I am still stuck on the appropriateness of judging, or not judging, other people's actions. We are called to be truthful in our interactions with others, and so, presumably, if I see someone sinning, I should point it out to them. But at the same time, I recognize that I am a flawed individual myself - so who am I to point out the speck in someone else's eye, to paraphrase Jesus.
So, as I was driving and thinking about this, I had a sudden funny picture in my head of the whole world going around sinning and then pointing at each other and saying, "No, you're doing it wrong." It reminded me a lot of Tee Ball coaching.
You get about fifteen little five and six year old kids on a field and you try to explain to them the rules of the game. Half of them are too busy looking at the dirt, or the sky, or a worm, or whatever, to even hear what you say. The other half give you blank stares like you're speaking Martian. You line up all the kids and have them practice. Some run straight ahead, some run to the side, some don't run at all, some are too busy joking around, some are too shy to do anything. As a coach, you spend more time dealing with 15 individual personalities than you do dealing with a team.
But, at the end of the practice or the game, you can't help but smiling. Sure, its frustrating wondering whether the kids understood a thing you said at all, but its also a great deal of fun. You can't get mad at them. Its impossible. And it would serve no purpose. The point of it all is not whether they win or lose, nobody is even keeping score, its to teach them what the game is all about. And whether they get it or not, at the end of the day, its really all about whether they had fun and whether they got along with each other.
Of course, the tricky thing about such an analogy is that we are all God's children. Every single one of us is just a tee ball kid. We are goofy. We are naughty. We are impatient. We are shy. We don't really pay attention. And no matter what we do, at the end of the day, God is still smiling. He can't help it. He tries to teach us the rules of the game. He tries to make us understand what he expects from us. But even if we completely tune Him out in favor of something silly, He still loves us all.
God is our Tee-ball coach and we are all teammates on this great big tee-ball team. We should learn to share, to support our teammates (even if we don't like them), and to respect and listen to our coach. Oh, and most importantly, we should have fun.
And one more thing... Go Lil Red Sox!
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Brothers
I was a teenager - which is a condition that explains most outrageous acts of rebellion. I don't even remember what the argument was about - somehow my step-mom had pushed my buttons. I yelled and screamed. I was probably wrong, but its all in the past now. I ran off to fume by myself. In this heightened state of anger, my brother was sent to bring me back. We fought, as usual. And then he said something to me which I have never forgotten.
"I don't know why you want to be a writer. You're never going to succeed."
I became enraged and hit my brother so hard that I nearly broke his jaw. It was a vicious and powerful punch that channeled all my anger and all my strength in one stinging blow. It scared the hell out of me. I have been afraid of fighting ever since - afraid of what I am capable of doing if fully angered.
What is it about brothers? Our relationships are always complex. I am constantly reminded at the first brothers - Cain and Abel. If you are a brother, whether younger or older or a twin, you understand this story from both points of view. There have been times when I have been the completely innocent victim of heinous abuse from my brother, and there are times when I've tried to kill him. Love/Hate doesn't even begin to explain a brotherly relationship - its deeper than that.
As brothers, we are forced to share everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Food, clothing, shelter, space, thoughts, ideas - brothers become intertwined in such a way that at times our mere survival can seem threatened by the existence of the other. At other times, we can't imagine the world without our brother.
My own brother is going through a tough time - and what makes it frustrating is that he won't admit it. He's been there before. Haven't we all? And eventually, he will admit that he's got a problem and I'll do everything in my power to help him. But until that time, there's nothing I can do. We've created a space between us - not a bad space, but a protective space like two plants agreeing not to tangle their roots too closely or risk choking off access to all the best nutrients. Its an unwritten rule that we don't cross into that space until asked. Its frustrating when you can see someone struggling and know that there's nothing you can do to help.
The irony is that my Dad and his brother are going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. My Uncle has had the kind of year that might have broken Job. He retired, then discovered that he had cancer. He fought the cancer and won. Then his wife was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away. And shortly after that, he threw out his back and during the treatments discovered that the cancer had returned. Through all this, his son has been preparing to leave home and attend college on the East Coast - a life long dream for him and his parents - but hard on my Uncle who will have to face the loss of his entire family in one year. It was only recently, however, that he finally reached out to my Dad. Since then, I have seen their relationship in ways that I've never seen it before. You can see the years of shared joy, pain, and bitter feuds in their conversations - but underneath it all, you can see their love for one another.
Brothers will always be this way. I know no brothers that are not this way. I doubt I will ever meet brothers who are not this way. It is, then, a curious relationship pattern to mold our church body around. When we call each other sisters and brothers in Christ, what are we really saying?
I can't speak for the sisters, for though I have one, I am not a sister myself, but for the brothers I know one thing that it means for sure - an intimacy that is deeper than love or hate, where the truth can hurt, where the pain is all too real, and where sometimes barriers must exist to keep us sane and happy. It also means true joy for your brother; true concern for your brother, and true love for your brother.
The answer to the question, "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" unfortunately is, "Yes". We are bound to one another and whether it gives pleasure or not we are each other's responsibility.
"I don't know why you want to be a writer. You're never going to succeed."
I became enraged and hit my brother so hard that I nearly broke his jaw. It was a vicious and powerful punch that channeled all my anger and all my strength in one stinging blow. It scared the hell out of me. I have been afraid of fighting ever since - afraid of what I am capable of doing if fully angered.
What is it about brothers? Our relationships are always complex. I am constantly reminded at the first brothers - Cain and Abel. If you are a brother, whether younger or older or a twin, you understand this story from both points of view. There have been times when I have been the completely innocent victim of heinous abuse from my brother, and there are times when I've tried to kill him. Love/Hate doesn't even begin to explain a brotherly relationship - its deeper than that.
As brothers, we are forced to share everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Food, clothing, shelter, space, thoughts, ideas - brothers become intertwined in such a way that at times our mere survival can seem threatened by the existence of the other. At other times, we can't imagine the world without our brother.
My own brother is going through a tough time - and what makes it frustrating is that he won't admit it. He's been there before. Haven't we all? And eventually, he will admit that he's got a problem and I'll do everything in my power to help him. But until that time, there's nothing I can do. We've created a space between us - not a bad space, but a protective space like two plants agreeing not to tangle their roots too closely or risk choking off access to all the best nutrients. Its an unwritten rule that we don't cross into that space until asked. Its frustrating when you can see someone struggling and know that there's nothing you can do to help.
The irony is that my Dad and his brother are going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. My Uncle has had the kind of year that might have broken Job. He retired, then discovered that he had cancer. He fought the cancer and won. Then his wife was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away. And shortly after that, he threw out his back and during the treatments discovered that the cancer had returned. Through all this, his son has been preparing to leave home and attend college on the East Coast - a life long dream for him and his parents - but hard on my Uncle who will have to face the loss of his entire family in one year. It was only recently, however, that he finally reached out to my Dad. Since then, I have seen their relationship in ways that I've never seen it before. You can see the years of shared joy, pain, and bitter feuds in their conversations - but underneath it all, you can see their love for one another.
Brothers will always be this way. I know no brothers that are not this way. I doubt I will ever meet brothers who are not this way. It is, then, a curious relationship pattern to mold our church body around. When we call each other sisters and brothers in Christ, what are we really saying?
I can't speak for the sisters, for though I have one, I am not a sister myself, but for the brothers I know one thing that it means for sure - an intimacy that is deeper than love or hate, where the truth can hurt, where the pain is all too real, and where sometimes barriers must exist to keep us sane and happy. It also means true joy for your brother; true concern for your brother, and true love for your brother.
The answer to the question, "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" unfortunately is, "Yes". We are bound to one another and whether it gives pleasure or not we are each other's responsibility.
Friday, January 27, 2006
A Friday Quickie
Just a happy thought to send you off on your weekend. We received a shipment of 8 palletes of Potato Chips here at my company today (we export chips and other goodies overseas, but this was not supposed to be here). My co-worker who is a potato chip fiend found out about the shipment and begged for some of the errant chips. When she was told that the chips were being returned, she cried out, "But wait! Surely, their being here is a sign from God!"
I had to leave the room, I was laughing so hard.
Have a good weekend!
I had to leave the room, I was laughing so hard.
Have a good weekend!
The Highs and Lows
Pay attention all of you basketball fans, Gonzaga's Morrison is the real deal. I was on the scorer's table at the USF/Gonzaga game on Monday night and I watched as this guy made shot after shot after shot look easy. He completely Kobe'd our time - and could have easily had 80 points had USF not realized about 12 minutes in that the Refs were watching some other, more genteel, game where fouling didn't exist. They manhandled Morrison after that and he only scored another 17 points on his way to 41 for the night. It was the best shooting performance I'd seen in years on, apparently, a routine night for Morrison. Gonzaga may only be #7, but this guy could take them to the Final Four with ease.
USF was absolutely packed from the floor to the roof. I've really come to appreciate the fact that I have seats right on the court and that I'm close enough to the players to have to cover my nose in the fourth quarter when they pass by the table to check in to the game. I'll be that close for the NCAA Sweet 16 as well and I can hardly wait. My proximity to the game has given me a front row seat into college players attitudes and coaches commentary - Bobby Knight is still the best to listen to - and for the most part I'd say that that has been a great way to witness the game. It feels great during an incredibly tight game to feel the pressure of all those fans yelling, screaming, stomping their feet and knowing that you have to yell above all that to make sure that the scoring is done correctly. Its work, sure, but its also pleasure. When a game ends, it sometimes takes a short while to come down off of that high.
Not so on Monday night. As soon as the game was over, Morrison was ushered across the court to the ESPN interview. He was surrounded by about two hundred fans forming a little prayer circle around the ESPN crew and Morrison. I don't know what he said. I just sat and watched in amazement as adults and children alike all pushed in close to be a part of Morrison's glory. I bet half of them couldn't have found Gonzaga on a map.
After the interview, Morrison was escorted through the crowd by a team of handlers for more interviews downstairs. As I gathered my things, a kid walked up to me and asked to borrow my pen so that he could get autographs. I didn't have a problem with it, so I handed him my pen. I watched as the kid went from player to player looking, searching, for Morrison. Morrison wasn't around and the kid was dejected. As I went outside to wait for my car from the valet, I overheard a couple of parents talking about Morrison's bodyguard and about the fact that he wasn't signing autographs for anyone.
The whole thing just struck me as sad. The mad frenzy to see some 19 year old kid who can shoot the basketball incredibly well and then to be a part of that by collecting his autograph, by basking in his glory. I couldn't understand this frenzy. I've seen fans before - I've been a fan before - but I've never seen behavior like this; like children eager for the gates to open at Disneyland. Have we finally reached that point in society where our heroes can move us to do irrational acts on the basis of what they do and not who they are? We've all heard about Hitler's almost hypnotic power of speech over the masses, but who cares about that - all we'd ever hear is soundbites anyway. If he could shoot a three-pointer, however, he's golden.
I wonder what affect our attention deficit education is having on the future of this country. I wonder what sitting kids down in front of TV's and DVD's instead of sending them outside to play is doing to their view of the world. I wonder what our glorification of sport and entertainment is doing to our values - putting first and foremost our ability to be cool, or to play sports. I wonder what our simplistic approach to heroics is doing to our sense of a person's qualifications.
I may be making too much of one little game and one tiny player, who in the grand scheme of things means almost nothing - his playing career will be over in the blink of an eye and his statistics will join the fabric of a sport that will long outlast him. But I still worry over the fate of a nation that seems more worried about whether the Superdome can be rebuilt in time for next season's football games than whether there will be anyone in New Orleans to see those games.
We all need to get our priorities straight.
USF was absolutely packed from the floor to the roof. I've really come to appreciate the fact that I have seats right on the court and that I'm close enough to the players to have to cover my nose in the fourth quarter when they pass by the table to check in to the game. I'll be that close for the NCAA Sweet 16 as well and I can hardly wait. My proximity to the game has given me a front row seat into college players attitudes and coaches commentary - Bobby Knight is still the best to listen to - and for the most part I'd say that that has been a great way to witness the game. It feels great during an incredibly tight game to feel the pressure of all those fans yelling, screaming, stomping their feet and knowing that you have to yell above all that to make sure that the scoring is done correctly. Its work, sure, but its also pleasure. When a game ends, it sometimes takes a short while to come down off of that high.
Not so on Monday night. As soon as the game was over, Morrison was ushered across the court to the ESPN interview. He was surrounded by about two hundred fans forming a little prayer circle around the ESPN crew and Morrison. I don't know what he said. I just sat and watched in amazement as adults and children alike all pushed in close to be a part of Morrison's glory. I bet half of them couldn't have found Gonzaga on a map.
After the interview, Morrison was escorted through the crowd by a team of handlers for more interviews downstairs. As I gathered my things, a kid walked up to me and asked to borrow my pen so that he could get autographs. I didn't have a problem with it, so I handed him my pen. I watched as the kid went from player to player looking, searching, for Morrison. Morrison wasn't around and the kid was dejected. As I went outside to wait for my car from the valet, I overheard a couple of parents talking about Morrison's bodyguard and about the fact that he wasn't signing autographs for anyone.
The whole thing just struck me as sad. The mad frenzy to see some 19 year old kid who can shoot the basketball incredibly well and then to be a part of that by collecting his autograph, by basking in his glory. I couldn't understand this frenzy. I've seen fans before - I've been a fan before - but I've never seen behavior like this; like children eager for the gates to open at Disneyland. Have we finally reached that point in society where our heroes can move us to do irrational acts on the basis of what they do and not who they are? We've all heard about Hitler's almost hypnotic power of speech over the masses, but who cares about that - all we'd ever hear is soundbites anyway. If he could shoot a three-pointer, however, he's golden.
I wonder what affect our attention deficit education is having on the future of this country. I wonder what sitting kids down in front of TV's and DVD's instead of sending them outside to play is doing to their view of the world. I wonder what our glorification of sport and entertainment is doing to our values - putting first and foremost our ability to be cool, or to play sports. I wonder what our simplistic approach to heroics is doing to our sense of a person's qualifications.
I may be making too much of one little game and one tiny player, who in the grand scheme of things means almost nothing - his playing career will be over in the blink of an eye and his statistics will join the fabric of a sport that will long outlast him. But I still worry over the fate of a nation that seems more worried about whether the Superdome can be rebuilt in time for next season's football games than whether there will be anyone in New Orleans to see those games.
We all need to get our priorities straight.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
A Reginning
I finished Donald Miller's book last night, Through Painted Deserts, and my mind was awhirl with all sorts of things that I was going to blog about - painful torturous confessions of the soul, a litany on love, visions of my spiritual journey, a hymn of praise for astrononmy. I fell asleep and woke up with an empty mind and a smile on my face. You don't know how lucky you all are. ;)
This happens to me often when I finish a book. Its like my mind is a fast car that occassionally gets stuck behind a slow moving book. I'm forced to slow down and enjoy the scenery for a while as I read other people's thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But the second I'm done, my mind takes off again at a million miles per hour wanting to sum up my entire reading experience in five short minutes of mental work so that I can get on with my life. Of course, I eventually slow down again and my mind is better able to process the latest experiences. To a certain extent, this is what makes me slower than most people when it comes to thinking - impatience to continue the journey.
At the end of every journey, there is a new beginning - a reginning. The thing that stuck with me the most about the end of Through Painted Deserts was how much it clearly showed the concept of a reginning. At the beginning of the narrative, Donald Miller is looking for something deeper in life and is about to set off on a journey across the United States with his friend Paul. He is surrounded by his friends who are wishing him a good and safe journey and who are not a little sad to be losing their friend. At the end of the narrative, Donald Miller is surrounded by his new friends who are wishing him a good and safe journey and who are not a little sad to be losing their new friend. Though 300 pages have gone by in the middle, we are right back at the beginning again - only a little further down the road; a little older and a little wiser.
The story then, like life, does not end on a sad note because we know it goes on beyond the pages of text. At this new reginning, Don summarizes what he's learned, what he's discovered over the past few months, and looks forward to what more he will learn and what more life has to offer him. We can be confident that Don will continue to have more adventures, will continue to get older, will continue to get wiser, and will continue to come closer to that which he ultimately seeks.
We all face reginnings all the time. They are not all so neat as to be the complete breaks that a narrative can offer. Many times we have reginnings that overlap one another. When I left to join the Navy, it was not the end of my relationship with Karen. Though it was a new chapter in my life, a reginning, it did not mean a complete severing of all my ties to my former life. Still, I think a reginning has to be more than just a physical change in your life's direction. It would have meant nothing to Don and Paul had they just packed up their van and moved to Oregon, arriving there three days later, weary but otherwise unaffected. A reginning has to begin and end with the soul.
Whether we ascribe to being spiritual or not, there is a part of us that is not flesh and bone, not intellect, not emotional, but is, in essence, us. Its who we are. Its what we've been. Its what we'll become. This is the part of us that pushes us to grow, that pushes us to remain good, that pushes us to seek out things that we don't even know the names of. Our souls take these occasional journeys and we have no choice but to follow them. Our physical journeys make no sense otherwise. I can't begin to explain to you why I joined the Navy except to say that my soul wanted me to grow (and grow I did, but that's another story ;) It is the soul that has the reginning. It is the soul that travels. And it is the soul that brings us to the end of our journey.
And so, as I bring my Novel to a close, I look forward to wherever my life will lead me next - sure to embrace this reginning with hope for a better life.
This happens to me often when I finish a book. Its like my mind is a fast car that occassionally gets stuck behind a slow moving book. I'm forced to slow down and enjoy the scenery for a while as I read other people's thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But the second I'm done, my mind takes off again at a million miles per hour wanting to sum up my entire reading experience in five short minutes of mental work so that I can get on with my life. Of course, I eventually slow down again and my mind is better able to process the latest experiences. To a certain extent, this is what makes me slower than most people when it comes to thinking - impatience to continue the journey.
At the end of every journey, there is a new beginning - a reginning. The thing that stuck with me the most about the end of Through Painted Deserts was how much it clearly showed the concept of a reginning. At the beginning of the narrative, Donald Miller is looking for something deeper in life and is about to set off on a journey across the United States with his friend Paul. He is surrounded by his friends who are wishing him a good and safe journey and who are not a little sad to be losing their friend. At the end of the narrative, Donald Miller is surrounded by his new friends who are wishing him a good and safe journey and who are not a little sad to be losing their new friend. Though 300 pages have gone by in the middle, we are right back at the beginning again - only a little further down the road; a little older and a little wiser.
The story then, like life, does not end on a sad note because we know it goes on beyond the pages of text. At this new reginning, Don summarizes what he's learned, what he's discovered over the past few months, and looks forward to what more he will learn and what more life has to offer him. We can be confident that Don will continue to have more adventures, will continue to get older, will continue to get wiser, and will continue to come closer to that which he ultimately seeks.
We all face reginnings all the time. They are not all so neat as to be the complete breaks that a narrative can offer. Many times we have reginnings that overlap one another. When I left to join the Navy, it was not the end of my relationship with Karen. Though it was a new chapter in my life, a reginning, it did not mean a complete severing of all my ties to my former life. Still, I think a reginning has to be more than just a physical change in your life's direction. It would have meant nothing to Don and Paul had they just packed up their van and moved to Oregon, arriving there three days later, weary but otherwise unaffected. A reginning has to begin and end with the soul.
Whether we ascribe to being spiritual or not, there is a part of us that is not flesh and bone, not intellect, not emotional, but is, in essence, us. Its who we are. Its what we've been. Its what we'll become. This is the part of us that pushes us to grow, that pushes us to remain good, that pushes us to seek out things that we don't even know the names of. Our souls take these occasional journeys and we have no choice but to follow them. Our physical journeys make no sense otherwise. I can't begin to explain to you why I joined the Navy except to say that my soul wanted me to grow (and grow I did, but that's another story ;) It is the soul that has the reginning. It is the soul that travels. And it is the soul that brings us to the end of our journey.
And so, as I bring my Novel to a close, I look forward to wherever my life will lead me next - sure to embrace this reginning with hope for a better life.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Preparing For The Journey - Pt.3 - Packing
My sister and I still play a game called, "I'm Packing My Suitcase." This was a favorite childhood memory game where someone would start off by saying, I'm Packing My Suitcase and I'm bringing along... and the first item would be something that started with the letter A - Applie, Aardvark, Atom Bomb, whatever. Then the next person would say, I'm Packing My Suitcase and I'm bringing along an Apple and a... and the second item would be something that started with the letter B. Going back and forth like this until you reached Z, you had to be able to remember all 26 items all the time. As we got older, we'd play variations of this game - dropping the memorization part, or going past Z and starting the next 26 with AA, and then BB, etc... It is a diverting way to pass the time when there's nothing else to do.
Of course, on any journey, packing is an integral part of our preparations. What you bring with you on any journey is an important decision because often its what you leave behind that you need the most. There are all sorts of things that you require for your physical comfort - everything from clothes to sunglasses and sunscreen. There are things you need for your intellectual comfort - a good book to read, maps, etc... And there are things you need for your emotional comfort - a favorite piece of home (photos, or a journal, or a stuffed animal). Everything else we can leave behind. We don't need shelter, because it will be provided for us. We rarely need food, because it will be there for us. We don't need entertainment, because we will make our own. Most of our needs will be met for us on our journey.
When we set off on a spiritual journey, packing is just as important. We need to be sure that all of our needs are met - physically, intellectually, and emotionally. But the difference is that all of our needs will be made for us by God, if we only trust Him.
So, to get ready for the journey, I thought I'd start packing my suitcase filled with things I'll need for my spiritual journey. I'll get the list started, and then I'll hope that you'll join in with the next item on the list. Thanks for helping out...
I'm packing my suitcase, and I'm bringing along...
An Acceptance of Things Out of My Control and
my Bible and
Christ, and...
Please help me fill the list, starting with the letter D.
Thanks.
Of course, on any journey, packing is an integral part of our preparations. What you bring with you on any journey is an important decision because often its what you leave behind that you need the most. There are all sorts of things that you require for your physical comfort - everything from clothes to sunglasses and sunscreen. There are things you need for your intellectual comfort - a good book to read, maps, etc... And there are things you need for your emotional comfort - a favorite piece of home (photos, or a journal, or a stuffed animal). Everything else we can leave behind. We don't need shelter, because it will be provided for us. We rarely need food, because it will be there for us. We don't need entertainment, because we will make our own. Most of our needs will be met for us on our journey.
When we set off on a spiritual journey, packing is just as important. We need to be sure that all of our needs are met - physically, intellectually, and emotionally. But the difference is that all of our needs will be made for us by God, if we only trust Him.
So, to get ready for the journey, I thought I'd start packing my suitcase filled with things I'll need for my spiritual journey. I'll get the list started, and then I'll hope that you'll join in with the next item on the list. Thanks for helping out...
I'm packing my suitcase, and I'm bringing along...
An Acceptance of Things Out of My Control and
my Bible and
Christ, and...
Please help me fill the list, starting with the letter D.
Thanks.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Preparations for a Journey Pt.2 - Planning
My Dad is an accountant. After he announces where it is that he'd like to go, he sits down with a pre-made form and fills out the nice and neat figures for the trip's budget. The formula never changes. So much for hotel. So much for food. So much for travel. So much for Miscellaneous Expenses (such as tours and tickets and stuff). I have to admit, its a great focused resource for planning a trip - but it also clearly shows his own quirks about how he goes about life.
The purpose of the Planning Stage is, of course, to answer any questions you may have before you take the trip and to prepare for any contingencies of problems that might arise on the journey. Planning is done differently by everyone. My own method is to break down the questions into five categories - the 4 W's and 1 H - Who, What, When, Where, and How?
Who is going? Besides me, I like to open the doors to as many people as possible. There are some trips you make alone - either because you have to, or because, at the last minute, your brother decides to get Diabetes and gets thrown into a hospital (long story). But most of the time, I like to travel with others. There's a certain safety in numbers, but there is also a feeling of shared accomplishment - a bonding experience between you and your fellow travelers.
What are we going to do when we get there? I am the kind of person that likes to do a lot of things on my journey. I often come back more exhausted from my travels than before I left. There is a desire to cram as much of life into a short period of time as possible. But when I go with companions, I usually travel to their level of comfort. If they are a particularly energetic group, I become energetic. If I travel with a group who wants to sit in the hotel and watch TV, well, I might complain a little, but I usually watch TV with them. To influence this group, in advance, however, I like to plan activities. We might not get everything done that I plan, but the activities at least keep us motivated.
When are we going? This is probably the most important question anyone can ask on a journey. We, of course, all want to control every aspect of our journey - but this is one factor we can't always control. Sometimes our journey can begin when we least expect it. Sometimes our journey can be planned down to the last second. I've thrown together an entire vacation in minutes. I've been part of trip's that took years to plan and execute. But when we go is often a determination of outside factors that have nothing to do with the trip itself - when will we have the means to make the trip? When will we be ready to make the journey? When do we want to make the journey? This balances with questions about the journey itself. When is the best time to go? What are we gaining by going at a particular time? What are we losing? Is it better to be earlier or later than our intended date? If we are not careful, we can become obsessed with this one question and never actually start on the journey.
Where are we going? The ultimate destination may be set for us, but the steps of getting there take careful planning and often allow for a few well chosen sidetrips along the way. This is probably the most fun question to ask. We live in a country that allows us to travel where ever we want and we are provided with many diversions to choose along the path. Some of these diversions are entirely necessary places to visit - filled with awe and wonder and educational elightenment (like Cooperstown!) and some are just tourist traps designed to give us cheap thrills while we waste our time and money searching for God knows what (Like Bedrock, outside the Grand Canyon). Every trip is filled with a combination of these stops along the way. From Niagara Falls to the World's Biggest Ball of Yarn, we are an experiential group of travelers and we must find occassional off ramps on our long journey or we will surely lose the focus of why we are going in the first place.
How are we getting there? This, ultimately, is the whole point of planning. Its the last question we ask, because we have to know the answers to the previous questions before we can even begin to ask this one. The answers to this question come to us from many different venues - books, TV, Internet, magazines, friends, family, Travel Agents, etc... We have to filter through all the recommendations, advice, and short cuts to find the best possible answer to this question. When we are done, we will have our trip planned... most of the way.
Before each journey we will have doubts and fears about what might go wrong. Part of the planning cycle is to take these fears into account and plan for some contingencies. American Express made a mint off these fears by reminding us that even if our checks are lost or stolen they can be replaced with no hassle. Almost every travel company offers insurance for a journey. If we let them, our minds can run wild with the sorts of terrible things that might happen and we might never begin our journey out of fear. Its always better to make a few standard contigency plans and then hope for the best afterwards.
When we make our journey of faith, some planning is also in order. We should get to know who is making this journey with us - our fellow travelers won't all want to travel at the same pace. We should find out what we are going to do when we get there - planning our activities carefully to keep us motivated. We should try to decide when it would be best for us to make this journey, and to be prepared to go at a moment's notice. We should plan for some enlightening diversions along the route. We should figure out the best way to get to our destination. And we should make a few contingency plans for when things don't go our way, but put our trust in the Lord to get us safely to our final destination.
When we are finally done planning for our journey, and our expectations are set firmly in reality, then we can begin the next step in our journey - Packing.
The purpose of the Planning Stage is, of course, to answer any questions you may have before you take the trip and to prepare for any contingencies of problems that might arise on the journey. Planning is done differently by everyone. My own method is to break down the questions into five categories - the 4 W's and 1 H - Who, What, When, Where, and How?
Who is going? Besides me, I like to open the doors to as many people as possible. There are some trips you make alone - either because you have to, or because, at the last minute, your brother decides to get Diabetes and gets thrown into a hospital (long story). But most of the time, I like to travel with others. There's a certain safety in numbers, but there is also a feeling of shared accomplishment - a bonding experience between you and your fellow travelers.
What are we going to do when we get there? I am the kind of person that likes to do a lot of things on my journey. I often come back more exhausted from my travels than before I left. There is a desire to cram as much of life into a short period of time as possible. But when I go with companions, I usually travel to their level of comfort. If they are a particularly energetic group, I become energetic. If I travel with a group who wants to sit in the hotel and watch TV, well, I might complain a little, but I usually watch TV with them. To influence this group, in advance, however, I like to plan activities. We might not get everything done that I plan, but the activities at least keep us motivated.
When are we going? This is probably the most important question anyone can ask on a journey. We, of course, all want to control every aspect of our journey - but this is one factor we can't always control. Sometimes our journey can begin when we least expect it. Sometimes our journey can be planned down to the last second. I've thrown together an entire vacation in minutes. I've been part of trip's that took years to plan and execute. But when we go is often a determination of outside factors that have nothing to do with the trip itself - when will we have the means to make the trip? When will we be ready to make the journey? When do we want to make the journey? This balances with questions about the journey itself. When is the best time to go? What are we gaining by going at a particular time? What are we losing? Is it better to be earlier or later than our intended date? If we are not careful, we can become obsessed with this one question and never actually start on the journey.
Where are we going? The ultimate destination may be set for us, but the steps of getting there take careful planning and often allow for a few well chosen sidetrips along the way. This is probably the most fun question to ask. We live in a country that allows us to travel where ever we want and we are provided with many diversions to choose along the path. Some of these diversions are entirely necessary places to visit - filled with awe and wonder and educational elightenment (like Cooperstown!) and some are just tourist traps designed to give us cheap thrills while we waste our time and money searching for God knows what (Like Bedrock, outside the Grand Canyon). Every trip is filled with a combination of these stops along the way. From Niagara Falls to the World's Biggest Ball of Yarn, we are an experiential group of travelers and we must find occassional off ramps on our long journey or we will surely lose the focus of why we are going in the first place.
How are we getting there? This, ultimately, is the whole point of planning. Its the last question we ask, because we have to know the answers to the previous questions before we can even begin to ask this one. The answers to this question come to us from many different venues - books, TV, Internet, magazines, friends, family, Travel Agents, etc... We have to filter through all the recommendations, advice, and short cuts to find the best possible answer to this question. When we are done, we will have our trip planned... most of the way.
Before each journey we will have doubts and fears about what might go wrong. Part of the planning cycle is to take these fears into account and plan for some contingencies. American Express made a mint off these fears by reminding us that even if our checks are lost or stolen they can be replaced with no hassle. Almost every travel company offers insurance for a journey. If we let them, our minds can run wild with the sorts of terrible things that might happen and we might never begin our journey out of fear. Its always better to make a few standard contigency plans and then hope for the best afterwards.
When we make our journey of faith, some planning is also in order. We should get to know who is making this journey with us - our fellow travelers won't all want to travel at the same pace. We should find out what we are going to do when we get there - planning our activities carefully to keep us motivated. We should try to decide when it would be best for us to make this journey, and to be prepared to go at a moment's notice. We should plan for some enlightening diversions along the route. We should figure out the best way to get to our destination. And we should make a few contingency plans for when things don't go our way, but put our trust in the Lord to get us safely to our final destination.
When we are finally done planning for our journey, and our expectations are set firmly in reality, then we can begin the next step in our journey - Packing.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Preparations for the Journey Pt.1 - Expectations
I decided to blog this week about making Preparations for a Journey. In a Science Fiction story I started back in 1994 (and never got further than 6 chapters in the last 12 years) the first chapter of the story was called The Reginning. The idea that this alien culture believed was that one journey's end was always the beginning of another journey - thus we are always on a journey to somewhere during our entire life and that we never get back to the beginning, but we always start fresh before each new segment - we have a Reginning, not a beginning. I've been thinking about this lately because I have a lot of reginning's in my life either currently or coming soon.
In September, I will be traveling with my family to Walt Disney World for our quarter-annual trip (once every four years). As part and parcel of our preparations for this trip, I began the planning stage ten months ago. The first part of any trip planning, I always think, is dealing with the expectations.
I don't think you can fully appreciate any journey unless you establish first what sort of expectations you have. In the case of WDW, I like people to get over the idea that a week in the Florida sun is going to be a) A complete cure-all for everything that ails them, or b) An utter disaster. Somewhere in between lies the truth of the journey and the sooner you set your sights towards a more realistic expectation, the sooner you can make good, solid plans. In the case of WDW, this might mean not planning to eat at the fanciest restaurants every night, nor worrying that all you're going to eat for a week is hot dogs and hamburgers. There is a happy medium that can be established once your expecatations are in line with reality.
I think our expectations also need to be fully addressed before we regin our journey with Christ. I know plenty of people who will not begin this journey for fear of what it will mean to their lives. Many travelers' expectations of a walk with Christ can be downright scary - brainwashing, poverty, and six hour sermons where we will hear nothing but how we are going to HELL! Try as you might to explain to them the reality of the situation (the sermons are only four hours, for instance ;) they can not get past their expectations and therefore never begin the journey. But there are other travelers expectations that are just as worrying - those who expect to go to church, watch the festival, and go home once a week and never once participate or actively engage in a relationship with Christ. These travelers journeys are based on an erroneous assumption that attendance at Church is what matters the most, and as a result, they never truly begin their journey. They are like the person who boards the wrong train and never bothers to look out the window to see that the train has never left the station.
Yesterday, during the service, I heard the line that the journey of Christ ends with the Cross. I was thinking about how appropriate that line was and about how it really set my expectations in place. We can not make this journey with any other expectation - sooner or later, we will all arrive at the Cross. It may not be the same Cross for each of us, but it will still be there for us.
Now that we have our expectations settled, we can begin the true preparations for our journey. Tomorrow, Part Two - Planning.
In September, I will be traveling with my family to Walt Disney World for our quarter-annual trip (once every four years). As part and parcel of our preparations for this trip, I began the planning stage ten months ago. The first part of any trip planning, I always think, is dealing with the expectations.
I don't think you can fully appreciate any journey unless you establish first what sort of expectations you have. In the case of WDW, I like people to get over the idea that a week in the Florida sun is going to be a) A complete cure-all for everything that ails them, or b) An utter disaster. Somewhere in between lies the truth of the journey and the sooner you set your sights towards a more realistic expectation, the sooner you can make good, solid plans. In the case of WDW, this might mean not planning to eat at the fanciest restaurants every night, nor worrying that all you're going to eat for a week is hot dogs and hamburgers. There is a happy medium that can be established once your expecatations are in line with reality.
I think our expectations also need to be fully addressed before we regin our journey with Christ. I know plenty of people who will not begin this journey for fear of what it will mean to their lives. Many travelers' expectations of a walk with Christ can be downright scary - brainwashing, poverty, and six hour sermons where we will hear nothing but how we are going to HELL! Try as you might to explain to them the reality of the situation (the sermons are only four hours, for instance ;) they can not get past their expectations and therefore never begin the journey. But there are other travelers expectations that are just as worrying - those who expect to go to church, watch the festival, and go home once a week and never once participate or actively engage in a relationship with Christ. These travelers journeys are based on an erroneous assumption that attendance at Church is what matters the most, and as a result, they never truly begin their journey. They are like the person who boards the wrong train and never bothers to look out the window to see that the train has never left the station.
Yesterday, during the service, I heard the line that the journey of Christ ends with the Cross. I was thinking about how appropriate that line was and about how it really set my expectations in place. We can not make this journey with any other expectation - sooner or later, we will all arrive at the Cross. It may not be the same Cross for each of us, but it will still be there for us.
Now that we have our expectations settled, we can begin the true preparations for our journey. Tomorrow, Part Two - Planning.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Friendship
You might think this blog would be about Andy. But it isn't. Andy has been my friend for many years. We grew up together. We went to Church together. We like the Giants. We like Star Wars. We have so much in common. Being Andy's friend is easy - maybe even too easy sometimes. But that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about Jay. Jay, as you'll soon understand, is not an easy friend to have.
I met Jay in High School. He'd just moved to California from New Hampshire and he really didn't know anyone. He sat behind me in English class and was a really nice guy. My oldest best friend, Fish, and I starting messing with Jay. It was actually easy. We were all bored to death in English class. So when Jay wasn't looking, we stole his essay and started writing random sentences. As I recall, it was an essay about the life of Shakespeare. By the time the three of us were done with it, it was an esoteric performance art masterpiece.
Jay got into trouble. The entire English department met to discuss this paper that "he'd" written. With its troubling death metal lyrics and bad poetry interspersed with tidbits about the life of Shakespeare, the old fogies in the English Department (average age was about 89) didn't know what to make of it. After meeting with the entire department and basically parroting back to them what we'd told Jay to say about the artistic merits of the piece (just as made up as the piece was, I assure you) they decided to just have Jay turn in a more conventional essay and dropped the whole subject. For Jay's troubles, he earned our friendship and trust.
When I first met Jay, he was a Southern Baptist from New Hampshire with a Wiccan Mother and an Alcoholic Father. Next to his Bible on his bookshelf was a book on witchcraft. I always thought that was a perfect analogy for Jay's life.
Jay was brash, outspoken, quick tempered, and completely insane. But he was also loyal, fun, and a really nice guy. He reminded me of my dog, Paws, who was such a sweetheart, if you knew her, and Cujo if you didn't. Jay is the guy we all know that we like but that you constantly hear everyone complaining about. You know, the one you're embarassed to invite to parties, but that everyone asks about when they realize he isn't there. He, like a fungus, kind of grows on you.
When I left High School, I dabbled with film school for a while and Jay went with me. A year later, neither one of us going anywhere, Jay decided to join the Navy. Not having anything better to do, I decided to do the same. When I got out of the Navy, we shared an apartment in San Francisco and I went back to college while he got a job. When I went off to Idaho to finish my degree, he remained behind and...
Jay left the church sometime around the end of high school. It had never been his choice in the first place. He didn't leave it because it was a drag or a hassle, he left it because it had never been anything to him. He dabbled with this and that for a while, never really latching on to any philosophy or religion for too long. Somewhere along the line, he started reading the Satanic Bible. And that brought him to the attention of Anton LaVey - the writer of the Satanic Bible and the avowed High Priest of the Satanic Church.
When I came back from Idaho, Jay had moved on from providing security for LaVey to studying for the Satanic Priesthood. I find it interesting that Jay was the last Satanic Priest ever named, because shortly afterwards, Anton LaVey died. Just as I was starting to return to the church that had raised me, Jay was becoming a Satanic Priest. A power struggle in the church ensued after LaVey's death and Jay wanted nothing to do with it. As far as I know, the Satanic Church died with LaVey.
Jay remained my friend. We had a once spoken pact between us, not to talk about religion. Somehow, though, I knew there was a way to bring Jay back into the fold. I figured that if Jay saw me as a Christian and saw how well I was doing, he'd be moved to discover that which I knew. I'd like to say that it's worked. But I'll just say that I think its starting to work... I actually heard him say something complimentary about Christianity the other day - though he immediatley followed that with a blasphemous denouncing of God. I'll take what I can get. Only God can soften his heart. I can just be there to help pick up the pieces.
The reason I mention all this is because scripture is pretty clear that I should abandon my friend and have nothing to do with him. In many places it tells me not to spend time with evil people. I've learned a thing or two about not paying attention to what the Bible says, and I'm worried about what might happen if I once again ignore its teachings.
Being friends with Jay is hard. Its not easy, like it is with Andy. He smokes, drinks, swears too much, and says a lot of inappropriate comments. But when we went hiking in Big Basin and I literally was on my last dregs of energy, he got behind me and pushed me up the hill. And when I got a new bike, he happily agreed to help me train and to teach me the proper techniques of bicycle riding. He is troubling, and yet loyal. He is dark, and yet the nicest guy you'll meet. He does things that you and I could never imagine, and yet, you can't help thinking that he'd make a great Christian someday.
So, I ask you two things. First, help me pray for my brother, Jay, that we can get him back into the fold. And Second, pray for me, that I know what I'm doing by remaining his friend and that I might someday have a positive influence on him. That's all I can ask.
The rest is up to God.
I met Jay in High School. He'd just moved to California from New Hampshire and he really didn't know anyone. He sat behind me in English class and was a really nice guy. My oldest best friend, Fish, and I starting messing with Jay. It was actually easy. We were all bored to death in English class. So when Jay wasn't looking, we stole his essay and started writing random sentences. As I recall, it was an essay about the life of Shakespeare. By the time the three of us were done with it, it was an esoteric performance art masterpiece.
Jay got into trouble. The entire English department met to discuss this paper that "he'd" written. With its troubling death metal lyrics and bad poetry interspersed with tidbits about the life of Shakespeare, the old fogies in the English Department (average age was about 89) didn't know what to make of it. After meeting with the entire department and basically parroting back to them what we'd told Jay to say about the artistic merits of the piece (just as made up as the piece was, I assure you) they decided to just have Jay turn in a more conventional essay and dropped the whole subject. For Jay's troubles, he earned our friendship and trust.
When I first met Jay, he was a Southern Baptist from New Hampshire with a Wiccan Mother and an Alcoholic Father. Next to his Bible on his bookshelf was a book on witchcraft. I always thought that was a perfect analogy for Jay's life.
Jay was brash, outspoken, quick tempered, and completely insane. But he was also loyal, fun, and a really nice guy. He reminded me of my dog, Paws, who was such a sweetheart, if you knew her, and Cujo if you didn't. Jay is the guy we all know that we like but that you constantly hear everyone complaining about. You know, the one you're embarassed to invite to parties, but that everyone asks about when they realize he isn't there. He, like a fungus, kind of grows on you.
When I left High School, I dabbled with film school for a while and Jay went with me. A year later, neither one of us going anywhere, Jay decided to join the Navy. Not having anything better to do, I decided to do the same. When I got out of the Navy, we shared an apartment in San Francisco and I went back to college while he got a job. When I went off to Idaho to finish my degree, he remained behind and...
Jay left the church sometime around the end of high school. It had never been his choice in the first place. He didn't leave it because it was a drag or a hassle, he left it because it had never been anything to him. He dabbled with this and that for a while, never really latching on to any philosophy or religion for too long. Somewhere along the line, he started reading the Satanic Bible. And that brought him to the attention of Anton LaVey - the writer of the Satanic Bible and the avowed High Priest of the Satanic Church.
When I came back from Idaho, Jay had moved on from providing security for LaVey to studying for the Satanic Priesthood. I find it interesting that Jay was the last Satanic Priest ever named, because shortly afterwards, Anton LaVey died. Just as I was starting to return to the church that had raised me, Jay was becoming a Satanic Priest. A power struggle in the church ensued after LaVey's death and Jay wanted nothing to do with it. As far as I know, the Satanic Church died with LaVey.
Jay remained my friend. We had a once spoken pact between us, not to talk about religion. Somehow, though, I knew there was a way to bring Jay back into the fold. I figured that if Jay saw me as a Christian and saw how well I was doing, he'd be moved to discover that which I knew. I'd like to say that it's worked. But I'll just say that I think its starting to work... I actually heard him say something complimentary about Christianity the other day - though he immediatley followed that with a blasphemous denouncing of God. I'll take what I can get. Only God can soften his heart. I can just be there to help pick up the pieces.
The reason I mention all this is because scripture is pretty clear that I should abandon my friend and have nothing to do with him. In many places it tells me not to spend time with evil people. I've learned a thing or two about not paying attention to what the Bible says, and I'm worried about what might happen if I once again ignore its teachings.
Being friends with Jay is hard. Its not easy, like it is with Andy. He smokes, drinks, swears too much, and says a lot of inappropriate comments. But when we went hiking in Big Basin and I literally was on my last dregs of energy, he got behind me and pushed me up the hill. And when I got a new bike, he happily agreed to help me train and to teach me the proper techniques of bicycle riding. He is troubling, and yet loyal. He is dark, and yet the nicest guy you'll meet. He does things that you and I could never imagine, and yet, you can't help thinking that he'd make a great Christian someday.
So, I ask you two things. First, help me pray for my brother, Jay, that we can get him back into the fold. And Second, pray for me, that I know what I'm doing by remaining his friend and that I might someday have a positive influence on him. That's all I can ask.
The rest is up to God.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Acceptance Speeches
Another year, another Golden Globes has gone by and I, being a big movie lover, have been left, yet again, with a stunning conclusion - I still haven't won a Golden Globe. Or an Oscar, Grammy, or MTV Movie Award either. Its a rather distressing state of affairs to be so far into my magnificent career and to only have a dozen or so TACCIE Awards to show for it... but that's another story.
I always love Awards season. There is high drama about who will be nominated and who will win. We all have our favorites and we want them to do well. Seeing Return of the King win best picture was kind of like seeing the Giants win the World Series - I never thought I'd live to see a fantasy film win the highest honor.
As a kid, I used to watch the Oscars and dream of some day being up on that stage accepting my own Oscar for Best Film, Screenplay, Actor, Director, Etc... It was my dream to be in front of the entire world and finally show my quality. I admit guiltily to still having the fantasy.
But it occurred to me the other day that the fantasy doesn't really match the reality of the moment. You are being crowned King of the World, and yet, you are obligated to thank everyone you've ever known for making you King. They all try to do it their own unique way, "Oh, I'm so surprised at this award. I never expected anything like this. Its just an honor being nominated," but they always end it the same way, "I'd like to thank..." Really, honestly, I wonder if I wouldn't get up there and say, "Yeah, that's right! I kick A**! I rock! Bow down to my glory!" It would be awfully tempting.
Aside from protocol of what to say and how to say it and who you should thank and what to do if you forget a name or two (take out a full page ad in the newspapers to thank them after the fact... its not cheap being a big star), there is the message behind such comments - that none of us make it to the top without a lot of help along the way.
Couldn't we just skip the Awards and go straight to the thanking?
I'd like to thank Andy for getting me started on this blog. Your enthusiasm and friendship have kept me sane for many years, and just a slightly bit insane at the same time. I'd like to thank Elisa for her many wonderful comments and her ability to make me feel welcome here. I have gained a true friend. I'd like to thank Dan for trusting God and coming all the way from San Jose to meet his spiritual brothers and sisters. I'm not sure I would have made the journey, Dan, and I'm rather impressed. I'd like to thank my sister, Heather, for wearing her heart on her sleeve and keyboard. She keeps reminding me what an older brother is for. I'd like to thank Sue for keeping my head so big that I will always have to duck to enter rooms. Her comments are truly inspiring and I hope a sign of things to come. I'd like to thank Carlb for putting up with me and my incessant ribbing. Remember, I slept with you before Heather did ;)I'd like to thank Ariel for his serious comments that somehow hide the playfulness behind them. I'd like to thank Pastor Peter, without whom I would never have laughed so much these last couple of weeks, and probably would have never seen King Kong. And see... this is where the pressure begins... did I forget anybody? I'd like to thank Chez for visiting our blogosphere from halfway around the globe. I'd like to thank all the other people who have visited my blog over the past couple of months - even during the dreaded Controversial Period. But, most of all, I'd like to thank God, without whom this journey would have never had a beginning, middle or end. I'd like to share this Award with God, but I don't actually have one yet. So, God, my thanks and praise will have to do for now.
Wait, wait... there's someone else I have to thank! Wait... darn music... they always play the music before you're done thanking everyone... oh well... I'll just have to wait until my next acceptance speech.
I always love Awards season. There is high drama about who will be nominated and who will win. We all have our favorites and we want them to do well. Seeing Return of the King win best picture was kind of like seeing the Giants win the World Series - I never thought I'd live to see a fantasy film win the highest honor.
As a kid, I used to watch the Oscars and dream of some day being up on that stage accepting my own Oscar for Best Film, Screenplay, Actor, Director, Etc... It was my dream to be in front of the entire world and finally show my quality. I admit guiltily to still having the fantasy.
But it occurred to me the other day that the fantasy doesn't really match the reality of the moment. You are being crowned King of the World, and yet, you are obligated to thank everyone you've ever known for making you King. They all try to do it their own unique way, "Oh, I'm so surprised at this award. I never expected anything like this. Its just an honor being nominated," but they always end it the same way, "I'd like to thank..." Really, honestly, I wonder if I wouldn't get up there and say, "Yeah, that's right! I kick A**! I rock! Bow down to my glory!" It would be awfully tempting.
Aside from protocol of what to say and how to say it and who you should thank and what to do if you forget a name or two (take out a full page ad in the newspapers to thank them after the fact... its not cheap being a big star), there is the message behind such comments - that none of us make it to the top without a lot of help along the way.
Couldn't we just skip the Awards and go straight to the thanking?
I'd like to thank Andy for getting me started on this blog. Your enthusiasm and friendship have kept me sane for many years, and just a slightly bit insane at the same time. I'd like to thank Elisa for her many wonderful comments and her ability to make me feel welcome here. I have gained a true friend. I'd like to thank Dan for trusting God and coming all the way from San Jose to meet his spiritual brothers and sisters. I'm not sure I would have made the journey, Dan, and I'm rather impressed. I'd like to thank my sister, Heather, for wearing her heart on her sleeve and keyboard. She keeps reminding me what an older brother is for. I'd like to thank Sue for keeping my head so big that I will always have to duck to enter rooms. Her comments are truly inspiring and I hope a sign of things to come. I'd like to thank Carlb for putting up with me and my incessant ribbing. Remember, I slept with you before Heather did ;)I'd like to thank Ariel for his serious comments that somehow hide the playfulness behind them. I'd like to thank Pastor Peter, without whom I would never have laughed so much these last couple of weeks, and probably would have never seen King Kong. And see... this is where the pressure begins... did I forget anybody? I'd like to thank Chez for visiting our blogosphere from halfway around the globe. I'd like to thank all the other people who have visited my blog over the past couple of months - even during the dreaded Controversial Period. But, most of all, I'd like to thank God, without whom this journey would have never had a beginning, middle or end. I'd like to share this Award with God, but I don't actually have one yet. So, God, my thanks and praise will have to do for now.
Wait, wait... there's someone else I have to thank! Wait... darn music... they always play the music before you're done thanking everyone... oh well... I'll just have to wait until my next acceptance speech.
Road Trip
I am, of course, reading the excellent Donald Miller book, "Through Painted Deserts" about his road trip from Houston to Oregon when he was a young man. It reminds me, vaguely, okay, very vaguely, of a road trip I took back in 1989.
To set this completely in context, I had already joined the Navy the previous summer. I attended Naval Intelligence school in Virginia. My buddy - Jay Raymond - attended Aircraft Electrician School in Memphis. We both managed to get cashiered from school at approximately the same time - heading home to San Francisco. For me, it was a stop over on the way to my first and final assignment in Hawaii. For Jay, it was a stop over before his first and final assignment in Lemoore, California - near Visalia. We both had earned about three weeks vacation and I decided that it'd be a good idea to take a short weekend down in LA and go to Disneyland.
So me and my friend, Jay, managed to get a ride with my brother, Dave, and my other friend, Stanley (Think Napoleon Dynamite - I swear it was autobiographical about him! ;). We were going to go in Stanley's car - since he was the only one with a working vehicle. We had little cash, no hotel reservations, and only a few operating brain cells between us ;)
As soon as we started out, I knew we were in trouble. As we cleared the city limits of Pacifica, Stanley reminded Dave that we had to stop in San Jose so that he could pick up his temporary license.
"Temporary license?" I asked.
"It got revoked," Stanley informed us, "But they said I could get a temporary one back starting today."
Now, I was worried and Jay and I exchanged looks. But we really exchanged looks when they decided to bypass San Jose and just take their chances. We drove out of the Bay Area and into the coastal range, stopping at a little truck stop/tourist area called Casa De Fruita to pick up supplies. My brother, Dave, bought a huge bag of pistachio nuts and strawberry soda - the combination still makes me ill just to think about it. Jay and I were already nervous, but Dave and Stan were too excited to be making this trip. We all climbed back into the car and started up the long hill over the Pacheco Pass.
We got about three miles before we saw the red and blue flashing lights of the cop. Jay immediately started to freak out. He thought for sure we were all going to jail because Stan didn't have his license. But Stan was freaking out as well because, well, the car's registration wasn't up to date either. He was using the registration money to buy the new license. We pulled off the side of the road.
The cop pulled up behind us and climbed out of his car and walked around to the passenger side door where my brother was seated. He calmly rolled down the window and said, "Good afternoon, officer, would you like a pistachio nut?" Jay nearly had a heart attack. The officer asked for the usual paperwork, pointed out that the car's registration was expired, and wrote Stanley a fix it ticket. And then, miracle of miracles, he let us go.
The drive to Los Angeles was subdued at first, but eventually we all recovered from our shock and mocked Dave for his pistachio comments. When we finally arrived in Anaheim, it was late. We drove from hotel to hotel in our price range and were shocked to discover that there was some sort of Disneyana convention going on. There was no room at the inns (that's about my only biblical reference today... ;)
We ended up in a motel about thirty miles away called, appropriately, The Anchor. Jay was raving on and on about being a real sailor and staying at the anchor. We bought beer and before I was half way through mine, just about everyone had dropped off to sleep. I called it a night.
I woke up first the next day and dragged the others off to Disneyland. My brother is a real bear to wake up. I swear, if he could, he'd hibernate for three seasons out of four. But the other two weren't any easier to wake. However, since I needed them to get me to Disneyland, it was a cross I bore (okay, make that two references ;)
We reached Disneyland and immediately rode Space Mountain and Star Tours and then headed over to the Matterhorn. As Dave went off to find a bathroom, Stanley went to grab us some hot dogs and Jay and I stood in line. It was a long line and there were a lot of hot 1980's SoCal women in the line with us. Jay was trying to pull the macho sailor act to impress the ladies, but they weren't having any of it. Finally, Stan returned with some hot dogs and the appropriate condiments and we stood in line and waited.
Jay, being Jay, decided to impress everyone by showing us this trick he learned in the Navy. He immediately dropped a mustard packet on the ground in front of him, and before we could stop him, stomped on one end of the packet. Mustard squirted everywhere - including head to toe on the rather attractive blonde standing right behind us who was wearing nothing but black. Scraping mustard off her face, she looked at Jay and said, "Thanks... Dick!" Jay, for his part, was slightly embarassed. But I think more disappointed when we explained that we already knew that trick and had learned it in grade school.
The trip was long. We ran out of money. We limped home. Stan eventually got his license. Dave changed his eating habits. Jay never did hook up with an attractive blonde. And I was very glad to finally get to Hawaii. Some trips you take for the fun. Some you take for the adventure. And some, you just endure so that you can write about them for years to come.
To set this completely in context, I had already joined the Navy the previous summer. I attended Naval Intelligence school in Virginia. My buddy - Jay Raymond - attended Aircraft Electrician School in Memphis. We both managed to get cashiered from school at approximately the same time - heading home to San Francisco. For me, it was a stop over on the way to my first and final assignment in Hawaii. For Jay, it was a stop over before his first and final assignment in Lemoore, California - near Visalia. We both had earned about three weeks vacation and I decided that it'd be a good idea to take a short weekend down in LA and go to Disneyland.
So me and my friend, Jay, managed to get a ride with my brother, Dave, and my other friend, Stanley (Think Napoleon Dynamite - I swear it was autobiographical about him! ;). We were going to go in Stanley's car - since he was the only one with a working vehicle. We had little cash, no hotel reservations, and only a few operating brain cells between us ;)
As soon as we started out, I knew we were in trouble. As we cleared the city limits of Pacifica, Stanley reminded Dave that we had to stop in San Jose so that he could pick up his temporary license.
"Temporary license?" I asked.
"It got revoked," Stanley informed us, "But they said I could get a temporary one back starting today."
Now, I was worried and Jay and I exchanged looks. But we really exchanged looks when they decided to bypass San Jose and just take their chances. We drove out of the Bay Area and into the coastal range, stopping at a little truck stop/tourist area called Casa De Fruita to pick up supplies. My brother, Dave, bought a huge bag of pistachio nuts and strawberry soda - the combination still makes me ill just to think about it. Jay and I were already nervous, but Dave and Stan were too excited to be making this trip. We all climbed back into the car and started up the long hill over the Pacheco Pass.
We got about three miles before we saw the red and blue flashing lights of the cop. Jay immediately started to freak out. He thought for sure we were all going to jail because Stan didn't have his license. But Stan was freaking out as well because, well, the car's registration wasn't up to date either. He was using the registration money to buy the new license. We pulled off the side of the road.
The cop pulled up behind us and climbed out of his car and walked around to the passenger side door where my brother was seated. He calmly rolled down the window and said, "Good afternoon, officer, would you like a pistachio nut?" Jay nearly had a heart attack. The officer asked for the usual paperwork, pointed out that the car's registration was expired, and wrote Stanley a fix it ticket. And then, miracle of miracles, he let us go.
The drive to Los Angeles was subdued at first, but eventually we all recovered from our shock and mocked Dave for his pistachio comments. When we finally arrived in Anaheim, it was late. We drove from hotel to hotel in our price range and were shocked to discover that there was some sort of Disneyana convention going on. There was no room at the inns (that's about my only biblical reference today... ;)
We ended up in a motel about thirty miles away called, appropriately, The Anchor. Jay was raving on and on about being a real sailor and staying at the anchor. We bought beer and before I was half way through mine, just about everyone had dropped off to sleep. I called it a night.
I woke up first the next day and dragged the others off to Disneyland. My brother is a real bear to wake up. I swear, if he could, he'd hibernate for three seasons out of four. But the other two weren't any easier to wake. However, since I needed them to get me to Disneyland, it was a cross I bore (okay, make that two references ;)
We reached Disneyland and immediately rode Space Mountain and Star Tours and then headed over to the Matterhorn. As Dave went off to find a bathroom, Stanley went to grab us some hot dogs and Jay and I stood in line. It was a long line and there were a lot of hot 1980's SoCal women in the line with us. Jay was trying to pull the macho sailor act to impress the ladies, but they weren't having any of it. Finally, Stan returned with some hot dogs and the appropriate condiments and we stood in line and waited.
Jay, being Jay, decided to impress everyone by showing us this trick he learned in the Navy. He immediately dropped a mustard packet on the ground in front of him, and before we could stop him, stomped on one end of the packet. Mustard squirted everywhere - including head to toe on the rather attractive blonde standing right behind us who was wearing nothing but black. Scraping mustard off her face, she looked at Jay and said, "Thanks... Dick!" Jay, for his part, was slightly embarassed. But I think more disappointed when we explained that we already knew that trick and had learned it in grade school.
The trip was long. We ran out of money. We limped home. Stan eventually got his license. Dave changed his eating habits. Jay never did hook up with an attractive blonde. And I was very glad to finally get to Hawaii. Some trips you take for the fun. Some you take for the adventure. And some, you just endure so that you can write about them for years to come.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
The Pool Is Drained
There is no surer sign that summer is over than the pool is drained and starting to fill with leaves. I remember a trip to Chicago a while back and it was summer on our way through - with 90 degree heat and humidity and people sweltering along Lake Michigan. Two weeks later, when we returned, the air was crisp, people were starting to stay indoors, and the pool was completely drained. The hotel was empty as well, but that may have been because of the neighborhood we were in.
My brain is fried. I just finished editing the second act of my Novel. Its my favorite act. It begins with the main characters in real dire straits - peripherally - and it ends with them in real dire straits internally. At times it just seems to meander along, but I'm hoping you can hear the white water just ahead and the plunge that's about to occur.
The problem with the novel has always been the third act. The ending. Not since the glory days of "Old Spies Never Die," have I really had a great ending. The problem with this story is that the focus on the main characters changes in the third act, as needs be, and they slowly become peripheral characters to the main story. It'd be like getting to Return of the Jedi and discovering that R2D2 and C3PO were the main characters all along (and every one else dies in a climactic battle with the Empire... now that's a Star Wars movie I'd pay to see!) I'm reminded of a comment that a Tolkein scholar said about him in the hours of bonus interview footage for the Extended DVD's - "It was like he had no idea how you write a story." His story worked, though, and worked well perhaps as a result of him not following the tried and true formula for story telling. I'm hoping for the same result.
Since I really have nothing else to say, I'm going to add here the brief summary of the Novel from my website - so that if I ever run out of things to blog about again, you'll know what I'm talking about next time I mention the Novel.
The Thin Line is a cautionary tale of two men, Colonel Thomas O'Malley and Rob Winter, on different ends of life's spectrum who meet only hours before the assassination of a political leader, that binds them together on a journey through the pages of a future history that finally answers the question, can it happen here?
Rob Winter is a normal young man looking for his place in the world until the day he meets Colonel Tom O'Malley and finds himself in the middle of a historical event - the assassination of a key political leader. Their bond only grows when a reassigned O'Malley hires Rob Winter to be a lab assistant at a top secret government lab. When the theft of a biological agent occurs at the lab, both men begin to suspect that there may be something sinister going on behind the scenes. After the biological agent is used to deadly effect, Colonel O'Malley goes off in pursuit of the truth while Rob Winter mulls his role in events. When O'Malley discovers the truth, he goes into hiding, while Rob tries to get free of his fate by cooperating with the government.
As Colonel O'Malley and his family remain in hiding, Rob Winter finds himself increasingly in a world of fear and greed, moral ambiguity and danger. Forced to accept money from a stranger in order to get a job, Rob is drawn into a shadowy revolutionary underground movement whose intent is to open the eyes of the common man of the increasing danger to the United States. With the backdrop of an unpopular and deadly war overseas, Rob begins to relish his role as a revolutionary and eventually takes over the intellectual control of the underground movement - trying to steer it clear of any morally dangerous shoals, but becoming increasingly aware that forces beneath him are trying to take the revolution to the next step - all out civil war. It is only a matter of time before the two men are reunited and each one must meet his destiny and embrace his fate.
The Thin Line has been almost twenty years in the making. Started as an adventure novel based on a game created by Nick Kibre, Will Robison's tale first evolved when Nick Kibre challenged him with the notion that a dictatorship could exist in the United States without a post-apocalyptic future. After two weeks of deep thinking, Will Robison realized that his friend was right and began to craft a tale that would explain how America could become a dictatorship underneath everyone's noses. With three years of experience as a Naval Intelligence Specialist and countless hours spent doing research, Will Robison has finally started to craft the tale that began to percolate in his mind in 1985.
The Thin Line is a story of betrayal - of country, of friends, of family, and of one's self. It is a complex novel exploring the way people can blind themselves into believing that evil is never done in one's backyard - that it could never happen here. It is a tale straight out of today's headlines, written over the course of twenty years, that is as timeless as the fall of governments throughout history. If you want to know what happens next, read The Thin Line.
(Hey, you know... that's pretty good. I should write book jackets for a living! ;)
My brain is fried. I just finished editing the second act of my Novel. Its my favorite act. It begins with the main characters in real dire straits - peripherally - and it ends with them in real dire straits internally. At times it just seems to meander along, but I'm hoping you can hear the white water just ahead and the plunge that's about to occur.
The problem with the novel has always been the third act. The ending. Not since the glory days of "Old Spies Never Die," have I really had a great ending. The problem with this story is that the focus on the main characters changes in the third act, as needs be, and they slowly become peripheral characters to the main story. It'd be like getting to Return of the Jedi and discovering that R2D2 and C3PO were the main characters all along (and every one else dies in a climactic battle with the Empire... now that's a Star Wars movie I'd pay to see!) I'm reminded of a comment that a Tolkein scholar said about him in the hours of bonus interview footage for the Extended DVD's - "It was like he had no idea how you write a story." His story worked, though, and worked well perhaps as a result of him not following the tried and true formula for story telling. I'm hoping for the same result.
Since I really have nothing else to say, I'm going to add here the brief summary of the Novel from my website - so that if I ever run out of things to blog about again, you'll know what I'm talking about next time I mention the Novel.
The Thin Line is a cautionary tale of two men, Colonel Thomas O'Malley and Rob Winter, on different ends of life's spectrum who meet only hours before the assassination of a political leader, that binds them together on a journey through the pages of a future history that finally answers the question, can it happen here?
Rob Winter is a normal young man looking for his place in the world until the day he meets Colonel Tom O'Malley and finds himself in the middle of a historical event - the assassination of a key political leader. Their bond only grows when a reassigned O'Malley hires Rob Winter to be a lab assistant at a top secret government lab. When the theft of a biological agent occurs at the lab, both men begin to suspect that there may be something sinister going on behind the scenes. After the biological agent is used to deadly effect, Colonel O'Malley goes off in pursuit of the truth while Rob Winter mulls his role in events. When O'Malley discovers the truth, he goes into hiding, while Rob tries to get free of his fate by cooperating with the government.
As Colonel O'Malley and his family remain in hiding, Rob Winter finds himself increasingly in a world of fear and greed, moral ambiguity and danger. Forced to accept money from a stranger in order to get a job, Rob is drawn into a shadowy revolutionary underground movement whose intent is to open the eyes of the common man of the increasing danger to the United States. With the backdrop of an unpopular and deadly war overseas, Rob begins to relish his role as a revolutionary and eventually takes over the intellectual control of the underground movement - trying to steer it clear of any morally dangerous shoals, but becoming increasingly aware that forces beneath him are trying to take the revolution to the next step - all out civil war. It is only a matter of time before the two men are reunited and each one must meet his destiny and embrace his fate.
The Thin Line has been almost twenty years in the making. Started as an adventure novel based on a game created by Nick Kibre, Will Robison's tale first evolved when Nick Kibre challenged him with the notion that a dictatorship could exist in the United States without a post-apocalyptic future. After two weeks of deep thinking, Will Robison realized that his friend was right and began to craft a tale that would explain how America could become a dictatorship underneath everyone's noses. With three years of experience as a Naval Intelligence Specialist and countless hours spent doing research, Will Robison has finally started to craft the tale that began to percolate in his mind in 1985.
The Thin Line is a story of betrayal - of country, of friends, of family, and of one's self. It is a complex novel exploring the way people can blind themselves into believing that evil is never done in one's backyard - that it could never happen here. It is a tale straight out of today's headlines, written over the course of twenty years, that is as timeless as the fall of governments throughout history. If you want to know what happens next, read The Thin Line.
(Hey, you know... that's pretty good. I should write book jackets for a living! ;)
Monday, January 16, 2006
Sound Bites
The Following Internal Dialogue takes place from 9:12pm to 9:38pm (PST) on Saturday, January 14th, 2006:
"Let us pray"... Yeah, let's pray already. That cake looked really good and I can't wait to get a bite of it. The salmon was awesome. Too bad I decided on the cheeseburger. It was huge and juicy and really good, but a little more salmon would have been a smarter choice and my tastebuds would have really thanked me for it. But, its your thing about bones. Yeah, what's up with that? You know I don't like bones. I guess I'm just scared of swallowing them. Hey, shut up already, Page is praying. This is a prayer, dummy, you're supposed to be praying too. Okay, okay, I'm listening.
Man, Andy seems really blocked on this whole issue. I wonder why. It seems so logical to me that you would just suck it up and call. Be the bigger man and make the call. Heather's blog about regrets and not saying goodbye... talk about doing a guilt trip on a person. I remember Grandma wasting away but I had a completely different experience. I remember going to her house to visit during her final weeks and having Auntie Carol all but hit us over the head with a frying pan to keep us from visiting. Grandma really wanted for us to remember her as she was alive, not as she was dying. It must have hurt her much more than it hurt us not to be able to say goodbye - but that was just the way she loved us. I would hate to think that someone were to pass away while I wasted the opportunity to say goodbye. Oh, wait, what the heck am I talking about? I hate hospitals. Gosh, I can be such a hypocrite sometimes. Oh, no, Andy's done... its my turn.
Yeah, yeah... groovy. That was a good prayer. Said just the right things. Didn't talk too long. Just said what was on my mind... which wasn't much really... Now, Victoria's praying. She said something earlier about graduating. That really struck a chord. That whole thing about hearing God last week - that was very cool. And ever since then, its like I feel closer somehow. Like I know He's always around. Oh, no, I'm not becoming one of those icky Christians, am I? We used to call them, Bible Waving Jesus Freaks! I'm not going to start going door to door and praying with people or join one of those store front churches and sing praise hymns and throw rocks at abortion doctors, am I? Maybe. What do you mean, maybe? Maybe you will, and maybe you won't ever feel God's love that closely. What's that supposed to mean? I love God. But some people love Him more. They are farther along in their relationship with Him. Perhaps you will come to that point in your relationship where you want to be more active with your faith. Perhaps not. Perhaps God has other plans for you. You have just started on such a long journey. You have graduated. You are smarter about Christ than you were even two weeks ago. But you don't know nothing yet.
Hey, how come nobody is praying about me? OH COME ON! Satan, do you know ridiculous that sounds? Did you think I would be fooled by that? God has insulated me now. I now know when you use your voice and pretend to be me - trying to make me doubt my own faith. That is So not what I would think while praying. Though the question does beg an answer. Perhaps it is because I was so closed in my prayer and they are so open. My prayer was about me. Their prayers have been about others first. Man, I have such a long way to go. I don't even know how to pray right. There is no right spirit within me. That is why you can attack me, Satan. But I'm on to you now!
What was it that Dan said before, "Christians are the worst sinners because they know they need to be saved." That is so deeply profound. Its so nice to excel at something, even if its sinning! Man, that salmon was really good! Boy, can these people pray? Its taking forever and my butt is starting to hurt. And look at the way I'm wringing my hands - if there was a prize in heaven for physically worshipping God, my hands might be in the final five. I think I can ease back now before I break my fingers though... how much longer is this going to go on? I'm so out of my league. I couldn't pray this long if I tried.
Okay, Dan, sum it all up. Wow! Can this boy pray? Do you think he learned all that in Alabama? His Dad reminds me of my friend, Russ's Dad - The Marlboro Man. That guy is pretty taciturn, but when he speaks its always worth waiting around for. And man can he hike! Oh, you prayed for me. Thank you, Dan. Even though I don't deserve it, thank you! And thank you for seeing my real need. Yes, bringing the kids back home would be great. Wonderful even. But having kids to go, and having kids receive Christ, that's really the whole point of the trip. I am such a bad youth leader - no, not bad - but slow. My reaction time is just too slow. If I'd have been Pastor Dave, I'd have totally been hit with that football. I need God's grace to make me faster. God bless you, Dan.
The children are having so much fun playing. That's great. Let the children come unto me. I think God and I are in agreement on this one. They are still so young. So innocent. Little Joshua kept spilling his macacheese on my pants today and he kept saying, Sorry, and it was so pathetic and heartfelt that it was impossible not to forgive him. I wonder if that is what we are in God's eyes. Imagine the size of God's wallet - with all those photos of his beloved children! Most of us don't get it! We think children are such a burden, that they are noisy and expensive and always acting up. But that's children being children - that's the joy of youth! Children are such a Godsend! Of course, that's easy to say when you don't have them! I don't have to care for them, I only have to care about them.
Oh, we're wrapping up now. I made it. I didn't make a fool of myself. No more inappropriate communication. I remain controversy free for yet another week. Nobody looking at me funny and wondering what I'm smoking. Sometimes, I give them a glimpse of my soul and they can't look past the ugliness to the beauty inside. I really hope they'll be able to see the beauty inside my novel - because there's a lot of ugliness on the surface. Maybe I should blog about that? I don't know. I never know what I'm going to blog about until the words tumble off my fingers. But I probably should blog about this wonderful evening, or people might think that I didn't have a really wonderful time. It really was nice to meet so many fellow Christians and to learn so much about what I have yet to learn. Nice reality check.
"I pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen."
"Let us pray"... Yeah, let's pray already. That cake looked really good and I can't wait to get a bite of it. The salmon was awesome. Too bad I decided on the cheeseburger. It was huge and juicy and really good, but a little more salmon would have been a smarter choice and my tastebuds would have really thanked me for it. But, its your thing about bones. Yeah, what's up with that? You know I don't like bones. I guess I'm just scared of swallowing them. Hey, shut up already, Page is praying. This is a prayer, dummy, you're supposed to be praying too. Okay, okay, I'm listening.
Man, Andy seems really blocked on this whole issue. I wonder why. It seems so logical to me that you would just suck it up and call. Be the bigger man and make the call. Heather's blog about regrets and not saying goodbye... talk about doing a guilt trip on a person. I remember Grandma wasting away but I had a completely different experience. I remember going to her house to visit during her final weeks and having Auntie Carol all but hit us over the head with a frying pan to keep us from visiting. Grandma really wanted for us to remember her as she was alive, not as she was dying. It must have hurt her much more than it hurt us not to be able to say goodbye - but that was just the way she loved us. I would hate to think that someone were to pass away while I wasted the opportunity to say goodbye. Oh, wait, what the heck am I talking about? I hate hospitals. Gosh, I can be such a hypocrite sometimes. Oh, no, Andy's done... its my turn.
Yeah, yeah... groovy. That was a good prayer. Said just the right things. Didn't talk too long. Just said what was on my mind... which wasn't much really... Now, Victoria's praying. She said something earlier about graduating. That really struck a chord. That whole thing about hearing God last week - that was very cool. And ever since then, its like I feel closer somehow. Like I know He's always around. Oh, no, I'm not becoming one of those icky Christians, am I? We used to call them, Bible Waving Jesus Freaks! I'm not going to start going door to door and praying with people or join one of those store front churches and sing praise hymns and throw rocks at abortion doctors, am I? Maybe. What do you mean, maybe? Maybe you will, and maybe you won't ever feel God's love that closely. What's that supposed to mean? I love God. But some people love Him more. They are farther along in their relationship with Him. Perhaps you will come to that point in your relationship where you want to be more active with your faith. Perhaps not. Perhaps God has other plans for you. You have just started on such a long journey. You have graduated. You are smarter about Christ than you were even two weeks ago. But you don't know nothing yet.
Hey, how come nobody is praying about me? OH COME ON! Satan, do you know ridiculous that sounds? Did you think I would be fooled by that? God has insulated me now. I now know when you use your voice and pretend to be me - trying to make me doubt my own faith. That is So not what I would think while praying. Though the question does beg an answer. Perhaps it is because I was so closed in my prayer and they are so open. My prayer was about me. Their prayers have been about others first. Man, I have such a long way to go. I don't even know how to pray right. There is no right spirit within me. That is why you can attack me, Satan. But I'm on to you now!
What was it that Dan said before, "Christians are the worst sinners because they know they need to be saved." That is so deeply profound. Its so nice to excel at something, even if its sinning! Man, that salmon was really good! Boy, can these people pray? Its taking forever and my butt is starting to hurt. And look at the way I'm wringing my hands - if there was a prize in heaven for physically worshipping God, my hands might be in the final five. I think I can ease back now before I break my fingers though... how much longer is this going to go on? I'm so out of my league. I couldn't pray this long if I tried.
Okay, Dan, sum it all up. Wow! Can this boy pray? Do you think he learned all that in Alabama? His Dad reminds me of my friend, Russ's Dad - The Marlboro Man. That guy is pretty taciturn, but when he speaks its always worth waiting around for. And man can he hike! Oh, you prayed for me. Thank you, Dan. Even though I don't deserve it, thank you! And thank you for seeing my real need. Yes, bringing the kids back home would be great. Wonderful even. But having kids to go, and having kids receive Christ, that's really the whole point of the trip. I am such a bad youth leader - no, not bad - but slow. My reaction time is just too slow. If I'd have been Pastor Dave, I'd have totally been hit with that football. I need God's grace to make me faster. God bless you, Dan.
The children are having so much fun playing. That's great. Let the children come unto me. I think God and I are in agreement on this one. They are still so young. So innocent. Little Joshua kept spilling his macacheese on my pants today and he kept saying, Sorry, and it was so pathetic and heartfelt that it was impossible not to forgive him. I wonder if that is what we are in God's eyes. Imagine the size of God's wallet - with all those photos of his beloved children! Most of us don't get it! We think children are such a burden, that they are noisy and expensive and always acting up. But that's children being children - that's the joy of youth! Children are such a Godsend! Of course, that's easy to say when you don't have them! I don't have to care for them, I only have to care about them.
Oh, we're wrapping up now. I made it. I didn't make a fool of myself. No more inappropriate communication. I remain controversy free for yet another week. Nobody looking at me funny and wondering what I'm smoking. Sometimes, I give them a glimpse of my soul and they can't look past the ugliness to the beauty inside. I really hope they'll be able to see the beauty inside my novel - because there's a lot of ugliness on the surface. Maybe I should blog about that? I don't know. I never know what I'm going to blog about until the words tumble off my fingers. But I probably should blog about this wonderful evening, or people might think that I didn't have a really wonderful time. It really was nice to meet so many fellow Christians and to learn so much about what I have yet to learn. Nice reality check.
"I pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen."
Friday, January 13, 2006
Son, I believe this is killing me.
This blog is dedicated to the song that has kept my brain wrapped up for the past several weeks - Piano Man, by Billy Joel. Not really the whole song, mind you, just the one line, "Son, I believe this is killing me, as the smile ran away from his face, for I'm sure that I could be a movie star, if I could get out of this place."
Dave Story #1 - My brother Dave tells these stories that I have no idea if they're true, but they sound true. I spread them with the aforementioned warning as to their veracity. According to Dave, Billy Joel had a really bad agent when he first started out. He made an album and got so royally screwed on the deal that when he went to renegotiate the deal for this second album, and the producer wouldn't change the terms, he packed up his stuff and moved to Los Angeles to play piano at a bar until the length of his contract ended. The experiences of those years formed the background for his most famous and vivid song - Piano Man - which he recorded under a brand new deal as soon as he was able to get a better contract. Again... I have no idea if this is true, but if you listen to the lyrics of Piano Man, you can almost picture an LA bar at night and these guys coming up and saying, "Man, what are you doing here?"
The reason I find myself so enraptured with this lyric is because writing my novel is killing me. To be sure, not all at once. I'm not holding a gun to my head. But slowly, inexhorably, like the Terminator, it is relentless in its killing desire.
It attacks me mentally - hour after hour after hour spent planning, editing, writing, editing, planning, editing, writing, editing, planning... you get the gist. There are times when I am done writing when my brain is literally mush. After a few hours of work, there are times when I can't construct a simple sentence. I have rubbed all my brain cells together. I'm not sure I have that many left. I must have drank too much in college.
It attacks my physically - after spending all day at work almost always crunching numbers at a computer for most of the day, I come home and sit in front of my computer writing, often until midnight or later. My sleep cycle while I'm writing is most often between 5 and 6 hours a night for days and weeks on end. I get so tied up sitting at my computer that I'm getting cramps and Charlie Horses in my unused and stiff muscles. Before I started work on my Novel - in 2003 - I used to hike all the time. Now I get out about twice a year. That will change in March when I finish, of course. But I just hope that my Novel isn't published posthumously in the meantime.
It attacks me morally - you can't write a book with big baddies, if they're not big and bad. Like a method actor, I have to envision my story as if I was each character. If a character does something morally unacceptable, I have to get into that character's head space and write the scene. Murder, Rape, and other mayhem have run through my head the past four years (I started the synopsis in 2002). You would think, as I thought, that writing an evil scene wouldn't be any more taxing than writing a good scene - but it is. There are just parts of you that scream out that what you are picturing is evil. But Good isn't nearly as good with the evil to counter balance it. Luke Skywalker blowing up the Evil Galactic Butterfly Catcher is not only silly, but makes Luke appear to be sadistic in context. I just counterbalance my evil scenes with one's filled with good and hope that you'll all forgive me when you realize that just about everyone dies in a tragic way in this book.
So, pretty much I'm in bad shape. My next project may be the big screen adaption of The Wiggles. But this won't occur until I spend at least a year walking all over Europe, studying the religious works of the great Masters, while raising funds for the war orphans of the world.
And only then will I be able to pass an Aerobee again.
Have a good weekend, all. And God bless.
Dave Story #1 - My brother Dave tells these stories that I have no idea if they're true, but they sound true. I spread them with the aforementioned warning as to their veracity. According to Dave, Billy Joel had a really bad agent when he first started out. He made an album and got so royally screwed on the deal that when he went to renegotiate the deal for this second album, and the producer wouldn't change the terms, he packed up his stuff and moved to Los Angeles to play piano at a bar until the length of his contract ended. The experiences of those years formed the background for his most famous and vivid song - Piano Man - which he recorded under a brand new deal as soon as he was able to get a better contract. Again... I have no idea if this is true, but if you listen to the lyrics of Piano Man, you can almost picture an LA bar at night and these guys coming up and saying, "Man, what are you doing here?"
The reason I find myself so enraptured with this lyric is because writing my novel is killing me. To be sure, not all at once. I'm not holding a gun to my head. But slowly, inexhorably, like the Terminator, it is relentless in its killing desire.
It attacks me mentally - hour after hour after hour spent planning, editing, writing, editing, planning, editing, writing, editing, planning... you get the gist. There are times when I am done writing when my brain is literally mush. After a few hours of work, there are times when I can't construct a simple sentence. I have rubbed all my brain cells together. I'm not sure I have that many left. I must have drank too much in college.
It attacks my physically - after spending all day at work almost always crunching numbers at a computer for most of the day, I come home and sit in front of my computer writing, often until midnight or later. My sleep cycle while I'm writing is most often between 5 and 6 hours a night for days and weeks on end. I get so tied up sitting at my computer that I'm getting cramps and Charlie Horses in my unused and stiff muscles. Before I started work on my Novel - in 2003 - I used to hike all the time. Now I get out about twice a year. That will change in March when I finish, of course. But I just hope that my Novel isn't published posthumously in the meantime.
It attacks me morally - you can't write a book with big baddies, if they're not big and bad. Like a method actor, I have to envision my story as if I was each character. If a character does something morally unacceptable, I have to get into that character's head space and write the scene. Murder, Rape, and other mayhem have run through my head the past four years (I started the synopsis in 2002). You would think, as I thought, that writing an evil scene wouldn't be any more taxing than writing a good scene - but it is. There are just parts of you that scream out that what you are picturing is evil. But Good isn't nearly as good with the evil to counter balance it. Luke Skywalker blowing up the Evil Galactic Butterfly Catcher is not only silly, but makes Luke appear to be sadistic in context. I just counterbalance my evil scenes with one's filled with good and hope that you'll all forgive me when you realize that just about everyone dies in a tragic way in this book.
So, pretty much I'm in bad shape. My next project may be the big screen adaption of The Wiggles. But this won't occur until I spend at least a year walking all over Europe, studying the religious works of the great Masters, while raising funds for the war orphans of the world.
And only then will I be able to pass an Aerobee again.
Have a good weekend, all. And God bless.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Your Money Is No Good Here
My Dad tells a story about me. When we were little (2nd Grade) we went to Europe. My Dad had taught us the rudiments of every language; please, thank you, I don't speak the language - that sort of stuff. We reached the small Bavarian village of Garmish Partenkirken up in the Bavarian Alps and stayed in a little inn at the end of a valley. There was a little store across the street that sold postcards and ice creams and things like that. My Dad handed me some German Franks and told me to go over and get some ice cream. This was going to be a test of my ability to handle a transaction in a foreign country. I wasn't fearless, I just didn't know any better.
I went across the street, pointed to the ice cream I wanted, and said Einz, Bitte. (One, please). The shop owner very graciously picked up the ice cream and handed it to me and then quoted me the price. I handed him the money. And then the German Shop Owner started speaking to me in fluent German. I didn't have a clue what he was saying. I just stood there, stunned, hoping for something that made sense.
My Dad had been watching me from the window and quickly realized that something was wrong. He ran across the street to the store and suddenly realized that his own 3rd Grade Level German wasn't going to cut it. He couldn't understand what the man was trying to say either.
Finally, a tourist came along who could translate and he explained that the money I had was old. The currency had changed since the 72 Olympics when my Dad had been there last. In short, my money was no good there.
I was thinking of this the other day when I realized that what money we had, and what we did with that money, was all just a big test. My Dad could have easily gone across the street and bought the ice cream for me, but he knew that I would never learn to trust my abilities to converse in any language if I didn't try it on my own. Spending the money was just a test. And so it is with God. God doesn't need money. He owns everything. He can create anything. Money to God is like the points on Whose Line Is It Anyway - it doesn't matter. He uses it to test us. He uses it to see what we will do with it. It is a character test. It is a patience test. It is a test of our faith.
We all like to pay attention to the first half of the scripture, Render Unto Caesar, What Is Caesar's... it justifies our having to pay taxes and other burdensome issues and keeps us from sacking and pillaging Halliburton and Exxon/Mobil. But there is another half to the message, Render Unto God, What Is God's. He owns us too. Money means nothing to Him, but we are His most important possessions. And we should give ourselves to our creator.
I went across the street, pointed to the ice cream I wanted, and said Einz, Bitte. (One, please). The shop owner very graciously picked up the ice cream and handed it to me and then quoted me the price. I handed him the money. And then the German Shop Owner started speaking to me in fluent German. I didn't have a clue what he was saying. I just stood there, stunned, hoping for something that made sense.
My Dad had been watching me from the window and quickly realized that something was wrong. He ran across the street to the store and suddenly realized that his own 3rd Grade Level German wasn't going to cut it. He couldn't understand what the man was trying to say either.
Finally, a tourist came along who could translate and he explained that the money I had was old. The currency had changed since the 72 Olympics when my Dad had been there last. In short, my money was no good there.
I was thinking of this the other day when I realized that what money we had, and what we did with that money, was all just a big test. My Dad could have easily gone across the street and bought the ice cream for me, but he knew that I would never learn to trust my abilities to converse in any language if I didn't try it on my own. Spending the money was just a test. And so it is with God. God doesn't need money. He owns everything. He can create anything. Money to God is like the points on Whose Line Is It Anyway - it doesn't matter. He uses it to test us. He uses it to see what we will do with it. It is a character test. It is a patience test. It is a test of our faith.
We all like to pay attention to the first half of the scripture, Render Unto Caesar, What Is Caesar's... it justifies our having to pay taxes and other burdensome issues and keeps us from sacking and pillaging Halliburton and Exxon/Mobil. But there is another half to the message, Render Unto God, What Is God's. He owns us too. Money means nothing to Him, but we are His most important possessions. And we should give ourselves to our creator.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Life in the Fast Lane
I can not begin to do Donald Miller's book justice. "Searching For God Know's What" is a deep exploration of a personal relationship with God. In this book, Miller outlines his theory about humanity, which he entitles The Lifeboat Theory. It goes something like this. Picture a lifeboat after a shipwreck. Everyone is crammed inside a tiny boat and dependent on one another in order to survive. But rather than everyone getting along equally with each other - after all, we've all got just as much right to survive as the next guy, right - heirarchies of importance begin to develop. Who's got more right to live becomes an unwritten contest and people in the lifeboat begin to side with the most important people because group concensus decides who stays and who goes. Applied to real life, we find ourselves constantly competing for everything from one another - from love to respect to money to power - all trying to be the head of the lifeboat. Our opinions are shaped more by who we know than what we know. We all want to be the cool kid. Ultimately, that's what it most reminded me of - Junior High School. And that was why I had a huge problem with the theory. While it sounded good, I knew that the world wasn't a giant overgrown recreation of Jr. High School - that our social development was far more complex and dynamic than who was cool and popular.
It reminded me of what I'd learned in Anthropology. Studies of emerging people (tribes that had little or no contact with modern people) suggest that all conflict is waged over a limited or dwindling resource. Amongst the Yanamamo Indian tribe of Venezuela (if I remember right... this was more than 10 years ago) there was little sign of conflict with anyone until another people started encroaching on their hunting grounds and food became scarce. Suddenly, the Yanamamo engaged in open warfare with other tribes and with one another for the dwindling resource of food. Throughout history and pre-history, again and again, any time warfare was found to exist, there was usually a resource that was also missing. This, of course, lends credence to the notion of War for Oil, but I'm just as inclined to think that sometimes bigger countries can just be bullies for no apparent reason.
However, yesterday I figured out that there might just be a kernel of truth behind both of these theories. I was driving home and, as usual, I got stuck behind someone who wanted to go 50 in a 65 zone on the freeway. I was patient. I waited until we got off the freeway and then I changed lanes to go around this guy so that I could proceed on my way. Well, no sooner did I change lanes than the guy sped up to like 65 in a 50 zone to try and get in front of me again. No way was I going to let this slow jerk get in front of me. So we ended up racing down the street at 65 - just to keep either one of us from getting the upper-hand.
There are rules to driving that have nothing to do with the Driver's Handbook. Never cut anyone off. Never let yourself be cut off. Always go around the slower drivers, cause if they're slow now, they'll be even slower later on. Never get behind a Volvo. Never throw a turn signal until you're just about to change lanes because if you do, someone will speed up to keep you from changing lanes. Always speed up when someone throws their turn signal because someone coming into your lane is bound to be slower than you. You're only as fast as the car in front of you. Slow kills - not speed. Be aggressive at all times - unless there's a cop around.Some of you follow these rules. Some of you follow only some of them. Some of you don't seem to have a clue that the rules exist. The rules vary from place to place and from state to state - but they all have one thing in common. Bad drivers should just get out of my darn way!
Okay, I may exaggerate a little - though I know anyone who's been in my car might argue about how little I exaggerate. The point I'm trying to make is that Miller was right. My lane, my way, my, my, my... get out of MY LIFEBOAT! I have turned the highways into my own little example of Lifeboat Theory. But, at the same time, Anthropology is also right. I never act this way when there are few people on the highway. The rules are suspended when there aren't enough people to play the game. Competition disappears when there are no competitors, nothing to compete for, and we can all just relax and go about our business. What, ultimately, am I competing for on the highway - time? I want to get home in a hurry so that I can relax more? Quality of life? Superiority? Some sort of unwritten obligation? Do I think that the world owes me a smooth ride home?
Miller points out that the problem with a Lifeboat Mentality is that it does not recognize our most important relationship - our relationship with God. If we were all in a lifeboat with God, and He had this mentalitly, we'd all be swimming. But through the grace and mercy of God, and because He's not like us, none of us are going swimming today. In fact, to lighten the lifeboat's load, Jesus volunteered to get in the water and be eaten by sharks. He died for our sins. Other than Leonardo DiCaprio, I know of no other person that would willing leave the raft to rescue others (that was a Titanic reference, in case you missed it ;)
When I drive, then, I am too concerned with other drivers taking something from me that I don't own. I am too concerned with losing my precious commodity - whatever it might be. I am too concerned with not being the best driver or not being the fastest driver - that I don't seem to recall God at all. Call it the Enemy throwing cars in front of me. Call it God trying to get me to slow down. Ultimately, it comes down to my own attitudes and how they affect the way I drive. If I love God, I'll drive differently.
As soon as I can, I'm switching to a bicycle... this lifeboat's getting too crowded for my soul.
It reminded me of what I'd learned in Anthropology. Studies of emerging people (tribes that had little or no contact with modern people) suggest that all conflict is waged over a limited or dwindling resource. Amongst the Yanamamo Indian tribe of Venezuela (if I remember right... this was more than 10 years ago) there was little sign of conflict with anyone until another people started encroaching on their hunting grounds and food became scarce. Suddenly, the Yanamamo engaged in open warfare with other tribes and with one another for the dwindling resource of food. Throughout history and pre-history, again and again, any time warfare was found to exist, there was usually a resource that was also missing. This, of course, lends credence to the notion of War for Oil, but I'm just as inclined to think that sometimes bigger countries can just be bullies for no apparent reason.
However, yesterday I figured out that there might just be a kernel of truth behind both of these theories. I was driving home and, as usual, I got stuck behind someone who wanted to go 50 in a 65 zone on the freeway. I was patient. I waited until we got off the freeway and then I changed lanes to go around this guy so that I could proceed on my way. Well, no sooner did I change lanes than the guy sped up to like 65 in a 50 zone to try and get in front of me again. No way was I going to let this slow jerk get in front of me. So we ended up racing down the street at 65 - just to keep either one of us from getting the upper-hand.
There are rules to driving that have nothing to do with the Driver's Handbook. Never cut anyone off. Never let yourself be cut off. Always go around the slower drivers, cause if they're slow now, they'll be even slower later on. Never get behind a Volvo. Never throw a turn signal until you're just about to change lanes because if you do, someone will speed up to keep you from changing lanes. Always speed up when someone throws their turn signal because someone coming into your lane is bound to be slower than you. You're only as fast as the car in front of you. Slow kills - not speed. Be aggressive at all times - unless there's a cop around.Some of you follow these rules. Some of you follow only some of them. Some of you don't seem to have a clue that the rules exist. The rules vary from place to place and from state to state - but they all have one thing in common. Bad drivers should just get out of my darn way!
Okay, I may exaggerate a little - though I know anyone who's been in my car might argue about how little I exaggerate. The point I'm trying to make is that Miller was right. My lane, my way, my, my, my... get out of MY LIFEBOAT! I have turned the highways into my own little example of Lifeboat Theory. But, at the same time, Anthropology is also right. I never act this way when there are few people on the highway. The rules are suspended when there aren't enough people to play the game. Competition disappears when there are no competitors, nothing to compete for, and we can all just relax and go about our business. What, ultimately, am I competing for on the highway - time? I want to get home in a hurry so that I can relax more? Quality of life? Superiority? Some sort of unwritten obligation? Do I think that the world owes me a smooth ride home?
Miller points out that the problem with a Lifeboat Mentality is that it does not recognize our most important relationship - our relationship with God. If we were all in a lifeboat with God, and He had this mentalitly, we'd all be swimming. But through the grace and mercy of God, and because He's not like us, none of us are going swimming today. In fact, to lighten the lifeboat's load, Jesus volunteered to get in the water and be eaten by sharks. He died for our sins. Other than Leonardo DiCaprio, I know of no other person that would willing leave the raft to rescue others (that was a Titanic reference, in case you missed it ;)
When I drive, then, I am too concerned with other drivers taking something from me that I don't own. I am too concerned with losing my precious commodity - whatever it might be. I am too concerned with not being the best driver or not being the fastest driver - that I don't seem to recall God at all. Call it the Enemy throwing cars in front of me. Call it God trying to get me to slow down. Ultimately, it comes down to my own attitudes and how they affect the way I drive. If I love God, I'll drive differently.
As soon as I can, I'm switching to a bicycle... this lifeboat's getting too crowded for my soul.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
God Spoke To Me
Okay, maybe the meds are finally kicking in, or its one of those strange side effects that you hear about on the TV ads (Side effects may include high blood pressure, bloody noses, and hearing the Voice of God), but last night, or more accurately, this morning God Spoke To Me.
I should backtrack a little. I was having this really bizarre dream that only in afterthought did it occur to me that it was a metaphor for my life so far. It started with me driving a very long distance from home to see Karen. Now, I pointed out in the comments of one of my previous blogs that I don't think of Karen often. So perhaps it was the blog that prompted me to dream of her, I don't know - but it was unusual. I met her on a street that looked like my own overlooking the ocean (only with a much better view) and she explained to me why we had broken up (I was being dense as usual ;) But just as she finished explaining this to me, Harry Potter called for help. He was about to be turned into a werewolf and he needed me to roll a good saving throw or else he was doomed forever. I rolled a 17 on a D20 and he survived. But I needed to hop on his Quidditch broom and go get water. I ended up in a foreign castle stealing some Hawaiian Punch and returning just in time to rescue Harry and his friends. I now had to hop in my car and drive home. I drove through this desolate part of town where everything was barren and lifeless. Then I exited the car and started walking. I passed a group of people who were fighting a fire, but I couldn't be bothered. It started to hail and I hid briefly from the hail under a woman's umbrella, but it wasn't shelter. So I ran into a building until the hail had passed and then, finally I reached what I thought was home, only to discover that I was still far, far from home and I had no idea where my car was. I continued to walk and after about ten miles I came to this beautiful resort where my parents were on vacation. They agreed to loan me the car, but while I was there, a friend of mine invited me to her wedding and there were all these bridesmaids who wouldn't give me the time of day and... in the back of my mind, I could hear the clock radio - they were talking about football, and my mind was still focused on the dream, and then, I heard Him.
"Will"
It was not my own mind. And it wasn't on the radio. Over both of those voices - external and internal - on a sort of PA system that played directly into my brain, I heard God. The voice was quiet, peaceful, powerful, and loving - in a way that we all wish our voices could be and Adam Adamson only wishes his Aslan could have sounded like.
It seemed almost trivial. I woke up immediately and turned off my clock radio before the air raid siren sounded to fully wake me up. I sat up in bed and blinked back the sleep, the dream still fully in my mind and I thought, "God spoke to me... God Spoke To Me!" And then I thought, "God woke me up. Now, that's what I call service!"
I've been walking around all day now thinking about the implications of this one word. I am constantly reminded of Samuel hearing God's voice. "Samuel, Samuel," God called and Samuel was convinced that it was the Priest. But the Priest finally realized that it was God and told Samuel to answer Him. I realized that I've been hearing my name quite a bit lately - floating on the wind. I've assumed I was crazy or that someone had called my name and then changed their mind.
But now I know. It was God. The message was a little vague, but it was still God. And I've been wondering what He wants me to do. And then, it occurred to me - God's already told me what to do. He's told us all what to do. And we've been standing around like Sleeper Agents on Earth, waiting for the activation word - the code word that'll send us out to do His mission. Well, I think I've just been activated.
Praise God. He is alive. And He does speak to you!
P.S. This blog may have unintended side effects that may include spontaneous praising, unintentional smiles, and hearing the Voice of God. If any of these symptoms should occur, please consult a Bible immediately. Use only as directed.
I should backtrack a little. I was having this really bizarre dream that only in afterthought did it occur to me that it was a metaphor for my life so far. It started with me driving a very long distance from home to see Karen. Now, I pointed out in the comments of one of my previous blogs that I don't think of Karen often. So perhaps it was the blog that prompted me to dream of her, I don't know - but it was unusual. I met her on a street that looked like my own overlooking the ocean (only with a much better view) and she explained to me why we had broken up (I was being dense as usual ;) But just as she finished explaining this to me, Harry Potter called for help. He was about to be turned into a werewolf and he needed me to roll a good saving throw or else he was doomed forever. I rolled a 17 on a D20 and he survived. But I needed to hop on his Quidditch broom and go get water. I ended up in a foreign castle stealing some Hawaiian Punch and returning just in time to rescue Harry and his friends. I now had to hop in my car and drive home. I drove through this desolate part of town where everything was barren and lifeless. Then I exited the car and started walking. I passed a group of people who were fighting a fire, but I couldn't be bothered. It started to hail and I hid briefly from the hail under a woman's umbrella, but it wasn't shelter. So I ran into a building until the hail had passed and then, finally I reached what I thought was home, only to discover that I was still far, far from home and I had no idea where my car was. I continued to walk and after about ten miles I came to this beautiful resort where my parents were on vacation. They agreed to loan me the car, but while I was there, a friend of mine invited me to her wedding and there were all these bridesmaids who wouldn't give me the time of day and... in the back of my mind, I could hear the clock radio - they were talking about football, and my mind was still focused on the dream, and then, I heard Him.
"Will"
It was not my own mind. And it wasn't on the radio. Over both of those voices - external and internal - on a sort of PA system that played directly into my brain, I heard God. The voice was quiet, peaceful, powerful, and loving - in a way that we all wish our voices could be and Adam Adamson only wishes his Aslan could have sounded like.
It seemed almost trivial. I woke up immediately and turned off my clock radio before the air raid siren sounded to fully wake me up. I sat up in bed and blinked back the sleep, the dream still fully in my mind and I thought, "God spoke to me... God Spoke To Me!" And then I thought, "God woke me up. Now, that's what I call service!"
I've been walking around all day now thinking about the implications of this one word. I am constantly reminded of Samuel hearing God's voice. "Samuel, Samuel," God called and Samuel was convinced that it was the Priest. But the Priest finally realized that it was God and told Samuel to answer Him. I realized that I've been hearing my name quite a bit lately - floating on the wind. I've assumed I was crazy or that someone had called my name and then changed their mind.
But now I know. It was God. The message was a little vague, but it was still God. And I've been wondering what He wants me to do. And then, it occurred to me - God's already told me what to do. He's told us all what to do. And we've been standing around like Sleeper Agents on Earth, waiting for the activation word - the code word that'll send us out to do His mission. Well, I think I've just been activated.
Praise God. He is alive. And He does speak to you!
P.S. This blog may have unintended side effects that may include spontaneous praising, unintentional smiles, and hearing the Voice of God. If any of these symptoms should occur, please consult a Bible immediately. Use only as directed.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Cyber Service
The Lord said, "Go and make disciples of all nations." I can think of no better way of attempting that than with the Cyber Church.
In the 1980's, with the rise of cable television and public access cable, we saw the rise of televangelism. Here was a way to spread the gospel quicker, faster, and farther than the traditional Sunday preaching and Revival tours could. But Televangelism cost money - production costs and airwave time. This lead to bigger calls for teledonations, which led to more ambitious plans for the church, which led to more calls for money. Eventually, we all saw the temptations these televangelists faced and the immoral decay that eroded the televangelism ministries.
Now there's the potential for a televangelist revival of sorts - A Cybervangelist. But the network is not cable television. People come on to the web not to be preached at, but to interact with. They seek out communities of fellow thinkers and believers and they join in discussions that tend to be mostly about preaching to the choir. This is, currently, the one biggest drawback of the cyber church - we're preaching to the choir (An American cliche meaning that we're trying to convert people who already think as we do).
Chez is doing the right thing - he is trying to reach his friends that have yet to come to know the bounty of Christ's good teaching. This used to be a function of the real life church - to provide places to interact and learn the faith, as well as make new relationships and friendships. And it still is. But it can also be a function of the cyber church - provided that we approach our cybervangelism in a new internet kind of way.
We must be open to new ideas. We must be open to different ways of seeing things. We must be open to new technology and new approaches to learning. We must be sensitive to people's needs, but also to their space.
I was having dinner with my Pastor's family last night and the discussion turned to the many different models currently being employed for worship. They mentioned a church in San Diego that had 13 different services running at the same time with different music and different styles in each service. They had bought out an old school and set up a different service in each classroom. And then, using CCTV, they broadcast the sermon from a central location into each service so that the daily message was the same for each of the 13 services. This kind of tailorized Christian experience is the direction that a cyber church should go - while at the same time allowing for people to broaden their horizons.
I picture, instead, a Cyber Service - conducted along much the same lines as a Blogger Limelight - where one person hosts the service and everyone contributes something to it via their own blog. So that, for instance, on Sunday I would set up the Cyber Service blog, welcoming guests to our Cyber Church. From my Cyber Service blog would be links to Elisa's blog for the opening prayer, Andy's blog for the Sunday scripture, Pastor Peter's blog for the musical interlude, and Ariel's blog for the Sermon/Message. This would not be a substitute for our worshipping experience in REAL life, but an addition to it. And the best part would be that we would change it around and experience the different opinions of all God's people. The next week, it might be Chez doing the opening prayer, and Dan with the scriptures, and Jim with a heartfelt poem, and Sue with the Sermon. Or we might not have a Sermon at all. We might just all gather around and write Psalms one Sunday. Rather than trying for a homogenized service that was the same from week to week, we would determinedly try to keep our Cyber Service fresh and revitalizing.
Eventually, it would be hoped, our Cybervangelism would spread and other cyber churches and cyber services would spring up around the globe and we'd all have the opportunity to experience as much of God's wonderful world as possible through cyber worship with our fellow sisters and brothers everywhere.
That would be the best way to spread the gospel. That would be the best use of cyber space.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Fried Day Blog Thought Thingy
Brain is mush. Edited 5 chapters of Novel last night. Wrote seriously long blogs on two successive Thursdays. Don't have much more in the mental gas tank - and the cost of what I have keeps going up.
That being said, let's get on with this blog thingie...
First, some parting shots at the week that was.
I find myself actually changing my mind on two very serious issues - Troops in Iraq and the suitability of our Governor. I also have a wonderful new view on scripture thanks to Donald Miller's Book, "Searching for God Know's What".
For those of you who don't know, and I haven't exactly been making it common knowledge, I was an Intelligence Specialist for the Navy during the first Gulf War. My area of expertise is the Pacific Rim, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. I've been against the war since the idea was first presented. I knew that we were only mucking around in Iraq to fulfill some sort of macho Presidential fantasy and that it had nothing to do with any real threat to the United States. That being said, there is now a real threat to the United States and the world in that region and its name is Iran. Because we've destabalized the region with our blundering attempts to steal the Iraqi oil, we've actually strengthened the hardliners in Iran. The Leader of that country has called for the eradication of Israel and has said that the holocaust never happened. Unfortunately, that now means that U.S. ground troops can't possibly leave the region - because we would so destabalize Iraq by pulling out now that Iran would simply walk in to the country and have it handed to them on a platter. Its gut check time for the weenie in the White House. This is a serious brewing international crisis. If he pulls out now, it only shows just how much he really could care less about the war on terror.
I also happened to see the last ten minutes or so of Arnie's State of the State speech last night and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I don't for once think that he's a better politician than he was six months ago. But I think he's starting to ignore his Republican cronies and do the job he was supposed to do when elected. If he stays on this course for the next year or so until the next election, I might even vote for him. We'll see... we'll see...
Donald Miller's book, which I will get back into writing about next week, includes the tail end of a scripture passage that we all know and love - "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." I guess I'd probably read this thing so many times that I'd just glossed over the ending of the story. I read it last night and I actually found it more poignant than the first part of the story. After some serious grumbling, everyone drops their stones in the street and walks away. Then, Jesus turns to the just saved prostitute and says, "Go now, and sin no more." I read that and I just felt Jesus's love and compassion for us all. He literally saved her from a horrible death, but instead of taking her in his arms and hugging her or telling her that it was alright, he said, "Go now, and sin no more." And you can bet that she did. What a beautiful story.
Okay, quickly, my silly stuff...
Top Ten Favorite Movie Scenes from 2005
10. Every scene with Marv in the film Sin City.
9. La Vie Boheme in the film Rent.
8. Anakin Skywalker kills the kids in Star Wars - Ep. III.
7. The Crash Landing at the end of the film Serenity.
6. Santa Fe in the film Rent.
5. Order 69 (or whatever it was)in Star Wars - Ep. III.
4. The Dinner Scene in Wedding Crashers.
3. The Initial Attack in War of the Worlds. (The rest of the film stunk!)
2. Obi-Wan vs. Anakin in Star Wars - Ep. III.
and
1. King King vs. the T-Rex's in King Kong.
See you on Monday with a little limelight I like to call The Virtual Church Service.
That being said, let's get on with this blog thingie...
First, some parting shots at the week that was.
I find myself actually changing my mind on two very serious issues - Troops in Iraq and the suitability of our Governor. I also have a wonderful new view on scripture thanks to Donald Miller's Book, "Searching for God Know's What".
For those of you who don't know, and I haven't exactly been making it common knowledge, I was an Intelligence Specialist for the Navy during the first Gulf War. My area of expertise is the Pacific Rim, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. I've been against the war since the idea was first presented. I knew that we were only mucking around in Iraq to fulfill some sort of macho Presidential fantasy and that it had nothing to do with any real threat to the United States. That being said, there is now a real threat to the United States and the world in that region and its name is Iran. Because we've destabalized the region with our blundering attempts to steal the Iraqi oil, we've actually strengthened the hardliners in Iran. The Leader of that country has called for the eradication of Israel and has said that the holocaust never happened. Unfortunately, that now means that U.S. ground troops can't possibly leave the region - because we would so destabalize Iraq by pulling out now that Iran would simply walk in to the country and have it handed to them on a platter. Its gut check time for the weenie in the White House. This is a serious brewing international crisis. If he pulls out now, it only shows just how much he really could care less about the war on terror.
I also happened to see the last ten minutes or so of Arnie's State of the State speech last night and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I don't for once think that he's a better politician than he was six months ago. But I think he's starting to ignore his Republican cronies and do the job he was supposed to do when elected. If he stays on this course for the next year or so until the next election, I might even vote for him. We'll see... we'll see...
Donald Miller's book, which I will get back into writing about next week, includes the tail end of a scripture passage that we all know and love - "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." I guess I'd probably read this thing so many times that I'd just glossed over the ending of the story. I read it last night and I actually found it more poignant than the first part of the story. After some serious grumbling, everyone drops their stones in the street and walks away. Then, Jesus turns to the just saved prostitute and says, "Go now, and sin no more." I read that and I just felt Jesus's love and compassion for us all. He literally saved her from a horrible death, but instead of taking her in his arms and hugging her or telling her that it was alright, he said, "Go now, and sin no more." And you can bet that she did. What a beautiful story.
Okay, quickly, my silly stuff...
Top Ten Favorite Movie Scenes from 2005
10. Every scene with Marv in the film Sin City.
9. La Vie Boheme in the film Rent.
8. Anakin Skywalker kills the kids in Star Wars - Ep. III.
7. The Crash Landing at the end of the film Serenity.
6. Santa Fe in the film Rent.
5. Order 69 (or whatever it was)in Star Wars - Ep. III.
4. The Dinner Scene in Wedding Crashers.
3. The Initial Attack in War of the Worlds. (The rest of the film stunk!)
2. Obi-Wan vs. Anakin in Star Wars - Ep. III.
and
1. King King vs. the T-Rex's in King Kong.
See you on Monday with a little limelight I like to call The Virtual Church Service.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
THINGS UNMENTIONABLE
A couple of things have prompted me to create a blog on the topic of sex. The first, and most important, was the question I was asked a while back about why I was still not married. The second, and more recent, was a concern someone shared with me about this topic. I admit that I was not eager to write on this subject, but since I'm here, let's get to it.
I first had sex when I was 16. It was the biggest mistake I've ever made. Though it certainly didn't feel like it at the time, the issues and emotions raised were far too much for my little mind to handle. It warped me in ways that I'm only now realizing.
I started down this slippery slope when I met and fell in love with Karen. We had been friends before I suddenly realized that I had strong and passionate feeling for her. Not puppy love kind of feelings. Not infatuation kind of feelings. Love - pure, deep, and hopelessly romantic. We started going out together in March. By June, we started to have sex. It was hot and passionate and hopelessly bungled - but we were young and in love and completely independent people. After a few wild and crazy encounters, we decided (rightly) to stop and take a breather. But it was too late.
Sex at that age is a narcotic. It gets into your system and warps your outlook on all things. I'd never had any experience with women before Karen. I'd had a crush once, but was completely rejected. Karen was the first girl I'd kissed. After the sex, I became convinced that she was the only girl for me. I was completely confident that she was the woman I was going to marry and love forever. These were very unnatural thoughts for a kid my age, but you couldn't have convinced me otherwise - and I'm still not sure I believe it now. But once you have sex, and open yourself up so completely to another person, its hard not to form that deep bond. And its even harder to let that bond go.
We stayed together far longer than we should have. When I went off to the Navy in 1988, I even proposed to her. She accepted. I was incredibly happy - but completely in a fantasy world. I went off to Hawaii for three years to serve my country. And though I saw her whenever I could, the distance between us started to grow. But I had invested so much of my heart and my mind in her, that I refused to see it. I just knew that when I got out of the Navy, we were going to get married and live happily ever after.
6 months after I got out of the Navy, we broke up. I was so devastated by it that I almost literally don't remember anything that happened for the next two years. I was there, and I remember some highlights, but basically my life became one long blur of mere existence. Though I eventually recovered and went on with my life, parts of me are still on auto-pilot.
My love life has never recovered. I never bothered to learn how to date, how to ask anyone out, or any of that stuff. I had my future wife. I didn't need to know anything. When it comes to women, I'm no better than a third grader. I am socially stunted.
I say all of this not as a Poor Me. I'm okay with my life. We all have regrets. We all make mistakes. We all move on. I'm no different. I say this because it all could have been avoided.
I thought I was so much smarter than everyone. I thought I could handle sex. I thought that as long as I used birth control and took precautions that nothing could touch me. I had no idea why the Bible said don't have sex until you're married - but assumed it was one of those grey areas, like not eating pork. I was in love and I was going to marry this woman and grow old with her - so what difference did it make if I didn't wait until after marriage?
I've come to realize that a lot of the rules in the Bible are not there arbitrarily. They are there as good common sense. This is no more true than in the case of pre-marital sex. Perhaps if the Bible read, "Don't have Pre-Marital sex because its a really, really bad idea," people would heed it more carefully.
When you have sex as a teenager, suddenly that is what you want. You don't care about a career. You don't care about school. You don't care about being friends, or dating a nice girl. You just want sex. And there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle after the fact.
So, with regrets, I say that its too late for me. Parents, if you've got teenagers or soon to be teenagers, tell them the truth. Don't tell them no. Tell them why its no. Explain the terrible reprecussions to them - and not just the part about STD's, unwanted pregnancies, AIDS, and all that. Tell them about the pandora's box of feelings they're going to start feeling - jealousy, and obsession, rage and passion, addiction and withdrawl. Tell them about broken hearts and broken promises. Tell them about cheating lovers, lies, and terrible crimes of passion. These are all the baggage they will take with them once they start down that long road. Do whatever it takes to keep them from taking those first steps... until they are good and ready.
I first had sex when I was 16. It was the biggest mistake I've ever made. Though it certainly didn't feel like it at the time, the issues and emotions raised were far too much for my little mind to handle. It warped me in ways that I'm only now realizing.
I started down this slippery slope when I met and fell in love with Karen. We had been friends before I suddenly realized that I had strong and passionate feeling for her. Not puppy love kind of feelings. Not infatuation kind of feelings. Love - pure, deep, and hopelessly romantic. We started going out together in March. By June, we started to have sex. It was hot and passionate and hopelessly bungled - but we were young and in love and completely independent people. After a few wild and crazy encounters, we decided (rightly) to stop and take a breather. But it was too late.
Sex at that age is a narcotic. It gets into your system and warps your outlook on all things. I'd never had any experience with women before Karen. I'd had a crush once, but was completely rejected. Karen was the first girl I'd kissed. After the sex, I became convinced that she was the only girl for me. I was completely confident that she was the woman I was going to marry and love forever. These were very unnatural thoughts for a kid my age, but you couldn't have convinced me otherwise - and I'm still not sure I believe it now. But once you have sex, and open yourself up so completely to another person, its hard not to form that deep bond. And its even harder to let that bond go.
We stayed together far longer than we should have. When I went off to the Navy in 1988, I even proposed to her. She accepted. I was incredibly happy - but completely in a fantasy world. I went off to Hawaii for three years to serve my country. And though I saw her whenever I could, the distance between us started to grow. But I had invested so much of my heart and my mind in her, that I refused to see it. I just knew that when I got out of the Navy, we were going to get married and live happily ever after.
6 months after I got out of the Navy, we broke up. I was so devastated by it that I almost literally don't remember anything that happened for the next two years. I was there, and I remember some highlights, but basically my life became one long blur of mere existence. Though I eventually recovered and went on with my life, parts of me are still on auto-pilot.
My love life has never recovered. I never bothered to learn how to date, how to ask anyone out, or any of that stuff. I had my future wife. I didn't need to know anything. When it comes to women, I'm no better than a third grader. I am socially stunted.
I say all of this not as a Poor Me. I'm okay with my life. We all have regrets. We all make mistakes. We all move on. I'm no different. I say this because it all could have been avoided.
I thought I was so much smarter than everyone. I thought I could handle sex. I thought that as long as I used birth control and took precautions that nothing could touch me. I had no idea why the Bible said don't have sex until you're married - but assumed it was one of those grey areas, like not eating pork. I was in love and I was going to marry this woman and grow old with her - so what difference did it make if I didn't wait until after marriage?
I've come to realize that a lot of the rules in the Bible are not there arbitrarily. They are there as good common sense. This is no more true than in the case of pre-marital sex. Perhaps if the Bible read, "Don't have Pre-Marital sex because its a really, really bad idea," people would heed it more carefully.
When you have sex as a teenager, suddenly that is what you want. You don't care about a career. You don't care about school. You don't care about being friends, or dating a nice girl. You just want sex. And there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle after the fact.
So, with regrets, I say that its too late for me. Parents, if you've got teenagers or soon to be teenagers, tell them the truth. Don't tell them no. Tell them why its no. Explain the terrible reprecussions to them - and not just the part about STD's, unwanted pregnancies, AIDS, and all that. Tell them about the pandora's box of feelings they're going to start feeling - jealousy, and obsession, rage and passion, addiction and withdrawl. Tell them about broken hearts and broken promises. Tell them about cheating lovers, lies, and terrible crimes of passion. These are all the baggage they will take with them once they start down that long road. Do whatever it takes to keep them from taking those first steps... until they are good and ready.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The Day The Music Died...
It was a hot and gorgeous day in June and over the Grand Canyon, clouds were building that would eventually become thunder storms. Sometimes you think you know a guy...
Being in a deeply committed relationship at the time, and greatly in love, I was overflowing with the need and the urge to help my friends feel the exact same thing. When they were with me, I'd often strike up conversations with beautiful women, just to get my nerdy friends close to one. It meant nothing to me, after all, to be friendly with other women - I was deeply committed, as you know.
Andy, my best friend in the whole world, and I were just about to sit down to a nice quiet lunch in the cafe. We were going to discuss Proust or Hidegar or perhaps compare and contrast the great works of William Shakespeare with whale song. Just as I was about to ask the lady behind the counter for a three bean salad and a crust of bread, Andy spotted three rather attractive young ladies seated in the cafe. I heard his breath stop up and I had to remind him to breathe.
I'll never forget the next words as long as I live. They were so... cinematic. Andy got this strange glint in his eys and rubbed his hands together and said, "My own... my precious!"
I tried to talk him out of it. I tried to thwart his attempts. But Andy would not be dissuaded. He finally trumped all my logic with the short statement, "Talk to me Goose." What could I do? I was his wingman. And you never leave your wingman.
I went in, knowing what a monumentally bad idea this was, and approached the young ladies. They saw me approach and a look of apprehension crossed their faces. Some people have a face for the movies... I have a face for books.
I said, "Excuse me, ladies." And then, in perfect voice, as if I'd been practicing it my entire life, I started to sing.
There have been great betrayals in history - Benedict Arnold at Valley Forge, the entire German army at Stalingrad, 51% of the population at the 2004 Presidential Election - but this was nowhere near any of those.
"You never close your eyes..."
And suddenly, the words escaped me. At the point when I was supposed to turn around and have Andy start to sing, nothing happened. Andy was nowhere to be seen. I was standing all alone in the center of the cafe, red faced, singing to some girls that I didn't even think were all that attractive while my "friend" was hiding somewhere in the shadows - laughing at me.
I weakly smiled and muttered, "Never mind," and then ran away - the most gracious retreat someone who has just been shot down in burning flames has ever had - a victim of friendly fire.
I found Andy, standing around the corner, unable to breathe because he was laughing so hard. I walked up and gave him a big hug and said, "You stink, bro... But I love you!"
Sometimes, as a story writer, I remember that day and the urge comes over me to recreate that scene in one of my books - thus ridiculing my friend forever. But I always succesfully fight off the urge.
I just haven't written the right kind of story yet.
Being in a deeply committed relationship at the time, and greatly in love, I was overflowing with the need and the urge to help my friends feel the exact same thing. When they were with me, I'd often strike up conversations with beautiful women, just to get my nerdy friends close to one. It meant nothing to me, after all, to be friendly with other women - I was deeply committed, as you know.
Andy, my best friend in the whole world, and I were just about to sit down to a nice quiet lunch in the cafe. We were going to discuss Proust or Hidegar or perhaps compare and contrast the great works of William Shakespeare with whale song. Just as I was about to ask the lady behind the counter for a three bean salad and a crust of bread, Andy spotted three rather attractive young ladies seated in the cafe. I heard his breath stop up and I had to remind him to breathe.
I'll never forget the next words as long as I live. They were so... cinematic. Andy got this strange glint in his eys and rubbed his hands together and said, "My own... my precious!"
I tried to talk him out of it. I tried to thwart his attempts. But Andy would not be dissuaded. He finally trumped all my logic with the short statement, "Talk to me Goose." What could I do? I was his wingman. And you never leave your wingman.
I went in, knowing what a monumentally bad idea this was, and approached the young ladies. They saw me approach and a look of apprehension crossed their faces. Some people have a face for the movies... I have a face for books.
I said, "Excuse me, ladies." And then, in perfect voice, as if I'd been practicing it my entire life, I started to sing.
There have been great betrayals in history - Benedict Arnold at Valley Forge, the entire German army at Stalingrad, 51% of the population at the 2004 Presidential Election - but this was nowhere near any of those.
"You never close your eyes..."
And suddenly, the words escaped me. At the point when I was supposed to turn around and have Andy start to sing, nothing happened. Andy was nowhere to be seen. I was standing all alone in the center of the cafe, red faced, singing to some girls that I didn't even think were all that attractive while my "friend" was hiding somewhere in the shadows - laughing at me.
I weakly smiled and muttered, "Never mind," and then ran away - the most gracious retreat someone who has just been shot down in burning flames has ever had - a victim of friendly fire.
I found Andy, standing around the corner, unable to breathe because he was laughing so hard. I walked up and gave him a big hug and said, "You stink, bro... But I love you!"
Sometimes, as a story writer, I remember that day and the urge comes over me to recreate that scene in one of my books - thus ridiculing my friend forever. But I always succesfully fight off the urge.
I just haven't written the right kind of story yet.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
You Stink! (FWAH! FWAH!)
One of the greatest rock stars of all time, Opus, from Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County had a number one single for a few minutes once in the 1980's called, "You Stink! FWAH! FWAH! But I love you!" It was a rock ballad to, as I recall, a herring. The Fwah! Fwah! by the way, was supposed to be the sound of his honking tuba solo.
I am reminded of this because I spent the first two days of the new year helping a friend move his house. If you've been out of touch for the first two days of this year, you may not realize that this required a great deal of running in between the rain drops in order to stay dry here in California. I was not always succesful and, in fact, was quite drenched before about ten minutes.
We had a good sized crew though and the work took only about eight hours - finishing around 8 o'clock at night when we finally found how to turn the light on in the moving truck to see what it was that we were moving. As the last of the stuff was moved into the new house and we were all sort of basking in the glow of a job well done, my friends mother - who is also a good friend of mine - leaned in and gave me a big hug. It was such an outpouring of love and relief and thanks that I suddenly felt greatly energized and loved.
And then she said, "You stink." I'd just been moving for eight hours through the rain in a rain and sweat soaked hooded sweat top - so there was likely some truth in that. I probably smelled like a rancid yak. But I took the words not as an insult, but as a wonderful compliment - as a golden crown.
The next morning as I finally was able to wash away the sins of the previous day, I reflected on how much her words did not hurt, but actually made me feel better, wanted, loved. And I knew that this was surely the way God loves us - embracing us, making us feel warm and loved, and then, oh by the way, you stink.
Yes, Lord. I stink. I've done some awful things and the stench of it is all over me. Sometimes, in the course of things, that just happens. But I'm not going to make excuses for it. I'm going to go and wash it off. And I know that you'll still love me, because even when I stink, you hug me and love me.
Of course, God would be more hip if he did it with a tuba solo... but I'm not complaining. :)
Happy New Year all!
I am reminded of this because I spent the first two days of the new year helping a friend move his house. If you've been out of touch for the first two days of this year, you may not realize that this required a great deal of running in between the rain drops in order to stay dry here in California. I was not always succesful and, in fact, was quite drenched before about ten minutes.
We had a good sized crew though and the work took only about eight hours - finishing around 8 o'clock at night when we finally found how to turn the light on in the moving truck to see what it was that we were moving. As the last of the stuff was moved into the new house and we were all sort of basking in the glow of a job well done, my friends mother - who is also a good friend of mine - leaned in and gave me a big hug. It was such an outpouring of love and relief and thanks that I suddenly felt greatly energized and loved.
And then she said, "You stink." I'd just been moving for eight hours through the rain in a rain and sweat soaked hooded sweat top - so there was likely some truth in that. I probably smelled like a rancid yak. But I took the words not as an insult, but as a wonderful compliment - as a golden crown.
The next morning as I finally was able to wash away the sins of the previous day, I reflected on how much her words did not hurt, but actually made me feel better, wanted, loved. And I knew that this was surely the way God loves us - embracing us, making us feel warm and loved, and then, oh by the way, you stink.
Yes, Lord. I stink. I've done some awful things and the stench of it is all over me. Sometimes, in the course of things, that just happens. But I'm not going to make excuses for it. I'm going to go and wash it off. And I know that you'll still love me, because even when I stink, you hug me and love me.
Of course, God would be more hip if he did it with a tuba solo... but I'm not complaining. :)
Happy New Year all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)