Got up reasonably early today – (we learned our lesson yesterday) one needs to make the most of a trip like this.

First stop – San Diego Zoo. A pretty amazing place. We decided to spend the morning at the zoo, and the afternoon taking this cool tour, so we had limited time at the park… that part stank, and we didn’t have time to wait in the very long line to see the Pandas they are so famous for.

The other animals were great, and the Zoo does an amazing job of replicating (as best it can) much of the surroundings that the animals are used to… in fact, they almost do too good of a job. Many times we would look and look for an animal, and never be able to spot it, or just see the rear end or something. In the old days, when they just put the animals in cement and metal cages, there was nowhere for them to hide… so you were guaranteed a good look… Well, I guess its best this way – at least for the animal.

The zoo was great, except that we wished so many times that Maria was with us – she would have loved to see the animals. It’s been real nice to spend this time with Candace though…

Its sort of funny. We are celebrating 10 years together, this is our aniversary, but neither of us are really that “romantic” comparatively speaking. But we do like to spend time together, and its fun to see all these amazing places together. I guess the point is that Love is so much deeper and richer than the movies portrait. - but love is often times also more mundane than the movies portrait.

After a hearty lunch at Seaport Village (a little shopping place) we went on this cool tour. The vehicle we rode in was amphibious – meaning it could drive around the city, and it could just run down this little ramp, and then we were boating around the bay. It was pretty cool. Called Seal Tour Usually I am not that much for guided tours, but we thought this one sounded different, and it was 2 hours in San Diego. We were so pressed for time, we thought this would be the best way to see the major places in a short amount of time.

Tonight we ate at this amazing restaurant. I know this blog sounds like a restaurant tour or something, but we have to eat something – and we wanted authentic Mexican )since we are like 20 miles from the country)

The place was called Casa de Bendini, and it was really great. The vibe was really nice. We went in right around dusk, and the lights and candles came on little by little to make the transition to night smooth. We ate in the back area outside and the place was really crowded. This place is historical – it was one of the first places ever built in San Diego in the old town. They had the history all up in the menu for reading – so it was sort of fun to read about it… the shape of the building was like a [ or a C so that they could defend against the Indians. Just sitting there and thinking about that was pretty strange. That in the past, in that very place, people would be concerned about Indians riding in from the plains to slaughter them. What a different time and different place we live in.

Well, we are going to bed early, because tomorrow is a big day – weve made reservations to go to Catalina Island – I can’t wait.

Our drive today was gorgeous – again! Driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, and finding our way to a hotel in Old Town San Diego. The hardest thing we did today was try to decide what we would do tomorrow. It looks like an amphibious tour bus, and the zoo tour won out.

The weather has been just amazingly perfect. Just warm enough so that shorts feel right.

We spent the weekend driving a mini-van (hauling equipment, it made it easier) Now that Jon is gone, we scaled down… we wanted to get a Dodge Neon – it was the cheapest, one, and looked fine… but the lady talked us into a free upgrade (just had to pay a little more for insurance) She was training this guy, and wanted to show him how to do all this stuff… anyway, we got this Chrysler Concord – and it is huge. It is sort of a pain to drive, and park – but it handles well, and is really comfortable. Its just so honkin big… actually it feels bigger than the van (I think it actually might be longer.)

We slept in today, and just sort of chilled getting ready, packing up, and then shipping out of our place in LA.

The place we are staying tonight is a big improvement over our “economy” place we had been staying. It is a beautiful big room, with a sitting room etc. The Haciendo Hotel… It is sort of up on a hill overlooking the Old Town (the place where San Diego was first established)

Mom called just before the sunset – Maria was going to bed, and she thought she would let us say good night. It is interesting how cell phones and the internet really make the world so much smaller. We could chat on the phone with no problem – even though we were out in the middle of San Diego – just roaming around

As soon as we got here, we dropped off our luggage, and walked up to a nearby park to watch the sunset. We sat in a patch of purple flower things - it was nice. After Cold Stone Ice cream, some souvenir shopping, we just walked around for a while. We are having a great – and relaxing time. A great chance to celebrate 10 great years together.

Well, Jon is on his way home. We just dropped him off at the airport. Another great day in CA.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts are the most amazing things I have ever eaten. When we go there, they were giving out free samples… a whole doughnut! Right off of the line. It was awesome.

This morning we worked for several hours shooting the outside shots of churches. It was fun, and we really learned our way around this area. So much of our time has been spent driving through ridiculous amounts of urban sprawl. It is ridiculous how many restaurants, video stores, and shopping centers there are. Miles and miles and miles and miles. BUT seeing the churches, and people coming and going in and out to worship – well it warmed the heart. Even in this crazy materialistic culture God is praised.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon driving on some of the most scenic roads I’ve ever been on. Over looking the pacific ocean from way up high… we had many amazing views… too many to count. And we walked down a cliff thing to check out some rocks. It is nice to know that people can still have some freedoms in this world. There were small children (mostly Hispanic) running all up and down this cliff – the slippery dirt paths down to the rocks – it was cool.

The temperature got up to 91 or more, but it was always just about perfect. After watching the sun set over the beach, We all went out to a rib joint for dinner. Hopefully I will get some pictures up on the site soon.

Ive decided that going out to eat is really expensive. I know you are thinking DUH, but sometimes it really is crazy. It is convenient when you are on vacation though. And fast food after fast food gets old, so it is nice to experience different types of restaurants.

I really don’t like this laptop keyboard.

TV is lame… I think I want to get a dvd player so that we don’t have to watch tv anymore. We just watched part of a cable movie – we didn’t know when we started watching it, but it was sort of gory… but it is easy to get drawn into the story, and finding yourself curious about what will happen next.

Anyway, on to San Diego tomorrow – totally spontaneous. We have no idea where we will end up, but it will be fun either way.

Another really full day here in LA... we were able to cram quite a bit in today.

Other than missing maria immensely, its been a whole lot of fun.

Thismorning, woke up and headed down to pick shauna up. Once we found her place, we met her room mate, and chatted for awhile, and then headed out for breakfast at Mels Diner Mels is a pretty cool place sort of 50s feel.

Im surprized how much of hollywood is stuck in the past... restraunts and stuff that look 50 years old.

Anyway, after walking around hollywood downtown for a while, we decided to try to get as close as we could to the hollywood sign... a difficult task

well, we got close, but after some hiking, we decided that wed had enough, and it was further away than we thought. Nice views all day though... i hope I can post some pics soon.

Later, spent some time on the Santamonica Pier. then walking along the beach...

I forgot about the little student film episode, we randomly passed a bunch of students filming a project.. and they ended up being shaunas room mates... what are the odds? anyway, they roped us into being extras.

after the beach - too cold to swim, but just perfect for a nice walk with friends.

we dropped off Shauna and headed for the Getty museum... an amazing place. what fantastic architecture and beautiful gardens, and fountains... it was fantastic... and we got there just in time for the sunset over the california mountains.

Then off to Chinatown for a late night dinner - and some entertainment.

Tired now, but researching churches for the morning, and hotels for the rest of the week... I think Candi and i will head toward San Diego for a couple days.

we are in LA! pretty cool. The flight was fine, although we were wiped out by the time we got into our hotel and stuff. Today was a great day. We got up relaxed, and caught a brunch sort of thing at a restraunt nearby, then headed up to find "Joni and Friends."

I had the chance to interview several very articulate, and very honest and real people about the Embrace project - on the issue of welcoming and including people with disabilities into congregations... anyway, Joni was very articulate, so experienced in this matter, thoughtful, and a very good interview. She is quite a communicator, and quite professional about it all.

We prayed together and were on our way. Shauna found other things to do, so we just sort of wandered around Hollywood, and Beverly Hills, and all these little communities that you always hear about on TV. Its so much smaller in real life.

We found an absolutely awesome lookout view of LA though, and that was something else to see... in that case, it looked larger than life, and larger than you could ever capture on video or film... hmmm i need to think about that more.

We ate dinner at this really cool Japanese steakhouse grill. The food was fabulous but expensive. Then we were looking for a place to do desert. We found an oldish looking place advertising Malts, so we drove around, found a parking garage, and walked up to a big CLOSED sign...

disappointed YES... but just like in life, when God closes a door, he usually opens a window [insert choir from heaven here] just down the street we walked we saw it... almost too good to be true... a mirage in the desert of closed shops and empty streets... a CHEESECAKE FACTORY. Beverly Hills.

anyways... it was wonderful. some of the best cheesecake ive ever had, and they like 30 different kinds of cheesecake, its really an amazing place.

We did some more sightseeing from the car, and wandered our way back to the hotel. a great day of mostly driving and eating, and a bunch of meaningful conversation - great day.

wow... today was nuts... im still reeling. I was trying to fix up some things in Kairsies apartment, and John S. (My new intern) was here. So I was constantly keeping him on a project - which by the way, I was pretty amazed with this young man. He is prolly like 14 or something, but he almost singlehandedly put a new chair railing up in Kairsies hallway. anyway, thats cool - and I could tell he really enjoyed doing it.

right now I really want to go home... ive been wanting to go home for the past 2 hours, but jamies laptop is downloading all the patches on windows update... so I'm killing time while that finishes. My brain is dead, so I can't really work any more.

I didnt get to bed last night till like 5am... it was crazy. I have this list of things that need to get done before thursday and it is way too long.

I had to repair my digital camera which broke the latch off of the battery door. - this wouldnt be a big deal, but it doesnt work unless the battery door is shut - with some major pressure. so thats what i was doing at 4-5am last night.

anyway, I drilled 2 skinny but long holes into the digital camera... and am using a bent paper clip (large) to keep the whole thing together. its pretty nifty design for a repair... you sort of have to pull out this "clip" to load and unload the batteries - actually I think it is a design improvement to a pretty lame digital camera. Id take a picture of it to show you but....

It wouldnt be so bad, but I had to get up around 9am... so that stank.

by the way... I cant believe a techy geek like Jamie would have his computer so out of date... all the critical updates - he was totally open for attack in like 20 different ways.

anyway, im not sure I will have time to finish it... it is taking soooo long.

I got to get my body back on some normal schedule - probably this weekend will help... Candi is a really scheduled person. Pretty routine. So it will help to be together for a week, and just be together. Getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and getting up at one. The temptation will be to not waste away our week watching cable at the hotels. :)

since we don't have a tv at home, we find ourselves attracted to them in the hotel. looking for Star Trek Next Generation re-runs. :)

Jamies computer is way slow... sucks to be me right now.

we took some pictures in the most recent snow this past thursday... mostly for Marc and Julies appreciation... also there will be a video clip message to Marc and Julie... unless you are them, its nothing really special. To find all these nice items, click on the pictures link on the www.jeffstoltzfus.com main page

I had lunch at this cool chinese buffet today - with Tito, a guy a met on our trip to mexico 3 years ago. heres a picture taken in the Mayan village in which we worked. (and slept on concrete floors or solid wooden benches)

anyway, he is a very cool guy, and is on his way to China in April. It was cool to fellowship together, I think we could be pretty good friends if he would be in the area more.

Originally from Mexico (he was one of our translators) He will now be teaching english in China... cool huh?

in case you cant tell, im killing time... I'm rebuilding a computer for a friend (no I can't help you with yours).

Candace and i watched School of Rock tonight. It was pretty funny mostly because of the main actor Jack. He reminds me of Chris Farley, who was just one of the funniest guys in the world. Anyway. It's a predictable movie, but its worth it just to watch this physical humor that all revolves around "rocking."

I some disturbing ways, i find that in some small respects, I resemble the guy in some ways. I'm an older guy, likes to rock, not that great a guitar player, and sometimes plays with a group that is half my age. Anyway, it cracked me up. It uses swearing (mostly the A word) regularly to get a laugh, but other than that its pretty much a clean and inspirational film.

ha ha.... check this out...
i never used the blog spell check before until today. (the little abc button above where i am typing)

get this... blog is not recognized as a word in the blog spell check... I just think that is funny.

I'm very interested in jons comments on jons blog about the quizzing rule. and the discussion at the quizzing boards

Fred made an announcement that they are going to crack down on that particular rule this year at the invitational. That could be interesting to see.

The rule does not make sense #1. Because competition is good - even if one team has to lose. As long as both teams keep a good spirit in tact. and #2 There is no possible way that a quizmaster can judge a quizzers intent... even if it is evil. #3 if the staff is so concerned about the losers self esteem, then how do they miss all the matches where teams get plastered like 150 - 10... and the crowd continues to cheer the whole time.

hmmmm I'm getting ahead of myself.

I've got more to say on the topic, but might wait to hear what some other people have to say first

Working on a new project for Reading Berks Conference of Churches I'm pretty excited about it because I love to see churches working together, and thats sort of what the conference is all about. Also I am looking forward to meeting all the fantastic people who are a part of the conference. They need financial help (as do we, and so many non-profits) and I hope we can help them communicate their vision via video.

ummm You gotta love the internet... (note sarcasm in his voice) check this out.



i googled this song, the Lord Reigns, and came across this page which included this little link thing... OK... rolls eyes. Anyway, it made me laugh, so I had to post it

I'm really liking this video project "Embrace: more than a parking space and a ramp"

Tuesday we interviewed Bob Weaver of the Pennsylvania Joni and Friends organization. Also met Sib (interesting name) Charles... really great people. They both have family members with disabilities.

Today we interviewed Ron Test - from zion. and he brought some insight to the topic... I found it facinating that he mentioned about zion reaching out to a child with downs syndrome, and I started to think - now who is he talking about, and it hit me... sure the Furhmans little girl (they recently moved to FL) and although I didnt work close with her, many at zion did.

What a special little girl, and so active, always running around and getting into everything, and just thriving on the attention that she had at zion. And I just sort of forgot that she had downs - because she just grew up there, and just fit - you know like part of the family. I suspect some parents have times where they "forget" that their kids have disabilites, when they are just playing, and enjoying them. I also suspect that parents are keenly aware of all the limitations that their kids will face as they grow older. How difficult that must be.

Her parents Lyn and Dean are amazing... i wish so bad they would be in the area so that I could interview them for this video. They were really a neat part of our church family, and we miss them now that they have gone.

I will get to meet a young lady with downs later (in april) who sounds like an amazing lady... she has been on Joni's nationwide radio program, and will be in the area.

Through this video I am gaining a personal interest in helping people with disabilities... anyway, its cool to see that process.

like I said, congratulations steve and sheree - Olivia was born last week - and came 2 months early... sort of unpredictable I guess, but welcomed non-the-less into this strange big world... i know i mentioned it before, but its fun to read back what I was thinking about when maria was born - you can dig around in my archives around february 2003 and read it for yourself.


wow... only 4 lbs... thats about how much weight I could loose in a weekend if I exercised a bunch and drank mostly water. hmmm thats disgusting... sorry. Its just hard to believe that we all started out that small, and how we learn and grow and stuff... we certainly are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

good practice tonight... with the worship team (zmyg - at least parts of us) it was good to play together. I suck at guitar. really, if I put my mind to it, i can be quite a mess... missing notes, all over the place, wrong chords, lame solos, I am such a bad performer... BUT God uses me despite my weaknesses, and once you get the whole team together it dont sound that bad, but me personally, ive got a lot to learn.

Anyway, most of the reason Im so bad ive decided is that I don't play enough. Our worship teams are in such a rotation, that I don't play enough to really get good - and I am notoriously distracted at home by other important things that must get done today. So anyways, not enough practice... If you want to be really good at anything you have to practice... some kids are so good at computer/video games. because they spend their life playing them... I guess that has purpose... hmmmm let me think about that.

So whatever you decide you want to do, practice it - whether it be art, or music, or sports, or theology or whatever... I heard on NPR tonight that if you excercise your brain, it will work better. hmmm some people don't get enough practice.

i keep thinking of more things to blog about...

major congratulations going out to Steve and Sheree Van Vreede on the birth of a baby girl... 2 months early and premie... so keep them all in your prayers... more details to come.

Steve is a friend, and also the treasurer for ACTV. and now DAD... I excited for them.

yaaayy ... i got all my archives working finally... thanks to some improvements at blogger.com and thanks to some of my coding efforts... you can now go back and read about my entire life.

ok, i know some of you are bored with my life today let alone being bored with it a year ago, but I was writing all about maria being born, and that kind of stuff
anyway, the archives are up and the February 2003 one is particularly interesting.

oh... i forgot to post this... as an ongoing commentary/critique of the passion film.

ISA 52:14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him--
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man
and his form marred beyond human likeness--

this along with Isa 53 is the only physical description of Jesus in the bible, and it is pretty much agreed on that this is prophetic about the coming of the Messiah (who Jesus claimed to be)

I looked up the verse in the KJV so I could do the Hebrew study on the words, and it says His "visage was marred more than any man" and I looked up visage, and it basically means his appearance... and so I looked up marred... and it means disfigured... so I guess the NIV did a decent job of translating it that way (or at least it agreed with my elementary Hebrew dictionary)

So how did Jesus look when he was "lifted up?" In-human... so the bible says.

Although I am not a biblical scholar, the more I look deeper into the bible, the more acurate the passion film seems to be in its depiction of the crucifixion.

busy weekend... very full, but rich.

I am really enjoying life, although it is too busy... i need to start saying no to some things that i want to do so that I have the energy to accomplish the things i am responsible. for example... i should blog less?? i dont know... it takes like 15 minutes a day - and maybe another 15 minutes to read everyone elses. I guess thats not too bad.

anyways,

I led a workshop at "Youth Ministry 2004" weekend at camp hebron it was called Deconstructing the Exclusive Mennonite Youth Group subculture: How to welcome and embrace the religiously challenged without compromising passion for Jesus.

I have taught seminars, and taught at youth group, and in bible studys, and sermons, BUT i never led a workshop... it was pretty cool, and i think it went off pretty well.

The discussion was pertinent for everyone there because we had some people who have really exclusive youth groups - where all the kids have been at their church since little up, and they never get any visitors... And then we had some people there like James Horning (crossfire youth ministries in Denver) who has a big group of youth from the community, and hardly any church kids at all. anyways, we are all challenged about where to draw the line and welcome people that might do things that go against our family values, or morals, or our church "rules" ok... but we don't want to be so loosy loose that we compromise our passion for Jesus, and water down the Gospel. So there was lots of good discussion.

I found that It really came sort of naturally for me to lead a discussion like that, and facilitate breakout groups and brainstorm on solutions and stuff... the only thing is that we didn't have enough time to do everything that I wanted to do... I let the discussions sort of go too long because they were so good.

Well thursday afternoon, I found out that they needed a worship leader too, (the original guy had a family emergency) so I ended up leading worship three times... It kept me hoppin. but I did get some spare time. It was fun to hang out really late saturday night chatting with folks, and finally starting a rook game at like 12:30

some people say there is no such thing as luck... I suppose it depends on how you define luck. If you define luck by how good a hand you get in rook... then I absolutely believe in luck.... because I totally had BAD luck.

If you don't believe that there is such thing as luck... well then God must have had it in for me, because I never got the rook card once out of the whole game, and Janelle got it like 10 times or something stupid like that.

Got back sunday afternoon and picked up maria at manny and edies house... they are awesome grandparents. I really was excited to see maria again after being away for a weekend. When I was busy and distracted, I didnt think that much about her, but when we were ready to come home, I really missed playing with her, and holding her. Its sort of hard to explain that emotional piece.

Anyway, she is the cutest baby in the world... I spent most of the night at quizzing hanging out with her, and having fun cheering for zion [zion quizzers rock!] [and let me say for the record, that our church peoples should come out more and support them! we used to have tons of fans coming out to all the matches, but not as much any more. ]

Top Ten Signs Your Amish Teen Is In Trouble:

10. Sometimes stays in bed till after 6am.
9. In his sock drawer, you find pictures of women without bonnets.
8. Shows up at barn raisings in full "Kiss" makeup.
7. When you criticize him, he yells, "Thou sucketh!"
6. His name is Jebediah, but he goes by "Jeb Daddy."
5. Defiantly says, "If I had a radio, I'd listen to rap."
4. You come upon his secret stash of colorful socks.
3. Uses slang expression: "Talk to the hand, cause the beard ain't listening."
2. Was recently pulled over for "driving under the influence of cottage cheese."
1. He's wearing his big black hat backwards.

Wednesdays I stay home with maria... its my favorite day of the week.

Our new pastor Steve Mussleman was stopping by to pick up a computer for his work at the church, and I invited him to stay for lunch - so we chatted for a while. It is really different to have a pastor that is even close to my age. I've never experienced that before. Steve is several years older than I am, but not like all the other pastors.

For a long time, my father was my pastor - and thats just wierd. You end up not really having a pastor figure in your life, because you can't really see him that way.

I think Pastor Steve is going to be good for Zion.

Read this critisism of the critics it is a much more interesting criticism than this blog.

I wrote a really long reply to an email I got... and I realized that it reavealed some aspects of me that Id like to keep in this online journal. It is part of my processing of life, and my thoughts about stuff.

I know i am not a good writer... Im a better thinker than a writer.

--------------------------

The passion film is not called "the Gospel according to Gibson" But it is "the passion of the Christ" passion \Pas"sion\, v. i. To suffer pain or sorrow. It is a close-up of Jesus 12 hours of a 33 year old life... BUT Its a close-up of the most critical point in human history.

Because it is art, it blurs the criticism aspect. When I hear people say that it should have a more victorious tone, and more resurrection, it reminds me of the CCM critics of the 80's that really got on Christian artists for not having the name "Jesus" in their lyrics more often.

As a piece of art, it is what it is. You might say "i would do it differently" but when it comes right down to it, you can't really say that it is "wrong" unless you can prove it historically.

The second Lord of the Rings films started out with the assumption that you already seen the first film. The Passion assumed that you already knew who Jesus was and maybe a bit about his teachings, and what He was about. Otherwise the whole movie wouldn’t make much sense... there is no prelude information. And it is sort of like the Titanic film... you sort of know what the ending is going to be.

I read that Gibson didn't design the film to be evangelistic, and so of course it is important that people know the Jesus was the source of eternal salvation... But again, if it wasn’t an evangelistic film, I really don’t think it will be (or was designed to be) the outreach tool of the century.

The sacrifice of Jesus could not have happened without suffering – the suffering is clear throughout the entire of scripture... even the prophets foretold that... and foretold the "stripes" that bring the healing (which i believe is spiritual in nature, and not necessarily physical) And the suffering would have been pointless without the sacrifice.

> What is the
>appropriate separation between suffering and sadism? How do you depict
>and view actual torture without its sadism becoming pornographic?

That certainly is the question I continue to struggle with. I understand the questioning there. How should we view "reality" and how much do we try to shut out "reality" and focus on positive messages.

Would you consider watching video of people dying in Africa (or Haiti) sadistic?

What if they made a show about it on TV? What if that show was sensitively produced?

What if that show aired every week, or every day?

What if they came out with the cable channel "the suffering channel?" 24 hours a day documentaries of people suffering"

There must be some balance there for sure that is healthy. To ignore it and turn away from the violence and pretend it didn't happen - well that cheapens it.

I suppose if someone lives in a box and only watches this film, and they never go to church, or sing praise songs, or read the bible, or anything - then their spiritual life might be skewed... but i believe this film actually brings some balance to an over fluffed, overstuffed American squeaky clean church.

also on the question of "the balance of how much do we show" Our culture really likes everything to be perfect and neat and clean.

I remember somewhere around the mid 80’s during that really bad drought in Ethiopia they always were showing starving people on the news. After a while, I remember people saying things like “im tired of always seeing those people on the news” etc. Americans want to live in a little bubble – so should we NOT show suffering around the world because Americans don’t want to look at the ugly?

Another story:
When they were pulling the tubes out of my dads body, to pull the plug... to prepare him for death, they asked me to leave the room. - they said you won't want to see this, its ugly etc... the nurse actually got up in my face about it.

I loved my dad dearly, and it was really tough - but I didn't want someone to cover over reality... I wanted the truth. And I suppose, I wanted to be with him at that difficult hour.

Can you believe that they gave my dad a shave?? so he could look nice to die?

When we - the family came back in the room, he was all "cleaned up," and it only took him minutes to breath his last breath. Death is horrible, but in America we like to think it is something nice. They had drugged him so much that he didn’t move or feel a thing. That’s how nice it was.

But the doctors messed up... when my dad flat lined, and alarm went off in the room and all the doctors came barging in to try to figure out how to shut off the alarm etc. I could tell, they didn't want us to have that alarm - to remind us that he was gone.

so we cried and cried, and sorrow filled the room. And I tell you that if someone would have come into that room and said "don’t be sad - don't you all know that your dad is alive in heaven, dancing for joy – you should be happy!" at that moment, i may have flipped. The bible says that "a sad face is good for the heart." People need to feel that sometimes.

The American tradition nowadays is that you leave the casket and don’t even bury the dead… let someone else take care of that… keep death at an arms length. I couldn’t do that. We actually buried my father. We brought shovels, and piled the dirt in on top of him. Was it hard? Yeah but facing that reality was important for me to heal. That part was really hard for some of my uncles (his brothers) but I know it was good too.

Here’s reality – death ain’t nice. It is ugly – no matter how you slice it.

Sure we know the truth... sure we know that dad is in heaven, but grieving is still important… and sometimes grieving takes time – but healthy grieving is the process that moves you toward healing.

This film is causing people all over the place to grieve because of what Jesus did for them, that grieving time is important. In time it brings healing. Showing the ugly side of suffering and the ugly side of death is ok. It should bring healing in the long run.

I guess it comes back to this question: How does the film motivate you (or me?)

What about “Faces of death?” It is a video series of real live footage of people dying brutal deaths – it is nasty and brutal. In one video a guy gets ripped up by a bear. Sounds like something the Romans would have liked.

I have a problem with people watching stuff like that for entertainment. So how does watching something like that motivate the viewer? How does it make them feel?

BUT what about the Holocaust museum? How does viewing that stuff move us and motivate us?? Is it redemptive? Does it change your life – even if only in a small way?

How can the blood and suffering of Christ be beautiful??

I’ll bet that if an artist painted a picture of my family with shovels in hand burying my father it could be beautiful… the picture of a family together grieving, and working together – caring for a loved one to the very end…

Can you understand the beauty in that? Sure it is tragic, and wonderful, and awful all at the same time. Beauty is not always pretty.

Our Mennonite hymnal doesn’t have songs like “the old rugged cross” (which by the way, I transcribed, and led at Zion 2 weeks ago) and in several cases, they took songs that mentioned the “blood” and rewrote the lyrics to take out the blood. Of course that was perfectly legal, because it was before copyright laws existed. Those Mennonites wanted to cover over the fact of the blood – and take it out of the hymnal. They don’t want people to see the ugly… only the good. I think that is flat out wrong. They took someone else’s art, and messed it up… they took the crux of the Gospel, and cheapened it.

I don’t propose to know how much Jesus suffered. No one knows that. All I know is that he suffered and bled and died at the hands of the Romans. And he did it for me... how can I not surrender my life

jon, kairsie and I had one of those famous all out rip roaring debates earlier today... It wasn't fair to Jon though... I think we had the upper hand :) There’s nothing wrong with Jon that some clear, unambiguous, compelling logic -- won’t aggravate! (quote stolen)

Out of respect, I won't bring up the actual argument here... much of the argument is speculative at best anyway... maybe thats what actually makes me hotter. When people propose to know things that I doubt they can actually know. I suppose I do that too... to a degree, but i usually try to base my opinions on some sort of logic or research. And much on the whole of scripture - which i don't have memorized, but much of it is in my head somewhere.

anyway, its all in fun... we love each other dearly, and a good debate from time to time really gets us hungry, and back into The Word.

im working on a video we just named "EMBRACE - More than a parking space and a ramp" it will be designed to encourage churches to embrace people with disablilities.

anyway, its pretty neat project... and very time consuming... lots of research and connecting with people - still defining the points we want to communicate... but its going well.

im pretty impressed with joni and friends the organization... it seems like they have pretty good resources and stuff. i used to hear joni on the radio when i was showering. back when i listened to 107.5 in the mornings.

maria has RSV some virus in her body making her cough pretty ugly. she is getting treatments and I thought mine was alergies, but now im pretty sure its not... I think i got RSV at the same time. its much like a cold... anyway, it is not stopping me from working, but it is anoying... i have been blowing buckets of stuff into tissues all day long.

I saw the passion of the Christ film again tonight... although not as shocking emotionally as the first time, i was able to pick up on some additional details in the film.

roman flogging (scourging) with a cat of nine tails I have been reading about it on the web. Looking for secular sources i found this one describing the flogging with tools and some comments on crucifiction In the one place it says that Rupilious crucified 20,000 people at one shot. Those romans werent too kind.

There are tons of places online where you can get brutal descriptions of the ways that romans liked to torture people... it is hard for us to believe it... It was a totally different culture. Where the stadiums were built for THE GAMES where people would die in one grewsome way after another.

Anyway, my point being that it is likely that Jesus came very close to death by roman scourging. BUT as prophecied (read john 19:36) none of his bones were broken.

One other detail i missed the first time... i did see the temple curtain torn in two... It happened during the earthquake, and exposed what looked like the ark of the covenent. The curtain didn't seem like the proper curtain as described in the old testament tabernacle... but neither was the rest of the temple at that time proper acording to the construction rules layed out by God.

I am certainly not a learned theologian or historian, but it is interesting to look further into this, and find some acuracies where friends have been critical of the film.