Christmas part 2

Part of the Christmas fun for a young adult is to make a trip home over Christmas break and check in with the few friends from either high school or youth group, that you have left in your small hometown of 3,500. Yesterday I made a trip to church (twice) and ran into my good friend Emily and her husband. In our conversation I learned that her husband Josh is now working in California as a director/producer. Natrually I asked him how things were going, to which he replied that he had produced some music videos for MTV. When I asked him who for he hesitatingly answered, “probably a band that you have never heard of…Arcade Fire.” I must confess that if I didn’t attend UBC, I probably wouldn’t have known who Arcade Fire was, but I do and I did. I responded with a good deal of enthusiasm and even hummed the chorus to my favorite and really only song I know.


Come to find out he was an original member of the band, and got out before they were got big. What’s funny though is this. Emily and Josh were married by my dad in our church. Several members of the band were not only in the wedding, but also played a few tunes for it, in our church. My dad a small town pastor in Northern Wisconsin had non idea and could care less.

home

After a grueling 14 hours of travel, I’m home! I find myself in rather enchanting circumstances. I have access to good Wisconsin beer. There is a light dusting of white snow covering most of the ground. The temperature actually requires something other than summer attire, and Christmas music tickles my ears all day long. All the local lakes and rivers are either frozen or near frozen and so picturesque that anyone with a camera could put Thomas Kinkade to shame.

I picked up the local newspaper last night and took in all the insignificant news that would only make the paper in a town of 3,500. This morning I listened to the local radio station, which includes an hour for local residents to bargain their goods, which is brought to you by our local grocery store Nelson’s. I find comfort in the local accent of our states fine residents.

I think I’ll head to town today. I’ll probably run into 15 people I know at the grocery store alone, all wanting to know how
Lindsay and I are doing wishing us a happy holiday. Then I’ll make my way to my house, greet my parents and the neighbors and make a cup of hot coco as I sit on the mantel of the fire place while it warms my back. I look at things around my house from where I sit and they will invoke childhood memory after childhood memory. It will be glorious!

This is the Holy of Holies!
This is Tomahawk, WI!

UnBiblical thoughts that answer theological questions

I remember the first time I heard that Genesis 1-11 might not be trying to explicitly communicate the details of early geological history. Commitment to this tenet soon led me down a road of other theological/geologica/biological/chemicaliological (I can use that word because I almost have a masters degree) conundrums. For example, some sort of Bill Craig’s version of the cosmological argument…God must have been the first cause of something…namely matter. Here is my favorite though. At some point I decided some version of evolution would be all right. After all, my smarter science friends report that microevolution is empirically observable. So the predicament becomes what to do with creation, or at least the Genesis account of the same. My park ranger friend Lanny tells me he believes God created evolution. My recent conversation with my friend Singleton, has shed some light on God and time--though I still won’t commit to timelessness, I think there is something to…for God a thousand years is like a day. Given these I’ve become comfortable (especially with my commitment to O.T.) with a belief that humans have evolved. So in what sense did God create? I like that answer that in the process of evolvement God picked a critical moment in man’s development and breathed His Spirit and consequently the image of Himself on us, which I believed is expressed chiefly through relationality Call me dualistic…call me Platonic…call me NorthEastern…I don’t care. If you want to know where I get this one from--Carney 1:1. Fry that on your Southern Baptist toes—I’m demergent!!!

Chirstmas part 1

Tivo it turns out is a great tool for maximizing your holiday experience. The older I get the more important it is to me to slow life down to a pace that is able to recognize the intoxicating experience of Christmas. Part of this experience requires that I see the right season specials on T.V. This line up includes must sees such as Rudolph, Frosty, Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Charlie Brown’s Christmas. If I’m honest about this, what really matters is not so much these shows in and of themselves, but the connotations that are created when I view them. They take me back to a time that is retrospectively seen as perfect. A time when Christmas was more magical than David Copperfield and David Blaine.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I have to tell you about this last Monday though. Part of the Carney holiday experience includes a 1,000 piece Charles Wysocki jigsaw puzzle. So this last Monday, I made my way to Wal-mart, purchased the most comparable puzzle I could find and made myself a fine meal (Lindsay was away for the evening). I put on my Frank Sinatra Christmas album, plugged in the Christmas tree and worked on my puzzle for the next couple of hours. It was heaven interrupted only by the occasional trip to the kitchen to warm my mug of hot coco. This was not a nostalgic night, but rather a connotation creating night. Those don’t happen all the time. Some day I will look back with fond memory on the night where I sat in the cozy first home Lindsay and I purchased with great Christmas music playing, hot coco in hand and more holiday cheer than the laundry soap and I will long for those simple days in Waco.

welcome new comers

have added a few new links. Let me introduced them

AMLBD is an intelligent 6 year old, who has undertaken the impossible task of writing to the world. Some of you might know her father “for the poor” who made a triumphant trip to UBC today. AMLBD brings lots of cheer into our lives. As of this morning AMLBD and I were accused possessing the same level of maturity by “you make it is single-town.” I don’t know if that is a compliment for her or a rip on me…perhaps both.

Roll em’ and I struggled through two classes together this semester. Roll em’ is happily married and lives in ??? Burnett ??? …I’ve never been good with Texas geography. For all of you SBC readers, of which I know I have a lot, she is a remarkable preacher.

Hannah-gun also brings the wisdom of youth to the table. A seventh grader here in Robison, she is a proud Rocket. She owes me at least a story a week and if I don’t get it on Sunday or Wednesday, perhaps I will get it via the internet. Watch out though, she’s got more punch than a 1991 Mike Tyson.

Last and certainly not least is “the best man” who consequently was my best man at my wedding. We’ve been best friends since we were 4 and 6 and lived next door to each other in the Holy of Holies…Tomahawk, WI. “the best man” is currently working his MTS and a sound third voice in my discussions with him and “Princeton-smart” who by the way will most likely be doing a Ph.D. in practical theo. at Princeton starting next. He’s not even emergent…move over Tony Jones.