the church geek

Presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth have been in the news quite a bit lately. John is trying to run a presidential campaign while his wife Elizabeth is experiencing the return of cancer after a relapse. In a recent interview Elizabeth shared their experience of telling their young children, Emma Clare and Jack, who are 6 and 8 that the cancer had returned: She said,

We all sat at the table in the family room. We called them in and said we had something important to say and they were just giggling and laughing. Jack had had a field trip to Whole Foods that day. So it was all of those kinds of regular family things. We had to wait for a calm moment, and John said, ‘I need to tell y’all something. I need to tell you that Mommy’s cancer is back.’ They seemed interested but not depressed by the information. They asked was I going to lose my hair, which delighted them the first time. No, I probably wouldn’t but John explained to them I probably would be getting medicine again.

We also explained that it wasn’t going to go away this time – and that prompted questions about whether I would die from it. John was honest and said that this cancer can kill. Then he said, ‘Everybody at the table who’s not going to die, raise their hands.’ They understood – or I hope they understood – that we’re all going to die and nobody has any guarantee of how much time they have. The only thing we have control of is how you spend the time, that precious time.

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The other day, someone who saw one of my earlier photos of a cloud suggested that I ought to post a “cloud a day.” While its a great idea, I’m not planning to take up that person’s offer. However, for some reason this cloud captured my attention today and said “Photograph me.”

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I’m entering three photos into a photo contest in our local newspaper, the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The contest is “the Colors of Spring.” I’ve never entered a photo contest before and I haven’t even really followed the various contests that have been in our paper; so I don’t know how stiff the competition will be.

There are actually two contests…one is a contest in which the staff of the newspaper will select their favorites. The second is a ‘people’s choice’ vote in which 25 of the best will appear in the paper and online for people to select their favorites. May 14th is the day entries are selected and made known.

I had about six photos I thought were worthy of entering, but I could only enter three. That sure was a hard decision! One of the photos I am entering (White and Rose) appeared 2 days ago here on this blog as a “Photo of the Day.” The two others photos follow:

This was not my favorite photo of the six, but I entered it because it captures our city emblem and one of our industrial giants (Quaker Oats) amidst a blooming tree. I looked long and hard for another more colorful tree that was in exactly the right place but I just couldn’t find one. Oh well.

Wish me luck!

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Friday was Arbor Day, so we celebrated a few days late by planting two trees today. It’s nice to have someone who does all the work while I take the photos ; )

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Sometimes I like to go over to the park a couple of blocks from church to eat my lunch. This is the view from my lunch spot today. While I like spring it’s not really my favorite season, especially when it’s so rainy and dreary like this.

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Here is yesterday’s photo:

It was a dreary day of rain and there wasn’t much light left on my drive home. I was able to get a few pictures of this marshy land. To add some more interest I used the ‘film grain’ feature in Picasa, so that it has a bit of an impressionistic painting quality to it.

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Went over to a local park at lunch. Things are really starting to happen. Another shot can be seen here.

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Here’s an early one for you today…I love it when you can see the sun through the clouds like this.

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Some great clouds moved in after the storm moved out.

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There is another one worth seeing here at Flickr.

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I’ve noticed a few other project 365ers who have captured photos of their shadows. Here is my rendition of that photo type.

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Unspun is the latest rage on the Web. Unspun is a list generator powered by Amazon that lets users generate lists for others to populate. Users can also add and vote on entries for already established lists. Some current lists include things like “Hottest Actresses,” “Best Books,” and “Best Theologians.”

Just for fun I started a list called “Best Blogs by Pastors.” I’ve populated with a seed list of 10 pastor blogs that are my favorite. These are sites I almost always look forward to seeing what these Pastors have to say. In the interest of self-promotion I did include my own blog, but now it’s up to you to expand and reorder the list as you see appropriate….Have fun!

It will be fun to see how my original list changes over time:

A Church for Starving Artists
Real Live Preacher
Nakedpastor
Thechurchgeek
The Bob.Blog
Smart Pastor
Beth Quick
Purple Pastor
Reyes-Chow :: Faith
Odyssey

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I had a chat with a young couple who recently stopped by the church. In the midst of our conversation, they asked me what time our service was, and I of course responded Sunday at 10:30 AM.

It turns out that this young family moved to our church neighborhood quite a while ago, but their various job situations in the service industry have required them to work on Sunday mornings. This meant for them that they weren’t able to find a Presbyterian Church they could worship in even though we were just around the corner! Thankfully a new job has opened up the opportunity for this couple to possibly visit us on Sunday.

As I look around the neighborhood that our particular church is located in (late 1950’s style homes that have become starter homes for very young couples) I wonder if we are totally unavailable and inaccessible to these and other young folks simply by virtue of the fact that our only worship service happens to be on Sunday morning?

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