Reverence

Main Entry: ¹rev·er·ence

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin reverentia, from reverent-, reverens respectful, reverent

Date: 14th century

1 : honor or respect felt or shown : deference; especially : profound adoring awed respect
2 : a gesture of respect (as a bow)
3 : the state of being revered

This happens to be on my mind lately - comments that some people need to show more reverence during church services. This includes concerns about talking, texting, and getting up to use the restroom (as you can guess these were primarily aimed at younger people). It also includes concerns about how people are dressed: should shorts be allowed in the Sanctuary? How about the need for a coat and tie to serve communion or preach?

Is God mindful of what we wear? I would think that for some people, wearing a coat and tie would indeed be a gesture of respect toward God - though the reverence wouldn't be from the quality of the clothing but the intent of the heart. We on the other hand cannot read the intent of the heart to know if someone's fine clothing is truly an act of reverence or just a chance to impress others. Likewise, someone wearing a t-shirt and jeans should not be assumed to be irreverent.

Jesus did have a few things to say about clothing but nothing as to if it demonstrated reverence of God. However, in the Book of Matthew (Matt 22:27) Jesus is quoted:

"...you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean."

This he said to the Pharisees and Teachers. I guess he wasn't that impressed with their clothing and other outward expressions of "reverence".

Should we, on the other hand, wear nice clothing out of respect for others' sensibilities or tradition? That is a different question.

Malachi 4:2 "But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall."

Mooo!

Not Quite a Year...

Well, I almost made it a whole year without blogging. I probably should have just shut down the blog entirely. Didn't feel much like writing and still don't know that I do. I should have put something together last weekend to commemorate my Huskies' victory or USC but I didn't think about it at the time. Now its too late, they lost this week to Stanford and expectations have returned to earth.

Environmental Protection - An Issue for Christians?

What is a Christian's responsibility toward protecting the earth? According to scripture, the earth and all that is in it is God's creation and he said it was good - at least before the fall of man. It seems that since the time when Adam was kicked out of the garden he was originally charged to tend, the environment has been seen more as something to be used rather than something to be sustained.

Many Christians reason that God gave us dominion over the earth so we have the right exploit it however we choose. Still others think that its "all going to burn" in the end, so why worry about the environment; God will take us out of here before its entirely ruined. Many people just fall into the category of "out of sight out of mind". Once something goes into the sky or the river, it just magically goes away. Just this week, I had to stop someone at work from hosing his waste material into the river. He was very irate that he couldn't do that. This type of person thinks that people who administer environmental rules are just a pain in their backside who keep anything productive from happening or make things more difficult than they need to be.

The Reverend Richard Cizik, of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) provided these thoughts: http://www.thegreatwarming.com/revrichardcizik.html . Of course NAE recently fired Rev. Cizik. To be fair, it wasn't for his stand on environmental issues but for being too agreeable with certain gay rights issues (he supports Civil Unions).

Certainly God loves people but do you think He also has an interest in the earth He gave us to dwell in?

Go Beavs!!!

In case you didn't catch the game, un-ranked Oregon State University (my alma mater by the way) upset the No. 1 University of Southern California Trojans 27 - 21 on Thursday night in Corvallis.

I usually don't follow the Beavers too awful closely. When I was at school there, I think I only went to one football game - they were terrible back then. They were more of a basketball school. The UW is still my team - as awful as they have been the past few years.

Whether you are a Husky or a Beaver, either way USC is the team you love to hate. So this game was especially fun to watch. The Trojans were run over by a freshman running back who stands significantly under six feet. The defense shut down Southern Cal's offense.

Well done...GO BEAVS!!!

Guess Who Is Back

Well I think it lasted about two months, but Bryan brought Austin back last week. Bryan is now living near Jacksonville Beach and couldn't keep the dog at his new place.

So now we have the dog that we never petitioned for custody of back for about the third time and Laura has her shadow to follow her around the house.

Banff Trip

Here are a few of the photos that we took while in and around Banff.

First a couple of shots of our hotel - or "Canada's Castle in the Rockies" as it is called:

Banff is situated in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, within Banff National Park - Canada's first national park. It is a very scenic place. We had beautiful weather most of the time we were there - highs in the low to mid-70's. We did have one drizzly day. Here are a few of the sights that we caught on camera:

If you would like to see more, don't worry. We have 248 photos that we have had developed so others can share in the sights of our trip. Family members are expected to sit through the whole pile and act interested.

Wonderful Children

We had such a great time at Banff! One of the most memorable parts was walking into our room and seeing an assortment of chocolates and a plate of cheese and crackers waiting for us on our table. The tray with the chocolates was hand decorated in chocolate and also contained edible decorations made out of chocolate. In addition, there was a bottle of champagne on ice. Our first thought was what a wonderful hotel.

We were informed upon our arrival that our room had been upgraded to have a better view. Our room was on the eighth floor facing Mt. Rundle and we could see the Bow River and the Spray River from our window - what a wonderful hotel!

However, we noticed that there were note cards on the table too. The first note was from Chrissy, Bryan and Andrew wishing us a happy anniversary. The chocolates cheese and crackers were from our children - what wonderful children! Chrissy had called to set the whole thing up for our anniversary trip. Because she told the hotel that we were on our anniversary, they upgraded our room and provided a bottle of champagne courtesy of the Regional Manager. If Chrissy hadn't called, we probably wouldn't have had such a nice room with such a nice view.

Anyway, when Laura learned that our children had set this up, she spent the next 10 to 15 minutes crying and insisted on calling all three to let them know how wonderful they are and how much we love them. You can see Laura on the photo below teary-eyed as she talks to Chrissy.

Its wonderful having children who are so thoughtful and who remembered us on this special anniversary trip - we love you guys!