Yesterday, I spoke to our church's Friday MOPS group. Their theme this year centers around the book, Make Today Count by Maxwell. I was asked to choose one of the chapters, which consist of values that one should incorporate into daily life. Since it was their final meeting before Christmas, I chose Generosity.
Here are some thoughts from the talk:
Most know that today's Santa Claus originates with St. Nicholas, who lived during the third century in what is now Turkey. After his parents death, he devoted his life to the Church and gave away his entire fortune to those in need. "St. Nick" lived his life in such a way that he became known as a gift-giver.
But, I am not sure Nicholas was just - POOF - a giver.
Do we have to teach children to share? If you've ever been a room with a couple of 2-year-olds, you know the answer to that!
I once watched a recording of Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz), and he talked about how we all believe this life is our own movie. "I am the star! The rest of you are just supporting players."
The reality is, we have to be purposeful in our giving – it doesn't come naturally to most of us.
So, what does it mean to be generous?
First, it's not just about money. Give of yourself: your time, your attention, your talent...to name a few not-for-sale gifts.
Proverbs 11:25 says, “The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” (NIV)
But sometimes we are called to share our money/wealth.
Jesus said, “Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.” (Matthew 5:42)
A caveat: don't lend money. But Nicole, you just quoted a verse that says don't turn away someone asking to borrow.
I know of a family that if they agree to give someone money, they never look at it as a loan. They make a conscious decision to never expect to get it back. If they can't give it away, they don't give it.
Anyone every loaned a friend or family member a bit of cash and you're still waiting for that payback? Makes holiday get-togethers a bit awkward, eh? If they even come around you any more.
Just give it - expecting nothing in return.
Okay - I get it. I need to be generous. But how?
1) Value Others
Treat everyone with respect. Yes, even that annoying woman in the grocery store line!
A week or two ago I was at our local Kroger. The lines were four and five people deep. A manager opened the register next to my line and directed me over. As I loaded my purchases on to the belt, a woman checking out to the right of us loudly vied for the mangers attention:
"EXCUSE ME! I need to tell you that if you don't get some baggers in this store, I am never shopping here again! The cashiers don't know how to bag my groceries, and I am tired of doing it myself. Are you listening!? Are you going to get some baggers over here..."
On and on went the diatribe, as the manager, softly and graciously, called over some department managers to bag the woman's purchases as her sheepish husband looked at the floor.
My first thought was, "Wow, I didn't know it was my constitutional right to demand a bagger at the grocery store." I had a few other thoughts that weren't as "nice".
But as I left the store, a still small voice whispered, "What if that woman just lost someone close to her? What if she just got word that someone she loves is facing a terminal illness?"
Bottom line: we have no idea what someone might be going through that would cause them to spring a leak - a rather loud one at that! - in a grocery store while dozens of bystanders gawk. Sure, some people are just rude, but God loves even them, doesn't He?
God calls me to a lot of things, but one of them is certainly not judging (and thank goodness too).
2) Know what people value
This will mean giving of your time – getting to know them. If you are like me, the last thing you have is time! But the dividends of taking time to get to know those you say you love: unmeasurable.
3) Make yourself more valuable
Work
on you! What are you doing to cultivate character and personal growth
in your own life? A few ways to do that include time with God (prayer,
Bible reading), being a part of a church, developing relationships
there via small groups or discipleship classes, and finding that friend
who knows and loves you enough to tell you when you are crazy.
(Seriously. If you don't have one of those, you need one. Pronto.)
4) Love people unconditionally
It doesn't get more specific than this: “The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.” (1 John 4:21, MSG)
5) Find a reason to give every day – and then DO IT!
It could be as simple as letting that guy with just a gallon of milk jump in front of you in line at the wholesale club. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money or involve a lot of fanfare - it's simply looking for those small moments when you can be an encouragement to someone else.
6) Don't wait for “better times” to be generous
Let's be real. If you are saying, "I'll give more when the economy rebounds or I get a raise at work or my retirement fund is at a respectable level again," you're really just kidding yourself. There will always be something - braces for the kids, a blown tire, leaky faucets. As the old Nike ads said, "Just do it."
As I finished up this little talk, I handed out tea bags with a small note attached: Generosi-tea.
I asked those moms to do something generous - big or small - before
they enjoyed that herbal brew. I hope each one will look at that small
gift and be encouraged to embrace a new mantra: I will live to give.
That's exactly what God's Son did for each one of us. He chose life here on earth, and then He gave it away that we ALL might live.
Of all the gifts you give this Christmas, may Generosi-tea be at the top of the list.
(*I can't take complete credit for the big ideas represented here - Maxwell's chapter on Generosity was vital as a jumping off place.)
Next time you bitch about how it's now a law in Quebec to have winter tires between December 15th and March 15th, there might be a reason for it. I should mention that this photo was taken on December 8th, a full 24 hours before the 35cm of snow that the Montreal region received on December 9th.
This is probably the most unique car in ditch poses I've ever seen in person.
This morning I took the three kids to watch the Olympic Torch relay as it passed through town on it's way to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Before you think I'm the best dad ever, just to let you know I did totally lose it on them getting everyone ready and out of the house on time. In the end think we got there 5 to 10 minutes before the relay arrived.
It was pretty exciting to actually see the flame coming down the street. We have been watching the daliy updates on the local news so I think with ET being the oldest he understood what was going on.
I'm glad we saw it at the town hall since with the kids being so young I think just watching along the route would have been too quick for them.
I was hoping that we might have seen some of the mascots as they are super cute and kids would have enjoyed it but they probably save them for the big end of day celebrations. Or not since they seem to be currently on tour in British Columbia. This weekend I'll try to make some folded paper mascots with the kids.
When the relay arrived the crowd of course swarmed and left us on the outside so quickly (because I knew this whole was just going to last a few minutes) I put Carts on my shoulders, put a foot up on the carriage and balanced ET up on my knee so they could see the flame. I would love to see a photo of that, I must have looked crazy.
And like that it was over.
The boys seemed to have enjoyed it but noticed people had little Olympic flags and like a Norwegian Blue were pinning for the fjords wanted one (we did do an arts and crafts before bedtime and they made there own). We went in the city library to see if they had any but unfortunately they were all out. They had refreshments but the boys didn't want any so we started walking back to the car.
On the way back I noticed the relay bus was parked around the back of city hall and some people were milling about. So I headed over. I'm glad we did since one of the relay runners let the boys hold a torch and posed for a photo. Best advice I can ever give my kids; you want to meet someone after an event, run the around back.
While it might not be something the kids remember when they are grown, it was a fun event for them in the short term and as a parent you get excited to see your kids excited. When I picked up ET at school today he had two drawings of the mascots holding Olympic torches and he told me how one of the torch bearers had visited the school today as well and talked to his class. It's still strange for me when he recounts things that happened that I wasn't there with him for. You get excited because he's growing up and sad since he doesn't need you around.
And of course the last time the torch came to town was in 1988 for the Calgary Winter Olympics games and who knows the next time we'll get a chance to see it.
Plus I have to thank my boss Cindy for letting me take the time off work.
Hello all,
I am in dire need of an original photo that would look nice on our website (church) for our Christmas Eve candlelight service. It doesn't have to be candles - it could a Christmas tree, fireplace...just something that says "cozy", "calm", "peace", "quiet celebration", etc.
Anyone have one I might borrow/use for a few weeks?
This blogging thing is a lot of work.
In previous years I did a round up of (what I felt were) my best posts, photos & events that happened here. Unfortunately this year you're not getting it. I really dropped off the map this past year and only posted 10% as many posts as my first year on VOX. Of course I did sleep more, so there's an upside to everything.
My initial reason for blogging here was to document all the happens of the family, but once I realized that people actually check Facebook, I started to move stuff over there.
Secondly last year I really started trying to post on stuff that I had first hand knowledge or effected me personally in some way. That really brought down the number of superfluous posts but it also broke me from daily posting and like going to the gym once you stop going it's hard to start again.
So for this coming year I'll going to make an effort to post at least once a week, if nothing more than for the fact I enjoy writing and I really miss doing it. Plus I've totally missed out on my neighborhood here. Children have been born during the time I've been away!
The mistake parents can sometimes make is to put everything they enjoy on hold and defer to their children and with an ever growing family that's been the case. But a lesson I've learned is that you've got to make time for yourself or you'll go crazy and VOX is a great outlet for me in that regard. Plus (hopefully) children move out.
So here's to another year on VOX. I just wish they would let us export / backup our blogs.
I recently received two books from The Ooze Viral Bloggers. One of them has become quite a beautiful edition to my library.
I just got my tickets to go home over Christmas.
I'm so excited!!!!
I haven't seen some of my immediate family in almost 3 years!!!!!
Yay! I Leave Chicago and Fly into London, Gatwick on the 16th and get THREE WHOLE WEEKS of family! WOOHOO!
I'm going home, I'm going home!
(does Numfar's dance of Joy and the Snoopy dance, and some of Elaine Benes' dance from Seinfeld)
The new Sloan EP Hit & Run has dropped (as they say) and it's pretty good.
If you're unfamiliar with Sloan I'll make the assumption that you don't live in Canada but if you do... shame on you. And if you don't live here you should move, I'll wait.
Do yourself a favor and click play below and listen to the album as you read the rest of my review.
The title of the EP is most probably in reference to band member Chris Murphy being injured in a hit & run accident this past summer. That caused the group to cancel shows while he recouped.
As a long time fan it hits all the Sloan standards with tracks like Take It Upon Yourself, hand claps and all. It would have fit in nicely on their 1999 album Between the Bridges. It Is Never is pure Sloan awesomeness, but I'm a sucker for layered songs that build up to distortion endings that reprise the main theme. Plus I've always had a man crush on Patrick Pentland and his songs.
One of Sloan's strengths can also be a weakness on a five song EP like Hit & Run. With four distinctive song writers the variation can be jarring switching between them. Jay Ferguson's Midnight Mass is a perfect example of this problem. It's a good song but sandwiched between two up tempo ones brings down the energy. Which is a shame since Jay Ferguson has done some really great songs with excellent lyrics and melodies over the years.
That said it's a good addition to the Sloan catalog of memorable songs.
Sloan is offering the EP in MP3 320kbs, Apple Lossless and Flac formats directly from their site in addition to other music stores.
This is unreladed to the Hit & Run EP, but Witch's Wand was one of my favorite songs off their last album Parallel Play but the video that I just got around to watching is so weird I have no idea what's going on.
I have just not had a very good go of it the last few days.
I don't know how many of my fellow VOXer's read Team Vox's latest post but there is now a free version of Typepad called Typepad Micro.
I'm guessing with the prevalence of Twitter (@grantalias), Six Apart wanted to get into the micro blog / status site. We all knew this was eventual since their acquisition of Pownce's earlier this year.
I've done a test post on my Typepad Micro so you can see what it looks like.
You can have links to all your online sites like flickr, Vox, Facebook & Twitter. Those of us from Vox will find it very familiar. I wish it could automatically pull data from those services. It would certainly save some time for the user.
Unfortunately (like Vox) you can't pull Facebook photos but unlike Vox you can't pull photos from any service or video sites for that matter (which you can do on Vox), unless you use embed code. Unlike Twitter there isn't an ecosystem of third parties developing sites like Twitpic to close the short comings.
The only real saving grace is that you can use the Typepad iPhone app to post while on the go (which is how I composed my first post).You can link it to both Twitter and Facebook with manual or automatic posting to each service as you wish is nice. To bad it won't cross post to my Vox account. Too bad there is not a Vox app like this. And no Blog It does not count. Don't even get me started there.
Since it's Typepad you can import and export your blog to or from it. With Vox there is no such ability and I'm pretty much screwed if I ever want to move anywhere else.
UPDATE 11/24/2009
I've discovered that you can seemingly cross post from VOX to Typepad Micro (along with other LiveJournal) . I have not posted enough to actually see it work but some of you might find it interesting. My main goal was to see if I could then export my posts, but it doesn't seem possible. Maybe it's only for the paid version.
Here are the directions
- Click Account
- Click Outside services
- Add Blog
- Enter login information & save settings.
