The Children of the World stole is one of the most grotesque vestment articles available. Designed by female pastors for female pastors, what man would wear one?
The most grotesque stole, of course, is the Guatemalan especial. Its ugly as sin but since its a fair trade product we feel warm and fuzzy inside.
When we first got back out to California we rented a townhome for $1900 a month. Sometime near the end of our first year there (and with the lease expiring) the owner called me to inquire if I was interested in buying the unit. I asked how much and she said "$515,000." To which I responded "You gotta be kidding." After that, real estate agents began showing up and calling to view the place (though we had no decrease in the rent for the inconvenience). So, we found another place to rent and now the owner had a tough property to rent (potential sale at any moment means month-to-month and a reduction in rent).
Well, here's the old joint and you can see that the owners had bought near the peak (2005) at $445,000 and their tax assessment shows they made about $9,000 in improvements. The flat sold February 26 of this year (we moved out in August and it appears to have stayed vacant) for $340,000. So, if the owners sold at a loss (I think they got foreclosed) they also lost $13,300 in rent (7 months vacant) and $105,000 in cash for a total loss of $118,300 on a bloomin' condo! The owner, who considered herself a savvy RE speculator/flipper, had 6 or 7 additional properties just like this...Flippin' don't pay and Redfin tells all.
Here's the entrance from our Pentecost service:
A common but often annoying feature of life in Southern California is the neighborhood film shoot. First they put up the film location signs (they seem to never take them down) on a tree or power pole. Then they block off streets and make everyone drive way out of their way. They were doing this in our neighborhood this morning. A veritable city of talent and support staff descended upon us, inconvenienced us, and then left without a trace.
They film "The Unit" and tons of other stuff here in Santa Clarita. Sometimes its fun watching shows or ads and saying, "Hey, that's our neighborhood!"
This episode of This American Life is scary stuff...the party is over.
Pentecost, the fiftieth day is coming. Pentecost turns the maxim, popular among some in our tradition, "If your church is growing, you're probably not preaching the Gospel" on it's head. Where do we get that idea from anyway?
I went out this morning to take my kids to school and found this little dude lying on my lawn. I thought he was dead or nearly so, so I figured a raven would swoop him up for lunch. About noon I noticed he was moving (it appears to have a broken leg) so I put him in a box and called our local wild animal shelter but they kept telling me they'd call me back and didn't. Now I have a baby opossum in a box in my carport, 3 kids getting attached to it, and no idea what to feed it.
Update: We dropped the opossum off at our local nature center and they are going to take care of him. Good thing because it looked like pet possum time.
I just received from Netflix the greatest TV comedy ever. I watched half of the only 6 episodes ever produced of Police Squad tonight. I never get tired of watching the well-staged gags.
Sorry I haven't been blogging that much (theological stuff in particular). Honestly, I've gotten way too busy and fighting with Reformed know-it-all's is way too boring. So, what's been happening?
Well, I've been doing tons of pastoral care work: (1) I have three couples I'm marrying this summer so I've been doing lots of pre-marital counseling, (2) we are losing quite a few people at Christ Church due to out-of-state moves but we are also getting quite a few new people so this means lots coffee meetings and introduction to Christ Church seminars, (3) The church calendar has been humming along since Epiphany and culminates this Sunday with Pentecost so that has meant lots of liturgy tweeking, Lectionary-based sermons and meeting and inviting people to church during these church holidays.
Meanwhile on the home front my new infant daughter continues to bring great joy to our home, Christiana is playing on her school soccer team, and we have gotten into a serious bread-making routine with the price of food being so high. Last Wednesday we went to get 31 cent ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Unbelievable, 31 cents got us a regular scoop...so we got ten scoops!
This last Saturday I took my three oldest kids to the "Donkey Rescue Festival" with my parents. Basically it was a festival on a farm that had about 500 rescued donkeys, several pot-bellied pigs, a bunch a llamas, giant horses, snakes, a dude wearing a donkey mascot outfit wandering aimlessly in the dust, some desert tortoises, and kids playing fiddles. You get the picture.
Its a little hard for me to get too worked up over our little Reformed pre-lapsarian (pre-Fall) quandaries when I read stuff like this by Gerstner on Edwards:
“There are problems with this explanation, of course. Edwards tries to escape his own snare by restating the situation with different language. He insists that man succumbed because God “did not give him more” grace. God was willing to give him more if man had asked for it.
But that, of course, was the temptation – not to ask and trust God. Edwards is saying that man did not meet the temptation not to ask for more because God “did not give him more.” That is, man needed more grace to ask for more. God “withheld his confirming grace.” (“Confirming grace” refers to grace which would certainly establish man in his original righteousness.) The “sufficient” grace Adam had was insufficient to get what was unfailingly sufficient: confirming grace.” (John H. Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards: A Mini-Theology, p. 36)
Take a look at the picture of the Marine at left. Do you know who it is? Its Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He's angry and he says cooky things but he did serve our country in the Corps (2nd Mar. Div.) and as a Navy Corpsman.
I was honored to participate as chaplain in the retirement ceremony of my old friend, Master Sgt. Ruy Pena. Ruy put in 24 years in the Marine Corps and we served together when we were both young NCO's. His adult children were there and I felt very old. Time most certainly flies!
Food is inflating and becoming scarce (there was little milk and white bread at my local grocery store last night). For all our problems, we should be glad we live here the U.S. where food shortages triggering unrest would hit last.
Update on Friday: All the 20 lbs. bags of rice were sold out at my local Ralphs Supermarket. I don't live in an area with a large Asian population.
