On Ministry

I should journal about this topic first so I can keep my thoughts straight but I'm sure I can make enough sense and be concise if I try reeeeeeally hard. I will first explore my gradual jading with "church work", as it were.

Only being a follower of the way for six years, four days, and just shy of eighteen hours, I have had... some fast transitions. At first, I loved going to church. A lot of that was due to learning new things - things which older, more weathered Christians have most likely become numb to because it's common knowledge to them and their Christians friends. Then there was Bible College, the place where you "grow close to God" or become a "worker for the harvest". Mmmm.... sure. There were moments of tangible growth. But more noticable was a delineating sine wave and a perpetual diminishing of the amplitude of that sine wave. I will have to provide a drawing. In fact. I really will.

The first graph is a sample of a 60 cycle sine wave. This is your typlical AC outlet or florescent light output. You will notice how off the fly this picture is because I am drawing it as I am going along. Don't mind the scribbles please. This is merely an example for the edification fo those who won't typically grasp my examples... er... illustrations.










Note that the x-axis is pretty much the average common middle line. In the next graph you will notice that average common middle line is not constant. This is what I call delineation due to it's gradually downward sloping arc.


Please note that the general contentment of life in general isn't parallel to this "spiritual delineation", in fact, I am very contented. I have a great wife, a nice house and steady job that I think I enjoy very much. In fact, upon further thinking, I think the delineation is more in the joy department moreso than my overall spiritual life, although there is some reflection in that.

Do I think becoming a pastor or doing something explicitly "Christian" will fix that? NO. But there is something overtly missing and as a result this consistent discontentment occurs. In fact, I maybe should have allowed myself to draw the line in Example 1.b significantly below the x-axis. All in all, I'm just generating a general idea. Now for the flip side.

Whitey has been over recently. He is a fellow maritimer. Being from the Maritimes, there are certain experiences I had early on in my journey with Jesus which when I think about those joyful moments, I automatically think of the Maritimes. Having fun at youth group (though I was 20), having coffee with my Bethany Colleagues, Beulah Camp. Being near the Wesleyan hubris has also allowed me to experience the bureaucratic hubris of any typical denominational head. It is the bureaucracy with which I am disenfranchised. But in the Maritimes there is AJ Thomas, Mike Ross, Andrew Maves - all cool guys doing "ministry". But even bigger than that, I know they are making more difference because they actually love Jesus and want to perpetuate that. My fear has been that I would have to assimilate a non-believer into a church culture and allow him to make the decision to follow. But this perpetuation of culture is not a perpetuation of discipleship so for a while I have been... trying to find a way to graft a small group of people with the express purpose to journey with Jesus. But... you need people - I need people. So in the end, all my lofty ideas and ideals remain as such: conceptual and not actual.

BUT I have been entertaining in my own heart that maybe there is a "ministry" for me. Now, don't comment and give me that shit that God will use me whereever I am. I KNOW that. It's the perception of effectiveness that I'm lacking. I work with a kid who is deeply intellectual. He adheres to evolution. My job as a follwer of the way is to help him understand that there is a God who loves him and that we are indeed a fallable race which is need of redemption. Sure, there may have been adaptable qualities to creatures over time, who cares, that's not the issue. I realize I'm here for such a time as this and I don't know how seriously I take it.

Anyway, I may think of ministry in the nominal sense, but I'm also struggling with becoming a math teacher. Do I blindly pick one with no real clue what direction to take? I don't know. But here is where I have to end it because this is only a thought in process and in progress. I welcome your views and experiences based on such. Albeit, this is a huge blog and you will only probably look at the short paragraphs and the crappily drawn pictures. I like comments on those too.

With that, I must do my to do list. Later!

Home repairs

Ahhh, the weekend. After a much busy week at school and pondering whether to go back to gt more schooling to teach at school, nothing makes your weekend go by faster than doing stuff. So that's why this week I've resolved to cleaning out my car, putting moulding around my attic door, and to explore the wonderful world of installing recessed (canned) lighting at my sister's house. I could take pictures of the various work I've done but that would be too flaunty. I could tell you about it but that may be too braggy. But I will do this. If you have questions about home repair from changing a lightbulb to installing something that hold lightbulbs, I can help.

Here are some pictures for your entertainment

What's up? Who cares?

Some of you out there may stumble upon my site from time to time perhaps out of curiousity regarding not having heard from or of me for a while. I do actually treasure my Bethany acquaintenceships and the other random friendships I have gathered on the road. It has been brought to my attention by a couple people (one an Italian girl who I head went to IWU thinking it meant Italian Women's University and another gal who was my neighbour for a few months and misinterpretted various things I said which made me sound like a very dirty man) that there is genuine curiousity about my current whereabouts, status and occupation. Here's the timeline:

June 2004 I take on an internship at Trinity Wesleyan in Indianapolis. I develop a deep friendship with one Jonathan Shepherd and an even deeper, multifaceted, complete relationship with a gal by the name of Emily Schuch.

In that course of time I realized that "Church work" ain't where it's at for this cat. But I still stayed there a year anyway, mostly for an immigration advantage and marriage and all sorts of things that required some form of formality about them and that was actualized by my re-entrance into the States on an R-1 visa in January 2005. But there were some fun times in the office. Times where me and Jono had to remove some equipment from the office and it got "damaged" in transit. I think we "accidentally" dropped a printer, an air conditioning unit (that accidentally fell from the roof), and pumpkins I think. There was some foodstuff that we ended up playing baseball with.

July 2005 Me and Emily get married! I don't care if that was bad grammar. But the fact stands that there are some unbelievers. Well, that's too strong of a word but you get the gist. Here is a random sampling of some wedding photos.
























Also in July I got my Employment Authorization card. I tried my hand as a painting contractor. Did a couple jobs and changed my mind. I also worked construction on a house for a guy building the house for his daughter. That was fun. I learned a lot about carpentry, concrete, and siding (my favorite part!)

October 2005 I celebrated my birthday in Gulfport, Mississippi. "I totally got FEMA'd" was the running phrase midst my crew. I tarped roofs and participated in cleaning up a yard that had rotting pork bellies and chickens. They were there for two months by that time. One of these pics is a shot of burning clothes after a day of working in rotting filth.





















December 2005 I start my new job as an Orthopedic Instructional.... no... Orthopedically Impaired... no, not sure that's it... Instructional Assistant to the Orthopedically Impaired... blast it! I help out a couple kids who have special needs do to dibilitating degenerative conditions. It's pretty rewarding but I don't feel like I do much. If I can be Jesus to them I guess that'll count. Being in high school is weird. I have a hard time dissolving from the cool Sween who wants to be the friend of all the kid and listen to their music and applying the authoritative Sween who tells kids not to swear, which, in my opinion is not a worthy battle. Will some kid say down the road, "Gee, thanks for getting after me that day when I said the "s" word, Mr. Sweeney! I'm a changed (wo)man because of it!" Yeah, right.

Anyway, this is my life. Am I who you want to be?

The Blues Scene

I am not a concert guy. though I am a musician this may seem surprising. I don't know why, I guess I never really liked the crowds, or maybe there were the songs I couldn't just fast forward through. I live in the outskirts of Indianapolis and seeing that I always thought I wanted to go to concerts when I lived in Nova Scotia, where the nearest GOOD concert was three hours away in Halifax, I never do, even though a popular stage is mere minutes from my present location. This may not be an oddity but maybe it's the unconventional musician in me, the one that loves to jam. That's why I like to go to the blues bar. It's full of no name talent and it rocks. I come home and feel as though I want to pick up my guitar with a refurbished passion. But I'm tired. I will wait till tomorrow.














Oh yeah. One more thing. Whitey wanted to take a bunch of pictures of various buildings on the way down. I felt like a tourist (or at least an accomplice to a tourist). But I joined in the fun anyway. Here's a nice shot of Indianapolis's Monument in Monument Circle.

Getting Old and Bands from the Nineties

Sometimes I forget how old I am. You can certainly relate if you are someone who has surpassed all the anticipated milestones that occur in life. Let me break them down for you:

Age 16: You get to drive a car (or at least go for your beginner's license and provided you don't fail that twice you can get your restricted permit in due time).

Age 18: In the States you can purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products if you're into that kind of thing.

Age 19: Ahhh, that magic age in Canada where you can drink and smoke (legally). Lottery tickets can also be purchased.

Age 21: If you're American NOW you can finally buy liquor. I remember this being an age where it was nice to be an age that is 7 times 3 which two OTHER magic numbers.

Age 23: I think I could rent a car... I can't remember. Yeah, I'm pretty sure

Age 25: You CAN RENT A TRUCK!!!!! BOO-YAH! (you are also at a short lived balance between 20 and 30

Age 65: Retirement

As you can see, I don't have much else to look forward to as far as age is concerned. Of course there are certain milestones that occur in the course of life like marriage (am currently experiencing that) child birth (uhhh.... not that yet) and child rearing (in which the whole age cycle is perpetuated unless changes in drinking and driving age occur).

While I am talking about age, I must stress this important fact. The music you thought was cool whill eventually NOT be cool anymore. Well, maybe it's not that drastic, but your old music will most likely be forgetten unless you decide to educate the up and comings about what was (and still is) cool back in the day.

This observation came to me recently. I went to a flea market and I bought some old CDs. Among them was Silverchair Freak Show and Rage Against the Machine Self-Titled.

You can imagine my delight as I came across these treasures. Imagine my dismay as a guitar teacher who also works at a high school when I tell my students "Guess what I bought? Some old Rage Cds and a Silverchair cd!" "Uuugh... whut? Never heard of them"

If that is how I ended this post it would be rather dismal. But let me leave you with this: I was much delighted in my recent dialog with Whitey about music we liked back in the day (mind you my high school days were his college days) and it lifted my soul. So now we have reminiscing and nostalgia to look forward to!

Until retirement... this is all I have to say.

The Adventures of Odysseus

Hmmm...

Yeah, I haven't really written much. I guess I have come to the conclusion that blogging isn't the center of my life. However, I will approach it as an entertaining hobby. It was nice to see 5 comments on my last post :).

So what's going on? you may ask if you're genuinely curious or just plain nosy. Not much, I will reply. I have the pleasure of hosting Whitey at my house. I think at various times I miss the comraderie of my maritime friends. You have all these great friends in college and then you all get dispersed to the far ends of the earth and most of us lack the meaningful art of conversation in which to extend that great friendship despite the immediate lack of geographic propiety. I have also come to the conclusion that a blog is a great way for me to use big words that I may not even use in proper context.
I may be mistaken about the art of conversation thing. I guess I tend to think of myself as that guy in college who everybody knew but didn't have an immediate clique. Anyway, no need to go on about my former college woes. I need to tell you about The Odessey.

Now that I've finished Lewis's Space Trilogy, I have now turned my sights to a book I've owned but not read yet. The Odessey is an intriguing read. It makes you appreciate the fact you aren't a polytheist who is governed by the pettiness of gods who have the same intrinsic fallen character of humankind. If you are a polytheist, my apologies, but it seems to me as I read this that it is not possible for any harmony to exist if such a pantheon of gods ruled. Nonetheless, it is all about an adventure and stuff like that that makes an entertaining novel (even though Homer wrote it as a poem).

Join me next time when I express my feelings on growing up and how my taste in music hasn't changed.

A long time coming

**This is an addendum to this particular post. It has been express by some that I am not really married. All I have to say is that I am and I will post random pictures over the course of time. Keep your eyes open!**

It occurred to me that I have not written for a long time. That is true. It was brought to my attention by a friend of mine who I will refer to as "Dan the Man".

So what sort of zaniness will I script tonight? Well, for one I must say I enjoy C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy (despite the very different and almost boresome third book in the series). However, reading this third book of it I am reminded of my roots. Not that my roots are founded in 1950s England, but rather in the fact that it is foggy and the characters enjoy doing work over a brew or smokes. Albeit, smoking is a bad habit with inherent health risks. However, this cat enjoys a social drag now and then. And of course there's the social brew.

I'm not really advocating or protesting anything, I guess I'm sharing just a few of my favorite things. I would also like to be a novelist someday. Right now, I guess I will resort to just being me. And that me is going to play my guitar at a coffee shoppe (or cafe, if you will) Saturday morning.

Maybe I will have something more to share. I'm always thinking and most likely always concocting something controversial in my worldview at best.

That, friends, are my words for today