Pride

I haven’t posted in a while. Part of it’s due to the fact that life hasn’t afforded me the opportunity to post much. Part of it is the fact that I really don’t care to post much, and is related to the largest part of it all: I’m disgusted with blogging in general. I figure I can’t provide much of a solution to my gripes with blogging/bloggers, but I can make myself less part of the problem (as I see it).

Pride isn’t a problem unique to any segment of the populace, but it is given more of a free rein in the blog format. And it’s an insidious one, pride. It takes a lot of forms, but I find it to be especially distasteful when it rears its ugly head within us as theologians.

We can get pretty full of ourselves. We get to be the big fish in a relatively small pond, and that can unfortunately be rather intoxicating. “Toxic” is the key root to that word. We clergy forget our place as servants of God, as called to the proclamation of the whole counsel of God, and we become drunk on the word authority. We begin to see ourselves as the authorities, not as the called exercisers of Christ’s authority. And it tends to bleed over into other areas of life: from politics to the societal pecking order. It’s too easy to make ourselves into the buck-stops-here last word on issues where we honestly don’t have an authoritative leg to stand on. It can get pretty ugly.

I’m now in a call where I get the best of two worlds: I’m privileged to serve as Christ’s undershepherd here while at the same time I receive the blessing of phenomenal pastoral care for me and my family. It has been humbling to receive such care and embarrassing to see through the lens of such care how haughty I had become–if not overtly then at least in my mind. And probably overtly. And when I consider some of the conversations I’ve had or viewed over the last few years I am likewise struck by the thought that some of my colleagues are stricken by this same sin.

The answer for this sin is confession and Absolution. God deals with it in the same way he deals with other sins.

The answer regarding my writing or reading of blogs is still pending.

Moving

Things have been hopping here. What is most significant is that I have received and accepted a new Call. So we’re in the midst of packing up a household and moving. As well, the wife’s recovery is continuing to trend upward. At the moment, if there’s anything else to report, it’s not really on the radar screen.

Professional Responsibility

If the primary reason you’re still doing it is to get a paycheck, you owe it to the rest of us to retire and do the Wal-mart greeter thing.

I’m back, I guess

My wife is doing better these days, though it still sounds like it will be somewhere between three weeks and three months before she is actually up and around again. This thing has really been brutal.

Otherwise, life has been somewhat interesting, if not hectic and disappointing. But I really don’t feel a whole lot like blogging about it. That’s more for my personal writing and reflection.

There have been a couple of bright spots. Those have been good.

Oh, and from the “things that make me a geek” category, Google has now made it possible for each of us to feel, if not exactly like Jack Bauer, then like one of the more important CTU operatives. It’s called Google Maps–mobile version. You’ve got the option to view both maps and aerial imagery when you use it, just like in the PC version. The trick is that you say, “Ok, Chloe, send it to my screen,” before you click “OK.”

Yeah. Ok, that’s all for now.

Hiatus

My home has become a hospital. In the midst of all this, blogging is the lowest possible priority. I may be back once the wife is on her feet.

Where to begin

It has been a hellish week. I took the family on what was to be a long weekend of camping. Everything started out fine. We actually got away, which is a huge victory in itself for us. It all pretty much went downhill from there.

Outta here

I’m taking the family away for the weekend. It’s going to be good. Nothing like a bit of intentional relaxation. I don’t know that we’ve done that in several years. It’s just a long weekend, but it’s long overdue and quite welcome. I’m sure things will still be standing when we return.

Office 2007 II

I have to say, after a bit more than a month of use, Microsoft Office 2007 is more than I’d expected it to be. Let’s face it. 2003 was pretty good, but it was little more than a face lift for Office 2000. The power and functionality they have added to 2007 is definitely worth the upgrade. It sports a new file system, so that Word documents are *.docx (instead of the earlier *.doc), PowerPoint slideshows are *.pptx, Excel sheets are *.xlsx, etc. It’s not just something to annoy users and force an upgrade. The new files are smaller, which makes them more quickly accessible and more easily transferred. The “ribbon,” as it’s called, is a much more elegant and intuitive interface. The available commands change as you select from the ribbon. And one needs simply to hover over a button and you can see what the results would be if you clicked it. There is an option to save a file as a *.pdf file, since the patent is up for anyone to use now. Collaboration is almost seamless now with other Office 2007 users.

I’m running the Enterprise edition. I certainly haven’t pushed this suite to the edges of what it can do. I have yet to do much with Access. I’m mostly a Word/Excel/Outlook/OneNote/Publisher guy. We’ll be bringing SharePoint and Access online soon. But at this point you can color me extremely satisfied with the product.

CSL…

…is slipping. Or at least their webmaster is. I can see who’s going where from CTSFW, but CSL has yet to post 2007 Calls. The website promised they would be up as of four hours ago. Not that this blog comes anywhere near to doing so, but the goal must be to keep content fresh in the internet age.

Zoe

I actually love pre-marital counseling. In seminary Dr. Bryan Salminen used us, his students, in working out some of the kinks in his Zoe tool, a phenomenally insightful instrument for getting at the good, the bad, and the ugly in a relationship. The personal benefit is that each of us came away from the experience with the training needed to implement it. I use it as the backbone of my own premarital counseling. It pairs God’s Word with secular research and provides a great reflection of a relationship, getting to the very heart of the issues a couple may be facing. It makes for great pre-marital conversation. If pre-marital counseling is an aspect of your vocation, I highly recommend giving it a look.