here are some pictures (sorry we don't have more. our camera actually froze and wouldn't work again until we got it thawed in the car going home!):
Saturday, January 26, 2008
step into powder...
well, it's official. elizabeth and i love skiing. yesterday we went to 7 springs, a local top-ranked northeastern ski resort, with a group from the seminary and skied for the first time ever. i am pretty proud of us, as we did it without any lessons. we were supposed to take lessons from someone that goes to the seminary, but it was chaotic when we were getting our gear on, causing us to get separated from the group. we decided to just figure it out ourselves (well, we had some help from a friend who had been skiing a few times). i must say that even a beginner slope is quite terrifying when you have no idea how to stop or control yourself. also, i was super scared on the ski lift, which took us up about fifty or sixty feet with nothing holding us in. i was pretty sure that i was going to slip off and fall to my death. any way, i didn't, and after two or three times down the mountain, numerous falls for me, and one run-over kid later, we had the hang of it. it is exhilarating to be able to rush down a mountainside on snow. we don't even hurt today (except for a strawberry on elizabeth's thigh that occurred when she ran over a snowboarded who had decided to take a nap in the middle of the slope at a very steep turn and a bruise on my hand that i like to say occurred when i punched an annoying snowboarder in the face). we can't wait to go again!
here are some pictures (sorry we don't have more. our camera actually froze and wouldn't work again until we got it thawed in the car going home!):
here are some pictures (sorry we don't have more. our camera actually froze and wouldn't work again until we got it thawed in the car going home!):
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
the big 6-0...
here is a little tribute to someone who is very special to us for his 60th birthday! enjoy! (p.s. sorry about the picture selection. we didn't have many in our computer. also, sorry this is a bit late. we have been having trouble loading photos on blogger the past few days! plus, what is a week when you are 60? just kidding. i only said that because someone has been a little grumpy about being a year older! but just look how good those years have been...)
dad, we hope you had a great 60th birthday! we love you!
jon and elizabeth
dad, we hope you had a great 60th birthday! we love you!
jon and elizabeth
Thursday, January 17, 2008
IT IS EQUAL!!!
this was jon's exclamation after our wishbone pull. you will never believe what happened. so... i have been patiently waiting for the wishbone to dry out. today is finally the day. jon and i clutched our respective bones to begin the dual. jon even corrected me on my finger placement. he made me move my fingers down because i had too much leverage. we were all excited about the pull, to say the least. then a 1,2,3...... SNAP. i immediately knew jon had won because i could see i was breaking below the topper. well, next thing i know the top has flown off into the sink. jon screams, it is equal!!!! then i jump up and down clapping because we both won! how often does that happen???? ummm... never i think! i think this is news worthy!
in other news this evening...
stories from the hospital. my friend crystal and i were sharing events from the week. i was walking this dude back to his room, and he told the nurse that we were dating! crystal had a lady tell her that she was pretty, expect she needed to trim her eyebrows! hahaha there were plenty more... i thought these were the best. i guess it will always be interesting!
in other news this evening...
stories from the hospital. my friend crystal and i were sharing events from the week. i was walking this dude back to his room, and he told the nurse that we were dating! crystal had a lady tell her that she was pretty, expect she needed to trim her eyebrows! hahaha there were plenty more... i thought these were the best. i guess it will always be interesting!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
frustration with the media...
i just wanted to vent for a second. these are rhetorical questions. unfortunately, we all know the answers.
why is it that the only things in the news these days are about britney spears, teachers having sex with their students, what is happening on myspace, parents killing their kids, or the like? why does the media focus so much attention on insignificant things? just get on foxnews.com or cnn.com today and look at the headlines. i guarantee you that over half of them will disgust you because they are not newsworthy... at least for the national news. does it really matter for america that britney is having another breakdown or someone was murdered or someone's dog ran away? i don't want to take away from these individual people's problems. i know that they are real and life is hard, but this stuff happens to people worldwide on a daily basis. it doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but really, is there nothing else going on in the world that is occurring on a much larger scale that we might be interested in knowing?
the international news really makes me sick. one of the leading stories for the past two days is about a man in poland who went to a brothel and found his wife working there. honestly, who gives a crap? is there nothing else more important to report on? i could care less that some man discovered that his wife is a prostitute on the side while he himself was being unfaithful. there are probably a million other people today that found out that their spouses are unfaithful. why don't they get news stories? i want to know what is going on in africa and asia instead. i want to know what is going on in iraq... besides the places we are bombing. they say the troop insurgence is working. really? what are the details? what is being accomplished? how can we really vote for a new president when we don't know what issues he or she should be focused on? we are seriously uninformed.
i just really feel like there are big things happening every single day, and ten years from now we will find out about them. we will say, "my gosh, that was happening and i had no idea... there was genocide that has been going on for ten years on a massive scale that we could have done something about. instead, we were hearing about britney's latest meltdown. media, the blood is on your hands. you have failed us at a very elemental level. you have sold out for corporate sponsors and television ratings, and people are literally dying because of it.
are people really that interested and consumed with what the media reports on that the media should continue in its current direction? if so, america is in serious trouble.
goodnight and good luck,
jw <><
why is it that the only things in the news these days are about britney spears, teachers having sex with their students, what is happening on myspace, parents killing their kids, or the like? why does the media focus so much attention on insignificant things? just get on foxnews.com or cnn.com today and look at the headlines. i guarantee you that over half of them will disgust you because they are not newsworthy... at least for the national news. does it really matter for america that britney is having another breakdown or someone was murdered or someone's dog ran away? i don't want to take away from these individual people's problems. i know that they are real and life is hard, but this stuff happens to people worldwide on a daily basis. it doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but really, is there nothing else going on in the world that is occurring on a much larger scale that we might be interested in knowing?
the international news really makes me sick. one of the leading stories for the past two days is about a man in poland who went to a brothel and found his wife working there. honestly, who gives a crap? is there nothing else more important to report on? i could care less that some man discovered that his wife is a prostitute on the side while he himself was being unfaithful. there are probably a million other people today that found out that their spouses are unfaithful. why don't they get news stories? i want to know what is going on in africa and asia instead. i want to know what is going on in iraq... besides the places we are bombing. they say the troop insurgence is working. really? what are the details? what is being accomplished? how can we really vote for a new president when we don't know what issues he or she should be focused on? we are seriously uninformed.
i just really feel like there are big things happening every single day, and ten years from now we will find out about them. we will say, "my gosh, that was happening and i had no idea... there was genocide that has been going on for ten years on a massive scale that we could have done something about. instead, we were hearing about britney's latest meltdown. media, the blood is on your hands. you have failed us at a very elemental level. you have sold out for corporate sponsors and television ratings, and people are literally dying because of it.
are people really that interested and consumed with what the media reports on that the media should continue in its current direction? if so, america is in serious trouble.
goodnight and good luck,
jw <><
Monday, January 7, 2008
something to think about...
for those of you who didn’t know, elizabeth and i have been helping out with a youth group at a local church here in pittsburgh. at youth last night, i realized something (or maybe confirmed something that i had been thinking about for some time). the lesson for the evening was “what does it mean to respond to god’s love?”. one would think that we christians would have some pretty good answers to this question, but we really don’t, do we? when asked this question, we stumble and fumble and give Sunday school answers like “love your neighbor as yourself”. i have heard enough conversations of this subject to be very disheartened because when it comes down to it we don’t really know what that means. and if we don’t know what it means, it certainly doesn’t play out in our lives. this leads me to two conclusions:
1. we are scripturally illiterate. we very simply don’t know scripture, which makes it sort of hard to know how to live our lives. i admit that this includes me even though i am in seminary. i don’t know when the church became so apathetic to scripture, but the church has certainly failed at educating kids and new christians in scripture, the disciplines, and tradition. i have a feeling that very few “christians” read their bibles (there is actually evidence of this – something like 93% of americans own bibles and only 30% can name the four gospels), and the ones who do read their bibles probably a) don’t really understand what they are reading and don’t bother to try to figure it out using some sort of reputable resource (scripture was written in a different time and place than we are familiar with. if we think we can just read scripture as if it was written for us today we are sadly mistaken.). b) fail to actually apply the scripture to their lives (as the parable of the sower in matthew 13 warns) or c) get to a point where they think they have read scripture enough that they don’t need to read it anymore (this is a sad day because we are denying the holy spirit the power to breath new life into the text for us. is there really ever a point where we know scripture so well that we don't need to read it anymore?). i would like to think that i am being pessimistic here, but i fear that this is more the rule than the exception.
2. all of this, I think, is just a symptom of a much larger problem, though. this is the problem of what I am going to call the uncritical life. i have noticed that almost all of us fail to think critically about our lives much of the time. i have been reading thoreau, who thought very critically of his own life and of the time in which he lived and who has challenged many people to think critically for many years. he writes, “one farmer says to me, ‘you cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.” now, i know that this isn’t necessarily where thoreau is going with this (and neither is the point that we should be vegetarians), but we somehow just meander through life living by the example of the others around us or before us or heeding others advice without ever really asking ourselves if this is the correct way to live. you may like to think that not all of us were cut out to think deeply about life. only people like thoreau can do it because they have the time. our busy lives certainly don’t allow for hours of contemplation. is this really the truth, though? do we really think that we can live well without constant thought? is action more important than thought and should it, thus, precede thought?
it isn’t even necessarily that we don’t ever ask ourselves deep questions, but we are scared to really think about them and answer them. we know in the back of our minds that answering these questions would lead to drastically different lifestyles that we very simply refuse to accept. going back to the love question, do we really think about how our actions affect others? do we ever think about how the things we say, do, and consume even on the most minute level might really adversely affect others, and how this isn’t really congruent with love?
i must admit that i recognize the power of sin more than ever since i have been in seminary and recognize the enormity of trying to constantly be aware of how my actions might not be loving, but do we really think that when we stand before god we can legitimately claim ignorance because we didn’t bother to stop and think once in a while? god didn’t give us a brain for nothing. in fact, i think we play right into satan's trap when we don't think about our lives. the last thing he wants us to do is try to understand scripture and apply it to our life. the last thing he wants us to do is think about love at every decision of our life. so, do we really have tangible answers that work out in our daily lives to the challenges of the bible? do we know what it really means to love god and our neighbors? have we resided to saying, “well, at least i live better than joe blow down the street”? did christ really come to show us the perfect example so we could compare our actions with those that live worse than we do? if we don’t know scripture and think critically, how will we ever begin to grasp the beauty of the gospel – that we can stop flailing stupidly and thoughtlessly around, trying desperately to just do enough to satisfy god, and just rest in thoughtful silence in christ?
here's to love, life, and thinking,
jw <><
1. we are scripturally illiterate. we very simply don’t know scripture, which makes it sort of hard to know how to live our lives. i admit that this includes me even though i am in seminary. i don’t know when the church became so apathetic to scripture, but the church has certainly failed at educating kids and new christians in scripture, the disciplines, and tradition. i have a feeling that very few “christians” read their bibles (there is actually evidence of this – something like 93% of americans own bibles and only 30% can name the four gospels), and the ones who do read their bibles probably a) don’t really understand what they are reading and don’t bother to try to figure it out using some sort of reputable resource (scripture was written in a different time and place than we are familiar with. if we think we can just read scripture as if it was written for us today we are sadly mistaken.). b) fail to actually apply the scripture to their lives (as the parable of the sower in matthew 13 warns) or c) get to a point where they think they have read scripture enough that they don’t need to read it anymore (this is a sad day because we are denying the holy spirit the power to breath new life into the text for us. is there really ever a point where we know scripture so well that we don't need to read it anymore?). i would like to think that i am being pessimistic here, but i fear that this is more the rule than the exception.
2. all of this, I think, is just a symptom of a much larger problem, though. this is the problem of what I am going to call the uncritical life. i have noticed that almost all of us fail to think critically about our lives much of the time. i have been reading thoreau, who thought very critically of his own life and of the time in which he lived and who has challenged many people to think critically for many years. he writes, “one farmer says to me, ‘you cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.” now, i know that this isn’t necessarily where thoreau is going with this (and neither is the point that we should be vegetarians), but we somehow just meander through life living by the example of the others around us or before us or heeding others advice without ever really asking ourselves if this is the correct way to live. you may like to think that not all of us were cut out to think deeply about life. only people like thoreau can do it because they have the time. our busy lives certainly don’t allow for hours of contemplation. is this really the truth, though? do we really think that we can live well without constant thought? is action more important than thought and should it, thus, precede thought?
it isn’t even necessarily that we don’t ever ask ourselves deep questions, but we are scared to really think about them and answer them. we know in the back of our minds that answering these questions would lead to drastically different lifestyles that we very simply refuse to accept. going back to the love question, do we really think about how our actions affect others? do we ever think about how the things we say, do, and consume even on the most minute level might really adversely affect others, and how this isn’t really congruent with love?
i must admit that i recognize the power of sin more than ever since i have been in seminary and recognize the enormity of trying to constantly be aware of how my actions might not be loving, but do we really think that when we stand before god we can legitimately claim ignorance because we didn’t bother to stop and think once in a while? god didn’t give us a brain for nothing. in fact, i think we play right into satan's trap when we don't think about our lives. the last thing he wants us to do is try to understand scripture and apply it to our life. the last thing he wants us to do is think about love at every decision of our life. so, do we really have tangible answers that work out in our daily lives to the challenges of the bible? do we know what it really means to love god and our neighbors? have we resided to saying, “well, at least i live better than joe blow down the street”? did christ really come to show us the perfect example so we could compare our actions with those that live worse than we do? if we don’t know scripture and think critically, how will we ever begin to grasp the beauty of the gospel – that we can stop flailing stupidly and thoughtlessly around, trying desperately to just do enough to satisfy god, and just rest in thoughtful silence in christ?
here's to love, life, and thinking,
jw <><
Friday, January 4, 2008
prosperity gospel...
i don't always care too much for john piper, but i think this is interesting (although i think it could have been done a little more tactfully.)
cheers,
jw
sunset at 35000 ft...
well, we are back in pittsburgh. it was great seeing everyone, and we hope you all have a great start to a new year! our planes, of course, were delayed again, which resulted in another midnight arrival back to our apartment. what can you do, though?
by the way, some of you have called and complained about how cold it is down south. i just wanted you all to know that it didn't get above 20 here yesterday! how is that for cold?
flying to chicago, where it was a warm 9 degrees.
cheers,
jw
by the way, some of you have called and complained about how cold it is down south. i just wanted you all to know that it didn't get above 20 here yesterday! how is that for cold?
flying to chicago, where it was a warm 9 degrees.
cheers,
jw
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