This flag flies on E. Main St. in the middle of the village of Palmyra, NY

Apple continues their Get a Mac ad campaign with three new ads put up on their website. Perhaps you have seen them (or will) on TV… but regardless, they are definitely worth the click! Click the link above to watch all of the ads! (There are 9 total now)

New Ads are:
Out of the Box
Touché
Work vs. Home

A couple weeks ago, now, we were visiting some old friends at their home in the Buffalo area. We all went to Bible college together, and three of us even went to high school and earlier schools together. We go way back. 🙂 We’ve stayed in touch through the years, though over greater distances, so when they moved back to Buffalo last year, we were looking forward to getting together more often.

We have much in common. We both home school our children, we like rooting for Buffalo teams (on this occasion, it was the Sabres), even our parents are all good friends. And recently, we have been on a similar path spiritually… away from the insitutional church that we have always known. That transition, though wonderful, and definitely led by our Father, can definitely be scary, in a way. It’s leaving all that is familiar. It can also be alienating to all of the people (especially our families) who we have known from and are still heavily integrated into that structure. That alienation can be disconcerting, and just plain lonely.

With that in mind, I was looking forward to chatting with them about how they were doing with life “out of the box”. I thought it would be good to chat about what things were difficult for them, which were amazingly better, and just in general we could chat about all the issues that Jen & I deal with through our transition, that it would seem they would be dealing with also. What happened, however, was far greater in retrospect.

When we arrived, the kids were playing out on the new swingset, freshly constructed the day before. Our kids wanted to join of course, so out they went. We adults were putting the finishing touches on our Memorial Day picnic dinner, and just catching up as we did. We talked about home schooling, our kids, our jobs, the neighbors, swing sets, friends, Sabres, and more. All of the things that made up our everyday life. All the while I kept looking for the best time to chat about “life outside of the box”. But oddly… everytime I thought to interject that topic, it felt contrived.

But how could it? It’s defintely a big part of my thinking, and I figure it is of theirs as well. You don’t change such a major part of what you have always known and not think about it. And for the most part, we don’t know other people going through the same transition nearby us, so it was a great opportunity to talk through some of the struggles, along with the great parts.

Why did it feel so contrived to bring up anything relating to that then?

I finally did get to chat with my friend briefly near the very end of our visit. It was good. Glad that we did. But it was super brief, and in the context of the evening (along with my presumption of how it was going to go) it was almost an after-thought.

In the pseudo-silence on the trip home I thought about all this. I talked about it with Jen. I told her how I had anticipated chatting about life outside the church-box, and how I was puzzled that it never seemed to fit. And then a light went on. I realized that it was true. It doesn’t fit!

Instead of enjoying sharing our everyday lives, as we were doing (and as I reference as a main focus of life “outside of the box” when talking with folks who are “inside of the box”) I was wanting to talk about this imaginary divide. Inside vs. Outside. Ha! It seems so simple and clear to me now, but I really had not grasped this until that evening. For so long I have been thinking we were “outside the box”, but perhaps by dwelling in that realm, we are still “inside the box”?

We draw these imaginary lines, and then play the games created by those imaginary boundaries. We say who is in, and who is out, and how to interact with both. When we were on the inside, it was important to (in whatever way possible) coax those on the outside to cross the line, and join the fun. Now we are on the “outside”, and often I will think about the stuff that I don’t like about life on the inside, or how I wish that folks on the inside could just experience the freedom of life on the oustide.

But why must I play by those rules?

Instead, perhaps I should just eliminate the lines all together? I know that I can not deny their existence. Other folks do a good enough job drawing up lines that they are inevitably going to surface in various relationships. But, what if I just lived as though I had no lines? People could just be people, not “inside the box” or “outside the box”. I think I learned that night that I was still playing the lines game. The reality of the evening was great! We were sharing life together as believers and friends. Talking about everyday life with God… not about any systems or lines we have created. But about the reality of our Father in the stuff we do every day.

God continues to open my eyes to the greatness of life in him. I have only known a small, limited piece before now. And I imagine I am only on the proverbial “tip of the ice berg”. He is able to do more than we can ask or imagine. I am often reminded of that. And awed by that.

I am so looking forward to the rest of the journey. Transcending the lines.

Today marks an anniversary of sorts. June 9th, 1996 was the first Sunday that I began working with the Church of Christ at Victor. That was what brought me to Rochester, NY along with my former college roommate and his wife. Fresh out of college and ready to tackle the world!

So much has happened since then, and much has been chronicled on these pages. And though many spots have been difficult, I really wouldn’t change anything about the past 10 years of my life lived in the greater Rochester, New York area. 🙂

The one thing I thought was really interesting was that I believe this is now the longest that I have lived in one place. (Not one house, as I have had several residences since living here, and three since we’ve been married. But one general region.) I lived in Springfield, OH till I was 8 years old, then in Caracas, Venezuela for the next three years, then in Clarence, NY till I graduated high school in 1992. Then East Lansing, MI, Clarence again, and Cincinnati, OH during my four college years. And now, Rochester area since 1996. (We’ve been in Palmyra since 2001.)

I do move around…

So, kinda fun to celebrate markers in life. I think today is one for me. 🙂

Well, it took me most of the night, but I finished making the corrections to the first proof I received from iUniverse, and we’re in the home stretch for the first book, Life In The Rearview Mirror: Reflections On Life Lived! A final proof should be back to me sometime next week, and then it will go to print! Yippee!! 🙂

This book will again be $14.95 since iUniverse sets the price. Sorry about that… wish it could be cheaper. I will get some copies up front, so I will be selling those via this website at a reduced rate. Stay tuned for details on that.

I plan to finish the Here’s The Church book this weekend also and get that submitted to the publisher (a different place… so the book will be cheaper!) by Monday. It’s starting to get exciting! 🙂

I was thinking tonight:

    “I think there will never be and end
             To the money we could always spend…”

I played basketball this morning, as I do most Wednesday, but today was different. For the first time since I badly sprained my ankle, I played without the air cast! Wow! I was quite tentative at first, but gradually worked into playing at full speed. (Well, full speed for an older, fatter me…)

So I was quite excited (and winded) after 45 minutes or so of hard running, jumping, shooting, cutting, foot shuffling… it was great!

Nice to have my ankle mostly back. 🙂

A couple things recently have made me wonder about the future of our country. I know that I have a limited view, as I have only lived 31.5 years here (minus 3, actualy, since I was in Venezuela for 3 of those) and for most of that I was not really aware of the adult world necessarily. But even with my limited perspective, I don’t think that we are heading in the same direction as the folks who were willing to sacrifice every bit of their lives for a place to live in freedom.

Not too long ago we received the proposed school budget in our mailbox. It was a nice little flyer with graphs and charts and tables. Everything was meant to make me feel good about the $38 million or so we were going to spend on something I don’t even really believe in over the following year. The good thing (if you can call it that?) was that at least about half of the total was covered by state aid to our district. The rest would be covered by the small amount of residents in our two towns. The proposed budget was of course an increase. It was on average around $100 or $200 per year per household, I believe.

But actually, I don’t remember the specific numbers because the last page is the thing that just blew me away.

My taxes are already too high. We have some of the highest school taxes by percentage in all of western New York. So, I was already planning to vote “No”, until I saw a nice little comparison chart on the back. They lined up last year’s budgetl, their proposed budget (which was higher), and the contingency budget, which was THE HIGHEST. And, almost as if to just rub it in… there was a little paragraph saying something like, “See? If you vote “No”, you’ll actually be paying more… so, you should vote “Yes”.

I was appalled. Angry. Ready to run for office and straighten up this mess. “That is un-American,” I said to Jen, “That’s like those countries where there are elections… but you can only choose one thing. I know that’s not what America is supposed to be. It’s “We the people”… not “We the select few who know better than the rest of you”.

One more story that evoked similar reactions in me.

While at the homeschool convention, we heard of a home schooling couple from Long Island who were asked by their school district to furnish more information than they were required to by law. They knew this, and said told the school district, “No, we’ve submitted all we are required to, thank you. We’ll be moving along now.” They even got the Home School Legal Defense Agency’s lawyers involved who legally, and acurately backed them. The school district, however, decided to make an example of them and now are (quite illegally) pursuing “legal” action against the family. They have managed to get the courts to allow them to investigate them for “Educational Neglect”. What?!? The family just would not submit birth certificates!!! Now, a representative of the school or state or something will be interviewing the children one at a time, without the parents present. That’s as far as it has gone currently, but it’s scary that it can even go that far!!

Who do we think we are? Why in the world do some of us feel we are better, smarter, more able to decide than others? Why are we letting this happen to our country?!?! We are a nation that is supposed to value freedom above all else. So many have actually given their lives for that, from the Revolutionary War until now. And yet, we spit in their faces by such actions. And astonishingly, both cases involve our public education system. Perhaps there is some connection, but I think it’s broader than that.

There is an ugly cancer in us that will eventually consume us entirely. The notion that some are better than others. Our declaration of Independence states quite clearly that “All men are created equal, and endowed with certain unalienable rights”. Those are the words we are founded on, and need to be reminded of.

We, the people of this great nation, need to be reminded of what America really is.

At the homeschool convention, in and empty corridor, I heard someone whistling behind me so I turned around to see who it was. I found a young girl not too far from me, and no one else. When I saw her, I thought, “Well, it couldn’t be her… she’s a girl.” It was then that I realized, girls don’t whistle. Why is that? Why is it only guys, and mostly old guys who whistle?

As I kept looking around, I finally found the culprit. A dad slightly older than me rounded the corner, lips pursed in a happy little whistle. Gender expectations satisfied, I turned around and kept moving.

But I couldn’t help but wonder… why don’t girls whistle?

I guess it happens every year here in the early years of a century, but today is perhaps a unique same-number day…

6-6-6

I think there’s even a new evil, scary movie with that title coming out today.

There are lots of ideas as to what the number given in this verse mean, but I really don’t know. I just think it’s cool that the month, day, and year all match today.

🙂