ellipsis…

in a matter of an hour or so i’ll be joining quite a few of you at the 4 rooms for some music and memories. right now i sit in my cleaned out apartment, ready-ing for moving day on monday, listening to azure ray (good music-check it out).

so, the driving force of a significant chunk of my thoughts the last week or so has been the movie batman begins. i’ve never been a big comic book/action hero guy…i don’t even know if i’ve seen more than half the previous batman movies…and i initially went to the show with my gr.12 boys as a year end party (due to rain ruined plans for arena football)…but the stimulation sparked by the movie has suprised me. i thought i’d share a little here…

the movie is about fear. this is the first idea i’ve been considering. bruce wayne has to confront his fear of bats, made even more intense by the murder of his parents, in order to find freedom in life. satan’s greatest weapon is fear. fear of the unknown. fear of death. fear of failure. fear of success. fear of anything is his tactic, his tool. yet we read in first john that perfect love casts out all fear. and in hebrews that Christ defeated the power of death on the cross. what is the power of death? basically fear… fear of the unknown, that we could die (or be hurt) any moment. jesus’ death brings life…eternal.

but i’m learning these days that satan holds over us not just the fear of death, but the fear of becoming who God created us to be – i mean, lets be honest, becoming holy is hard (its a narrow path, right?) and not easy…sin is easy – pleasure is easy…the pursuit of what we want, chasing what’s going to makes our life better, more comfortable, is easy for the most part, and feels good…but self-sacrifice, servanthood costs…it cost Christ his life…and i think we often fear actually surrendering ourselves to the power of God in our lives and His ability to set us free from subtle sin…free to live actively and tangibly building His kindgom here on earth.

i think we’re too afraid, too much.

i know i am. somehow batman has sparked this revelation in my life. that i’ve moved fear to the arena of evil, or sin – you know, “bad” stuff – because the ‘bad’ stuff is easiest to relate to fear. but i think i’ve become, blindly, more frequently afraid of what might happen if i actually let go and release my life, my dreams, my intentions, my insecurities, my failures, my love, everything that i am. the unknown – what happens if i actually let God take it all?i’m really quite selfish i guess…i’m willing to give just enough to be comfortable. but to give more…wow…that’s the unknown…its the stepping out of the boat, walking on water. who knows whats about to happen…if i just let go.

and suprisingly, or maybe not so much, i think the most frustrating realization is that this fear of letting go usually hits hardest in the small stuff. steve is stepping into the great unknown going to england, nathaniel in africa, jen in vancouver…and those steps of obedience and faith are admirable, courageous, and inspiring.but i think we usually sell out at the small daily things. scripture. prayer. generosity. taking a sabbath (its one of the big 10 commandments!!). we usually place ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ in the big decisions. but what of the routine? the mundane?

man…this post is convicting me…i’m going to work harder at being aware of when i’m slipping into a comfortable place, giving into a fear of letting go of it all, that i might become who He created me to be.

- originally posted by DT

For lack of anywhere better to post this… and for lack of anything better to write about lately… and for lack of enough self-restraint or self-respect to keep me from admitting this…

So last night I dreamed that I was in another city with my good friend Brian, and i was there to be Carrie Underwood’s hair dresser for her prom. Yes, Carrie Underwood, the latest American Idol. I remember being at her house messing around with it so she could go to some get together the night before. Other than that I was staying at some other person’s place. This other person had a couple of bowls of those candy “orange slices” that are 97% sugar and 3% gelatin. I love those things. We almost ate them all. They were in the study by the phone that we used to call Carrie. We were downtown once, lying to some store clerk about having a parking pass in our car. The car was my former Olds Firenza, the yellow rustbucket that caught on fire last year. It seemed that there were unspoken feelings between Carrie and I, which should have been odd, considering the 12 years difference in age, but it didn’t. I never got to the part when I actually did her hair for her prom, which is probably best since I don’t know how to do hair, and she’s almost done college, so what is the prom about anyhow?

I figured that was weird enough to warrant some outside interpretation, just for fun. Really though, wack. If you can put a spin on it, have at er. I won’t be offended.

Maybe it was the bbq chips right before bed.

- originally posted by glenroy

well, i’m not homeless yet, but it is a definate possibility. As most of you know, i’m moving to vancouver in august to take my MDiv at Regent College, but in order to do that in a healthy, sanitary way, i am going to need a place to live. SOOO… if any of you have friends in Van and feel like you can do a little bit of asking around for me, it would be much appreciated…in fact, i might even buy you a coffee or something… (wouldn’t you be the lucky one then?!)

thanks ya’ll.. jen.

this isn’t really relivant to anything, and isn’t really important, and is just a pet peeve that i have with the Sylvan Lake RCMP. i was out at Sylvan this weekend hanging out with the beautiful Danae Taylor for her birthday, i’ll put up pictures later. as i’m leaving the town there are two cops stopping people at random at the only exit to edmonton. they pulled me over, asked for my registration, and then told me enorder for me to continue i would have to rip off all of my tint on my two front windows!!!! what the f***!!! and really i can’t be all that upset about that because i’m actually not allowed to have tint on my front windows, but that’s not the point. so as i’m standing there ripping off all my tint, i can hear the cop chuckling to himself over my situation, and the situation behind me (buddy driving a pimped out eclipse without proper registration). he comes up behind me and give me back my license and registration and says “your windows look pretty wrecked, you can go now.” WHAT!!!! LOOK PRETTY WRECKED, I CAN GO!!! that is my beef, not only are those cops bored out of their minds, they didn’t charge me with anything. if i did soming wrong, give me a freaking ticket. OH, that bugs me. in the time that i was standing there, they pulled over 6 bikers, chatted with them, looked over their bikes and let them go, they also pulled over a car with baby in the back seat, gave then a talking about how a baby seat was suspose to be installed, then check the baby seat in the back and realized that is was installed properly. come on! i generally like cops, they are really helpful, but when they start pulling out stuff like this it’s no wonder people start calling them names and making fun of them. in the end i don’t have to pay for a ticket and i would eventually have had to take off the tinting for another law enforcement, but if i’m doing something wrong charge me with it, legally let me know what i’m doing wrong, and do something more productive with your time other than pulling over every motorist you think you may be able to pull some bylaw on. i’m just a suck.

hey everyone,

this is aaron ( aka the “izzo”). i hope everyone is having an excellent spring and soon to be summer. i was reading what was written in the blog section and something i have been really trying to grasp came to mind:

taking ourselves away from the world as we see it (our story) and seeing it as God’s story.

ive been reading the narnia series and this idea permeates my mind every time i reading those books. each character has their role but they never know the outcome or the reasoning to the task, all that can be done is trust in aslan and follow through. hindsight is when everything is revealed.

as our lives are changing and with new decisions to be faced and new opportunites, let us be encouraged that we are in a story much larger than ourselves. i pray that we would be comforted with the peace of this understanding and that we would constantly place our trust in Him who is unchanging and worthy of our trust.

to those who know me, i love you all and look forward to the next time we see each other. until then, one tree at a time for me:)

God bless.