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A sermon illustration
I told this one Sunday morning:
There once was a Canadian man. We’ll call him John, for that is his name. John had three sons, Jonathan, Andrew, and Matthew. John wanted to do right by his sons, so he taught them important things. He taught them how to ride a bike. He taught them how to catch a ball. He taught them how to skate and play hockey and keep their sticks on the ice. And most importantly, he taught them to cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
As the years went by, one of John’s sons decided that the Maple Leafs were not his team. Matthew decided to cheer for the dastardly Vancouver Canucks. Hockey conversations became difficult. Matthew made fun of the Leafs. His family disdained the Canucks. They would watch the same games, but cheer for different things.
But…
But… Every four years, something more fundamental comes into play. Every four years, they have the chance to cheer for the same things. To be excited about the same plays.
Every four years, team Canada plays at the Winter Olympics. For those hockey games, the Mackay family is united. We cheer together. Where there was strife, there is instead unity.
1 Cor 10:16-17:
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
What we have in common is more important than any differences we may have.
Going downhill
So, I’ve been working on my work in progress for, oh, four years now. It’s embarrassing. I’m the kind of person who understands that you just have to do the work — in my head anyway. But I have had varying success at actually doing the work.
Well, as I mentioned, I decided to do the 30 days of Hustle in February, and to make a goal of writing 500 words a day. I hoped I would be done or close to done with this book by the end of the month.
I did great out of the gate. I had a three day spell where I didn’t write a word. And as of today, 23 days in, I’m still on target to reach my goal.
A nice byproduct of this is that I’ve finally moved into the third act of the book. It feels like a snowball rolling down hill. These are the parts of the story I knew first, the parts that captured my imagination first. They’ve lived the longest, and now they’re happening in the story. It’s fun. I’m really enjoying it.
Anticipation
I watched my son experience something he’d been waiting a long time for today. It wasn’t anything major, just a movie he had been waiting to watch for “forever” (or a little while).
I think his anticipation of the event was far greater than the actual event. And that without his mom and I working hard to build the anticipation.
I think my expectations are most commonly colored with my cynicism. Luke doesn’t have that problem. His excitement is just flat-out sweet and true. And because of that, his enjoyment is true. I love that.
Nerd tool of the day
At $35, the Google ChromeCast might be the coolest nerd tool I’ve played with lately. Send any tab from your browser to the tv. It’s been especially handy for live streams of the Olympics. Curling on the TV without running a cable to the tv? Awesome!
And then, it integrates really well with Netflix particularly. It lets me browse on my laptop and then click play to device. Seconds later, I’m watching netflix on the tv without the frustration of fighting our (cheap and terrible) bluray player.
Again, for $35, this is a fantastic little thing. Plugs straight into an HDMI port. You can pick it up at walmart. Way cool.