Star Trek

The other night I watched the first episode of Enterprise. This was the first time I had ever seen this series. I know that I am behind the times (since the series has run for three years and was cancelled last year). But I just have peasant vision so I don't get to see some of the new shows.
Now the first episode was not too bad. However it did not really have a Star Trek feel. The music was wrong. But the my biggest problem with it was that instead of promoting diversity like some of the other Star Treks this one just felt like a bunch of cowboys on a space ship.
Everyone is just the same. In Star Trek the original series they had a Russian and a female African- American on the bridge. Now this was in the 1970s. That would be like putting an Iraqi Muslim on the bridge. Star Trek gave a positive picture of the future. Which I thought was totally great.
Well I will have to see where this series ends up going.

Cuban Friends

As I mentioned in my last post one of the highlights of the Cuba trip was meeting new people. Specifically for me it was meeting one family - actually it was a family and two friends: Guy and Kathleen (not sure if that is how you spell her name), their son John and their friends Kieth and Dirk. They were a really cool group of people. We spent a fair amount of time together - eating together, hanging out in the evenings, playing games. It is really too bad that they live really far away from us (map quest says it is about a 20 hour drive). I am not sure what drew us together. But I felt really comfortable hanging around them. It will be neat if we keep in touch with each other.

Cuba

Last week Cindy and I went to a resort in Cuba (Blau Colonial - which I highly recommend). It was totally awesome. We had a great time swimming, playing games, dancing, hanging out with each other and meeting other people. Cindy has posted some pictures on her blog (I do not have any on my computer - so check them out there).
One of my highlights was meeting new people. We meet all sorts of interesting people. We meet a forensic psychologist, a Russian who moved to Canada and married a Cuba (they were interesting because when they were first married they both did not speak english that well and also did not speak each other's language - Russian and Spanish), a couple of young british men, a couple who were on the honeymoon, a family that brought a toy dinosaur with them on all their vacations (the dinosaur's name is Eldon - we are hoping to get him to come to visit us but he is going to Peru with some other friends), Cuban workers (they organized crazy games for us to play every day and gave dance lessons as well as did performances in the evening).
As we meet people one of the things that I found interesting was the responses people would give when they found out I was a pastor. Many of them were shocked - some of the facial expressions we got were priceless. I wondered why people were so shocked that a pastor was in Cuba having a good time. Do they think that as a pastor I am not allowed to have any fun? And if the leadership is not allowed to have any fun what does that say about the religion? About God?

Guys

Guys like to show off. Specifically we like to show to women that we want to impress. Now I am maddly in love with this one woman. She just happens to be the smartest, best looking, all around coolest person in the entire world and she is my wife (which makes me the luckiest guy in the entire world). With me being so in love with this wonderful woman (Cindy) I will at times show off trying to impress her. Now my attempts at showing off can sometimes be dramtic but most often they just small little things. Little things that let her know that I am smart, cool, powerful, graceful ... you get the idea. Anyway all of this should help explain what happened to me today.

At lunch I was riding my bike across a parking lot. One important thing that you need to know before I carry on is that it is January and I am living in Canada - which means it is freezing cold and icy out. So I am riding my bike and I see my wife driving in her van. Now I get this great idea that I should catch up to her on my bike and say hi (ok so it may have something to do with showing off how fast I can ride my bike - which is not fast at all in reality). Well I start peddaling hard across the parking lot. As I pick up speed I notice that my wife has to stop at a stop sign and there are some cars coming so she is going to have to wait. Great I think this is going to work. The plan is that I am going to pull up beside her (casually and without huffing and puffing to much I hope) and say hi. However as I come racing up behind the van I hit a patch of ice. Yep that's right I totally bail (thankfully I did not cream into the van). My wife did not see a thing (or pretended not to) she just carried on to her appointment. I was left lying on the road in pain and my pride broken into little bits.
So much for showing my wife how graceful and athletic I am. At least until the next time...

Best of 2006

Every year my wife puts together our best photos for the year. If you want to see (and vote) the best of 2006 check out her blog Cindy Street

The Prophetic Imagination

I just finished reading The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggmann. This is one of the best books that I have ever read. I highly recommend people to read this book.
Walter says that the prophet job is to do two things: first to proclaim that the system that runs the world is dead - that it cannot (and never could) keep the promises that it gave. The system that we live in does not bring life. Thinking about our world right now we live in a system that states that by consuming things we will be happy. Most of us live very well. Better off then most of the people in the rest of the world (and of the people in the past). We truly do live like Kings and Queens. However there is depression. Buying things has not made us happy it has made us jealous. Walter states that the role of the prophet is to announce this through grief and mourning. The system we exist in is dead.
The second thing that a prophet is to is to energize the alternate community that Yahweh is bringing forth. The prophet does just speak about death he speaks about life. Yes, the system we live in cannot give life but Yahweh can. There is a hope for newness because Yahweh is free from the control of people (this includes the church) and he will be faithful. This newness comes to the ones who are oppressed (the outcasts). Walter says that this is because they are the ones who are willing to accept that the old system is dead.
Well that is a very brief summary of the book. I highly recommend to everyone to read this book.