Shadow Ops

I highly recommend having only one blog. Not two. Not three. And I speak from experience.


Nevertheless, I do write on our church blog, over here. At this point, I'm unsure whether to import those same posts onto this site or not; for now, they are separate--rogue posts, as far as this site is concerned.

But anyway, I wanted to draw your attention to them because I'm going to try to enliven that site again (even as the church website is slowly being recreated) and will perhaps post more often. Keep an eye out for new posts listed under "Pastor Shomo" on the blogroll.

For those concerned about Smarty, we allow her to blog whenever something interesting happens in her life.

The Shadow Knows

Here's a little online "Rorschach Test" for you. What do you see in the image below?



Here's what I see:



But that's just me...

Some recent photos

I've been busy with the house and haven't posted in awhile, so thought I would put up some photos.

Cullen with Frog. More appropriate would be a photo of Cullen with Dog. Frog is seemingly a poor substitute for Dog, but works in a pinch. (Reality: Cullen cannot go to sleep without Dog...we have created a monster and need to find a second Dog asap, should something unfortunate ever happen to the original.)

Cullen has recently become very interested in books! (We were starting to worry about him!)

Favorite toys, Farmer Tad and the basket ball hoop.

These are from today, right before we went to the park. Too bad Cullen wasn't in the picture-taking mood. Still kind of cute.

He did a little better for dad.

And in case you want to know what the dogs have been up to....they had a nice run at the little neighborhood park today. (The jungle gym was Ken's idea.)

The End!

Pride and Humility

If I were to write the story of my life I would title it Pride and Humility. The interchange between the two summarizes well my personal life and also my experiences in Christian ministry. In fact, as a new Christian I once prayed, “Lord, always deal with me about pride.” I prayed this because I knew pride would likely always be an issue that would require attention. Little did I know how true this was.

I was a prideful teenager. Now, you might say “all teens are prideful,” though I’ve learned that is not quite true. Even so, my pride was of a different sort. I was not only prideful, I was proud of being prideful. It was an exponential sort of pride.

Humility entered my life through two channels: The passing of time, and the work of the gospel. While everyone experiences the humility brought by time and circumstances, not everyone experiences the effects of the gospel (though I pray they would). The gospel is able to go to work against our pride long before time and chance set in.

The work of the gospel began in earnest for me at age 17. To embrace the gospel, as I did at that time, requires a degree of humility. It is humbling to admit you need anyone, including God. It is humbling to admit that you need him, not in the abstract, but in the very real daily experiences of your life. But the gospel also brings humility in a more profound way: God works deep inside us, changing us, making us something different than ourselves and yet also a better, more complete version of ourselves.

When I became a Christian, then, I became humble. To a degree. So imagine my surprise when, only a few years later, I realized my pride had continued to influence my actions and had blunted my witness for Christ. Pride hadn’t been fully vanquished. The cure for pride was now in my system, doing its work, but it was not an overnight cure.

For his own reasons, God wants us as Christians to live out our earthly life as if we are battling a disease. The strong medicine of the gospel must be administered throughout our lives as we continue this fight. The good news: First, we are given the promise of eternal rest, when the struggle will cease and we will be fully cured. Second, we experience – immediately – the beneficial effects of the cure, so that we have a foretaste of that coming day of complete health. And third, we experience – more gradually – victories throughout our life, both large and small.

The other day I was reading Isaiah 66, which has something to say about this:

Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word. (Isaiah 66:1-2)

Think of how long ago this was written. Hint: hundreds of years before Christ’s birth.

Think of how long God has been dealing with pride.

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Happy Birthday, Ma-ma-ma!

Whippets Vs Windsurfers

A few weeks ago, Scoche had it out with some local windsurfers. She really doesn't like our air space violated...I think it's a national security thing.

She enlisted Smarty in this burgeoning branch of the Coast Guard, and they actually did keep a windsurfer from coming back to shore! A little funny, a little embarrassing. We eventually granted clearance.

Woodworking World View

Cullen's favorite store is Home Depot. No kidding. Walmart trips have been ill-advised, Barnes & Noble outings short-lived.

But take Cullen to Home Depot and he is enthralled. He might get a little upset if you linger too long in the electrical outlet aisle, presumably because he'd like to see more of the store; otherwise, he's wide-eyed and eager to take it all in.

I would prefer that Cullen take an interest in books about home repair, not home repair itself. Then we could hang out the bookstore for hours on end. But until then, it behooves me to take a bit of an interest in something other than books and ideas.

Enter woodworking.

Last week I started my Monday evening woodworking course. And I thought, those of you who have never taken a woodworking course might enjoy learning a bit about the world of woodworking.

Well, here's lesson one: Safety.

We were told the first night that safety is paramount. And a major part of safety is concentration. Do what you're doing, don't let yourself be distracted. Calling someone's name while they're using the table saw is frowned upon. Fingers and blades are encouraged to be kept separate.

This was very interesting to me. Safety. Concentration. Very, very interesting. It occurred to me that I rarely keep my mind on one (and only one) thing. I am usually multitasking. When I mow the lawn, I listen to music on my iPod; when I work, I have numerous matters cluttering up my mind like a congested intersection. Even that metaphor was mixed.

Woodworking - a whole new way of looking at the world!

NOTE: The pictures here are of Cullen (not me). And he's using plastic (not wood).