After looking at, cataloging, and contemplating the list of gospel references in my previous post and then sermonifying, I have made these two videos that I then used. One answers the question what is the gospel. The other does that but adds the bit for calling us to proclaim it too. They are simple videos…but that is kind of the point. What do you think?
So I’m doing a sermon on the Gospel. As part of that I’ve cataloged the 89 references to Gospel in our New Testament. I tend to stick to a very limited number of texts in my sermons (don’t jump around or summarize many texts) but in this case I wanted to get a sense across the board what the definition is. It seems to be used very widely and to mean many different things. So here is the list. What do you think the Gospel is?
Scripture References
Cataloged
There is much controversy as to when the Christmas Season starts. Ask the person next to you, out the window, etc. and you will get many a passionate plea for Christmas to start after Thanksgiving, before Thanksgiving, or never.
This year I heard a new complaint I haven’t before; namely that it is apparently disrespectful to decorate for Christmas before Remembrance Day. That presumes that humans are only able to celebrate/remember one thing at a time or that we can only express one emotion at a time. If someone was to dress up as Santa and go to a Remembrance Day service then that would be disrespectful, yes. But decorating your house in a Christmas theme is not being disrespectful to Remembrance Day. If you go to far with your decorations it can be eye watering, affront to humanity, or the single cause of climate change but likely not disrespectful of Remembrance Day.
We can have healthy discussion on the proper time for the Christmas Season based on preferences and opinion. If you choose to have the opinion that Christmas and Remembrance Day are an anathema to each other and if they should coexist then the world would implode then please remember that others may not. And that’s okay. Mainly because your opinion is crazy.
However, this is all very moot. The proper Christmas Season is November 1st through December 31st. This has been ratified in the Marriage By Law (4.a.viii) and thus is so. We have begun the Christmasification. The tree is up, Christmas music is playing, Heather’s nut cracker collection is up, and we are in the process of putting up other assorted decorations.
Bring on the Eggnog. (Not that I can have any – way too much sugar and dairy…)
Last week we drove to and through a bit of the Qu’Appelle Valley. The valley follows a series of lakes and rivers that span several hundred kilometers. The valley on each side has built up hills and bluffs. We saw a lot of ice fishing.
I suspect that it will be nice in the summer (or when you can see water). The roads, too, are fun. Which is important because I live in a province where the vast majority of roads are very straight.
The rest of the Qu’Appelle Valley pics are on a set on my flickr.
Tomorrow we head to slightly-larger-town. Town is Carlyle. Slightly-larger-town-with-walmart-and-sobeys is Estevan. The other roughly equal slightly-larger-town-with-walmart-and-sobeys is Weyburn. The city is Regina (costco and bestbuy). Closest Cora’s is Winnipeg.
I need to find an excuse to go to Winnipeg.
So…apparently Saskatchewan safeties are really really strict. For example: no mud flaps = fail. Along with many many other things that have nothing to do with safety. The reason that Saskatchewan can get away with this level of insaneness is that the only time you need a safety is when you import and car into the province. Transfers or sales of car inside the province do not require safeties. Thus making safeties a non issue for the majority of the population.
The list of things I would need to do to make my car safetiable is insane. And not worth the value of the car. I can’t sell it here and Ontario is slightly far. (and not worth the drive, flight, and days off that taking it back would require) So I’ll salvage what I can (mostly the decent winter tires) and sell it for parts/scrap/etc.
So this is my car now.
2011 Cruze Eco 1.4L Turbo 6spd Manual
We’ve moved and are mostly settled.
We have internet (beautiful unlimited internet) but no tv as the tv guy hasn’t come yet. Good thing we have netflix.
When we packed and loaded the truck with our stuff in Niagara in mid January it was 15c. Nice t-shirt weather. When our stuff arrived (only 6 days late!) here and we unloaded the truck it was -40c (before wind chill). Not nice t-shirt weather.
A week later I experienced my first -53c wind chill. Fun times. I’ve been assured that was the height (or depth) of winter now we are more in the -10c to -20c range. Which is nice.
I’ve started to wear a winter coat.
So we live here. Or near there. Google has corrected the name of our street (was Hiawata, was supposed to be Hiawatha). From our second floor windows we can see the lake and we see the deer all the time. There are 3-5 deer that live in the village right now and wander around. So we often see them wandering beside the house or down the road, etc.
You can see my flickr sets from around the village.
I’ve been dreaming of a white Boxing Day. Just like the ones I used to know.
Which is good because it snowed like it was the end of the world. Oh, wait that was last Friday.
I had to drive home last night during the height of it. It should have been about a 20min drive but took over an hour. And almost getting stuck a couple of times. My little car of heroes was strong and made it through.
The other, more annoying, thing is that I was hoping to not have put oil and gas in the snow blower just to drain it for moving in a couple weeks. However this amount of snow can not be ignored.
Happy White Boxing Week all, and to all a good night.
Merry Happy Christmas Holidays!
As you prepare for your celebrations tomorrow please conform to the established Christmas tree rules as prescribed by the University of Sheffield Maths Society.
Using this standard our Christmas tree has 6 baubles, a 3cm star, 152cm of tinsel, and 94cm of lights. Our tree is only 30cm high (as we trying to sell our house and not cluttering up things is important).
Does your tree meet the requirements?
I am in an usual position because of my impending move. Our current phone provider is Rogers.
This is Rogers coverage map. Notice the gap in coverage out west. Guess where we are going to live. There is basic coverage in Regina, Saskatoon, along the Transcanada Hwy, and along the Yellow Head Hwy. We are not going to be living in these places. Thus we need a new phone company.
There is the added complication that because we are using movers to move our stuff we really can’t be without a phone during the move. So for about a month I have two phones. One for here and one for there. So I have an iphone 4 and 5 currently.
So can you tell the difference?
Photo 1
Photo 2
Video 1
Video 2
Vote in the comments. As apparently there isn’t an easy way to put a voting into the post. There used to be…
I had just watched Star Trek: The Original Series episode called Spock’s Brain.
It is terrible. In the last couple years I have come to appreciate TOS much more and enjoy the episodes. I grew up on TNG and the TOS movies but there are significant differences between TOS and the movies through to TNG. The specific cut off is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. After that movie the feel of Star Trek changed. The inclusion of Harve Bennett on Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan changed Star Fleet into more of a military feel and this developed into the culture of TNG (according to commentary on the DVD).
As such I haven’t immediately taken to the TOS but had to take time to acclimatise. However, Spock’s Brain is horrid. The story is bad. I don’t know whose fault it is (story, directing, or otherwise) but the acting was terrible too.
It’s Voyager bad.
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