Learning My Lesson Again

I'm very humbled and grateful this week for many reasons. One of those reasons is that through the generosity of a couple of individuals, Jeremy Oehring, Darrin Griffin, and I got to go to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Worship Music Conference last week in New York. It was just what I needed in several ways.

There are several other things in my life right now that make my humility and gratitude increase all the time. But there is one thing that happened last week that sticks out to me.

I met with a young man last week who wanted to talk about his soul. He had lots of questions. (His biggest question was about the "unpardonable sin." Google it if you want to see a confusing maelstrom of opinion, dogma, heresy, and fanaticism. It's understandable that anyone would be freaked out about it. Pastor Joe and I talked to him and listened to his story. In the end, we assured him that it was highly unlikely that he had committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.)

But after this conversation, the young man came back to my office a few days later and we talked for some time about his desire to commit himself to God completely and break some addictions he was dealing with. As part of this very candid conversation, he revealed that although he had dealt with anger, bitterness, addictions, and other things, he had not been sexually active with the girl he had dated for several months. He said, "She was more than that to me."

This gave me a shock. Here's why.

A few months ago, I saw this teenaged couple together, and I thought, "Well, I've been working with teens for a while, and I know the signs. They're sleeping together." I thought long and hard about this, because I cared pretty deeply for both of them. At the time the girl was much more open to talking to me than the young man was, and she would occasionally ask me to pray for something. I thought I saw signs of her at least considering drug use as well. I was very concerned. So I wrote her a letter. It was a long letter, handwritten. I tried to say in as compassionate and caring a way as possible that it looked to me like she was making some wrong choices in her life, and urged her to reconsider those choices. I finished the letter, and showed it to Cindy and asked for her honest opinion. She very wisely said, "Wow. That's a really heavy letter. Maybe you should sleep on that before you give it to her." I told her that I thought that sounded like a good idea, and we prayed about it together. In the end, the letter sat on my bedside table for a month or so, and every time I saw it I thought about it. I never could find a peace about which way to go with it, so I eventually threw it away.

I've been doing this job for a while, and I think I'm generally a pretty good judge of teenagers. I can usually guess who is doing what, and how clued-in their parents are. But this last week I was humbled because of how wrong I had been. (I wasn't totally wrong - there had indeed been some unhealthy things going on in that relationship, including codependency.) I was also extremely grateful for the wisdom of my wife and for what I believe to have been the leadership of God in not sending that letter, which would probably have closed the door for any future influence in that young woman's life.

Last week at Brooklyn Tabernacle the emphasis was on following the leadership of the Holy Spirit in leading worship. (Not much there on technical aspects of worship music. It was just what I needed.) I've always been pretty cynical of people's claims that the Holy Spirit told them to do this or that. So many times it was obvious to me that He hadn't told them anything of the sort. But I'm so glad that He led me in this situation, and in a thousand others.

I tend to depend too much on my expertise sometimes, or my experience. Then something like this comes along and shows me that I really don't know that much. I'm humbled. And grateful.

You Have No Idea....

You know a line I think should be outlawed in all future movies and TV shows? This one: "You have no idea what i'm capable of." It's usually spoken in a low, tough-guy sort of voice, and can either be by the good guy or the bad guy. But it's always a lousy writing device. Why does any character, EVER, need to say that to any other character? It's a cheap way to say to the audience, "Wait, don't walk out of the theater/change the channel yet. This guy gets more interesting later!" It's intended to create a sort of ambiguous menace and mystique around a character when they can't find a way to just give him a mystique the honest way.

Recent sightings include the first episode of the new show The Cape and the trailer for the new movie I Am Number Four. (That's not to say I didn't sorta like both otherwise...)

According to a quick Google search, it's also been used in the movies The Dark Knight and The Hulk.

But my favorite usage of the phrase comes as a quote of yet another usage thereof:






Got any other sightings of this phrase for me?

This Is About As Patriotic As This Blog Has Ever Been

Today, on my lunch break, inspired by what Congress did this week, I read the Constitution all the way through, including amendments. I had somehow never done that before, all in one sitting like that.

It's mostly not too boring, and in some places quite a beautiful work of literature.

Urban Exploration

My brother-in-law, Kevin Carlson, and I like to get on top of buildings, towers, etc. I also like exploring old places.

Therefore, this website was fascinating to me.

http://www.undercity.org/

A Poem I Like, But Can't Quite Decipher Yet

This is a poem by a guy named Christian Wiman. I got it here. I love the flow of the verse, and its circular continuity and searching wistfulness. I don't think the guy is a Christian, for those who may be wondering. I'm interested to see what you poetry fans make of the meaning.

Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

This is a poem from Mr. Wiman's newest book of poetry, titled Every Riven Thing.

EDIT: Wow. Read this article by the same author. It gives quite an interesting insight into his thought process.

ANOTHER EDIT: Double wow. Read this essay as well. GOOD writer, this guy.

Disclaimer: If anyone with rights to this poem arrived here via search engine and objects to my posting, please let me know and I'll delete the text and just leave the link. I'm definitely not claiming any rights or permission to post this, and I'm not making any money on it since I have like five readers total. I just liked the poem and wanted to share.

Election Season is Over!!! ...and Couch Potatotude.

We have a home phone, but mostly because we want a number to be able to fill in to forms and give to businesses that we never want to talk to. We don't have caller ID, we don't have long distance, and we don't have an answering machine on it (actually, we DO have an answering machine built in to the phone, but we leave it turned off). We got on the national "no-call" list when it first became a reality (one example of a time when our beloved elected officials got something right!). So most of the time, we only get calls on the home phone from our phone company, from Cindy's mom, and from each other. We figure the people we want to talk to mostly have our cell phone numbers. (Yes, Cindy's mom does have our cell phone numbers too - what kind of awful people do you think we are?!?)

But unfortunately, during election season, political campaign calls are not covered under the no-call umbrella. Our phone (like yours, probably) has been ringing at all hours. The large majority of these, of course, have been recorded messages. These frustrate me, but not too badly - it's easy and somewhat satisfying to angrily hang up on a recording. Shouting at the recording prior to hanging up is also a therapeutic option, and one which doesn't bother the conscience like shouting at a live person.

Among others, we got calls from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, some veterans' group or other, numerous PAC's, Ike Skelton, Vicky Hartzler, the Missouri Republican Party, some dubiously-named Missouri group claiming Tea Party allegiance, and Sarah Palin. We hung up on all of them except a timid-sounding young person politely taking a survey, to whom I granted "five to seven minutes of [my] time."

Last night before and during dinner we received three separate "get out the vote" calls. After dinner I decided to go to the office while Cindy went to her Bible study, so that I could be a couch potato (desk-chair potato?) in peace.

Today, it's over. No more phone calls! Woo!

I realize that our election season was MUCH less annoying than most people's, simply because we don't really listen to the radio (except NPR and Christian non-profit stations), and we don't have TV. So we were blessedly free of the onslaught of annoying campaign ads!

Let me clarify the "we don't have TV" statement. While we don't have cable or satellite, and can't get any broadcast channels at home, don't start getting all impressed at our self-control and minimalistic, spartan lifestyle. We have discovered that the shows we want to watch can be seen on Hulu. Or if we REALLY like them, we can buy the episodes on iTunes or Amazon, or even buy the DVD's. The cost of a few seasons on DVD per year is MUCH less than the cost of cable or satellite. (In similar vein, consider this Wired bit comparing costs of internet TV vs. cable/satellite.) Yeah, we want to seem all self-controlled and spartan, but the truth is we watch quite a bit of TV - especially for people with no ability to watch live TV.

I know many people would say that we'd be much better off if we didn't watch TV shows at all. For most of my growing-up years, the only viewing screen in our house was on the old TRS-80 desktop computer. (And later the HP DOS-based PC with a thumping 40MB hard drive! And for those of you born in the 90's or later, they didn't even have a color monitor!!!) I certainly didn't suffer as a result of being deprived of TV as a child. I'm a prolific speed-reader today, and I attribute this to the fact that as a hyper, ADD child, I didn't have TV, so I read books for my entertainment and imaginative escapes.

But I'm not so sure being a TV teetotaler is as much a character-builder as some say. Obviously there's a lot of junk on TV. But there are also some well-written shows with good plot lines and great humor. Occasionally there is even the positive portrayal of virtue and the realistic depiction of the consequences of evil.

So I think a certain amount of TV watching is okay - even healthy!

Okay, now I've philosophized about it enough. To be honest, I just like me some good TV sometimes. And here are the current favorites occupying my Hulu.com queue:

Chuck (totally unlikely plot, but great characters and so much fun.)
The Good Guys (funniest cop show on TV)
Castle (murder mysteries with humor and good characters... and Nathan Fillion of Firefly)
No Ordinary Family (new superhero show - like a live-action The Incredibles, but a bit more angsty)
The Office (obviously)
Psych (the funniest buddy comedy on TV, plus Sherlock-Holmes-like sleuthing abilities)

What are your favorites? Any obvious ones I'm missing?

Return to Blogging, and an odd story

I just want to let everyone know that I plan to blog on a semi-regular basis again. (Disclaimer: Semi-regular may mean anything from daily to annually.)

Now for an odd story.

I was in Nevada today (Nevada, MO, for those unacquainted with the geography in these parts - NOT the state of Nevada) because I drove Cindy over this afternoon to teach her evening class at Cottey College. Usually she takes the car and I just stay at work late.

After I dropped her off at the college, I went to the one coffee house that is currently open in Nevada, AJ's Coffee Rush. There was a sign in the window saying that they had moved to the Daylight Donuts building a few blocks away, so I drove there. The signs just said "AJ's Daylight Donuts - Now Open." I assumed that meant I could still get a cup of coffee at least, and sit in peace for a while. I went inside, and found what at first appeared to be an empty place. There were some paint buckets stacked in the corner and evidence of recent painting, so I wondered if they were actually closed, and the painters had just stepped out for a bit without locking the door. But the espresso machine had lights on, and there was brewed coffee gently steaming in the Bunn carafe. There were also doughnuts still on display in the glass case behind the doughnut counter.

Then I glanced around and noticed a laptop sitting open on one of the tables. Then to my surprise and bemusement I saw that there was a young gentleman lying on the bench beside this laptop, deep in dreamland. I had made a decent amount of noise when I entered, ringing the bells hanging on the door and scooting a chair out loudly to see if it would summon someone from the back room behind the counter. I had to assume that here on this bench was the sole employee on duty. I hung around for about ten minutes, and when nothing happened, I left. I could easily have grabbed several free doughnuts, some coffee cake, and a to-go cup of coffee.

I'm still not absolutely certain that the place was officially open. I've always had good service in their old location, and I didn't recognize the snoozing fellow as one of the employees I'd seen previously.