Record Prices

Tired of high gas prices . . . . me too.

I'm sure times are tough . . . oh, except for the fact hat Exxon-Mobil just reported THE highest quarterly profit of any publicly traded company ever. $10.7 BILLION in just 3 months.

What do you do?

Des

On top of our wonderful view, this new addition has been added to our living room. Apparently, they had to do some work to get their sprinkler system up to code. It will eventually be patched. For now, isn't it lovely? 

The View from Here

Well, in response to Annie's request (see comments from a couple of posts ago), this is our glorious view! The story is that the leasing guy from our apartment complex told us that we would have a wonderful view from our 3rd floor apartment. What he didn't tell us was that he had no concept of what the word view really means.

Ah, what do you do? We're just grateful that we have a home.

And a hill behind our balcony.

Grace,

Des

Darkness

I mentioned a while back that I have been listening to Rob Bell's "Velvet Elvis" book on my iPod. It's amazing. I highly suggest getting your hands on a copy. He goes through a lot of interesting points - everything from explaining some Jewish traditions that we need to understand to fully understand Jesus and His interactions with Jews of His day to taking about Christianity surviving Christian Cable Television.

One of the things he gets talking about is that Jesus wants Christians to bless EVERYONE. Not just Christians, but people who aren't believers, those who do violent evil acts, etc, etc. He refrences Abraham and how essentially God's plan that we know through Jesus was evident in the experience of Abraham as well.

God wants to bless the world through his people. The church is to be focused outward, not inward.

Now . . . where does the title of this post come from? Well, he talks about how it does no good for Christians to picket, and criticize, and complain against the "world." He says, "Why blame the darkness for being dark?" Instead he proposes that we SHOULD be asking, "Why isn't the light as bright as it should be?"

I guess I just identify with this thought. It really makes sense in my heart.

Grace,

Des

Moving In

Kristy and I have moved into our new place. It's been very busy - there are some pictures below. It's actually really nice. Much bigger than what we had, and it's only three years old, so it's pretty modern. I think we're going to have a 'reading' corner in our bed room because there is sort of a window thing . . . we may also get a desk fountain. You know - for ambience.

I haven't had much time for anything except moving and unpacking lately. And our DSL isn't working - so thank goodness for unsecured wireless networks.

I'll write more when I have time to think!

Grace.

The New Pad

Some early shots of our new place. I've been down - i.e. without internet - for a few days, but hopefully, my DSL will be working tomorrow. Here's hoping. Our kitchen is our very favorite part!

Thanks to Janet, Jason, Major Pete Costas for helping us out of our old place, and Tilden and Stephanie for doing double duty - moving us out and in!

Des

Awesome Cosmic Power . . .

So, aside from 5 stars shown in this picture, the rest are ALL galaxies. Whole, freakin' massive GALAXIES. This is a Hubble photo that was taken over a LONG period of time, pointed at the same location in space. Each one of these specs of light represent a collection of stars and planets and matter comparable to the "Milky Way".

This boggles my feeble mind. Not only can I not think in terms of what this photo represents, but I think a lot of what we think we understand breaks down too.

There is SO much that we don't know.

"The Heavens are Your Tabernacle."

Grace,

Des

P.S. Extra points to anyone that can finish the title . . .