It's all good so far

I gave a Stewardship talk yesterday. It’s not the first time that I have spoken to the Church on the topic, but it is the first focusing on my story.

I spent some time pulling the talk together. Finding an idea that would hit me either in the Daily Readings, or in the Pray As You Go podcast, or from conversations with friends. I had an outline started in last Friday’s blog (unpublished) which had more of the what I would try to include.

Saturday allowed me to go up to camp and during the lazy afternoon under the shade in the dining hall, I finished the first draft. I had a non-episcopal friend do one review and I made some edits on the Ipad, and emailed it to the house. When I got home, I discovered a couple of additional edits by my dear wife. Final edits where made before climbing into the lectern. Here it is:

Stewardship
For those that know me, bear with me, for those that don’t I am Don Dunbar, the Stewardship Chair, and this is going to be the opening talk for our annual Stewardship drive.

Campaigns focus on giving, time, talent, and treasure. I have been reflecting a bit on the gifts of time and talent and how the Church has helped me develop, by letting me grow through giving my time and finding my talents.

The daily Lectionary decided to give me a nudge as I was getting my ideas together for this talk. I was reading Jeremiah. (38:1-13) Here was the prophet, having been thrown in a cistern, literately being stuck in the mud.

Thinking about Jeremiah there in the mud, it struck we that sometimes we too find ourselves stuck, perhaps even “frozen” to borrow a popular description of our denomination, in our spiritual development. Either too comfortable or afraid to step up and try to exercise a gift of time or talent.

I realize that this was where I was when I first came to Calvary 18 years ago. Set in my ways and comfortable in a back pew. A silent member not engaged or challenged, until some one came along and challenged me to get involved in one program. It was Scouting, a program that I had been involved as a youth.

The more time I gave to the program, the more it stretched me, letting me build skills and develop a sense of servant leadership. It gave me a framework or venue to speak about belief and values. One role lead to another, some inside scouting, some inside the Church. Each role required another step out of that original comfort zone, but the more I did, the more I learned to trust in what I was doing and let the Lord control it.

One of the programs I was involved in was teaching the God & Life religious award to the high school aged Scouts. One of the principle points in the program is God has a call for each of us. Another point in the program was that God will equip us to our call. Others will encourage us. In Timothy 4:12-16, Paul gives advice to Timothy, he says

Let no one despise your youth (inexperience), but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.

Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Paul is telling Timothy not to neglect but to use his gifts.

There are a number of ministries here at Calvary that allow you to explore and develop your gifts.

By becoming involved, you might find yourself changing a bit. We have learned that we can survive change around here. Look at the changes that have gone on in our Parish both structurally and ecclesiastically.

Imagine what God could achieve in our community if we all committed to do more with these God given gifts of time & talents. Imagine what could happen in our community, if we thaw the frozen chosen. Awesome change.

It only requires having the courage to commit some of your time, so please give.

I was trying to download the latest version of Itunes last night during a commercial break. All the net gurus have suggested that I make this upgrade in preparation for the upgrade to IOS-5.  I  started the down load the program and discovered that  downloads from Apple did not automatically install.  Apple recommends that the programs be installed manually. Of course Apple doesn’t expect this to happen so no small text file, or trail of bread crumbs was provided.

I start with Itunes, but it blows out – it can’t find it’s french friend Bonjour. I am not sure what the purpose of this Bonjour Service program is other than eat cheese and surrender.   I  go into services to re-enable Bonjour, but surprise, when you try to change the properties, you get a message that Bonjour was marked for death and can’t be installed.

Ok, you start with the installation of the new copy of Bonjour, but it is a jealous little thing, demanding that I take all the widgets off the desktop and close everything before it would load. Skype kept resurrecting itself during the process. I had to keep Task manager open so that I could  kill every attempt Skype made to sneak back on. Finally with Skype gone and the new high maintenance french program can compete its installation. With the frogware installed, the Itunes upgrade proceeds as planned, A half hour from start to finish for the lack of a simple text file included in the download.

Well now a I am ready to do the IOS-5 upgrade, but guess what, it is being coy and hiding from me this morning. I guess it will be a repeat of the exercise tonight with the IOS upgrade.

As birthdays have accumulated our family has decided to celebrate those milestone birthdays. I had a party with all almost all in when I hit the half century mark 18 months ago. Yesterday was my younger brother’s 50th birthday. His family, my youngest brother & his family, and mine got together to celebrate.

They noticed that I have been losing weight and we discussed diet & exercise, what each of us was doing to combat that battle of the bulge. We each have our own Cardiologists for different issues, and have a genetic predisposition to enjoy food & drink.

I managed to enjoy grilled fish & shrimp tacos with rice & beans, some chili con queso and a couple of margaritas and still come out only 73 calories above the current daily allowance.

Of course it was back on the treadmill this morning and worked for little over an hour on a 12% grade at 3 mph. Burned 960 calories. I am learning to sit in the sauna afterwards to allow the muscles to unkink.

Met the family for breakfast at the Black Walnut. I pushed the cook this morning for a round of naked eggs benedict which consist of poached eggs ow sauteed mushrooms & tomatoes on english muffin with a couple of pieces of bacon – just to tweak the cardiologist, and a few (un-ordered) potatoes on the side. I still have my daily allotment of calories today plus a few to spare.

This is day 47 of the program. If I believe the Cardiologist’s scales for my starting value, I am now down 22 lbs. The rate of decline has not been as fast lately, but I realize that I will occasionally plateau.

The diet has been an adventure. Looking harder at the stuff we buy in the grocery store and counting calories when I put together meals. I have a week long road trip coming up and I am already planning on carrying foods that fit within my diet.

I have figured out portable salad dressing (using a salad dressing spritzer and a travel size spray bottle and I will probably be carrying my no fat milk, blueberries, and cheerios, and some yogurt & humus with me. I should have time to hit the treadmill at each of the hotels. It will be interesting how that works out. I have a week to think about it.