A Lost Aha

Yesterday I had one of those "aha" moments. You know that moment when two pieces of information from dispersant areas come together and an insight clicks into place.

Well, I had one of those yesterday. The problem is I can't remember what it was. You see, the moment this "aha" clicked into place my train (some would say my slow boat) of thought was interrupted. This is not an uncommon occurrence. There are many time when for instance I finish an email and want to attach a document, I get interrupted and when I get back to the email I forget to attach the document or I forget why I am going upstair after Son has drawn my attention.

This time what I have forgotten something that was relative important, or at least to my understanding of the world and how I will respond to what life brings diffrently. At least I think it was a big "aha."

My hope is that my brain has filed it way in the appropriate place and when the occasion arises for me to make use of the "aha" it will be appropriately accessed.

Of course since I can't remember what it was it could be a trivial as a new flavor of ice cream.

I guess to some people that might be a weighty issue, at least on the scales.

Know Your Space

On the way to work today it occurred to me, not for the first time, that one of the ways we can divide the world of humanity is between people who are aware of their surroundings and how their actions effect other people and how other peoples action effect them ---and those people who do not have a clue.

I am convinced that 80% of auto accidents are the result of people not being aware that there are really other people in the other cars that have independent thought and not in a video game. That is not the only place.

• There are the times in the grocery store where a person leaves their cart sit sideways in the aisle and or where the person ahead of you at the check out decides to balance their check book at the register.


• Then there are the times in the security line at the airport where people hear from the minute thye get in line they hear, or not, "have your ID's out and available" and when they get to head of the line they have repacked their ID in the bottom of the carry-on.


• There is the theater patron who takes cell phone calls and want to talk about fishing during the movie.

It is not that they only inconvenience others, there are safety issues. If you are not aware of where you are at all time you could, in the extreme, get killed. Expecting people to stop while jaywalking is not a good assumption. The person in the car could be balancing their checkbook (I am probably giving people more credit with the checkbook thing.)

One of the skills my father had and and mother has that was passed on to me and my sisters is the ability to be aware of the immediate world around us. From our father it was the ability to quickly appraise the a situtation and determine what is the appropriate response. When you survive 90 days in constant combat in World War II, you have to have that ability or you die in the first day. From our mother we got the ability to discover what is new and to have the curiosity to investigate.

One of the things I would like to pass on to Son is this ability to live fully aware of his environment. It has gotten me through a lot of life that would have been more difficult if I had been oblivious.

The only burden is that he will spend an a lot of time frustrated with most of the the other people in the world or at least the United States.

Riding The Writing Fear

If you have read my profile on the side of the blog, you know that writing is not one of my better skills. It is not that I do not have good thoughts or even know the rules. My problem is that whatever I write, my brain fixes the mistakes when I read it over. It adds (I had - or leaves off) an occasional "S'" or "K", it will complete sentences that are fragments and in general fill in what my mind wanted on paper (or screen) but was not conveyed to my fingers with the assistance of my eyes.

Today I submitted a blog to a blog journal and I think I submitted the email to the journal with "journal" misspelled as I read the entry, to an English professor no less. I have feared English teachers and professors since I can remember. I still get cold chills when I remember 3rd grade spelling test and sentence diagrams on the blackboard.

Being unable to read until I was twelve did not help my ability to recognize nouns and verbs, let along dangling participles (whose importance, I understand, is now under debate in language circles.) Even after I learned to read and in turn read my own writing, I still dreaded English. I is amazing how much I could cover up with a well-tuned memory. In high school I was in all the honor classes except English. I just could not face the humiliations of the papers returned with more red ink than I had written in black ink. My high school senior history teacher wrote at the end of one of these bleeds that "your memory is just short of photographic, but you will need to have a secretary when you get a job."

In college I had to take 7 composition courses before I could pass the required two, and I think I passed the last one because the professor took mercy on me and because my writing hand was in a splint from a work-related accident. Even though I finished my undergrad, received a MDiv, have 18 hours of doctoral work and spend 60 percent of my work life writing, nothing bring me more anxiety than to have an English teacher scrutinize my writing.

I have crawled into burning cars as a paramedic. I have searched in gang territory for a child of a church I served after he had been threatened death by a gang. I have been hijacked in Bombay, India by three men, who took me from the domestic airport to the international airport, until I gave them all the cash I had including 5,000,000 Turkish Lira (about $4.) These experiences are nothing to compare with having an English language professional (I had - a professional of the English language) point out what I have done wrong.

It is not that I do not want to know what I have done incorrectly. I do. It's that I feel like that scared, ignorant 3rd grader every time I have my writing reviewed by a expert. At the same time, there is something in me that keeps me writing and seeking help.

"Hey FD, will you edit this?"

Sure, Husband, I fixed it all and highlighted some changes I made. I'll continue to do so whenever asked. I don't want you to worry too much about this, though, for it is one of your few weaknesses, and your strengths more than compensate. Love, FD.

Thanks FD, I can use all the help I can get. I did comment on some of the changes we discussed.

Unbalanced

Wife and I joined a gym last Saturday. This is the first time in 15 years that I have (or even planed to) gone to a gym. I am not sure if Wife has ever worked out with weights. When we signed up Wife purchased a 5 session package with a professional trainer. I, being a man, with vast experience with gyms (ya right) decided I would try it on my own after I got my initial orientation.

Wife went for the first time to work out with her sister on Sunday and had a good experience. Her first appointment with the trainer is this coming Saturday. I went for the first time on Monday and when I got there I ask if someone would show me around and make sure I knew how to use the machines correctly.

Well, they grabbed a young man who started me off but he appeared to be distracted. He showed me two leg machines and got called away and never came back. After about 15 minutes of wandering around I decided that I would make an appointment and come back.

I made the appointment and went back yesterday. The trainer did all the measurements to determine my percent of body fat and told me what I already new I had an unacceptable level of body fat. He had asked me to guess what the percentage was and I said between30 to 35 percent, saying to myself that was probably low. It came back as 32 percent.

He took me out on the floor and started to evaluate my level of fitness and after two exercises he told me I was unbalance. Part of me flashed back to the one time I went to a chiropractor and was told I had one leg shorter than the other and my back was crocked and then later was told, by a number of people, that everyone has one leg longer than the other and that everyone has a crocked back. My cynical self thought I was being sold a bill of goods. But my mind excepted this fact when I could not stand on one leg, with correct posture, and not fall over when trying to exercising with the other leg.

As we continued on I could feel what he was talking about. After we were through I went back and purchased the 5 session package. Even though he tried to sell me the 28 session package.

If he tells me after I finish the 5 sessions I need more, I will think about it, but if he tells me I have one leg shorter than the other I will have to rethink this gym thing.

For Blog Below

I tried to post picture on the blog below but it would not let me. I also could not spell check!
To top it off There is not way to get a direct question to blogger. I trid to log into a help group but that did not like my "nick name."

I had to open another post to get the picture to work on this blog. I can open pictures from a blank post but not one that is in use.

Under Estimating Children

One of the things I have to keep reminding myself about children is that they are often smarter than adults. Whether it is getting us to do something or give them something they want or just going ahead and doing it themselves, children are often two steps ahead.

This might be because they have little else on their minds except to learn and explore. One of the reasons I think time appears to go by faster as we get older is because we have the “been there done that” attitude for most of the world around us. As a child we spent time looking at the grass and bugs or watching the clouds go by. As adult we might look at the clouds and spends as much time as a child but our minds grasp clouds and make determination if it is going to rain or not, without seeing the “bird” or “tree” that children observe. Time for children is slower because they are anticipating what might be, instead of making assumptions as to what is.

I know, I know - a person's own child always is the smartest, cutest and most amazing child that ever lived. They have to be that in our minds so we can handle the brain dead things they do as teenagers or adults.

That said I have to share with you some of the things Son has done to bring me back to appreciation of what might be, instead of assuming what is. Son is 2 years 5 months old:

While sitting at the dinner table staring at a pile of Banana slices, anticipating not eating them, he line them up in a row counting each one with a tone saying “ I am not eating that one 1, I am not eating that one 2 ....“

After coming down the stairs in the morning he ran to the refrigerator and with open arms as if giving a blessing, saying “ red, red, Red.” The red light, that signaled locked or unlocked, on the in the door ice and water was off. He keeps saying this until the lock is put back on and the red light appears.

Last night at dinner I asked him what he wanted for dinner after he had eaten all the things I had given him. He said “Mickey mouse” (he is not much of a meat eater but if he wanted a mouse --)so we went though pretty much every box in the pantry asking if this is what he wanted. With the response of “Noooooooo,” that relayed the tone of "you stupid man." That is until I got to the box of crackers that has a picture of Goofy on the back and he says “Yes please.”

I wish I could be that observant, enjoy time as it passes slowly instead of assuming many things and then wonder where the time went. Like the time I spent writing this blog.

Why I Serve a Congregation

There has been a number of times in my life recently I have wonder why I continue to serve a church, besides all that call from God business. All the frustrations of being in a place and serving many people who do not have much control in the other parts of their lives, in their work place, with their health or multitude of other places, who feel free to express at church all the pent up needs and to vent in a safe place. Where it is safe to be angry or _____ (fill in the emotional blank) at the pastor or unfortunately at the pastor's spouse. This is also demonstrated in the need to keep everything the same. To keep the same activities, the same traditions in order to make sure the church is the one place they can count on for stability in their lives.

My sadness is that they hold so tight to the traditions and by holding on to those traditions their safe place is only safe for them and is not open to anyone else, unless they are willing to change and become like them. Without change and/or allowing other people to make the church a safe place, on their own terms, the church becomes a tomb that is only fully realized when it is empty.

This last week I was reminded why I continue to serve a congregation, beside all that call from God business. Last week I got to spend a day with an Elder who understands what it means to be part of a congregation. We spent the day putting speakers in the sanctuary for the members of the congregation who do not hear as well as they have in the past. As we worked we both new that the room was to small to need speakers, as a matter of fact when we tested the speakers he could not always tell if the the sound was coming from me or the speakers.

What I remembered was that one of the things that keeps me serving a congregation is the privilege of being with and learning from the people am a called to serve. It might be selfish of me but I get a lot of joy of seeing people using - unselfishly - the gifts God has given to them. I believe that part of my responsibility, as a pastor, (and in general as a Christian) is to observe and then tell people when I see God at work in their living and giving. There are many people who do this all the time. I just don't always see it through the few squeaky wheels.

I am beginning the New Year reassured that God is a work in the church I have been call to serve - in spit of all we try to do to get in the way of God's purpose.