Fireflies

I've never been in Lincoln in the summer. I've never seen the abundance of fireflies on Union's campus. The other night I stopped to take in the wonder that is the firefly, the lightning bug. I don't know much about them (I hear they don't live very long) but I know that God made them--maybe just for our enjoyment. I imagine their glowing butts have some other purpose, but a little part of me believe he did it just to fill our summers with wonder and magic. It worked for me.

Oswald Chambers says, "A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. . . . When the Spirit of God comes He does not give us visions, He tells us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God's creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple things--the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there."

I'm glad God made fireflies as an ordinary part of summer so that I could catch another glimpse of him in the midst of my humanity.

Postponed

In case you've been reading and were planning on praying for my Grandma on Monday (which I appreciate), her surgery has been postponed until April 19. Of course, if you've already scheduled time to pray for her on Monday, it will not hurt. And, if you could remember her on the 19th as well, it'd be great.

Grandma

This is my grandma. She's over 80. She still lives on her own, walks regularly, goes to the pool for aerobics, knits and crochets for ADRA, volunteers at the tuck shop at the nursing home (she lives in seniors' apartment building), is a greeter at church, and cooks the most fantastic food ever.

Grandma is having open heart surgery. Again. You see, she had surgery....maybe 10 years ago? (Long enough that I can't remember. And it was before I left for academy in 1998.) She had a heart murmur and so they replaced one of her valves with a pig heart valve. And they figured it would last as long as she did. But she won (she's quite competitive--we have to keep an eye on her
when we play games). And now her pig valve needs replacing.

But obviously there's a difference between open heart surgery when you're 70-something and when you're 80-something.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not one to worry. Worry can't change anything. And so I put my faith and trust in the all-powerful God that has held Grandma in his hands for over 80 years.

And I also believe in prayer. So if you have a moment today and especially on Monday, April 10, if you'd send up a thought about my grandma, I'd appreciate it.

Michael

In case you've been missing the fun over on MySpace (www.myspace.com/okimisan) here's a few pictures of my good friend Michael Shofner. It is not his birthday or anything but it is almost a holiday that is very special to us both. Michael, if you're reading this, we'll be thinking of you tomorrow.

Crazy and more

So we're walking in downtown Chicago with an hour before our next appointment. The girls are shopping. We're not really interested in that. All of a sudden we hear ourselves saying, "Boy, what are all the firetrucks for?"


View this clip on Vimeo

Yes, if you counted that was all four streets from that one corner. I kid you not, there were at least 14 firetrucks visible from where I stood plus at least as many fire SUVs, police cars, and ambulances. AND since the Hilton (the hotel where the problem seemed to be) was down one of those four streets, the corner on the other side of the Hilton probably had more emergency vehicles. I can't confirm that though.

Lessons we learned:
(1) Freeon is dangerous and it can leak and hurt you. (I had no idea my fridge was unsafe).
(2) Apparently, in Chicago, there are plenty of people who can free up their afternoon to stand around with mouths gaping wondering what's going on.
(3) Human nature, one might think, would lead people to run away from a corner with so many emergency vehicles. You know, maybe something's going to explode, let me save myself. Nope. Let me get as close to what seems to be the source of the emergency as I can. I MUST know what's going on even if I get hurt.

Anyway, it was incredibly mysterious and also we thought if we waited long enough we'd get on the news. Nope.

Chicago

Jesse and I hung out together most of the time. We had fun. This is me trying to take a picture of us. That's my intense look of concentration.

This is most of the students in the group outside the Chicago theatre.

This is a stunning view of downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, when you use a flash, it highlights the screen on the windows of the Hancock Observatory.

Have you ever seen a dolphin swim upside down? No, this picture is not upside down. They just swim on their backs. That is a good life.

Speaking of dolphins. Recognize this place?

This is Sue. She's pretty darn amazing. You can't tell, but that's just a model of her skull attached to her real skeleton. Her head weighs too much for her body to support. Wow.

Sentinel! For all you who appreciate The Matrix with me. From the Museum of Science and Industry's Robot exhibit.

Perhaps one of my favorite things in Chicago's downtown. A mirror kidney bean. This wonder of modern engineering is found in Millenium Park outside of the Art Institute. You might scoff, but it does incredible things.

See? Bet you can't tell that I'm taking this picture. Even if you click on it.

Okay, well the fun and games are over for now. I need to get sleep before work tomorrow! I'll post another very exciting event that occurred during our trip tomorrow.

Shaky Faith

I just got back from my trip to Chicago with a bunch of Business Students. Not only was it a fun time, it quite possibly was a life changing experience. You should ask me about it sometime.

In any case, we saw all kinds of stuff. One stop we made on Sabbath was the aquarium. If I figure out how to post a video, you might see one that I took.

View this clip on Vimeo
Another stop that day was the planetarium. Ironically, we thought that would be the least interesting of our stops that day (out of the aquarium, planetarium, and field museum). It turned out to be a real hit with us. It was educational, fun, and included nap-time.

It made me stop and question things for a second though. We were planning on having a "church service" at the end of Sabbath where we shared how we saw God that day. So that was my mindset. In the planetarium it was easy to see God's work--the wonder, the majesty, the huge, the design. And, it made me stop and doubt. In the explanation of space and the exploration of space, my mind could imagine a day when people leave Earth for the moon or the stars. But I couldn't imagine (realistically) a day when we all leave Earth and go to Heaven.

Don't get me wrong--to some extent I can imagine Heaven and the new Earth. But what about that part where we all fly up to Heaven. It seems incredibly far out to me. And it shook me a little. But maybe I'm not supposed to be able to imagine it. It should be, at least in some sense, unimaginable. I dunno. I'm not sure if I have a question, but I know I don't have an answer. I hope that God takes my shaky faith, says, "This will do for starters," and then grows it.

It helped that on Angela Barber's blog today she shared a great quote about what we are all looking for: "that there is a God right here in the midst of our day-to-day lives...who is trying to get messages through our blindness" (Buechner).

I'm glad that God can take my little faith and still send me reminders that He is love and that He loves me.

Job 42:2

Job, to God:
"I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted."

Introducing Justin Fitzgerald Okimi

My brother Kevin called me today. He wanted to know if he could use my address to file his U.S. taxes since he has moved back to Canada. Somehow this led us to a brilliant idea. As most of you know, my brothers and I all share the name Fitzgerald, but often it is not on our ID. For instance, some of my cards say Justin Gilbert or Justin Michael, rarely do they list all three.

BUT, if we made sure to list in our passports the name Fitzgerald (i.e. Matthew Fitzgerald Okimi, Kevin Fitzgerald Okimi, Greg Fitzgerald Okimi, Justin Fitzgerald Okimi) THEN we could purchase an airplane ticket for Fitzgerald Okimi (plenty of people go by their middle names) and any one of us could use it.

Now, you're probably thinking Why would you ever need to do that? And that's a good question. No instance comes to mind. BUT, it doesn't hurt anything, and then in the off chance something did come up that I couldn't use my ticket and my brother could, why, we've just prevented the loss of a plane ticket.

Cartoonists

I love it when cartoonists mix the real world with the cartoon world. Of note, both Foxtrot and Pearls before Swine are excellent comics and you should check them out here and here.