A few days ago I finished reading A Concise History of Portugal by David Birmingham. I’m going to try to get in the habit of writing a bit about each book I read, so here it goes…

I’m a history geek, I’m living in Portugal, and I knew nothing about Portuguese history, so the stage was set for me to devour this little book.  And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed gaining a glimpse into the long and twisting story of the Portuguese people and nation.  The monuments and street names that I encounter on a daily basis make much more sense to me now, and I’m continuing to make connections.  In short, I love learning.

A Concise History of Portugal, by David Birmingham

The book, however, I would give 3 out of 5. I’ve read several of Birmingham’s books (on Angola), and all of them were more helpful than this one.  The reader has to wade a bit more slowly than one might expect from a book with “concise” in the title.  He lacks chronological organization, to some extent, so it’s hard to put all the pieces together in order.  And he focused heavily on the interactions between various power-bases in government in each phase to the extent that other facets of life, while mentioned, seem to recede into obscurity.  Still, I can’t complain too much.  I had no idea that British ties were so influential until I read this book.  And the same could be said of dozens of other aspects of Portuguese history – the Brazilian gold, the revolution of the 1800s, the conquest by Spain in the 1600s, and others that I’ve already forgotten.  Okay, at this point I can’t  remember the names of any of the major kings of Portugal, but… I still love learning!

Enough about the book.  A quick thought about Portuguese history: I really appreciate that Portugal has maintained its national personality and pride, rather than being subsumed under the larger influences of Spain, Britain, or Europe in general.  Okay, the Portuguese pride can go a bit overboard sometimes, and perhaps lean toward revisionist history.  But in the end, I appreciate that Portuguese history is so… Portuguese, so idiosyncratic, so unique.  And I really enjoy the Portuguese people who have been shaped by that history.  They are one more facet in God’s diamond of creation, and as such, they honor Him just by their very existence.  God is an amazing creator!

…like blogging every once in a while, running more consistently, etc.  Life seems like it goes in spurts.  I’ll have a week or two of being motivated, on top of things, developing a good schedule.  Then I’ll get behind on everything all of a sudden.  And try to get back into things, like I am now.

Meanwhile, I’m throwing in Twitter to see how I like it.  You can follow @dannyreese.  It’s a bit of a pain trying to figure out the best way to do twitter via cell phone here in Portugal, where the regular SMS feature doesn’t work.  Sad sad.  If you have any answers, let me know.

And when I get around to it, I’ll try to keep upgrading the functionality of our website.  I recently added an archive of our newsletters, but there are still several bits of the website that don’t work at all, like the links page.  That’s the downside of creating your own wordpress theme when you only dabble in PHP.

Thanks for listening to my latest ramble!

According to news reports within the last hour, the buses carrying the Togo national football team were ambushed and machine-gunned in the Angolan province of Cabinda.  Fortunately, the ambushers were dense enough to waste most of their fire on the front bus, which contained the luggage.  The gunfire lasted for more than 15 minutes.  The driver for the team was killed instantly; 2 players and several staff members were injured.

Africa.  How do you steal the heart of every soul that sets foot on your shores, yet proceed to pierce those same hearts with endless and inexplicable pain?

As the Togo team tries to recover from their near-death experience, it is doubtful they will choose to stay in the tournament.  The bigger questions still lie unanswered.  Who are the culprits?  What were their motives?  Will there be more attacks on other teams?  What does this mean for the Cup of Nations?  What does this mean for Angola, a country similarly trying to recover from 4 decades of unharnessed violence?

The province of Cabinda is geographically disconnected from the rest of the country, an enclave within the two Congos.  Because of its immense wealth in oil, there has been a low-level rebel movement in Cabinda for decades.  Yes, that’s a miniature civil war that has been eclipsed by the larger civil war that ravaged the country.  Now that peace has “broken out” in the rest of the country, the government has turned its military focus to Cabinda.  But as today’s tragedy demonstrates, the solution is probably less than simple.

Africa.  Your scars run deep, your pain ever seething.

God.  May your grace reach deep into the heart of Africa, deeper even than its scars.

When I need some time to let my brain escape – which we all do at times – I’ve recently delved into a new pasttime.  Well, actually, a new pasttime has joined forces with an old pasttime.  The old is Excel.  Yes, I’m a spreadsheet nerd.  100%.  Katie makes fun of me incessantly for making spreadsheets of everything.  Our DVD collection, library, packing boxes, shopping lists, finances, schedule, family history, running, and the list goes on.  When Katie wanted to get me interested in Christmas shopping, she made the list in Excel for my benefit.  If it can be tracked, I like to track it in Excel.

The new hobby, far more exciting, is international football.  And by that, I’m not referring to the American minority infatuation played on a gridiron.  I’m talking about real football, played with the feet, loved the world over, known in the U.S. as soccer.  I’ll refer to it as football.  (Forgive me a little rant, but I’ve never liked calling non-American things by American names.  If you’ve spent any time around me, you know that zebra has a short E sound, which is the way it is spelled and the way Africans, colonised by the British, say it.  Except for those who cater primarily to Americans, and thus have bowed to the absurd American “zEEEbra.”  Last time I checked, zebras were not from America.  Similarly, Americans can keep calling it soccer, but I and the rest of the world will continue to call it by its real name, football.)

Kudos if you can name this awesome footballer from the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations! Nathan, you're not allowed to guess.

So anyway, I’ve always enjoyed football, watching and playing.  I played as a kid, but have lost most of it.  And I’ve never followed any sport consistently, so I can’t rattle off the names of famous basketball players like Jared can, or baseball players like Robert can, etc.  Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve begun to immerse myself in the world of football.  I discovered the beauty of ESPN360, which broadcasts weekly games from the Portuguese Liga, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and quite a few more.  For free, if you happen to have the right ISP.  And Wikipedia is a wonderful quick source for all sorts of info on leagues, teams, players, competitions, etc.

So the two hobbies meet.  Because, of course, I now have half a dozen spreadsheets or more, constantly cataloging the football worlds that catch my interest.  I have a quick-glance history of the World Cup tournaments and the Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.  I have a detailed bracket of the 2006 World Cup, which we watched in Angola, and the upcoming 2010 World Cup and Cup of Nations.  Brackets for the EUFA Champions League.  Schedules of games, team stats, and rank tables for the Portuguese Liga and the English Premiere League.  And of course, a growing table of players’ stats.  I’ve got a lot to learn to catch up with the rest of the world, but hey, I’m loving it.

I’ll tell you more later, but that’s the gist of it.  Excel and football, a winning team.  And it gets even better as we wait with bated breath for the World Cup in June and July.  But first, something you might not care about but I can’t stop thinking about:

the African Cup of Nations starts in 4 days…

and the countdown begins!

Second blog post of 2009, and it’s Dec 30.  The nice thing about doing only 2 posts per year is that I can be almost certain that no one is reading my blog.

I’ve been rather down lately, so this will be a bit of an internal journal.  No need to go into the details, but this period of waiting, mixed with some uncertainties and lots of questions for God, has left me with little emotional energy to spare.  However, God has also peppered this time with many and true blessings.  One recently is the renewed appetite He has put in me for His Word.

In case you were wondering (though I know you weren’t), the title of this post is blatantly stolen from Tom Olbricht’s autobiography, Hearing God’s Voice: My Life with Scripture in the Churches of Christ.  Olbricht’s hermeneutical journey has deeply shaped my own thought, but that’s not the point of this post.  Be thankful – you narrowly escaped quite an esoteric rant.

Challenged by Jared King and the Renovatus church, I picked up my old habit of memorizing Scripture.  I decided to start with 1 Peter.  We’ll see how far I get into the book.  To date, I’ve only made it 16 verses into chapter 1.  But those 16 verses are a constant companion with me each day.  I have the whole chapter printed out in my pocket, ready for a moment’s lull in whatever I’m doing.  I lay awake at night with its cadence resounding in my brain.  Each emotion I feel during the day seems to resonate with one phrase or another.  On a fairly constant basis I’ve been challenged to look beyond the (often negative) thoughts and feelings of the moment… far beyond… to the “revelation of Jesus Christ,” the time when He brings the salvation and grace to which all of history has been pointing.  Here’s a little bit more of what I mean.

1 Peter 1:13  “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

How often I’m reminded, of late, when I am placing my hope in something in the near future.  Most of it, for me at this juncture, is related to the hope of eventually emerging from this preparation phase and getting to the actual moving-overseas phase.  Wow, how small that hope looks when measured against the true hope of Christ’s amazing reappearance!  The more I’ve fixed my hope “completely” on the right target the last several days, the more I am beginning to be filled with “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).  And it feels good.

1 Peter 1:6-7  “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,  so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

“Various trials” sums up how I feel with an ambiguity that fits my mood exactly.  I’m kind of beyond the point of caring what the details are of these various trials.  They all run together.  How pleasant it is, for a while, to look beyond them to a much brighter scene ahead.  Note that I say “look beyond,” not ignore.  Peter is very clear that these trials are part of God’s work in me, for the testing and proof of my faith.  And I am well aware that my faith is being tested and refined, like gold in a furnace.  I am intensely cognizant of God at work in me.  It gives me great hope to hear, multiple times a day, His goals in all this: “praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  I’m using to saying those words in reference to God; but if I understand right, this indicates that, some day, He’ll be saying these things to me.  What a thought.

There’s plenty more I could say.  Let this summary suffice: God’s Word, making its way from my pocket to my heart, is shaping me once again in inexpressible ways, and for that I give great thanks.

As anyone can tell from a quick glance through my previous blog entries, I’ve been anything but consistent in my writing.  Actually, I’ve consistently written 1 to 3 research papers per semester for the last umpteen years.  But very little of my intellectual overflow has made it into the blogosphere.  I don’t promise any drastic changes to this record.  However, I have felt the desire several times recently to put my thoughts to paper (so to speak), but I’ve been putting it off.  Why?  Because I want to get this family website up and running, so I have a decent place to add my thoughts.

This page, “Ramblings,” will be devoted to whatever we want.  Katie and I will both be able to share thoughts on whatever topic interests us.  Mine may be about missions, theology, lawn service, Land Cruisers, etc.  If random ramblings appeal to you, this is the place.  If you’re looking for something more newsy, check out the news column on our home page.

Thanks for stopping by and listening!