David's Winter 2008 Snow Guide

Snow days were always the best when we were kids. No School. No Homework. No Teachers.

And if it was a real snow day - where the snow kept-a-comin' in big flakes and medium flakes and little flakes too - snow fun abounded.

Especially if the conditions were right - snow men...snow balls..snow forts...sledding etc...

My friend Steve, who lived across from me, we would build snow barricades in the middle of the street to block cars from driving down it...but also dared them to try and crash through our impenetrable snowy wall (little did they know we enjoyed watching metal tear through packed snow with tires crunching the boulders we rolled...that's what you call a win win baby).

Basically I've grown up around snow my whole life - I'm a Midwesterner through and through - So here's my guide to snow:

White & Light & Slow Falling

Pros: Great to walk in, think about life, and sip hot-chocolate. Also good for a romantic walk. Easy to shovel. Can eat if fresh. If enough accumulation - great for sledding.

Cons: Bad packing snow which = no snow balls, forts etc... :( Bummer.

White & Light & Windy

Pros: Blizzards are cool :-) Sledding in blizzards are even cooler (PUN intended...hah!)

Cons: Low Visibility = Car crashes. Could lose a child if you go somewhere outside.

White & Heavy

Pros: Packing Snow! Build forts. Snow ball fights. Snow men. Snow Barricades. Chance of school closing. Aliright for sledding. Can eat if fresh - more moisture in each bite. Alright!

Cons: Clothes get wet fast, gloves especially. Hard to shovel. Often turns to ice-snow which leads to more moto crashes.

Yellow & Wet (Probably a dog pee'd here)

Pros: Can use to throw at enemey...be sure to have protective layer of white snow around it before packing into snow ball.

Cons: Tastes horrible. Can get you made fun of if you think somone dropped Mountain Dew and you dive right in...

Grey to Black & Wet or Frozen

Pros: Makes the white snow so much whiter.

Cons: Contains cancerous agents...eat at own risk. Detracts from beautiful snowy scenary. Stays around for a looong time.

Stained different colors & Wet to Frozen

Red - Probably blood. Check for bodies, objects that look like weapons. If any found, call 911.

Brown - If shaped like a turd, its probably a frozen turd, or melting. No treasure here. Move On.

Green - Could be a leaf, pine needles, a fern etc... If it is an emerald, pick it up. Could also be dog vomit.

Blue - Probably some spit out Powerade or Gaterade, taste to make sure. If not, probably windshield wiper fluid.

Purple - Take as much as possible!!! Put it in your pockets, your pants, your shirt. Consider yourself lucky - this is the stuff dreams are made of...literally. Eat before you go to bed.

Sweet Dreams,

David J Ruess

1. I have a deep-seated affinity for numbered lists.

2. I heard someone say the other day: “That guy always messes up my order. He’s such an idiot!” It got me thinking. Y’know when Jesus says, “Anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell”? I wondered to myself if this would be the modern equivalent of that statement.

The thing is, I say stuff like that all the time. I say things like, “Get this n00b out of my way!” when I’m driving, or “I can’t believe we both went to Moody. He’s such an idiot,” or, “This preacher is an awful. Why is he condescending to his audience like that?” So maybe I’m guilty of the same sin.

I think the issue here is hardly one of vocabulary, but rather one of opinion of our fellow men and women. When we scorn another person and demean them in our hearts, we violate God’s command to love one another. “Love…is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” In that moment I have judged another person to have less worth than myself and reminded myself (and maybe those around me) of their inferiority and my superiority.

Although certain words are not sure-fire indicators of my motives, maybe examining their use in my everyday vocabulary can serve as a good place to start…

3. We talk a lot about pornography in the church. I was wondering the other day if maybe watching people have sex is a secondary issue to watching other people be naked. Right before God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, he made them clothes. That seems to me to imply that God was affirming that it’s shameful to look at another person’s nakedness. It doesn’t seem like nakedness was shameful before the fall, but sin messes everything up.

Of course there’s a place for nudity between husband and wife in a sexual way, and for parents and children when the children are too young to take care of themselves. But overall, it seems like when sin entered the human race, our nakedness became something that is unholy to display in everyday life.

This makes the issue bigger than pornography. This reaches into media and advertising, especially. Sometimes we evaluate movies with sex scenes by asking, “Am I mature enough to handle this?” But maybe maturity has little to do with it. Maybe there’s something inherently shameful about looking at someone else’s nakedness. The story of Noah and his nakedness and the responses of his sons (Genesis 9 – I had to Bible Gateway it) seems to affirm that.

“Jesus could watch this sex scene and not think about having sex.” I have no doubt that’s true. I just wonder if he would have avoided it for other reasons.

4. I was talking to a friend last week, and she mentioned her disappointment with God after becoming a Christian. Where was her holiness? Where was her life change? She didn’t feel much different than before she was a Christian. Won’t “the tree be known by its fruit”? She realizes that there’s lots of bad stuff in the church, but she questioned whether, overall, the church was actually any different than society at large.

Without answering those questions, my conversation with her reminded me again how unfamiliar I am with Jesus’ teaching. How much did Jesus talk about ethics? How much did he talk about salvation? I have no answers to those questions. I could look them up, but really? Everything Jesus said is recorded in, like, 50 pages, and I still don’t have a handle on it? I’ve been spending too much time studying Jesus’ disciples (modern and ancient) and not enough time studying Jesus himself.

5. This final item only applies to those who love video games. Any and everyone else may skip it.

Have you watched the new Starcraft II trailer? “Battle Report Episode 1” – it’s on gametrailers.com. It’s everything a good teaser should be: expert play, extended and consecutive in-game footage, and developer analysis to help me understand exactly what I’m seeing. Bravo. Why don’t more games do this sort of thing? Make video game trailers, not movie trailers featuring video games…

-tim

1 mile to exit 92

There are very few moments in life which take my breath away.

I don’t mean the cliché kind you find mentioned in greeting cards or Facebook bumper-stickers. But the moments where unsurpassed beauty unexpectedly surprises you and all you can do is inhale a breath of complete awe.

Those moments…are few.

My index, middle, and ring finger can count even rarer moments. These are moments which take my breath away every…single…time. One is a girl who loves someone else. The second is a green reflective road sign which shouts to drivers “1 mile to exit 92.” And the third is found in realizing love. The reason these moments are so few is because they are found in the midst of excessively repeated ordinary moments.

For example, I find the world to contain a massive quantity of unattractive females. I can’t go anywhere without seeing unattractive women, they’re everywhere. And then Bam! In the midst of all this common ugliness appears the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on…and all I can do is inhale in complete awe. I might hang out with her for a few hours, and then its over. I’m back to seeing hundreds of unattractive women for days on end until Bam! There she is again…a rainbow in the middle of an endless sky of grey.

I guess beauty has always fascinated me. Especially the saying “beauty is in the eye of its beholder…” I think it’s true. I mean that’s why your best friend can tell you about their ‘totally’ hot date and when you see a picture think to yourself, “ughh.” It’s why your waiter or waitress will recommend the clam-chowder soup saying, “it is my absolute favorite and the only thing I recommend!” but you end up politely taking it home to your trashcan.

I realize that plays a role too – opinion, taste etc… But it’s not just my perspective that “causes” my breath to be taken away. It’s much more how repetitive the mundane is in our lives. We get used to it and submerse ourselves into it – our jobs, our schools, the same pizza we like to eat, the clothes we wear….it’s the rhythm of our life. And there’s nothing wrong with this. I think the mundane is actually very beautiful and it’s what we should cherish…for it is our lives. But O’ how I thank God for unexpected beauty. It helps me keep on living. And it reminds me how beautiful my life really is…even if there is a lot of repetition.

This is why the mile before 92 always surprises to me. I’ve only seen the sight for less than a minute my whole life and when I do get to see it, it’s only for 3 seconds at most. But do you know what it’s like to drive 230 miles only seeing the highway, cars, trees, semis, grass, more trees, gravel, exit signs, and random houses? It’s like spending 4 hours in a car only seeing highway, cars, trees, semis, grass, more trees, gravel, exit signs, and random houses. Mundane repetition. Then 1 mile before exit 92 in Wisconsin on 90/94 going east, the evergreens on the right side of the road stop…only for about 100 feet. And when you look through the break in those trees you see off in the distance the most beautiful lake sparkling in the sunlight. After hours of the same sights, its refreshing and breathtaking every...single...time.

At the risk of sounding too spiritual the same is true of me and love, God’s love that is. Too often Jesus, salvation, and that God loves me is simply knowledge. And they’re stories and truths I’ve heard over and over and over again in my life. But sometimes, sometimes I realize that God really does love me (that’s frickin general, I know) but I realize that He loves me like one of your best friends loves you. How they care about what happens in your life, He does too. When they are sympathetic with you when life goes in the crapper, He understands like they do. I guess its also realizing that He loves like a person.

And when this happens, I don’t know what to do.
It always completely surprises me. It blows me away and leaves me in awe.

I hope this happens to you too.

David