, a State Police spokesman, said one of the men was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital for "an unspecified medical issue, possibly mental health."

He said State Police detectives will investigate whether the man's behavior should be treated as a medical or criminal matter. A second man escorted off the plane identified himself as the unruly passenger's brother. Murphy said police would not release the names of the men, who Hayden said appeared to be in their 30s or 40s.

Dean Breest, a spokesman for Northwest, confirmed that "there was an incident that required State Police to come on board the aircraft" but declined further comment.

Hayden said the unruly man's behavior upset some passengers. One told Hayden the man had said, "Your lives are going to change today forever," as he shouted and refused to take his seat before takeoff and at various times during the nearly three-hour flight. He said that at one point the man lay on his back and was screaming, moaning, and thrashing on the floor.

"Some people were crying," Hayden said. "I thought it might be a diversion. I kept scanning the back of the plane to see if anyone was going to rush forward. The flight attendants did a great job, literally surrounding the two guys who were making all the noise. I told one of the flight attendants I was a retired police officer and would be willing to assist, so we agreed on a signal."

When the captain announced preparations for landing, the man jumped up shouting, the flight attendant held up the handcuffs, and Hayden and the Marine came bounding down the aisle. Hayden said he and the retired Marine, whose name he never got, received an ovation from fellow passengers, and "some free air miles."

Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.

"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."

Big...really Big

There will be a hugemongous announcement this Sunday at church that will be freakin awesome! You don't want to miss it...

It'll rock your face off!

peace,
glo

where's my card?

Alright, so 9 days ago I officially turned 30 years old. While it seems as though general opinion is that you should have everything together by this time in life I still have a few unanswered questions that are bugging me. I am going to proceed to list them in an effort to get some answers.

1. Where's my flying car? Come on people, it's freakin' 2007 and I still have to buy new tires for my vehicles? I want a flying car, or at least a hovering car...I'd probably even settle for a hoverboard like they had in "Back to the Future 2".
2. Animal talk? Why haven't they figured out a way to translate animal sounds so we can finally understand what they are saying. My guess is probably that the technology already exists but they were shocked to discover that dogs and cats literally only think about food, sleep, attention from their owners and how much they loath the other species.

watch this...you'll laugh, hard.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZCYaw5tGYAs

3. Where's my adult ID card? Really. Aren't you supposed to get a welcome packet of information once you've reached full adulthood? I want a laminated card. It's weird to think that when people say I look young it's actually a compliment now...that must mean I'm not "young" anymore. Nope, I refuse to believe it.

Welp, that's enough rambling for today. I can't ramble too much you know, I'm an adult now and don't have time for such childish things.

peace,
glo

Ordo Amoris

St. Augustine defined virtue as ordo armoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it.

Appropriate affection. I've been meditating on that sentence for a few days now and I keep coming back to one though...I keep wrestling with it like Jacob wrestled with God and I'm afraid I might have the same outcome that he did...I've got a limp.

The problem I'm having is trying to wrap my mind around what the "kind and degree of love" should be that I have toward God, my Creator, who sent His son to die for me. It's not possible. There is nothing I can offer, nothing I can say or do...and yet, He loves me with everything He is. This doesn't ignite in me some unending apathy. Quite the contrary, it makes me want to give Him everything I have. It's an understanding of what John Piper would call "faith in future grace".

My God, thank You.

peace,
glo

e-community

It's seems strange to think that 15 years ago the Internet didn't really have any impact on any one's life, much less have any sense of community built into. But that is where we stand today, with sites like myspace, facebook and others creating the sense of a genuine online community of friends that can communicate with each other in ways that you would have never believed even 10 years ago.

Which gets me thinking about prayer. In some sense, the idea is as abstract to some as the Internet was 15-20 years ago. Think about it. If someone would have come up to you in 1990 and said "In the next 10-20 years there is going to be this thing called the Internet where people can type conversations to one another and share photos, music and even videos" you would have thought they were crazy. Especially if they told you it was going to be wireless (which is how I am connected to this "crazy" Internet thing right now). You could have presented a pretty good case to make them seem like a complete loony. Now we know this as a reality in our lives though and it seems as though the only crazy ones are the ones who aren't plugged into, or wireless connected to, the Internet. Everyone uses it, but do you really understand how it works? I don't. I'm sure some tech-genius's do somewhere, but the majority of people using the Internet really don't have a clue how it works, they just log on and surf away.

I think we should be more like that with our prayer life. You don't have to understand how it works or have it all figured out. All you need is the basic equipment, a relationship with Christ and the ability to speak your heart, and you're good to go. Your knowledge of how to pray will increase the more you do it, just like surfing the net. God is available all the time, all you have to do is open your heart and let your mouth talk to Him. You don't even have to be plugged into something, He's been wireless for centuries now. (He's way ahead of the times)

So we recently re-designed the website for KC Life Church and added tons of new content. It's turning into quite the little online resource and community builder...if you have a few moments (and of course you do because you just wasted 3 minutes reading this) you should run over and check it out....

www.kclifechurch.com

peace,
glo

walking by beauty

A friend and fellow blogger recently posted this article on his blog and I think it's awesome...take a few minutes out of your day and check it out.

He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The violinist was world-renowed Joshua Bell. He was playing a violin worth over $3.5 million. He made a total of $32.17 over the course of an hour.

peace,
glo

Greatest April Fools prank ever!

Either Jesus was exactly who He said He was or He was the greatest prankster in the history of humanity. Actually, if the resurrection is false and He didn't raise on the third day then I'm not sure "prankster" is really the appropriate term to define Him with. Prankster implies a joke that is used for the humor of others and the enjoyment of a surprise. One can hardly relate the affect that the claims of Christ have had on human history to that of a practical joke. Oxford University Press released an article claiming that there were over 45 million martyrs for Christ in the 20th century alone. That doesn't seem too funny if they died for a lie. That would actually make Christ the most evil and horrible human being to ever live. Think about it. About 5-6 million Jews died in the holocaust, historians say that about 15 million slaved died during the slave period of American history. Both of those numbers are horrific, but they pale in comparison to the number of people who have "died for Christ". If what He claimed was false and He didn't raise from the dead then He has sent more people to their death than anyone in history. Hardly someone you would want to call a "good teacher" or "good man". He has to be one of two things...either exactly who He said He is, The Son of God...or the most twisted, evil human being to ever walk on the face of the earth. Read what He said, look at His life and think about it.

This is what we're going to talk about at KC Life this Sunday morning...the greatest April fools prank ever!

well said...

I've been a Cash fan for a number of years now and was listening to one of his CD's the other day and couldn't get over how powerful the lyrics of "Man in Black" are...so...please take three minutes out of your day and think about what he's saying...

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

...well said Mr. Cash, well said.
peace,
glo

who's your neighbor?

So it happened. I had one of those moments in which I was reading through a passage and read something that I've never noticed before. Here's the scripture that struck me...

Numbers 35:34 - Don't desecrate the land in which you live. I live here, too—I, God, live in the same neighborhood... (MSG)

I know I've read this passage before and it says the same thing in every translation, but I think it was the way that Peterson puts it in the message Bible that really made it stand out to me this morning. It really got me thinking about the fact that God is here among us, He is not sitting up on some throne in some land with golden streets just waiting to throw down lightning bolts and divine sized drop-kicks. He's here, right in our neighborhood. The New Testament is fairly clear that He lives in us! Wherever we go, He's going as well.

I don't want to take this passage out of context, so it needs to be explained that the entire chapter of Numbers 35 is talking about how to handle the act of murder and what to do with the one who committed the murder and the one who wants to avenge the death. So how does God end that discussion, by saying don't desecrate your neighborhood cause I live here too. It may be easy for us to read through that chapter and think "I've never murdered anyone, so God obviously isn't talking to me" and be done with it, but Jesus challenges that thought head on in the gospels...

Matthew 5:21-22 - You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill. (MSG)

That puts a whole new perspective on the matter doesn't it? How many times have we flippantly said something negative about someone without giving it a second thought? How many times have we held onto anger or even hatred in our heart because of an offense? I'm sitting in my chair this morning feeling convicted that I shouldn't be crappin' up the neighborhood that God is living in...me. I suppose maybe it's a new realization of the fact that when Jesus tells us to love our neighbor He is, in turn, also commanding us to love Him as well. If we fail in our love for those around us, we fail in our love for God too.

However, when we live lives that are motivated by the selfless love of God it can be a catalyst for amazing change, not only in our own lives, but in the lives of everyone around us. Why? Because it gives complete liberty to God to move through us in ways like never before.

Maybe try loving a little more...after all, God is living in your neighborhood.

peace,
glo