New Year's in Louisville

However you choose to say it, it's Kentucky: Looval, Louey-ville, Loua-val...

It's the World Missions Summit and Jen, Matt, Scout, Jesse, Amanda, Karla, Laura, and Jon are here with 4000 of our closest Chi Alpha and missionary friends from around the country and the world. It's been a great reunion, and there will be a pretty good party tonight. Tomorrow there ought to be pictures.

Loyola resumes in 10 days!

Are you ready for the Big (and Wet) Easy?

...oh, and National Chi Alpha as a shwanky redesigned website: www.chialpha.com

Blog of the Week 12.Dec.05

Mr. John Roger Bell returns to Blog of the Week with a humorous post about caboodles (though he mistakenly used a 'k').



Tuesday, December 13, 2005

My New Title Yes, it's true. This weekend I was recounting how as a little kid I was fond of kaboodles. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're going over to check on the left hand side to make sure you're on the right blog and/or to verify that I'm a male. I am. A married one at that. But Kaboodles were the popular thing to have for girls of the day. The reason I liked them was because I've always love storage and organization. Therefore in honor of Laura and Deanna I have renamed my xanga site to that effect. Kaboodles were a great way to store and organize random things and they were popular too! The next best thing for guys were goofy takle boxes...which as I got older I enjoyed and made use of for several things. So Sunday, Deanna and I were back in Metairie for her cousin's wedding. She stayed with her family to decorate their tree, but I came home. I started unpacking several things that we'd brought home from Baton Rouge but I soon realized...before I could unpack much more I need to reorganize some of our storage spaces. Oh goody! So, I reorganized the storage in our bathroom and I was beaming with pride when Deanna got home because I couldn't wait to show her what I'd done. Even before we left on Monday I had to give another look to admire the shoebox with only lightbulbs in it. Organized from largest to smallest. Then there was the box of adhesives. This contained a multitude of tapes, glue, and sticky tacky. The battery box was also there. D batteries in back and that tiny little battery that goes in my truck alarm remote in the front. There were others as well, but I'll stop with that. Oh, if only things stayed so organized as they started, the world would be a better place. Goodday to all and have a happy organized day!

11:40 AM - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Blog of the Week 5.Dec.05

a new face for blog of the week, the much vaunted friend of Sir Daniel 'Scout' Barnes: Nichol Gordy, currently a guest student at UL-Lafayette:

Monday, December 05, 2005

Passage from East of Eden: "I don't know where being a servant came into disrepute. It is the refuge of a philosopher, the food of the lazy, and, properly carried out, it is a position of power, even of love. I can't understand why more intelligent people don't take it as a career - learn to do it well and reap its benefits. A good servant has absolute security, not because of his master's kindness, but because of habit and indolence. It's a hard thing for a man to change spices or lay out his own socks. He'll keep a bad servant rather than change. But a good servant, and I am an excellent one, can completely control his master, tell him what to think, how to act, whom to marry, when to divorce, reduce him to terror as a discipline, or distribute happiness to him, and finally be mentioned in his will. If I had wished I could have robbed, stripped, and beaten anyone I've worked for and come away with thanks. Finally, in my circumstances I am unprotected. My master will defend me, protect me. You have to work and worry. I work less and worry less. And I am a good servant. A bad one does no work and does no worrying, and he still is fed, clothed, and protected. I don't know any profession where the field is so cluttered with incompetents and where excellence is so rare." Why are we as humans (or maybe as Westerners, I'm not sure) so averse to servanthood? Even within Christianity, where the role of a servant is encouraged and respected, it is often looked upon as a lowering of oneself - something to be admired for the humility it requires rather than for the act itself. What makes the direct meeting of another individual's needs so much more degrading than the indirect meeting of their needs through practically any other occupation - car manufacturer, doctor, CEO? I'm not building up to any grand thesis here. I'm just speculating. Thoughts are welcome. It's just something that has been on my mind since reading this part in Steinbeck and hearing a sermon at Chi Alpha on servanthood at the Last Supper. "Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, not is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things,blessed are you if you do them. " - John 13:12b-17 God is concerned with the ethics of intentions - he cares not only about our actions but also our motivations for those actions. So what is the proper attitude of a God-chaser toward servanthood? I think it may lie somewhere in between the manipulation of the Steinbeck character and the overly-pious, grandiose attitudes of some people. If you notice, Jesus doesn't give a detailed reason for why his disciples should be servants. He merely points out the obvious - that a servant is not greater than his master. I think this is because to Jesus, the essence of worship and its evidence in our daily lives IS just that simple. God is master and we are servant and our acknowledgement of his supremacy in our lives leads us to serve others, like a fountain spilling over. Cool stuff. Peace out.

11:14 PM - 4 eprops - 3 comments - email it