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Monday, June 14, 2004
FAMILY HEALTH UPDATES
my sister has her second go-round of chemo this coming thursday. later in the summer, she'll start radiation treatments. thankfully, the lymphoma is not aggressive at this time.
my uncle goes in for harvesting his stem cells soon. if that's successful and they get enough, he'll go into protective isolation for 2-3 weeks, starting late this month. he's already had chemo and radiation.
i was out of town for over two weeks, and as always, it's taken about a week to recuperate. today was not a great day, unfortunately, with three (or was it four?) naps. that means about 11 hours of sleep total. must've needed it. ...
thanks for your prayers.
Brad 6/14/2004 11:34:00 PM
Friday, June 11, 2004
CHRONICLES OF BRADDICK
okay, so i woke up the other day thinking, 'i really should get my head shaved and change my name to BRADDICK.' as you can see, i have not done the latter, and probably shall not undergo the former.
at least, not at this time.
looking forward to seeing the movie with those who shall remain nameless (at their request, so their reputations are not sullied by the thot of seeing a vin diesel movie).
Brad 6/11/2004 09:10:00 AM
Friday, June 04, 2004
RIDDICK'S COOL SO DON'T RIDICULE
okay, so i'm a fan of Pitch Black and the forthcoming (June 11th!!!) Chronicles of Riddick. why, you ask? well, i'll tell you, not cuzza vin diesel. the draws are the messianic plotlines and the fascinating perspectives on good and evil. PB - stay in the light because the darkness will eatchya. wise counsel on our spiritual journey. COR - Judi Dench's character notes that sometimes you can't fight evil with good - you have to fight it with another kind of evil. hmmm ... intriguing perspective, definitely not a biblical one in any way i can figure out, but definitely one found peppered here and there in our world. what could generations raised on such themes look like?
meanwhile, i got the DVD for Pitch Black, and it has some very cool features on it. looking forward to the documentaries etcetera, and filling in the background gaps in the prequel and sequel.
anyone out there interested in going to Chronicles of Riddick on opening day?
Brad 6/04/2004 06:17:00 PM
Thursday, May 27, 2004
OUR IDOL WON!
stacy is using CAPS!!! to share about the H.OF.C.'S grill, so i thot i'd use caps to exclaim that FANTASIA WON! i didn't actually see the finale or the crowning of the queen, as i am outta town at the mo, but it was very satisfying to read the news. F.B. rocks!
[caps is a judicial emoticonical tactic for expressing high adrenals, and quite appropros for our GRILL, which is a fabulous implement of metal and plastic. waytuhgo, dr. jess!~]
i "preached" on sunday, and i'm still not sure what "preached" means as in contrast to "teached," but whatever it was, i guess i did it. and it seemed genuinely helpful to people. there is definitely a sense that i am made for this task/role, among other things. so perhaps i shall have opp to do this more.
angst continues over what to do when i grow up, and having poz feedback on teaching somewhat heightens it. what's next? i completed the overview for my curriculum on culture and context. papers and notes are pretty much in order. process in place to write modules of curriculum when time is available. is it a season to get back into the community and work? am i meant to do more consulting? how about mentoring? perhaps a nap will assist the contemplative process.
meanwhile, i'm thinking/praying about my sister a lot today. it's her first day of chemo. thankfully, the lymphoma is at stage 1, not so aggressive, and only in her neck. three months of chemo/radiation. she'll shave her head so her hair looks even. start with a mohawk, i say! actually, it'd look like a mullet-mohawk, with the length she's got. she's fabulous regardless.
get to have lunch with a good friend today, and talk about important stuff related to systems and church planting and such like. i enjoy these kinds of conversations on occasion. should be fun ...
time for a rest.
Brad 5/27/2004 10:46:00 AM
Monday, May 17, 2004
WEEKLY UPDATE
I should have posted this yesterday, but didn't get to it. Will today, as i have a bit of energy.
This week my sister will have her first chemo treatment. No update on results of what stage of development it's at.
Also, i've had a difficult last week or so, and haven't done much in the way of anything, except whatever is right in front of me when I get up from sleeping or napping, which has turned into a total of about 10 hours a day. Not great, and I'm supposed to leave soon for a trip outta town. Oh well, that's my world ...
I can't believe it happened again, but it did. My compuserve software went kaput again. So I lost all my electronic address book stuff. Fortunately i had a list of most emails on my desktop ... gotta get all that info stashed offline. Never again ...
Writing up of my overview of the Kingdom Culture and Contextualization training series is progressing well, all things considered. One paragraph each to describe about 60 learning sessions (each of which may contain 3 to 5 hours of teaching materials and/or experiences) is taking quite a while. This is stuff I've been studying and preparing for about 10 years, but there is still additional conceptual development going on. The related "business plan" is going well - just need to plug in how long I think it will take me to actually write up those 60 sessions in full format with related quotes and case studies and simulation exercises and charts and stuff. Perhaps one week for each session? Don't know yet. But that's what I've got to figure out. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have at least a full year to do just writing on that? Sigh ...
So, that's all the news for now. Thanx for reading ...
Brad 5/17/2004 03:38:00 PM
Sunday, May 09, 2004
PRAYER UPDATE
I checked in with Mom today … hope ya’ll did, too, if that’s an option. She said my sister will begin chemotherapy in about 10 days, and have a treatment once every three weeks for three months. Unless they find the cancer is in more than her throat, in which case chemo will last for six months. My sister plans to shave her head, since her hair would fall out anyway between the second and third treatments. Thanks for praying for her. This chemo schedule will minimize disruption the routine of her students.
WRITING A BUSINESS PLAN
Meanwhile, on the home front, I’ve been working hard the past couple weeks on writing a business plan/business proposal. Just figuring out the status of the material I’ve already developed, what’s left to do on the priority project, and what might come after that. Looks like this is basically the equivalent of several medium sized textbooks, and covers at least the equal of 4 or 5 seminary-level courses (i.e., 60 to 75 hours of learning sessions)!
The hardest thing has been, who will actually want this? It really does not seem to be commercially viable to get this published in the usual ways – too small of an audience. But I need to finish it before I can go on to anything else, it seems. So what to do and who to have in mind as the primary audience … those are the current questions I’m asking and praying about.
Hope that gets sorted out soon, as many other decisions depend upon those and several other factors. Not always easy to stay calm and persevere when there’s so much riding on things. But I can’t not do this training series. It’s material that I’ve worked on for nearly 10 years, and much of it comes directly out of trying to discern what went wrong in church plants or ministry pioneering efforts that I was involved with, or that my friends were.
I believe there’s valuable stuff there, but I keep wondering who will want it, because most people don’t seem to want something this comprehensive or this integrated. They usually want simple answers and practical tools to these questions: “What is working for you?” and “What does postmodern ministry look like where you’re from?” Those are two questions I can answer but, ironically, it’s all pretty much been what’s NOT working well and why are the cultural situations of church plants so incredibly complex? Even after I’m done writing this curriculum, I’m not sure very many people will be ready for it. Church planters and others seem to think culture can be cracked easily. But to me, it represents the most complex thing we create as humans made in the image of a creative God.
But I’ve got to finish it …
So, I’m trying to set in mind the faces of men and women I know care about the complexities, wouldn’t mind investing time to take such courses, and either “get it” about ministry in the post-postmodern era – - or at least “get it” about me and what I’m doing. That makes this more real. Even Tolkien apparently wrote his masterworks with the faces of specific family and friends and fans in mind. Why shouldn’t I …
Brad 5/09/2004 11:05:00 PM
Sunday, May 02, 2004
THIS BLOG WINDING DOWN SOON ...
I will be wrapping up my "blogspot" journal in the near future and continue to post more content, more frequently, on my new blog, futuristguy's randomocities. Check it out! Meanwhile ...
NEWS/PRAYER UPDATES
It’s been a rough couple of weeks, but I’m finally feeling better. When I’ve felt up to it, I’ve been studying “delivery systems” for presenting the trainings I’ve been writing the past eight years or so. Things are progressing, and I’m enjoying this process! And gradually, it’s becoming more clear as to work I should pursue for the next 10-15 years. More on that some other time. Meanwhile, a couple pieces of news and prayer items.
My Sister. I spoke with my sister last weekend. She was diagnosed in April with lymphoma, which is considered an “intermediate level”/moderately aggressive cancer. She will have an MRI soon, and get some blood work interpreted. That will tell the doctors what stage of development the lymphoma is at, and specify the course of treatment. Tentatively, it looks like she will begin five months of chemotherapy, starting this first week of May. Actually, this is already a huge answer to prayer already, as my sister teaches special ed students who find it difficult to adjust to change. So this schedule minimizes the probable spans of time she will be gone from the classroom. Also on the plus side of things, my sister said that there has not been any noticeable decrease in her energy or overall health due to the cancer. It was only because of lumps in her throat that she knew something was wrong.
Trip to Marin County. I’ll be visiting Marin toward the end of this month for a while, primarily to preach at Hillside Church, and join in some meetings with several of their teams. I’ll also be spending some time with my co-author Mona, as we continue working on a revised edition of our book, Unwanted Harvest. Our original publisher was interested in the possibility of reissuing a revised edition, but we found out this past week that they decided not to pursue this project. Our agent already sent our proposal to other publishers, so we’ll see what happens from here.
That’s the key news of the past few days. I try to summarize some of what I’m learning and post it on my “multimemia” site later this week. Meanwhile, thanks for reading this, and for your prayers.
Brad 5/02/2004 10:11:00 PM
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