Author: andrew

Photoshop for free – online!

Okay, this is a little geeky for andrewandlisa.org, but I had to put it out there. Many of you know that I love Photoshop, and I know that many of you don’t.  There are two reasons people don’t use Photoshop:

  1. It’s hard.
  2. It’s expensive.   Most people don’t want to shell out 600 Big Ones just to try software that’s probably too complicated, anyway.

Well, with Adobe’s new announcement of Photoshop Express, a whole new world of free, super-easy photo editing and sharing is available for the masses. And that includes you. There’s nothing at stake, you should try it. You should try it now. Just click here!

Lyle’s Senior Portraits

Thanks for the fun this morning, Lyle!

Reedley Downtown Association

If you look closely, you may see a familiar hand at work in the creation of this new web site: www.reedleydowntown.com.  I put it up last night.  Let me know what you think!  Anything else that may belong on a downtown association web site that isn’t there?

Tired,

Andrew

Reedley Downtown Association – Shameless Self-Promotion

Here’s a picture of me with the rest of the board of the Reedley Downtown Association. We’ve joined forces to make Reedley a fun and comfortable place to live using the power of geographically-specific retail.

Liam pictures as requested by Mare

Most of these are from this past weekend’s trip to Lodi, but a few (including the first three pictures every taken by Liam!) are also present.  Enjoy!

Leighanna’s Senior Portraits

This morning I had the chance to make senior portraits with Leighanna Mixter. She’s a wonderful young lady, and I enjoyed spending the morning with her and her parents. Enjoy the video!

Baby pics by Lisa

Yesterday Lisa shot David and Jonathan Muxlow, week-old twin boys. Enjoy the cute pictures!

Roman worship

Ed. note: Written by hand February 9, 2008 at our home at 491 S. Reed Ave. and posted later. 

History is full of treasures and surprises.  In Will Durant’s Caesar and Christ I was privileged to read about the Roman religious sacrificial system.  It turns out that animals sacrificed to Rome’s gods were thought to become the gods themselves.

Thus it was that the sacrifice was thought to be not just a sacrifice of an animal, but a sacrifice of the god himself.  I see in this the seed or foreshadow of the concept of Christ’s substitutionary atonement.  After the sacrifice was complete, the animal’s internal organs were given to sacred flames and the flesh served to the priests and worshipers.  Thus it was hoped that the god’s strength and glory would pass to the people.

There are several ways to interpret the relationship between this practice and Jesus’ Godly sacrifice.  One is that Christianity merely borrowed the concept from older religion.  That may be.  But I prefer to see in this practice a foreshadow of humanity’s spiritual center of gravity: Christ’s sacrificial death and glorious resurrection.  The Romans were no fools, and this drama, this death-of-god, is hardwired into humans past and present.  It’s a truth we know with a source we don’t.

Jesus may have had this god-sacrifice in mind when he said in John 6:53, “Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  He was indicating that the glory and strength of God can pass into our lives only because of his sacrificial death and atonement.

The ancients would have understood, and now I do, too.

Amazing Grace

Ed. note: Written by hand January 30, 2008 at the pediatrician’s office and posted later. Liam had pneumonia.

Dean Parento is in the hospital. This morning we prayed for his salvation. My thoughts pursuant to that prayer are wretched; a self-indictment. They wandered along a path peopled by three figures: Dean, John Newton and me. These thoughts are set to a soundtrack: Chris Tomlin’s rendition of Amazing Grace. I know I’ve written unfavorably about this song in the past. Witness me now despising my own hubris.

Tomlin’s version, coincidentally, is also the soundtrack to the recent movie of the same name. The movie portrays John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, as an old man haunted bu the ghosts of 20,000 slaves who died in his charge while he was captain of a slave-trading ship. The committer of terrible offenses against God and man, he felt the weight of God’s forgiveness palpably. Truly amazing is the grace that would forgive such sins. This forgiveness breathes as if it was the voice of the wind. It tells me of its own miraculousness. And I know that forgiveness is always a miracle, whether applied to Dean, John Newton, or me.

Too often I see myself only in peripheral vision and assume that I’m wearing armor, that I somehow wear a clean character. When I stop and look down, though, that armor turns to filthy rags. I realize again that I’m no more worthy of forgiveness than John Newton. And that gives me tremendous hope for Dean. The fact that I’m not beyond Christ’s grasp means that Dean isn’t, either. When I pray for Dean’s salvation, I know that I’m reaching beyond possibility to the realm of miracles.

But that’s where forgiveness lives, and from thence has Christ rendered my own salvation. “And like a flood, his mercy rains (reigns). Unending love, amazing grace.”

Amazing Grace, indeed.