Adventurous Pancakes

So for Rachel Huebel's birthday, I made her pancakes after we finished wrangling children at church. We've had a great deal of success in our pancake adventures of late: cinnamon and Clif Bar pancakes, walnut and toffee pancakes, Reese's peanut butter cup pancakes, and so far her personal favorite strawberry and chocolate chip pancakes.

I had the idea to take one of her other favorite foods and mix it into pancakes. Rachel loves cheesecake, so I took a recipe of healthy cheesecake that I found from Fuel the Fighter and folded that into the pancake batter.

Marketing genius Seth Godin warns business owners and marketers about making meatball sundaes. That is, a lot of time, we'll take two things that we really like and mix them together and end up with something that is completely inedible. This certainly had meatball sundae potential.

Pancake batter on the left, cheesecake on the right.

Two pancakes, wondering how they'd taste.

So they kinda turned out more like crepes than pancakes

Rachel, posing happily as requested

Me enjoying the results of the experiment.

As we ate the pancakes, each bite was an experience. Some started out tasting like uncooked pancake with a little cream cheese to only a few chews later tasting like peanut butter cup. While I certainly would not be able to defeat the Iron Chef with my cheesecake pancakes, It was the most fun I've had cooking in a long time. I haven't made a cheesecake from scratch in over 11 years. These didn't quite have the fluffiness of pancakes, nor the creaminess of cheesecake. But it was a fun experiment.

The cheesecake pancakes didn't quite turn out like I thought they would. The same can be said of my life.

I was hoping to take that "next step" with my life and start on masters, but instead have stepped into a limbo wide and broad, a limbo I thought I left four years ago. I went from making $20 an hour to $8 an hour, by no fault of my own. To say it's caused me to readjust my budget a bit is an understatement.

Rachel finished college a semester early and is entering into the same post-college/pre-career limbo that I have been drifting in and out of. She's weighing choices, completing applications, scheduling interviews, and all that crap that I hated and still hate to this day.

We spend far too much time wondering if we're making the right decisions, and end up too afraid to do anything. Tim Keller once said, if we knew the entire consequences of our actions, we'd just lie on the couch all day. Free will is the most crushing burden we could ever have. Keller went onto illustrate with his own life. If not for one door left three inches a jar in the Watergate Hotel, the circumstances would not have unfolded for him to eventually plant Redeemer, a church of 5000 in New York.

I considered a culinary career once. The circumstances did not unfold that would have allowed me to go that route. Based on tonight's culinary experiment, that's likely for the best. And honestly, I'm grateful that I live in a country with enough food that I am able to experiment and I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. And even though last year didn't turn out the way I hoped it would with me going back to school, that opened up an opportunity to deepen a long running friendship that is blossoming into something that will be truly beautiful.

With the freedom and opportunities that we have, experiment. Explore. Challenge yourself. Move. Dance. Get off the sidelines. Fight. Dare. Dream. Create.

Even though tonight's culinary adventure didn't turn out the way I expected, it was okay. They were still pretty tasty, really filling, and I got to celebrate another year with someone special. It was a learning experience and that alone was worth it.

The Lepers and Blindmen of our Day

"The whole life of the Christian is to be a work of art. We are to speak beauty and truth into a lost and dying world."--Francis Schaeffer

One of the easiest and most threatening dangers to fall victim to is to isolate ourselves, and begin to think that our world is the world. We very often seal ourselves in our bubbles and deafen ourselves to what's going on out there.

Odds are, if you're reading this, you've got a pretty good life. I'll admit that I do. My biggest problem today was that my coffee got a little cold, and I was tired from framing an internal wall at the Francis Schaeffer Institute yesterday. Those were the worst things about today, so I really have no problems. Not to say life is perfect and all.

Odds are if you're reading this, you know where your next meal is coming from. Odds are if you're reading this, you don't have to worry about mosquitos infecting you with Malaria as you sleep. Odds are you haven't lost a family member to HIV/AIDS.

We have it good, while many others do not. For example:

• 33.4 Million people are Living with HIV/AIDS. That's more than the population of the states of Illinois and New York combined.

• Every 15 Seconds someone dies of diseases due to HIV/AIDS

• 14 Million Children are orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. That's the equivalent of the states of Nebraska, Idaho, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, Alaska, DC, Vermont, and North Dakota.

A virus doesn't care about who you voted for. Poverty doesn't follow party lines. Injustice doesn't discriminate according to skin colour.

Christ cleansed the lepers and gave sight to the blind while He was here. People who have suffered from AIDS, injustice, poverty are the blindmen and lepers of our day. To help and share the Gospel is to bring light into our fallen world.

But there's hope as you'll see at the end of this post. Some of the good news is that the number of HIV infections has dropped 17% since 2001. In the past 12 years over 200,000 lives have been saved by preventing the transmission of HIV from mothers to their children.

At church this past Wed, Dec. 1, our youth learned about some of the people who have been infected with HIV/AIDS and what their lives are like. They have far more to worry about other than their coffee being cold. Their lives are on the line, and we cannot back down now.

Close up of the display

Petition cards

Lives are on the Line display

Another close up

Our youth learning the stories of those whose lives are on the line.

Rachel, taking a break from working on the display

for more information, or to take action, please go to

http://worldvisionacts.org

http://one.org

Aside from learning about some of the lives that are on the line, we got to see how progress is being made. There is hope to live a vibrant life though infected, and HIV/AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was a few years ago. Still, now is the time to keep pushing through.

See lives that were on the line return from the dead by watching The Lazarus Effect Film from (RED) and HBO

Within my Gaze

Simplicity

So it's occurred to me I haven't done a photo blog this year. So its time to amend that. All of these were taken with the mobile.

Beautiful Distortion

Sea and Sky

Advent of the Day

Loft

Edge of Light

Every Sunny Day

White Oak Creek

Apple Creek

Castor River

Wings

Monet by Roadside

As Ignites the Autumn

Keyhole Falls

Indian Creek

4AM...

"There's a fire in my soul"--Ridgely

4Am and I'm sitting in Waffle House by the St. Louis airport waiting for a 7am flight. I was at this Waffle House the first day of Urbana09 just before my tribe came in.

Victor Hugo just said to me, "The only spectacle greater than the sky is the interior of the soul."

Its humbling to look at the sky, especially at night. The psalmist tells us, "The heavens declare the glory of the Lord."

I dream of flying to the Pleiades. I long to soar through the supernovae. To delve the mysteries of dark matter.

It is nothing short of epic.

It would be devastating and dehumanizing to look into the sky and feel dwarfed without the knowledge that it was created by a loving God. As grand as the stars are, as brilliant and magnificent, and as immeasurable and vast and countless as they are, God still loves us more.

It was you and I created in His image, not the Orion Nebula.

It was us He chose to love, redeem, and sanctify not Eta Carina.

It is our souls that He binds together with an even tighter bond than the gravity that binds the Pleiades.

What deeper connection than two souls bound together in their Creator.

For the soul is that kindle of the imperishable Secret Fire ignited within us and love is the warmth and light that connection makes. As the great Bill Mallonee sings:

"Love's the little bit of God there for all to know.

Love's the everlasting arms, that never do let go."

It was in love that God promised us to reign with Him likes the stars above, and provided the means for us to do so, and that is by His own body and blood. His very own Son.

"To write the poem of the human consciousness," continues Hugo, "of one only man, even the most insignificant of men, would be to swallow up all epics in a superior and definitive epic."

15 Albums

Fifteen albums in fifteen minutes. My music is more obscure therefore its cooler than yours, therefore I'm cooler than you. Not really. Yes. Really.

1. The Awakening Compilation Vol. 1 by Various

2.Ohio by Over the Rhine

3. AM Radio by Billy Cerveny

4. Alive in the Fall by Jason Harwell

5. The High Cost of Living by Mike Schmid

6. October Sky by Jon Black

7. Nashville to Jesus by Kevin Lawson

8. Summershine by Bill Mallonee and Vigilantes of Love

9. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco

10. All that you Can't Leave Behind by U2

11. The Bends by Radiohead

12. Truth of the World: Welcome to the Show by Evermore

13. Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack by Yoko Kanno

14. Chrono Trigger Sountrack by Yasunori Mitsuda

15. Seiken Densetsu Soundtrack by Kenji Ito

But enough about me, you talk about me now. Not really, I'd like to know yours. Your turn. Now....... GO!

Consumption vs. Cultivation

“My Love says to stay when I would run, give away when I have none, my Love.” --Kevin Lawson

If anyone is in need of something, give. If you are need of encouragement, encourage someone else. If you need comfort, comfort someone in need. If do not feel appreciated, sincerely tell someone you appreciate them. Forgiveness? Then forgive someone who has wronged you.

Yet how does one give when one has nothing? We do not give from our own resources, for our wells are always dry and corrupt. The water by which we can assuage our deepest thirsts come not from us, but from above. From an ever-flowing stream of living water that will never run dry. "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." We have been given water by a great shepherd who we shall not want under His care, whose grace is sufficient, who will supply all our needs according to His glorious riches.

It is not by our ability that we are able to help others, because we have no ability to help others. It is God, who shares Himself with us abundantly and lavishes us with His perfect character, His holy presence, His sovereign providence. For by giving to others, sharing with others, when we are lacking, we experience love. As Tolstoy wrote, “Where there is love, God is there also.”

A couple years ago I found myself involved with some church's activities. The kid who ran the activity I was involved with had gone on a streak of isolation and self-destruction, the likes of which that even on the best of my worst times, I would never be able to equal. He had become a cardboard shipwreck of a person, who complained incessantly about the pettiest, most insignificant of matters, and deluded himself into believe that others were to blame for his mess. I sat with him to try and figure out why.

He bemoaned to me, “All I've ever wanted is to have help. All I've ever wanted is support. I just want to be loved and appreciated.”

He didn't ask for anything irrational, for these are the deepest longings of human nature. I asked in response, “What have you done to support and help others? What have you done to show love or appreciation to others, especially those under you?” He could not answer for he knew he had done nothing.

There is a direct correlation between how well we feel about ourselves, and how well we treat others. This kid was the sort of person who would consume others for what they could do for him, and never reciprocated. He would even turn on them once he had consumed everything. When we met he had nothing left, and sat alone in a dark room, upon a soiled chair, surrounded by derelict reminders of his crumbling ego like a shrine left to ruin.

When we consume, we have nothing left. When we cultivate we cause others to grow for everyone's benefit. We cultivate by sowing into, serving in love, and giving and sharing with others. The results will be a multiplying, over abounding harvest that will never perish or fade away. There is no denying that consumption is much easier. It is with great effort, work, difficulty, sweat, that a farmer or gardener is able to cultivate the land, bring seed to purchase, and reap a harvest. One must endure stones and thorns, bites and stings, summer's swelter and winter's frost to bring harvest. And you will get your hands dirty. There's an old saying in wine making, “Back of this wine is the vinter and all his years of skill. Back of it all are the vines, the sun, the rain, and the Master and His will.” That is we may plant and water, but it is “God who causes growth.” And the result will be a vibrant harvest full of rich colours, and nourishment for everyone to enjoy.

There will be disappointment. We will experience frustration. We will fail. We will encounter others with whom we will fall out. We will take a beating. There is no way to sugar coat this reality. But the things that cause us to groan in this life, will prepare us for glory in the next.

To End All Wars...

So I started an interesting discussion on Senator McCaskill's Facebook wall.

ONE Campaign brought to my attention that this past Tuesday, the Kerry-Lugar bill was up for signing. This bill would provide "non military aid granted to Pakistan by the U.S in view of its precarious economic condition due to its indulgence in the war on terror as a front line allied state."

Senator McCaskill signed a letter to the President, so ONE wanted to make sure her constituents held her accountable and signed the bill.

I wrote this on her Facebook wall, as well as her twitter page. This is the discussion that followed. The names that are not mine have been changed, but I did add some emphasis.

Aaron:

Sen. McCaskill, please sign the Kerry-Luger bill to support poverty relief in developing nations. Please make good on the letter you signed to the President supporting these matters. Thank you!

Pete: America has no more money to support other nations. We are broke. China is rich, let China help developing nations.

Better yet, let developing nations help themselves like America once did. Let them carry their own weight.

Jan: I agree.

Aaron: Poverty, hunger, oppression, injustice, slavery, etc. are not right or left issues, they are human issues, and all of humanity suffers due to these preventable tragedies.

According to ONE 50,000 people, that's one every three seconds, die due to preventable diseases and extreme poverty.

Nearly 11,500 people die every day from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Nearly two-thirds of these people are living in sub-Saharan Africa.

72 million children are out of school around the world, a figure equivalent to the entire primary school-aged population in Europe and North America

8.8 Million children under the age of five die each year from preventable diseases and treatable causes.

550,000 mothers die in childbirth each year. 80% of these deaths can be prevented if women had access to basic maternal and health services.

2.5 Billion people around the world do not have access to adequate sanitation.

27 Million are enslaved this includes child soldiers, forced prostitutes, and other victims of human trafficking.

Jan: And middle-class Americans are supposed to fix all this? We are the most charitable nation in the world, but we are now broke. We have enough problems here that need to be addressed. Americans will be included in these statistics if we don't change course.

Pete: hat is very unfortunate, except for the HIV/AIDS epidemic which is 100% preventable.

Over 400,000 Americans die each year due to smoking related causes. Why does the government not do something about that? Oh, the tax money is more important than people's lives and obama is stinking up our White House with his own smoking.

I didn't say they were right or left issues.

The United States of America is broke, and the countries and the people suffering these misfortunes sit back and wait for someone else to come to help them and do little or nothing to help themselves.

Many of the people suffering these misfortunes would take money we do not have and kill us in a heartbeat given the chance. Many of them just hate us, except for our money which we have none of anymore. We need to take care of our fellow Americans who cannot, not those who will not, take care of themselves.

We cannot save the world.

Aaron: We saved the world 3 times last century from Imperialism, Fascism, and Communism. The evil empires of our day are injustice, poverty, oppression, ignorance etc. We will win not by the force of arms but through education, advocacy, and compassion.

The more good we do now, the more secure we will be in the future.

The honorable Senator Bond said, "the U.S. needs to help other nations build stronger governments because these deeds will help avoid conflict and acts of terrorism. If we put more sandals and sneakers on the ground, I think we can avoid having to put more combat boots on the ground in the future,"

Pete: Those wearing sandals and sneakers burn our flag and want to kill us. Good luck with that.

Aaron: Nations don't go to war with other nations who have fed their children and served their people.

Again, Senator Bond said, "Smart power, will protect the U.S. and its allies and prevent harm. But for sustainable long term success we have to use economic development, educational exchange, business interchanges, investment and trade and diplomatic strategies in areas that are neutral or sometimes hostile toward the U.S.

Helping other countries become more stable makes America a safer place and building nations up and helping them feed their citizens will in turn help America. There is the need for humanitarian assistance."

I welcome your thoughts.