ELM / Painting / Training

Well yesterday I received in the mail the book for our next ELM class.  The book is "Care Of The Soul" by Thomas Moore.  I'm only into Chapter One so far but it promises to be a very interesting book.    Our next class is September 14 and 15, so I've got to get to work on this book though it looks to me like it will be a pretty fast read.

I've also started work on a piece of art to be displayed at this years "Street of Dreams".  It's a large piece measuring 51 x 120 inches.  It's broken up into 10 panels, 8 of which run vertically and two of which are horizontal.

This piece is going to suck up a great deal of my time over the next two weeks as I have to have it installed before the 13th of September.  I've built the panels and today I will mark them as to how they will assemble and pre-drill holes in the two horizontal support panels (which are masonite and wood) then I will be stretching the canvas on the other eight.

Once I'm done I'll post a photo of the piece installed in the home, it's going in a stairwell and it should be pretty impressive on the wall.

I'm still wanting to Blog about the session with Brain McLaren that Gail and I took in last Sunday.  But, I had hoped to re-watch the broadcast and even re-read his book "A New Kind of Christianity" before I commented farther.  Unfortunately, with all that is on my plate right now I'm not going to have time to do that for a while.

I am not a fan of McLaren's, I agree with much of what he says but I very much dislike the way he says it.  He seems to have a major chip on his shoulder when it comes to those that are politically conservative and he shows this over and over and over again in his dialogue.  I highly doubt that he genuinely wants a convergence of the many strands of Christianity, what he actually wants is a conversion of the conservative (more so the conservative politically) to become liberal.  Now I will profess my own frustration with some of my conservative theologically brothers and sisters (as well as my frustration with my liberal politically brothers and sisters) but I will defend to the grave their right to believe and worship as they wish. 

Besides if McLaren is looking for a truly blended church culturally, methodologically, theologically and politically he need look no farther than the "American Baptist Churches".  In my eyes he's simply trying to reinvent the wheel.  Though honestly he's not as he ultimately wants a church cleansed of the conservative stain that he in my opinion carries a great deal of personal baggage towards.

I certainly hope I am misjudging the man but I think he could learn from his disciple Rob Bell who can deliver much the same message and in my eyes doesn't insult or belittle.  I very much enjoy reading and listening to Bell and as I stated they really are delivering the same message.

Once again on a whole other track, this week I went over to visit my friend Brandon over at New Dawn Nutrition.  Brandon has a very sophisticated 'sci-fi' machine to measure your body composition.  So now armed with this information and a bit of consulting with Brandon I have calculated out the target weight I need to hit in order to be at the body composition that I desire before my 53rd birthday.  Eerily the number is one that is very, very familiar to me but one that I have not seen for a good number of years.  The calculation come out that I need to be at a weight right around 162 to 163 lbs.  This is my old competition weight from my powerlifting days, I lifted in the 165 lb weight class but I almost always ended up weighing in on meet days at 162 or 163.  I believe in my last meet I was at 162 1/2 lbs, which is basically where I need to be by November.

I'm confident that I can get to that weight, and honestly my goal is to be there before the 14th of November just in case I discover that I need to drop a couple more pounds.  I really don't want to go too much lower though as I would hate to break into the 150's.  That just sounds horrifyingly light to me.  LOL

I plan to go see Brandon once a month to chart my progress and if you are looking for a good source of nutritional supplements Brandon is the man to see.  He's a truly great person and always friendly and enjoyable to converse with.  Here is a link to his store's two facebook pages:
https://www.facebook.com/NewDawnNutraceuticals
https://www.facebook.com/NewDawnNutrition

Creath is getting ready to go back to college next week so the house will be a bit more empty.  Maddie is off and running most of the time with her large circle of friends, her boyfriend and her job so for us we're already starting to feel a bit like empty nesters.  It's kind of nice to be honest.  LOL

I hope you're all having a very blessed day and remember to be a blessing in someway to somebody today.

In his Abounding Grace,
Roy