A Nice Weekend

Pictures of the Day:
A highlight of the weekend was the concert by the Purdue Glee Club at Christ's Church at Mason Saturday night. More than 500 made a nice crowd in our auditorium to see the uniquely energetic and entertaining show/concert performed by this stage full of young men singing in tuxes. Their repertoire covered the gamut: sacred, classical, Broadway, gospel, pop, and patriotic. Always with strong voices, sometimes with complex harmonies, varying their stage presence from formal rows to seemingly unchoreographed interactions with each other and the audience, their performance was a joy to watch as well as hear.

We made an evening of the outing by inviting the Webers and the Friskneys to join us for supper at

The singers filled the aisles with song more than once, this time
to serenade ladies they chose from the audience.

5:00 and then go to the concert with us. We enjoyed the meal and the laughter at Mimi's and got to the church by 6:15 or 6:30 to get good seats for the 7:00 concert. Afterwards, Evelyn was one of the volunteers serving trays of homemade cookies to the crowd that lingered in the large lobby area outside the auditorium. Several of the singers had nice reunions with family members made more pleasurable by our church's hospitality.
Bill and Verna stayed overnight with us and left about 10:00 Sunday morning to worship at Lifespring Christian Church and spend the day with the Webers 2.0. We decided to go to second service at Mason Sunday morning; the net effect was two long, hashing-out-life visits with the Webers: Saturday night till almost midnight and then again over a leisurely breakfast Sunday morning. (Evelyn had made our favorite coffee cake--yum!)
Friday night was a typical Big Night Out for Evelyn and me: dinner out (Macaroni Grill --and that was special!) and a shopping trip at Costco's followed by Evelyn snagging this quarter's sale at the Clinique counter at Macy's.
Sunday we sat with our friend Alan Guttman in the Classic Service at 10:30, ate lunch quickly at McAllister's, and then returned home for a productive afternoon. Evelyn graded papers, and I worked a couple hours in the yard (trimmed all the rose bushes). It was a sunny 60-degree day, and I went with Evelyn on her walk after my yard work. Then I came in and did something I haven't done for a long time on a Sunday afternoon. I took a nap--a long nap! Evelyn was afraid I wouldn't sleep that night, but I managed to quit waking to see the alarm clock by about 11:00 p.m.

Quote of the Day:
"We think obedience is fine for kids and dogs. But we don't celebrate obedience in our culture. . . . Obedience puts us in our place. It's God's wisdom and strength we can't outgrow."
—Trevor DeVage in his excellent sermon in our The Story series, this week on King Saul's sorry pattern of disobedience.

Drying Out and Digging In

Pictures of the Day (Yesterday):

 Above are the two industrial fans that have been running in our hallway nonstop since Wednesday. to the right is the giant humidifier thats been running along with them. We turned the fans off for a few hours Friday night while we had company for dinner, but that's the only time they've been off. We're able to mask the constant roar by closing the door to the stairway. But we've been staying upstairs and watching the small, tabletop TV that is usually in the kitchen. Those skiers are not nearly as impressive o this tiny screen.
The men came Saturday and decided the fans needed to blow for a couple more days. So we've listened to them all weekend, but hopefully they'll be gone by tomorrow.
After that comes the insurance adjuster and all the work of tearing down sheetrock, resealing the seams, and repainting. We see if that patch of carpet at the bottom of the steps needs to be replaced.
When Paul and Sev Friskney were here for dinner Friday night, we got to talking about the Oscars. Paul is a real film buff and tries to see all the best-picture nominees every year. We decided on the spur of the moment to meet them Saturday to see Nebraska starring Bruce Dern.
We met them for the 5:00 showing at the Esquire theater in Clifton. The black-and-white movie is a gray story depicting brokenness, dysfunction, lost dreams, and limited horizons. "I'm sorry the movie was so depressing," Sev wrote Evelyn on Facebook today, but we weren't depressed by the movie. We were glad to see the remarkable performances, especially, of course, by Bruce Dern. The movie is not a musical, but it has some good music. It is not a comedy, although we did laugh out loud more than once. It ends on a positive note, but I couldn't help but think of the thousands of folks all around us whose lives are as bleak as those portrayed in the film.
Afterwards, Sev and Paul took us to one of their favorite spots, a new restaurant for us, Jason's Deli in Rookwood Exchange.
"Deli" doesn't describe this huge restaurant with "the best salad bar in the city," and a menu full of homemade soups (try our choice, the chicken pot pie soup) as well as sandwiches and main dishes. And every meal includes free soft serve in a cone or a cup!
It was a wonderful meal, and we enjoyed debriefing the film with Paul and Sev.

This morning Terry and Shirley Wuske visited Christ's Church as Mason again, and we went to Bob Evans to grab brunch before heading home. Evelyn and I stopped at Kroger's and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at home. My sore throat had progressed into a nasty cough wracking my chest. I wrote a draft of my column for Tuesday and then rested in the recliner for an hour, or was it two?

Quote of the Day:
"God says, 'I am bigger than your situation, your problem, your need.'"
—Trevor DeVage, sharing the Moses story in this week's service in The Story series.

This is Our Story

Picture of the Day:
Our church is joining the large number of congregations across the country that have used Zondervan's The Story as the basis for worship and Bible study for a 32-week period. Today was the introductory sermon, and today I received my copy of the book, plus material to help me lead sessions for the men's "tribe" I meet with on Thursday mornings.
I'm looking forward to it. It will be good for me personally, providing a doable plan to add structure to my desire to connect with God. It will be good for our group, because it will lend insight into his Word and his will for all of us. It will be good for our church, just as it evidently has been good for so many others.
I'm eager to get started.

Quote of the Day:
"There are some things about Jesus that can't be negotiated. If you don't believe he rose again, your religion is not Christianity. . . . This is our story. God looked forward and he saw Abraham; Abraham looked forward and he saw Jesus; Jesus looked forward and he saw us!"
—Trevor DeVage in this morning's sermon, the first in this series.

Meals of the Day:
Lunch with Dave Lautzenheiser at First Watch. We treated, with a gift certificate Evelyn received for leading a D-group at CCU. Dave was batching it, because Mary went to Tennessee to see the grandson this weekend.
Dinner will be Evelyn's pasta bean soup. It's perfect weather for soup, and this is a wonderful recipe. I know the whole world will be watching the Grammy awards tonight, but we'll be in front of 60 Minutes and Downton Abbey.