Hello Fiber optics

Well, fiber optics have finally come to Powell. It has been a long time coming. Getting all the financing was a major hurdle. It was all done with private financing essentially. I am glad that was done several years ago because it would have never made it out of the inbox today. Hooray for the private sector. 95% of the entire town now has fiber optics to their home or business, the rest are not connected by the residents choice. Getting enough workers was also a problem and the completion date was missed by about two months, but it is here and I am glad. We celebrated our first weekend with TV in over a year by watching a Duke game (I know that made Jason's heart warm). The Dukies demonished Maryland which has not been an easy team for them to beat even at home.

It has gone winter on us again with the highs at only 5-8 degrees Fahrenheit, and 5 inches of new snow that is not going where with these tempatures. They say we will have a warm spell later this week and it may get up to 32, but that is still cold.

Our Korean teacher is still with us for another 3 weeks. She is really enjoyable to have around. Check out Carol's blog .

Core Values (amended post)

This an amended version of a post I didn't like and deleted.

I have used the term Core Values several times in this series, so what does it mean. I have a friend who says, “It stands for something that I would die for.” He takes his Core Values very seriously. I guess to me, it means the foundation of what I believe, everything is molded by these beliefs. Having Core Values can also mean that I have some beliefs that I like and abide by, but they fit more into the realm of opinion.
This idea of Core Values and non-core values is relatively new to me, as in the last few years. Before, I was taught you either held all your religious beliefs equally or you in essence didn’t believe in the Bible. The goal was to be right in everything – plan of salvation, acts of worship, organization of the church, etc. Everything I did had to be based on the Bible not my opinion. If you couldn’t find “book, chapter, and verse” for a belief or action then don’t do it. Opinions were equal to doubtful and you never did anything that might be doubtful. Doubtful was equal to slippery slope and we all knew where that would lead. I’m glad I am no longer there.

I have come to realize that I can’t understand everything about God. I can’t explain why there is evil, or why bad things happen to good people and good things to bad people. I’m not always sure what God wants me to do. I no longer have to be right about everything because I don’t know everything. Now this doesn’t leave me in a total state of confusion though, because there are concepts and facts that I do know. It is from these that I get my Core Values. I haven’t made a list of them because in my opinion that would put me right back in the situation of “having to the right set of values.” To give an example though, the verses from 1 John 4:7-12 express my Core Values as well as anything right now.

7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[b] into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[c] our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Ever think about your Core Values?

Seeking Shalom (seeking the way things are supposed to be)

How do we know, what we know -part 3

I was one of those people that accepted whatever I was taught by those in authority. I was never rebellious and hardly ever got into trouble, I was a very boring kid. When it came to what I should believe about God, I accepted without question what my religious tribe taught. I was told we were right and we could prove it. A lot of what I was taught was right, but not all of it.

How does this fit in with our topic? Last time I mentioned a group of scholars for which I have very little respect. Well, there is another group that has slipped down the ladder of respect. It consists of some of the teachers from my younger years. They were the scholars who were supposed to have studied the original, the primary sources with unbiased minds, therefore their interpretations would be right, and they were qualified to help the rest of us understand God's truth, at least that was what I was told. Another companion belief was that everyone would understand the Bible alike if they unbiased. If you disagreed with the accepted belief then you were being intellectually dishonest.

I now realize it is impossible to be unbiased no matter how sincere, and how much you try, consequently people are never going to totally understand the Bible alike. This claim to totally understand God and know the correct pattern is one of the quickest ways to lose my respect.

To me this brings us back to our core values and then the rest is applied in a way that fits the core values into our situation.

A Cool Story

Are you familiar with the cartoonish story of the husband who arrives home and is met at the door by his wife with a list of things that have gone wrong that day, forget the "loving hello and I'm glad to see you because I've missed you." That has never happened to me, for which I am thankful until last Monday but not to the extent of the typical storyline. I walked in and smelt something with a slightly burnt odor to it. My wife is a great cook so it would be very unusual for her to burn something. It wasn't supper but the motor that drives the fan for our furnace. Just what you don't want to have happen in the middle of winter, a winter that has been very cold so far. After a quick look at the situation, what we needed was a new electrical motor. The heating part of the furnace still worked after I disconnected the fan motor, so we would still have some heat - thankfully heat rises and the furnace is in the basement. Also thankfully we had a warm wind blow in that day and it was up in the forties. But where to get a motor for a fifty year old furnace in our small town. We found one the first place we went, the "we" is my oldest son that was here for Christmas and was a great help. It only took us two trips to get all the right bolts and nuts to attach it (of course the old ones wouldn't work), which is good for an amateur. The happy ending - we had it up and running the next day.

Through this whole adventure (?) I kept thinking about the cartoonish beginning and smiling.