Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy...

So many crazy things happening! Where to begin...

Two weekends ago, I went out with a few friends. They were all guys, as is often the case, and they thought the waitress was cute. To make a long story short, Chris ended up snorting chocolate milk up his nose through a straw - and he'd only had one beer!


That same weekend, Pastor Mike and Kara got married - very exciting!

I'm not sure if Mike is really happy, or if Kara just stepped on his foot...

I think my favourite part was the Scottish guy from Sweden who came in a kilt, wore it for slowpitch, and got kissed by Amie. How much more excitement could you ask for?

About three weeks ago, we had a youth event at the church that involved Anne Marie, our illustrious Director of Parish Services, licking out her ice cream bowl...

Then this past weekend, qSarah came to visit, which is always exciting. There was a concert by her duckieness, late night drinks at Maddison's, a trip to see X-Men 3, a meeting about the mission church, Trevor becoming Anglican by joining Holy Trinity, three boxes of Kraft dinner, a trip to Ikea and shopping for clothes...fun fun! And then she left to go do a concert in Stony Plain and I got back to work.

My dad is visiting my brother in Nova Scotia, and Dad's cat is visiting me. The first couple of days were interesting, as my two adjusted to have a brother, but they've settled in pretty well. There's still some funny moments - like when Face went to jump on the counter, and scared Stitch. Stitch being scared startled Face, and he missed the counter all together. Crazy cats...

The season finale of NCIS was terrible - what is going to happen? How could Gibbs just leave? If I poke around the CBS website, I could probably find out if Mark Harmon is renewed for next season, but I want to wait and see...

The ending of that 70's Show was really disappointing. I was expecting something a little more final, but it really just felt like another episode. Are Donna and Eric going to ever live happliy ever after? We'll never know now...

Friday, May 26, 2006

Trekkies 2

Trekkies 2 premiered on the Space channel a few weeks ago, and I'm just finally getting around to watching it. It's pretty entertaining, but the best part was this 40-something woman from Australia who sang a song about Conner Trinneer, who plays Trip Tucker on Enterprise, to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

"Twinkle, twinkle darling Trip,
How I love it when you strip
Starfleet blues, off they go,
Not so fast, I like it slow,
gorgeous body, face divine
How I wish that you were mine."

Words fail me...

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

New Church!

So there's a new Lutheran church starting in Calgary this year. It's being "planted" in the far south end by Bethel Lutheran in Vulcan, and from what I've heard, the vision of it is to be a pretty contemporary congregation.
(The Vulcans are coming, the Vulcans are coming!!!!)
There's an info meeting on Sunday at 3:30 at the Mckenzie Towne hall - this is an exciting opportunity to get involved in the planning of a church from the ground up - I'm really interested to see how it will develop!
Check out www.bethelmissionproject.ca for more info, and I hope to see you there!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Jesus Christ, Superstar

(Note - I wrote this Sunday night, but didn't actually post it until Monday night...)

At the service at Foothills Lutheran this morning, Pastor Laverne talked about the Da Vinci Code, and how its mistruths are a subtle persecution of Christianity. (It was an excellent sermon, and if you’re interested, I can try and get you the text of it.) But it really made me think about the other hoaxes that are floating around out there – false religions, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the recently “discovered” Gospel of Judas, the James Ossuary, the Shroud of Turin, the Black Madonna, and so on and so on.

And then tonight I discovered another thing to add to the list – I went to Stage West and saw Jesus Christ, Superstar. I had no idea what I was getting into, and I’m just reeling. What a blatant mockery of what our Saviour suffered! So many misquotations and outright lies – I’m just stunned.

The entry into Jerusalem and then a song just after that were full of “hallelujahs” and “you get the power and the glory” were hard to listen to, because unless those words are sung to Jesus with your heart behind them, it’s blasphemy, really. They were sung as empty words that to me are full of meaning.

I think the worst part was, when after a wrenching scene with a flogged Jesus dragging his cross off stage, a bunch of half-dressed dancers in go-go boots came strutting out to sing about how Jesus’ timing was off in coming when he did – “if you’d come much later/you’d have picked up a nation/Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication”. Then after that, the lights slowly came back on to light jazz music – to reveal Jesus hanging on the cross. I couldn’t help it – I just cried. It cut me to the heart to see such a thing. Then the actor playing Jesus said “forgive them, for they know not what they do”, and I thought of all the people around me, watching this terrible scene, and not understanding – not knowing – just there for entertainment.

There were a couple things I notice the play had in common with a few of the “conspiracy theories” floating around out there – it alluded to a relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and it made it look like Jesus told Judas to betray him. They had a scene where Mary was rubbing Jesus’ shoulders, and he was saying “Oh, Mary, that’s so good” – it was just so wrong!

Speaking of just so wrong – when they take Jesus to Herod, he was surrounded by cast in bikinis – guys and girls. It was raunchy, and while Herod was supposed to mock Jesus, I really don’t need to see that much of the actors to get the point across!

Caiaphas was singing about how Jesus was drawing unwanted attention to the Jews from the Romans, and how “for the sake of the nation, Jesus must die”. I found that so ironic! It was so much bigger than just the nation, and so different from the way he meant it, you know what I mean?

A pretty common refrain thought the show was “he’s just a man”, and there was no mention of Jesus’ divinity as fact at all. There wasn’t any resurrection scene, just a glimpse of him through the stage curtain. Even the movie the Passion down played the resurrection when really; I think that’s the most important part of the story!

There were a lot of subtle comments taken just enough out of context to not quite sound the way Christians commonly believe, but there were some things that Jesus supposedly said that I’ve never seen the in the Bible!
Like, supposedly Jesus said the following things:
- I look for truth and find that I get damned (to Pilate during the trial)
- Stick with fishing from now on (to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane)
- There may be a kingdom for me somewhere (to Pilate during the trial)
And they portrayed him as being in the Garden of Gethsemane praying to God to show him his “omnipresent brain”, because Jesus’ death was all God’s idea, and Jesus had no idea what was going on, which is complete hogwash – Jesus and God are one in the Trinity – of course Jesus knew the big picture! Why else would He have gone through all the crap he did if not out of love for everyone who’s ever lived and ever will live?

Grrrrrrr! When I was watching the play, all I could do was cry, and then when we left I was too emotionally stunned to know what to do, but now after writing this all out, I’m just plain mad! This show is a big Broadway thing that millions of people have seen, from Broadway right down to school plays, and this terrible, mocking display might be the only exposure they have to the Name of Jesus, and it’s twisted almost beyond recognition – it doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Jesus I know and love.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Céilidh in Calgary!

Last Tuesday, Dad and I went to the Jack Singer Concert Hall to see Natalie McMaster and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. She's touring with her husband Donnell Leahy and his sister Erin Leahy, of the group Leahy, and for one night only, Cape Breton piano player Mac Morin.

Natalie and Mac

Donnell and Erin

It was amazing! Fiddling, piano, step-dancing - four of the best in the Celtic music business, backed up by the CPO - a little bit of Nova Scotia, right here in Cow-town! None of them read music, they all play by ear. Erin's specialty is the piano, and she plays so fast you can't really see her touch the keys. It's obvious that Natalie and Donnell really enjoy playing together - they spent a lot of the evening smiling at each other. Natalie plays with so much passion - I would love to find something that I'm that passionate about! She just PLAYS, holding nothing back, and it seems like she'd play faster and dance faster if it were humanly possible. I'm totally in awe of the skill the four of them have!

Natalie and Donnell mentioned a website they're involved in, www.capebretonlive.com, where you can listen to music that's recorded live all around Cape Breton. Pretty cool!

(By the way - Ceilidh is the word for a Celtic party, with music and dancing.)

Monday, May 15, 2006

Interviewed by Christine

It's the interview game! Here are the rules:

Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." I will respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal. You WILL update your LJ (or other blog) with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Christine asked me...

1) If you could change the colour of the sky, what colour would it be, how it would become this colour and why is it this colour?

I think I would like it to be sunset colours all the time, only not caused by pollution!


2) What is the most drastic change you have ever made to your physical appearance?

It would be a toss up between the time I had an interesting dye job that ended in a skunk stripe of blonde across my bangs and when I got my ears pierced...


3) What does being a Christian mean to you?

That is a very good question I'm not sure if I can answer! I guess it's more about a lifestyle than anything else. It bothers me when people just say "Oh, you're religious" like it's some kind of label, you know? It's so much more than that. I don't think I can really articulate it very well.


4) What is the thing you are most uncomfortable/awkward about? (can be a one word reply to prevent too much uncomfortable-ness)

Humm...I think it depends on the situation. Like having a total blonde moment and saying something stupid in front of my boss vs. saying something stupid in front of a friend, who's just going to laugh at me. And I would watch Men in Tights or the Full Monty with friends, but watching that kind of movie with my parents would be very awkward!


5) If you lived in an alternate universe/time/etc., who would you be and why?

I really have to think about this one...it would be cool to live in Narnia during the golden age of the High King, or to live at Hogwarts when Voldemort isn't running amuck. Or living in an Enid Blyton boarding school would be cool for a while. When I was a kid I read this book called the "Trolly Car Family" that sounded like the ideal lifestyle then - it still sounds pretty good, actually. Or living in a Beatrix Potter book would be cool. Hum, have you noticed they're all books? I wonder what a psychologist would make of that?

Busy, busy, busy!

What a crazy couple of weeks!
TEC is this weekend, and we have 14 participants lined up - I'm very excited! Hopefully I remember everything and survive registration with the remainder of my sanity intact...
We've started planning meetings for the Survivor youth retreat we put on every December. Our theme is coming together really well, and I'm looking forward to it.
I'm working on putting together a sort of guide book for the District youth gathering I'm going to in July. I'm having a hard time getting everything together, so I hope things start to fall in to place soon.
I'm also helping with website content for the National gathering next summer - it's in Ottawa, and should be pretty cool. One of the things I really like about Lutheran Church-Canada is the bunch of great people who are really dedicated to quality youth events. It's pretty cool.
I'm going to see Third Day this summer - we got tickets in a box, so it should a great time. We're supposed to get back from the District gathering that afternoon, so hopefully all goes well - no car trouble or anything like that!
My friend Sarah is touring to promote her first cd and she's coming to Calgary on May 27. You can check out her website at... http://www.qsarah.com/
The season finale of Gilmore Girls was last week...what a way to end a season! WHY did Luke have to reject Lorelai so harshly? And WHY did she have to go to Christipher of all people? And is Rory going to go after Logan? How am I going to wait for September? Grrrr...
But on the up side, Canadian Idol is starting soon, so that should give me something else to think about...as if I wasn't busy enough already! :)

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Nerf Herding

So I'm sitting here watching the empire strike back, and I just have to share my absolute favourite bit of dialog from the whole series with you...

HAN: That's a good story. I think you just can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your sight.
LEIA: I don't know where you get you delusions, laser brain.
(Chewie laughs)
HAN: Laugh it up, fuzz ball. But you didn't see us alone in the south passage. She expressed her true feelings for me.
LEIA: My...! Why, you stuck up,...half-witted,...scruffy-looking...nerf-herder!
HAN: Who's scruffy-looking?



Makes me laugh every time! It's been too long since I watched it last, especially considering that I own the special edition set!

And in my search to copy and paste the quote, to avoid typing it out, I found the following exciting links. I haven't read them all through yet, but at first glance they seem pretty funny...

http://www.favorites.com/~bailey/pants.html

http://scifi.about.com/bltrekwars.htm

http://www.starwarscutscenes.com/main.html

May the force be with you!

(And for my fellow Anglicans....and also with you! :)

Thursday, May 04, 2006

"Your Overconfidence is Your Weakness"

Guess what I just found out? Today, May 4th, is International Star Wars day! Who knew? It makes me happy - there's a day for just about everything in galaxy now! :)

Maybe I'll watch the Empire Strikes Back while I work on my youth projects tonight...