Home Archive by category "Random Observations" (Page 2)

Category: Random Observations

Daddy, Let Me Push You

Today, when I took my son to the park I had an experience that got me thinking. You see, my five year old LOVES to swing, and he’ll have me push him for a very long time – and it’s O.K. – I’ll use that time to talk to him, or sometimes just think as he swings and swings and swings. I’ve tried working with him on pumping his legs so he can swing himself, but it’s no use. He’d rather have his daddy push him still. So I do. And I try to just push until he says, “I’m done Daddy.” Then today after only a few minutes he said, “Daddy, let me push you.” I was a little worried I’d clobber him on one of the return swings, but he did O.K. But then, after only a minute he got tired of pushing and said, “Why don’t you try pumping with your legs, Dad, I think you can probably do it on your own.” And walked away! Just like that! After all the visits to the park where I’d pushed him for loooong periods of time, never stopping until he was done, being such a patient and long…

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The Secret to Navigating the Evolution Debate

As I was surfing the web tonight, I stumbled upon an article about how deep the Congo river is: Evolution in the Deepest River in the World. As often happens if the word “evolution” is used, an evolution debate broke out in the comments. I get both amused and frustrated reading such conversations. Both by ignorant or arrogant evolutionists as well as overly simplistic or dogmatic anti-evolutionist. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind disagreeing with evolutionists. I have a honorary evolutionist friend who reads my blog (and will most likely jump on this post) and is now a friend on facebook (you know who you are) who I’ve enjoyed sparing with because he wasn’t arrogant or condescending even as he sharply disagrees with my theology and science – in fact, I’d rather argue with him than many Christians who I find petty or too quick to quote a Bible verse rather than use their brain. So for the sake of knowing someone will read it, I want to re-post here, my soap-box comment that I posted on the article linked above. Feel free to add your comments below: (I was limited to 2000 characters, hence the brevity) I love…

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Moments in Time

There is just something amazing about these images of water captured with a high speed camera… Every time I come across them, I star at them… and study every detail… every ripple and splash… every color and reflection… knowing that if not for the camera’s super fast shutter… I could never enjoy this captured moment… stolen out of time for me… to hold in my hand… or in my mind… a moment… forever… how sweet it is! an accident? hardly! a planned disaster, actually! a beautiful mess. an explosion of motion and energy… caught in the motion of the moment… the camera catches what we miss every day. MAKES ME WONDER… what do we miss? What could we capture with the camera of our eye, if we would just focus throughout the day? A sweet smile? A gorgeous cloud? A curious animal? An enlightened moment? An encouraged person? What are the moments of our day that God creates that we miss? The splashes of his Grace? The colorful moments that He gives us? The green lights when we are in a hurry? The short line at the store? The empty parking spot near the door in a busy parking lot?…

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Daddy, What Are You Doing?

DADDY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? This morning as I was getting ready for work, my little boy asked me about every thirty seconds, “What are you doing, daddy?” After answering him about twenty times in twenty different ways, I finally started just tossing a towel over his head and saying, “Covering you with a towel!” He would laugh, pull off the towel and say, “No, Daddy, you are putting your socks on!” No task was too small or too insignificant to matter to him. Choosing a shirt, finding my shoes, looking for my keys – every detail of my day matters to him. Especially when he knows that soon I’ll be leaving for work. I once read, “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.” And that’s my little boy. Now at the office, still smiling and remembering the morning, I realize I too am a little boy – my heavenly Father’s son – and I too should be asking throughout the day, “What are you doing, Daddy?” No detail of my day is too small or insignificant to God, my Abba Father, and my life ought to be revolving around…

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Art has no boundaries?

I happened to be in Fort Collins, CO earlier today (and yesterday) and I grabbed my camera when I saw this bumper sticker in front of me on a van… “ART has no boundaries” it said. Is it just me, or does that sticker seem to contradict itself? It is trying to express the freedome available in ART to break the boundaries and be free from restraint and to express whatever in new and liberating ways… all while being crammed into standard bumper sticker dimensions. I just thought it was kinda ironic. I would think “ART has no boundaries” would be splashed across the side of the car, or on an odd shaped sticker, at at least with a crazy fun colorful font… whereas that sticker was loaded with boundaries: the edges of the sticker were crammed, the dark area was tight, and it was placed where all stickers go, on the back of a car. How many times do we try to express a message – in fact, THE Message, and our very form or method of communication contradicts the very thing we are trying to express? Are we ever guilty of reducing Christianity to a bumper sticker that…

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