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OBSERVATIONS FROM THE UNOBSERVANT

Most of you know that I am not the most observant person. It takes a lot for me to notice things, that is unless I have a camera in my hand.  Give me a camera and I notice everything! I see things differently. I notice both fine detail and collective beauty. Maybe that’s why I love photography so much? When life becomes so blindingly distracting, I take great pleasure in seeing what other people walk by. I love seeing surprising vignettes of beauty, particularly when they are surrounded by ugliness.   

Of course, there is nothing special about me. I think we all have these two modes in our lives. There’s a lot we ignore, overlook, push aside, and hide.  And, there are some things we become enamored of or fixated on. Some things we just can’t see and some things we can’t not see. We filter life for the sake of the hope of self-preservation or for the comfort of self-delusion or the pursuit of self-interest. We all do it as a normal course of living, that is, until something shocks us and forces us to reboot.

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Pastor-Eye-Zzed-Heroes from Athens IL

One of the things I hate with a passion is having someone stand behind me and look over my shoulder. This is the case whether the person is the love of my life or a total stranger. They could be coming in for a kiss or the kill—it doesn’t matter because it pretty much affects me the same way and I pretty much react the same way.

It isn’t something that I admire about myself. It isn’t something I even fully understand. I think it goes to a much more basic and primordial level than I am able to access. Perhaps it is a protective instinct that God gave us so that we know when an enemy is creeping up on us? Maybe it has something to do with being a preacher and living next to an elder when I first entered the ministry? Maybe it is something to do with having three sons and only one computer for the majority of their lives growing up? Maybe this is just one of those areas in which I am able to exercise my unvarnished jerkiness? Because, believe me, I can be a big jerk if you stand behind me for any length of time!

What would it be like to look over God’s shoulder and watch Him work? Would you be able to follow the billions of things that He is able to juggle all at once? I don’t think so! Would you want to point to out a few things you would like Him to do differently, or faster? Probably! After all, that is part of the jerkiness of the human heart (Yes the word of the day is ‘jerkiness,’ but you may not want to use it in a sentence too often today!).

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Pastor-Eye-zzed: Of Faith
and Cinnamon Rolls

cinnamon roll

What do faith and cinnamon rolls have in common? Well, if ‘life is like a box of chocolates’ why can’t faith be like a plate cinnamon rolls? Am I deep or what?

We were in Jerome Arizona. Jerome is a great town up in the mountains of Arizona. From all accounts it was once a rip-snorting, rough and ready mining town in the 1800’s, but eventually it became pretty much an empty ghost town until the 1960’s. It was then that the flower children discovered it. They soon moved in or ‘squatted,’ depending on your perspective, and started living in Jerome. Of course, as soon as the town started to fill up, those who had abandoned it remembered that they owned it, and they decided it was time to start charging rent or expecting buy-outs.

Well, to make a long story short, the creativity and the optimism of the 1960’s won out as the new residents started up small business to pay the bills and tourism went through the roof. Many of those hippies still live there and Jerome is now the third largest tourist attraction in Arizona—after the Grand Canyon and Sedona. I love this story because it has the feel of frontier risk and opportunity. But, more than that, to take something lost and give it a second chance is downright Christian, is it not? Christ is all about taking that which is lost and giving it new life, but I digress.

While we were there, we had to do the most essential thing any traveller has to do—no, not that! Remember that I am from Canada and the most essential thing for Canadian travellers is that we find GOOD coffee. We went to a place that my buddy Rick knew of, but alas it was closed. I almost started to panic, but the high altitude and lack of caffeine made panicking too difficult. Thankfully, next door and down a few steps was this little shop that you could easily walk by without noticing. This harbinger of delight is called “Gisel’s Café and Bakery.”

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Pastor-Eye-zzed: Can I Have A “Do-Over”?

Rick & Carol “Can I have a do-over?” People usually ask that question because they’ve made a mistake of some sort, but sometimes God gives us do-overs because we did everything right!

There I stood in beautiful downtown Brenda AZ in the Rec Hall of the Black Rock RV Park. In front of me were two wonderful people. Rick, a preacher friend that I finally got to see in the flesh after 16 years of Internet tag and Carol, his soon to be wife. They were standing in front of me because I was about to marry them. Rick looked uncomfortable in his “monkey suit” as he called it, but even his crusty cowboy ways couldn’t hide his obvious joy. Carol looked radiant, which is a bit surprising since she had spent the better part of the week running around like a one-armed wallpaper hanger, taking care of all the necessary details to make the wedding happen.

A few minutes earlier, just as the ceremony was about to begin, Rick leaned over to me and said: “Now Grant, make sure there is some laughter in this wedding because the Christian Life is about joy and celebration.” I took that comment to be a first-class challenge, but I really didn’t have to work too hard at bringing any laughter because of Rick’s homemade processional CD.

Carol loves 50’s music, so the processional began with “Earth Angel,” which led into a recording of Rick introducing his bride as only Rick can. Next was the tympani to 20th Century Fox which lead to the bride’s marching orders: “Going to the Chapel”.

The only problem was that it was all recorded as one track so when the sound guy, half way through “Earth Angel,” accidentally started the song over again, there was nothing he could do but speed up the track. That made the remainder of “Earth Angel” sound like it was recorded by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Laughter naturally ensued.

The fact is, I don’t think we could have planned the beginning of the wedding any better. That faux pas perfectly set the tone for the rest of the ceremony. There were still some serious and solemn bits, but Rick was absolutely right, the Christian Life is a celebration.

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Pastor-Eye-zzed: Alone in AZ

caddy
I admit it. I am a guy and therefore I like gadgets, buttons, switches—basically anything that beeps or buzzes. Well here I sit in a Phoenix hotel room recounting the events of last night. We flew in from Buffalo via Chicago. We arrived in Phoenix and were met by our dear friends that we have never met before. Rick was one of the first people to connect with my website way back when I started it in 1996 and we have gone back and forth in the bits and bytes of the internet ever since.

I pray for him every Sunday and I know he does the same for me. When my mom had cancer, he and his church, not only prayed for her, but sent her cards. She lives in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. They are in Brenda, Arizona, USA. My mother was so delighted to know that a church she had never been to, full of people she had never met, cared enough to pray for her and send her cards. Recently, they did the same for Sheila, my wife, when she had a health scare. Those cards and the prayers they represented were pure emotional gold to her. They were a hug from God. (When was the last time you actually sent a card, a REAL card, not some virtual wannabe card? A REAL card means even more NOW because a REAL card sent in the mail is a RARE thing these days! )

Anyway, Rick and Carol are getting married and they asked me to do the wedding, I prayed about it and here we are in Phoenix on our way to Brenda in a day or so. Well after they met us at the airport, Rick gave me the keys to his Caddy. The keys, he explained, just stay in your pocket. You don’t need them to open the car door or start the car—you just need to have them on your person. Walk up to the door and it unlocks, walk away and it locks. I thought to myself, “What kind of strange magic is this?” I start to feel a slight tinge of giddiness. As I got behind the wheel of the car and pressed the button to start the car, (yes you heard right, you just have to push a button!), the steering wheel automatically came down and adjusted itself. Giddiness was now well above giddy-up mode.

We said our goodbyes to Rick and Carol and Sheila and I headed to the hotel. If we had just parked and both gone in to register, everything would have been OK, but Sheila, angel that she is, went in to register while I parked the car. What this meant was that I was left alone, in a car full of gadgets. Everywhere I looked there was something to press or pull. Initially everything was fine because I had a bunch of satellite radio stations to explore, but as I waited, I couldn’t help but think the rear-view mirror was way too dark and since there were several buttons on the mirror, including one that looked like a plus sign. I thought, ah, the plus sign must be the way to brighten the reflection in the mirror! I was so proud of myself. Who needs a manual? If I would have turned on the light, I would have noticed that the plus sign was actually a red cross sign, as in emergency, but alas, I did not turn on the light.

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Pastor-eye-zzed: Be Spiritual—Just Don’t Mention God

Russian Orthodox Church How spiritual can a spiritual guide be if a spiritual guide doesn’t guide you to God? I realize it sounds very much like I am spiritualizing that insightful question which has confounded intellectuals for millennia, “How much wood can a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”, but I am not. My question has nowhere near the profundity of said woodchuck conundrum. To me the answer is pretty obvious. How spiritual can a spiritual guide be if the spiritual guide doesn’t guild you to God? The answer is: “not very”.

Still, that didn’t stop the Russian Orthodox Church from publishing a new spiritual guide, in association with Russia’s ruling party, that doesn’t mention God.

According to a recent Reuters article (say “recent Reuters” ten times and then continue), instead of God making it into the church’s new guide, justice, patriotism, and solidarity top the list of ‘Eternal Values.’ Gee, it sounds more like a ‘conduct guide’ published by a labour union than a ‘spiritual guide’ published by a church!

According to the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the spiritual guide lists, in order of importance, in the eyes of the church and ruling party: 1. justice, 2. freedom, 3. solidarity, 4. unity, 5. self-restraint and sacrifice, 6. patriotism, 7. welfare and 8. Love. Can you believe that? It looks like they stopped at eight! If they extended the list to the ever popular ‘Top Ten’ format, God may have squeaked into the list, or, er, ah, maybe not.

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Pastor-eye-zzed: Confusion & Fear

Have you ever woken up in a state of panic? Maybe it was because you were particularly tired. Maybe you were sick. Maybe you were travelling and not in your own bed. It has happened to me a few times and nothing is more unsettling then being confused about where you are. I remember one time being in a cottage near Huntsville and waking up in the middle of the night to complete darkness. It was so dark I felt claustrophobic. It made me want to go home and get my trusty Snoopy nightlight!

Imagine what it must be like to be awake in a city you have lived in all your life and still get confused about exactly where you are. Oh, you might know the generalities of where you are, but at the same time, there is a veil of confusion that makes even the familiar seem unfamiliar. It feels kind of like you’re in a dream, but you know you are awake and your confusion is real.

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Pastor-eye-zzed: iPad Bling


What do you give to the gal who has everything including an iPad? How about an iPad cover from celebrated designer Yves Saint Laurent? For a mere $750.00 you can cover your $729.00 iPad. Or better yet, perhaps you should buy the $499.00 version of the iPad and buy the red and the black version of the cover! Perhaps if you buy two you can get a discount?

When I found out about this leather case today, I couldn’t help but see it as a symbol of the age we live in. I mean, we live in a world in which appearance and image are much more important than the substance of what is inside—even when what is inside is the latest, greatest offering from Apple! So what if it has won more “Gadget of the Year” awards than any other toy in recent memory? Take that “Miracle Chop” from Handy Gourmet!

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