Contemplations of a Moose

IT'S SNOWING!!!

2007-12-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

The pictures speak for themselves. No time to edit, just dumping them all up so you can see.

Text messaging makes my eyes bleed...

2006-12-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Seriously. I'm not anti text messaging, but come one. Our world has been reduced to a punctuationless, voiceless, eye contact less society where we have our most important and difficult conversations from the safety and anonymity of cyber space or our phones. Used to be if I wanted to tell someone I liked them, I had to look them in the eye and hope they couldn't hear my heart as it tried to pound out of my chest or notice the pool of sweat gathered at the floor as it dripped of my hands.

Here is my fear... we are becoming less and less dependant on human interaction, and that's a bad thing. We no longer really express our true feelings. We bottle those up, hide them away, put on a happy face, and then air our dirty laundry in our texts. I have seen people be in the same room as one another and still text each other. Are you kidding me? Kids have sprained thumbs and bad eyes from hourse spent staring at their tiny little phone screens. Is this really the world we want? Not me. I don't mind the occassional text message, but let me hear your voice, feel your emotion, hear you laugh, watch your thoughts form in your eyes... let me experience other people. Teach me to interact with others. Lot's of things in life are tough, conversations and otherwise, but you know what? You just do them. You buck up and get it done. You don't hide... you face the world, and you grow because of it.

I know I'm old, and I know you probably don't agree with me, but I long for the days when the world was simpler and friends existed in the flesh, not just my inbox.

The worst part of it is that i work with teenagers, and I love them and my job, so until the world changes or technology explodes and we are left a little less connected, I must dance with the enemy. My phones vibrating. I better go.

The Post Office and Inferiority

2006-12-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

Nothing earth shattering to say today, just an experience to share. My wife sent me to the post office today, and experience I am altogether unfamiliar with, but was confident I could overcome and accomplish my task. Turns out the Post Office is smarter than I.

First off, did you know that the entire Post Office is controlled by a computer now? Didn't Orwell warn us about this? But I digress. You walk in and there she is, the Post Office 9000 or whatever. She looks harmless enough, heck, she even looks friendly. The Post Office 9000 is a master of disguise.

I follow the instructions, she shuts down. Typical. You talk logic to a woman and they want no piece of it. She boots up again, but this time moves a little slower than before as if mocking me. Finally, after making me swipe my card seven times, she decides to print my label complete with delivery confirmation reciept. We have made up, the machine and I. Life is good.

So I proceed to the next step... put the sticker on the envelope. Easy enough, right? WRONG! I looked and looked and read and read, but the sticker in my hand was bigger than the stinking little box that they demand you stay within. So what now? Larger envelope? SO CONFUSED!! I moved that thing around the envelope and stared, moved it again, stared, moved it again, stared... seriously, you would have thought I was thinking through the best place to attach a third arm! I finally gave up and went to the guy at the desk. He looked at me, shook his head, affixed my label and showed me to the exit.

I was having a good day, too. Leave it to the Post Office to humble you. I guess I'm lucky I didn't get shot. Always a silver lining.

Glasses make me more productive

2006-12-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Can't really explain it, they just do. I feel much more like I should be taken seriously with these things on. It's kind of nice if I'm totally honest, which I am. I mean, why would I lie about something so trivial?

I had a revelation the other day, and I am curious to get your feedback. It makes me sad to say that I fear what was revealed is way too true. I have no solutions yet, just questions, but I am looking, and I am praying that maybe you are the one who can help me to make sense of all this.

I fear that for a large number of people in this world, young and old alike, Christianity and for that matter Christ really don't matter that much. I don't think people would necessarily say it, at least not with their mouths, but don't our lives at times shout it? I mean, I think that we tend to view Christ as some sort of eternal security blanket. It's nice to cuddle with in private and even provides comfort at the end of a bad day, but I really don't want my friends to find out I have one. I want to know Jesus is there when I die, but right now is all me, baby!

And I don't think that we act this way maliciously, or even consciously for that matter. I think that for the vast majority of people, Christ seems irrelevant and distant from their world. It seems like Christ may have had something good to say once, but now His words are antiquated, hackneyed, and tired. And so we resist. We hide our faith like a jock hides his poetry book behind his Sports Illustrated and we pretend like having fun and getting the most out of life is really the most important thing. Life has somehow tricked us into compartmentalizing our faith. "Sure, sure, faith is alright," says life. "but don't let that stand in your way now!"

Hmmm... maybe that's it... maybe we fear that to really embrace our faith would be to let something stand in our way. Maybe giving into Christ means giving up on something fun... something now... something.

But then how do you reconcile scripture like, "I cam to give you real life and that life to the full" or "every good and perfect gift comes from our father in heaven"? How do you say that with a straight face when you think of the fact that God choose to make the world in color for our enjoyment when He could of just made it black and white and we wouldn't have known the difference? How do we let our selves sigh and resign ourselves to a life lacking for the sake of Christ when we see that food tastes good when it doesn't have too? I mean, he could have made everything tasteless and bland only for the sake of sustenance, but he didn't. He wanted us to enjoy life, this life, right now.

I end as I began... I don't know the answers. But this I do know... Christ matters. Christ is real. Christ rocks. And I will spend my life proving it. Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul writing in Acts, "But my life matters very little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God".

What if we told every one we met....

2006-12-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

I hate waking up. Not in a suicidal sort of way, but definitley in a sleep is sweet and I don't want it to be over sort of way. I like being a wake once I wake up, but waking up itself is pretty lousy if you ask me. So you can imagine my surprise this morning when, awakened by the cold feet of a two and half year old as she climed onto my side for a little horsey ride, I found myself laughing and enjoying this particular waking up process.

I decided to ride this unexpected wave of happiness as long as I could, so i woke up and made some breakfast for me and the fam. Still happy. Next came coffee and a little TV; still enjoying the day.

Ok, this was starting to get weird.

I try as often as I can to start my morning talking to God. I am yet to hear Him speak in an audible voice, but I try to make sure to set aside time to listen just in case he decides to. Today, I started the conversation by telling Him how glad I was to be happy today. Then an unwanted, but way too familiar emotion swept over me. Guilt. What was he doing here? I tried to investigate and started checking into all the old familiar guilt traps. But none of them seemed to fit. I had had a few victories over flesh in the last couple of days, I had already done some study that morning, I had been patient with my fam, even when Abby was jamming her fingers into my open and still very tender "boo-boo" (I fell out of an attic and don't really care to talk about it), so I had to dig deeper to see what was causing this guilt. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I felt guilty for feeling happy. Why should I be happy with life? After all, I am self professed wicked sinner, and surely God sees all my short commings. I just know that He is up there grading life, and I am failing, and like barely, either. I was never happy when I was failing a class in high school, so I surely couldn't be happy while failing life. Something was wrong. I had to stop being happy, and I had to stop immediately. Enough is enough. God must be ticked off with me by now. I could rattle off thousands of rules of Christianity that I wasn't good at.

But then the absurdity of what I was saying struck me. I was taken back to something I had read a few days earlier. Donald Miller in his book, "Searching for God Knows What" says, "I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles." Why did I come to that passage? Why not something on hell fire or damnation? Those were what I deserved. Man, I'm wretched.

But them God reminded me of another book written by Him, and the dots were connected. In part of His book were he writes to another group of imperfect people in a church in a city called Corinth, He uses a fallen, sinful, wretched guy named Paul (one of my heroes by the way) to explain to them that love "is patient and kind... and keeps no record of wrongs."

Wow. Maybe the problem wasn't that God couldn't or didn't love me, as I had long expected, but rather that I didn't love my self. I know the scriptures talks about a sea of forgetfullness and forgivenss with cleansing from all unrighteousness... and now this part about love...

God really keeps no record of wrongs for those of us in relationship with His Son. He can't. He tells us He loves us (for God so loved the world, etc. etc.). I am the problem. I focus on my falleness. He wants to forgive and forget all the horrible things I've done, and I keep reminding Him because for some weird reason guilt makes me feel like I am on the right path. So what am I to do?

Embrace the happiness. Accept that this is a journey, not a destination. Realize that as Paul also writes, I have not layed a hold of it, but I can press on to attain the prize. Delight when, through God's strength and molding, I win a few battles. When I loose a battle, tell Him about it, develop a game plan for winning next time, then be happy again because my Adviser has already won the war.

I am going to go back to my day now, and chances are that I will still hate waking up. But when i do, I'm going to make every attempt to find God's happiness in and with the world, and then see if I can't let that shape my own. See, Miller continues, "Can you imagine something like that, what it must feel like in the soul to have God's glory shinning through you? With that much glory, that much of God shinning through you, you would never have a self-defeating or other-person-bashing thought again." I have to admit that I don't know what that's like, but I'd sure like to find out. Here's hoping.

Coffee From a Soup Bowl

2006-10-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone has always said that the one thing I need is more energy and a shorter attention span. I had two cups of coffee at home, and then was talked into one GINORMOUS soup bowl of a cup of coffee by my brother, and so here I sit at my desk twitching and chasing a thousand different thoughts in a thousand different directions.

I really need to blog more often, it's cathartic for me. I need to make this a daily practice... setting aside space to clear my head. Whether of not I have something earth shattering to say, just to kind of clean up the junk that clutters the ol' noodle.

Things have been good lately. I am still looking to regain that white hot passion, but even so, I'm in a good place. It's funny. I always dreamed that this job would fan those flames of my passion forever, and my faith has required no less work than before. In fact, the work may actually be more involved, for now not only do I have to fight the spiritual complacency that attacks us all, but I have to fight letting my faith become my job. I have got to make space for God to be my God and to speak to me on a personal level. If I don't do that, then everything else is in vein, right? I'm trying to slow myself and let God invade every corner of this little life of mine, but it's a battle. Will you pray that I have the courage to keep fighting?

I'll be out of town for the weekend, but I'll write again soon!

Desperately Quiet

2006-09-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." If I had a nickle for everytime I have heard this quoted or read it written, I would be a very rich man. I sat in Church this evening and saw those words crawl across the bottom of the screen during a PowerPoint Presentation, and for some reason, I was struck. I couldn't shake the words, I couldn't focus on anything but these common, friendly words turned razor sharp dagger. I had to leave the sanctuary and come to my office to unpack it. I think that in the process, I have uncovered my problem, I have uncovered why I spend so much of my life on the spiritual antihistamine that I wrote about last. I live in quiet desperation.

The irony in this, is that the desperation is the good part. Most would argue that desperation is bad, weak, selfish... I would contend that we could all be a little more desperate. I take that back. I think we are all way more desperate than we let on, I think that we could all stand to be much less quiet about our desperation.

To date, my life has been marked by selfushness and slavery to every want of my flesh. I have the scars to prove it. I could write volumes on the pain and danger of selfishness. I would like to think that I have gotten past that. I would like to stand here today and tell you that I am desperate for life healing power of Christ to pour through the world and flood every single corner of the globe bringing hope, healing, power, forgiveness and restortation, and think that at the very core of my soul, I do want that and want it desperately. The problem is, there is a lot of flesh between my soul and my hands, and the desperation gets dilluted with each layer.

I am quietly desperate because I fear what desperation will look like to a cynical world. Ouch. It sounds worse spoken than it did floating about in my head. There is that selfishness again. What will others think of me if I am loudly desperate? What if I live a life of loud desperation, and the world around me thinks I am crazy? So I keep it quiet.

If there is hope for this generation, for Abby and Carson's generation and for generations beyond that, we have to be desperate to see the will of God lived out everyday, everywhere. We have to realize that self leads to death, and that in our own power, self is unavoidable. We have to get desperate for our Lord, for the Spirit controlled life. That's right, Spirit controlled. I know it isn't as neat a book title as the other of nearly the same name, but if I am Spirit filled and Aaron controlled, what good is that, right? We need to be desperate to hand over the reigns.

What does that look like? I can't tell you that 'cause I ain't you. I can tell you for me it means to pour my life into telling people, especially young people, that there is more. I can tell you that for me it means giving, meeting needs, loving, crying at injustice and death, loving sinners and hating the sin that kills them. For me, it looks like speaking out against the complaceny that is killing our faith and our friends along with it. For me it looks like screaming, not vocally, but with every step I take and every thing I do, that there is more, there is hope, there is Christ.

I hope that my desperation becomes much less quiet. I hope I can live by the words of another of my heros, "But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus--the work of telling others the Good News about God's wonderful kindness and love." (Paul, Acts 20:24)

Rainy days and Antihistamines

2006-09-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

I love the rain. I really do. I love everything about it. The mood it creates, the smell, the feel, the regenearation that takes place afterwards... the whole shooting match.

Today is tough. I am slightly under the weather, and then the rain... I am feeling somewhat useless, to be honest. I took an Antihistamine. I am feeling detached and lethargic.

So, it's not where I intended to go, but I also feel as though I have taken a spiritual Antihistamine. Passion is often hard to come by, focus is tough to conjure up, and hopelessness and unworthiness seem to mark my days. There are moments of passion, but they fizzle. Christianity is more than a feeling, but like I said on Sunday, if you leave the presence of Christ depressed, there is something wrong with you. Either you aren't living in the right direction, or you weren't really in the presence.

That's what I want. I want to live in the presence. I want to be always aware that God is here, God is good, God is strong, and God is moving. I want to live them like they are more than cliches. I want to live them like they are the very thing that keeps my heart beating and my lungs inflating and deflating.

I guess in the end, I don't want to feel useless anymore. I want to step out on the ledge, willing to take the plunge if that is what is asked. I want to make a difference. Not grand scheme Billy Graham, fill the stadium type impact, though I will do what the Lord asks, but I am talking one person, you made a difference in me type impact. I want my life to be a testament to the cliche.

Is this heaven, Ray? No, it's Iowa.

2006-08-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

I love hanging with the fam, but I have to admit that I was a little less than excited about traveling to Iowa. Corn and nothingness right? Plus, to get there, you have to drive through Missouri, and I wouldn't wish that on a sworn enemy. Missouri sucks. Hard. But seriously, why can't I have family in Hawaii, or the keys? Even Boston would be sweet. Heck, the Red Sox could have used my help this weekend.

A pox on the yankees. I left it lower case for a reason.

Anway, I gotta tell you, this place is beautiful, shades of green that I didn't know existed. I'm not going to waste my vacation talking about it, just look at the picture to the left. By the way, I am doing a pretty good job of going out of my way to have fun... you should try it. I still don't own a purple tutu, but I have added many more smiles to repretoire. Lot of love in this blog...

Oh To Have a Purple Tutu

2006-08-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

The sad thing is that I don't remember a time that simple. I have filled my head and my calendar with things to do and things to become, and I leave no time for... Well, for fun. Why is it that we have to feel guilty for wanting fun? Sad, isn't it. Let's change that. Maybe even just you and I, but once they see how much fun were having, they'll come around.

I'm not suggesting an abdication of responsibility. No, we should all be gainfully employed and doing our part and all that jazz, but we should all tear up the part of the adult contract that demands we be serious all the time. Look for chances to have fun. Stop and look around until something makes you smile. Wouldn't that be sweet? My daughter found herself suddenly the proud owner of a pretty purple tutu. What did she do when she found out? She danced until she laughed so hard it made her crash. Give me that life, please.

Would it kill us to be a little more childlike? Christ didn't think so, in fact, He made it a condition to inheriting the kingdom of heaven. Kind of makes you wonder, huh? I don't have any delusions of my blog changing the world, but I do hope that it changes me. This week, I am going to find space to have fun. If you want to join me in the experiment, then jump on board, and let me know what you find.

2006-08-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Another space on the web for me to dump my thoughts. This one may be private, and may not get used much, but I wanted a space where I could unload and just be the moose.