Presby-Musings

The first day of our tour in Sweden was in the capital city of Stockholm . Sweden used to be a superpower in the 16th & 17th century.  It controlled a fairly good chunk of what is now Denmark, Finland, Germany and Russia. They point this out a lot. Our first stop on the tour was the Vasa Museum . The Vasa was a ship that was built by the King of Sweden in 1628 that sank on its maiden voyage right in the harbor of Stockholm. In a letter written by the British Ambassador to Sweden, the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus was reported to have had a dream that the ship sank.  I’m pretty sure that was fabricated.  Gustavus Adolphus would have wanted to at least appear to be somewhat connected to Providence after suffering such an embarrassing blow. When he was informed of the news that his greatest warship (almost) had sunk after twenty minutes, he demanded that there be an inquiry into why it happened. The captain was immediately absolved, which was good because the gu...

On one of the first days in Scandanavia we spent the day touring around Copenhagen on a tour bus.  I have to say that Denmark is one my new favorite countries.  Other than the U.S. of Dadgum A, of course, and maybe Finland.  Here are some reasons why Denmark is so awesome.  In no particular order:  It’s beautiful.  And I mean really beautiful.  It’s like visiting EPCOT or something.  Seriously, the biggest city in Denmark was clean, vibrant, beautifully maintained, full of polite, happy Danish people , and pretty much just awesome.  Even the graffiti was neat.  Everyone speaks English---at least a little.  And they’re not snobby about the fact that you can’t speak Danish, which is hard to understand and doesn’t sound anything like it reads. People leave their bikes unlocked.  I got the feeling they didn’t lock their doors either.  Even the Queen travels without a lot security.  The Crown Prince bicycles ...

I'm in Canada . Montreal to be exact.  The Pierre Trudeau Airport to be even more exact.  Because my wife upgraded our American Express card to platinum so we get to sit in the TD Bank V.I.P. lounge.  It's not as nice as the Air Canada lounge, which turned us away for not being better than American Express platinum people, but it's pretty flipping nice. Lots of people speak French here in Montreal.  It's almost like being in France, only everyone is nice and there's lots of maple syrup for sale in the shops.  We walked by a booth that was advertising the Canadian Lottery or something and a lady asked us if we lived in Canada.  I said no, but I wanted to say yes because I felt a real kinship with Canadians all of a sudden.  My 16 year-old kid must have felt the same rush of Canadianism because he said to me, "Man, we should join with Canada and just make an uber country."  I'm wondering the same thing.  There are more C...

I'm working on developing some discipline when it comes to my emotional outpourings through the various social media outlets I frequent.  I say "working on" because I can't make any promises if I'll completely behave, but I'll try. A few days ago the entire world got to see what happens when a pastor does dumb things on the Internet.  Mark Driscoll , the uber-pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (a mega, multi-site church) posted this unfortunate post on his Facebook page: Blogger Rachel Held Evans, the author Evolving in Monkey Town   (which I reviewed on this blog ), called Driscoll out on her blog and encouraged her readers to contact Mars Hill Church and complain.  They did.  After getting called on the carpet by his church elders,  Driscoll issued this sort-of apology yesterday.  Before I comment on all of this and tie it all together in a lesson for Yours Truly (or any one else for that matter), let me say this: Here's some th...