The Burn & Violin Class

As Easter approaches there is a great desire to clean up the church and the church grounds. Why? It is the day of Resurrection you want to everything to look its best, thus the tradition of "Spring Cleaning." Over the fall a man brought his huge John Deere tractor over with a backhoe and front loader to clear out behind the outdoor chapel. His clearing created a huge pile of brush. Yesterday was the day of burning.

Around 12:30 four of us gathered to start the burn. Soon we noticed that the pile needed some added heat to get rid of the big stuff. So we retrieved some wood pallets and threw them on. They helped, then the janitor from the school next door came over to complain that the school was full of smoke. Oh well what you gonna do after it started, there really wasnt that much smoke.

After school let out all the neighborhood kids came over to the church yard to fly kites, play soccer, ride bikes, chase each other, gather sticks to throw in the fire, and what not. Then all of sudden a dude pulled up in a 72 dodge, opened the hood and we stood around drinking another cold one. It was remarkable how much it felt like being back in WV.

I think all churches should have one of these events, it was a great community building exercise and a chance to get to know some new church/neighbor folk better.

The violin class went well. Myself, two boomers, one 11 year old and one high school senior. It was apparent that they 11 year old was the most advanced. i thought we were all on the same skill level, oh well. But it was great to get the Gaylus out and to begin the process of learning to play.

Music Notes

Scott Miller and the Commonwealth have released their latest schedule. If they or him as a solo act are in your area I suggest you check them or him out.

A friend gave me this cd the other day. Great arrangements of classic gospel set to mid-western bluegrass I guess you would call this prairie grass or tall grass music. Check them out too if you have a chance.

This evening I officially begin fiddle lessons. At 6:30 I will head over to the Blackstone Valley Theatre and join some other folks of all ages. But just like Kramer, we are all at the same skill level.

I will be playing the Gaylus, the fiddle my grandpa made when he was 22 years old.

If you think that Big Coal still doesn't rule in WV...

This morning Ken Ward of the WVGazette has reported that the DEP board has ruled that Massey energy can build a new coal silo 300feet from Marsh Creek Elementary School. The board split on the vote but a majority ruled that Massey could build it.

I cannot believe this. Imagine the dust, constant rumble of trucks, not to mention the sludge pond up the hollar from the school. I just can't image how folks could rationalize the placement of this silo there.

Do you think it is just a conicidence that Google Maps does not have a satellite picture available for viewing of this region?

Luckily Yahoo Maps does! If you look at the area you can see what looks like a large lake, that is a slurry pond. A collection of coal waste, ie slurry. It is thick and nasty. In 2000 a slurry pond in Inez, KY broke. It was a larger ecological disaster than Valdez, there 267,000 gallons of crude spilled in Prince William Sound, in Inez 250 MILLION gallons of sludge spilled into 60 miles of rivers and streams. Unfortunately there are no penguins in Appalachia. Fortunately for, you guessed it, Massey energy there aint no penguins in Appalachia, the story received scant coverage by the major news media. The largest ecological disaster in the nation and it barely received coverage in All the News that is Fit to Print!

here is a follow up story by salon.com

Passive Evangelism

This year I have set a goal to focus more on stewardship and evangelism. The evangelism goal is the most challenging for me. How does a moderate-liberal mainline community church do evangelism that isnt a simple copying of our more "evangelical" brethren and sisteren.

I think I may have a solution: passive evangelism. I say that we take an ad out in the paper that reads: Mad at Your Church, Try Us. Thus far most of our growth of new members has come from folk who are ticked off at their former church or simply gave up/lapsed on RCC long ago. I think this will keep the church afloat but I dont see it fostering new growth and new life.

How sad it would be if our only positive contribution to the community is to be a safe harbor for folk who get pissed off at their church. Then what happens when the former pissed off people get pissed off at their new church? I think there needs to be a new emphasis on evangelism, we've got some good news to share too.

Some pics for the extended family

The gang after church today:











One day they will quit rotating my pictures, looked good to me in iphoto.

Yesterday me and #2 made some cookies.


The other day #1 & #2 were acting like monkeys:



And #3 fell asleep on Mom while she was cooking:

Reasons #378 and #379

The other day the wife cooked her first turkey. Someone from the church gave us a turkey, it was frozen and in a UPS box (I don't ask questions). Normally I usually brine and grill the turkey. But seeing that I could not get out of work early, the wife took over duties. She did a simple butter, salt and pepper rub under the skin and bacon grease on the outside skin, then baked it. Not too bad at all...

That night she also made her mom's famous hot rolls.



Here is the recipe:
2 cups of lukewarm water
2 tablespoons of yeast
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of salt
1/4 cup of oil
4 and 1/4 cup of flour.


preheat oven to 450.

we use instant yeast.

combine flour, yeast, sugar and salt, then water and oil. mix well.

put on floured waxed paper and knead well. let rise about 1/2 hour (or double in size) Pinch out into greased muffins pan (clover leafs) let rise again until double in size. bake until golden brown. butter and serve. makes about 2 dozen

A couple of nights later the wife made a turkey pot pie with the leftovers, she used all the pan drippings (minus the fat) and a little leftover mashed potatoes to make the filling a little thicker. Trust me it was out of this world fantastic.

Here is the recipe:
Make your basic pie dough.
Took drippings, skimmed off fat
took teaspoons of fat to saute with celery and onions.

one celery stalk, diced
one small to medium onion, diced
one cup of peas
one medium carrot

after you saute take pour some water and add bay leaf. Take some of the hot liquid and dissolve mashed potatoes then add them back in.

fill pie shell

bake at 400 until browns then to 350 (total baking time 35-40 minutes.)

Quadrilateral Approach to Sleep

Some of you are probably aware of the Methodist usage of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral methodology. (I happen to like it and sometimes find myself using it, although I usually lean towards my own baptist trinity of scripture, experience and hymnody). But back to Wesley, supposedly he used four criteria in the formulation of theology: scripture, reason, experience and tradition.

Yesterday while rocking number #3 I found myself employing my very own quadrilateral. He wouldn't go to sleep easily so I had to Rock him, Pat his back, Jiggle him and Sing to him. This simultaneous fourfold approach did the trick, thank you John Wesley.

#546 On why I married the great woman

The wife is always coming up with some great creative creations. I used to think I was the creative one with my photography (look at our bathroom wall and you'll notice she has the better eye), with my ideas for stoles (look at the ones she has made thus far and you'll see she has better taste) and now we come to furniture design. I like to think that I can muster up the creative energy to make a reading chair with a leather cushion. Well the wife hasn't made a leather cushion but she has made this wonderful cushion for #3's high chair. I suppose it is Rhode Island inspired.

A Gripe with Liberalism

The other day the wife went to Whole Foods to do some grocery shopping. As we unloaded the bags I found two boxes of copy-cat cereals one of Cheerios and one of Rice Krispies. Here is a picture if you dont believe me.

Now I believe that these cereal boxes give credence to my general complaint with liberal Protestant Christianity: we are copy-cats and not indigenous producers right now. Take music for instance lots of congregations are using Taize and Iona produced music. I use them too, I find them quite useful but there is something inherently wrong with just using other forms of music for your own, why not create your own worship music. Or take contemporary/praise music some folk like the stuff and incorporated it into mainline worship, again why not create our own music that is not cheap, plastic or expressive of our own particular religious tradition. Now lets go onto Study aids. In Europe and the states many conservativeesque churches use the Alpha series as a teaching tool. Many mainline churches simply started using it too, but some folks took the same idea and copy-catted it and called it Living the Questions.

Going back to Schleiermacher liberal religion primarily was birthed out of a reaction to a more conservative context. Will we always be trapped to that paradigm? Is there a way out so that we can build on our foundations and create a vibrant religious movement that does not simply copycat but produces indigenous, thoughtful and meaningful aides for worship, spirituality and intellectual growth? Just some thoughts that are swirling on a Wednesday morning.

Seasons

It may be registering somewhere around -5 today with windchill but that hasnt stopped me thinking about the coming Spring. It is March so it is time to order seeds (late I know), think about planting peas on St. Patrick's Day, potatoes on Good Friday, etc. I like the idea of planting on specific days. It is also that time of year when the girls in green deliver their once-a-year delights, that's right Girl Scout Cookies. We received the Carmel Delites (aka Samoans - I understand the name change), somekind of peanut butter cookies with chocolate and my favorite Thin Mints. The wife had to hide the cookies, if they are left on the counter she devours them. I enjoy them, but just a few.

It is also time to start thinking about my annual declaration that this will be the year that I do a triathlon, no really I mean it this year. So this week I initiated training. Today I jumped in the pool with the old ladies to swim some laps over my lunch hour. Here I am 32 years old in relatively good health and some 70 year olds have more wind than I. They were swimming laps when I jumped in and they were swimming laps when I jumped out. Oh well, as soon as I get my wind - I' ll show 'em.