The Gospel Coalition (TGC) Live!

Or put another way, TGC from someone who is living the experience 

for the first time and is VERY thankful for it.

 There are approximately 7000 people registered and roaming at TGC here at the super conference aka Chicago's famous McCormick Place - a facility that makes the Metro in Toronto look like an exceedingly small fry with no biggy size option.  Indeed, the spaciousness and beauty of this place make it rather difficult to believe we are in the company of so great a crowd.  There are vendors and exhibitors abounding and a bookstore to rival Books a Million...

and with 35% off most titles? 

I am utterly undone.  

No. 

I am tortured in the extreme.

      Today's line-up of blockbuster experiences?

• Roundtable Q&A What I've Learned from Years of Preaching Christ in the Old Testament featuring Phil Ryken, Alistair Begg and Mark Dever
• Introduction to Conference by Don Carson 
• Corporate Worship with The Getty's 
• Studying the Scriptures and Finding Jesus  John 5:31-47 by R.Albert Mohler Jr.
• Getting Out (Crossing Over) Exodus 14 by Tim Keller
• From Foreigner to King Jesus Ruth by Alistair Begg
• Panel Discussion Preaching from the OT                                                                                    featuring Tim Keller, Lignon Duncan, Crawford Loritts, Don Carson, Bryan Chapell
• Concert Sing Them Again:  An evening of Old and New Hymns

The WOW factor antennae have not stopped vibrating all day long and my cup runneth over - is in fact, spilling all over the place!
Thanks to a dear friend back home, you are hereby supplied a link to a live coverage stream online: http://thegospelcoalition.org/conferences/2011-media

(Thanks Lilly)
Now those who truly desire to tap into this enriching spiritual feast can follow what's happening here without my having to sort through a pathetic convolution of notes.  

As my hubby calmly suggested after witnessing my desperate hair-on-fire attempt today..

"we'll buy the CD"   

There is also an Art Exhibit in the Grand Lobby entitled Resonant Vision featuring the work of nine Christians who make contemporary art. They were each asked the question, "How does your Christian faith inform your work?"
This is none too familiar territory for many of us and makes me eager to snoop around
and explore this exhibition;
particularly because it is a world that our 3rd year theatre/arts double major baby girl is pursuing with great gusto at Redeemer and one in which we need to gain a deeper understanding.

Dearest choir peeps, Voila!  The uilleann pipes we spoke of once before while listening to the Getty's recording of By Faith --- played before our very eyes!

Part of the apparatus of simulcast wonderment was parked right beside our row in the Main Stage which by some feat of the miraculous, seated all 7000 of us comfortably and effortlessly.

 A steady stream of Coach buses delivered and retrieved conferee's every half hour throughout day one;

a day that ran so smooth from an organizational standpoint - the team behind the scenes get a five star rating from the two of us and everyone else whose company and conversation was our pleasure today.

Tomorrow's schedule begins at 7am and culminates with a Getty Concert of Praise at 9pm.

This girl needs to go to bed 

-- like right now  :)

Toodles and sleep sweet, a directive I will surely follow if I can shut my mind off.

Conferencing in Chicago

Well.  We're here.
Strolling around the city block of the Palmer House in wide-eyed wonder as only a bonafide pair of country bumpkins could possibly do.
I've decided to wear my camera and take you along where-ever and when-ever I can.  The conference schedule dictates that I will have to be highly selective and quick fingered in the reporting end of things if it's to happen at all.
I don't live here - in this lovely, windy city perched on the shores of Lake Michigan - brand new US territory for these two Canucks.  The camera, lack of winter wear and croc sandals are a dead giveaway.
We've both agreed this is an exciting departure from our daily routine - and we eagerly anticipate many good things this week here at the Gospel Coalition Conference with the likes of Tim Keller, Alistair Begg and (be still(er), my wildly beating heart) Keith and Kristyn Getty leading times of corporate worship!

The Palmer House is an iconic, historic hotel with more than 1600 rooms.  We are on the 17th floor and can attest to the power of wind running thru these many skyline buildings.
Time is too short for me to recap the particulars of the fascinating history of this Hotel but here's a clip from Wikipedia....


There have been three Palmer House Hotels at the corner of State and Monroe Streets in Chicago.The first (known as "The Palmer") was built as a wedding present from Potter Palmer to his bride Bertha Honoré. It opened on September 26, 1871, but burned down just thirteen days later October 9, 1871 in theGreat Chicago Fire. Palmer immediately set to work rebuilding, and with a $1.7 million signature loan(believed to be the largest individual loan ever secured at the time) constructed one of the fanciest hotels in post-fire Chicago.

There are train tracks running over our heads and below our feet.   And pedestrians everywhere.

 My beloved is eyeing the bulbs with incredulous envy.

 

 More about the significance of the intricate fold-away staircases when I get back tonight.  But think

Great Chicago Fire and you'll get the gist of it soon enough.

                                                             An important discovery.

The architecture in this city is a major visual delight.  There's a 90-minute boat cruise of the shoreline that is fully narrated by those in the Chicago hysterical historical society that is calling my our name.  :)

Around the house this weekend...

It pains me to talk about it, but the unthinkable fact is thus:
Our second born son is springing the coop next month --- moving into a place of his own and marrying his highschool sweetheart the month after that.   With our baby girl living in Hamilton most of the year, we are looking at a virtually empty nest.
There are some changes I do not wear well.
I think this may be one of them.

For whatever reason, our second born son pulled a Samson and didn't have a razor on his head for a full year.  We didn't make much of it.  By now, we are actually learning to discern the insignificant from the not so.  Yet, I had been mentally preparing myself for the rather interesting exercise of trying to distinguish one from the other on the upcoming wedding photo's ---  perhaps the thought occurred to him as well...

.... because he came home today a full pound of locks lighter.

Meanwhile, our first born and her hubby enjoyed a weekend away to celebrate their 7th anniversary.  Seven years.   A very nice number indeed and one we pray will only become fuller in every way possible.  Their off-spring stayed here while mommy and daddy went to date  :)
The pain of recognizing the empty nest syndrome was at least temporarily stayed.
They found the hand-puppets and quickly invented a show that repeated itself.

Somewhat endlessly.

I snuck around back-stage to capture just how completely absorbed they were in their impromptu  story-telling effort.

We moved to the couch area so their audience of one could sit down and drink coffee while the animation of the show grew to fever pitch.

So much so that they practically put themselves to bed after lunch for some much needed quiet time.

I surely would have joined them had 

Rachie not chose the opportunity to make much of her bruised daddy toe - the one that had the piano bench topple over it, requiring many fresh changes of Dora the Explorer dressing and applications of polysporin. 

My own mom would be proud.  She was a firm believer in the fact that a dab of polysporin along with a demonstrative kiss could solve most life-threatening situations...

It turns out to be a reliable remedy that works.  

But I think it strange to use polysporin 

... and feel such a stab of pain.

War and Peace

Has anyone out there read this book?

The BIG Borders Bookstore was going bust and we just 'happened' to be there when it did.

The timing was ripe...

It was time to add another much considered Classic and have it grace the clutter of some shelf in the family library.

But I am waiting till summer to work up the courage to start that journey...

And Journey is an understatement for a volume like this - 1400 pages of fine print!  WHAT was I thinking?

Only two other books in the library rival this heavyweight in content and page number:  

The Annals of the World and Dictionary of the Christian Church.

Yes.  This is what sets me quaking. 

The gist of it...

At a lavish party in St. Petersburg in 1805, amid the glittering crystal and chandeliers, the room buzzes with talk of the prospect of war.  Soon battle and terror will engulf the country, and the destinies of its people will be changed forever.  War and Peace has as its backdrop Napoleon's invasion of Russia and at its heart three of literature's most memorable characters:  Pierre Bezukhov, a quixotic young man in search of life's meaning;  Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, a cynical intellectual transformed by suffering in war;  and the bewitching Natasha Rostov, whose impulsiveness threatens to destroy her happiness.  As they seek fulfillment, fall in love, make mistakes, and become scarred by conflict in different ways, these characters and their stories interweave with those of a huge cast, from aristocrats to peasants, from soldiers to Napoleon himself.  Battles, love affairs, births, deaths, changing family fortunes, unforgettable scenes of wolf hunts, Russian dancing, starlit troika rides, the great comet of 1812 -- the entire spectrum of human life is here in all its grandeur and imperfection.

In his magnificent new translation, Anthony Briggs renders Tolstoy's masterwork in stirring prose both faithful to the original Russian and exquisitely accessible.  New readers and rereaders alike will discover not just an exciting story but also a deeply rewarding meditation on the tension between free will and fate as the forces of history move inexorably forward.  Epic and intimate, compassionate and engrossing, this is the must-read War and Peace.