Share Your World 2016 week 39

Share Your World has become one of my favorite challenges in the blogosphere. I have participated in it throughout the course of the last four or five years. Lately I have been a little behind in answering challenges. I just looked at this one and realized it has been about four weeks since I have participated! Oh my! Well I am not going to miss another!

100_2961

I am writer hear me roar!

What is Share Your World? Here is the definition of the challenge from the hostesses lips or in this case finger tips:

Share Your World

Share Your World (SYW) is all about having a safe place for everyone to answer random questions that I post each week.  Here is the basic format.  I will ask you:

  • To answer three random questions each week.
  • Respond to a fourth item (I will randomly chose from this list)
    • Making a List out of a topic
    • Completing the sentence I start
    • Answering a Would you Rather question
  • Bonus Question is always the same  “What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?”  Because we all need to be reminded that there are many things in our lives to be grateful about.  

In the past I’ve written columns like this in newsletters for various companies and organizations.  And it was everyone’s favorite part of the newsletter.  Since blogging is an international activity, I also thought this would be a great way for all of us to get to know each other.  Share things about you, your home, your town, your country, your traditions.   So once a week, I’ll post four new questions for you to answer about yourself or the area in the world you live.

I’m definitely a glass half full type of person, so all the questions will be upbeat, non-political and hopefully fun for all.

If you adore challenges as much as I do, please check out WordPress’s Blog Event Listing for other challenges.

How Do I Participate?

There are two ways you can participate.

  1. Create a  SYW post.  Then post the link to your blog in my comment box or leave your answers in the comments box of my blog.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your blog, title your blog post “Share Your World” or “SYW” tag.
  3. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly reminders.

I usually will respond to your entry on your blog, rather than on my page.

So come on join in the fun by clicking on this icon  share-your-world2

Here are this week’s sharing questions:

A class you wish you would have taken?

I wish I would have taken more language classes. I love languages.

What’s your favorite comic figure and why?

Oh boy! This is a hard one. I was a comic book freak as a kid.

How about I pick one male and one female character?

I always liked Dr. Fate

Image result for Dr. Fate

And oh let’s see…Saturn Girl

Image result for Saturn Girl

Name something you wish you could like.

Skiing. Fishing. Bungi jumping.

Tell me about your first crush / first date / first kiss.

My first date was in the eighth grade. Her name was Raelyn and we went to the 8th grade prom together. It took me weeks to get up the nerve to ask her. About a half hour into the dance I went to get her some punch while she was dancing in a group on the floor. Someone near her was spinning around and punched her in the face breaking her nose. End of date.

Who was your best friend when you were 10?

I did not have a best friend when I was ten. We had moved across town and I had changed schools. I wasn’t a popular kid and so I spent a few years on the edges of school society feeling pretty alone.

What sign are you? Do you believe in astrology?

I am a Sagittarius . I do believe in astrology. I believe in most magic. That doesn’t mean I believe it is good. Just because something is real, just because something works does not mean it is necessarily something that is good for us. Astrology is one of those very real very not good things we are warned by the Bible to stay away from.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?  

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to present the C.cada program and the Ingleside Project at our Network worship conference in Mendon MA last week. This week I am looking forward to a bit of a quieter week.

 

Life’s Ripples

This post is written in response to Chris Donner’s journaling post: RIPPLES. Please check out  her site when you have finished here.

lONGWOOD RIPPLES.jpg

I often think of life like a river or a stream. It has a source. It has an outlet. It has a direction. It has twists, turns, forks and varying currents and it is fluid, which means it is changeable to a degree. Maybe we can’t from our low vantage point change the place the river goes to.We can, however, have an effect on how quickly we arrive at the end. We can determine the state we are in when once we do come to the sea that is eternity. We can also have an effect on the state of the arrival of others who ride the river with us.

I guess the changes we affect on the river of life are the ripples we make. For myself I have spent all my life on one small fork of the river. I was born and raised in the town I now pastor in. My father and my grandfather before me made their own ripples in town business and politics and I for one have swum in the waves they created in this little place.

From them I learned the value of staying, rooting in one place and one more thing. I have learned that the value of our lives is not found just in the ripples we make but in how many other “ripple-makers” we can inspire.

When I reach the sea I imagine my name will be pretty quickly forgotten but maybe others will make ripples in my stead heaping one small change upon another. It won’t change the direction of the river but it will change the people who meander through the little tributary I have lived in.

This thought of making ripple-makers rather than ripples came to me as I considered the people who have swum in the middle of the little ripples I have made. This weekend I will preach at Cornerstone Church in Winchendon. My sister will preach at two churches in Connecticut even as I step into the pulpit at my church. My daughter Amanda will be preaching to our children’s church downstairs at Cornerstone. My daughter Melanie will be preaching to her children’s church in Saugus MA and my son Joe will be making ripples of his own as he preaches to a children’s congregation in Seoul South Korea. Beyond that is our youth pastor Brad Hackett, Rev. Julie Slocum , Rev. Erin Schlaupitz, Rev. Jon Michael Nalette, Garrick Brewer and Lillian Lapoint all ripple-makers who I was privileged to swim alongside for brief periods.

My ripples have caused as many problems as they have solved I suppose but that’s another post for another day . For today I am content to think that perhaps some of my ripples have gone beyond me into the wide world to help others reach the sea that comes after the river. Perhaps I have helped people I have never met to be ready to ride the real waves that come after this little journey we call life.

 

Cee’s Black & White: What Shape are You In?

This week Cee has asked us to come up with Geometric Shapes for her black & white photo challenge. Click the underlined words to see how others met the challenge.

050714  black and white (4)I have learned a few things from shapes about life.

100_4816

For instance in life round is a pretty common shape!

100_5178

While we would all like it to be a little more linear, the older we get the more we realize, this thing called life just doesn’t fit in a box.

100_4883

Truth be told, the more we insist on controlling the shape of every detail in our lives, the more complicated our lives become.

100_5470

Sometimes those things in our lives which appear to be the weakest offer us the most support through the troubled waters.

100_5430

And, if you wait long enough and keep taking the bends in the road, eventually life does come full circle.