pseudo-parenthood
as dog owners my wife and i make every effort to abstain from the cheesy language of calling our dog "our baby," referring to each other as "mommy" and "daddy," etc. so far we've been successful, but it's hard to avoid such connections when you go to puppy training class. last night my wife and i were at one such event. there we sat on the floor indian-style (is that term still pc?) with our dog running around playing with other dogs talking to the young couples who own those dogs about all the travails of raising a puppy. there was the look of disdain on the owners whose dogs were out of control, and the envy of those owners whose dogs would probably have pulled every last one of us out of the building in case of a fire...and then dressed our wounds. yeah, there's no doubt that owning a puppy is nothing like parenting, but it's hard to ignore the similarities.
genre nazi's
it seems like the younger part of my generation (gen y as the generation nazi's would call them) have a fascination with assigning musical genres. i noticed this in talking about music with some of them, but it never bothered me until i was playing my brit pop/rock playlist from my ipod and was criticized that it was really more of a stadium rock playlist. (please note that the title of my playlist does not exclude stadium rock) he then began to assign each artist in the playlist their own genre. this phenomenon is no surprise to me. despite what people say-everyone wants a label. they want to be seen as preppy or alternative or country. however, all the alternative kids don't want to be lumped together, so there's emo, screamo, hardcore, punk, alt-punk, pre-punk, post-punk, mid-punk and pre-wrath-punk. i particularly like the prefix "alt" see that way i can listen to artists like kasey chambers and buddy miller and yet avoid the whole cowboy boots/big belt buckle image, cause i'm not country--no, no--i'm "alt-country." i wondered why the visual arts have escaped this trend. why is there not alt-cubism? or post-dali-brit-surrealism?
youth ministry
this sunday i have a meeting for parents of high schoolers to explain our ministries to them. this whole thing makes me very nervous. in fact i've rarely been in the presence of youth's parents when i didn't feel like my every breath was being scrutinized. sometimes i feel like i'm going to be talking to the parents and one of them is just going to stand up and start hurling insults at me about my inability to make their kids good. there's probably some serious psychological deficiency or trauma that causes this. maybe some part of my brain's development was stunted, maybe i was weaned too early, maybe my mom should have used a different fabric softener on my blankets when i was a baby.
saturday
i love saturdays. this saturday was the first normal one my wife and i have had since we moved. we slept in until 9:30, my wife watched her gillmore girls season one dvds, i sat on our patio, played my music, and worked on sunday school (rom. 7:14-25)(and for those who care i'm taking the position that paul is speaking of his present christian experience). tonight we're going to watch a movie with some friends. i love saturdays.
tiny red death
the other day i noticed a stinging sensation on my foot. i looked down to see a fire ant digging its stinger out of my foot. i said something like "ouch, dang it!" and went on my way. later that night we were unloading some furniture and i noticed the palms of my hands itching. i also felt a tightness in my chest. my inner ear itched, but when i went to itch it the canal was all swollen. i went to the mirror to see a white face with bright red lining my eyes, nose, and mouth. we went to the er, got a benadryl iv, went home, and i slept like a baby. turns out i'm allergic to fire ants.
anniversary
the 11th was sarah and my 4th anniversary. we're going out of town labor day weekend to celebrate.
i'm a big fan of my wife. i mean, i'm not going to talk about how i stare at her when she sleeps or anything, but i don't know what i would do without her. i think the thing i love most about marriage is when you can't remember what it was like to not be married. even my memories of life before i met sarah seem to have her pasted in somehow. i love you, babe.
John
this is john. he's on staff with ywam (youth with a mission) in new orleans. he's an open theist. we had some interesting conversations. he's a typical evangelical, and a good picture of where evangelicalism is heading if it doesn't learn to respect what the church has historically believed. spurgeon once said (something like), "how can one think so highly of what the Holy Spirit teaches them, but think so little of what He has taught others before them?" he has a website: forever grasping the first picture you see is very telling. the subtitle on his writing on the trinity is indicative of his theological methodology. luckily, he just ends up sounding like gregory of nyssa, so he's in good company.
moving sucks
we're finally moved in to our new place. we took five trips with a two-door explorer pulling a little enclosed trailer--but we didn't spend any money. let me tell everyone out there, never do that. even if you're moving into the house next door rent the big uhaul, load it all at once and unload it all at once. i was so sick of moving by the end of it all i was taking family heirlooms and chucking them carelessly into the trailer.
our new puppy
this is piper. she's quite possibly the cutest thing on this earth. but then there's the incessant urination.
back in town
sheesh. i've been running like a french soldier this whole summer. i just had back to back trips to new orleans and louisville. now i'm back in town, but so is my brother with his youth group from iowa. they're staying in our youth building, so needless to say i won't get much done this week. the problem with this is we're moving this week. so you'll say something like "wow, that's a busy week." and to that i'll say something like, "oh, yeah and we just got a puppy." more to come...
mac
i'm making a slide show on imovie on the church's mac mini, and i've come to the conclusion that every youth minister must own a macintosh computer. unless of course you don't care about the salvation of teenage souls. in which case a pc will suffice.
A Picture of Ireland
This seems kind of stereotypical of Ireland with the green and the rocks and everything, but i found that all of the stereotypes of ireland are true. They really do like guiness a lot. It really is very green. The cars really are very small and very ugly. And everyone has red hair with amish-style beards and wears green suits with buckles on their shoes.
A Good Read
"The climax of God's happiness is the delight He takes in the echoes of His excellence in the praises of His people." -Piper
I'm reading Desiring God this summer with the guys on my youth group's student leadership team. It's my third time through it, and I just want to say, "You need to read this book." That's all, you just need to read it. Don't like Piper? You need to read it. Already read it? You need to read it. Just randomly happened upon this blog and know nothing about Christianity or spirituality? You need to read it. Hiking in the Himalayas with nothing but a tent, some food, and a sherpa named Fo Shu? You need to read it.
want hair grow long? no cut it!
every year or so i get the urge to grow my hair out. the problem is this ackward period where it's not short, but not long. so the other day i went to a hair cut place and showed the lady a picture of a guy with long hair. i said, "this is what i'm, going for, but i just want a trim today." she replied in broken english (she was asian) "you not need cut your hair...you want grow long you, no cut it." there i was, a college graduate, working on a masters, barely grasping the concept: if you want your hair to grow, don't cut it. i walked out slowly and quietly, my head hung in shame.
Young Life
i just returned from a young life camp, and i must say it was an amazing week. i love the way they do things, and have a great respect for the organization as a whole. one of the great things they do is have follow-up meetings for two weeks after camp for everyone who attended camp. they go through a devotional called "my first thirty quiet times." out of curiosity i searched through it to see what it would say about the trinity. after all, what kind of introduction to the Christian faith would exclude the trinity? i found the statement:
How can God be one person and be three different people--Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit? I cannot tell you how; I can only tell you that it's true. God is a unit. He is one God and only one. Yet, He is three entities within that one...There is no illustration that adequately captures the truth of who God is. Perhaps H20 comes closest. H2O is always H2O, except it can appear in three entities: water, ice, and steam. Another illustration, again inadequate, is that of a married man with children. He is a father, a husband, and a son to his father.
now, by "inadequate" i'm guessing the author means something like "misguided," "inappropriate," or "Sabellianistic."
send comments and gracious corrections to ty saltzgiver at tysaltz@aol.com.
ireland
i'm in waterford, ireland right now in an internet cafe. the country's so beautiful. it looks just like wisconsin--lush, green hills. the hills here are a lot biger, though. i swam in the atlantic ocean yesterday, by the time i got out of the water my testicles had become ovaries, but i earned major youth pastor points.
i promise i won't leave without having a guiness at a pub. so much to say...don't want to pay another 2 euros for more time...
Caught
every once in a while i like to go to the guitar room at guitar center and play the taylors and gibsons. the other day i headed straight for the guitar room, but a saleswoman followed me in, so there i was...being supervised. i couldn't pick up a guitar in front of her because she and i both knew i wasn't going to buy anything, not to mention that her hair was shorter and voice deeper than mine, so i was a little scared. so we just chatted about our guitar preferences, and i slipped out and bought the strings i'd come for. what a wasted trip.