A little More Navel Gazing

I would like to thank all of you who committed on my last blog (and those who read and chose not to comment or to point out my errors.)

I don't think I am going though "Midlife Crisis Part II." FD, I am guessing, hopes not. Following my last one I married her and even thought she likes the HBO program "Big Love" I am not sure she would want a sister/wife :) But I am feel adrift.

My job, which on the whole I like, has lately been fuzzy. Not sure what my job is now. New boss seem to want to do what my job has been and at the same time I feel like I am making "boss" decisions to keep thing moving at work.

I don't want the "boss" job. I do not have the credentials to do the job and fund raising is not my passion, I can do it but it was not what I was hired to do. Boss wants to do what he perceives as the glamor part of my job, flying half around the world for a two day meeting. That to me is not glamor but a week of unsettled sleep.

The hardest part at work right know is that there is an expectation of fawning over everything he does. I know - I know it speaks more to his insecurity than anything else and I don't mind giving praise when it is a natural response and as a pastor I look for thing to help people to see God at work in their lives but I an not "The Pastor" in my job here, I do not want to spend time noticing every little thing my boss does and praise him for his brilliance in booking a flight (because he has just told me how great a job he has done)!

That said, my understand of leadership is that troubles flow up and praise flow down.

Maybe it is my stoic Presbyterian outlook, but when I do something well, as long as I know it (and if I do God knew before I did) it does not matter if anyone else notices. Anyway doing things well is what is expected, praise should not be expected.

I also think giving praise is like giving presents, giving is a whole lot more fun than receiving.

The only time when giving praises and gifts are not fun is when they are expected or preserved to be deserved.

I guess this goes back to my understand of salvation. Salvation is only salvation when it is unexpected and undeserved.

Long Time No Write

I have not posted here for some time. Not sure why, but it could be:

• I have nothing to say (unlikely if you know me)
• Have a very hard time blogging from home
• I work at computer for 6 hours a day and don't want to face a key board
• To tired to type
• To busy with son
• Too many books to read

I think the real reason is that all my life writing has been a source of pain. It is not that my fingers hurt (but I am getting some Arthur). It is emotional pain and how I see myself.

Because of learning problems (the labels have changed with time but I still have the same problems, phonically illiterate, what is know called "ADD," distressingly acute hearing and horrible rote memory.) I have almost a phobia about writing. I know that no matter what I write, how good the content, how accurate the information is, The first thing people say to me is "you miss spelled ____" -"you used a comma wrong" -"That is not a sentence."

It was okay if the person was teacher but as an adult everyone thinks they have a write to commit on my flaws in writing. I don't comment on what ever flaw they have why is it okay for you to point out mine. Is it because they have proof of my flaw, it on paper and it can be saved and referred to. It is hard to capture bad breath or arrogance. An arrogant person may not understand arrogance is a flaw to begin with.

I want to say get past the form and get the idea of the message behind it. Maybe one of the reasons I like Kierkegaard is that in the English translation, the meaning gets thought if you forget the structure of the writing.

About the time I stopped blogging was when I realized how often my new boss was amused at my minor writing errors. I learned a long time ago that some one has to proofread my stuff to add the things my fast moving - addled brain miss when I edit my own writing.

I have to write, a lot every day, it has gotten harder and harder to set myself to the task.

Starting today when I blog I will:

• I will not worry about having to be perfect in my post.
• I will use the spell check and look up words I have misspelled so badly the sell check can't come up with a correct spelling
• I will leave alone words that are spelled correctly but look wrong
• I will not let the grammar and spelling police make me feel like a seven year old who can not memorize the spelling list and told adnauseam "sound it out"(If I could sound it out I would have, you have told me this for the hundredth time, STOP)

By the way adnauseam is not in blogger's spell check. I spelled it correctly but I still had to look it up because the spell check could not figure it out!

If you are reading this and have tendency be part of the grammar and spelling police.

Pretend that I am writing in Danish and that has been translated into English.

Middle Aged and Out to Eat

As a child I remember going out to dinner and sitting in the booth or at the table and watching the other people who were eating dinner. I am not talking about the 2 year old staring at the guy cleaning his false teeth. I am talking about just seeing and observing "normal" people eating dinner.

I would sit and wonder who they were and why the groups of people were together. I was looking at them as a mix of adults and children or just a group of adults. What I would try to figure out was what the relationships was between people. Most often I figured that the were a group of friends out with their family. It did not cross my mind that they were brothers and sisters spending time together. I also remember feeling sad watching people eating alone, I still do.

Growing up we did not do that kind of things with family. The one time I remember eating out with extended family, and I was not even there! It was the time my youngest sister was out to dinner with my other sister, mother, and "famous" great uncle and her getting sick at the table.

My father's brother and sister were 20 years older than him and we never or rarely got together with them for meals let alone going out to eat. My mother was an only child and did thing rarely with her cousins.

It never occurred to me that those "old"people could be brothers and sister enjoying time together.

It occurred to me this last Saturday night that I was one of those "old" people and the people I choose to eat out with are my sisters and their families. I was reminded of those time as a child looking around and wondering who those people were. I also realized that I truly enjoy the company of my sisters and their families. I think I knew this before but on Saturday it became embedded in me in a way I have not felt a truth in a long time.

I could not help but wonder what Son was thinking as he observed our table and the other tables. All I know is that I still watch the world around me and try to figure out the relationship are between people. I felt like I did as a child.

I guess that is why it hit me that we were one of those a groups of people eating out I remember as a child and I still felt like I should be sitting in my child seat watching and wondering.

What Does it Matter?

The recent media splash of "Is it Jesus' tomb" is much to do about nothing. I have never understood the need to prove Jesus existed by scientific method. My faith in Jesus as the risen Son of God is not dependent on rigid fact. As a matter of fact, if everything is proven about Jesus faith is no longer faith. It becomes a human bound ridged ritual.

For me, by definition faith is belief in realities that can not be proven by the limits of human nature. The human need to know everything about God within the limits of our limited sense of reality and in turn making a small God, is an attempt to displace the one God with a human god of the self.

If I remember correctly there are a number of stories in the first eleven chapters of Genesis that speak to the human desire to control God and to become god. The truth and reality of God is our inability to understand God, to have someone greater that the self to trust.

One of the many sad parts of the "tomb of Jesus media event" is that the people that are recruited to speak for "people of faith" by the media are as rigid and ridiculous as the people who are trying to present reality as they see it.

The blow hard that was on Larry King last night has done more to drive people away from faith than any empirical evidence given by the film makers. If there was ever a person that represent what a "christian" is not to be like it would be this guy. I have seen him on a number of shows but I have been outraged and embarrassed by what he says that I can never remember his name.

I know that media want caustic and irrational guests to bump up ratings and a level headed thinking Christian does not make good TV.

In the end I matters not what someone digs out of the ground or spews on TV, as Paul wrote, Love (God) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all thinks. Love (God) never ends.

In this world today a person has to believe this because there is no prof that God is and I don't want any.

Winter Funk

Every year I become very grumpy from about the middle of January to the middle of February. The problem is, particularly for Wife, is that I don't remember this happens every year until about the middle of February.

Two nights ago the realization of my annual grumpiness occurred to me as if it was new information. I have internally blamed it on a number of thing:

• Started getting meds by mail and one of my meds is a generic instead of name brand I had been taking. (did not know there was genetic available until it arrived in the mail)


• The many piles of paper at work that need to be addressed but I keep getting new work assignments which means routine work gets put off and piled up.


• Started working out at gym three times a week.


• Stress at church, over resistance to welcoming new members. Actually reaching out instead of expecting them to walk in the door at a church five mile from nearest highway and 1/4 mile from nearest house.

But in the end it is just the February funk. Realizing that it is what it is makes it some strange way go away.

A Second Scoop of Coal

The heat is not working in the office today and I feel like Bob Cratchit. My hands are cold and I am thinking about cutting the tips of my glove fingers off to be a able to warm my hands and still do my work. I am huddled by a space heater working on reviewing self-studies and making travel arraignments. All I need is a waist coat and a bottle of ink and I could be in the mid-19th century.

Just think I was in New Orleans two days ago in 70 degree weather eating "King Cake." I got the piece with the baby in it both times I eat a piece. I now owe them two cakes.

Got a tour of New Orleans it still looks like they got coal in their stocking this year.

Molly Ivins

On the way to work today I heard that Molly Ivins died. A sadness came over me. I was sadder that I would have imagines about someone I had only heard and read. I heard a report of her death on the way home and had the same feeling. I heard her voice in an interview and was with the feeling in the chest and everything.

I took my pills this morning, I did. I shouldn't be feeling this way.

I as though about my reaction I realized that she was (almost typed is)one of the few people, in my experience, who speak the truth to power was gone. A reporter who said it like she saw it. Her comment had the ring of truth.

Part of my sadness is knowing that she will be replaced by the Nancy Graces' and Anderson Cooper's. Who will not risk the truth unless it helps their careers.

Who will speak the truth and is in a position to know the difference between truth and hype?