A Story from My Christmas Past

When I was a wee lad of around 7 or 8 years old I had it in my head that I really wanted a hamster for Christmas. Daily I informed my parents of my desire for one of the little furballs with a determination only a child could muster. A few days before Christmas I decided to do a leaflet campaign and wrote on many scraps of paper "I want a hamster." I then took these scraps of paper and scattered them around their bedroom by means of placing them on top of the blades of the ceiling fan and turning it on. I believe it was later that night that I said to my mother with what I imagine was quite a sad looking face "All I really want for Christmas is a hamster." That may not be an exact quote, it was quite a few years ago.

Christmas morning came and we opened all of the presents and as we were finishing up one of my parents said that they forgot something and went into another room and brought out a small cage with a hamster in it. I remember being filled with joy and shock that they had actually gotten me the hamster I had been begging for.

I hadn't thought of those events for many many years but for some reason it came to mind yesterday. It reminds me of a simpler time in my life when things weren't so complicated. My parents bought us presents and as a young child you really don't think of where the money comes from for those presents. Now as a husband and father myself I know the sacrifice that is sometimes involved in making Christmas special for your children. This will be our son's first Christmas and I can't wait to know the joy of watching him attempt to open his presents. Though the wrapping paper will most likely hold his attention more than the presents themselves.

Incidentally the hamster died a few months later when he was rolling around in one of those plastic balls and one of my brothers left the basement door open and Louie (as I so eloquently named him) went rolling on down the stairs. If I remember correctly we made a cross and that same brother used his wood burning set to put Louie's name on the cross and then we buried him in the back yard.

In case anyone was wondering on the condition of my finger after the incident described in the previous post, it is mostly healed. I can play guitar now with only a minor amount of discomfort. Lifting things at work is still a bit of a challenge sometimes but I'm managing.

Merry Christmas everyone.

A Smashing Christmas

So I was planning on recording and giving away 2 original Christmas songs this year but just the other day when I was planning on recording the guitars I had an unfortunate accident. While clawing my way through our garage, which is filled with someone else's stuff, a piece of metal equipment that weighs several hundred pounds fell and smashed my finger against another piece of heavy metal equipment. I then had to continue to find my way to open a locked garage door in the dark while clutching my hand. It wasn't very fun then or a little later when my wife graciously stuck a red hot needle through my finger nail to release all the blood that was building up pressure underneath.

The reason this is such a big deal for guitar playing is because it happened to my left hand which is pretty essential to forming guitar chords. I'm also left handed so doing many things right now is a joy. It will probably be several more days before I can play guitar again and then it would be several more days after that until the songs were finished which would put us right up around Christmas. So unfortunately I have no free Christmas music to give away this year.

It's a bit disappointing but I can't change it so I'm not gonna be that upset about it. I do hope to still have a new track up a few days after Christmas, commemorating a special occasion for my wife and I. Hopefully this accident won't affect that happening too.

Until then I'll try and make a couple more posts dealing with spiritual topics for those of you who enjoy those kind of things.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know it's a day early but Happy Thanksgiving! At this time tomorrow I will be sitting down to eat with my in-laws and enjoying my wife's turkey. I plan on eating too much because Thanksgiving only comes once a year.

It's funny how with most American holidays, regardless of what the meanings behind them are, the celebration usually just entails eating a lot of food. In many other countries holidays are sometimes quite festive and extravagant. I'm certainly not complaining. I do enjoy eating after all.

Disciples of Paul

I've been thinking a lot lately about the modern church and the issues that divide it. Many of the things that bring division in the church relate to teachings from books of the Bible that Paul wrote. Let me build this up here.

Christ came with a message of love God, love your neighbor as yourself, and go into all the world and preach the Gospel. That's very paraphrased I know but bear with me. Fast forward a bit to the book of Acts where we meet Paul. Paul, then known as Saul, was a Pharisee until he had his miraculous conversion. The Pharisees were people who loved the law and added to it wherever they could with their own rules and regulations of how to live. They created these power structures that placed them over other people.

So now we have Paul who has converted to Christianity, but he is someone who was brought up thinking that people needed to be controlled by the law. And suddenly you see him writing letters to churches creating structure and rules for the early church. Leadership structures, gender roles, how and when to use spiritual gifts, and even trying to put limit on how many could have certain gifts.

Now the modern church has been left with this outline for how to control the church by Paul and I sometimes wonder why Christ didn't talk about any of this stuff. Someone could argue that Christ's ministry had a different focus and He left the details of the establishment of his Church in the hands of the apostles. But there again I think if these heirarchies and gender roles weren't so important to Christ then why are they important in the modern church?

There's a verse in the Bible where Paul is chastising people for claiming to be followers of him or another religious leader. He does this because we are meant to follow Christ. I believe that the modern church has become far to focused on the teachings of Paul.

Are we disciples of Paul or of Christ?

God Complacency

I feel like I am in a season of spiritual awakening. I've been re-evaluating my relationship with God and have been seeing some spiritual truths that I've never noticed before. I tend to get pretty excited about new ideas and want to share them with anyone who will listen but I feel like with these new thoughts I don't have much of an audience.

I've been trying to talk to fellow Christians about what God's doing in my life and I've been posing questions about who God is and how we relate to Him. And everytime the only response I seem to get from people is indifference. No one's arguing with the things I'm saying or agreeing with me or really doing anything. There's no passionate response to questioning the very core of Christian living. I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything, I just simply wanted to share my heart and pose questions to see if others were of a like mind.

More and more it seems to me that the vast majority of Christians are happy having religion spoon-fed to them in a Sunday pew. It seems that people don't want to have to think very hard about who their God really is. As if it's enough to have a preacher tell you what to believe, where to act out those beliefs, and when to act out those beliefs.

I guess the answer to my question about others being of a like mind is no. Atleast not the people I've been talking with thus far. But as I said, I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. If people approach God differently than me then fine, but at least put some thought into how you relate to God.

The God Journey

Recently I discovered a podcast titled The God Journey. It's one of the best free podcasts that I've ever come across and I highly recommend it for people searching for a deeper relationship with God. http://www.thegodjourney.com

The Loss of a Friend

I've been fortunate so far in my life to only have reason to attend a total of 3 funerals. One of those was just yesterday though. A friend from work passed away last week at the young age of 22. When something like that happens it really makes you consider your own mortality and how you use the time you are given.

I believe that everyone is put on this Earth for a purpose. Are you fulfilling yours? It's a question I often find occasion to ask of myself.

New Blog

Just wanted to point out that I'm now using Blogger to post news on here. The news posting program I had made a few months ago was just getting attacked too much by internet robots so I figured that this would be a bit more secure.

Another good thing about it is now you can use your Blogger account to post comments.

-Yordy