Four Candles and One String of Lights

The final week of Advent is here. There's no mid-week service to be concerned about this time... Christmas Eve comes soon enough without that for Church Staff, thank you!

(Which is something that I always seem to forget as Advent is beginning each year. I'm thinking; "Four weeks of Advent, three Wednesday services? What gives?" Then I get to where I sit now and think, "Thank you, dear wise and well-appreciated churchmen before me! ")

So now that all of the Advent candles are burned past their Sunday-best, it's approaching the proverbial 'go time.'
...and all the really good gremlins begin to show up.

No, we're not talking about ironically placed show-quality cars from the 70's...
Nope, not those water-fearing Furbees either...

I'm referring to the mythical beings that have been adopted into the semi-common vernacular when referring to electronic and mechanical devices that inexplicably cease their proper functionality, and may or may not return themselves to working order when examined or exorcised. (This option was considered today... Read on.)

Well, its not a long list, really.
At church last night, we had some issues with a computer (these were somewhat self-inflicted).
Then my microphone died in the middle of the Monday night service (just the battery, but it sounded like Darth Vader was doing the words of institution before I caught it).
This morning we lost the battle against the duplicator, the folding machine, and a presentation remote.
...and all but the bottom foot of my Christmas Tree has lost its lights (whole strings are burning out, like they're getting too much juice after having served faithfully for 5 years.)

Gremlins, I tell you!

Yet, even with all of this - our toes feeling like they're edging ever closer to the line drawn in the sand that declares "Chaos!" - it's going to be an excellent Christmas!

The bulletins got printed - Thank you, School Office!
The bulletins got folded - Thank you for your temporary compliance, Folding Machine!
The presentations worked out...
The microphone served faithfully for those today who wouldn't have known that it was 'just the battery'...
I'll manage new lights for the tree next year...

...and people will still hear about Jesus being born to save us from thhe guilt of our sins in a few days.

Not so bad, really.


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The Church Blog

This will be a quiet "roll-out" if you will...

Introducing:



We're going to try doing some general updates and info-sharing, along with the idea of sharing the weekly readings, sermon themes, etc. with the entire world through the magic of the inter-webs.

For example, if you happen to go there today, you'll find a very brief devtional thought on how Christ Didn't Come to Judge.

...and who knows what you'll find in the future?

(Hopefully something useful and relatively up-to-date. Pray for us, please.)

The Coffee Story

To begin with, my facebook status for this morning really says a lot about the subject:

Matthew Peters Just finished a whole mug of coffee before 9 a.m. - which might be a first. Look out today, world!

And indeed, since I posted that about 8:55 a.m. my jittery-ness has gradually increased to a point where I might as well write briefly about it, since its hard to concentrate on much else.

(By the way, for those of you keeping track at home, I did finish the 'Sure and Certain' skit this morning and I think it is up to par. Should be fun.)

SO...

Coffee.

It seems that for most bloggers, well, many bloggers, caffeine is a bit of a necessity to say the least. This is a general truth for much of harried and semi-frazzled America - not to mention the stressed-out people in the rest of the world. But for me, my relationship to caffeine (at least as an adult) is still in the stages surrounding the second date or so... "Should I call, or shouldn't I call?" "Oh what did they mean by that statement?" "Is this a good thing, or should I forget about it all now?" "She loves me... She loves me not... She loves me..."

There's a relative uncertainty you see, between me and coffee specifically. On a broader scale, I'm still working on my position regarding the entire caffeine spectrum. But coffee and I have always had a strange relationship.

It all started back when I was a child...

...but that's not where my story starts.

I'm starting the story in college. With a recurring dream.

In this dream, which I'd have about once every other week or so - sometimes more, sometimes less - while at college, I was a chain smoker.

Yes, a big-time chain smoker! (Which I REALLY am NOT in real life.)

This dream would vary in storyline, but would remain consistent in substance; I would constantly be lighting up another cigarette!

It was persistent and vivid enough that I would wake up in the middle of the night, or in the morning at the very least, with cravings.

CRAVINGS!!! Serious, "gimme, gimme, gimme!" sort of cravings.

But, walking past people who were smoking outside the dorms still did nothing for me. In fact, the act of smoking still bothered my senses in the way it always had. I didn't want to smoke.

But I still craved...

Finally, one morning when I was up early enough (for once) to go to breakfast in the cafeteria, it struck me; I was having a dream about cigarettes, but my associated cravings were for the other strong aroma that hadn't ever fully enticed me before: coffee!

Weird, right?

The best I can do in order to make sense of this, is to find a spot that brings those two scents together in my early and favorable subconscious, and that spot lands squarely on a couple of important people; my 'Papa' and my Pastor. Both of these men were very close to me. My Grandpa because he was the local grandfather who I'd see multiple times each week, and my Pastor because his wife was my daily babysitter/caretaker from the time I was 4 weeks old until about 3rd grade. Both of them were coffee drinkers, and both of them (more so my Pastor) were relatively heavy smokers... until they quit when I was still pretty little.

And their quitting of the smoking, led their mornings to be heavier on the coffee.

And so we begin to make a connection...

So, about once a month I'd have to bring myself to try a cup of coffee in order to ward off the crazies that these dreams would leave me with. (Ask people who were close to me, I'd act like a low-rate junkie after one of these dreams... seriously. Please don't judge me.)

Eventually, I got my rhythm figured out as far as what I liked with coffee. This helped, but did nothing to declare me any more 'normal'.

I'd go to the snack counter at school, ask for a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a coffee cup and proceed to fill the cup the rest of the way with cappuccino. (I still can't drink coffee that's very hot... I'm still new to this, people!)

Ah, the satiation of the 'need'! The quelling of the angst!

...the nervous wreck I'd become the rest of the day!!!

So that's where I am today.

The dreams have subsided - haven't had one since college days - but the gradual coming and going relationship with coffee has persisted.

Many have encouraged me to 'join them' in being coffee-drinkers, but when they do they always have that weird look in their eye that you think Darth Vader would've had if you could see his eyes when he asked Luke to join the Dark Side. "No thanks, Pops."

But now... well, there's an empty coffee cup sitting next to my computer. And its been that way since before 9 a.m. this morning.

Sure and Certain

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

I'd like to introduce you to two real characters, "Sure" and "Certain"...

...but I can't seem to find them anywhere. Just their hats:

These brothers, 'Sure Lee' and 'Certain Lee', look an awful lot like the pastoral staff here at St. Paul. And the only difference appears to be the nature of their confusion regarding patterns of speech that relate to their names. (though some might argue that the confusion is actually a similarity to us pastors)

We performed a skit that I wrote for the opening chapel this year with Sure and Certain as the primary characters, along with a dear woman (one of our teachers) by the name of 'Faith Full'. Hebrews 11:1 is the theme verse for our school this year you see, so I thought we'd have a little recurring fun with it. And now I'm sitting at my office computer, trying to find an angle for the second installment of this Abbott and Costello-esque routine. (Think "Who's on First?", but with salvation instead of baseball.)

...though I don't get quite as mad, so as to not upset the children.

As to the plan:

I'm thinking that this time I'll go a few verses into chapter eleven of Hebrews and talk about the men of faith that the letter praises for their lives of faithfulness. Making a point of the fact that, no, they weren't perfect but they were saved by faith.

This is God's grace to us as well - and that's the whole point of it all!
That whether we hear of it through simple explanation, or have it embedded within us by a semi-humorous skit performed by a couple of pastor-types, the goodness of God's work on our hearts will prayerfully affect those who hear it so they can understand just what it is that God has done for us.

Sure and Certain!

Cleaning the Fish Tank - The Hidden Filth Within

This morning I had a light schedule at church, so I decided to free my fish from their murky waters and stop pretending that the visitors to my office "didn't mind'' looking through sweet-tea colored water to admire my golden lovelies.

I had attacked the small tank yesterday. Simple bucket-and-syphon tactics to replace 40%-ish of their water and a paper towel to the inside glass did the trick for those guys... no problem. And today was the 20 gallon job.

I wish now that I'd taken pictures.

Allow me to paint the scene:
Me - grey dress pants and a startlingly white polo shirt
The tank - the color and (light) scent of an accidental pond-puddle that swells up in your backyard this time of year. Especially here in Ohio... oh wait, that's just the pool that's been too wet to properly collapse and put away.

Same approach - a couple of buckets worth of water out, taking things down to 65% full or so, swipe the sides pretty thouroughly, and check the filter for gunk...

Bucket fills - check
Wall cleaning - check
Filter maintenace - ... oh my goodness gracious!

As I pulled the carbon filter up from the basin, it became apparent that there was a LOT of gunk. Enough that one of the ladies here in the office said, "I think they're growing that stuff for alternate energy sources now, you should give someone a call." It was quite a harvest.
But not the strung together sea-weedy kind, no this was like old green paint.

(I'll take this moment to remind you of my "startlingly white polo shirt"... yeah.)

Needless to say, the job took a slight bit longer than initially anticipated - but amazingly, the shirt remained clean.

The deep thought for today; How could I have known that there was that much gunk, when the water only looked a 'little'* bad???

* little being a relative term

I've had opportunity to talk to some of the little ones as well as the new members here about sin recently. And I think that my fishtank holds a good illustration for this.

You look at yourself and see some algae on the walls, maybe the water is murkier today than yesterday, but you can generally convince people that "I'm not that bad, really."
But open up your heart - where everything flows through - and on our own there is just an unimaginable amount of gunk. Sin. Grossness that cannot be removed without some major intervention.
So you get in touch with some guy in a white shirt... except unlike me, He does a really thourough job and gets every speck out of the water, the filter and he even scrubs the plastic plants clean (which is annoyingly difficult, and never undertaken by me personally... I contract that out to snails when they're in town.). He puts in the effort for you to clean things up, and wouldn't you know - His shirt doesn't stay clean. He has to go home wearing YOUR gunk... and you're left with crystal clear water.

The 1st Day

April 1st was more than foolish around here.
...It was a very good version of "busy".

The Senior Pastor here at St. Paul retired, effective March 31 - which means that we've got one pastor for the time-being... me.

Yikes!

Here's what the 1st held for me...

• Yesterday began with faculty devotions (my 1st time leading).
• We continued with all-school chapel (which I led and I've done before, no problem).
• Check-a 'da e-mail...
• Prepare and send the monthly newsletter via PDF e-mail link.
• Meet with someone about some brochures (more on that later)
• Prepare (for printing) our Confirmation Class' Seder Meal programs
• Go home (late) for lunch... whoops.
• Prepare (for printing) Maundy Thursday's service
• Edit Good Friday Services (finished today)
• Write the sermon for last night's service
• Eat soup
• Arrange some brochure distribution
• Lead a church service
• Play with the kids while Meghan has choir practice
• Get home and get Ben to bed in time for CSI

Actually, I'm not overly scared or worried (yet.) There have been countless offers to assist, we've got the Sunday preaching substitutes lined up through May if we need it, I've got most of Holy Week taken care of already bulliten-wise, and the wheels haven't fallen off... (yet.)

Even though I'm not going to be the Senior Pastor here, and I'm looking for that - believe me, it was a little bit daunting last night as I robed up for our last mid-week service prior to Palm Sunday bringing on the busiest week of the church-year. I looked into the vestry mirror as I put the stole over my shoulders and the full weight of the yoke... it kinda 'got' me.

I realize also that this isn't going to last forever. We've got a call extended and pending acceptance to aother great pastor who, I know, is prayerfully and carefully considering things. But even more than that, I was moved again as I turned around and greeted the people at the beginning of last night's service - all their faces showing trust and appreciation that the work of the Lord would continue here, and so many of those faces ready and willing to help out along the way.

Our little evangelism group was able to put its first little notch in its belt last night too!
We've organized to have plastic bags with a couple pieces of information and invitation hung on the doors of houses in our surrounding neighborhood. We needed to assemble the bags last night at the soup supper before church and then ask that people take the bags out to hang them before Saturday. I was gladdened and amazed at the willingness of some of the people - who'd really just shown up for soup - to help both in stuffing the bags as well as signing up for distribution. Its a nice first step to get a little word out to almost 500 households within a half-mile (or so) of our church... God be praised!

Yesterday was 'good'; and there was evening and there was morning - the first day.

...today marks the second day, and after this I think I'll stop counting.


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Transition Time

Has anyone else out there noticed that regardless of how much you anticipate a transition time, and how much you try to have everything done ahead of time... there's ALWAYS a hectic world awaiting you when the time actually comes?

This is true.

...and though its not always decidedly 'good' or 'bad', and in this case is going reasonably peacefully I suppose, there isn't really a 'calm' that can be attained.

This is where I am.

No, the transition isn't to do with me...
Well, in a passive sense I suppose.

The Senior Pastor at my church retires this weekend - great guy who's done a LOT for the congregation and the church as a whole, and good to work with, etc.... can't say enough - and as of next Wednesday; it's me.

...at least for now.

So there is transition and swirling noises... and less blogging.

My apologies for my lack of consistency in this arena.


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Pants Not Included

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's Publishing House, CPH, is finally catching up with the times! (And I love it!) Here's the proof...

If this video doesn't work on my page, or if you really want to buy one, here's the *link*.

The fish and their hibernating (?) snail friend

Sorry for the long recess... getting back into the swing of things is more time consuming than I anticipated.

Plus, we got a Wii - more on that later.

I'm sitting here in wintry Cleveland. Outside the window is snow that has me considering a cancellation of meetings tonight. The roads are messy and the air is cold.

But inside, my thoughts are repeatedly drawn back to my fish tank sitting on the desk...

The life of a snail has me utterly transfixed.

And by 'transfixed', I mean in the long-term sense where I am able to get things done, yet glance in his direction at least a few times per day.

The story goes that I bought a snail for the little tank because its filter is a little sub-par and I wanted to at least keep the grime off the walls, and he did that job beautifully! Then, as snails have done for me in the past, he got pretty quiet after a couple weeks. (None of my snails have actually been 'loud', but you know what I mean by this... very little activity.)

I hesitated in taking him out for the trip to the porcelain depository primarily because he never 'relaxed'. All the other snails that I've had die on me always would be hanging out of their shell a bit and begin to float... definitive signs of departing from this life.

Instead, this little guy had merely huddled up next to my Toucan Sam submarine and stayed put.

And stayed.

And Stayed.

And STAYED...

It was a good two weeks before I saw any notable change in his position, and even then I wondered if the fish had just sort-of been pecking at him.

Then one day he was stuck on the side of the tank wall doing his thing again!

The next day, back behind the submarine for another week.

This rotation has been happening for about two months now. It makes me wonder what I can do to make life worth living for him... or if he just thinks that he's part of the submariner corps on some Red October sort of hunt.

Today, for instance, it seems like he's gotten himself into a nice pattern of making his rounds...

1. Start by the sub.
2. Pick a direction.
3. Go that direction till you hit a wall.
4. Climb the wall briefly to test.
5. Return to sub.
6. Act like nothing happened.

A brilliant existence!

(The snail is the dark one next to the sub. The lighter shell in the foreground is hollow. The apparently giant fish is the stand up fish... he's not THAT big.)

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Flu season mailings?

Did everyone but me know that these were out there?

Just got one in my mail today at work:

Anti-microbial Envelopes!

I guess it makes sense...

Sort of.

I suppose that if your mail is being processed and handled by all sorts of people, and you're planning on it falling into a cesspool somewhere along the way (which has happened to some of our mail on many occasions)... I guess having antimicrobial envelopes will help the situation.

The best thing I can come up with is that its kinda like sending a hallmark card. Its the hallmark card of business correspondence: "When you care enough to send something germ-free!"

I'm sure that I'm missing the point.

But I thought it fun and worthy of sharing.

...by the way, that sucker was REALLY hard to get into!

Maybe I've got too many microbes on me. I have been feeling a bit stuffy.

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Moving the Fish

I've accomplished half of my mission, and there the enthusiasm has lagged.

The plan was, way back a couple months ago, to 'trade' fish tanks from home to office and office to home. This because Ben got his 'new' room and therefore had a little space for a fish tank (as opposed to the BIG space the larger tank and its table were using)... so I was commissioned to perform the switch.

I managed to get the larger tank to work along with its table... and my classically large goldfish are quite happy in the office. But when it comes to moving the little guys, I've not shown any progress for some time.

Here's what I think: (Can you hear the "Excuse Train" a comin'?)

The fish need careful transport, obviously.
They need water and a 'low slosh' means of conveyance.
- these things are not hard to accomplish

But they also need a willing and energetic mover - preferably an expert in aquatic relocation - to get them and their belongings from point 'A' to point 'B' with minimal 'death' as a result.
- I meet said qualifications... for the most part.

Its that 'willing and energetic' portion that gets me. After a day of work, the fish are tired and hungry, and they really just want me to feed them and see to it that I make it home to see the family. They'd rather not be bothered by travel - and yet, the prospect is alluring to them... for some other time, perhaps.

In all honesty, I think that I'm afraid that I'll fail.
I've been really lucky on most occasions of fishy comings and goings, but I've already broken my #1 rule with both current tanks of fish...

I've become attached!

...and therefore I actually care if I have to replace them.

[sniff]

I just need to get over it, move these fish, and get on with life!

(please record your sympathies when the post entitled "Flushing the Fish" comes up, as it will certainly do, now that I've completely jinxed the situation.)

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one stand-up fish

As part of my workspace-beautification project, I have a couple of goldfish on my desk. They reside in their little tank, somewhat greener around the edges than I'd care to admit, and are generally happy. They're small enough to assist conversation as people swing by for the first time;
"Are there fish in there? Oh yes, there they are!"

They do not have names, because when you name them... they die.

But we have a mutual admiration-thing going nonetheless.
- I feed them
- They like me

Both of the fish seem to like watching me work. They're probably just hoping and praying that 'feed the fish' is next on my agenda, but its encouraging in a way as well.

But when they get bored, that's when things get interesting for me as an observer.

I'll casually glance over from time to time and regularly observe my fantail doing a little bit of fishy acrobatics - aquabatics, perhaps? He likes to hang out with his nose either straight down - or, just as common, with is face looking straight up. Sometimes the process of going from one position to the other causes an exhibition of a full underwater somersault!

There have been many goldfish in my life over the years - hence the discovery of the
"don't name them or they'll die" rule - but even my other fantails (who wind up with those wonderfully googly eyes) never put on such a show.

I do believe that I'm just going to be distracted for the rest of this fish's life!

...maybe I should give him a name.