This is the title of the picture if you follow this link….think about the title, look at the picture…wow
http://wink.nixone.com/archives/925
I love how pictures can just capture something in our hearts…
Thanks to Jen for finding this article on the BBC…
As US swimming sensation Michael Phelps sets his sights on more gold medal wins at the Beijing Olympics this weekend, the BBC’s Michael Hirst examines the part an extraordinary diet has played in the sportsman’s remarkable success.
If it is true that you are what you eat, then here is the suggested intake if you want to become history’s most successful Olympian:
For breakfast: three fried egg sandwiches, with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions and mayonnaise, followed by three chocolate-chip pancakes; a five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of French toast and a bowl of grits (a maize-based porridge), washed down with two cups of coffee.
For lunch: half a kilogram (one pound) of enriched pasta; two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread smothered with mayonnaise, washed down by energy drinks.
For dinner: Another half-kilogram of pasta, perhaps with a carbonara sauce, followed by a large pizza and more energy drinks.
That combination may not sound very healthy, and at a staggering 10,000 calories, would feed five average men for a day.
But the menu is reportedly all in a training day’s eating for champion swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics and is aiming for eight this time round.
“Eat, sleep and swim, that’s all I can do,” said the US swimmer, after winning his 11th Olympic gold.
In addition to being amazed that Phelps doesn’t sink after eating all of this, I was thinking about my own diet of spiritual food.
I got a picture of myself being a spiritual race…what kind of food and how much food would I want to eat in order to finish and even win the race? I think I’ve often convinced myself that it’s ok to live like I’m in the off-season…so I get lazy in my training, my diet shrinks, and then I have no energy to sustain me even trying to run (or swim) the race even if I wanted to.
Spiritually speaking, I need to packing in the grits, the eggs, the energy drinks, the pizza, the pasta…to sustain me in the race (battle is a more appropriate word most of the time!) that I’m in. I want to be training in a way that makes the race enjoyable…not like an out-of-shape, ex-athlete trying to set out to do a marathon without even being able to jog around the block! (not that, that was any commentary on me of course!)
Two things on the more positive side:
1. I did go jogging yesterday and had a great time! I woke up less sore than I did yesterdaay and feel great. I think I’ll be running more now.
2. I do down two cups of coffee at breakfast like Michael Phelps…Somebody’s got to beat him at something, so I’m going to go for three cups today.
I’m utterly grateful to Mike Goldsworthy for this and this is a complete rip off of his post…but this was too good not to pass on…
This is an excerpt from this real Craigslist posting:
Surely without you there, they would be stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed them, let them out to potty, or clean their litter box. This is probably not what you envision for your pets after you are gone. This is where I come in…
I am here to offer you pet care service for after the rapture. As an atheist, I will surely still be here on this earth post rapture and would love to look after your pets for a small fee…
They will get adequate amounts of food, water, and shelter as well as plenty of exercise and socialization as I would imagine there will be a lot of pets that will be abandoned by Jesus the pet hater that will need to be cared for.
Amazing…and the rest of the ad is good too…Thanks again Mike…Get used to your work being copied now that you’re the man…whom I greatly admire.
Tonight Jen and I went down to the beach in Den Haag, it’s an area called Scheveningen. I didn’t really realize that Den Haag was so close to the beach…it was only about a 5 minute drive from the office. But it was quite nice down there. The reason for the trip (other than to hang out with friends) was to watch a firework competition out over the water. It was a great time…and here are some of my observations from the beach trip:
1. This part of Den Haag totally had a Santa Monica feel to it! When people had told me this before I thought, “Sure.” But it really does. I think we’re going to try and head back down before we settle back up in Amsterdam..
2. Bonfires are strictly forbidden on the beach. A group of people started one and within minutes a ‘beach patrol’/police truck was there and made them put it out. It’s really too bad because it’s cold and a beach bonfire would have been perfect tonight!
3. Being the Netherlands, some people nearby thought that they would enjoy the show more if they smoked some pot. So they did perfectly legally while sitting next to us and the other families. It’s crazy, you can’t do a bonfire, but you can smoke a joint.
4. The fireworks were not too bad…tonight’s competitors were South Korea and Ireland…and Ireland smoked South Korea…no pun intended in regards to the pot or the fire…or the fireworks.There was no music or anything to the fireworks, but it was cool to just listen to them. If it weren’t for the girl constantly talking very loudly behind us (Sophie said she was just talking about nothing…) we would have only heard the sound of the fireworks. It was really interesting how thousands of us just sat there silently watching and listening.
5. I got to see the sun set over the North Sea…England was out there somewhere…but this was the first time I’ve seen the sun set over a body of water that wasn’t the Pacific. Also, we could see the big dipper…It’s crazy to think that thousands of miles away in California I could see it there too.
Ok..it’s late and I’m exhausted. goodnight….
Have you ever stopped to think, really think, about the impact that our choices make on the world? By ‘world’ I don’t me the world that exists immediately around you and me, I mean the world as a people group…a very…large…people group. I know this sounds trite, but the stuff that we use on a daily basis, the shirt I’m wearing, the shoes I wear, the contacts in my eyes, the case that holds my sun glasses…all of this stuff comes from somewhere. It doesn’t magically show up on the shelves of our favorite stores…it comes from somewhere.
It is this ’somewhere’ that I’m thinking about as I write at the moment. Here’s what is on my mind: If I am a person that wants to see the beauty of the Kingdom exposed and evil destroyed, do I only care about that happening in close proximity to me? Or do I care about that globally? If we want to take seriously kicking the darkness away, we have to act small and think big…We have to realize that our small choices matter because they end up influencing someone, ’somewhere’.
Check out this video:
My friend Deb showed this at the start of her talk at our conference the other week and it has haunted me since. I can’t get the picture of my Maisie gluing those freakin’ shoes together for 8 hours a day out of my head. I can’t imagine my Maisie waking up in a pile of other kids in a room the size of a closet. I can’t imagine my Maisie eating a small bowl of rice for lunch everyday. So why do I live like it’s ok for someone else’s child to do this? They have a name too…
I don’t know what to do about this.
I guess the reason that I am posting this is because I hate my own apathy towards this problem so clearly. I also think that any of us followers of Jesus who desire to see the Kingdom of God reign in this life need to look at how we have turned a blind eye to the ways our lives contribute to inhumanity…which is one of the ultimate forms of evil we can see. The Scriptures talk so much about God siding with the oppressed, protecting the innocent, and caring for the poor…it is His heart and we are to join Him where He is. I once heard a modern day prophet say, “God, my friends, is with the poor. And God is with us when we are with them!”
I am going to start by praying: God, give me eyes to see what needs to be seen…and courage to not turn back towards comfort when I see something I wish had stayed hidden.
I’ll end this post with this…In the book Amos, who was a fig farmer turned mouthpeice for God (7:14), Amos is quoting what the oppressors of the needy say, they say, “We can buy the poor with money and the needy for a pair of sandals” (8:6) Watch the video again if you need to make this connection.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
And the sky displays what his hands have made.
One day tells a story to the next.
One night shares knowledge with the next without talking,
without words,
without their voices being heard.
Yet, their sound has gone out into the entire world,
Their message to the ends of the earth.
Today is Jen and I’s seven year anniversary! They say that the hardest years of marriage are the first, seventh, and twentieth. So far, we are on par with the first two! Most of the time the seventh is rough because people have had kids and this changes everything…but our seventh was difficult for so many other things. Here is the short list that kept us on edge for lucky year number 7: We lived out of suitcases for all but 8 weeks of the year. We both went through significant identity (re)formation periods. We we’re both fighting for different things for a while. We both questioned what we (and the other) were doing with our lives. Our finances were going downhill. Blah Blah Blah…This year sucked in so many ways…but in a number of other ways, it was the best year of our lives.
At our conference the other week we went to a marriage seminar by our psychologist friends Mike and Mary, who work with Christian Associates. One of the things that they said was the strongest factors in lasting marriages is friendship. I can honestly say to all 6 of you who read my blog that Jen is my best-friend. Our friendship was the core of what kept us talking, trusting, playing, and laughing together during a really hard year. We’re certainly not perfect (our environment is not….well…lacking emotion or opinion), but I can always count on the fact that Jen and I are for each other and we are both willing to sacrifice for the other when the chips are down. Somehow, by the grace of God, we have come out of this year stronger, more together, more honest, more of a team, more gracious, and more proud of each other than when we started.
We are entering year 8 of our marriage in another crazy season of life. Living out of suitcases. On the move. And I’m sure lots more learning to do. I certainly hope that we don’t have to repeat a year like this past one, but even if we did, I’d be going through it with my best friend, knowing that somehow and in someway, if I just trusted, God would bring us closer together. And to be closer to my wife, to know her more, to trust her more, to encourage her more…is worth anything to me. So, who knows how different life will be a year from now? Who knows what challenges we’ll face? Who knows what twits and turns will be on our road? I know that God has gifted me with the chance to do it all with my best friend….
Here’s to seven years…they’ve gone by so fast, but I can barely imagine life before them or without them…and wouldn’t have it any other way.
I could write on and on about this, but I won’t for two reasons. One: I’m tired and need to sleep. Two: I don’t think that I could ever really communicate the depth of gratitude I have for my wife. I’m not that good of a writer! So I’ll stop now….go to bed…and wake up in the morning with my best friend to get on with the journey of life…
To give you an idea of how busy I was at this past conference I wanted to show you all of the pictures that I took…but I came into a problem. I didn’t take any pictures during the whole week. Not a single one (with my own camera, to be fair). I was importing pictures last night and they jumped straight from Chicago to Amsterdam…not a single click in between. This is almost sad to me.
Thankfully, Rogier took a bunch of pictures and he’s put them up on Flickr to share…here.
But being back in Europe is inspiring me to take more pictures again and I’m going to try really really hard to share them with you all!
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