celebrate abundance

kristy and i were at pier 1 just a few days ago - we're still in the "putting the finishing touches on our new place" mode - because we wanted to buy a mirror or something for the large wall in our dining room. pier 1 really is a lovely place - though the random scents often throw my nose into a downward spiral - literally (at least the downward part). while browsing all of the knicks and knacks available for purchase, i noticed a sign that said "celebrate abundance" which i guess is part of their holiday sales campaign.

of course, it got me thinking.

firstly, i'm realizing more and more that kristy and i just tend to think differently from the masses - "we are all individuals" from life of brian - and i'm guessing that's a good thing. secondly, we live an abundant life - we're not swimming in wealth, but we're also not swimming in debt (providing that student loan debt is good debt!). we have more than enough. certainly, we have everything that we need.

how, then, should we best "celebrate abundance" while maintaining an awareness that this abundance isn't universal? having this "abundant life" is the exception rather than the rule when thinking globally - it's probably true even when thinking domestically.

one of the things that we really dig is world vision's catalog for giving "life-changing" gifts in honor of someone. for us, this started last year when we gave tilden and stephanie a "gift" by giving a goat to a family through world vision. this year, we noticed that there is an entire catalog of these gifts available - from the very inexpensive to the "well-beyond-our-reach" expensive. for example:

• tangible gifts like:
• educational support for one child ($32)
• malaria prevention for one family ($20)
• warm blanket ($30)
• safe water for a school ($50)
• or, more intangible stuff like:
• help prevent aids ($35)
• hope for sexually exploited girls ($35)
• share of art and music ($40)

it really is an incredible service. and i really don't need an ipod touch . . .

now, we're not giving up on christmas. we're just looking at abundance through a different lens. we've still got a tree (in fact, my wife tells me it's going up today) and we'll still decorate and eat food.

but this year, celebrating abundance (which, at first, really turned me off), will transform our lives.

abundant grace,

des

Please won't you be my neighbour?

I'm looking forward to meeting my neighbour.

You may know that Kristy and I have had some interesting neighbours in our relatively short marriage. There were the two guys that lived downstairs at our first place in Charlotte . . . their big thing was their temper . . . lots of yelling. In the mountains, we lived across from a Russian family that had 17 people living in the apartment . . . maybe not EXACTLY 17 . . . but lots.

Now, we live by a rapper.

Yes . . . a bona fide rapper.

Now, he's not very good. I mean I'd love to tell you that he's been improving since we moved in here about a month ago. He's certainly had plenty of practice. At least he's persistent, and, the Good Lord willing, one of these days he's going to tearin' it up, fo' real.

But for now, I have "the pleasure" of hearing his little casio keyboard, complete with booming bass, pounding through my walls, and his creative lyrics - the latest was a great, albeit repetitive crafting of "Whacchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

All that to say I'm sure he's an incredibly interesting individual that has a fantastically interesting story and I'm really hoping to get to know him (or perhaps them) soon.

Des

Playing with Photoshop

This summer, my wife and I were fortunate to be able to accompany a team of musicians to conduct a music camp in Spain with The Salvation Army. We were also fortunate to take a lot of photos - but with a point and shoot camera, you never know exactly what you're going to get - some photos are great . . . some are over-exposed, or blurry, or just not nice enough to display.

Kristy has been wanting to print off a few of the more scenic photos to display around our new place. There's one that she really liked from a city called Toledo but the church in the distance was over exposed and the beautiful old buildings in the foreground were very much underexposed.

Of course . . . I break out the ol' Photoshop.

I played with it for about 15 minutes and here's what I cam up with . . . . still not GREAT but not bad - I figured I'd take out the powerlines too.

Let me know what you think.

Des