Three Beautiful Things 07/04/08: Sean and Ed, Blue Like Jazz, July 4th is Over!

1. The Deke and I had coffee with Ed this morning. Ed's son Sean was almost fifteen years old. He was a wonderful musician and one of the Deke's students. He'd been to our house countless times for lessons. He was killed a week ago when a New York subway train ran him over. It's a tragic story. It's hard to believe it really happened. Coffee with Ed was at once sad and a good as we talked about Sean, his family, his upcoming memorial service, and few things off the topic of Sean's death.

2. I finished Blue Like Jazz and it sent me back in time to when I worked the first time at Whitworth College (now University) and I today I went on the World Wide Web and revisited many of the writers and teachers who have helped shape my Christian experience and practice. I also read blogs of those who practice and understand the Christian faith differently and read theological arguments. I hate theological arguments. Isn't that funny? But, for me, when Christianity turns into a pissing contest, it loses much of its power. I'll be blogging about this later as I elaborate on my experience reading Blue Like Jazz.

3. The Fourth of July ended. Thank goodness. What a noisy, dog frightening, indulgent, careless, self-congratulatory holiday. American independence is obviously a very good thing. I hate the way it's celebrated, making it my least favorite holiday, one I dread. Moreover, I dread that the noise and indulgence will spill over into the fifth and sixth and so on. Sometimes around here, the dog frightening noise lasts for a couple of weeks. Shit.

Three Beautiful Things 07/02/08: Blue Like Jazz, Imago Dei, Silver Valley Obits

1. I spent some of the day reading Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. One of my students gave it to me as a gift and another, not knowing I owned it already, enthusiastically recommended it. I'll reserve comment until I finish reading it.

2. Reading this book got me bouncing around on the World Wide Web and I found the church very interesting its author, Donald Miller, is a member of . It's called Imago Dei.

3. I read obituaries from the Shoshone News Press and found out about some deaths in the Silver Valley I hadn't known about, namely Norma McGraw, Pat Sprute, and Bernice Mellon. Norma lived down the block from us. Pat was a star athlete at Wallace High School and played football at the U. of Idaho. I played some slow pitch softball against him. He's one of those guys who I always knew when I saw him, but I'm not sure he knew who I was...he was four years older and of a different athlete generation. Bernice Mellon was a school cook, notably at Silver King Elementary and then at Kellogg High School. She and her family were also members of the United Church in Kellogg.