Friday, October 3, 2003

10:28 PM Cubs win 3-1 over the Atlanta Braves! 5:03 PM George Theis from Word of Life sent me the following story:

On the outskirts of a small town in Georgia, there was a big, old pecan treejust inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts.”One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me,” said one boy.. Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence. Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard,”One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me.” He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off. Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along. “Come here quick,” said the boy. “You won’t believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls.” The man said, “Beat it kid, can’t you see it’s hard for me to walk.” When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled to the cemetery. Standing by the fence they heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me…” The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been tellin’ the truth. Let’s see if we can see the Lord.” Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord. At last they heard, “One for you,one for me. That’s all. Now let’s go get those nuts by the fence and we’ll be done.” They say the old man made it back to town a full 5 minutes ahead of the boy on the bike.

4:59 PM Note: We are trying to recover enough to cheer the Cubs on to victory tonight. Looks like the rain has stopped. Going to be chilly and windy at Wrigley Field. We made our first fire of the season this afternoon. A good evening to stay home and watch the game. 4:55 PM Light blogging today because both Marlene and I are a bit under the weather—me more than her. Marlene has been clearing out Mark’s bedroom and Nick’s bedroom in preparation for having them painted next week. Both rooms were very messy—but Mark was the clear winner in this category. 4:43 PM Earlier today I met with Jay Ruby, an Oak Park native who is a professor of anthropology at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has been doing a study of Oak Park social trends for the last few years. I think he and I first talked in 1998 or 1999. He is back in town this weekend for the 50th anniversary of his graduating class at Oak Park-River Forest High School. He has tremendous insight into the changes in Oak Park over the past few decades—and what is likely to happen in the future. Although we have differing viewpoints in some areas, he has been very gracious in sharing his insights with us. We talked at length about the problems of an “inner-ring” suburb like Oak Park, such as integration, property taxes, changing demographics, and the shift in housing patterns. As a side note, he played football for Oak Park back when the team went undefeated for 11 years in a row from the early 40s to the early 50s. Tomorrow the Huskies take on Downers Grove North, and Oak Park will need some help to pull out a Homecoming victory. 4:41 PM Looking ahead to Sunday, we’ll be observing the Lord’s Supper in all services and I’ll be preaching the first message in a new series from 1 Corinthians 1-2 called “The Cross, the Church and the World.” 8:23 AM Sermon of the day by John Lavender, Are You Overweight?. It’s not what you think. 4:02 AM It’s Friday morning, and that means it’s time for the Golden Heirs Friday Morning Breakfast Club at the Jedi Garden Restaurant in North Riverside. Special greetings to the whole crew, especially to Cliff and Phyllis Raad, Bruce and Louise Lavenau, Fred and Nita Kirkwood, Bob and Robin Bruce, Marge Utigard, and to Bob and Betty Johnsen. You’ve been meeting there for a long time so it’s only right that you finally are recognized on the World Wide Web via the Pastor Ray Weblog. Enjoy!