How to waste time

When I started up here at the church over two years ago, I started doing little things to see if people liked them. They did, so I kept doing them. And that has become the problem.

I kept doing them. Instead of moving these things of my plate as quickly as possible, I took the ownership of them too seriously. And as theses various "small" things multiplied, they started eating up more of my weekly time.

So, I'm divesting myself of anything that I specifically don't have to do. That will free mw up to do more of what I really want to do.

The recent introduction of a third worship service (monthly for now) has been a success story. I've been working with a team of people who wanted to do this, and I am already working to transition my planning role to the team. Now I just have to figure out how to do that in other areas.

Two guys from church came over this afternoon and helped me remove the fallen tree next to the house. It came down, but not quite how we'd hoped it would. Fortunately, no windows were broken, just some loose paint "scraped" from the clapboard siding.

My daughter came home from her ethics class all "hot and bothered" because the topic of the day was abortion. Apparently, one person i nthe class was very vocal in her opposition to anyone in the class who did not support the practice. And the professor kept challenging anyone who cited religious beliefs to justify their position without using religion.

This is another example of the delusion of our culture that continues to believe we can lobotomize ourselves, effectively separating out mind and souls. The other problem with this trend is that it always places intellect above religion (aka spiritual) matters. The human mind becomes the measure. If we can't understand it or rationalize it, it is not worthy of consideration.

A smattering of observations

Filed our tax return two weeks ago. We actually get a refund this year (been several years since that happened). I guess there's one benefit to getting paid half what I used to get in the corporate world. 'Course the refund will maybe cover our cable bill, but any accountant will tell us we made out perfectly: not owing and not getting too much back so Uncle Sam hasn't had free use of our hard-earned dough.

Nor'easter blew through over the weekend. Lost two trees. And we saw God's providence in it. Last fall I started clearing brush and trees but ran out of light and warm temperatures. I had to leave a tree trunk with no limbs for spring. Yesterday, a neighboring tree split and fell...right into the crook of the tree trunk I'd left. Otherwise we would hae lost at least two windows, and likely sustained damage to the siding of the house.

I had no idea why I left the truck: it would have taken me two more minutes to fell it, but I didn't. But God knoew that trunk had to be there yesterday.