Frap… It’s the term my mom always used as a hollow threat when I was a teenager. “Straighten up or I’m gonna frap you!” To my knowledge, she never did frap me, so I am still not sure what it means… Until NOW!

Yet another weird Google beta project is making the rounds. Frappr seems to not much more than a pin map for groups of people. Cuz, of course, everyone wants to have a pin on a map that represents them… *blank stare* …I guess.

For my loyal fans, and anyone else who feels an urgent need to be frapped, you can put your own pin in the SYNS Fans Frappr map. Go on, knock yerself out! It’s free!! (Then again, so are dried leaves in autumn, but I digress.)

So does this mean that all that time, my mom was just threatening to indicate my location on a map somewhere? Jeez, I would have been much more rebellious if that’s all the consequences were.

Let’s liven things up a bit! Whadaya say?

This video has been floating around the net for a couple of weeks now, and it’s just too cool for me not to post.

This is a big file, so you may want to right click and “Save Target As”. (That will save me some bandwidth too! Thanks.)

Amazing Christmas Lights

Merry Christmas!!

In my scripture reading today, God gave me a good laugh and a good lesson. There should be little doubt how I feel about vegetarians. While I admire their self-discipline, I can’t help but think that if God didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of such delicious meat.

Today I read Romans 14…

vs. 2 “One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.”

While that verse was good for a laugh (and may well end up on my white board) the next verse stung a little.

vs. 3 “The man who eats everything must not condemn the man who does not, for God has accepted him.”

Oof.

This is a great passage about judgment and as judgment has been a topic of this blog a few times, I’d like to share what this verse taught me.

There are those who would jump on this verse (taking it out of context) and say that it is wrong to judge anyone for anything. That is simply not scriptural. The Bible is very clear that, as Christians, it is our responsibility to lovingly and compassionately help brothers and sisters in Christ to see and overcome their sins. What Romans 14 warns against is petty legalism.

Case in point: There are those in the Church (including the pastor of my church) who believe that alcohol is so dangerous that it should be avoided entirely. The Bible does expressly forbid drunkenness. But Jesus himself drank wine. (Yes, I’ve heard the arguments about how it was only grape juice, not alcohol. Buy some Welch’s, put it in a clay pot and set it out in the sun for a couple of weeks. Then tell me it’s not “strong”.)

So is it wrong to drink wine? Am I sinning if I have a margarita on a hot summer day? The Bible is not clear. What Romans 14 is telling us is that, in such matters, follow your own conscience and don’t judge other Christians for following theirs. If you can not point to a chapter and verse in the New Testament that explicitly forbids or allows something, don’t impose your conviction on others. Simply follow your heart and let others follow theirs.

By the same token, if you are with someone who has a strong conviction which you do not share, be the bigger man and don’t temp your brother to go against his heart. It would be wrong for me to have a margarita while eating lunch with my pastor because he has a strong conviction against alcohol. This is not hypocrisy, rather politeness, showing respect for his convictions. However, if I did not know about his convictions and ordered up a cold one, it would be equally wrong for him to judge me for drinking as I clearly would not have the same conviction he has. Out of respect, he should politely decline to drink without delivering a fiery sermon.

One last thing on Romans 14. (This is the part I struggle with most.)

vs. 22 “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. …”

In other words, if someone has a conviction that you don’t share, don’t strike up a debate on the subject. I loves me some scriptural debate, but in these cases, I must keep it to myself. Aww nuts.

I must apologize to my family and friends who rely on this blog to keep tabs on my well being. I’ve had several folks ask me why I have not yet posted about the status of our move. To be honest, things are pretty crazy around here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I am thankful for the opportunity to server God by acting in the Christmas musical at church. It’s just that three three-hour rehearsals a week can put a strain on your play time. I can’t even express how blessed we are to have this new apartment. It’s just that moving is tough and (as my wife can attest) I start to get grumpy after several days living with boxes in the house.

So, without further whining, here’s the latest 4-1-1.

Tammy and I are 90% settled into our new apartment. We have all the major furniture in place and most of the essentials (meaning our TV and computers, of course) are set up and on-line. The new place is all we hoped it would be. It’s bigger (for the most part) and newer and it has a garage (which still contains a chaotic tumble of boxes, bicycles, and tools, but I promised no more whining, so…)

There have been a couple of hang-ups, but as moves goes, this has been a good one. We had probably the lowest attrition rate of any of our previous six moves (Yeah, six. I know.) One of Tammy’s Dreamsicles© needs some glue and my old $10 garage sale book shelves have been demoted to garage storage shelves. Probably the biggest disappointment has been that there is no room for our dining table. Of course we’ve had dinner either in front of the TV or computers for years, so it won’t be a big adjustment.

Words can not say how grateful we are to our friends who helped us move everything in record time. There’s not enough pizza in the world to thank you guys enough!

*sigh*

Could someone please tell me when we changed the definition of democracy? I seem to remember a time when it meant majority rules, i.e. the opinion of the majority is of highest precedent.

However, sometime in the last ten years or so someone changed the definition to whiniest rules, e.g. if two atheists are louder than two million Christians then the atheists make the rules. For some odd reason, our culture has decided it is better to offend the majority in order to avoid offending the minority. Where is the logic in that?!

I tend to be a realist. I don’t take to mushy traditions or revisionist history. I am very vocal about the fact that Christ was probably not born on December 25th; that most of our Christmas traditions (including gift giving and tree decorating) are likely derived from pagan rituals (just like Halloween and the Easter bunny). I will not argue that December 25th has any historical, spiritual significance.

However, this is the season in which we observe Christ’s birth. This time of year would have no significance whatsoever if the early Christian Church had not decided to observe Christmas at this time of year. Do you really think that retailers would pull out all the stops to lure in shoppers for “Winter Solstice” or “Yule Feast”? Would there be parades and a national holy day (er… sorry… holiday) for the “Saturnalia” or the rebirth of Sol? (With all due respect to my Hebrew brethren, Hanukkah is a great celebration, but so is Yom Kippur and kids don’t get out of school for that!)

My wife posted a poignant essay on her blog. The summation of this essay is that we, as Christians, should not be surprised when secular America takes Christ out of Christmas.

We can’t blame a world that has rejected God for not doing the job WE have been called by God to do! … If you know Jesus as your Savior, it is YOU who is supposed to say “Merry Christmas”…

While I totally agree that it is not Target’s job to promote Christianity, I think it is totally retarded for anyone to celebrate the “Holiday” season devoid of Christian symbols. If you are offended by the fact that this holly-jolly, gift-giving, peace-on-earth time of year is based entirely on the birth of Christ, then you should try to get yourself elected to the Senate and propose a Constitutional Amendment outlawing Christmas. Otherwise, shut your trap and have a Merry Christmas!!