The Lingering Lemon of Death

not fired

yesterday i was not fired.

but it was apparently a near thing, and only heroic efforts by a few people who thought it would be a good thing to have me around turned the tide in my favor.

today, in order to live well at my job, i have to continually remind myself how good it is to have an advocate, instead of continually reminding myself how unfair it is that anyone would want to fire me.

i wonder if this is why it sometimes seems like we sing way too many "oh jesus you are like sunshine on a cloudy day" songs. maybe it is actually a really good thing to continually remind ourselves that we have an advocate and things will turn out ok, instead of reminding ourselves how doomed we would be without the advocate.

the effect on our psyche, and on our ability to live beautiful lives, of focusing on the wrong thing seems like it would be huge. normally i scoff at the smiley-face, happy christians, and feel superior to them because i see reality more clearly than they do. today it seems like i could do with a little lesson in being joyful.

my hero for today ...

... is jeff gauss. i'll quote his blog, but you can go read the actual post:

My Life as an Interim...

The first person I met when I arrived my first day was Charles, an elderly man on a mission. With no introduction whatsoever, he pointed his crooked wrinkled hand at me and said, "The Lord gave me a vision three years ago. You know what it was?"
"Uh uh," I mumbled, shaking my head.
"Here it is," he continued, handing me a self-made pamphlet.
I opened it reluctantly, not sure of what I'd find, but pretty sure it would at least be interesting. As I browsed through the tract he echoed its contents: "The Lord showed me how every version of the Bible after the King James has been distorted by evil men. The Jews and Catholics..."
He continued on, but I stopped listening at this point.
When I made it obvious that I was done reading his propaganda, he asked, "So what do you think?"
"What do I think?" I answered back. "I think you're crazy, Charles."
Now I'm not really sure what possessed me to tell him exactly what I was thinking, but for some reason I did and I was happy to discover that I wasn't the first.
"That's fine. Everyone thinks I'm crazy, " he said. "But everyone thought the prophets were crazy too. That's why I don't belong to any church. I've gotten kicked out of every church I've ever been in."
Hmm.
"Well, Charles," I began in another moment of uncanny clarity, "maybe you should consider just leaving before you get kicked out of this one."
"Maybe," he replied matter-of-factly.
And then we just stood there in awkward silence for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was probably 5 seconds.
And that was my introduction to Cushing Baptist Church.
Fortunately, I have learned that he is the only crazy one and that he is rather benign at that. He is contantly on his agenda and needs to be redirected, but he is not antagonistic or militant about his views. He accepts that everyone thinks he's nuts and that seems to suit him just fine.
If only more people would readily heed others' accusations of craziness, the world might be a much more sane place.

may i someday have something resembling jeff's super powers.

amen.

report from the football game

the 49ers lost to the seahawks by two points, just missing a chance to tie the game with 28 seconds left on the clock. it was a fun game to watch. steve young received his hall of fame ring in a ceremony at half time. the buffet in the luxury suite consisted of some chicken sandwiches, a green salad, popcorn and oatmeal cookies. and i, being a married man, did not look at the cheerleaders.

i did not notice that there were 4 groups of them, one in each corner of the stadium. i didn't notice their outfits, white boots, very short dark red leather skirts, miminal top-thing with white long sleeves. i didn't lean out the window to get a better look and hear the sound of the pom poms. i have no idea which one is most beautiful, though the third blonde on the right was the most energetic dancer, but the brunette next to her had the most incredible smile. i certainly did not stare harder at the skirts as they danced to notice two dangling little gold chains in the front. i didn't try to find a way to stand so that a casual observer of me would think i was watching the football game when i was in fact watching the cheerleaders. nope, i stayed completely focused on the football game.

seriously i was completely unprepared for the cheerleaders. you see them on tv sometimes for a second or two, but it was totally different at the game itself. i will often close my eyes or stare at my feet during a movie, just to let something i am uncomfortable with pass by, but in this case i just did not have the tools to deal with the situation. i was either watching the cheerleaders, or notwatching the cheerleaders.

i feel like i was just given some sort of maturity test, and i failed it.

also, interestingly, when people asked me how the game was, i didn't say anything about the cheerleaders, yet i am happy to blog about it. who is this guy in my skin? he confuses me.

a good day -- a baby cd is born

my friend kevin has been working on a cd, in the time he could spare, for a really long time.

over that period of time i have been listening to the album as it slowly came into being. it would be easy to get really tired of the music, but this one just keeps growing on me.

the final version finally came back from duplication this week and i threw it in the cd player and cranked it up. i STILL love these songs.

kevin's an amazing man. there's poetry here to break your heart, there's rock guitar to rip your ears off, there's surf music to chill to, there's love and pain and confusion and hope and all the stuff that could be crammed into one cd.

you can check out a couple of the songs at his MySpace place, and someday soon perhaps the webite will be more than a placeholder.

when i told myself and others a story about why i was supporting a recording studio, to encourage musicians to step beyond the boundries of "help christians feel better about their religious decisions" music, i think i was seeing this album in the future. if nothing else had come from the studio, this would make it all worth while.

please go listen -- bug kevin to get his website up, buy the record. tell your friends, start a fan club, the whole deal.

windfall -- i guess

i get my first ride on the gravy train on sunday.

the company i work for is spending some serious cash to build out a new data center, and this causes gravy to rain from heaven for a short while. what dripped down to me was 2 luxury suite tickets to see the worst team in the nfl, my san francisco 49ers, get humiliated by the seattle seahawks.

though i am a fan, i haven't been to a professional football game in decades. this is like a pilgramge to the holy city -- need to do it once every 30 years. the curiousity of seeing exactly what goes on in a luxury suite probably has something to do with it.

let you know about it all when i get back.

the day of judgement

finished my first mid-term for vli yesterday.

i failed, big time. but i failed in the preparation, not in the test taking. i made some nice study guides, but when it came time to cram for the exam i couldn't make myself do it. the things which were interesting to me, or which i could imagine wanting to know at some future date, i was able to remember. the things that i was clearly trying to memorize just long enough to pass an exam, i completely failed to make myself memorize, even though i spent many hours staring at the study guide.

the shame of knowing i was going to fail the tests was pretty powerful. eventually i just decided to walk in and fail with style, which i did. i think i might do better next time (being sick the two weeks leading up to the exam did not help).

i don't feel bad that i can't remember the five main themes of the book of luke along with verse citations giving examples of each one. i enjoyed the lectures on the gospels and feel like i got a lot out of them and i know where my notes are should i need to know the 5 themes. i don't feel bad that i can't recite dallas willard's definition of a "spiritual discipline". the lectures on spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation were quite challenging and will probably impact my life for years to come.

i'm just not a skilled student. i'm also not excited about becoming a skilled student. i'm just babbling here, processing the event i guess, and doing a little reporting for those following my career as a budding lay-leader.