this is piper. she's quite possibly the cutest thing on this earth. but then there's the incessant urination.
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.
John Piper is a Sham!
i was just observing that two ingredients of a popular blog are controversy and the defaming of prominent evangelicals. so, in an effort to perpetuate and perhaps even develop readership i will say:
john piper is a sham. christian hedonism is deeply offensive. god is not enthralled with himself, rather he is eternally concerned with me. he designs his every thought and motive around human activity. my virtue is ultimately tied to my identity, not christ's.
My Birthday
so the sudden inquiry into tastes in music wasn't without purpose. yesterday was my birthday. i turned 25 yesterday. it was sunday so i spent the morning at church teaching sunday school. i had lunch at my favorite restaurant-ojeda's. jonny helped me cap off the day with some skittles and cappucino hookah (one at a time--skittles then cappucino). my wife gave me an iowa hawkeyes blanket, a poker set (with the real chips), and a pair of chuck taylors. my in-laws gave me a $50 gift certificate to american eagle, which i spent on a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts. my abundantly generous parents got me a 150.00 gift certificate to amazon.com (thus the 10 cd's question). while i do care about your input on music i went ahead and ordered. i actually got 16 cd's and 1 movie:
cd's:
some fred hammond (speak those things)
patty griffin-1,000 kisses
nirvana-mtv unplugged in new york
buddy miller-universal united house of prayer
tom waits-closing time (per jonny's suggestion)
starflyer59-leave here a stranger
u2-the joshua tree (lost to a car robbery earlier this year)
u2-all that you can't leave behind
uncle tupelo-no depression
bill mallonee-dear life
tom petty-wildflowers
the beatles-sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band (the album francis schaeffer says marks music's movement below the "line of despair")
counting crows-films about ghosts: the best of counting crows
phish-billy breathes
son volt-trace
wilco-yankee hotel foxtrot
bob dylan-blonde on blonde (i know, i know i should have had this one long ago)
movie:
bottle rocket (the first, little known wes anderson/owen wilson collaboration, cf. rushmore, royal tennenbaums, the life aquatic)
i love birthdays!
Vote or Die
my blog is as much about the readers as it is about me. thus, in an effort to maintain an air of democracy i'm once again asking your input.
say you suddenly had no cd's at all. what 10 cd's would you go out and buy immediately?
a couple weeks ago i handed in our final assignment for the seminar on jonathan edwards class--a paper simply listing ten questions we had over each major work we had read. my hebrew final had detained me from handing it in until after hours, so all the lights were off in the TS office, but dr. hannah was in his office talking to dr. horrell, so i thought i'd just slide it under the door, hannah would pick it up on the way out, and i'd be ok. well, a couple of days later i got a call at home from dr. hannah. he hadn't received my paper. i was puzzled, but realized that while i had put my name on the other one, i had not put what class it was for, so i emailed him another one, he graded it and i got an A-. everyone was happy.
this morning i checked my mailbox and found my paper--the original one--with markings and comments on it. attached was a sheet that read:
individual project evaluation form
st102 trinitarianism
dr. scott horrell
in the comments box on the evaluation sheet were the words:
tyson, are we missing a cover page? what's going on? if you talked to me (and i think you did), you still need to tell the reader what you are doing. -jsh
dr. horrell gave me a 93 on a paper that wasn't even for his class, but apparently i had cleared it with him so it was okay.
the funniest part of the whole thing is that when i took trinitarianism from horrell i only got a 90 on my individual project.
Things I Do for My Wife
i was in super target last night doing some much-needed grocery shopping, and thought i'd get something for my wife. i saw these real casual dresses on the rack and thought one would look good on my wife. it looked like it might be a little short, but it was hard to tell since it was on a hanger and everything. now, i'm roughly the same height as my wife, so there i was in a public place and i notice my arm reaching out for this dress and i remember thinking "hey tyson, what do you think you're going to do with that dress? cause i know you're not going to hold it up to yourself to check the length." well, i didn't hold it up to myself. i took the much more intelligent route of crouching beside it until my shoulders were in line with the hanger. yes, that was the picture of masculinity.
the dress was too short.
I'm an Uncle
my sister in law robin gave birth to my first nephew yesterday. noah tristan guthrie. i--like most guys except for the father traditionally do--zoned out when they started listing his stats, so i can't tell you the weight and length.
Interior Decorating
recently our apartment managers painted their apartment. it was very trendy, too, with the dark, bold color on the walls and the white trim. the result was an immediate desire in my wife to do the same. you see, they allow tenants to paint their apartments as long as they paint it back to the original color before they leave. i'm all about change myself, and i like my wife to be happy, so our walls are now clifff rock. i kinda like it.
New Music
i just got two cd's this week. first i found the newest norah jones cd, so i got that for my wife--it's great. way better than come away with me in my opinion. then as i was browsing i found pedro the lion's album control. this may be pedro's best album. (it's hard to find a friend may be better. it's definitely a better pedro the lion primer if you're looking to get into them) control is not a collection of songs, the album itself tells the story of an over-worked, unfaithful husband who loses his job. eventually the wife kills the husband. the second to last song is about his funeral where the priest delivers a less than hopeful message. the first nine songs leave you disgusted with life in general, then comes the last song, sung unbearably slowly here are the lyrics:
Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless
But everything is so meaningful
And most everything turns to shit
Rejoice
i had a copy a few years ago and , in my weak conscience, i had edited three songs off of it. two that depicted sexual infidelity and this last song. having listened to the cd now unabridged all the way through, i realize that in my attempt to sanctify the album i had actually corrupted it--i had removed the gospel. granted it was never explicit, but this last song takes the vivid portrait of hopeless humanity which says "this is all there is" (actually a quote from another artist) and pans out showing that the saddest part of the story is that it is meaningful, very meaningful, but for those for whom that world has become "shit" (i think he's aluding to phil 3:8 and the third line is a double entendre transitioning from the hopeless of the story to the basis for rejoicing) there remains rejoicing. it's a beautiful story and, whether you agree with the delivery or not, a beautiful message.
The Pictures
i just added these pictures, so if anybody wanted to put a face to my name they wouldn't be able to. so here you go, general public...or matt and jon. they're really random because the only pictures i have on my work computer are from a power point i made to introduce myself to my youth group.