At times, I am still surprised these days at the little things I notice that might not be what I always thought they were. You would think I would stop being surprised when so much of what I thought was essential has become something I don’t even think about anymore. But there are still moments.

Like yesterday morning, reading the Bible with my boys. We’re in Matthew now. Just started not too long ago. This particular day we were reading the end of chapter four, and the beginning of chapter five. Yep! The Beatitudes. The Sermon on The Mount. A collection of very cool teaching from Jesus that has spawned countless sermons since he first spoke the words.

As we were reading in context, I noticed that Jesus may have acted differently than I have always thought he did.

News about him spread all over Syria, and people with every kind of sickness or disease were brought to him. Some of them had a lot of demons in them, others were thought to be crazy, and still others could not walk. But Jesus healed them all. Large crowds followed Jesus from Galilee and the region around the ten cities known as Decapolis. They also came from Jerusalem, Judea, and from across the Jordan River.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the side of a mountain and sat down. Jesus’ disciples gathered around him, and he taught them: (Matthew 4:24-5:2)

We had been reading in chapter four about how Jesus was traveling all over the region, probably the size of one of our counties, telling people about the Kingdom of God. And more than that, he was healing people of any disease they could present him with. As the section above says, news was certainly spreading about this amazing carpenter from Nazareth.

But when I think of the Sermon on The Mount, first of all… I capitalize it. Then, I picture Jesus in his white robe and blue sash, arms raised, voice booming, as he addressed the great throngs that he had assembled by performing these miracles. Wasn’t that the point? Didn’t he do all of that so he could have an audience, so that people would know he was from God? That’s what I have been taught. But I think I’m seeing a slightly different Jesus these days.

Jesus never wanted to be the center of attention. He did not elevate himself above others, whether physically or hierachically. He was a teacher, so you could argue that in some way he did, but look at those verses above. He had a large crowd following him, and he could have taught these truths to so many people in one place, at one time. But he didn’t. Instead, in every translation I read (save the Easy-To-Read translation) it says that when Jesus saw the large crowd, he went up on the mountain with his disciples. Away from the crowd.

Jesus didn’t hate crowds. He loved people. But Jesus didn’t have this drive that seems to pervade current thinking throughout the church that we must “maximize” our time and energy by addressing the most people at one time as we can. To do less would be an inefficient use of our resources. It strikes me as odd that Jesus did not feel that way.

It was just a small thing, but for me was a neat look at who Jesus was. Who Father is. He wants a relationship with us. It’s why we exist. To live alongside him as his children, his friends. Read Romans chapter five again, if you have not recently. It’s a great reminder of what Jesus was doing on the cross, and the life we can know and live because of that.

I imagine more things that I have always thought will continue to fade into the past. And even “new” things that I think now will be revealed as “not quite right”. If my life were based on the facts that I know, or the knowledge I have amassed, then I would be very glum indeed. But my life is in Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and my Life.

Seems to me that’s the way it oughta be.

I had heard through many websites and other places about the movie detailing the rise of Apple Computer and Microsoft. It is a sort of documentary, but more like a movie? Found a copy (on VHS, which was weird) at the Library, and watched it last night with Jen. There were some strange parts, but overall it was great. We loved it! Those are two strange guys (Steve Jobs (Apple) and Bill Gates (Mircrosoft)) with crazy stories.

First, Apple tricked Xerox into showing them all the tricks about this cool graphical user interface that they had developed. So Apple “stole” the OS from Xerox. Then, in a cunning move, Microsoft convinced Apple to let them help them develop software for the new Macintosh. Apple gave them three prototype computers from which the Microsoft guys pirated the Operating System, and claimed it as their own. And thus was born Windows.

Best part of the movie… after Steve Jobs finds out that Gates and Co. have sold the Mac OS as their own OS, and are shipping computers using that software, they argue a bit. Both are apparently hot tempered guys. Finally, Jobs gives up. He admits defeat, but he says as Gates is leaving:

“We’re better than you, you know. Our stuff is better.”

Gates replies, “You just don’t get it! That doesn’t matter!“

And Gates leaves, and the movie ends with Gates being the richest person in the world. 🙂

I just thought it was classic. And so true. Apple is creative, original, and always pushing the limits of technology. Microsoft pilfers the OS and brands it, and knows how to create demand for their product. It doesn’t matter that Apple is better… Microsoft still won. For now. 🙂

Ha ha. It was a fun movie for an Apple fan, and probably just a computer geek in general. I recommend. Click the link above to purchase from Amazon, if you are so inclined. 🙂

I have another blog where I detail the daily goings on in the Campbell home… I’ve been pretty good at keeping up. But the past two days were COMPLETELY INSANE. So, I posted a (rather lengthy, and yet somehow, not all inclusive) version of events at that blog site.

It’s worth the read, perhaps, so I thought I’d provide a link here. 🙂
Everyday in 2006: Missing Days

The other day, Apple released software called Boot Camp that allows you to run Windows (and OS X) on a Mac. That was cool. This may be cooler? It’s virtualization software that will allow you to run several platforms… without rebooting.

Check it out.
Macworld: News: New software lets Intel Macs run Windows sans rebooting

This will be a good thing. No more excuses. Just buy a Mac. Now you can have a Mac, and Windows, too.

Bonus is, the next release of the Mac OS will include this feature. Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) will be ready to boot either Mac or Windows OS. (You would have to purchase a full install version of Windows.) This is good, except, now your computer would be susceptible to all the things that plague Windows software – viruses, spyware, and other malware. Perhaps the drive partitions will protect the Mac side from the ugly Windows maladies.

We shall see.

But overall, this is a great move. Apple’s plan for world domination marches on…

I know God told David not to take a census of the people, but so far, he hasn’t told me not to do that with my computers…

From Oldest To Newest:

• * TI-99/4a (My very first computer! Fan Site
• Apple IIc
• Apple IIGS
• Macintosh Color Classic
• Macintosh II
• * Performa 6214CD (My first Mac!)
• Powermac 5260/100
• * Powermac 6500/250
• * PowerMac G3 All-In-One 266Mhz
• * iMac G3/333Mhz (Cherry)
• * iMac G3/333Mhz (Grape)
• * PowerMac G4 Dual 500Mhz
• * eMac G4 1.25Ghz
• * 15″ PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz
• * 20″ iMac G5 2.1Ghz (FrontRow, iSight) [shipped yesterday]
• * Mac Mini Intel Core Solo 1.5Ghz

The asterisk means that we use them frequently still. The others are currently museum pieces. But we still love them!

Bonus…
3G iPod 40GB (non-click wheel)

Well, that’s about it …

For now. 🙂

This morning I got up to go play basketball, as is my Wednesday morning custom. Today was different, or course, as it was my first time back in the gym since badly spraining my ankle two Wednesdays ago. And really, when I got out of bed this morning… I was quite surprised at how good it felt! I strapped on my shoes and felt pretty decent. Not 100% by any means, but pretty good.

Until I tried to do my first jump shot. 🙂

Let’s just say we’re not quite 75% yet… 🙂

But what amazed me is how well it really is doing. If you had seen this ankle two weeks ago, and felt the pain and discomfort for at least the first week and a half, you might be equally amazed. The swelling has not completely gone, but the nasty bruises have mostly cleared up. I have a pretty full range of motion, the ankle just feels “weak”. Not 100%.

As I drove home from shooting around and testing out the ankle, I just marveled at how our bodies heal themselves. Seriously. It’s incredible! How can our bodies so quickly (and with almost no help from me) repair themselves??? It’s so against nature. Natural things decay. Our bodies are constantly wearing down, over time, until they will finally give out. That is the nature of living things in a sin-broken world.

But within that progression toward decay are the moments of healing. You can really see it in younger bodies – like our kids. A cut from two days ago can be completely healed, and unnoticeable. My body certainly healed more quickly when I was a teenager, but even now in my 30s, my ankle is returning to normal at a fairly decent pace.

How incredible.

I’m just taking a moment to notice today the incredible workings that God has designed into our world, and especially our bodies. It is spectacular, to say the least.

I spent this afternoon working on the covers of my two soon-to-be-published books. I had some ideas floating around my head, and got a little creative boost somehow, so I figured I’d put some other things aside and tackle that project.

I was trying to design the covers to reflect the titles of the books. For the book titled “Life In The Rear-View Mirror”, I had considered using a shot through the front window of the car, with perhaps some photos laid on top of the mirror. Instead I just went with a nice shot of the road. It’s a cool photo we took a while back, and I was happy I could use it.

The other book is a book about the church titled, “There’s The Steeple… Here’s The Church“. Obviously I wanted to use a photo of a steeple. We have several to choose from as there are four very old church buildings right at the end of our block! 🙂 So I used on of those, and then had this cool idea of putting some photos of people “being the church” underneath the more prominent photo of the steeple.

That’s where it got interesting.

As I was browsing our photo library, looking for pictures that I thought would better reflect the church, I was having trouble selecting just the right one.

At first, I wanted a crowd. But that wasn’t right, since it just suggested a bunch of people watching a show. That’s not the church. Then I wanted some shots of people helping people, like a few shots of people helping us move, or helping build our deck. But that’s not the church, that’s just people helping each other. I even thought I’d get a photo of a dinner or something, but then again… that’s not the church, just people eating together.

And it hit me. Yes, that was the church in all of those cases, in all of those situations. But… the church is not defined by what we do!!!! I could not pick the right photo because a photo captures something we are doing at a moment. I could have just put pictures of people who are part of the church, but that would just look like people.

What defines the church is who we are. Who we belong to. We are the group of people who have learned the truth about who we are. We were created to be in a relationship with the Creator. He made us to be his. To be the church. The people whom he has called out from a life of sin and meaninglessness. That’s who we are… that’s the church.

You can’t really get a photo of that. You just get to live it.

It just reminded me that we need to stop trying to recreate church. Church can not be created. Church is. We are the church because God has made us that. It’s not our buildings, our meetings, or anything that we do together – in our out of those buildings. We are not defined by a name we give ourselves, or a calling, or a ministry, or anything that we do.

(Have I mentioned that yet?)

We are not the church because of what we do. We are the church because of what God did.

Period.

I awoke this morning with a song in my head. As a parent of young children, I’m not ashamed to admit that every once in a while, I’ll have a Wiggles song stuck in my head. 🙂 So as I was showering (with the songs still stuck in my head) I thought it might be fun to play that tune with my piano-learning son. He’s really getting quite good, so I figured I could chart out the notes to the song on a staff, and we could play it together.

As I started to think what the notes and rhythm might be, I remembered why I really don’t like putting music into notation. See, the rhythm of the song (at least in my head) is not something that can be captured on a piece of paper. It’s too alive for that. It needs to have feeling – more than any notation can capture. Yes, even for a Wiggles song.

And that’s when I realized the similarity to some things Jen and I have been discussing of late.

Just this weekend, my wife and I were chatting about relationship vs. institutional thinking. Primarily we were marveling at the way our society loves to glorify the systems we create. We have chosen to educate our children at home, rather than enrolling them in an educational institution. We think the benefits far outweigh any challenges for us. It’s just much more alive. It’s personal, relational and we can perfectly tailor our kids’ education to their personalities and learning styles. And, more than just lining them up in little desks and teaching them what we think they should learn at that moment, we are sensitive to what the day brings, and use each moment to form their hearts and minds. Or, in other words, to educate them.

It’s the same for Jen and I in our relationship with God and the church. For years, we’ve been part of the system that would attempt to contain that living reality in a well organized structure of programs, meetings, leaders and members. But over the past several years, God has shown us a bigger, yet simpler, reality. What we have always really known and taught, that life with him is an everyday relationship, yet now we are perhaps more genuinely living that out as we really live our every day with him. We do not compartmentalize him within a building, or a time, or even our own “quiet times”. He is central to everything we do. So different, and yet always what we have known and attempted to live out.

Somehow, even with the best of intentions, we are so good at creating structures. Not necessarily physical. Often they are just organizational. We have many groups you can be part of. Even beyond all the groups within the church. There’s boy scouts, girl scouts, community groups… all sorts of ways to organize our relationships. These are obviously not bad in themselves – what I am perplexed by is how it seems we must always do this. Why must we organize or attempt to “notate” everything we do.

Life can not be institutionalized. Relationships can not be bottled. We are organic. We’re alive. Dynamic. So, life with each other can not be captured by a system or formula. Much like music, which is more than just a formula, can not truly be captured by black circles on a page.

There is freedom in this. There is life in life. I’m not sure there is in an institution. Institutions deal with numbers and results. Life deals with people and relationships. There is some level of co-existence, but we are finding that every institution we can think of is only a limitation of real life.

So enjoy life today. Don’t try to capture it. Just live it.

A day or two ago, after I gave Ian some behavioral instructions, I noticed that he tends toward obeying the “letter of the law” as opposed to the heart of the instructions. Many times if I give him a positive instruction, he will do it… but in his own way. Or, if I give him some restriction or boundary, he’ll find a way to stay within the boundaries, yet really go against the heart of my instructions.

Once I noticed this the other day, I told him someday he will learn that life can not be found in skirting the border of lawfulness (I didn’t use those words), but only in understanding the heart of “the law”. Jesus said the law and the prophets can be summed up in two things. First, love God with all you are. Then he said the second is just like it, love the people around you. So basically, the heart of the law is love. Love other people, and God. That doesn’t mean finding ways to do what you want that techinically meet the “requirements”. It means obeying, or loving, in your heart.

Hmm. Jesus said, if you love me, you’ll obey my commands. Sometimes we use that to beat people over the head. “If you really love Jesus, you’ll OBEY him!” As though if you don’t’ obey (the letter of the law) then you do not love him. But if you did keep some code of law, then you obviously do. What if it just means that as we do love him (regardless of our “performance”) that will be obedience to him? As we do love him, he transforms our “behavior” from the inside. From the heart.

Does that makes sense? I thought it was a pretty neat insight into my relationship with God through a little testing of the boundaries from my seven year old son.

Thanks, Ian. 🙂