I gave up beer for lent

 I gave up beer for Lent.

Sort of.

I made the decision a little late, so I had a few beers the first Friday and Saturday of Lent.

I'm also letting myself have beer on Sundays, which some people don't consider part of Lent.

The main reason I'm giving up beer (Monday thru Saturday) is that my wife and kids are all giving up something, and I didn't want to be the only one not giving up anything.

We are also all giving up "electronics" on Sundays for Lent. No computers, cell phones, tablets, video games, TV, etc ... THIS is much more difficult than giving up beer the rest of the week.

Plus, my beer supply was getting a little low.

It isn't a huge sacrifice for me to give up beer.... especially since I am excluding Sundays.

Lent 2014

I am writing this blog post on a notepad. It is an actual notepad made of paper. Weird, right?!?

Why am I writing a blog on a notepad (to be typed into the computer later)? Well, because my family has decided to to ban the use of electronics on the Sundays during Lent.

The Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the wife and children were in our church's version of Sunday School learning about Lent. I was not there, so I'm not sure exactly how it went down, but apparently the kids thought it would be a good idea to sacrifice the use of electronics on Sundays. It became a family decision.

Happy Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Not too long ago, I got an email from my Dad. I copied and pasted the text of the email below. I do not know exactly where the email originally came from. I don't know exactly how much of this is actually from Ben Stein and how much is editorialized. I do know that Ben said some of this and that he did NOT say it all.

"Urban Legends" on about.com says perhaps 1/3 of it was actually written by Ben Stein. (see http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_ben_stein_christmas.htm). Towards the end, in the analysis, the Urban Legend article links to Ben's website so you can see what he actually said.

I will point out that the end of the "Urban Legends" article, the author does make a point that the White House has never actually referred to "Christmas Trees" as "Holiday Trees". And, of course, Ben's commentary is from 2005 (4 years before Obama took office), so it would have been really hard for him to criticize the Obama administration for making that switch.

I liked the sentiment of the email (or at least the parts that I think are Ben), though, and I thought I would share:

Palm Sunday

Our church put on its annual Passion Service today. Every year it seems it becomes a bigger and more impressive production.

Most of the churches I have been part of in the past probably have less people attending on a typical Sunday than were putting on the service today. The choir alone was about 50 people. The orchestra was probably 30 more. The main cast was probably about 15 people, but I have no idea how many extras there were plus children who sang and danced. It was a lot of people. Whoever coordinated all that did a great job.

It was a wonderful show.

Second Wind Fund

Well... Tracy signed up the Colorado Shepards for a run / walk / ride for the Second Wind Fund of Metro Denver. The event is in September.

The mission of the SWFMD is to decrease the incidence of teen suicide by removing financial and social barriers to treatment for all at-risk youth. SWFMD operates in the Denver metro area; nearly 1,400 metro Denver youth have been referred to them for ongoing counseling.

Apparently, they don't only want us to appear and walk / run / ride, but also want us to help them raise money. If you feel this is a worthy charity and wish to give, you can do so using the handy / dandy widget:



You can also check out my "Fund Raising Page" by going to http://www.firstgiving.com/sheppy



I realize my target is probably pretty high especially given my lack of wealthy friends. We'll have to see how the page actually does.

Lent

I took the boys to the church last night for a Fat Tuesday pancake dinner so, I guess that means Lent starts today.

Sometimes I give something up for Lent. Sometimes I don't. I do not ever remember it being something Lutherans necessarily did as I was growing up. It was one of those catholic things. It is very possible that it just was not something we did as a family or maybe it was just not something I did. But, nonetheless, I never really gave anything up for Lent until I was an adult, and then it was never that big of a deal.

In fact until just yesterday, I never heard that the Sundays during Lent are not part of the time that you have to give something up. Apparently, Sundays are "mini-Easters" and you can do whatever you want on those Sundays.... as long as it does not violate the keeping the Sabbath Holy and other pesky commandments like not murdering or coveting etc... To me, that makes things infinitely easier. I'm not sure it is really that much of a sacrifice if you can indulge once a week. I guess it depends on what you are giving up.

I may be giving up coffee, since I am already not drinking coffee this week (because I am giving blood Saturday) and I might as well just continue. I guess.

I could give up drinking beer. I am in the middle of brewing a few batches, so it would be inconvenient to have to wait the extra time to sample them, but I could do it. It might even be better ... one more reason to wait for the conditioning to be done.

I may try to fast for Lent. After all, it is not like I will starve to death if I can eat on Sundays. On second thought, though, maybe that one is a bad idea.

My sister is giving up the internet for Lent. That will not work for me. I literally need the internet to do my jobs. I cannot work just on Sundays. I did consider giving up facebook for Lent, and I have been on facebook today, so I could do that. But something that trivial would be pointless.

Anyway, chances are, I will not give up anything for Lent. If I do, it will be something trivial like coffee or beer. Probably not beer. I need to give my 1776 ale a taste pretty soon.

Thanks

Here is what I am most thankful for.

7th Commandment

"You shall not commit adultery" -- Exodus 20:14

I am listening to the book-on-CD version of The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I am about half-way through and so far I recommend it. It is informative and entertaining. Basically, it is about a year in Jacob's life where he tries to live a whole year in accordance with all biblical teachings. Some of God's laws are downright perplexing, especially as you go through the Pentateuch, and especially for Christians, or maybe I should say especially for non- Orthodox Jews. I have tried to communicate some of my confusion in my blog entry "Eat Pig", but the food laws are not necessarily even the strangest of the rules and regulations gave gave his people. And, in fact, my point of "Eat Pig" has more to do with the fact that Christians tend to ignore old-testament laws than the fact that the old-testament laws seem strange.

But, some of the rules that A.J. is following in his book do seem strange.

When God commands, "You shall not commit adultery", it is not strange at all. I think just about everyone with some sort of moral compass believes adultery is wrong. And, truth be told, like most of God's laws, following the no adultery commandment is for your own benefit. When it comes right down to it, all of God's commandments have little to do with what is good for God. He made rules for us for our own good. It is a lot like the rules we as parents give to our children. Only, on a much bigger scale. That is part of what worries me about the ham and bacon ban.

Anyway, while listening to the book, I learned something that surprised me. It probably should not have surprised me, but nonetheless, I was shocked to learn that in the Israel of the Pentateuch Bible, adultery for a man means sex with another married woman. A woman is not allowed to have relations relations with any man other than her husband, but a man is allowed to have make love with any woman as long as she is not married to (owned by) another man.

It makes sense. It seems that everyone back then had several wives and concubines, and God never seemed to have a problem with that. Yes, it was a double standard, but it was a socially acceptable and God-sanctioned double standard. And certainly, ancient Israelites do not have a monopoly on sexism.

I do not have a problem with sexism. I order my wife to not have a problem with it either.

So, when God told Moses the commandment, I assume God knew that he was talking not only to Moses but to all of Israel. He picked the word "adultery" when his audience understood the word to mean what it did at the time. In other words, he was commanding men to not have sex with married women and had no problem with married men fooling around with women not their wives as long as these women did not belong to someone else.

This is potentially freeing information. Here I was working under the impression that the rules for me were the same as they were for my wife. Apparently, God supports my right to have more than one woman. I asked my wife last night if I could have a concubine for Christmas. I carefully explained the old-testament definition of adultery, and pointed out that great biblical men like Abraham, Issac, and Jacob had many women in their lives. Not only did they each have several concubines, but most of them had more than one wife. The logical conclusion to the whole thing is that God wants me to have many women, or at least has no problem with the possibility.

So, when I asked my wife if I could have a concubine, do you want to guess what she answered? Apparently, she is not as God-fearing as I would like my possession (I mean wife) to be. Don't worry, I'll get over it.

In case you cannot guess, a summary of her answer would be "NO!" And in case you are wondering if maybe she just has already something else in mind for my gift and just does not want to get me a concubine for Christmas, the answer is no concubines whatsoever at anytime past, present, or future whether or not the concubine is given to me by her or anyone else or even if I find one of my own. There will be no concubines.

Please don't tell my wife this, but quite honestly, I do not want a concubine. I certainly do not want a second wife. I have enough of a problem understanding and controlling wife #1. For some reason, I just had a vision of Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Cat in the Hat (otherwise known as Candy Cane Hat Cat) running amok through my house with hair curlers and rolling pins. Running about with big bumps, jump, and kicks. Oh the things they would bump! Oh the things they would hit! This is not to mention all the other kinds of bad tricks.

I would not like it, not one little bit. Sure, it would be nice to have two women to cook my dinner and wash my dishes, but can you imagine the downside? Think of twice as many honey-do's. Actually, it probably is honey-do's squared rather than double the honey-do's. Think of every time I say or do something stupidly offensive (it might surprise you to know that this happens once and awhile) getting twice (or squared) the rebukes. Think of nagging squared. And, twice as many birthday's, anniversaries, gifts, flowers, chick flicks, and shopping trips. And, crying! There would be twice as many women crying (usually for some reason that I would be unable to understand), which would almost certainly be an exponential increase in the amount of crying. I am getting a headache just thinking about it. It was probably easier back in the day when the man basically owned his women and the women knew their place, but let's face it: those days do not exist anymore. Or at least they do not exist in my household.

So, I suppose the "freeing" information is not quite as "freeing" as I first thought.

Don't worry, I'll get over it.

Happy Reformation

I came across the 95 Theses Website on the blog Ask the Pastor. It is nice that the website includes lyrics, because it was not easy to follow on them on the video. I did enjoy the video. It is not often that I see a Lutheran based rap video. Unless I am forgetting one, this is probably the first.

Those of you who are Lutheran probably know, this past Sunday was Reformation Sunday. I think most people know what the Reformation was (I am sure at least 75% of the people who read this blog know), but in case you do not know (if you are one of those people, leave me a comment and let me know how you got lost enough to join the 3 or 4 other people who ever come by), the Protestant Reformation began in the 1500's when Martin Luther (after whom the Lutheran church is named) , troubled by several of the practices of the Catholic Church, wrote up 95 theses and nailed them to a church door. These were mostly criticisms on how the Pope and the church had lost track of the church being more about God than for humans (such as the Pope). The act of nailing the piece of paper to the door is basically what started all Protestant Churches. Obviously (or maybe not so obviously) the desire for reform started long before this act, but this is the "shot heard round the world" type event that gets credit for starting things off.

Reformation Sunday is sort of a big deal in our Lutheran church. I honestly don't know if other Protestant Churches celebrate it as a special Sunday, but Lutherans sure do. I actually do not recall it being that big of a deal in my child-hood Lutheran churches, but that is probably has more to do with my poor memory than anything else.

Regardless, it is a celebration in our church. Obviously, it is not as important as any of the bigger festivals / seasons, but it is considered special. One thing our church has as a tradition is for everyone (most everyone) in the congregation to wear red. I guess it is sort of like a sports team trying to band together for a sporting event. The red matches the liturgical colors of the day. It is sort of cool to see. I suspect visitors and those who forget feel a little uncomfortable, which supports one of the points, my sister made in one of her blog entries (So....are you Catholic). But, I do not think it would make feel too terribly bad. Plus, it certainly gives someone who does not know an excuse to ask the Pastor: "So, what's the deal with everyone wearing red?" I wonder if there is some deep reason I am unaware of. Maybe I will ask sometime.

And, of course, between services we had a Reformation Breakfast. In my opinion, our church does not do as many breakfasts and other meals together as other (smaller?) churches do, so any excuse to do so is probably a good thing.

So, I hope everyone out there had a great Reformation Sunday. Don't forget All-Saints-Day is coming up soon.

Here is the video in case you want to watch it without going to http://www.95thesesrap.com:

My Cross

I am a Christian. That is, I believe in Jesus as Christ. I believe that God became man and through his grace I will live forever.

I go to church just about every Sunday. My family says grace at supper time and my little boys say their prayers before they go to sleep. We talk about God in my house, and my wife and I read the bible to our boys. I give a considerable percentage of my earnings to the church and other charities which I believe serve God in various ways. I often listen to a Christian Rock station here in the Denver area, and I participate in some of the activities that my Church sponsors. My wife teaches Sunday School and Childrens' Church on a regular basis. I try to live a moral life. I try to treat others as I would have them treat me.

But, being a Christian is more than just believing. Jesus calls us all to be his disciples. At the end of each Gospel, Jesus charges us to follow him and take up his ministry.

Matthew ends with Jesus saying, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19 - 20)

Mark ends with Jesus saying, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." (Mark 16: 18 - 20)

Luke ends with Jesus saying, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 21: 46-49)

John ends with Jesus telling his disciples "Feed my lambs." ... "Tend my sheep." ... "Feed my sheep" ... "Follow me!" (John 21: 15 - 24)

When Jesus said these things, he was not just talking to his 11 disciples, but every Christian. He was talking to me too.

Throughout the Bible, Jesus makes it clear that following Him is not an easy or safe proposition. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that Jesus said, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) Taking up the cross clearly makes the prospect of following Christ a sacrifice. Just as Christ's cross involved the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus is telling us that we are expected to be able to give up anything and everything to follow him.

I don't feel I have a cross. I do not have a cause where I know I am happy doing God's work through selfless sacrifice.

When I think of disciples, I think of evangelizers. These people are so "geeked up" (where did I come up with that term?) on the good news that they cannot help but preach and spread the word of God. These people go to Haiti or feed the homeless in their home town and they feel comfortable talking about God. They share the good news. They do not care if people look at them funny or physically threaten to harm them. They just share the good news because they HAVE to do it.

I do not feel comfortable talking about God with strangers. My friends all know I am a Christan and they know they are always welcome to come to church with me, but I do not feel all that comfortable talking about God with those of my friends who are not regular church goers. I do not feel 100% completely comfortable talking about God with people that I know are Christians. You certainly will not see me preaching on top of a mountain top or baptising the masses in a river.

To be fair, I do not feel comfortable talking to anyone about anything. I am the biggest introvert that I have ever met.

My side business (Auction Automations) may be the closest thing I have to a cross. We help various charities raise money through silent auctions, and we certainly are not doing it at a huge profit. It might be considered a cross, but I am not passionate about it. Truth be told, I complain about the long extra hours of work with very little pay almost all the time. And, we are trying to position ourselves so that we can partner with people in such a way that we make money at this, so our hope is that the hard work will pay off financially eventually. Just because we are bad at assessing our own worth and therefore give all these charities a very reasonable (reasonable for them) price for what we do does not mean we are attempting to do God's work.

Of course, sometimes God uses you even though you do not realize it.

You might look at my blood donation as a cross. As many times as I am able I give blood. I make the sacrifice happily. In fact I do not consider it a sacrifice. It may be a cross, but it is such a small one, I hesitate to even bring it up.

My church is starting a "Capital Campaign". If you are a member of a church, you probably know what that is. Basically, it is the church rallying the members to give more for a specific purpose. It is supposed to be above and beyond your "regular" contribution. The last one our church did was to finance a nice new (expensive) education wing on the church. This one is to attempt to paid down the mortgage on the church so that we can free up finances for God's "real" work. The plan is to raise 4 million dollars over three years. I am not sure how realistic it is. The pastors seem to think in our area with our wealth and God's ability to do anything, it should be no problem. 4 million dollars sounds like a lot to me, but what do I know?

And my original reaction is: "I am already giving what you guys said I should be giving. Now, I am supposed to give more?" Frankly, that is a stupid reaction, but it is probably the typical human reaction. And, I will give more. What do I care? I have too much money, why not give it to pay down a mortgage on my church. I literally will not miss whatever I give to the church.

But, the capital campaign is not just about money. The other part is that it is supposed to give you an opportunity (don't you always have the opportunity) to focus on and pray about what you can give of yourself (your time and your talents) to help out the church.

For me, money is easy. Identifying talents and committing to share those talents is something that I dread.

And to make matters worse, Pastor Chad wants to come talk about it with Tracy and me. As I mentioned before, I don't feel comfortable talking about anything. I do not want to talk with Chad Johnson (no relation to Ocho Cinco) about this whole thing. I want to just write a check every once and awhile and be done with it. This is horrible, but part of the reason I was attracted to this church was its size and the fact that I thought that I would probably be able to hide among the masses and not be bothered all that much with "serving". Yes, I know that is horrible. Yes, I am bad person. But, yes, for the most part it worked. I come to church most Sundays, give a large amount of money to the church, serve as an usher once in a great while, attend a few adult education classes while my kids are in Sunday School (our church calls it AHA ... Abiding Hope Adventures), and pretty much go unnoticed when it comes to doing any real work.

And back to the whole not having a cross... this is an opportunity to rectify the situation. I know I should change; need to change, and so God is sending Pastor Chad to help me do it. I guess. Part of my problem is that I have no idea how to identity what I should be doing. This is a probably I not only have with the church, but my "professional" life. I do not know what I should be doing spiritually or professionally, and I don't know HOW TO FIGURE IT OUT. So, maybe Chad has some ideas.

Of course, maybe Chad is just going to talk about money. Money is easy.

Caiaphas

The little passion performance that our church put on protrayed Caiaphas as a really mean, bad guy. He was a bad guy. Anyone who engineers the murder of an innocent man cannot be considered a Saint. Not only did Caiaphas murder an innocent man, but he helped torchure and brutally killed God's son. The Son of God suffered hanging by nails through his hands and feet because of Caiaphas and his angry, bitter evil jealousy. A priest should conduct himself better. Surely if anyone deserves to rot in the firey pits of hell, it would be Caiaphas, right?

Of course, Caiaphas was not alone. He was the head priest of a religious community, and the overwealming mass of this community, God's Chosen People, joined in. The other priests, Roman guards, the Jewish nation, the whole world could claim blame for the death of Jesus. Even the discipples, Jesus's friends, are not blameless. There was plenty of sin to go around the week of Christ's passion. But Caiaphas was the architect, the leader. Surely this is a man who ended up suffering for eternity, right?

Of course, Jesus spent much of his time criticizing the religious leaders of the time. Religion had lost sight of its primary purpose which was to serve God, and Jesus pointed it out. By doing so, he alientated Caiaphas and the rest of the established power structure of the time. To get even, Caiaphas arranged to have Jesus killed. God frowns on this kind of vengeance.

I picture Caiaphas dressed in black, scheming in the dark with demans looking over his shoulder, supporting him with nods and laughter. Satan himself was certainly there to help plan Jesus's assassination. Caiaphas had eyes as black and evil as the devil. They might have eve glowed red. Caiaphas is burning hell even now, isn't he?

I do not think so.

I believe that the Grace that saved us all and forgives all our Sins even saved an evil vengful murderer like Caiaphas. When Jesus said "forgive them for they know not what they do", he was asking and granting forgiveness to everyone who participated in his torchure, humiliation and death.

Why do we call the events leading up to and including Jesus's death the Passion of Christ? Jesus was born so that he could be crusifed and raised from the dead. That was his purpose. That was God's plan for him. To die was his passion.

And Caiaphas helped execute God's plan. The betrayal, the abandanment, the brutality, the blood, the cross, the death, the whole plot was part of God's plan. Without Easter, the raising from the grave, Jesus was little more than one of the many prophets from God that came and did their thing. And without the cross, and the atrocities that it represents Easter, could not have happened. God executed His will through the evil in the heart of Caiaphas.

This is not the first time that God transformed evil deeds into good. God used Joseph to save the nation of Isreal. The reason that Joseph was in a position to save his family was because his brothers acted out of petty jealousy and sold their brother into slavery. A brother should know better.

So Caiaphas probably eventally died and went the Pearly Gates with shame and dread in his heart. He probaby felt like Joseph's brothers when they discovered their broter in Egypt. Seeing Jesus, Caiaphas must have realized what he had done and expected punishment and was probably ready to beg for mercy. Jesus, however, had forgiven before Caiaphas could even begin to appologize. The lamb of God scooped Caiaphas up in a heavenly embrace and celebrated the return of one of his prodigal sons.

This is what I assume happened because I believe in the Grace of God. I do not know. I would assume all Christrians would look at this the same way, except wrath of God and Judgement of sinners is also a way to go. And Judgement is something that humans seem to understand more than forgiveness, especially when it comes to certain atrociousities. Like I said, I do not know. I'll let God take care of that. Of course, I do not have much of a choice, do I?

But I have come to belief that the Lord forgives Caiaphas all his sins. And, if God can accept an evil murdering monster like Caiaphas, I guess my spot in heaven can not be in doubt.

Unfortunately, I am the kind of person who beats himself up for every part of me that lacks perfection. I am tough on myself for not always treating others as myself. I know I do not always act like I love God with all my heart. I feel bad about all these little transgressions. I beat myself up even though I say that I know I am forgiven. Afterall, I just said that Caiaphas is probably in God's arms, and I certainly have not done anything as bad as putting any innocent person to death.

Chances are, you have not done anything that bad either. Remember always that you are God's child and that everything will be alright. This is not a trivial thing, being a child of God.

Anyway, I started writing this blog right around Easter. I wrote it mostly on my cell phone and always intended to come in later with supporting bible verses and other brilliant additions. I guess since it has been over 2 months, I might as well go and publish it. God’s grace is timeless, so it does not really matter if I publish it now or 2 months ago or two months from now.

Of course, no one reads my blogs, so it REALLY does not matter.