Alicia To Seattle

I drove Alicia to the airport in Seattle today.

Yesterday at graduation was the first time I'd seen her since almost a year ago when she moved back to the US. We've stayed in touch now and again, but seeing her and spending the day with her today was good.

I picked her up for breakfast around 10am. We went to a little place on Cordova and Cambie: very good roast beef sandwiches! Then around noon we drove down to Seattle, stopping at Pike's Market downtown for a quick bite to eat. Incidentally, I believe the last time I was at Pike's Place was exactly 3 years ago, with Alicia.

Upon arriving at the airport we found out that her flight was delayed by an hour, so we sat down in one of the airport lounges and talked some more.

For the first time in a very long time our conversation was natural, without all the post-relational-stress-disorder (did I just make up that term?) that kept us both from being ourselves for so long. I take this as God's grace: healing two people enough so as to be able to continue a friendship, after much pain and anguish.

Here's a pic of us last night at graduation:

Mastering The Divine

Today was my graduation from Regent College. I graduated with a Master in Divinity (MDiv).

What a horrible name for a degree: Master of Divinity. If there's anything I've learned over the past four years it's that I'm not a Master of the Divine. I've learned that contrary to my desires and wishes, I'm unable to Master the Divine. I'm unable to master his ways, I'm unable to master his thoughts. God cannot be mastered. Otherwise he wouldn't be God!

Four highlights from this evening:
1- Family => I'm grateful for my family who attended the graduation. It's a shame that they only were really introduced to Regent on my day of graduation.
2- Friends => I've said it before, and I say it again, I'm blessed to have amazing friends.
3- Student Speaker => In my view, Matt's speech was the highlight of the evening: "May the world know us by our limping." Amen and amen.
4- Charge to the Graduates => Ian P gave a very good charge, based on Psalm 23: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you..."

Here are a few pics of the special evening:

Graduating:

Cub and Family (from left to right: Tanis, Karin, Ted, Cub, dad, mom):

Cub, dad, mom:

Tanis and Cub:

Ted, Karin, Cub:

Cub and Mark:

Paul, Cub, and Eric:

Cub and Soccerinos (Clau, Cub, Tatiana, Ruben, Sanjit, Vero, Jen, Rachelle). Ceci is not in this pic, but she's in the "All" pic below:

Alicia, In Young, and Cub:

Connie and Cub:

Cub and Terri:

Cub and Dave:

Rob and Cub:

Cub and Clau:

Cub and Jen:

All together, family and friends (Ted, Karin, Ruben, Tanis, dad, mom, Sanjit, Cub, Tatiana, Ceci, Paul, Vero, Clau, Mark, Eric, Rachelle, Terri):

Wine and Cheese "Brindis":

Rudy also attended the convocation, but was unable to join for the celebrations afterwards, therefore, no pics of him in the above collage. Thanks to all who made this day (and the last 4 years!) special. I thank God for each of you.

I'm Happy To Say ...

... that my sermon this morning went well. Thank you Lord! Well, that's at least according to my point of view. I suppose it would be better to let the hearers judge.

But I preached with a blessed sense of peace, the kind of peace that comes beyond understanding (Phil 4). More importantly, I believe I remained faithful to the text. So even if my delivery was horrible (which I don't think it was), I did not mislead people.

I think what keeps me from saying an unequivocal "yes" to preaching the Word week-in week-out is just this: faithfulness. Having heard what's being said "in the name of God" in churches, I don't want to add greater confusion to what many already perceive to be a confusing message coming out of the church.

The church is so fragmented nowadays, that our message is not coming through clearly. Everyone preaches according to their own "tradition". Rather than having one Pope as the Roman Catholics do, we in the Protestant tradition have made everyone into a pope. Pick and choose your "options", based on the "tradition" that seems most in line with your personality. Whoever had the idea of linking the life of the church with personality is off, way off. The point of church is to get us beyond personality, right into the presence of God.

Having said that, the idea of a Pope is not exactly Christian, either. I like the way the early church termed the bishop of Rome as "the first among equals". Regrettably, sin found it's way in, or rather, sin found its way out of the human heart, and thus the schism between East and West. It seems to me that the Orthodox Church has got it right, in naming a number of geographical bishops to oversee the direction of the church, and to boot, they work out of consensus, in line with the book of Acts where the early church moved forward on something only when it "seemed right to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15).

The Anglican Church has a similar setup, except, we lack the testicular fortitude to call a spade a spade, to call sin sin. We have drunk too much of the fountain of Enlightenment, and consequently, we believe that we (the human race) are getting smarter and smarter, and it's only a matter of time until sin is eradicated. And so for us Anglicans we bless everything in sight, because after all, "it's all good." Of course, this is exactly opposite to the message of the gospel. The incarnation was part of the plan of the Father's precisely because it's not all good.

Where was I going with this rant? Oh right, I remember: all this, to say that the more I read and learn about the Orthodox Church, the more I'm compelled to say that it's the "one true church." At least structurally, they are organized in a way that doesn't make anyone into the Pope (thus, they can truly say "and the Holy Spirit led us"), and they are able to deal with sin in the church in a way that other ecclesial structures are either unable or unwilling to deal with.

Anyways, this whole post was supposed to be about me and my sermon. Maybe my excursion into matters of ecclesiology shows that I'm not as much of a narcissist as I thought I was. Ha!

Thank you Lord for your presence in the church. Thank you for leading and guiding us. May you, Lord Jesus, feed our souls, our bodies, our whole beings.

Done

I finished writing the sermon. What a thrilling experience.

Now I have a few days to meditate on it and practise it.

Sermon Outline

Here's my sermon outline for this Sunday. The text is Philippians 4:1-9

Sermon Title: Standing Firm
Thesis: Paul's main idea throughout the book is to exhort and encourage the Philippians to stand firm in the gospel. In this section of the text Saint Paul lays out some final thoughts, exhortations, before closing the letter.

Stand firm in:
* Unity => unity in the Lord; "agree" in the Lord
* Joy => joy in the Lord; joy comes through constant prayer in thanksgiving
* Holiness => in thought and action

Catching Up With Friends

Rudy, Joanne, and I went out to Aldergrove, to visit with AJ, Carol, and Nicholas today.

They'd just recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, Dubai and Oman, and so we got to hear all their amazing stories of "life in the Middle East." What an amazing adventure they had. Hearing all their stories made me want to go to the Middle East and experience the world there. There's so much that intrigues me about it (although not so much the places they visited): the food, the politics, the faith, and of course, the wonderful people. I hope that one day I have the privilege to visit that part of the world. I think I'd start in Egypt and work my way north: Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. At the end I'd take in Israel.

But more important than the stories we heard, was fellowship. Aside from Joanne, whom I don't know very well, the others are people very dear to my heart, so it was a pleasure to spend the afternoon and evening together. The theme of our dinner was "Greek", so it was nice eating some greek food, updating one another on the goings on in our lives. Carol's dessert was - as usual - splendidly yummy.

I wish we weren't all in such different life-phases. I'd like to spend more time with these great friends.

Miracles DO Happen

The weather forecasters of Vancouver predicted hail for tonight, and amazingly, they were right!

(The miracle here is not only the hail - that's obvious - like the miracle of sunshine, but I'm referring to the fact that they got the weather prognosis right. I think it's a first this year!)

Taxes

Got my taxes done today. I paid $171 to get them done. I get a return of $90.

What's wrong with that picture?

Updated Link

I finally updated the Cub's Pictures link. I've been meaning to do this for ages. It's just a simple photo gallery, but that'll help keep it manageable. Plus, as part of my ISP package, it's free.

I'll try to put pics on there regularly, although my limit's just a measely 100Mbs.

False Creek, Charleston Park

Spring's definitely back. Today Clau and I walked from under the Cambie St. bridge to Granville Island. Once there I chowed down a hot dog while she drank a hot cocoa, and afterwards we made our way back. Vancouver's such a gorgeous city in the spring. Here are some of the beautiful sights we took in.

Next Preaching Date

I've been invited to preach at my church again, on April 27th, and I gladly accepted.

I'm going to preach on a passage from Philippians, likely chapter 4.

Clau's Birthday: Happy 35th!

Today was my best friend Clau's birthday. Our attempted relationship may have failed miserably, but by God's grace, our friendship remains in tact and in some respects stronger than ever, and today I had the opportunity to celebrate Clau with her/our closest friends: the soccerinos.

We met at 5:30pm at my place, and drove to Richmond, to play laser tag. From left to right: Laura, Cecilia, Sanjit, Tatiana, Benja, Juanjo, Jen, Ruben, Clau, Mercia, Juan, Matt, and Cub:















Benja, Clau, and Juan:















At around 8pm we made our way to Steveston, to eat dinner. The restaurant was in a very good location, with a good menu, but overpriced. Nevertheless, we had a fantastic time. At the dinner table, from left to right: Sanjit, Cub, Jen, Juan, Terri (missing), Berto, Clau, Cecilia, Vero, Benja, Mercia and Matt:















Good food, atmosphere:






























Sanjit and Cub:















Ceci, Vero, Benja:















My querida gitanita Clau:

Soccer, Birthday Cakes, and Friendships

I'm so blessed to have such great friends.

Today I played soccer from 1-4, then went home for a hot bath (my back hurt like hell), and then in the evening I went to Vero's for her birthday party.

Highlights:
* soccer .. I can't get enough of the beautiful game
* Vero's empanadas .. the South American equivalent to (but way better than) Indian somosas
* Clau pushing Vero's face into the cake .. what was she thinking, .. better yet, was she thinking at all?
* Great conversations with Benja, Natalia, Vero, Marty, and a German visitor Tanya

I think it's interesting that 25+ years after moving away from South America, the people I feel closest to here are South Americans. The exception to this are James, Rudy, AJ & Carol, Rachelle, and Scott, but they each have their own lives with their own priorities which makes getting together with them (and thus fellowship) a challenge.

Other friendships that I need to nurture more, or perhaps strenghten ties with, are Paul, Eric, and my newfound "Orthodox" friend Mark.

One friendship I've completely ruined and need to re-establish is with Nathan. At one point we were connected at the hip, but I've totally neglected his friendship and need to confess and re-establish.

Meeting With The Pastor

I met with my pastor today to discuss the possibility of full-time ministry work. Whereas last time we met (about 6 months ago), we discussed exclusively the prospects of doing hospitality/acts of mercy work in the east end of Vancouver, this time we didn't even consider it as an option.

This time, we considered the following three options:
1- ordination in the Anglican Church of Canada, working in northern BC.
2- ministry work in South America under the umbrella of the Southern Cone.
3- ministry work in Egypt (!) under the umbrella of the Anglican Church in Egypt.

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster.

An Interesting Development

About 6 weeks ago I emailed one of my professors at Regent and asked him to keep me in the loop on potential openings for orthodox priests/pastors in the Anglican Church. He emailed me back with the names/email addresses of two bishops, both of them in BC, who may have openings in their respective dioceses.

I contacted one of them last week, the bishop of the Diocese of Caledonia, and we had an interesting phone conversation last week. As a result, I'm considering on whether to pursue ordination.

Funny, 5 years ago I'd have laughed at the proposition of ordination. Three years ago I'd have rejected the proposition as "not for me". One year ago I'd have considered it an option, albeit a distant option. Now I'm considering it seriously.