Disturbing

This is disturbing.

I have to think about it for a bit but it bothers me that this could even be a subject.

City Folk…sheesh.

City folk…sheesh.

I figured Frank at least knew better than this.

In honor the fact that the TeamPyro triumvirate is coming to Owasso for the Founders Conference I thought I’d try to work up a post regarding some of the things you could do around there even if you were at a conference.

Tulsa is actually pretty metro compared to the rest of the state and Owasso, being a proper bedroom community, isn’t far behind. I found this list of hotspots and, to my enduring surprise, discovered that there’s actually a Starbucks in Owasso, OK. Wow…now that’s civilization.

If you can’t make it to Eskimo Joes in Stillwater, never fear. The RibCrib has the best cheese fries in town (Er, do they eat cheese fries in California?) plus it’s a pretty good barbecue joint something which I suppose is illegal in California…environmental hazard or something. Cooking MEAT with SMOKE! The nerve! The good news is that they have a location in Florida so if Tom Ascol likes it he can get a fix locally. I’m not worried about Frank. He knows how to survive in the country.

If you are in the mood for a cheesburger type meal, catch any Sonic–no link. Just drive around a bit and you’ll find one–and you’ll likely be satisfied but the onion rings at Webers should not be missed.

While the azaleas at Woodward park are probably played out the rose garden at the Tulsa Garden Center should be fantastic this year. I didn’t see a map link on the website but its at about 21st and Peoria. There are also some pretty nice houses and things in that area—just drive around, you can’t miss it.

While I know Frank runs a bookstore he might need to find a certain book while he’s away from home. If I was in dire need of a book in that part of the world I’d go to Mardel. If they don’t have it they can probably get it. Plus, they generally have a delightful discount table. I once picked up Charnok’s Existence and Attributes of God there for $9.95.

I just now went over to TeamPyro and found this post by Dan Phillips. Seriously Dan, if you’re going to ‘sing the praises’ of the great state of Oklahoma at least go take some lessons. It’s a pretty good show.

Restaurant Meme

Melanie’s tagged me with this restaurant meme. I don’t want to disappoint her but there just aren’t five ‘restaurants’ around here. This is the country–seriously rural. ‘

Sorry about that.

Lag Time

Sometimes I get a hit from a search and it sparks up my writing wheel. Today its this one:

‘How do you know when you’ve grown up?’

Someone, somewhere was curious enough about this to spend the time to type it into a search engine and then filter through all the 1.2 million hits or whatever and then clicked on Unbound at some point. It’s a miracle, first of all, that anyone can find anything with all the websites that are out there.

And besides it a good question the answer to which a great number of Americans have never found the answer. ‘How do you know when you’ve grown up?’

In America a person is ‘chronologically’ grown up when they’re old enough to vote, file with selective service or serve in the military, and be held responsible for the other civic duties like jury duty, etc. This age is eighteen and you are technically ‘grown up’ at that point whether you like it or not, whether you are or not. You’ve had long enough. High School is over though that’s not likely to have prepared you very well for adult hood and legally its time to assume your adult responsibilities.

Actual maturity takes some time and some living and it varies by person. J.R.R. Tolkein explains to us that Hobbits matured at around 35 but they lived longer and didn’t have to worry about car insurance. I’ve known some solemn ten year olds who were more mature than a good number of ‘grown-ups’. Physical maturity means, pretty well, that your body has reached its adult stature and function. Emotional and mental maturity?

Sometimes that one lags a bit.

The Work of the Devil

We’ve got one of those crib toys that you pull the handle and it plays ‘Cow Jumped Over the Moon’. Part of that refrain ‘Hey Diddle Diddle…’ has been reminding me of something and I haven’t been able to put my finger on it. Yesterday I began humming it and then singing the words and finally figured it out. It just took hearing it every morning for six months or so.

‘Oh what manner of love the Father has given unto us…
That we may be called the sons of God…’

Incalculable, indescribable, completely unwarranted by any action on my own part–a gift from the Father to us. Faith and Grace and Adoption…’what manner of love’ indeed.

I was reading in Bainton’s Biography of Luther yesterday something that caught my attention. I don’t have a quote, its just right in the middle of the thing around a section called ‘My Patmos’. He’s been sequestered to protect him after the Diet of Worms and he’s just about to go completely stir-crazy. Word reaches his ears both of the reforms of the young men at Wittenberg and also of some of their extremes and these he calls ‘the work of the Devil’. Priests have been assaulted and services have been disrupted and there has been other violence in the name of the Reformation. All of which muddied the cool clear water of reform that had been flowing from the well head there.

Just a few things caught my eye. Two really, the young men–firebrands they are called in the book–were commended to prayer and given pastorates. That was the work to which they were called anyway as young ministers of the gospel. The conflict and strife that they had been generating wasn’t in their job description. Preaching the gospel as Luther had rediscovered it was. The work of reform wasn’t done with sword in hand or with bonfires of opposition literature but from the pulpit and pew and with books and pens and other scholarly equipment.

I’d like many of our young men who are called to the ministry and have these public blogs to think on that for awhile.

LIVE!

Joe Thorn live photoblog’s NOT going to the Southern Baptist Convention this year. Its too funny.

Justice

I was watching a ballgame this week and after it was over, we just let the TV run for awhile. We don’t usually do that—TV’s mostly not worth watching these days—but we did tonight. I noticed something, though, that sort of got me thinking and I’m a little ticked off by it.

It seems we’ve forgotten where we come from, us Christians. We’ve forgotten our own heritage, not our adopted family the great ‘cadre of believers’ as a pastor of mine used to say. We don’t seem to remember that Christ had to die on a cross to deliver us from that heritage. The heritage of sin and death and hell is of course what I’m talking about. The fact that without the cross and without the Christ on it we would be destined for an eternity of incandescent agony which would still not alleviate the penalty we justly deserve for our disobedience to the Father.

“No I haven’t,” you’ve probably just said. “He’s gone off his rocker” you could have thought, adding an ‘again’ if you’ve known me at all. The fact is, though, that its what I perceive of the church in America. Here’s the thing: this is likely the only time she will be in a position where she can be ministered to by God’s people. Has anyone attempted this? Has anyone tried?

Oh probably. Surely that part of the world isn’t completely without a Christian witness of some sort but I haven’t seen it. All I hear is laughter when the little princess has run out of face cream. Surely this rant could be about anyone in the world other than Paris Hilton. But lets try to remember what real justice would give us and try to be grateful for the mercy and grace we have received.

Don’t Waste Your Life

I found this resource today thanks to Challies. The Desiring God website has a bunch of their books available for free download in PDF format. Do yourself a favor and download Don’t Waste Your Life. Here’s a quote:

“God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing,
all-transforming passion—namely, a passion to glorify God
by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the
spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try
to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display
a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim
to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for others to see and
admire, we deceive ourselves, because the mark of God enthralled
joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into
the hearts of others. The wasted life is the life without a passion
for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.”
–John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life

Black and White

Here’s a great post about rendering an issue down to black and white components by Centuri0n that I thought I’d link to on the front page. I’ve shared it over in the fishing hole but its just pretty good reading.

A Kinder Garden

I got some hits yesterday from two searches that caught my eye and I thought I’d share them.

things kids need to know in kindergarten
things for the grown up in the garden

They’re not much different actually. Color and cut, do your work and get rewards…don’t do your work and it’s bad. In the garden you get weeds that choke out the rest of the plants in kindergarten? Well, lets just say there are always disruptive kids.

There are some differences too, don’t get me wrong. Kids can differentiate. The ‘weeds’ in a kinder ‘garden’ can grow into beautiful plants if someone will take the time.

I don’t know. I do totally organic gardening so I don’t think its much different.

My garden is a kinder garden because of it, I think, and I don’t have to worry about chemicals or pesticides or anything like that.

Must go weed.