As you know, we got rid of our t.v. The only time that we have really regretted doing so was during football season. (Or should I say David and the kids regretted it–I like football, but I can take it or leave it–I’d rather take a nap.)

And then Lost came back on.

We haven’t been Lost junkies since it started, but got into it last year, when we had the t.v. I’m not quite sure how it started, but Elizabeth made the statement that Lost was coming back on Jan. 31st–I think that was the date. Somehow, we found it on ABC.com and found out you can watch the past episodes for free–You don’t have to buy the DVD’s. (I’m sure everyone already knows this, but I thought it was cool.) Well, we started at episode 1, of season 1. One weekend we had a Lost marathon, where we watched about 6 or 7 episodes in a day–(it was raining and cold, ok?) But usually we try to keep the watching to one or two episodes on the weekends. David and I are on the beginning of the second season, and the kids are probably on the 4th, by now!

Anyway, we have been keeping up with the new episodes–and did you see the last one? So is Jin dead? Has he lost his memory? Did he become involved in a witness protection program and relocate so that Sun thinks he is dead? And what in the heck is he doing working for Sun’s father again?

And they brought Michael back. That was interesting. I’m finding him to be rather annoying in the second season with his “I want my son back, ” crap. Get over it already, you big whiner! But I am wondering where his son is–I haven’t gotten through all the seasons, but I do know that Michael brought Kate/Sawyer/Jack to Ben and Ben let Michael go on a boat with his son, supposedly to civilization. (I caught a couple episodes here and there.)

Anyone else like Lost? Who are your favorite characters? Who is your most annoying character?

Well, we get to watch another episode on Saturday, so I’ll be sure to tune in.

Written on March 18th, 2008 , Everyday Life

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of dismantling. My parents can attest to the fact that my brothers and I were quite adept at it. In fact the more difficult the challenge, the more we rose to the challenge.

A favorite family tale was the Tonka trucks we were given in our youth. Mom and Dad, tired of us destroying the plastic toys, spent big money on Tonka trucks, which we had apart within hours. In may actually only have been minutes, becuase my most vivid memory of my truck was turning it over and discovering the metal tabs.

Bent metal just cries out to be unbent.

Down to the basement we ran to try out our new indestructible trucks was what Mom and Dad witnessed. Down to the basement to find tools to remove the cab was our intentions.

We broke them. We broke them good and fast.

I can’t speak for my brothers, by my motivation to remove the cab was to see what would happen. I honestly thought removing the top of the truck would make it go faster and as a male, faster is always better.

Another male rule is “anything that is standing must be pushed over”. The natural state of vertical is horizontal, and the taller the item the more the urge to see it fall. Build a tower of blocks in front of a boy and walk away, I dare you.

My brothers and I repeatedly applied this rule to anything small enough to have influence over. One of our favorite places was the woods out front of the house in Pine River. I am not sure what trees we were pushing down, but we pushed them down. All of them.

We broke them. We broke them to the ground.

Electricity has always fascinated me. I am certain that fascination has lead me to the information technology field and live sound. Plugging in a microphone and guitar into a power amp was definitely designed by a boy. Wires and power could not be any more male. Women have much more sense than to believe a thin sleeve of insulation wrapped around copper wire is safe.

Once we moved to Brainerd we discovered electricity. This was in large part due to the fact that we moved to an older house with these things called fuses.

Blowing fuses made Dad mad.

Blowing fuses was now the mark of manhood. If we could blow a fuse, that meant whatever we were up to was dangerous. Another male rule is “dangerous is only dangerous if you are stupid”. There is huge latitude in danger, and the more clever you are the more dangerous you can be.

Understanding electricity needs a path to ground before it can harm you was an epiphany moment. Watching the utility workers touching live wires in their magic isolated bucket was inspiring. To hold on to enough electricity to vaporize flesh, to actually have those electrons flowing around your hands, now that was amazing.

In a fit of anger one afternoon I decided to electrocute my brother.

He had it coming.

I was hoping that the metal springs in his bed would be isolated enough so that when he laid down he would complete the circuit. It turns out the paint on the metal was not up to the job and created quite a light show when plugged in. Good thing the fuse let go, because the arc welder we made was really bright. And hot.

We broke them. We broke hundreds of them.

So why the trip down memory lane? Groundwork I guess.

Last night while playing my guitar and singing on stage with the four worship teams in my church I remembered that I break things. I have been put on this planet to break things.

Not the adolescent way of breaking toys, pushing down dead trees, or foolishly trying to hurt my brother, but in the adult way of breaking down strongholds.

It felt really good to break things last night. Instead of broken trucks and fallen trees and blown fuses there was healed hearts, raised spirits and the power of God. Years of division, hurt, separation, and pride fell by the power of unity under the banner of the King.

Go break some stuff this week.

Written on March 17th, 2008 , Everyday Life, Faith

I think I am finally recovering from that awful cold I had.  A week after I had the first one, I wake up with a runny/stuffy nose, body aches and sore throat all over again!  I was sick with exactly the same thing I had the first time.  Now I am finishing the second round of antibiotics and feeling much better.  I really did have a sinus infection–headaches, my face hurt, and I couldn’t chew unless I had some good old Tylenol in me.  It was a pretty bad one.

So to celebrate my health, I went to get my hair cut.  I left the teens at home to finish their work and I went to the salon.  My hair was really grown out–I know it is short, but when you have short hair, you notice when it isn’t as short as it was.  So I needed a cut.  My regular stylist wasn’t there.  That was ok, because how hard can it be to trim up my hair?

Apparently, a little too hard.  I tried explaining what I wanted, but I definitely didn’t get what I wanted.  I refuse to even post a picture because I think I look hideous.  Yeah, my hair was short before, but now it is really short (think Joan Jett) and spiky.  I got several compliments, but are people really serious?  A couple of my piano students just stared at my hair–I think they were at least being honest.

I don’t mind too much, though.  My hair grows quickly, and soon it will be where I actually wanted it to be cut.  Yesterday my daughter said, “Mom, are you going to dye your hair?  Because you can really see the gray in it since you got it cut.”

I have the dye–and I plan on using it.  Maybe then I will post a picture.

Written on March 15th, 2008 , Everyday Life

Julie has started to feel the little crumb cruncher bumping around inside.

I startled her last night opening the door to the bedroom and even though she was fully awake, the little one was sound asleep when I felt for it.

Feeling your baby inside your wife is one of the most amazing experiences. It is an incredibly satisfying and almost spiritual event. It speaks to every boy gene and testosterone saturated cell that “you did good” you made another you.

And when it is all said and done the drive in men is for that. To make another you, to pass on the generations, to father, to provide, to sustain, to create. It is the very father heart of God.

I can hardly wait to feel the little one kicking and bumping my back as my wife lies next to me sleeping.

It may just keep me awake all night thanking God for things that go bump in the night.

Written on March 12th, 2008 , Everyday Life

I have started reading a book by David C. Downing on C.S. Lewis. It is called Into The Region Of Awe: Mysticism In C. S. Lewis. I had no intention of reading about C.S. Lewis. I was lead to it while searching the library for a book on the Moravians.

I may be going to Germany this summer, and intend to visit Herrnhut, the birthplace of the 1727 revival that birthed the Moravian missionary movement which literally impacted the planet.

I first heard about the Moravians through MorningStar Ministries. They own land in Moravian Falls, NC which was settled by Moravian missionaries in 1753. How MorningStar came to own the land is an interesting story in and of itself.

Something is happening to me.

Rick Joyner, 7/31/2006

The great souls in history took ground that future generations could walk over much easier, faster, and safer. A good example is Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, who took a generation to establish the principles of modern missions. They not only cut a path which others could follow, but at times, they wandered up box canyons and had to turn around, seemingly losing a lot of time and resources with their mistakes. However, even those diversions saved future generations from having to make the same ones. They prepared a highway and a good map to go with it.

We only stand where we are today because others fought through the forests and underbrush, cut down mountains and hills, and built up the low places—spiritual swamps that were full of dangers and disease. They left us a wonderful highway so we could easily make it this far with relatively little effort. Let us resolve to carry this highway as far as we can in our own generation, making it much easier for others to make it as far as we have, and then go farther.

There will be a generation who actually finishes the job. It could even be ours. We may go around the next turn, cut through the next acre of underbrush, and come face to face with His glory. Even if we are not the one who finishes the job, let us do our part as well as it can be done. The way we prepare the way for the Lord and His kingdom to come to the earth, so that His will be done here just as it is in heaven, is to build a highway.

I was talking with my son Sunday about this very concept, running on the fruits of others labor and used a road as an example. Someone had to make a great sacrifice to build it and now we have the benefit of using it. The problem we seem to run into is that we focus on the road and become content with the lovely road never to break ground on new roads. The road is there so that we can go further with less effort.

But I digress. Where was I, oh yes, the book.

So I found this book about mysticism and C.S. Lewis and at first I thought it to be an odd statement. I have not read much of Lewis, but I have found him to be a logical man. I did read the Screwtape Letters years ago and thought it was brilliant but never made the jump to mystic. To be fair, I have wasted much of my life thinking reading was a waste of time, but I intend to do more reading of Lewis very soon.

What surprised me is that the more I thought about his writing the more obvious it was that he had encounters with God. I think the guy moved in the supernatural, really moved in it. His grasp of the kingdom of God in The Chronicles of Narnia can only be explained by experiencing kingdom. We give too much credit to creativity. The best creativity is based on some sort of experience, otherwise it is just fiction.

This excerpt from Downings book was telling. “When writing about Narnia to a class of fifth graders who asked if it were possible to visit Aslan’s country, Lewis replied that the only way he knew of was through death but then added this curious qualifier: ‘Perhaps some very good people get just a tiny glimpse before then.’”

Amen.

On my walk this morning as I was mulling over the concept that science is the study of nature and since nature is a pointer to God, I realized that science will never be able to prove God. It is not an original thought, but the more I meditated on it, a simple phrase rose up in me.

“God can not be defined by what He has designed.”

God is supernatural, which literally means “above nature”. To look for Him within the confines of His creation will never do. For us as the created to try and find the creator within the confines of His creation is like trying to describe color.

Try and describe the color Red. Go ahead, try it! You can’t without a reference to something that is red! Color simply is. It is what it is and even though you can measure it, quantify it, split it, mix it, without experiencing it the concept of color is meaningless. We can do the same thing with the aroma of coffee. We can’t adequately describe aroma without a reference to something that also has aroma. Again, if you have never smelled anything how on earth can you relate it?

Now, lets try and define God. We can describe attributes of Him, but define Him from nature? Not gonna happen.

The fact that we can comprehend the concept of God is proof enough He exists. We have experienced Him already, that is the reason for our ability to even comprehend the concept, but He can never be defined by the created. Stop looking for Him in the natural, He IS the supernatural.

Einstein wrote that he was awestruck by our ability to comprehend the universe, at least in part, and in later life remarked several times that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

Which begs the question; why does man have the ability to grasp the incomprehensible?

So that we can be one with the creator.

Written on March 11th, 2008 , Deep Thoughts, Faith
The Rohr Family

Blessed Beyond Measure