Archives for November, 2004
The bottom line
Notre Dame just fired their head coach. The reason, he didn’t deliver a BCS Bowl Game and the $14 million that goes with it.
Worship Freehouse :: November 28th, 2004
Originally uploaded by Jordon.
A shot from the Freehouse on Sunday night. I posted a bunch more shots at the Freehouse collabrative photo pool on Flickr. It was a good night and thanks to everyone that helped make it happen.
Dallas Friesen is blogging
I met Dallas while at the Resonate Lunch in Toronto.
Church as family
We envision the church as an idealized family, we are not very capable of welcoming the stranger. When family is the only metaphor we use, people with whom we cannot achieve intimacy, or with whom we do not want to be intimate, are squeezed out. Since intimacy often depends on social and economic similarities, church then becomes a place of retreat rather than true hospitality. Such a church does everything in his power to eliminate the strange and cultivate the familiar. Such a church can neither welcome the stranger nor allow the stranger in each of us to emerge. — Molly Marshall (quoted from The Other Side, Nov.-Dec., 1996, p. 57)
Dan Sheffield
One of the member of the Free Methodist leadership team is Dan Sheffield and he is now blogging. Dan is in charge of leading missions efforts around the world and has many stories about what God is doing all over the world.
Lady of Our Angels Cathedral
Originally uploaded by Jordon.
Wendy got me posting submissions to Photo Friday again. I have created a gallery on FLickr and will post my weekly submission here. Enjoy.
Sunday
The Worship Freehouse meets again this Sunday at 8:00 p.m. at the Saskatoon Unitarian Centre. More information on the Freehouse site. See you there.
Home again
Back home. Status: Tired and behind. Some random notes
- Got to the Resonate lunch in Toronto. Saw a bunch of cool people. Never heard the line but someone said to the waitress that it was a gathering of people who had all met on the internet. Apparently that unnerved her a bit.
- Finally saw the offline Dash House. Also met the ruler of the Dash’s, Charlene.
- Flight home was nice. Sat in window aisle this time to avoid having coffee spilled on my face by stewardess while I slept. Also discovered the very cool WestJet headrests. I would pay extra to fly in an airline with headrests like that.
- Put up Christmas lights again along picket fence. Unlike last year when they were stolen after an hour, this time they have lasted at least six hours. All red lights this year, makes it easier to replace when stolen (not if, it’s when).
- Did a little Christmas shopping today. The good news is that Mark is taken care of. We got him a huge aircraft carrier and a huge collection of Robert Munsch books. We need to get him something from Elway and I still want to get him some hockey nets. The hockey nets were hard to find as I didn’t want to get a full size one. I found a two pack today that is much more Mark sized. Costco was nuts and it isn’t even December and is a Thursday.
- Spent some time working on a project for Spiritwood. Will post it online on Monday.
- My brother and his girlfriend now have a fotoblog.
Religions in Canada: Free Methodist Church
What the Canadian Military has to say about the Free Methodist Church in Canada.
worldometers.info
More depressing statistics on the world than one can absorb. At least we are paying more money for education than we are for the military.
Sing along with Mark
Mark has discovered singing. He sings along to Veggie Tales, kids songs but now he is belting out some Lenny Kravitz (Rock and Roll is Dead). Nice and way better than the Wheels of the Bus Go Round and Round. Tomorrow I introduce him to Bon Jovi.
Crime in Rural Saskatchewan
Ever wonder why the RCMP are such successful crime fighters in small towns?
RCMP: Can you give me any details about the person who robbed you?
Victim: It was Dwayne.
Live from a Toronto Near You!
Ahoy from Toronto. Wendy and Mark dropped me off early this morning and I flew out on WestJet to the Free Methodist Mecca. Think PTL but larger and more opulent. How many statues of Dennis Camplin does one world need?
Good sessions today. When I came out to the meetings, I was hoping that someone would bring up some stuff about the issues facing denominations and Dan Sheffield did that. It set the tone for a good afternoon and was really good. I learned a lot. I did a presentation that has come from the discussions a lot of us have had and then supper.
Lisa Howden took us the most amazing Indian restaurant. I don’t know I had but it was one of the finest meals I have had in many moons. After supper some of us headed back to my hotel room to talk over a paper we are working on for General Conference about communications. Did a lot of work on that but came up with some good ideas and recommendations. Whether General Conference agrees will be another thing but I think it was good.
On the plane out, I was reading Lt. General Romeo Dallaire’s book, Shake Hands with the Devil about the failed UN Mission and the Rwanda genocide. From Wikipedia
In late 1993 Dallaire was assigned the position of Force Commander of UNAMIR. Rwanda had just endured several years of bloody civil war which had been concluded with the Arusha Accords, and UNAMIR’s mandate was to supervise the peaceful transfer of power to the new Rwandan government.After the situation in Rwanda deteriorated, Dallaire became aware of the genocide taking place and pleaded for reinforcements of 2000 soldiers for his Canadian contigent plus logistical support. The UN Security Council refused, several journalists laying blame on a gunshy Clinton administration who refused to provide requested material aid after the failed US efforts in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Security Council voted to reduce UNAMIR down to 260 men.
Following the Belgian forces’ withdrawal after 10 soldiers were killed, Dallaire consolidated his contingent of Canadian, Ghanian, and Dutch soldiers in urban areas and focused on providing areas of ’safe control’. His actions are credited with directly saving the lives of 20,000 Tutsis. There is speculation that Dallaire’s forces deliberately sabotaged equipment to slow their UN-mandated withdrawal from the combat zone.
As the massacre progressed, the UN Security Council backtracked on its position and voted to establish UNAMIR II with a strength of 5,500 men. Unfortunately this taskforce’s inception was delayed due to logistical problems and bureacracy, and was not effective until early 1995
It is a hard book to read. Hard to read because my country did nothing. Your country did nothing. None of us did anything when only a couple thousand troops could have stopped it. In the book it said that no one wants a strong U.N., they want a weak UN so that it is there to take the blame. He may be right.
It was odd to read the accounts of the people that General Delaire ate, had fellowship with, and spoke fondly of and then read the words, “none of them survived the genocide.” What does it say of humanity when we allow 800,000 people to die because we don’t want to send another 5000 troops or in the case of the Belgians, withdraw after ten soldiers die. I think it says something dark about us and those same things keep being said again with what is happening in the Sudan.
Purpose Driven Leighton
Rumor has it that Leighton has sold out and is watching the Larry King Live show with the postmodern looking (he has a goatee and funky glasses) Rick Warren. I think I can hear Leighton goatee growing as I blog.
His view of the shooting
Kevin Sites blogs about seeing the American troops shoot a wounded Iraqi. Sites is the MSNBC reported that broke the story last week. I have always edited this blog for language but I am going to leave this post the way the author wrote it, unedited.
The lieutenant asks them, “Are there people inside?”One of the Marines raises his hand signaling five.
“Did you shoot them,” the lieutenant asks?
“Roger that, sir, ” the same Marine responds.
“Were they armed?” The Marine just shrugs and we all move inside.
Immediately after going in, I see the same black plastic body bags spread around the mosque. The dead from the day before. But more surprising, I see the same five men that were wounded from Friday as well. It appears that one of them is now dead and three are bleeding to death from new gunshot wounds. The fifth is partially covered by a blanket and is in the same place and condition he was in on Friday, near a column. He has not been shot again. I look closely at both the dead and the wounded. There don’t appear to be any weapons anywhere.
“These were the same wounded from yesterday,” I say to the lieutenant. He takes a look around and goes outside the mosque with his radio operator to call in the situation to Battalion Forward HQ.
I see an old man in a red kaffiyeh lying against the back wall. Another is face down next to him, his hand on the old man’s lap — as if he were trying to take cover. I squat beside them, inches away and begin to videotape them. Then I notice that the blood coming from the old man’s nose is bubbling. A sign he is still breathing. So is the man next to him.
While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall.
Then I hear him say this about one of the men:
“He’s fucking faking he’s dead — he’s faking he’s fucking dead.”
Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.
However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he’s going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.
Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man’s leg slumps down.
“Well he’s dead now,” says another Marine in the background.
I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach. The Marine then abruptly turns away and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent “danger” as the other man — though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket.
But then two other marines in the room raise their weapons as the man tries to talk.
For a moment, I’m paralyzed still taping with the old man in the foreground. I get up after a beat and tell the Marines again, what I had told the lieutenant — that this man — all of these wounded men — were the same ones from yesterday. That they had been disarmed treated and left here.
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Messy Faith: Daring to Live by Grace by A. J. Gregory October 28, 2008
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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