Pictorial Update (Feb., Mar. 07) and other Musings on "Social Arrangements," etc.

Coming soon.... the photos from my Feb. Jasper ski trip (where I didn't ski). In the meantime, here are other photos from the past couple of months.

Teaching...

Modelling brush strokes (oh oh, looks like I have that "eyes & ears here, in 1... 2... believe me kids, you don't want to know what happens when I hit 3" look).






Mission accomplished.





Teacher's college test question: What do you do when some students finish their masks before others do?


That's easy! Give them an extention activity, like make a comic strip of your mask's character, including conflict and plot resolution.






Legalism...
Now here is something that gets added to my list of “Yeah-Right’s”: the sticker on Homer’s head reads “for tobacco use only.” The sign in the display window – “420” – incidentally has nothing to do with tobacco. Of course even they acknowledge this: the same shop window has a button that reads “International Pot Smoker”. In other words, “I do only what the law allows me to – wink, wink – whether I’m in Alberta or in Amsterdam.”

Speaking of “Yeah-Right’s”, here’s one from memory lane (forgive me if it looks like I’m digressing): some years ago, after Joshua Harris wrote “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” provoking debate amongst church youth about godly romance, youth pastor Jeramy Clark responded with the book “I Gave Dating a Chance”. Apart from choosing a title about as poignant as “I had Cheerios for Breakfast”, Clark went on to defend dating by quoting the definition of the word "dating" from Webster’s dictionary, “to have social arrangements with”. The problem is this isn’t what people actually mean when they talk about dating. If I said, “I’m going on a date with Jim”, what will not come to the listener’s mind is, “Oh, Renny and his buddy Jim are off to shoot darts over a pint of Guinness.”

Is this not similar to imagining what a school principal would think if I took my Homer-bong under my arm, and announced that I was taking a smoke break? It wouldn’t be “Oh, law-abiding Renny is off to take 5 with his newspaper and unusual tobacco pipe before he returns to teaching our kids.”

Sometimes we in the church can give the world a pretty good run for their money.

Now here's something you never see...
For one, I'm wearing a suit (not unusual before I retired from politics, but it is now). Secondly, I am accompanied by not one, but two ladies! (Even though they are very beautiful ladies, I decided not to post their faces on the web). Thirdly, this was an extremely rare "social arrangement" :).

This was taken at St. Joseph's Basilica for their Valentine's Day dinner dance in support of their World Youth Day fund. Joanne, a teacher friend who is in St. J's choir, had an extra ticket and invited me along. Until her friend Christine's date showed up, I had the privilege of being seen accompanying both of them to the dance.

For those born before 1980 (and esp. those from Thunder Bay)...

Do you see the Telus sign at a commercial complex in Sherwood Park? What do you notice about it? Post a comment to tell me your thoughts/ observations.