Curse you macintosh for deleting my post....

I'm writing this from the CAJ computer lab, which is populated with a plethora of the quintessential eMac. One of which just ate a well-thought-out, deep, meaningful post; my greatest one ever, no doubt. you'll just have to take me at my word. My now-lost post went a little something like this:

Let's see. my last entry was stress camp, almost a month ago now. what have i been doing since then? it doesn't seem like much on a grand scale had transpired, at least nothing worth really informing my vast, cyberspace audience of. i'll just give you a brief run-down of this past month, and we'll call it good.

I preached! without shoes again, no less! and it was quite different than my last sermon. the last one (almost exactly a year ago, actually), was manuscripted out in detail, and followed to the letter. we have translators who change everything we say into japanese over an FM transmitter, and they tell us that they need a manuscript, so they get one. with sermon #1, i had printed out 3 or 4 copies, i had performed it to imaginary audiences in my house, i had gone over what would be appropriate non-verbal communication for my various stories and points. and it was ok. people even still remember what i taught on, which is weird. looking back, i can see that i was trying to make a perfect sermon, where every single element that could be controlled was. and i think it became more like a book than a person-to-person communication. sermon #2 was much more free, much more stream-of-consciousness, as they say. i did manuscript it out, but i got an earfull from the translator after church for only loosely basing my sermon on the manuscript he had. he was a good sport about it all. the thing is, when i control every single element, i leave nothing to the power of the Holy Spirit. i think that if i can do everything perfect, i will touch people's hearts and make a difference in their lives. the truth is, i don't really want to be in control, because i can only have a finite influence on a specific type of person. when God gets involved, things are different. when i admit that i am not that great of a public speaker, and pray that God will use me anyways, i feel like i'm doing the right thing. to twist a phrase from martin luther "let ryan stop ruling the world". the sermon itself was on james 2:14-19, the old faith vs. works conundrum. rather than give the predictable call to ministry, i focused on the nature of and relationship between faith, salvation, works, and grace. i did video it, but i haven't had the guts to watch it yet. soon.

what else happened...

Well, the other day i walked outside in the afternoon and experienced an uniquely japanese sign that fall is coming- the smell of burning leaves. i know that japan's not the only country that burns leaves in the fall, but it's the only country that i've lived in that does it. i grew up with that smell, but before last autumn i hadn't smelled it for about 8 years. it's a very sentimental smell, and it's one that i love. i recommend everyone burn leaves in their backyard. except i think it's illegal where most of you are. just burn one in your sink or something. trust me, it's a good smell.

Life in general has been good. my house is not my home, and i'm not really planning on it ever being so, considering i'm moving out in about 6 weeks. ah, the transient life. as far as the ministry goes, i'm feeling much better about it than i did last year. i think it's the difference between unconscious incompetence and conscious incompetence. last year i had no idea what i was doing, so i had no way of knowing if i was doing it well, or if i was making huge, horrible mistakes that would scar the kids for life. it was kind of a paralyzing place to be, actually. this year i have the benefit of hindsight, and a little bit of experience, so i can at least know what areas i'm doing poorly in, and, conversely, what things i'm doing that i can feel ok with, areas that i can look at as victories, as accomplishments. it's kind of a new thing for me, being good at what i do.

And, in closing, i now regularly weigh less than my previous target weight of 80kg, which is about 175lbs. the only problem is, i've been continuing to lose more weight. in fact, just the other day, i weighed in at less than 170lbs. which would explain why it seems like this fall is so cold already- i'm just minus one layer of fat. if anyone sees it, apologize for me and tell it to come home. i don't like being cold...