Through a glass darkly

Farewell to 2011

2011-12-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that the year is down to its last few hours. So much has happened in the past twelve months -some good, some bad. We've said goodbye to some friends who are now in the presence of Jesus while we welcomed the new life of little babies into the world. I saw High School students grow in their relationship with Christ and in turn help lead others to faith as well. The world remains a fearful and unsettling place to many, some put their trust in Mayan visions of the Apocalypse instead of putting their confidence in the Lord of All. Others look for the government to solve their problems, but political solutions seem inadequate. Strong dictators come and go while people "occupy" and protest that democracy is failing them.
In the midst of all this chaos, God remains in control; nothing happens outside His notice. If 2012 truly turns out to be the end, it is good to know that He is "with us always, even to the end of the world."

Back to Blogging

2011-08-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been so long since I last posted here. It's funny how I can blog twice a day during Lightseekers Camp, but can't find the desire or time to put into my own blog. Someone recently asked if I blogged and was surprised to hear that I actually had one. What can I say? Getting my MBA sort of pushed me out of the habit and then mindless pursuits have kept me away. Perhaps I shall try the shorter, more pithy sort of blogging that Laura uses, however I'm not nearly as prosaic as she is. Maybe I should just comment on how the world is behaving these days (not very nicely, I'm afraid) or even relate about my current reading assignments. I need to ponder this, but hopefully, I'll be back again soon.

Closing Out 2010

2010-12-31T22:21:00.000-08:00

As I sit here in the mountains, watching an old movie, I pause to reflect on this past year. Yes, this will be my one and only post for 2010, but I promise to begin blogging on this site again. For one thing, I am now done with school, finishing my MBA in late October. It had been the sinkhole for nearly all my creative writing; in all my years of primary, secondary and undergraduate education, I hadn't written as many papers as I did these past two years. Even though my last assignment was done over two months ago, it's taken me a while to shake the feeling that some assignment is due in the coming week. Perhaps once I finally see my diploma, it will truly seem real.

School was not the only great thing on my mind; work has had its moments of joy, but there have been far more moments of frustration and anxiety. The remaining 57 months before I reach retirement age cannot come too soon, I fear. The state of the economy does not help, but adds to the pressure.

The good news is that I celebrated my 50th birthday this year, bringing me that much closer to the day I can retire. It was a wonderful party, attended by nearly forty of my friends and family. My family too is growing - my brother got married and now he and his wife are expecting a son.

There have been many births this past year in the lives of my friends as well as those friends who are no longer with us. The world changes, yet the one constant remains is the Lord who created it all. He is our peace, our hope and our life. When things seem to crumble, He is there; when we experience joy beyond reason, He is there too. As we move into a new year, may we know the comfort of His presence and the strength of His righteous right hand.

Mountain Quiet

2009-12-30T22:40:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here at Lake Arrowhead on the sofa in front of a crackling fire (I wouldn't say roaring - I've been struggling all evening to keep it aflame because the wood is wet from today's light rain.) Except for the sound of the fire and the motor of the refrigerator in the kitchen, it is completely silent. Laura is already asleep outside (she likes to sleep in the cold weather) and the neighbors who were bustling about earlier have all settled in. I've always liked the winters here because it is so tranquil and I have tried to spend my yearly break between Christmas and New Year's in the mountains. Most often I've been successful in getting away to this place and frequently I've had the pleasure of having friends join me. Yet this year, Laura and I are the only ones at the cabin; plus, there have been no phone calls, no emails, no text messages or pages. My cell phone died and I didn't even notice. I AM GLAD! After the stressful last few months of work, school, even ministry, I am delighted to just be by myself and rest. I have slept like I haven't been able to in months. Oh, I have the internet to keep informed of the outside world, but there's no live TV with the talking heads telling me what they think I need to hear.
I know that soon enough the quiet will be broken and that I will return to the everyday routine that is my life for the other 50 weeks of the year. For now, I will enjoy the time the Lord gives to restore my soul, body and mind. See you soon.

The Frog and the Scorpion

2009-09-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've blogged here - I've been relying more on the short blast messages of Facebook and Twitter, plus I've been focused more on school. However, with all the interesting things happening in the political world, I thought I would make some comments.

I've noticed that a lot of people who were previously uninvolved with politics have become quite active due to what they see as a government growing at an alarming rate coupled with elected officials who seem to ignore or belittle their constituents' protestations. I myself am somewhat of a political junkie in that I love to read various websites on a daily basis and political best-sellers but, I don't write letters, attend rallies or protests, nor do I involve myself in campaigning for issues or candidates. I also have a fairly consistent political philosophy - one of limited government,low taxes, strong military/national defense, free-market economics and conservative social values. Consequently, I tend to judge and vote for political candidates on their conformity (or lack thereof) to my own philosophy and while I obviously don't agree with the folks across the aisle from me, I would expect them to vote according to their core beliefs. I respect them at least for their loyalty to principles, if not for the beliefs themselves.

This brings me to the subject of this blog post - people, who for whatever reason, voted against their own philosophy or political bent in the last election and are now complaining that things didn't turn out the way they wanted or expected. This is very unrealistic - in what universe do human beings, particularly elected officials, consistent act contrary to their stated platform or core values? I am particularly amused at "so-called conservatives" who voted for Obama because they believed that he was "post-partisan" or that he really couldn't be as liberal as his legislative voting record indicated he was. Some conservatives and independents voted for Democrats because they wanted to teach Republicans "a lesson", naively assuming that a left of center Congress couldn't do much worse or muck things up too badly. Boy, were they wrong!It's interesting to read their comments on the websites lamenting their 2008 vote, praying that Obama, Pelosi and Reid don't inflict too much damage on our Republic before the citizenry gets a chance at a do-over in 2010 and 2012.

I guess these folks have never heard of the parable of the Frog and the Scorpion. The scorpion tries to convince the frog to ferry him across the river on his back. The frog initially rejects the scorpion's plea. "You are a scorpion and might sting me, killing me if I let you get too close." "No, Mr. Frog," said the scorpion, "I will be grateful for your kindness in granting me safe passage across the water and would never sting you. Besides, to sting you while crossing would mean the death of us both." This promise seemed reasonable to the frog and so the two commenced out across the wide river. Halfway through their journey, frog felt the sting of the scorpion's tail. "What have you done?" asked the frog as they started to sink as the poison began its deadly work, "now we will both perish. How could you break your promise not to sting me?" To which the scorpion replied, "You know what I was before I ever got on your back; I cannot deny my nature."

When those on the right side of the political spectrum decide to either vote for their foes or sit home on election day to spite members of their own party for their lack of ideological purity, they are extremely foolish, like the frog was. The two, four or six years plus that the leftists possess the reigns of power will not be pleasant, laws and policies will be passed that will fundamentally change this country forever ala FDR and the New Deal - not in a way true conservatives would find acceptable. My suggestion is that they not vote while holding a misguided "hope" that these politicians would somehow "change" into something they are not. We may not have liked the Republican alternative, but at least he was reliably pro-life and definitely not influenced by radical or Marxist heroes (Ayers, Alinsky, Wright, et al). Even if some conservatives believed that the damage caused by a leftist President's policies was minimal or recoverable, having the opposing side control all three branches of government along with the mainstream media would not be an environment in which government would get smaller, taxes would be reduced or strict constitutionalist judges would be appointed. How are these voters surprised now that they are being stung?

Stuck on Stupid

2009-04-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

A few years back, during Hurricane Rita, there was a military commander (LTG Honore) who coined this phrase when answering reporters' inane questions about the relief effort -the reporters kept asking why such and such was done in the past while the general was trying to give out information that would be helpful to the survivors. He chided them for being "stuck on stupid" for focusing on irrelevant details that could not be changed while ignoring potentially lifesaving info that needed to be broadcast.
I commented on a similiar phenomenon in post (Not All Gloom and Doom) three years ago in which I talked about people who were "stuck" in some trauma that had happened years ago. I know a couple of people who are frozen emotionally at the point of their marriage break-ups over forty years ago. They are almost like the character of Miss Haversham in Dicken's Great Expectations. Miss Haversham had been jilted on the day of her wedding many decades before, but had shut herself up in her house wearing her dress with the cake and flowers still laid out as though expecting her tardy groom to show. Her disappointment had turned to bitterness and bitterness into hatred for all men as she trained her young ward, Stella to exact revenge on males by breaking their hearts once they had fallen in love with her.
These real Miss Havershams continue to relive their moment of pain, sometimes crying their hearts out as if the trauma occurred yesterday. Like Miss Haversham though, their hurt has turned into bitterness and over time they have become quite unpleasant to be around, save for a select few that they allow in. The ones who are even worse are the ones who seek to settle the score -not with the actual object of their victimization (the villians themselves might be dead or out of the picture), but others that these Havershams view as apt surrogates. On more than one occaision, I have been unwillingly selected as their foil. I really want to say to them,"I am not X, get over it."
I've had a Miss Haversham in my life; I wish I knew what her problem was -she definitely seems stuck in what may have been a happier time for her when she was a teenager, but that was a very long time ago. She also doesn't seem to want to have "grown-ups" around who might frown on her childish ways. In her mind, I am the evil one -the one that ruined her blissful return to her youth (or perhaps I just remind her of the one) and so she attempts to "get even with me". How silly and pathetic! Her lack of forgiveness and lack of desire for healing only hurt her, not me. Her heart, like Miss Haversham's wedding cake, becomes dark and moldy, full of the sin of bitterness.
You might say, "Aha! I know exactly of whom you speak." No, unfortunately, you may guess wrong because there are more than one Miss Haversham-types around these days. However, if you see yourself as one who is stuck on stupid and is bitterly reliving the past in order to try to feel right about yourself, get some help. We all can get in a rut every once in a while -the Miss Havershams though, end up living there.

A Small Pause to Reflect

2009-03-30T19:36:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned earlier, my MBA coursework has been grabbing all the attention that would otherwise be reserved for blogging. In a sense, the weekly Blackboard discussion boards that we do for our classes is a form of blogging, just not readable by the general public. I probably could re-post some of my thoughts from the Ethics discussion, but it is like listening to one side of a phone conversation -you miss the whole back and forth that defines the dialogue.

This term is somewhat different in that we are having a dialogue not only with our fellow classmates from work, but also with classmates we haven't met from the main campus. It was interesting to imagine what these other students were like based on their writing styles and thought processes. However, on Saturday the two classes came together for an ethics panel in Riverside, sponsored by the University. Although we were not introduced to the others, I observed some familiar names on the name tags. There, just two tables over, were a collection of a half-dozen twenty-something males - bright and shiny MBA students.

I shouldn't have been surprised that the MBA students from the main campus were youngsters, fresh off their undergraduate programs, but I wonder if they were surprised that most of their off site counterparts were more than twice their ages. Perhaps they even felt an air of superiority over their elder classmates. I remember the cockiness of my own youth -the feeling that I and my companions had the world by the tail. We just knew that we were that much smarter than "older ones" who either had never learned what we just did or who had forgotten it many years before. Yet with age comes experience and with experience,wisdom. It is a wisdom gained not by textbooks but by living life. That life has caused me to stop form time to time and reflect upon how I got here. Hopefully, my young classmates will begin to do so as well.

Tripping Up the Gender Analyzer

2009-01-27T13:18:00.000-08:00

There is this site that takes the content of a blog and "uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a homepage is written by a man or woman."
The results?
"We think http://thruaglassdrkly.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (63%)."

Wrong, AI, I am definitely a woman. Maybe it's the high concentration of engineer-speak in my writing. My friend Laura comes up as a woman on hers. Maybe she uses more feeling-oriented language.

Reflections on 2008

2009-01-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

Now that we have finished a full week of the new year, I have decided to blog about some of the events of the past year. It was a year full of change - both for our world and for me personally. It gaves us an election season that ushered in a leftist president and equally liberal congress, propangadized for and abetted by a MSM intent on demonizing anything right wing, conservative or evangelical Christian. We saw the collapse of the financial system along with the loss of our retirement and investment assets. Gasoline prices skyrocketed only to plunge to levels of a decade earlier. All of my favorite sports teams made it to the playoffs only to lose out on their championships. Even the Beijing Olympics were more frustrating to me for what didn't happen for the USA athletically (US Women's Softball, for example) and for being the showcase for a hardline communist regime than for the truimphs of Michael Phelps.

Personally, there were also a number of highs and lows. I became an aunt for the first time just a few months before my uncle died, my mother's only brother. While I was not particularly close to him recently, it still reminds me of how small my extended family is and how my only remaining relatives from her side of the family are all only cousins now. I realize how old my father is (83) and remember that his side of the family is not long for this world either. I became re-acquainted with an older cousin who has supplied some family history but there is so much more that is unknown than known about my ancestors. I have gone back to school for the first time in over 20 years while my education-loving roommate deferred starting her doctoral program for the whole year. I have stayed in the same job and same office but now have a new boss. One of my nemeses was finally exposed for being a cad while another one who seeks ill for my life has only partially been revealed (I must say that this one will probably suffer a similiar fate, perhaps this year - people who sow discord and attempt to rip others down in order to build themselves up emotionally or further themselves along in life, work or ministry tend to reap their own destruction. Since I know this particular evil one reads this blog, I must say to them, consider yourself warned. The Lord will repay you for what you are doing; no amount of self-justification by you will make your deeds right.)

Yet in the midst of this disappointment I have mentioned, I am more at peace than I've been in a long while. This is because I know that God is on the throne and in control. Those who do evil (to me or others in the world in general) will get theirs, either in this life or in the world to come. Those who follow Jesus closely will receive great reward in heaven one day. God is Judge and rules in righteousness. As I discover the reality of this truth and apply it to my life, I can have confidence even as the world goes crazy.

School Days

2008-11-25T23:14:00.000-08:00

So if you've been wondering where I've been instead of blogging, I have gone back to school. Yes, for the first time in more than twenty years, I have re-entered the world of academia to begin an MBA program from the University of Redlands held at my worksite. I'm more than half-way through my first class and it has been a real adjustment to have to do so much writing - afterall, as an engineering major, I never had to do much written work except in my G.E. classes. I will say that my blogging over the past few years has helped to enhance my writing skills and the websites that I regularly read help to challenge my thinking, both reading and writing being essential to doing well in this course.

Anyway, I'll try to come for air from time to time to blog about how things are going.

To Bee or Not To Bee

2008-10-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Yikes! Two months since my last post. Bad Ann. Anyway, it's not like I haven't been meaning to, I've just not made blogging a priority. One reason for the lack of posting is that I'm instead trying to be more diligent with my "gardening". Now if you know my living situation, you know I live in a condo without a yard. I do have a balcony but most of the plants there are of the cactus variety. Although I am a farmer's daughter, I have a tendency towards a brown thumb -it's hard for plants other than cactii to be healthy when you forget to water them for over a week. For the past few years I have been practicing my horticulture skills on the plants in my office at work.

After killing the first few potted plants I tried, I have been having more success in the last two years with my pothos (devil's ivy) and my peace lillies. (I also have an orchid that never blooms because the temperature is not variable enough inside). This success emboldened my to try at home. Using some empty pots from the last failed attempt at growing herbs, I went out and bought some more seeds -basil, thyme, parsley, chives, sage, rosemary to plant. The basil, parsley, chives and sage grew right away while the others faltered. I went out and bought some already young plants to replace the thyme and rosemary. I also bought a small grape tomato plant to grow in my kitchen along with the herbs.

While I'm still having problems with the thyme, rosemary, oregano and now, unfortunately the chives (all are dead as I write this), the tomato plant outgrew my kitchen and had to be moved to the balcony where it began to produce a few tiny tomatoes. "Hooray", I thought, "success!" That was somewhat short-lived because my homeowners association made me clear my balcony for powerwashing which they claimed was only for a few days. The few days became a few weeks and although the tomato plant had plenty of blossoms, there was no fruit on the vine.

My dad said I needed to play bee to get it pollinated properly but he never explained exactly how I was to do this other than brushing the flowers. That gave me all of about three tomatoes. Consulting the internet for help told me that yes, I needed a bee or a least a wind to blow the pollen around (not things you find indoors, BTW). Well, finally the tomato vine went back outside but even then the flowers would drop without fruit -no bees were coming to my balcony. One more visit to the internet told me the proper technique to play bee; I needed to vibrate the tomato plant behind the flower, perhaps using an electric toothbrush, to simulate the bee vibrations and to drop the pollen out. While I do have an electric toothbrush, I thought I'd try tapping rapidly with my finger first and shazam! I'm starting to get tomatoes. So when I step out on my balcony every other day between 9am and 4pm, it's just me playing bee.

The July That Was

2008-08-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

When I last blogged, I was sitting in my dorm room at High School camp. Now, a month later, I am finally able to get back to it. As soon as camp was over, I drove from San Diego to begin my vacation in Lake Arrowhead. (perhaps I'll get around to putting those pics on the flickr badge). There it was family (both my brother and sister were there for the 4th), fireworks, food and fun. Oh and Laura and I did manage to do some work projects around the house -she has fully documented them on her blog.

I was back at work for only two weeks before I was off again to Lightseekers Camp from which I just returned yesterday. Lightseekers is our children's camp that I have been a part of now for the past five years; I do all the audio visual tech stuff (sound, video, pictures) for worship and host a blog describing our events so the parents can read about their kids. You can read my daily postings here.

Blogging From Camp

2008-07-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here I am sitting in the dorm at Point Loma Nazarene University, able to liveblog about my experience as a counselor at HumeSD. The girls are all in the room next door talking about "stuff."

Here's my observations so far:
Our dorm rooms, the campus atmosphere, the speaker (Darren McWaters) and musical worship have all been excellent. Darren, particularly has been able to communicate basic theological truths in a way the students could understand. Hume does know how to put on a program camp quite well. The things that haven't been so great are the activities offered (while very cool to go surfing, sea kayaking and skatepark; all of these are fairly expensive -$20 mostly and limited to a certain number who had parent permission, money along with the ability to do these things). Some of the students complained that there wasn't much to do if you weren't into the beach (the weather has been cool the past two days too.)

The food in the cafeteria was okay (I must say Biola's cafeteria is much, much better -I have eaten there with Laura), a step just below the cafeteria at work. I don't think offering pizza and burgers as an option to high school students every lunch and dinner is a wise thing nutrition-wise.

My pet peeve though is recreation. It is very well-planned and executed here. But it has the same problems with rec back when I was a youth 30 years ago -the very nature of the competition -it's very competitive. It's not just Hume -TFB never did much Hume Lake Camping until I was in college/young adult age. We often did our own camps at Lake San Antonio, Bass Lake or caravaning, yet we still had these competitions that brought out the worst in people, including leaders. Forest Home and Thousand Pines were not much different back in the day. The points scoring always seem subjective and arbitrary -for example, my students complained that it seemed they won most of their team games yesterday, but somehow they slipped from 10th to 14th place. The girls' attitude was why even try, why bother to memorize verses if they may or may not improves their standing (No, Bible memorization does not have value for them by its own right, although it should.) And although, it hasn't happened yet here, I remember the "creative scoring" that was used to boost teams that have fallen behind so they could come from behind and win on the last day (not because they said all their verses either.)

I'm not saying to do away with rec, but there has to be some way of rewarding achievement without rewarding bad behavior (the cheating that is perpetuated in the games -one boy today through a ball from the sidelines, hitting one of our girls who assumed that meant she and her partner were out. Since they were in a race, they stopped playing and our team lost. There was no deduction for the boy's team that played foul.) Then there is the "spirit points" that seem to help those teams that have HS cheerleaders on their teams. Pity the squad that lacks cheerleaders and jocks while instead populated by the asthmatic, awkward and "geeky". (The memory verse requirements are there to "even things out, unfortunately, there are no spirit points for cheering on the memorization wiz.) I know that camp recreation is a big part of the summer camp experience, but it really should look less like one of those teen summer camp movies where the teams play dirty tricks on the other side. We aren't there, but the temptation seems to be great.

But even with these concerns, I feel overall, it's been a wonderful week. I'll blog more later, especially on what we've been learning.

The Adventures of Me

2008-06-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a really long time (six weeks) since my last post and this time my lack of posting has been due to busyness. I've posted pics of some of my adventures/activities on Flickr (see bottom right). We celebrated Laura's ThM baccalaureate (at Knott's Berry Farm) and graduation at Biola, both outdoor events in the rain;I've been camping down near San Diego. Celebrated Father's Day with the family, including my new niece. Now I'm getting ready for High School Camp, my vacation, Vacation Bible School at TFB, Lightseekers' Childrens Camp- all events happening in the next two months. Of course work is as busy as ever for me so time off from work may be necessary even if not convenient to others. Other things have been happening as well which should provide lots of posting material. Just wait.

Congratulations Laura

2008-05-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my roommate Laura; this, after I read her blog relating how she won TWO awards for her ThM work at Talbot School of Theology (Biola University). One was the Zondervan Award for Outstanding Master's Thesis and the other was for best work of the year in Systematic Theology. In addition to her recognition at the awards chapel today, it also marked her last class before she receives her degree next Friday.
Seeing first hand all the hardwork she has demonstrated over the years, I'm glad that she is being rewarded for it by this recognition. I'll even cut her some slack for NOT CALLING ME to tell me before I had to read it online.
Congrats!

Mighty Musk Ox Warrior Princess

2008-04-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm just back from Women's Retreat at Thousand Pines. Our theme was Revive: Body, Soul and Spirit and our speaker was a lady named Donna Partow. I had thought that this was going to be one of those "Kumbahya, let's focus on Jesus for a weekend" sort of retreats and I must say though that I was totally unprepared for what ensued. While I won't go in to all she spoke about, her focus was to call women to action and revival, to be like musk oxen (see here for a description of their defensive behavior towards the weak and young). She really challenged us to be a participant in what God is doing, not to be distracted by life's events and to realize that we are responsible for our responses to them. For free-time, some of the ladies did the confidence course and zip line as you can see in the flickr photos below. The comments I heard from my fellow TFB women concerning this weekend were overwhelmingly positive.

After the retreat, Laura and I drove over to my house at Lake Arrowhead and took some pictures of the beautiful spring flowers also posted on flickr.

The Best Laid Plans...

2008-03-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

When I finished my last stint in the "cave" (as I refer to working on proposals at my job), I thought that certainly I would have the chance to catch up on my blogging. take my car into the shop, catch up on some personal errands. However, another proposal (actually more than one) came along and sent me right back inside. (remember what I posted about feeling like a groundhog who popped his head out of his hibernation, saw the shadow and went back in for 6 more weeks of winter? Well, this groundhog saw the shadow and had six more weeks in the "cave".)

Now having emerged just this day, I see that there won't be such a thing as being outside once and for all. This is the pattern of my life for a while and all those things that I have laid aside until I have time will just have to be squeezed in to what time I do have to do them. It will mean just taking my car into the shop or blogging when I plan to, I won't wait until my calendar is clear to make them happen. I may not be able to do long blog posts like my series on Marriage or Biblical Equality, but there have been enough interesting things in the news to comment on plus my own personal observations of life to provide plenty of blog fodder. We'll see...

Rolled Away

2008-02-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

Actually, I'm talking about my kidney stone -fortunately it rolled away quite quickly so I am able to spare you painful details this time. I was just trying to come up with a catchy title; I think I would blog more if I could find the right post title easily when I was in a writing mood.

I have been blogging though, just not here. You can see I added the TFB Youth Blog and so I've been busy there especially since we got back from High School camp. You can see what we've been up to including the wonderful news that we have a new youth pastor.

For those who know of TFB's history of travails regarding this, it is certainly an answer to prayer. It is scary I must admit, we have thought each time previously over the years that we had the "right one", only to discover it wasn't exactly a good fit. The search for the best fit is a difficult process, somewhat like dating, because each party is putting their best foot forward and is somewhat hiding their "warts" from the other. There can be a tendency to become infatuated with a prospect (on the church side) or a church (on the prospect side) and gloss over any flaws the other has. There has also been a bit of not "sweating the small stuff" discrepencies because we are trusting God to make everything to work out okay. (I have re-thought this approach -obviously if a young lady was dating a guy and discovered some red flags about her beloved, but was going to marry him anyway, trusting God to fix it, we would say she was foolish. So why, if a church or small body of believers made an similiarly ill-formed decision should we expect divine intervention to rescue us from ourselves? Hmmm?) But as I said, I have high hopes in a fellow that seems to be a quality guy (and I haven't thrown out that trust in God part either - see Jude 24).

Here's an interesting change of subject: it seems a certain person with an AOL account has been "deep diving" into this blog, spending quite a bit of time reading page after page of archived posts. Just so this person knows, I KNOW exactly from where you've entered this blog and where/when you exit, I even know your unique ISP address. If your intentions are good and you are blessed by it, then why not leave a helpful, encouraging comment. If however, you have a darker purpose, I encourage you to get a life. (perhaps for example, you should write your own blog that is open for all to see, I would certainly read it and comment if I found it to be worthy.)

Calgon, Take Me Away!

2008-01-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

[The title of this post was taken from an old TV commercial advertising Calgon brand bath salts/bubble bath. A woman, after a hard day of work and family retreats to her bath and plaintively cries the immortal, aforementioned quote. I have found the phrase quite useful to exclaim when having a bad day, week, month or year while alas I have never actually used the product.]

Do you ever have one of "those" days -you know, the one where everything seems to go wrong, or even if it doesn't go wrong, seems to knock the stuffing right out of you?
Well, I have had one of "those" except it wasn't just for a day, week or month. (one of the main reasons for silence in blogging lately.) It's not that it has been all wrong, but it seems that since the end of September, I've been pulled in myriad different directions with work being the main culprit. I won't get into the specifics of that, for one it would violate my self-imposed rule of careful blogging practice, however I will say my delight at being released from the "cave" was short-lived as I re-entered it for nearly the entire month of January.

December is usually a lot more laid back for me ever since I decided not to get caught up in the year end craziness. For me, this means I don't do Christmas paegents, I don't shop 'til I drop and I take the entire week before and after Christmas off from work. The plan this year took on a bit more -work demands meant only one day off before Christmas week and although I took time after to go up to Arrowhead, the extreme cold meant less rest while I tended the fireplace fire with frozen, wet firewood. My grand plan to work around my house with the rest of my time off was then surrendered to taking care of a miserable upper respiratory cold. My sickness, which prolonged my stay at home, was then interrupted by phone calls from work, asking me to come in. (Ugh!!!)

That crisis is now over, but there are more (and different ones) looming on the horizon. And of course, there are also those helpful people in my life who like to tell me to my face how what I'm doing is wrong (worse are the ones that go behind my back and complain about me to others, worst of all are the ones who try to get me in trouble with those in authority over me.) [Note to those people out there: I am acutely aware that I'm not perfect, that I make mistakes and I even lose my temper. HOWEVER, I am an adult and your "helpful words" that are beyond minor admonishment to do better, really don't accomplish anything more than succeeding in aggravating me. If you are tearing me down to build yourself up, NEWS FLASH: IT AIN'T WORKING.]

And this is why I say, "Calgon, Take Me Away!"

Christmas Is Coming!!!

2007-12-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought that this year would be really slow the last few weeks before Christmas break, things at work started to pick up a bit, threatening my attempt to take 3 whole weeks off. About the best I've ever been able to stretch the annual Christmas shutdown by taking a few additional vacation days has been 2.5 weeks total.
Until I know for certain, about the best I can predict right now is to take the 3 days after New Year for a full solid two weeks.
This semi-busy period at work and church, plus the various Christmas celebrations has inhibited my blogging of late too. So in an attempt to be brief here's what's going on in bullet point form...

- I'm back to teaching High School Sunday School(since October when the leadership turned over. We are studying the Gospel of Luke.
- I won't talk about work except to say, finished one thing, relaxed briefly, now in the thick of it on another task.
- Visted the mountains over Thanksgiving. Nice!
- My Betta fish in my office died :( (Probably from neglect/loneliness while I worked in another building for a while. Yes, he was fed regularly.)
- The weather here has been really crazy -lately it's been very cold at night.

More posting later....

The Hope Project

2007-11-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

My friend Karla forwarded me this link and asked me what I thought. If you ever wanted to get a pretty good overview of why Christians believe in God and follow Jesus, this is it. It costs you nothing but some of your time to watch it. Produced by the folks at Mars Hill, it uses some very beautiful images along with the pieces from some acclaimed Hollywood productions to tell the most important story ever. Visit and let me know what you think.

Blogging Again

2007-11-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

I have been officially released from the "cave" at work. Now, I can catch up on my blogging.

So many things have happened in the past two months. I am now back teaching High School Sunday School at church -we are studying the gospel of Luke right now. As part of the church's Wildwest Fall Fest, our Women's Ministries sponsored baking, sewing, craft-making, photography, chili-cookoff contests. Clueless me though forgot to take pictures of it and like many other things that needed my attention during my cavetime, the event didn't have the details I would've like to had seen. This will be rectified as I get back to a regular work/volunteer schedule.

My friends have missed my "rants" on issues that bug me and although I have some that I've been saving for a less busy time, I may hold off a bit longer. It seems that some folks appear to be offended by the things I say and write, even if it is not about them or even if it is both true and necessary for me to say such things. Note to those people: just because I say things that you disagree with, doesn't mean you get to act offended or censor my words. We live in a crazy time where some expect, rather unrealistically, I might add, to never be exposed to speech that is contrary to their deeply held feelings and beliefs. Nonsense! If you embrace immoral or unethical behavior, you can expect to hear from me that it is wrong. It never ceases to amaze me when individuals hear me say something in general about sin X, think that I am singling them out for reprobation. This is even when 25 to 50% of those listening are guilty of the same sin X behavior. If I tell a group of teenagers, for example, that I know they struggle with obeying their parents, it doesn't mean that I was thinking specifically of Sally and calling her out in front of her peers. (Sally, our mythical example, gets offended because she is doing this, has a guilty conscience like the rest of her peers who disobey their parents, and is looking for a justification for not feeling guilt -"Ann's just being mean to me".)

I could rant more on this, but as I said, I think I'll wait and blog some other stuff first.

Groundhog Day

2007-10-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's not really Groundhog Day and I'm not making reference to the movie with Bill Murray. It's just that my life is just too busy to blog these days with my work at the "cave" and like the groundhog during a long winter, I haven't see the light of day for almost a month.
So today, like the groundhog popping his head up to see if Winter's gone, I'm popping up my head on my blog to post.
Oops, three more weeks of "Winter" for me. I'll be back then to regular blogging.

Random August Thoughts

2007-08-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

- I've had a lot of blog visitors lately due to my posts on 22 Reasons Not To Get Married. Thanks to those who have linked here fron their blogs. From the comments I've received it sounds as if I've struck a chord with a few folks out there.

- Now that I'm back from my July vacations, I've been taking the time to do all my doctor, dentist appointments. I won't go into all the gory details but suffice it to say, some of these exams are part of my getting older. One I will mention that's not gross or too personal is my knee. For the past seven years or so, I've had a bump on my left knee caused from diving for a line drive while playing right field in our coed softball league. I landed on a plastic sprinkler head and so I have have this semi-hard knot just below my kneecap. Since I was seeing my doctor for a whole bunch of things, I decided to mention it to her -it only bothers me when I'm kneeling on the ground. "Well, you must have an x-ray of both knees," she insisted, thinking it to be a calcification. After several pics of BOTH knees, she decided (as I suggested) it was merely a fluid filled sac. She calls the Ortho who tells her its a pre-patella bursitis that cannot be drained but has to be surgically removed (in-office, though). I don't think it bothers me THAT much! I did see my x-rays though and for playing sports most of my life, I had pretty good space between my leg joints for an old lady of almost 47.

-Do you ever get frustrated that the bad guys seem to never "get theirs" in this life? I see this all the time -no wonder my favorite Bible chapter is Psalm 73 (Asaph's complaint). Every once in a while though, a little justice is served -the murderer is executed, the prideful/boastful are humbled, the thief is caught and punished, the slacker at work is fired, the bully gets pummeled. We are tempted in all these situations to gloat and say, "Ha, you had it coming." Recently, I've had the opportunity to observe a little "earthly justice" with my own eyes. (I'm not ready to describe the circumstances about that yet.) Part of me wants to be able to say, "I told you so," but that wouldn't be very Christ-like. Still, it does give me hope for those times when I complain that life seems so terribly unfair. God is still on the throne.

A New Blog to Check Out

2007-08-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last year, I mentioned my friends Daniel and Allison Felton who are missionaries with Christian Surfers in Alaska (yes, people do surf in Alaska). Well, Daniel has finally started his own blog.
Follow the link and check it out. He has a gorgeous picture posted.

Away at Children's Camp

2007-08-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

Ok this week I'm blogging over at the Lightseekers Camp blog I set up when our website crashed.

You can read of our exciting adventures there.

22 Reasons Why You Should Not Get Married (Or At Least Delay Doing So), Part 5

2007-07-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

21. You or your beloved have a problem staying in relationships. Perhaps one of you has been engaged or married multiple times and you keep wondering “what went wrong”. A pastor once told me that he would never perform a marriage ceremony for a divorced person if they didn’t know and understand the reason for the break-up. It was sort of a personal relationships version of the saying, “Those who do not learn the lessons of the past, are condemned to repeat them.” I didn’t fully understand what the minister meant until I had friend that exhibited this problem. When I met this lady, she had been married to one guy and engaged, to different men, a few times before that. For both of her engagements, she had called the weddings off because she had gotten “cold feet”. When the third guy proposed, she thought it would be better to get married regardless of the fact he was allegedly violent. Soon after I met her she became engaged and then married to yet another guy. Although she claimed the both divorces were the husbands’ fault, the characteristics that she later deemed unacceptable were there before they married. Another friend was married several times to women who always were the ones to leave him despite the fact that he didn’t abuse or cheat on any of them –they were more often the ones who did. What was it about these two divorced persons that caused them to marry and divorce over and over again? I think it was that they had issues in their own lives that caused them to choose the “wrong” mate –for the lady, it was problems on her part of commitment and understanding what a marriage entails; while for my male friend, he was so obsessed in being in a relationship, that he would pick losers who wanted to be married. Had either taken the time in counseling earlier to find out their “issues”, they would’ve been spared the heartache of a few of these broken marriages. Another truth I learned from the pastor friend, was that there is no such thing as the “truly innocent party”. Even where one spouse was a lying, cheating louse, the other may have contributed a tiny percent of the blame by ignoring the warning signs prior to or during marriage. Perhaps even inattention to the guilty partner, gave them a sense of justification, however wrongly, for their bad deeds. You must learn what part you played in the break-up even if it was relatively minor, otherwise that scenario could be replayed.

22. You can serve or live for Christ better as a single person. This is my own number one reason for not being married.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7,

“I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.” (New Living Translation)

Now I do believe that for some folks in ministry, being married has an advantage –I don’t believe that I, as a single woman, would be taken credibly if I were to teach a class on marital life to group of young married couples, for example. I do have flexibility in my schedule that has allowed me to takes weeks off to spend at camp with youth and children; I don’t have a husband to ask if it’s okay if I spend every night out this week at church either. I am also not tempted to trust in a spouse to supply needs that only God should be supplying (on the other hand, my temptation is to rely on me instead). My guess is that I probably wouldn’t be a very faithful and devoted Christian since I tend to be somewhat single-minded in my attention; unless my husband would really hold my feet to the fire spiritually, I would find it easier to rationalize away Christian commitment as taking away from “family time”.

OK, so I’m done for now with my list of reasons not to get married. A friend who reads my blog said this in an email, “That was way too easy … there are as many reasons not to get married as there are dysfunctional people. Can you name as many reasons "to" get married?” I told her that since people seem to be constantly running headlong into marriage, the ones considering it already have theirs –they could probably list dozens of “why to’s.” I have nothing against people getting married if they are healthy, mature, prudent men and women who love God and each other, and have decided to make a lifetime commitment, as best friends, to build and strengthen one another. They are couples who really know what it means to be a family and the Christian community is enriched by their relationship. However with divorce rates in the Church approaching (even sometimes exceeding) those in the secular world, someone needs to ask why are we so quick to get married and see marriage alone as the source of human fulfillment. Hopefully, these postings might cause someone getting married for all the wrong reasons to reconsider and postpone until those “reasons” reflect the deliberations of wise adults. It might also give encouragement to the single who feels the tug of war between the single life and living up to societal expectations to get married.

Now, I’m ready for the comments!

22 Reasons Why You Should Not Get Married (Or At Least Delay Doing So), Part 4

2007-07-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't blog on the weekend because I was at a funeral Saturday and then had to prepare for VBS (it starts today). Here's the fourth installment of my series:

16. You have to give up one of your “non-negotiables” to marry your beloved. By this, I refer to those lists we all make of what sort of person or characteristics of them that we would never accept or those we could not do without. These might be called issues of compatibility. I had a dear friend that told me that she would only marry a Christian guy who was committed to full-time Christian ministry (as either a pastor or missionary). Well, she met this guy who wasn’t even a believer and fell in love because he paid her the proper attention that Christian men didn’t. Day by day, the compromises on her part, naturally became more frequent until finally she abandoned her own faith completely. Although she did not end-up marrying him (he had become physically abusive and she finally decided she could do better), it was a very difficult and painful lesson. Another friend started dating a guy who, although he was a Christian, was less than enthusiastic about following Christ; he was also a smoker (she really disliked smoking) and was not a fan of having children. After a short courtship and against the advice of friends and family, the couple married. Are you surprised to hear that he didn’t quit smoking, was a lousy father and that they eventually divorced? Don’t settle for someone less just because you’re getting older and you’re afraid no one “better” will come along.

17. You haven’t been dating very long and don’t know your spouse-to-be very well. Speaking of short courtship, I’ve heard of people meeting, falling in love “at first sight” and then getting married right away. (This premise, by the way, is the story-line for the old WWII-era movie, “Orchestra Wives”, and it led to some painful moments for the “spontaneous newlyweds” in the drama.) I have not heard what percentage of these quickie relationships ends in divorce, but I suppose that if you start off with a steadfast commitment to stay married no matter what, the success rate might be higher. Still, marrying someone you know little or nothing about seems to me a highly risky endeavor. How would you know what their values, hopes and dreams are? What are their views on the “big ones mentioned in part one? I once heard that friendships take over 100 hours of quality time to develop and that the best friendships need more than 1000 hours. Assuming one spent 4 hours a day in deep conversation (sitting quietly next to someone in a crowded theater or ballpark doesn’t count towards this time), it would take 25 days to become friends and 250 days of this interaction to become best friends, the sort of level of relationship one would need in order to marry. (I am a big believer in that you and your spouse should be best friends!). 250 days is almost nine months of daily interaction prior to getting married. Even more challenging is when you have never dated before. Getting a variety of casual dating experiences can help you figure out what you need in a relationship and how to determine if someone is compatible with you or not – not that going out with bozos in order to be able to compare against the “keepers” is what you want either. My advice is this: learn to develop healthy friendships with members of the opposite sex; from that group, you will eventually find a mate.

18. You are trying to make someone else jealous, get their attention or get revenge on a person for rejecting you. You have got to be kidding! That sounds like something from an early 19th century romance novel (see Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte’ or Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen). If you’ve heard of either of these two stories, you know that things do not end well for those who marry this way. Oh, grow up and get a life! The person you really wanted didn’t want you so don’t ruin someone else’s life in a futile attempt to get yours.

19. You or your beloved can’t cut the apron strings or give up being Daddy’s girl. If either partner has a problem with the whole “leave and cleave” thing that God says in Genesis 2 needs to happen, get out now! I have known couples where this situation was so severe, that the marriage broke up very quickly. A guy who takes his mother’s side against wife should not be surprised if she leaves him and takes the kids along with her. One fellow’s mother absolutely despised her future daughter-in-law and constantly encouraged her son to break up with the girl. Rather than respectfully telling his mom to knock it off, the young man would then tell his girlfriend what his mother had said about her. When the girl complained about his passive reaction to his mother’s vitriol, he merely shrugged. They married anyway, but things between the two women only got worse while the son felt torn between them. Sadly, they ended up divorcing soon after the wedding. Daddy’s girls can be just as bad potential spouses when they seek the father’s love, attention, respect and help more than their husband’s – no man wants to compete for that against his father-in-law.

20. You don’t have the money to get married. Just as I said that you should not get married to get money, don’t get married if you don’t have the money to pay for a wedding or set up a household. When I say paying for a wedding, what I mean is couples who choose to incur thousands of dollars of personal debt to host the wedding ceremony of a lifetime. Anybody who thinks this way is a dope and is not worthy of getting married. Equally dopey are couples who have no clue how they will support themselves afterward. It is also not a good idea to get married if one partner has lost or about to lose their job if you were counting on that person’s income to make ends meet. A relative of mine married a man who quit/got fired just before the wedding. “No problem, “he claimed, “I’ll just find a new one.” In the meantime his bride was forced to support them while he looked. In the two years time they were married, he didn’t work much at all but continued to spend as if he did. Due to this and his other irresponsible behaviors, she threatened to leave him if he did not change. He told her he had no intention of doing anything differently, so she left. One doesn’t need to be rich in order to get married, but one must have a reasonable plan of earning a wage that is appropriate for one’s standard of living. For years, I have heard people say, “We don’t need money, we’ll just live on love.” (A Christianized-version is “Don’t worry, God will provide.”) Well, love does not pay bills nor do creditors accept it as a form of payment. As for the “God will provide” mentality, the Bible says that the man who does not provide for his family, “has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Tomorrow should be the final installment of my series....

22 Reasons Why You Should Not Get Married (Or At Least Delay Doing So), Part 3

2007-07-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here's the third installment of my advice:

11. You are much younger/older than your intended. Age gaps of ten or more years between partners are sources of additional relationship stress that need to be considered –is he/she searching for a parental figure? Does he/she prefer sweet young things because he/she is too immature (or shallow, only focused on physical appearance) to relate with people their own age? A difference of more than ten years often means that the two lovebirds were born and raised in two different generations with all that it entails culturally and experientially. I have know quite a few couples where this was the case (in truth, my own parents were 25 and 34 when they got married and they were from different generations, for example). Can you imagine sitting around with your friends talking about your favorite “Back to the Future” movie when your beloved comes in and refers to Michael J. Fox as that “old guy with Parkinson’s”? This generation gap is particularly true when one partner in the relationship is very young (i.e. in their teens) or very old (Howard Marshall and Anna Nicole Smith, for example). The teenager is still in adolescence and has the most significant amount of emotional/mental maturation still ahead or him/her. (Were you the same person at 25 that you were at 18 or 19? For the 30 year old marrying a 19 or 20 year old, which one of you is more likely to have outgrown the other?) What about those May/December romances? Well, it might seem cute for a while, perhaps even advantageous for reasons of money or lifestyle –what 25 year old can afford the perks that come with being in an established career or having an investment portfolio for twenty years? – will it remain fun years later when you are middle-aged and caring for your old geezer of a husband’s arthritis or urinary incontinence? Perhaps, you will get dumped when he trades you in for a “newer” model.

12. You are using marriage to rectify a mistake. I once had a guy try to con me into sex by saying that “it would be okay if we did it and then got married later.” No, it doesn’t work that way – compounding the sin of sex outside marriage with the stupidity of thinking that subsequent marriage to your fellow offender somehow negates that sin doesn’t make it better. Yet, I have heard some really dumb girls actually believe that had to marry a guy they did not love because they had fooled around with him. Even more dumb is to marry a guy just because you are pregnant (ever hear of adoption???). Having a shotgun wedding? People will never find out (wink, wink) that’s the reason you’re really getting married. Consider this, how do you think your children will react when the figure out why their parents got married? Do you think that they will have lots of confidence that you are married because you love one another or because you had an obligation to meet? What does that do to their sense of security? I knew a couple who got married because “they had to” –they hastily eloped to “make things right”. However, she later lost the baby and not long after, her jerk of a husband filed for divorce. It didn’t cover up anything and merely demonstrated what a cad he was in the beginning to pressure her into sex. A third really stupid scenario is the man/woman that has an affair that breaks up a marriage and then feels the need to marry their paramour to try to regain some sense of respectability. It’s not happening!

13. You (or your beloved) are recently coming out of a broken relationship. You broke-up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, got divorced, were widowed –you are on the rebound. “Recently” can mean months or years if you are still moping around about the loss. How can you tell? How often do they mention their former love’s name or compare you to them? Rebound relationships never last; when the hurting one has healed, they will move on to someone else and leave you hurting instead. Consider them “transitional relationships” only and be prepared to move on.

14. Your minor children object to you remarrying this person. This might seem extremely harsh but it’s not as strict as radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s advice that if you have a child, you don’t even date until they turn 18 whether the child objects to it or not. It is not fair to bring someone into a family as a step-whatever if it will ruin the lives of the children God has entrusted you to care for. I know we have this fantasy from the Brady Bunch television show that the kids will all get along with one another and will call the parents, “Mom” or “Dad”; the reality, based on statistics, is that children in blended families are more likely to have problems and be victims of abuse. You might say, “My children need a new mother or father, it’s not my fault my spouse died or left me.” That may be true, but remember what I said about using marriage to rectify a mistake or right a wrong –it tends to create more problems, than it solves.

15. One of you is severely broken. Remember what I said about “baggage” and expecting personality/behavior changes after the wedding? Try to get healing before pursuing the relationship any further. If you are an addict or an abusive person, get help right away. Do not get married until then if sexual, physical or child abuse has occurred. If you are mentally ill or emotionally disturbed, get that under control first. If you are sick with a life-threatening disease, get treatment for that. This isn’t Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal in “Love Story” for gosh sakes. Marriage isn’t going to make it all better. A knew a guy with only a few months to live that proposed marriage to one of his close female friends (they weren’t a couple at the time). His friend told him that she didn’t see the purpose of getting married just to say that you are married –it’s not like God stands at the pearly gates and asks if you were. He didn’t need her to take care of him either as he was nearly always hospitalized by then, but it was one of those things on his “to do list” before he died. Where was the commitment to her on his part that is necessary for marriage?

Hold on, still at least one more to come...

22 Reasons Why You Should Not Get Married (Or At Least Delay Doing So), Part 2

2007-07-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

Continued from yesterday

You should not get married if:

6. You are of a different ethnic group or from a different culture than your spouse-to-be. Why that sounds racist!!! Not at all, even in today’s overly PC society, there are still issues to be resolved (more baggage) from marrying outside your clan. I’m not saying never marry someone from a different group, but consider how those differences will play out in the lives of your parents, your extended family and eventually your children. Different cultures have different expectations and traditions. An American man married a woman from a different culture (she was Asian). Her parents felt that he was lazy because he did not work as many hours at his job as men form their culture did. They also viewed him as not being as respectful of his elders as they would like and that he did not teach that respect to the children. Quietly, but persistently her parents urged their daughter to leave him and return to their culture. In another situation, the bride was the outsider to the dominant culture the couple lived in. His mother and aunts were distressed that she did not know how to prepare their ethnic dishes or celebrate their traditions. These women certainly let their son and nephew know that she was not “a proper wife” for him and did not accept their offspring as authentic [their ethnic group]. Even when both families are “Americanized”, issues of race and the problems bi-racial children that are the produced by these marriages face are not trivial - identify, understand and work through each of them.

7. You are getting married to escape something/someone. This is always a very bad reason-not to escape a dysfunctional home, not to get away from an old beau that is stalking you. You are not Rapunzel or Snow White being carried away from the evil witch by the handsome prince. Get a job and move out on your own if you need to get away. Better yet, get therapy and discover why you are so messed up or why you allow yourself to be victimized still as an adult. Do not marry to escape or rescue someone else, you will most likely end up divorced once you are no longer in need/needed.

8. You are getting married to get something you don’t have –self esteem, money, status, sex, children, power, or a green card. Do I really have to explain why these by themselves are bad reasons to get married? They may end up as being fringe benefits of being married, but real good reasons are all about commitment, sharing, love, integrity, friendship. While society has quit equating getting married with having sex, Christians (or at least most of them hopefully) still confine sex to marriage. Yet, even in our sex obsessed culture, pressuring couples into early marriage in order to maintain chastity is nuts, as is the notion that everyone needs to get married and have kids in order to be “normal”. For non-Christians, having children outside of wedlock is no longer taboo anyway. But having or adopting children should not be just the latest fashion trend (despite what Britney Spears or Angelina Jolie think). The last bad reason mentioned above, obtaining a green card, will get you in trouble with the law if they catch you.

9. You are getting married because everybody else is or you feel pressure from society to do so. Didn’t your mother ever say to you, “Would you jump off a cliff just because everyone else did?” I know our society, especially our church culture, puts a premium on being married by a certain age (although in the past twenty years, more and more are delaying marriage past age 30 for men and women). I also know the pressure young women feel when: a) your first group of friends get married post high school and you’ve never even had a boyfriend; b) you’re your second wave of friends are all getting married after college –seems like you are always the bridesmaid, never the bride; c) you are approaching age 30 or 35 or 40 and are worried that time is running out on being both a wife and mother. For the first two groups, I’ve heard girls refer to going to college as obtaining their MRS degree or of Christian colleges that quietly promote, “Ring by Spring or your money back!” It’s too bad that our culture isn’t promoting becoming a mature, responsible individual instead. How about the church focusing on developing godly men and women who love and serve Jesus regardless of their marital status?

10. You are not mature. This is along the lines of what I was getting at in the previous reason. I’ve seen far too many marriages of teenagers lately –people who are still in school, who have no money saved, who often have low –wage jobs, not real careers. They often have no clue about housing costs and paying bills. They have never taken care of themselves, much less a spouse (and Lord help them if a baby were to come along too soon). People who might consider moving in with their parents after they got married just “until we get on our feet” have no business walking down the aisle. Stand on your own two feet first, then make the wedding march.

Still more on tap....

22 Reasons Why You Should Not Get Married (Or At Least Delay Doing So), Part 1

2007-07-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve had it! I’ve heard the story of yet another Bridezilla (see Emily Yoffe's article in Slate magazine, thanks to Jan for the link. I love the phrase "acquired situational narcissism")emerging as she tries to engineer her perfect wedding day without regard to her friends/family needs or what her marriage to her beloved would really be like after the honeymoon was over. The problem with many of these Bridezillas is that they think they are only preparing for a party (the ceremony and reception) and are not anyways nearly prepared for the lifetime that ensues –major issues that should be discussed and decided upon before the ceremony are set aside while choosing china patterns or wedding color schemes. For this reason, I have decided, from my position as a never-married older single, to give a list of why these ladies should “call the whole thing off” or at least delay getting hitched. I'll give you my first five reasons today.

You should not get married if:

1. You are unequally yoked. What do I mean? The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” (New King James Version). People have taken that to mean, “Christians, don’t marry non-Christians.” I could leave it right there as it is, but I also think you’re headed for trouble if you and your beloved are both Christians, but at different places spiritually. I have known many a case where the “Christian husband” has no desire for his own spiritual growth; he may be content with going to church on Sunday and seeing that his children are given spiritual instruction, but don’t expect him to have his own time with God, study the Bible or volunteer in ministry. He may even resent his wife if she does these things. (Note: I have also seen the wife be the Christian dud married to the Christian stud.) If you want to truly share your faith with your spouse, then only marry someone who shares your faith and faith practices before you get engaged.

2. You are expecting a personality or behavior change after the wedding. Someone very dear to me married a scoundrel expecting him to turn into a saint once she had the opportunity as his wife to “change him”. Did it work? NO!!!! He remained a rat through most of their many long years of marriage. This is especially true if your beloved has an addiction or compulsive personality disorder. The drugs, alcohol, gambling, cheating, lying will nearly always win out. “Lazy loafs” do not suddenly become up-and-at-em, go-getters just because they get a marriage license and ring. People who are violent and hit others will probably get violent and hit you. Sex addicts and perverts will be what they are. Yes, Christ can transform the vilest offender but only if they truly desire to be transformed –if you will marry the creep, warts and all, without this transformation, why should they bother to make the change?

3. You haven’t discussed and decided on the “big ones”. These are: handling money (who does what and how), having children (how many/when, family planning, child discipline), power (who makes what decisions). Then there are career choices, living arrangements, dealing with in-laws, sleep schedule to name a few. A woman wanting 10 kids has no business marrying a guy who wants none; it’s unfair to both and manipulative to try to “renegotiate the deal” afterwards. A know a couple like that – the husband lied about wanting to have children to the woman he married. She did manage to con him into having four of them, but he was a lousy and distant father. I know a morning person married to a night owl and it has been hard for them to adapt to each other’s schedule. Get these issues out on the table and don’t think that you can get them to have a change of heart.

4. Your family and friends despise your beloved. How is that everyone but you thinks she/he’s bad news? Why can’t they see what you see? Perhaps they have an objectivity towards this person you don’t. Can so many have it all wrong? Proverbs 15:22 (New Living Translation) says, “Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success.” I think if your intended’s presence sets off warning bells from the people who know you best, pay attention. Also be wary of your relationship supporters who approve of your relationship because it affirms their own, perhaps poor, choice in a spouse. It is not the best endorsement to have a woman married to an alcoholic encourage you to do the same, for instance.

5. You are unaware of the existence or are unwilling to carry each other’s “baggage”. Baggage is that catch all word for prior relationships, marriages, children from the above said relationships, life traumas, bad childhood, the past, phobias, addictions, illnesses, conditions, compulsions, etc. Every person brings some amount of baggage into any relationship –some bring little overnight bags, perhaps a break-up or two with a high school sweetie. The bags get a bit bigger with the death of a parent when you were young, to a failed “starter marriage” to a point where some bring entire shipping containers into their relationship- three or four failed marriages, yours-mine-and-ours families, stories or repeated sexual or child abuse and histories of alcoholism. We are told in Galatians 6:2 to “share each other’s burdens” but sometimes the enormity and weight of these issues is just too much to bear. Perhaps the one with these grave issues needs to deal with them in counseling BEFORE you try to move them in under one roof. Allow time to heal if wounds are fresh or new.

More to follow....

Nerd Test

2007-07-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

So I took this Nerd Test:

It rates me as a Nerd God. Is anyone surprised?

5 Things About Jesus

2007-06-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

So I've been tagged by Laura for this meme: 5 Things About Jesus.

1. Jesus is the most well-known person who has every lived but none of us alive have even a clue about what He looks like. I was reminded of this when I was looking for a particular picture of Jesus to use as a sermon background. Some people depict Him as lily white with blond hair and blue eyes, but I've also seen Black Jesus, Asian Jesus -few of them look like Middle Eastern Jew Jesus.

2. Jesus is incredibly patient and restrained. You know I wouldn't be happy if people called me a devil or treated me with disrespect. I certainly wouldn't have stood for people beating me, mocking me or crucifying me if I had the power to strike them all dead. People still ridicule Him today and yet He holds back His righteous anger.

3. Jesus is not impressed by wealth, good-looks, status or fame. Instead, He has a special fondness for the humble, the meek, the lowly, the brokenhearted, the downcast, what we would call the dregs of society. Those that need and seek Him, will surely find Him.

4. Jesus is the most courageous person ever to have lived. To know, from eternity past, that He would have to live on earth as a human and then die a horrible death in order to save His rebellious creatures would take far more bravery than any warrior, statesman or martyr ever exhibited.

5. Jesus loves me. The most profound line in all of Christian hymnody: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." This truth changes the course of my life for all eternity and yet He does so for reasons completely unknown to me other than His very nature being love. It is profound, yet personal and intimate.

Find Another Dating Pool, Part 2

2007-06-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

A year ago, I posted on the tasteless phenomena of teachers dating their students (see post here). I don't know if it's because schools are letting out for the summer, but another one of these icky relationships has been reported in the news this week. Seems this 16 year old track star married her 40 year old coach on Monday. ABC News reported that her parents had gone to school authorities and to the man's pastor to get them to intervene to no avail (there doesn't seem to be law against this behavior in North Carolina where this took place.) What is even more bizarre is that after they were unsuccessful in their bid to stop this, the parents went ahead and gave her written consent to marry the weirdo.

Most everyone connected with the story agreed that the relationship was not right (77% of those in ABC's on-line poll thought it was wrong, too), but they all seemed powerless to do anything. Really? Nothing they could've done? Oh I don't know, the school could've fired the guy for having a romantic relationship with a student, the man's pastor could've thrown him out of the church and refused to perform the wedding, but most of all, the parents could've refused to sign and made her wait until she was 18. The guy did resign from his job, but only after he got the girl to marry him.

The expert quoted in the ABC News story was asked if the girl was old enough to decided: "With most teenagers, they're not sure yet who's who and what's what and what should be done," said Henry Paul, author of the book "Is My Teenager OK?" "It's obviously up to the adult figure to set the boundaries." And that was my point from a year ago: adults in a position of authority should be prohibited from having romantic relationships with their students/counselees/clients/patients/parishioners -period. The adults who allow these relationships to continue share somewhat in the blame for the inevitable marital failure when the young person finally wakes up and wonders how they were sucked in by their Svengali.

And You Know Me How?

2007-06-18T00:47:00.000-07:00

In the previous post, I talked about trying to remain incognito. Speaking of being recognized by strangers, my father and his buddy recently went to Hume Lake Christian Camp Fishermen's Retreat. Now this shocked me on so many levels, one, that he'd drive all the way there for a Christian Men's conference -see my reason below as referring to the distance. Second, that he'd go on a fishing weekend (since when does he like to fish?). Third, that he would go away from his wife and business for relaxation. The one that surprised me the most was the following story he told me.

As the guys were checking themselves in at the Registrar, my dad gives his last name (BTW, our last name is very unique) and the young lady waiting on them says, "Are you related to Ann?" "Yes," he tells her, "I'm her father." Of course, he doesn't bother to ask her name or how she knows me (For those who don't know California, Hume Lake is a seven hour drive away from me. Consequently, we haven't gone there as a church for over a decade, so how this girl knows me or who she is, is anyone's guess.) I hope she knows me not for some infamous action on my part, but because I possibly influenced/taught her in youth ministry. The only "unsettling" issue is that I tend to know whereabouts of most of the people I feel I've positively influenced and I've been wracking my brains to try to figure out who it might be.

On an encouraging note, for years I've been known as Roy So-and so's daughter; now he got to be known as Ann's father. Amusing.

Bowling For Father's Day

2007-06-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, so rather than just going out to eat for Father's Day, my new brother-in-law suggested to my sister that we all go bowling to celebrate. Hey, I like bowling, I used to bowl in lunchtime work league and so I own my own ball and shoes, let's go as long as this is fine with Daddy.
She called my dad and his wife and they agreed. We go to this new upscale bowling alley called the Lucky Strike Lanes. But this place is not your greasy spoon diner type food, it's like a nightclub after 9pm with DJ's and plasma screen TVs. Pretty good food, but I did terrible at bowling, even my sister with her long, manicured nails did better than I did in the second game. Daddy did okay for a guy of 82, but tweaked a hamstring (his wife Sara said that he had already tweaked it walking around the farm yesterday) and sat out the second game.

You can see some pics from this on my Flickr down on the right side or read Laura's blog for her view of it. There's even a picture there of me! [Something you will rarely see here so I can remain somewhat incognito ; -) ]

Splat Happens

2007-06-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

In my long career working in the Aerospace industry, I have noticed a phenomenon that I have titled "Splat Syndrome". Splat is what happens when a deer or some other animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, refuses (or is unable by some mental paralysis) to move out of the way before it is too late. The deer goes splat against the vehicle.

In Splat Syndrome, a person knows that bad news is coming their way potentially and yet, for whatever reason, they are unable to make the necessary corrective steps to avoid being devastated by such news. (note: there are some catastrophes that are unavoidable, but I'm referring to those over which we do have a measure of control.)

I first observed Splat Syndrome over 20 years ago when I was a young engineer. I saw some fellows get layoff notices and watched them complain for the next two months about having to find a new job while they did nothing towards finding one.

One guy I observed a few years later, had been warned for months that layoffs were coming for his position and that he was particularly in danger due to his low seniority. When the layoff notice finally came, he was given an additional three months (with pay!) to find a new position. One of the supervisiors lined him up with an interview at another nearby company. That company offered him a better job with more pay that he turned down because he thought maybe he could find something even better. Another co-worker turned him on to a civil service job with even more pay, less work and excellent job security. He had successfully interviewed for that position and only needed to take an easy written exam to secure the job. Instead, he was over an hour late for the test, which he could have walked to from his house - so no excuses about about transportation, and decided to blow it off. After he finally lost his job, he still remained in denial about needing to actually send out resumes, go on interviews and show up on time. Unemployment eventually ran out and he was forced to move in with his family. SPLATTTTTTT.

Every once in a while, I see the same patterns of behavior repeated over and over by different people - not just when they received layoff notices, but sometimes when they were forced to move to a new apartment, or even when they'd had been warned that their job behavior needed to change. They instead were gripped with this paralysis and rather than doing what any sensible person would do, they were run over by circumstances and left wondering as to how this happened.

I've recently observed a person I know, fortunately not at my company, about to become splatted. Those around them have warned that things need to change -the boss, their co-workers, even the person's friends have tried, all to no avail. The individual acts as though they are daring the boss to fire them and perhaps they are -the soon-to-be splattee shows everyone around them that they no longer desire to work there and they are looking for a career change.
Too bad that they don't have the fortitude and integrity to do it themselves, but again, maybe Splat Syndrome really is some sort of mental glitch that keeps them locked into a terrible fate. Who knows?

I Wonder???

2007-05-27T00:03:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was reading a young (approximately 30ish), single, Christian woman's post where she was writing about her desire to get married and have children ASAP. I won't link to it here, mainly because her identity and actual post are not relevant to this particular discussion. For one thing, I know many young women who are in the exactly same situation that she's in -the old "biological clock" is ticking away and no decent prospects for a Christian husband are in sight. Each of them could've written the exact same words with the same lament and sense of urgency.

As I've ministered to high school, college age, and young singles for over 25 years, I have heard these words over and over again. I've seen some find good guys and get married, just the way they envisioned life for themselves, but I've also seen those for whom the "right man" never came; so they are left with either settling for someone far less than their ideal or suffering in their singleness. Since singleness is called "the gift that nobody wants", I know far more of these ladies who settled for Mr. Wrong and now are either single again after divorce or are miserable in their marriage.

As I approach the point of being nearly 20 years beyond that life stage, I reflect on my own life and whether or not it has turned out as I expected. Of course 20 years ago I didn't think that I would still be single either. But as life, and I believe God, soon showed me, not everyone is meant to be married or have kids. That truth in and of itself is more than okay although I didn't come by it in an instant. For me, not having a mother around when I entered my twenties, probably took some of the pressure off. It also helped to have a strong grandmother who spent most of her adult life without a man. Even my maternal grandmother, although married for more than 50 years, saw the advantage of only marrying for an outstanding godly man over settling with any old guy that showed an interest. That fact helped me to focus on building my career and ministries instead.

I think our society, particularly our Christian community still puts a premium on becoming a wife and mother as necessary to one's being and calling. From the time we are little girls, we are programmed to aspire to be a wife and mother. Even career women are told that they can "have it all " by juggling these roles as necessary. In reality, we seem to gloss over Paul's recommendation in 1 Corinthians 7 that singles stay that way to better serve the Lord. It is not helpful when singles' and young adult's ministries are designed around helping them find mates rather than becoming a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. (For more on this subject, I found Kristin Aune's book Single Women to be a great resource.)

Has my life turned out the way I'd dreamt it 10, 20 or even 30 years ago? In some ways, yes, in others, no. Thirty years ago, while I was in high school, I only thought about being a rich engineer (an oxymoron I know now); I got the engineer part right and compared to a lot of my peers from high school I'm doing pretty well. However, that was a life planned that had no room for God in it. A few years later, much of that thinking had turned a different direction with a new focus on Christ. I think that girl would be surprised at the present one that I was not further along in Christ-like behavior and godliness. Somehow that envisioned one would be highly regarded as a Christian speaker, wife and mother (who just happened to have an engineering degree, too). The me of 10-20 years ago by then would not have been disappointed to be single still, but would be sorry to hear that I was out of youth ministry again (perhaps, she'd wonder why her church would still be choosing people in leadership that would initiate such things). Oh, and I'd have travelled more and done more interesting things too.

Well, what does the future ten years from now hold? Should the Lord tarry, I will be retired and free to minister full-time on my retirement money and investments. But, the thing is we don't know, we are not guaranteed of tomorrow and you know what they say about the best laid plans... The point is, we don't (or aren't supposed to) live life in an holding pattern, treading water in place until the right man, the right job, the right ministry or the right opportunity comes along. God, like the master in the parable of the talents, has given us the wherewithall to serve Him and live life to its fullest in the now. I am responsible for what I do or don't do with it. That applies equally to my 30 something gal pals who are desperate for Mr. Right to come along and change their life. If he comes, great, if not, you will have helped to build God's kingdom or reflected Christ's love. There are no regrets for that life.

The Ends Do Not Justify The Means?

2007-05-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

I came across this article while on the Yahoo! site. Someone asked if one's personal beliefs make it okay to commit a crime. While there may be circumstances when civil disobedience may be in order such as a refusal to obey unjust law - the lunch counter demonstrations and Rosa Parks during the civil rights movement, conscientious objectors refusing to go war, Christians refusing to obey totalitarian laws prohibiting prayer, owning Bibles or meeting together are examples of this, there is a difference between refusing to obey a law and actively planning action to subvert the justice system or government.

The woman in the article chose the path of subverting the justice system by committing perjury and fraud in order to try to get this man on death row. She chose to commit a crime that undermined the integrity of the criminal justice system out of her belief that the Death Penalty is wrong. I don't share her views on the Death Penalty but I also disagree with anti-abortionist that bomb clinics or assassinate clinic workers. Where these tactics differ from the civil disobedience described earlier is that the civil disobedient refuse to DO something such as sit at the back of the bus or they prefer to disobey man to obey God's command while the others do something considered immoral because they do not trust working within the system to change the law they disagree with. The ones committing crimes to gain their ends are also trying to avoid detection/prosecution of their unlawful actions while those who are committing acts of civil disobedience disobey openly and are willing to accept the consequences of their actions.

Paul writes in Romans 13:

"Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honor you. The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong. So you must submit to them, not only to avoid punishment, but also to keep a clear conscience.
Pay your taxes, too, for these same reasons. For government workers need to be paid. They are serving God in what they do. Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them, and give respect and honor to those who are in authority."

The idea here is that Christians need obey government authorities and will suffer the consequences when they don't. Some people point the American Revolution as an example of Christians not obeying Paul's admonition, but these revolutionaries did attempt to redress their issues through normal political means -they resorted to rebellion when those peaceful means resulted in more repression from an occupying government. The Colonists formed their own government and the Revolutionary War was fought under the direction of the Continental Congress. Even then, as we read in the Declaration of Independence, they were prepared to sacrifice their "Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor". This not the same as bombing abortion clinics, committing fraud or committing acts of terror.

Answering The Call

2007-05-03T01:33:00.000-07:00

No, faithful blog readers, I am not joining the army nor am I going into ministry full-time, I going to explain where I've been this past month instead of here blogging about my most exciting life. Actually, I haven't been gone anywhere location-wise, it's just that I have been putting my punditry to use elsewhere on the Internet.

About a month ago, I started exploring Yahoo! Answers Religion and Spirituality Forum (now before you think I went off and joined some cult, read more). I noticed that people on there were asking some pretty serious questions about God, Jesus, faith, the Bible, Christianity -you name it. I saw a question someone asked "Do you think if there weren't any Atheists, there would be more peace?" and noticed that there were a lot of atheists, agnostics and unbelievers giving answers, but the "Christians" either gave lame answers or were out-numbered. That got me going and I've been answering questions since then. Now in truth, there are some pretty outrageous inflammatory q&a there that I mostly avoid, but there are some sincere inquiries from people of all faiths (or none). What is scary is that there are also Mormons, JW's, pagans, and Muslims trying very hard to convert people to their belief systems. Although it is a challenge, I see it as an opportunity to share what I believe, giving an answer for the hope that is within me. Since I am no longer teaching youth, I have taken it as a means to instruct and counsel those who are genuine seekers. I don't kid myself into thinking that I've been reaching a lot of people with my answers, but it is thought provoking and you know, if I can touch at least one life with the Gospel, great.

I answered a Muslim woman's question last week where she wanted to understand if God was sacrificing Himself, to appease Himself to right the wrongs done against Him. I told her the story of the young person caught speeding and forced to appear before the judge. The speeder couldn't pay the fine, but the judge took off his robe, pulled out his wallet and paid the fine, because the speeder was his kid. I explained how Jesus did that very thing by His death, paying the price of our wrong doing. She said that it was the first time in 25 years that she understood Jesus' sacrifice. Wow!

Now, I can't hang there all the time - I have a job to do and ministries to serve in, but it is good to know that this one small thing can used to move a person along in their journey.

Ooh, time for bed; it's way too late and I have much to do tomorrow. I have a whole bunch of things to blog about too. One is about a lady who committed fraud and perjury to get a Death Row Inmate off because she's opposed to the Death Penalty. Another is about some people who have written to me complaining that I'm a poor example of Christ in my blog. Plus there's things to share about some of my other ministries.

March Madness

2007-03-26T18:55:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not going to post about men's college hoops (although I am pleased that UCLA is in the Final Four) but just about what's been going on this past month.

March is that incredibly long month halfway between my first paid holiday of the year (New Year's Day) and the next one (Memorial Day). For those of you who think that's totally uncool, remember I do get 13 or 14 paid holidays a year -just none of them are in the first quarter of the year. It is hard though, to hear about your friends getting MLK day, President's Day off while you have to go off to work. March is also the month that my regular sick leave gets zeroed out so the notion of taking a "mental health day" is not so attractive either. Taking a day or two of vacation is possible, but it seems dumb to use it "just because" and not go anywhere.

Anyway, in the midst of all this my life has had enough craziness and things to get me down that it's time to blog about them. Consider:

1. Actually it happened last month, but I'm now only recovering from the laughability of it. You see, just about a year ago my work group moved out of our building (and our lovely hardwalled offices) into what's called "the factory", in an area with a cubicle farm that holds several hundred people. The area we were moving into had been largely vacant for several months prior and the cubicles themselves (carpeting, paint) were in need of repair. We were told that there was no money for upgrades and that we had to vacate our old building as quickly as possible so that the leased people could be turned back to save money. So we moved and made the best of our surroundings.

Within three months after we settled in, word came that we would have to move out "temporarily" while they did the carpet and paint. They would do a sort of musical chairs -one group would move out and double up with others in an unaffected area while the cubicles were taken down, new carpet laid and then everything put back together. So six months after we had originally moved in the first group did that very thing and two months later moved back to their new digs, this time with the second group bunking in with them just before Christmas. Two months later (and almost a year exactly from when we first moved here) we were back where we started. Go figure.

2. Sometimes I think my church is inhabited by lunatics. The things we do for the short run seem to make little sense over the long run. There is always the tension between demanding excellence versus giving grace (I'm applying this to quality of effort). It makes me wonder why/how the same people who would not allow a plumber to come out and leave a faucet still leaking after they paid for a repair are folks who allow ministry decisions/leaders that are just barely okay or make excuses for failures like, "well, they did their best", "it's all we can do for now". (I don't have as much a problem when a person really tries and fails- what I do have a big problem is when they don't really give it their best effort and it fails, that there are some who make excuses for the other's lack of diligence, laziness or downright sinfulness.) I do not believe that's giving grace, something that we as Christians need to do with one another constantly, but rather it is an enabling of co-dependent behavior. It frustrates me to no end. (BTW, if you think I'm talking about you right now, I probably am!!!! See yourself and knock it off. Jesus deserves your best, not your excuses.)

Ok, that's it. I think I had more when I started out but I forgot what they were. When I remember, I'll post some more.

Our Women's Retreat - The Chocolate Boutique

2007-02-10T22:44:00.000-08:00

I just noticed that I forgot to post on the TFB Women's Retreat we had last week at Pinecrest(probably because there was too much insanity at work this week). I mentioned last fall that we were doing Group's Chocolate Boutique: Where Women Taste and See That the Lord Is Good. This retreat-in-a-box format was new for us -normally, we have a speaker at a program camp like Forest Home or every other year we plan our own hotel retreat. This year we were unable to go to Forest Home and so we had to scramble to come up with our own in less than 5 months.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was the Director of the retreat which meant recruiting the various leaders of the breakout sessions -the boutiques, crafts, worship, Big Group sessions and small groups. That turned out to be easy since we had an incredible team that volunteered for everything without me asking them. The facility was great, especially the food and I know that the ladies had a wonderful time. Our Worship Team of Karla, Casie and Laura did an excellent job all weekend. I liked how it spread the tasks out among so many different women -we had 14 total on the Design Team and it allowed for a variety of women to exercise their talents and spiritual gifts. Most of the women in attendance preferred the small group format to a lecture-style speaker although some thought it was a bit too light on Bible teaching. A couple of them thought I should've assigned a mandatory one hour quiet time before free-time (I guess 20 minutes of prayer and meditation by yourself in the prayer boutique was not enough.) Some complained it was too much like a Children's VBS (probably because we do Group's curriculum for our VBS too). Of course, they all liked eating chocolate. Whether or not this will have lasting spiritual impact, it is to early to see.

I posted a picture of the ladies here. You can see more down on my flickr banner at the right margin.

The Tawdry Life of Anna Nicole Smith

2007-02-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

Normally, I do not comment on the sleazy world of celebreality. There is far too much hype and staged drama that it is often difficult to envision these people as anything other than caricatures of themselves. No person could have such an outlandish lifestyle in real life - real people need sleep, food, shelter and companionship; celebs seem to stay out all night, shoot movies all day while living on 500 calories a day and ignoring their family/friends. As all of them discover sooner or later, reality bites them back -their endless partying eventually lands them in a hospital or in rehab, and the wake up friendless and alone when the money runs out.

Miss Smith seems to have been the epitome of this. Here was a woman raised far from the spotlight in Texas but with one star quality, her appearance. She married and had a child as a teenager, eventually trading her waitressing/fast food jobs in for the life of a stripper. From there she became a Playboy centerfold, continued stripping and married an elderly billionaire. When he died she became embroiled in a legal battle over his estate, all the while trying to develop her acting/Hollywood career. Eventually, she had her own reality TV show in which no behavior on her part was too outrageous for the camera. She was public with her drinking and apparent drug use along with her numerous relationships. In this past year, she had won her US Supreme Court case, her stepson, with whom she was fighting over her husband's estate had died of cancer, she gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock, three days later her 19yearold son died of an overdose in front of her and two men were fighting over her daughter's paternity. Is it surprising that this woman is now dead? Now after her death, in addition to the first two men claiming paternity, Zsa Zsa's husband says he might be the father and ANS's sister believes that the father is Smith's long dead billionaire husband whose frozen sperm was used to imprenate her. Even on the radio tonight, someone was speculating that perhaps the father was ANS's own dead son. (Eeeeeew, if true!)

If she did not die by trying medicate herself into oblivion, I wouldn't know who would. This is where I will deviate from the typical commentary about her life -this is a person who definitely needed Jesus to intervene in her life. Now I cannot say for certainty either way about ANS's eternal destination, but looking at the evidence in the totality of her adult life, it did not appear that she was living for anything beyond her immediate earthly gratification. She may have been a good and kind person, perhaps even a devoted mother but when you see all the things she did that seemed to be so devoid of what God would've desired for her, I really must conclude that she was on the wrong path. You see, life is not about being the most glamorous, having the most money or enjoying household name recognition -all of which she certainly had at one point or another. It is living a life that pleases the One that made you. It's trusting in the One that loved you so much, He sacrificed Himself for you. Instead, she believed a lie that she needed implants so that men would love her, she needed money to satisfy every material, that alcohol (or drugs) was the way to alleviate her pain.

Too bad she did not heed the wise words of Solomon,"Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised." Proverbs 31:30 (NLT) or of Jesus in Mark 8:36-37, "And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?" (NLT)

What Happened The Year You Were Born?

2007-01-17T23:20:00.000-08:00

I got this quiz from Paul of Paul's Ponderings. Good to know that Jeffrey Dahmer and I have our birth year in common. Does anyone else think that including a dead serial killer on list of famous people born in 1960 to be a little macabre?

In 1960 (the year you were born)

Dwight Eisenhower is president of the US

Sit-ins being after 4 black college students in North Carolina refuse to move from a deli counter when denied service

A U-2 reconnaissance plane belonging to the US is shot down in the Soviet Union

Hurricane "Donna" strikes the East Coast causing over 100 deaths in the US and the Antilles

John F. Kennedy defeats Vice President Richard Nixon in the presidential race

Cassius Clay (who later took the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight

Michael Stipe, Tony Robbins, Bono, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Jeffrey Dahmer are born

Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series

Philadelphia Eagles win the NFL championship

Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is the top grossing film

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published

The Beatles make their debut in Hamburg, Germany

The Flintstones debut

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

So Very Cold

2007-01-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

Well, this past weekend I was up at house in Lake Arrowhead hosting the TFB College group - you can read more of the details on Laura's blog. As I had jury duty on Friday, I could not leave until I had been dismissed for the day. This made me a bit nervous because it had snowed above the 900 foot level and temperatures were predicted to be in the teens (degrees Fahrenheit) making the roads both snowy and icy. I had snow chains just in case they hadn't snowplowed the roads. I made without having to put them on, but I did have a little snow berm in front of the house that my friends had to shovel away before I could park.

Fortunately, Laura and some of the students and arrived earlier -they turned on the water and the furnace and were in the process of lighting a fire in the fireplace.
I was soon nice and toasty warm in the house despite the 8 inches of snow on the ground outside. Even when I went outside to get some more firewood, I was okay due to my snow boots, gloves, hat, scarf and coat. I marvelled at the students who had neglected to bring such accessories despite the storm warnings plastered all over the news. I am a cold-natured person and do not like to be colder than is necessary so I own all the appropriate cold weather gear. Laura, on the other hand, likes cold weather and slept outside in her new 20 degree rated sleeping bag. I wisely slept next to the fireplace making sure that there was a log burning the whole night.

The next day was beautiful but the temps remained low; the three water bottles I had left overnight in the car were frozen solid the next morning. I picked up a few items in Cedar Glen and came back. For lunch, we all drove into the Village for Thai food. While the rest of the gang shopped or drank coffee, I walked to the lake edge to snap some photos. With the wind blowing off the lake, the wind chill must have been below zero because as I took my glove off to work the camera, my hand was nearly instantly frozen. I could not bear to take more than one or two pictures before putting my glove back on. (you can see my snow pics in the Flickr box on the right).

The point of my snow story? While I really like the beauty of a white winter, I am a SoCal girl through and through. I don't mind occasionally visiting the white stuff, but to struggle with driving in ice, wearing heavy clothes,having my hair frizz out and feeling cold for months on end is not my idea of fun. So for you people who have lived in the cold climates and like it, please keep it. I'll stick to the boringness of SoCal weather.

Praying The {Fill in the Blank} Way

2006-12-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

Monday, Jan in her blog, The View From Her posted on prayer. I told her how that brought back so many memories of all the goofy things I've heard people say over the years while talking to God.
There were the odd dinner time prayer phrases like, "we pray for the nourishing and strengthening of our bodies and us to Thy service," or "grant journey mercies." (Yet some of these same people thought "Now I lay me down to sleep" or "God is great, God is good..." were prayers of meaningless repetition.

In high school, I heard the daughter of a pastor pray, "Hey God it's me, [her nickname for herself]. How's it goin'?" The only problem with her informal prayer was that she didn't have much in the way of a relationship with Christ and was probably trying to tweak her listeners, including the One it was addressed to.

Last year, I blogged on the subject of prayer and included in the post a prayer that an Associate Pastor of ours prayed during a televised Thanksgiving service- "'Thy throne, Oh God is so great and powerful that should all the armies of the world should assail against Thee , Oh God, it should have as much effect as the faint mist on the distant Rock of Gilbraltar.' While the prayer was true, it did not reflect the way the man normally spoke or lived."

But I never really began analyzing prayers until I was involved in a nationally known student Christian campus group while I was in college. In our group, we had both brand new Christians and those who grew up in the church; there were liturigicals as well as charismatics. Each brought their own culturally-shaped style of conversing with God to the group. Favorites were the "just prayers" -"we just want to thank You", we just ask...". Sometimes these were modified by "really" - "we just really want to thank You." My pet peeve was the people who used Jesus' name as a punctuation mark - "we thank You Jesus for being here,Jesus and we ask You, Jesus that You'd be with Sally, Jesus." Yikes!

Unfortunately, there was also a great deal of unspoken pressure to tailor one's public prayers to style of the majority -those that didn't pray like the rest of us weren't asked to pray out loud again until their prayer style conformed. Some of it was far more subtle -you'd hear all the girls in a particular discipleship chain using the same tone and phrases.

For example, I was in an introductory Bible Study led by a young lady who had gone on a Summer Short Term Mission to South Carolina. She came back with a Southern drawl that surfaced when she prayed out loud (she was a SoCal native, not someone with any accent normally). Soon, all the women in her advanced Bible Study also developed drawls when they prayed as well as her phrases she had picked up in the Carolinas. (I won't even go into the strange mannerisms they began to adopt.) Lord knows what they would've adopted if she had gone to Africa or Asia.

My take on all this was that people have a tendency to be more concerned with what others think and pray for their approval, rather than actually praying to and conversing with God. I'm so glad that He is not impressed (or even repulsed) by our words or lack of words.

Dating Jesus????

2006-12-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

This was the title of an article posted on Christianity Today Online. Agnieszka Tennant, the author of this article, writes of the trend to take the "Jesus as the Bridegroom" too far. She tells of a popular book that speaks of women cooking dinner and setting the table for two - for the woman and her "date" Jesus. The rest of the article describes women who have taken their relationship with Christ to places that, at best, sound creepy.

I think it's great that someone would have an intense love for our Savior, but it is weird to turn that into a quasi-romantic "dating" relationship with Him.

I'd love to hear comments.

Round and Round

2006-11-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, here's my rant. Sometimes I really hate my life. This last month has been one of those times and also the reason I have not had much time to blog. I feel like I live in a Dilbert cartoon. My most recent mental torment has to do with a project that I'm working on.

Without going into any great detail on what the project is, suffice it to say that my job generally has little to do with what I learned in college and more to do with project management. Of course with any project, one must plan and track both cost and schedule. Anyone with familiarity with accounting will tell you that you use a spreadsheet (like Excel) to track costs and a schedule program (like Microsoft Project) to show schedule. A month ago, a Program Manager asked us to plan some activities over the next few months showing schedule and costs; I created a task list with hours in a spreadsheet (I followed the template he sent me) and used it to also create a schedule in Project.

"No, that's not it. You have too many hours worked in one month and not enough in the next. Spread out your tasks over the 4 months. Otherwise, just make it look like Mr. X's file, " said the Manager.

"That's all wrong," I was told by a Finance person, "you need to put the schedule into the spreadsheet" (where each column represents one week). "Forget the Project version, that's not what we wanted." So I spent the next few days transferring all the info into a different spreadsheet.

Yesterday, at a weekly status meeting, the Program Manager complained that the tasks were now not in chronological order and each task had durations longer than two weeks. Also why was I working on tasks not due to be started until January and hadn't finished anything else? My answers: you approved the format two weeks ago, you asked me to spread things out in order to bring the burn rate down and the supervisor told me he wanted me to do the January tasks now, not then (when do I have time to do anything but schedules and sheets?).So last night I was working on it until 9pm solving the first two problems and then e-mailed my response to the Finance and Program Leads.

This morning I received a call from a Scheduler, "where's your Project schedule for these tasks?"
"On the Excel spreadsheet where it is supposed to be, " I said.
"No, that's wrong -it needs to be in the Master Project Schedule, completely linked, task-to-task. I don't care about the spreadsheet."
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! (You can see where this is going...)

I'm Still Here

2006-10-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't abandoned my blog, I 've just been indescribably busy -mostly with work. In my free time, I have been working on, as of last count, a 26 page history of my church as part of some info I'm sending to my pastor. Then there is our TFB February Women's Retreat -Group's Chocolate Boutique and I'm the Director of this. This retreat is a retreat in a box -a speaker is not required, but it does involve a lot of different women to staff it. Right now we are still in the recruiting/assigning roles phase, after which I will be less involved until the month of the event.

Anyway, I should be blogging more in the next few weeks. I have one blog post saved in draft form, I just need to finish it.

Perky and Alive

2006-09-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was working away from my office in another building a few blocks away. I knew that I would be gone before I left work on Friday so I left a note asking my officemate Dave if he would feed my Betta fish when he got in to work on Monday. I was a little concerned about my fish since he seemed a little sluggish on Friday after I changed his water. As he had always been a healthy fish with a vigorous appetite, I attributed his sluggishness to the fact he had not slept well since workmen had changed the lighting in our cubicle earlier in the week, thereby increasing the brightness in his bowl threefold (Bettas need darkness to sleep since they have no eyelids). To help him sleep better, I shaded his bowl with some file folders before I left Friday night.
When I got a free moment yesterday, I called Dave to ask if he had completed a work task and also if he had fed the fish as I asked.
"Sure", Dave said, "I gave him his food first thing. He came right up to the top of the bowl -he was very 'perky', seemed real active."
"Great, because he was not so active on Friday, in fact I was a little worried that he wasn't doing so well," I responded hopefully.
"No, he's fine, he's swimming all around," he reassured me.
Several hours later, I returned to my office to find the "perky one" nose down and dead. As I fished him out of the bowl to send him to the porcelain fish mortuary for his "burial at sea", I noticed that, not only was he dead, but that he was in full rigor. After I came back from the restroom, I ran into another of my co-workers and told told him about Dave's pronouncement of the fish's vigor versus the reality of the dead fish that I had just flushed.
"You'll have to tell Dave how 'perky' and 'alive' he is; let's see if he takes that as a good sign based on how his definition of those terms turns out," he offered.
So this morning, I had to razz Dave about it -"feeling perky yet, Dave?"
We laughed all morning.

Gods And Generals

2006-09-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have been discouraged lately, pondering the age-old dilemma of why God allows suffering when He has the power to intervene and halt said suffering. I've also been troubled why He seems to allow evildoers to prosper while I'm allowed to languish, sometimes at their doings. Where, I've wondered, is the justice in all this? This has been especially troubling to me when the evildoer claims to be acting at the direction of God Himself but reflects an attitude or a characteristic that is far from the heart of God. Of course, anyone who knows me, knows that I'm the "Fairness Czar" -in my mind everything has to be completely fair down to the slice of cake I'm splitting with someone else.

This past Labor Day weekend, I had the opportunity to stay mostly by myself at our Lake Arrowhead home, although my brother and his dog popped by Saturday night and left Sunday afternoon. My roommate Laura had gone with her college students on a retreat and so there I was watching DVDs, resting, cleaning, and praying/complaining to God. As I mentioned, my brother came up Saturday night and so we decided to watch the DVD, "Gods and Generals". This is a four hour long Civil War drama, largely focusing on the life and death of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a devout Christian man. It recreates the bloody battle of Fredricksburgh in which the Union troops marched up a hill in an open field only to be massacred by Confederate rifleman and artillery shooting from behind the stonewall at the top of the hill.

One of the things that struck about this story was that on one side you have Stonewall Jackson praying fervently for God's blessing and protection in battle -he saw the war as the "Second War for Independence" and that he was defending his state from the tyranny and oppression of the Northerners. He attributed battle victories to God's divine providence and direct answers to prayer, even comparing his situation to Joshua fighting the Amalekites. He felt it was God's will to "kill every last one of the invaders." In contrast, Colonel Chamberlain of the Union Army, another devout believer, is shown writing to his wife about the "justness" of his Maine battalion's battle to preserve the Union. In one scene, Chamberlain explains to his younger brother that "while I don't doubt the integrity of the Southerners" who view this war as the means of protecting their homeland and freedom, "I take issue with those that would fight for their own freedom while denying the same to a whole race of men."

I had this epiphany - here were two men, both sincerely believed that God was directing them in their endeavors, both felt that he would bless and give victory, both prayed and sought God's guidance. One saw the slaughter of hundreds of his comrades, mostly due to the stubbornness of the commanding Union general, Ambrose Burnside while the other is later killed by friendly fire while riding to safety after a victorious battle. Whose prayer did God answer? Whose petition did He favor? This helped me immensely in my struggle because I often have opponents who believe that they are just as right, they are just as godly in what they are attempting to do (sometimes they think that they are even more right or more godly in their actions and thoughts.)

The problem is that we can be fully convinced of the "rightness" of our beliefs but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily in line with God's plan. One hundred forty-five years later, we can judge that Jackson's assessment of God's will for the North and the South was wrong, but how do we know in the moment? A person might be fully convinced in his own mind that what he is doing "is good, acceptable and perfect", but how can he really know for sure? Self-deception is an easy trap to fall into -this is what I want, what makes me happy and of course, God wants all that for me too. You can follow all the "right steps" in trying to determine God's will -reading the Bible, praying, asking the godly advice of others and still come to a wrong conclusion.

I would bring some additional caveats to this process:
1. Does what I'm about to do help or harm the message of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God? What will my Christian witness be like among the lost if I were to get "my way"?
2. God's says that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So does what we are comtemplating sound like mere human reasoning? Is it about feeding the appetites of our flesh and/or stroking our own ego? Don't try to twist Scripture to justify these things.
3. How does what I am planning affect my fellow believers? Are they edified by my actions? Brought closer in relationship to God and others?
4. How do I now feel about those with a contrary view? Can I disagree agreeably or must I persuade them to adopt my side or else?
5. God is sovereign and He sees all. He sees what I and my opponents do not. Life has taught me much over the years. God has used life to school me and give me wisdom I did not have years ago. Younger ones (not necessarily chronological age, but young in spiritual experience) still need to endure that process themselves in order to gain it as well.
6. Sometimes people are just plain evil -their hearts are devising wicked schemes. They only care about themselves. Avoid these people. Know that one day, they will get theirs.

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12 (NIV)

August

2006-08-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

I can be so well-intentioned about blogging regularly and then before I know it, a month has gone by without a single posting. It's not that this has been an uneventful month - I spent a week at Junior Camp and work has had its own challenges as well. There's been some interesting current events that were worthy of commentary and other issues that needed some blog-ranting.
I think that this is a reflection of information overload in my brain thwarting my ability to get it typed out into the blog - I hesitate to blog if I don't have the exact words to express the moment or feeling I've experienced. Sometimes the sheer volume of information interferes with my blogging skills; I want to be concise, but have no clue how to do so.
So here's my short and sweet summary of the last few weeks:
Jr.Camp - awesome speaker in Arol McFadden; Karla-great job of worship leading; my tech stuff -glitch-free for once; weather -fabulous; children- generous in supporting their mission projects, funny, spiritually challenged; pictures can be seen at the Lightseekers website.
Work-another round of customer presentations done, yet another set next month.
Church -same stuff, but with some new opportunities coming soon.
Miscellaneous - some bad news that I rather not discuss right now. The bad people in my life and out in the world are still bad -they have yet to repent or be visited with divine retribution (darn). I would characterize my life as pretty good. No, I'm not suddenly rich, famous, popular or drop -dead gorgeous (all that's okay) nor have become Mother Theresa or Billy Graham either (that's all right too, but I do desire to reflect more Christ-like character).
Anyway, there you have my month. Maybe now I won't wait so long to post something because I waiting to craft "the special blog post."

God Told Me

2006-07-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in my post about not having much to say, I mentioned how God speaks to my thoughts and it reminded me of a guy I once knew who went around claiming that God told him to do this or that. Now I do believe that God can speak to folks anyway He wants to, but I've always been a bit skeptical of those who had to interject "God told me..." into their conversation in order to add weight to their arguments.

An example of this was a guy who attended college with me. "Tom" and I used to ride the bus everyday to El Camino; we also hung out in the same group of friends, although I wouldn't describe our relationship as particularly close. He and I were the only Christians in the group, however and so we often talked about spiritual things.

One day, "Tom" came to me and asked me to pray for him as he was going to ask "Violet" to marry him. This shocked me in that I wasn't aware that he had been dating anyone -he was very shy and awkward, he seemed more afraid of women than anything else. But I was even more amazed at his reply; he hadn't yet ever asked her out but "had been told by God to marry her." "Had God given 'Violet' the same message?" I asked him. Unfortunately, she had not and so she recoiled in horror when "Tom" sprang his "message from God" on her. Undaunted, he tried his message from God on different girls including me, and as was the case with "Violet", I had not received a corresponding marriage vision.

Did God really speak to "Tom" and tell him to marry "Violet"? I haven't a clue what "Tom" heard or thought he heard from the Lord. I do know that his "message" was not confirmed by anyone else, particularly not by the one(s) most affected by his life changing proposal. The Bible teaches us that "plans fail without good advice, but they succeed with the advice of many others." (Proverbs 15:22, NCV) and "fools think they need no advice, but the wise listen to others." (Proverbs 12:15 NLT)
It may have been the most prudent course to ask some wise ones what they thought of this message from God - was it consistent with God's already revealed truth i.e. the Bible? did it help or hinder his walk with God? did it advance the cause of Christ? was he emotionally, spiritually and physically ready to be a husband and father? was his "vision" clouded by his own wish fulfillment and natural desires? [ A side note: most of the "real" instances (by real, I mean ones that, to me, seem credible) where people are/were spoken to directly by God had to do with the expansion of God's kingdom and the propagation of God's message of salvation, not with having his/her own physical needs met. It's more like, "go here and start a mission", "plant a church in this place", "talk to this person about the Gospel". Even the instances in the Bible where God warned someone to go/not to go someplace for their safety e.g. Balaam, the Wisemen, Joseph and Mary, there were bigger "kingdom issues" at work.]

In my estimation,"Tom's" awkwardness made it difficult to develop relationships with women the more traditional way and his walking around with the certainty that approaching a particular woman and proposing to her as being "God's will" was definitely a confidence booster. He also struggled with controlling his sexual desires and since marriage was the only legitimate outlet for those feelings, the sense of urgency to get married could have influenced his interpretation of God's will. ("It's better to marry than to burn [with lust]" was highlighted, but the same passage that encourages singles to remain singles so as "to better serve the Lord" was minimized in his mind. As was the command to exercise self-control...) He also ignored the fact that he was living at home with his mom, employed in a minimum wage job, without a car - not exactly a great foundation for starting a home or for him to be the provider.

This is where it can be so hard as Christians, we want so much to be where God wants us to be, but how often do we run ahead with our own desires first, hoping that somehow they all line up with what His will? The Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18)warns against presuming to speak in the name of the Lord. To do so falsely, was a capital offense in ancient Israel. Christians were instructed to test such messages and to reject bogus ones. For some issues, where God already has clearly spoken, it's a straightforward assessment; for other issues, it's less clear. That's where the collective wisdom of the body of Christ can prove most helpful - and not just the opinion of one or two like-minded friends, but also the input of people with different ideas and ways of thinking.

For one of the major decisions in my life, I sought the wise counsel of more than a dozen people. While I didn't end up taking every bit of advice that was given to me, I was able to construct a consensus from all of them that has proved to be a very good path. To be honest, the decision I arrived at in the end was quite different from my initial take on what I felt "God was telling me" to do. I'm glad that I wasn't so arrogant and stubborn to have chained myself to my "God told me" presumption and instead listened to the older, wiser words around me -it has turned out well.

Nothing To Write, A Lot To Think About

2006-07-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

Looking at my blog, I realized that it's been more than a month since my last post.

It's not that my life has been all that boring these past few weeks, afterall, I enjoyed a lovely vacation (see my Flickr for the assorted pictures). Work was slow, but I had increased responsibility with my boss on bereavement for three weeks.

Last week was my church's Vacation Bible School and I was quite involved with the technical aspects of the opening and closing programs every evening.

Saturday, a few of us drove out to Covina for our Junior Camp counselor training and leadership meeting. The persistent heatwave made the trek nearly unbearable (107 degrees F).

Yesterday, I spent the morning at the hospital undergoing some testing. While it was largely painless (I was sedated throughout) and not a normal procedure for a person of my age, it helped to allay some of my fears I had concerning my health and whether I was actually facing a serious disease.

All of these "events" had varying types and degrees of emotion attached to them. Some were regular and routine; my vacation was relaxing and enjoyable. My hospital visit produced anxiety in anticipation of the unknown, then relief. Other experiences were frustrating, boring while another event gave a sense of accomplishment.

I could've blogged about any or all of them as they happened, yet I couldn't quite seem to find the words to write in the moment. Part of the reason I suppose is that I really am an analytic- if I can't analyze a situation to completion in my thoughts first, it will never make to paper (or in this case, to computer). My blog perhaps is an imperfect representaion of my walk with God -there are times that I have words to say to Him and sometimes we walk together quietly. In any case, He is always there and I am always thinking. He speaks to my thoughts (no I don't mean that God tells me this and that per se) and I listen. There are times when I pretend that my thoughts are my own, but that is ridiculous, of course He knows. And this is where the representation or the metaphor breaks down - my blog is limited by my exercise, or lack of exercise, of language, God of course is not. He knows the "thoughts and intents of my heart." My blog readers do not and are dependent on my writing truthfully to read what's inside me. So although much has happened, the language is/was not there.

Find Another Dating Pool

2006-06-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

It seems there has been an "outbreak" recently of young female teachers getting caught having sex with their male students. The most infamous case from a few years ago was the Mary Kay LeTourneau trial, a married mother and middle school teacher who had an "affair" with her 6th grade student, a coupling that produced two children and sent her to prison for several years. Upon her release, she married her former student and the two are raising their two girls. LeTourneau seemed truly puzzled as to why society would condemn her for her choice of who she would "fall in love with" and wondered why there would be any taboo against such a loving relationship.

In the latest case, a 25 year old former beauty queen and high school teacher was arrested for having sex with her 18 year old male student. What's the problem? -they're both consenting adults, some might say. However, in Texas where these events took place, it is against the law for a teacher to have sex with a student of any age. Susan Estrich writes in her column for FoxNews,

"Most teachers don't need a criminal law to tell us that it's wrong to have sex with our students no matter how old they are (mine are in their 20's and 30's, and it's still wrong). Teachers have power over students, which undercuts the notion that consent can be given freely; we control their lives, which means it's not fair to the individual student, or to the other students in the class; it's an abuse of the teacher's power, and compromises both the real and perceived fairness of that student's grades and of any overall curve in the class."

While I normally disagree with a lot of what the liberal Estrich believes, I think she is right on in this opinion. I will even go so far as to state that most of the "power relationships" are, or at least should be, off limits - teacher/student, doctor/patient, therapist/patient, boss/employee, counselor/counselee, lawyer/client, etc. Some of these are already prohibited by the canons of ethics of the licensing/sanctioning body of the professional organizations involved -to go against these canons could mean loss of license and livelihood. Often colleges and universities have codes of conduct forbidding the romantic involvement of professors and students. Companies, wanting to avoid sexual harassment lawsuits and charges of nepotism, are more and more restricting such extracurricular relationships, often forcing one of the pair out of the same chain of command (of course the military has always done this for the sake of "morale"). In all these examples, subverting the restriction by pursuing the forbidden romantic relationship is considered, at the least unethical and often worthy of losing one's job over. Except...

This brings me to my pet peeve - pastors dating people to whom they've been hired to minister. I have read the ABC ministers code of conduct and other than stating that the pastor will not "not seek personal favors of discounts on the basis of my professional status" and will "maintain a disciplined ministry in such ways as keeping hours of prayer and devotions, endeavoring to maintain wholesome family relationships, sexual integrity, financial responsibility, regularly engaging in educational and recreational activities for professional and personal development..." I don't see a direct prohibition against dating one's parishioners, BUT THERE SHOULD BE. How is that a secular group such as the Psychological Association sees the value in prohibiting a therapist from dating someone under their care but a church with a college or young adult pastor working 10-15 hours a week ministering to students is not barred from dating one of them?

Many years ago, I was aware of a youth pastor who counseled one of his 18 year old former students(she had been out of high school all of two months and was now working for him in his ministry) to break up with her boyfriend so that he could date her himself. This was followed by one of the other pastors doing the same thing (18 year old girl, 25+ pastor). Rather than rebuking these young men for inappropriate relationships, they were commended by the rest of the pastoral staff for their resourcefulness in finding brides. Both young men freely admitted to having their eye on these girls when they were minors. The students within the ministry were well aware of this and it created quite a bit of tension, particularly amongst the girl students.

In contrast to these two young men, I know of a youth leader who resigned his position so that he could date one of his former high school students. While I don't approve of his even considering that it was acceptable to date these much younger girls (he was at least 10 years older), I must admit that he acknowledged and sought to rectify the ethical problem his dating choice created for the ministry.

What are the problems with dating students, even former students? Well, besides creating tension and jealousy -the other students see this as being patently unfair that "Sally" has this "relationship" with "Pastor Rick", it interjects ideas of power and control into a dating relationship. Is "Pastor Rick" telling "Sally" to do X because he's her boyfriend or her pastor? One of the reasons therapists are barred from dating patients is that it compromises the integrity of the therapeutic relationship-how can one tell if the doctor is really offering advice that is in the best interest of the patient and not his/her own self interest? Also, if the couple breaks up, "Sally" is the one forced to leave the church because "this is his job". How is it that the world seems to have a higher ethical standard than the body of Christ?

I know I have many readers who perhaps could share their opinions on this subject...

Megachurch Mania

2006-05-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading Christianity Today's Weblog which linked to this AP article about how mainline churches are emulating (or at least trying to) evangelical megachurches. What stands out as the "lessons learned" that the mainlines take away and adopt is not the theology of the megas, but the furnishings, the worship styles, the incoporation of technology - as if those were all they needed for church growth. Even more distressing is the opposition that the more traditional members express towards these changes eventhough their churches were on the edge of death had they done nothing. (We have folks like that in my church too.) It all this emphasis on the packaging of the product(in this case, the Gospel) rather than the product itself, that rubs me wrong.
Of course, non-mainline evangelical churches that think just changing music styles or rearranging the furniture will solve their attendance problems are just as deceived. I'm not against any of the changes-we should utilize every means possible to help communicate God's truth. For me, incorporating contemporary elements into our church services has a missiological purpose. If we went to a foreign land, it would be extremely arrogant to insist that the people adopt American culture, dress and language as conditions of their being able to hear the Gospel message. Yet for many churches they do just that, they insist that unchurched visitors dress like them, sing songs written for their grandparent's generation and sit facing forward in rows of pews; talk about cultural arrogance. But taking a bit of liberty with Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13: "If I play contemporary worship music, and use a video projector to display words but don't have love, I'd be making meaningless noise like a car alarm going off all night." The "stuff" is not the point -it's a means, not an end.
For a humorous, albeit all-too true view of the megas view this youtube clip.

More Political Fun

2006-05-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

This is distressing -I'm only 95% conservative? How can this be?

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 95% Conservative, 5% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Stubborn As A Mule

2006-05-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

It seems I've been reading a lot lately about the stubborn nature of folks and how that trait has put people in some difficult positions. People hold on to an opinion, a way of doing things, a belief or an idea despite all evidence to the contrary. The simple example is the child who keeps trying to put the square peg into the round hole and gets mad when it doesn't fit. A company president sticks with a management theory he picked up from some leadership guru despite the fact that company morale is in the toilet. I've known some people at my church who hold on to some notion of the way "church oughta be" despite the fact that the culture around them today doesn't resemble their ideal from fifty years ago. President Bush is accused of being stubborn for not modulating his policies in the face of declining poll numbers or opposition from our allies.

Sometimes it's not just individuals, but institutions like my own denomination, the ABCUSA (you can read about that in the previous post); it can be countries like North Korea or Cuba that hold onto their fantasy of their countries being a "workers' paradise" despite the fact that communism, by and large, has been relegated to the "dustbin of history". Even those who label themselves "progressives" can be chained to stubborn ideas- reference those who trot out slogans like, "we must fight for a woman's right to choose" (despite the evidence that the nation is becoming more "pro-life" with time), "we need to spend more money on the poor, education, or whatever social program is their pet project" (despite the trillions thrown at these problems with no effect).

But one person's stubbornness is another's "steadfast commitment to principles" in the minds of many. How can you tell the difference? Was the Apostle Paul encouraging "holy stubbornness" when he wrote:

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Cor 15:58 NASU?

The Psalmist writes:

"You [God] have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands."Psalm 119:4-6 NIV

So the question is, does our belief (that we hold so stubbornly to our chest) line up with God and His ways? Even (or especially) as Christians we can hold opinions that we equate as being from God when they are no more sanctified than our choice of ice cream flavor. Some ideas might even be in opposition to God's stated laws. The thoughts that are only preferences need to be held loosely, the one that are wrong need to be abandoned, but the ones that reflect the character and call of God are the ones to which we must demonstrate wholly (and holy)stubbornness. The result is this:

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast,because he trusts in You." Isaiah 26:3 NIV

The Vote To Leave

2006-05-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

I have been pondering on how I was going to post on this subject -the vote of the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest to leave the denomination by withdrawing from the covenant of relationships. I could've just posted the ABCPSW press release seen here. I could've linked to the punditry of His Barking Dog or Durable Data. Yet, as a third generation American Baptist, the day was more than just a political decision, more than just my marking an "X" on a ballot -it was the death of a relationship, a death that required true mourning on my part.

Laura, my friend and roommate, pontificates on it in her theology blog and just links to her theology blog from Laura's Writings. She writes of the profound worship encounter it was to stand alongside 1300 hundred fellow delegates in a simulcast link of seven cities while singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "It Is Well" as they counted the ballots. Some of her readers seem to take exception to the idea that the worship of God and the sense of His presence could have occured in an act of "Christian disunity" and schism. However, they weren't there and from what I've read of their comments, they don't quite understand what the vote was all about either.

For me, it was a moment of ultimate sadness -to have come so far and to have been together as a denomination for so long all the while existing in such a dysfunctional relationship was tragic. As a delegate of my church, I was indeed bound to vote for withdrawal, but also as a follower of Christ and His Word, I had a higher allegiance to the truth that compelled me to vote for it as well. Continuing in fellowship with those who reject the authority of the Bible in favor of their own estimation of "truth" is not healthy or wise. Barbara Nicolosi, in an article in ChritianityToday Online makes this comment (with regard to the Davinci Code movie, but I think fits here too) said this:

"I don't think we should encourage people in the terrible sin against the Holy Spirit of speculating that things that are holy are evil, and that things that are evil are holy... How is that not painful for anyone who knows the Lord?"

It is painful to associate with people who call evil, good and good, evil. It's painful to think that no appeal to the Scriptural text can change the mind of a person who thinks it means something completely different than I do. This is what has happened over the past dozen years in the ABCUSA.

The national leaders closed their eyes to the open sin of their colleagues and shrugged that they were powerless to do otherwise -"it's not our place to police anyone's behavior, let the offenders' region or their local church do it". When some regions attempted to discipline their own wayward churches and pastors, the national board and the regions that disagreed with discplinary actions provided safe haven and new homes for the unrepentant. Together, they resisted any attempt for reformation and renewal using parlimentary procedures to thwart such acts and to protect their like-minded partisans. They ridiculed their opponents as small-minded bigots and fundamentalists all the while expecting the regions to shut-up and keep sending in the money for the Board's causes. So-called "Baptist values" of "soul liberty and local autonomy",in their mind, trumped Biblical teaching on issues of sexual ethics and morality. This lead to ABCPSW's conclusion that since we can't persuade, we can't convince and we can't co-exist peacefully, it is better to separate. This may be the beginning of the end of the ABC-the more conservative regions may follow shortly now that one has stepped away.

And this is why I mourn, the Baptist forefathers who fought so strongly to build such a great family could never imagined that family being torn apart in such a way.
A comment on Laura's blog referred to the conflict as being one of righteousness versus unity, but how can a group be united when there is such a chasm on what righteousness means?

Dante's Levels of Hell Test

2006-04-27T00:19:00.000-07:00

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

I'm glad I don't believe in Purgatory - good Protestant that I am. Amusing though.

Loyalty Part 4

2006-04-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

Persons talking the Naturalization oath to become US citizens pledge:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

They renounce allegiance to their country of birth and swear loyalty to their adopted nation. Their loyalty means that in the case of war, they may have to take up arms against their former country in order to defend their new one. During WWII, there were many stories of immigrants doing just that -Japanese-Americans fighting against the European Axis powers, sons of Italian and German migrants fighting against their father's homelands. A person who pretended to support and defend his new country while secretly working for his old would be defined as a traitor; in time of war, his life would be forfeit. At the least, the person would be considered a fraud and their citizenship could be stripped from them.

When a person becomes a Christian, he/she leaves the kingdom of darkness and enters into the Kingdom of Light. As the Apostle Paul puts it:

...you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.(Ephesians 2:19-20, NIV)

We owe allegiance to Christ Himself, to follow Him and obey His commands. He stated that our greatest duty was this :

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35, NIV)

Yet too often Christians behave as if we are still playing for the other team. It seems we act as if we are agents for the kingdom of darkness instead of warriors for the Light. As stated earlier, to maintain the old allegiance while pledged to a new one is treason. If God weren't so patient and gracious towards us despite our wavering loyalty, we would surely and swiftly be put to the death for our crimes against Him. Instead, He lovingly, yet firmly calls us to live out our citizenship anew everyday. As we grow in our relationship with Him, our fidelity to His cause becomes more sure, more certain. The treacherous actions that in which we once participated become a faint memory the more closely we follow our new Master.

Regretfully, there are some that want it both ways -they like the privileges and benefits of the new citizenship -eternal life, forgiveness of sin, guaranteed inheritance as God's child. But they also like the pleasure and "excitement" of the old life. "It's okay," they tell themselves, "God will forgive my indiscretions and welcome me back to my homeland." We might wonder if that person had truly taken the oath and become a new citizen with thinking such as that.

Loyalty demands that we stay true to the one to whom we have pledged our oath. If it is to our friend, we must stand by him/her even when times are difficult. Standing by can mean having the courage to say that they are wrong when they are and not letting them get away with it. We can show loyalty to our nation, even when we disagree with national policies. Most of all though, loyalty is a character trait of God Himself. He is the One "who sticks closer than a brother". As we are transformed into Christ-likeness, loyalty becomes one of the characteristics of our life and manifests itself in our loyalty to our God. The world doesn't truly understand true loyalty because they don't have the mind of Christ. That's why the secularists are so puzzled when a man, such a President Bush, would show such unwavering loyalty to an underling. Whether or not Mr. Bush is demonstrating Christ-like character is not the issue here, but rather a world that does not recognize Jesus as God, certainly would not recognize a virtue as such.

Loyalty Part 3

2006-04-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

As a child, my family lived down the street from a family I'll call the "Duncans". Mr. and Mrs. Duncan had 5 or 6 kids (the oldest had left home or were away at college) including twins "Stevie" and "Evie" who were two years younger than I was. Mr. Duncan, an aerospace engineer as I remember, had been raised by strict Christian parents, but had rejected those teachings for himself and his family. He would come home from work around 4pm where his wife would have a pitcher of Martinis waiting for their next-door neighbors and them to consume before dinner. When the pitcher ran dry, Mrs. Duncan (or one of the older children) would refill it so the adults could continue with their own personal "happy hour". Mr. Duncan also liked to leave his copies of Playboy lying around the den for all to see. Probably his only redeeming virtue (and the only reason I was ever allowed at their house) was that he had built his daughters the most amazing two-story play house with lineoleum floors and paneled walls; the second story was a sleeping loft where the two youngest daughters could stretch out their sleeping bags and escape their brothers.

The one value that the Duncans did receive from their devout Scottish parents and then drilled into their children was FAMILY LOYALTY -you stick up for kin, right or wrong. I didn't quite understand this concept - if my brother was acting creepy towards one of my friends, it was my responsibility to make sure that his creepy behavior would be duly accounted for and my friend protected. The Duncans had a different idea. When I was about 11 (my brother would've been 8), Stevie, aged 9, decided it would be fun to sharpen a popsicle stick and repeatedly stab/poke my brother in the back with it. Evidently, my brother didn't mind much because although Stevie was older, my brother was much bigger and stronger than Stevie -Stevie would have come out the worse if my brother had decided to extract retribution for the stabbing.

That night however, my mother saw his scratched-up back after his bath time. After hearing the details of what had transpired earlier in the day, my parents marched my brother four doors down to confront the Duncans (not a good idea, remember the pitchers of Martinis they'd have consumed by then). This family closed ranks tighter than any Marine Corps unit in combat -it must've been my brother's fault, not Stevie's and so nothing resembling discipline happened to him. The following day, Evie told me that she and I were no longer permitted to play together because of what had happened. Neither one of us had been involved in the fray, yet further contact was prohibited - in fact now there was a "feud" between our families. Family loyalty demanded, in the Duncan's thinking, that their hostility be shared among all their members and directed towards all of ours. That mentality, I learned, had been what fueled the conflict between the infamous Hatfields and McCoys. The original offense had long been forgotten, replaced instead with a feud based on "blood", not on the righteousness of position.

And this is what loyalty is not -loyalty does not mean demonstrating unswerving allegiance to someone's misdeeds just because you have a relationship with them. In the story of David and Jonathan I mentioned earlier, Jonathan didn't take his father's "side" against David just because he (Jonathan) was the son of the man at war with his friend. Jonathan knew that Saul's behavior towards David was unjust and therefore he declined to take up his father's feud - so much so that Saul accused Jonathan of being a disloyal son.

Loyalty doesn't mean standing by silently when a friend (or family member) is doing something wrong. Loyalty to a company or country doesn't mean you must sacrifice your moral convictions to be a team player or a patriot. As a Christian, we have a higher duty, a more important loyalty to Whom allegiance is owed. In the next installment, I will discuss that loyalty.

Loyalty Part 2

2006-04-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

What is loyalty? Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines the word loyal as "1 : unswerving in allegiance: as a : faithful in allegiance to one's lawful sovereign or government b : faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due c : faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product." So loyalty is the "quality or state of being loyal."

To whom or to what do I owe allegiance? How about faithfulness? Part of the difficulty is that far too often, we feel that we owe fidelity only to ourselves. It's all about me and my needs; it's what I want for my life, forget about you. Recently, I was reflecting on a relationship in which I felt betrayed by another person. I remember being angry because this "friend" was less concerned about my feelings or the consequence to our friendship, than they were about their own feelings - sticking by me in the situation had some negative personal costs and so it was easier for them to "save their own skin".

A more specific example comes from my teenybopper years. "Lisa" and I were friends, we'd hang out with each other, spending the night at each other's house, going places, doing things. When school began that fall, "Lisa" started hanging out with a new, more popular crowd that did not treat those outside the clique well. The way she "proved" that she was one of them, was to deny her friendship with me by behaving cruelly towards me. She traded our friendship for the approval and acceptance of others- she traded loyalties from me to them.

One of the most extraordinary examples of loyalty between two friends is found in the Biblical story of Jonathan and David. Despite the fact that Jonathan's father, King Saul wanted to kill David, Jonathan demonstrated amazing fidelity by standing by his friend. Jonathan aided David's escape from Saul's wrath, drawing his father's fierce anger. Their loyalty to one another survived even Jonathan's death as David fulfilled his oath to care for Jonathan's descendants when he brought Jonathan's handicapped son, Mephibosheth to live in his palace and eat at his table. This was despite the fact that as the grandson of the former king, Mephibosheth could've provided a challenge to David's claim on the throne.

In the next installment, I will discuss what I think loyalty is not...

Loyalty

2006-04-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

On the way home from work tonight, one of the local radio talk show hosts was talking about the concept of loyalty. He and his callers were discussing the loyalty of President Bush towards his staff, particularly as it's been demonstrated towards his Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, sticking with him despite the cries in the media to fire him. The question for the radio listeners was why would someone demonstrate such loyalty in the face of opposition, especially in our culture where everyone seems to be out for themselves. Why have we as a society seemed to abandon the virtue of loyalty? Is this even a characteristic of Christians? Do followers of Christ demonstrate loyalty anymore than their secular counterparts?

Over the next few days, I would like to discuss this concept here. Feel free to comment on this subject.

Political Test

2006-04-13T20:56:00.001-07:00

You are a
Social Conservative
(18% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(75% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Strong Republican

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Gee, this has me as a bit more liberal than I would've guessed. Those who have thought I was a fascist are wrong....he he!

Two Weeks of Blogging Silence

2006-04-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

One of my friends commented yesterday that they hadn't seen any new posts from me lately. My response is that I have been too busy and too depressed to blog. Laura reminded me that it's okay to blog when you're depressed, sometimes it is helpful to do so. True, but I don't want to turn my blog into some dark cloud of unhappiness in the blogosphere either. So I will start with the good things that have happened to me before I get to the more depressing items.

Good Things
1. I got a raise!!! Not just an average little cost of living type adjustment, but one, with the promotion I received last year, that helps to rectify some past salary injustice ( you know, when the guy next to you makes 20% more eventhough your education, experience and responsibility level are identical.)
2. My boss is on vacation for almost two weeks. Mind you, I like my boss, I really do, but it is nice, after the grind of last week to not have 10 emails and 2 phone messages waiting for me some mornings.
3. Palm Sunday, where our church did Group's Jerusalem Marketplace instead of regular church service and Sunday School, is over. (I was the pottery shopkeeper and had to remember how to throw a pot on the wheel from 30 years ago.)

Bad
1. I'm still waiting for those "exciting new ministries" I was promised by church leadership after I was allowed to be fired from youth ministy. Even worse is that there seems to be some negative false stories being spread as to why I was terminated that vary from "Ann doesn't like to work with students anymore, so she quit" to "Ann must've done something really terrible to be removed from the youth group, is she a pervert?" Great, it's not enough to say , "I don't agree with the Youth Pastor on everything; he demands 110% conformity to his way of thinking so he put me on a year's sabbatical."
2. My boss is on vacation for almost two weeks and I'm in charge while he's gone. Now I know why he sends out 10 emails and 2 phone messages. I've been working on this costing exercise at work with everyone telling me the proposal will never fly with the big boss -it's too much. I met with the big boss yesterday -he says it's too little. I need a vacation.
3. The pottery shop experience -there is a reason I left high school ceramics class screaming -the pottery wheel is why.
4. I feel disconnected from everyone and everything. No time for relationship and relaxing. Even so my personal email is filled with ads and to do things; my telephone is silent except for the junk phonecall. Snail mail is just bills and solicitations.
Calgon take me away!!!

Surf Alaska

2006-03-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

I had dinner the other evening with some friends of mine from church, Daniel and Allison Felton, both graduates of Biola University. Daniel and Allison are missionaries in Alaska with Christian Surfers but are home on furlough to raise support and also because both of Allison's grandmothers recently passed away within a few days of each other. Now you might just react the way I did when I heard they were leaving surfing ministry in Australia to lead a surf ministry in ALASKA. ALASKA? SURFING? IN THE ICE & SNOW? But to my surprise, surfing is thriving up there, particularly amongst the Native American coastal tribes. In some tribal villages, half the inhabitants surf. This is particularly true of the Tlingit (pronounced Klink-et) tribal group. Daniel, himself part Tlingit, grew up in Alaska and knows how both surfers and the Native Alaskans are both "unreached peoples". Their goal is to "to reach surfers with the Gospel, connect them to local churches, and send them back into their local mission fields."
Unfortunately, Daniel and Allison's support levels aren't what they need to be in order to remain on the field so they're going around trying to raise support. This is the first time they've done this so it's kinda tough. If their ministry touches your heart, I'd encourage you to join me in supporting them and their work. Visit the Christian Surfers website and learn more about their ministry. I know they'd appreciate it.

My Personal DNA Test

2006-03-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

Genuine Analyst

Use your cursor to hover over the colors and see my personality traits. Now you can see why I roll my eyes at my women's ministry friends when they propose some foo foo activity as an women's outreach event. Oooh, let's have a craft night where we paint flowers on a terracota pot; how about a make-up party? Not this woman, no way. Give me some techno gadget and I'm happy as a clam.

Not All Gloom And Doom

2006-03-24T19:27:00.000-08:00

One of my friends (who also happens to read my blog) sent me an e-mail..." between your job, the youth ministry, losing your cat ... and the disappointment that was the ladies retreat ...This has not been your year!Be thankful this isn't groundhog day."
I had to laugh and reassure her on the phone that although all these things had happened to me, I wasn't nearly as gloomy as the blog sounded - I use my blog for ranting, for the catharsis I experience by putting those emotions out there. That is not to say I haven't been distressed by those events, but I have found solace and encouragement from my blog readers by sharing these things. Sometimes I don't even need anyone to personally respond to my ranting - I am writing for me, sort of a release from carrying around a burden that I'm afraid to dump on another person. Once it was "off my chest", I am free to point folks to this blog and invite them to read it for themselves. I don't have to relive the pain during the re-telling of the negative experience.
Hmmm, perhaps there is an important spiritual principle at work here. Maybe this an application of 1 Peter 5:7 about "casting all your anxiety on the Lord." As Christians, we know that we should "cast it all on Him", but how often do we "reel it all back in, again and again" as soon as we're done with the casting. I have decided that it is sufficient for my emotional well-being to put these traumas out there in my blog and not keep dwelling on the story over and over to get "through it". (An aside: I somewhat view my blog the same way I view my journal -it's first and foremost a dialogue between God and me that I happen to allow people to peek in on. Realize though, I exercise a huge amount of discretion in what actually is published and therefore this blog lacks the intimate communication one would actually find in the non-public "diary".)
I know quite a few people who are "stuck" in the bad thing that happened to them years ago. Somewhere along the line, they made a choice to keep living in the moment of their pain; they retell the story again and again, perhaps hoping that the next time it is shared, the pain will go away (or that the outcome would be different). That's what I mean about reeling it back in after casting -I'm not saying you never think about it again (that would be ridiculous, even if it were possible) - but it means instead to keep trusting the One "who is able to keep that which I have committed to Him." Changing the metaphor a bit, it's like the child having buried the seed who keeps digging it up to see if it's growing.
As I finished the phone call with my friend, she remarked that she was relieved that I sounded much more hopeful than I did in the blog. I am glad too, but probably even more so that Groundhog Day was just a movie and not my life.

Back From Women's Retreat Part III

2006-03-22T22:08:00.000-08:00

In my final installment of my description of the weekend, I thought I would talk about the spiritual component of the retreat. The theme was Extreme Makeover: Heart Edition and the purpose was stated as a chance for us to "refresh, relax, and renew". As I described in my earlier installments, the weekend was not very refreshing or relaxing for me personally -stressful is probably a more accurate word for my experience. Yet even in the most stressful situations, I have still managed to learn or apply something valuable to my Christian faith. This was not the case here.
One person commented to me that the speaker seemed ill-prepared and not overly acquainted with Scripture. It seemed her talks were mainly random thoughts, scattered interactions without points. During each message, she would have us break into smaller groups to discuss and "share" with our neighbor. Honestly, I could not tell you what I learned or how it would help me be a better follower of Christ. The musical worship we had was more just music and less worshipful connection with God.
I got more out of the early Sunday morning mass I attended at the Mission with a few of the ladies. There the priest in his homily challenged the congregation to live out their faith and to use the Lenten season to reflect on our sinfulness. He encouraged them to use their pennance as a means to forsake their sin and lead renewed lives. One of my friends, a former Catholic, was impressed and remarked on how right on his words were (except for those Roman Catholic moments in the Mass where we remember that we are heirs of the Reformation). I only wished that the service was a bit more "user friendly" - my lack of the familiarity with the missal caused me to fumble around with it rather than fully participating in the readings and hymn singing. (Note to readers: we DO NOT participate in the Eucharistic elements of the Roman mass, we understand the theological difficulties with it and abstain. We did not have problems with the rest of the service -it was indistinguishable from a liturgical Protestant service in that regard on that day.)
To top off my "lost weekend", Laura and I decided to drive down the 1 instead of returning home by the 101. It was great, scenic drive until we got to Malibu where a downed power pole turned a 10 mile drive into a two hour traffic jam.
Although it wasn't a "good" weekend, It definitely was memorable.

Back From Women's Retreat Part II

2006-03-21T17:49:00.000-08:00

As I stated in my last post, although the accomodations were adequate, certain elements of the meeting room left a lot to be desired. It was a good thing that we broke down the electronic gear after every meeting because after we left the room and turned out the lights on Friday night, some of the bar patrons came in later and made themselves at home, helping themselves to our snacks and giftbags.
On Saturday morning, I hurried through our continental breakfast so that I could get everything set up in time for the morning meeting which then lasted until about 11am. By the time I got everything put away, it was lunchtime -the first meal I actually got to sit down and enjoy with the other ladies. After lunch, some of us visited the old San Buenaventura Mission and then walked around town a bit, avoiding the anti-war protesters parading down the street. Some of our women went out shopping in the thrift stores while Laura and I went up to the famous cross in Grant Park which overlooks the whole city. We took pictures, but it was too cold and windy to stay for long. I then went geocaching with some other ladies in memory of one of our young women who died last year. We left a travel bug at the cache in her honor -the goal is to have the travel bug make it to all 50 states and then come home. I got back just in time to prepare for the evening meeting and to eat dinner. After the meeting, most of the ladies were tired from their day and went to bed. By the time I again tore down the equipment, most were gone so I ended up back in my room before 11pm.
To be continued...

Back From Women's Retreat Part I

2006-03-21T00:08:00.000-08:00

Normally I enjoy going on retreat with my women's group from church -this was not one of those times. Held at the Clock Tower Inn in Ventura, this retreat was more stressful than it was relaxing. Since I'm the techno person on the Women's Ministries Team, it's my job to do the sound and computer stuff for the meetings. Mostly, I like doing that sort of things but lugging around the full-size Roland keyboard, amp, mixer and speakers is not the most fun aspect of the job.
Friday, I took the day off work (not the smartest idea when you're in the middle of a project costing exercise) so that I could load all the equipment in my truck. Laura helped me and we finished just as it began to rain. Of course the rain meant traffic on the 405 would be worse eventhough we were leaving around 1pm. Three hours later, we arrived, checked in and I began to set up for our meeting at 7pm. It took me a while, but I finished with an hour and a half to spare. The bummer was that most of the women who were already there had left to go to dinner, leaving me and Karen to guard the stuff (our meeting room was adjacent to the hotel nightclub/bar and had no means of securing the meeting room or our equipment.)I did manage to go a block away to grab some tacos from the local taqueria for a few minutes, but I missed the opportunity to go to a nice restaurant with my friends. The meeting itself was interfered with by the nightclub patrons celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Occaisionally, a bar patron would poke their heads into our meeting room. After the meeting, I had to tear down the equipment so it could be moved into a more secure location while the other women played games and talked. I did get a chance to play two games of dominoes, but after 11pm, the bar really turned up the volume, making it difficult to be heard.
The hotel room turned out to be much smaller than advertised to us -two double beds to be shared by the three of us -me, Laura & Dee. Then there was issue of the hotel manager suddenly trying to charge us twice the contracted price (he eventually backed down when confronted by the leadership team). While it certainly had some charm, it was only a three star hotel at best, not worth the $200+/night for the room and food the three of us paid. We joked about the wine, cheese and crackers they served to all the guests at 5pm the crackers were saltines, the cheese was one step above CheeseWhiz and the wine came out of a box (although I don't drink alcohol, even I can tell box wine when I see it in a carafe.)
To be continued...

Jesus Videos

2006-03-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

One of my former High School students directed me to this link at Vintage21. These Jesus videos are hilarious enough, unfortunately there probably are some people who think that Jesus and the disciples were just like this.
The Believer Way videos are even more funny because we all know Christians who are just like Marcy, Jim & Billy. Very clever illustration of the book of Hebrews and how we confuse following Christ with following Christian culture.

Leaving Youth Ministry

2006-03-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

I posted this a little while ago on MySpace...

For those who weren't in Sunday School this morning, I announced then that I have been asked to leave Youth Ministry by [the Youth Pastor] -next Sunday is my last time with you, God willing. Although I don't agree with his decision that he and I could not work together anymore, that is his feeling and as Youth Pastor he has the right to choose whomever he wants as a worker.

One student asked why everything seems to be changing and I don't really have an answer for that except to say that life is full of change; new leadership brings different ways of doing business.

You can pray for me- I have been working with youth now, on and off, for over 25 years -the last seven years I have had the privilege to be your Sunday School teacher and now for the first time in a long time, I have to find a new ministry. I am very sad, obviously this wasn't my choice; I would still be working with you all for years to come if it was. Perhaps one day I will be back working with you should circumstances change again. But know this, I remain committed to seeing you become adult followers of Christ regardless of what I'm doing.

The good news is that you will still be seeing me around church on Sundays, just not in the Youth Room. Feel free to come up to me and let me know what God is doing in your life or ask me your really tough questions, I like those.

Some of my "cryptic" posts of late have been alluding to this but I deferred my blog on this until I had a chance to inform the students myself. I was going to announce next week, but enough people already knew, making premature disclosure likely.

Now to the wherefores: If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that there are certain issues I've been ranting about. Some of these issues were issues of disagreement for us. There were philosophy of ministry differences sure, but also issues of respect and leadership that did not allow me to reamin silent. Although I love working with students, maintaining my personal integrity is more valuable to me than continuing and closing my eyes. As one unhappy parent expressed to me, "Youth Pastors come and go, but after they leave, you'll still be here." I can find comfort in that yet it is still painful to say goodbye to the students I love. Some students are perhaps happy to see me go -these are the ones that are only in youth group to "hook-up" or "hang-out" and saw me as an obstacle to their goal. I'd rather not think how much closer they will be to that objective now that I'm gone.

Argghhhh!

2006-02-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Ever have one of those days where you just wish you hadn't got out of bed? I'm having one, unfortunately my argghhh is more than just one day, it's been more like a month. A friend called me today wondering how I was doing (I had spoken to her last night and related how upset I was at one of the particular issues with which I'm struggling right now). All I could say is that one more problem had been added to the pile- the wonderful folks in my homeowners association turned off the water to my house last night, and the houses of 7 others in order to fix a water leak. The bad part was that they had again not informed me prior to doing this so I didn't get to fill my bathtubs with water. ("You weren't home, so we couldn't tell you", but they didn't leave a note either.)
The association president and one of the resident busybodies were standing near the broken pipe site talking to the plumber when I came by.
"It'll be at least a couple of days before you have water again," they stated gleefully- neither of their homes are affected by the shutoff.
"Great! What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" I replied woefully.
That's when they said that if I'd been home when they came around to alert me, I could've filled my tub.
"What do want us to do?"
"Get it fixed right, like it should've been the first time," I retorted, pointing out we had the same problem for three days just a few months ago.
"Oh, this is a different problem."
"I don't care -you wouldn't allow your water to be off for three days while you waited for a repair," I said as I left them behind, knowing that our president had the plumber out very early Sunday morning for his own water leak he had last year.

As I've said, this is just another straw on the proverbial camel's back with my cat dying, my roommate sick, I've been sick, we are moving out of our building at work (this deserves a blog entry of its own), my dad has surgery but doesn't tell me, conflicts and drama at church...what else am I going to have to deal with? I feel like Charlie Brown, lying on his back after another of his failures and just saying, "ARRRGGGHHH!"

Through a Glass Darkly Defined

2006-02-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

At least once a week I have someone find me by Googling the name of my blog which is "Through a Glass Darkly"; this phrase comes from 1 Corinthians 13:12, a chapter people normally look to for God's word on the subject of love. What Paul was trying to communicate is that our vision of what really is happening in God's world is darkened, darkened by living in an imperfect world, darkened by sin and by our own human limitations. Another way of putting it is to say that we see our real selves the same way one would see their physical appearance when looking into a messed-up mirror-one covered with grime, distorted and defective. The idea of the rest of the verse is that one day, when we stand before Jesus, all the obstacles to our perfect vision will be gone. We will have a full and complete knowledge of all things, including a perfect knowledge of and love for one another.

Today though, we live in that dark place, between the now and the not yet. We don't understand yet what God is doing, we hide from Him and each other the same way Adam & Eve hid after their sin in the Garden of Eden. Sometimes just the circumstances of this life can make everything seem so dark. For me, that now is especially dark this week. Many of my readers are aware that I'm a cat person, well, my 16 year old tabby died Thursday (as I recorded in my previous post). Death, even death of a pet stinks and is a distortion of what God intended. The death of His friend Lazarus caused even the Son of God to weep. All the pain, all the suffering because human beings traded God's perfect plan in Eden for the Serpent's promise of opened eyes and god-like wisdom. In reality, their knowledge was not enhanced by eating the fruit, but was instead darkened. Only through the restoration and redemption provided by Jesus Christ is that glass undarkened.

A Very Sad Day

2006-02-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

Exactly 21 years ago today, my cat Teener died in a termite tent accident. This morning, I came downstairs to find my cat Augustus dead and cold. Gus' death, unlike Teener's was a long time coming; he had been sick, probably with liver cancer, for months. The medication he was given to cure his chronic diarrhea did nothing and so three weeks ago we decided to take him off them. At first, he seemed to rally as he was no longer bombarded with mega-doses of antibiotics, but then came the total loss of bowel control and his confinement to the kitchen lineoleum. Last week he lost his appetite and finally this week he stopped drinking water on his own.

Although hesitant to do so, I was prepared to take him to the vet and put him down. Laura, however, describes herself as radically pro-life and does not believe in the practice of euthanasia. We then decided to make him as comfortable as possible with pain killers. This seemed to help him sleep better and not cry out in pain.

Last night we knew the end was near as his breathing became slower and more shallow -he lay very still as the pain medicine did its work. Sometime between midnight and 6am, he died. We took off his collar, placed him in a box and entrusted his body to the vet's assistant as the tears rolled down our cheeks.

As I reflect on his nearly 16 years of life, I remember he and his brother Julius as little kittens that were dumped off at my Grandma's house; they were so cute. Grandma wanted to keep them herself, but knew at her age, they would outlive her. She was right of course-she died before her 95th birthday nearly 8 years ago (Julius died the following year). She kept them for us until they were about six months old when we moved into our new house, had them fixed and declawed. She even provided a monthly room and board subsidy until my aunt took over my Grandma's bill paying and stopped it.(of special irony -the amount I paid to the vet today was the same as their monthly "allowance") Grandma spoiled the boys so much that it was hard to break them of certain behaviors - she fed them cow milk and let them do as they pleased. It was Gus that climbed up on the stove and nibbled away the top layer of the holiday cornbread.

Gus was always more of Laura's cat than mine. He preferred to lay on her while Julius used me as his cat bed. Both boys never liked store-bought toys; Julius liked to play with a pecan while Gus like to chase the shadow of a stick. When Juey got sick with cancer, Gus adopted "sympathetic" bad behavior, marking his territory eventhough he had never done that before. We cured Gus of that behavior by setting up a ladder in my bedroom that he would climb to reach the upper ledges below the vaulted ceiling; he would run around the edges, squealing with delight, being "chased", as it were, by his invisible ghosties. He cried mournfully when his brother had to stay at the hospital overnight for treatment. When Juey got better, Gus was there to play bite him in the "private parts" (or what was left behind after neutering) and take it in stride when his brother returned the favor.

Gus was always a biter. When he was little and teething, we called him "Vlad the Impaler" for his vampire-like way of biting a cardboard box. He would slowly bite down leaving a perfect bite impression. He would then slowly unbite the box, move to an unbitten portion and repeat the process. We had numerous cardboard boxes with his unique perforations left behind. Just a few weeks ago, I was reminded of what a good biter he was when he bit me rather than the piece of salmon I held for him in my fingers.

Laura had dubbed him "The Love Kitty" because of the way he was so lovable with her. He was, as I stated earlier, sympathetic to others; he tended to his sick brother. When Juey finally died, Gus walked the house mournfully crying for his brother. Sometimes I wondered if his plaintive cries out the window weren't calls for his brother and friend.

These past few years, Gus had slowed down a bit; he couldn't climb the ladder anymore and jumping on top of the refrigerator from the counter was more of a distant memory. He would still wanted to sneak outside when he had the chance and would beg to be taken for walk outside on his leash. He had a long full life with fairly good health until these past few months. As I said in the last post, one day we will have new kitties and new adventures, but today I mourn the loss of my furry friend.

Sadness Approaching

2006-02-02T23:20:00.000-08:00

My roommate Laura has posted quite eloquently about our dying cat Augustus. Laura describes herself as "radically pro-life" and so her conscience does not allow her to take the life of one of God's creature for our own convenience, hence we have not yet put him down.
Although I don't exactly adhere to such a strict pro-life view when it comes to animal life, it is still an overwhelming circumstance for me -Gus is the first pet I really have had to seriously make a decision about. Gus' brother died of natural causes 7 years ago; my sister's cat wandered off to die of old age five years after the cat's sibling, my cat, died when the house was termite-tented. My dog Amie also died in her sleep.
Each animal when they finally died, caused me to grieve deeply. One friend remarked that I seemed more upset at the loss of a pet than I have been for some of my relatives when they died. I think this is a reflection of my understanding of the nature of human death versus animal death. For humans, specifically Christians, death is not an end, but merely a temporary separation from their brothers and sisters left here on earth. But when our pets die, there is no comfort that we will surely see them again, there is no promised resurrection to eternal life. They only live on in our memories -the funny times, the warm kitty laying on my chest after a hard day at work, the hungry cat waking me up early to be fed -will soon be only a memory. Yes, one day I will have new kitties and new memories, but for now I'm in the midst of a drawn out and painful goodbye to an old friend I've known for nearly 16 years.

Back From Winter Camp

2006-01-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

Well, this past weekend I was at High School Camp with 50 students from my church. Although it was quite cold (around 32 degrees F Saturday night) and raining it was not quite cold enough for snow. The next night was even colder with temps in the mid-twenties, but not a cloud in the sky. Even without the snow the students seemed to have a good time, however my girls probably had the most fun trying to prank the boys -they never quite succeed at their pranks because they cannot remain quiet enough to stealthily sneak up on the boys. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much. Pranking was not only reserved for the students who were at camp, but also for some of my former students who were at home. Take note of these photos posted on Laura's blog of what they did to my car.

Seriously, the speaker, Chris Simning, was great. He is a man with Cerebral Palsy and although he was sometimes difficult to understand, his message about Adam & Eve and the Fall of man was not. Some students really did get how much sin messes up God's paradise and how God, even knowing what we've done still seeks out after us. These students had an opportunity to share their sinful struggles with the others and receive encouragement. What was disturbing however, was the students who "confessed" only for the sake of shock value and where there seemed no attempt at repentance -"Hey this is what I'm doing, giggle, giggle, wink, wink."

Unfortunately, their need to "me too" in contrast to the ones who were genuinely sorrowful over their sin seemed to dilute the gravity of the moment and hindered true healing for those who were seeking it. There were also some who shared some horrific tales of rejection, loss and past abuse - no details will I give here. I shared from my own life and reminded these students that even in the midst of tremendous suffering at the hands of others, God can bring "beauty for ashes" out of their lives if we surrender those ashes to Him. Whether or not that encouraged anyone, I don't know, but I am one who knows the truth of that statement.

We'll now see if this was just another mountain top experience or if the Word that was implanted in them this weekend takes root and bears fruit.

To Thine Own Self, Be True (and of course, To God Too)

2006-01-10T23:37:00.000-08:00

Laura was complaining that I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. I told that I haven't felt like saying anything lately. "What? You talk all the time," she says.
So here I go, attempting to put into words what's rattling around in my brain...

One of the issues I've been thinking about has to do with the nature of ministry to others - how much do we accomodate the needs of those to whom we minister? I was talking with someone recently whose view was to adapt completely to the ones being ministered to. I disagreed where that adaptation or accomodation meant compromising biblical truth or if it meant my morphing into someone I'm not. (Shakespeare's "To thine own self, be true" truism)

There has to be some balance where we emulate Paul -"I become all things to all men, in order to win some" without preaching "another Gospel" that is an anathema. This debate though, rages not just in my own mind but also in the Emergent Movement, Seeker oriented churches, and the struggle with the Welcoming and Affirming (AWAB) homosexuals.

I was reading the ABE forum yesterday and there was some discussion on the latter issue and how the call to repentance from the homosexual lifestyle really is a "Gospel Issue". Dennis McFadden summarizes Vic Gordon's position as this: "No Christian ever has the right to change that which scripture consistently condemns as qualifying a person for eternity apart from God. ... it is not the 'loving' thing to do to lead people to believe that they can simultaneously affirm as a gift something which God says will result in their eternal damnation."

Taking Gordon's statement a step further, it is not loving to ignore a person's sin because you're afraid you'll scare them away from church if you say anything negative. There is a difference between accepting a person (as one Jesus loves and died for) and accepting their behavior. Working with high school students, I often encounter students who don't want to told that it's not a good idea to engage in pre-marital sex, to take drugs, to lie to their parents or whatever naughty thing they can think of. I'm sure there are some who'd just love it if I said,"Hey you're young and foolish-those are just a part of growing up." Some of them don't like me very much when I say instead, "You know, taking drugs (or whatever they're up to) is not what God wants for your life. Besides harming you physically, this is how your relationship with Christ is messed up..."

But what happens when the issue of accomodation doesn't involve sin? Then where do we draw the line between "playing it straight" or "bending over backwards"? Many years ago I had a non-Christian friend who liked chess so I bought a book on chess so I might have an additional means of relating to this friend. However, chess wasn't me (I had any desire for the game siphoned away in Jr. High by a neighbor who annoying laughed while it was my move on his way to trouncing me repeatedly). To "pretend" to like chess so that I could potentially share Christ was wrong - it would mean becoming something I'm not. That book on chess still sits on my bookshelf as a reminder to always be who God has made me and not to be someone else.
Thoughts?

Post-Christmas Contemplations

2005-12-28T23:31:00.000-08:00

So much for my promise to blog more now that I'm on vacation-it seems my mind has stepped down into lower energy state and I haven't been having deep philosophical discussions with anyone. It's been a fairly slow news cycle as well these past few weeks with some of the stories reflecting on the big stories of 2005-the Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the death of the Pope and the election of his successor to name just a few.

For me personally, 2005 has gone by so quickly. A year ago I was acting as the High School director while we were without a Youth Pastor. We were "snowed out" of our winter camp last January and had to reschedule to the following month. Spring was just a blur and Summer was filled with sicknesses and camps. Fall gave way to Winter and the Holiday season. I wasn't as nearly prepared for Christmas as I wanted to be or expected to be with a week off before. I got some great gifts but the best one was from my sister and her fiance.They decided to donate a barnyard full of animals through World Vision instead of buying gifts. Totally cool!

So as the year ends, it's been a pretty good year, although time seems to be moving more swiftly as I get older. More on this later.

On Being a Middle Aged Youth Worker

2005-12-19T22:30:00.000-08:00

One of my friends emailed me this link, Internetmonk authored this piece on being middle aged. While it is written from a man's perspective and some of doesn't really apply to my life -he was a little too morose about getting old , his comments about being a 40-something youth worker are on target. I especially liked the line about being at the top of his game preaching but faced with an audience that wants to hear the 23 year old with a guitar and one sermon.
It is kinda frustrating that teenagers do not appreciate the middle aged person's life experience and instead prefer whoever is "new", as if the novelty of their words imparts the greater wisdom. This view was even shared by a twenty-something youth pastor I knew. In his book, I was too old to work with students at 31 years of age; when I was 35, he insisted I had "nothing" to offer them. (He later changed his tune when he himself crossed the magic age of 30). Regardless, I don't pay attention to those pronouncements. I may not jump into a game of Bombardment anymore but I have so much more to offer than that. The students who want the superficial stuff aren't going to come talk to me anyway (although they are quite shocked to discover that I do know about their culture), the ones that are serious about their faith do come around. Still, it is amusing when they first try to get an answer out of the young, "cool" worker who then refers the student to me anyway.
I guess my perspective on the whole issue comes from the fact that I work with youth, not to serve them, but to serve Christ. Sure, I'd like to have a twenty-something body again and go sledding down the hill next month at Winter Camp but let me keep the forty-something mind.

My Busy Week

2005-12-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

Oh my! I have not had the opportunity to blog here for a week because I've had just too many things going on.

For one, I was gearing toward a big presentation at work, what we call a conceptual design review, where I had to prepare approximately 70 Powerpoint charts to be shown in front of a group of 20 or so of my technical peers. This had me working some late hours this past week and made me miss most of youth group last night. For those of you still in school, compare it to writing a 10 page paper or studying for finals.

Second, I did the unthinkable - I went shopping at the mall to get something new to wear at Laura's Baccalaureate Dinner and her Graduation from Talbot. I also had to make a run to the Guitar Center to pick up some supplies for the Worship Band.

There's a lot of stuff going on at church with Christmas coming in eleven days.

The good news is that tomorrow is my last day of work for 2005 and eventhough I have a lot to get done before I leave after lunch, I'm looking forward to more than 2 weeks off.

Perhaps I'll blog more during vacation -it will give me more time to rant.

Cancelling Christmas and Other Rants

2005-12-07T18:15:00.000-08:00

Christianity Today's Weblog reports on certain Megachurches cancelling their Sunday services that fall on Christmas Day this year. See the link to the articleshere. The reason given by these churches is that they want to allow their attenders to spend the Christmas holiday at home with their family rather than having to come out to a worship service at the church campus. My ABE forum buddies have been having their own rant on this one. Mostly the arguments against have centered around the megachurches' capitulation to our self-centered culture, the improper exaltation of family over the corporate worship of the Christ of Christmas. While I agree with some of these objections, my own rant has more to do with the annoying practice my church has of trying to combine the December 25th Sunday Service into one big celebration.

Quoting from my post there:
"All this togetherness by combining services is overrated in my book. It's also pretending (to any visitors) to be a church you're not the other 51 weeks of the year.

First, you have all the additional traffic caused by the twice a year C&E crowd that you try to shoehorn into one facility with the regulars from x number of different services. You end up setting up chairs in the aisles, standing or turning people away. Faithful Central Bible Church can do it, but then again they own the Great Western Forum (where the Lakers used to play). (In my church, that's potentially 500+ people into a facility that seats 400+.)

Second, for those of us with separate services with different styles in each service, you have a choice as worship planner of making the combined service a reflection of only one of the styles or of trying to mix the different styles together. Do really think that someone who's in love with choir, organ and traditional carols wants to hear the rock band play a City on a Hill "It's Christmas" number? Or vice versa? The previous combined services have the old folks plugging their ears (or walking out) while the band played at its normal sound level. If you try to blend the two, every last choir and musical group feels the need to present a number (or two), so we get the bell choir, the traditional choir, the children's choir, Sister So-and-so singing a solo (badly, sometimes), Brother Not-so-Talented playing his instrument that he hasn't touched all year trying to fit in with the band. Yikes!

Third, some people don't quite get the word that you're not having the same number of services you usually have at the times normally advertised. We get all kinds of people showing up at regular 1st service time, looking puzzled and confused when you tell them that for this week, the service is 45 minutes later. Same holds true for the people who show up with the combined service almost over thinking they're right on time for second service. Do you think those people are motivated to come back to your church the following week? This is not exactly the best foot forward to present to people who might just be open, by virtue of the season and the coming New Year, to giving church attendance(and possibly following Jesus) a try.

Some folks in my church just love the idea, particularly the ones that think that the only reason the Contemporary style worshippers don't attend the more traditional service is that they haven't yet tried it. The Staff and the CE workers like it because it's less work -one service to prepare for, no Sunday School. All this may be easier on the Pastor (only having to preach once) and some members may like the scrunched in feel (I don't). But remind me why this would be a good idea again?"

Still More On The Journey From Hierarchicalism to Biblical Egalitarianism

2005-12-04T22:27:00.000-08:00

One question that has been asked is what has your journey to egalitarianism meant to you in your ministry. The answer is complex because while I am doing more (teaching & leading High School students in Youth Ministry) than I would otherwise do with my hierarchical beliefs still intact, my home church has not yet adopted a leadership model that would provide equal opportunities for women.

Although my denomination (ABCUSA) has ordained women for more than 100 years and encouraged the full partipation of women in church life, my church has not embraced either practice in its 91 year history. The women who served in my church fifty years ago, in some ways, had more meaningful opportunities to serve. The church in those days operated with a dual board system - deacons and trustees, in which very powerful women led as trustees. They were referred to as Mother So-and-so and their word was law to men and women alike. For some reason unknown to me, the church, a few years later, switched to a single board of Deacons overseeing a system of committees which included a committee of Deaconesses. In the 60's and 70's, this Deaconess Committee were derisively called "The Cupcake Committee" due to their main duty of serving food at church socials. During the mid 80's, the Deaconesses began to move away from food service at socials to having more of an emphasis on their "hands on" ministry - counseling those who made decisions, ministering to the bereaved and the shut-in.

With the call of a Senior Pastor who identified himself as an egalitarian, women who desired an expanded role for themselves were hopeful that church polity would change. Unfortunately, a few powerful men expressed forceful opposition to even discussing the Biblical arguments (one particular "gentleman" stood up during a service where the pastor was teaching on the subject and shook his Bible at the pastor) and the will to "rock the boat" was lost. A subsequent attempt (by a committee I was on) to rewrite the Church Constitution and replace the Deacon/Committee structure with a co-ed ministry team, was single handedly crushed by one Deacon who was extremely opposed to women in minstry. When the pastor's wife was hired (with her PhD with Christian Education emphasis) to head the Christian Education Ministry she was called the Director. Eventhough her two predecessors were both called "pastor" and were ordained, neither option was even considered for her.

In the eight years since that pastor moved on and a new pastor came, the church has not made any more progress towards egalitarianism. Although during the 18 month interim, I was, as the Deaconess Chair, added to the Executive Committee (Senior Pastor, Deacon Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary) and allowed to attend Deacon meetings, my successor found such meetings "tiresome" and did not insist on continuing in those additional roles when the new Senior Pastor arrived. He readily admits that this is not "his issue" and would much prefer a Board of Elders making all the decisions anyway, moving away from strong congregational polity. Those on the present Deacon Board who have a strong opinion on the subject all seem to hold to a "traditional view" and would not allow woman as deacons, let alone elders. Their opinions seem ill-informed; most could not themselves point to any Scripture as prohibiting women from certain roles.

A few years ago, I queried one of my friends whose husband is a deacon, how the Board would react to my roommate's receiving her Masters of Divinity degree (which, BTW, she gets next week) knowing that 1) of all the staff, only the Senior Pastor himself would equal her training 2) every previous MDiv at our church has been, within the year after receiving the degree, been recommended to the region's ordination council. My friend's answer was that the Board will do nothing even if asked. She was certain of this because her husband was on the Board and they (she and her husband) did not believe in women pastors or their ordination. Their basis for this belief was their life-long experience in churches that had taught that as well.

Some might inquire as to why I'd remain in a non-egalitarian church. Well, for one reason, the grass isn't greener somewhere else. Many other churches in my area, including ones like mine with national pro-women policies, hold the same/similiar views on women as my own church home. Others have worship practices or doctrines I'd have a hard time adjusting to as a life-long Baptist. Still another reason is that I hold out hope for an eventual changing of the mind in my church; even staunch complementarians such as those my roommate encounters at Talbot, have softened their rhetoric on their position, allowing for the need to hear the voice of both genders. Against that though, is the re-emergence of traditional thought amongst the younger generations, but that's like playing "Bop the Prarie Dog" at Chuck E. Cheese's -you just have to whack it down when the thought pops up (although in the love of Jesus). I guess the final reason, is that for all its warts, my church is my home and God has not moved me anywhere else.

As I've stated before, I'm gonna do what God wants me to do and if He wants me to do something, nothing really can stand in my way. I truly believe that there will be a time when restricting women in ministry will be a ridiculous as restricting people in ministry due to race is now. One hundred years ago that restriction was not yet consigned to the "dust heap of history" as it is now. It's why I can wait.

More On The Journey From Hierarchicalism to Biblical Egalitarianism

2005-11-30T22:42:00.000-08:00

On The View From Her blog one of the posters asked me the question "what's the driving force behind the evangelical egalitarian movement?"

My Answer: "While I do not consider myself a spokeswoman for the entire evangelical egalitarian movement, I can answer briefly what drives me. God has called me to use my callings and gifts for His kingdom in the most effective way possible."
I cited my earlier post here about having to stand before God and give an account of my use of the "talent" entrusted to me by the Master.

What this means, as far as my ministry is concerned, is that I believe I am not limited to serving only in those roles traditionally considered "acceptable" for women - teaching children or other women, helping in the nursery or kitchen, writing notes of encouragement, visiting the sick, stuffing church bulletins, or polishing church furniture.

A traditionalist might ask why I wouldn't be content to perform any of the aforementioned tasks, but the simple reason you will rarely see me doing any of these is that I'm lousy at them. Not one of these activities is something that I have enjoyed doing or shown much gifting in.

Although I do believe that I have the gift of teaching, I never had much patience for teaching small children (eventhough I did it for about 4 years) and many of the women I have ministered with over the years have accused me of being too "intimidating" to have a credible small group or one-on-one ministry to women. The "intimidation" factor stems from my choice of career path and technological knowledge (engineering), my marital status (never-married single), my lack of having children and the fact that I am definitely not your average "foo-foo" gal- all of which leads to a lack of common ground with them and hence, "intimidation." I have instead been better off teaching High School and College students who do not expect me to be like them and are intimidated by an adult authority figure anyway. I prefer to work in groups with men at church because it's what I do all day at work anyway; I understand and speak their language (I often say that I'm truly bilingual -I speak both "man" and "woman" language).

So you see, if I were limited to so-called "women's work", I'd have very little to do for God's kingdom. I have seen women with gifts of preaching, gifts of exhortation, prophecy, the gift to pastor, to be an evangelist and they have used those gifts to edify both men AND women. Yet, we do not interpret God's Word by our experience and it must not contradict what God has already spoken.

To me the evidence that God intended women to remain on the sidelines in supporting roles while men did all the heavy lifting in the kingdom of God was not as compelling as the evidence for our working together, side by side as men and women. The Scriptures that seem to restrict women from certain roles can be argued as not being applicable beyond their specific cultural context by exegetes as faithful to the authority of God's Word as those opposed. We are told in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. Women are commended in the Bible for prophesying, teaching men (Priscilla teaching Apollos),and leading (Phoebe, Deborah). The Holy Spirit does not distribute gifts based on gender, but as He wills for purpose and glory of God.

To the man who asked me I said, "As a man you should be concerned with this subject[of Women in Ministry], because if you are wrong in holding a more restrictive role for women, you might be hindering the work of Christ. In any case, you should be fully convinced in your own mind of your position by the best evidence available and not merely influenced by preconceived notions of what 'you've always heard' about the role of women."

I invite every serious follower of Christ to accept this challenge, not necessarily to believe what I have said, but to study it for yourself and decide.

Women in Ministry: The Journey From Hierarchicalism to Biblical Egalitarianism

2005-11-29T00:07:00.000-08:00

Perhaps as a disclaimer on this subject of Women in Ministry, I should inform my readers that I was once a hierarchicalist (not even a Complementarian, as some Traditionalists prefer to be and are more accurately described) in my views as youngster. I had been highly influenced by my High School/College Pastor who had been a devotee of John MacArthur. The view was that women were not to minister to any male over the age of 12, not to teach, not to lead. As a young adult in my mid -twenties, I sought to have an overseas missionary stripped of her support by our church because she'd had the audacity to be ordained by my denomination and was then a Reverend. (Fortunately, I calmed down when they explained to me that it was so she could better serve the people "over there")

At first, I rebelled against the notion of a restriction; afterall, I had been a student leader and led worship in Junior High(everybody played in guitar and led worship in the group). In High School, all that stopped for all the girls even before we had that particular youth pastor. It didn't bother me too much, but then again I wasn't all that interested in following Jesus, anyway. When I finally did return to a serious commitment to Christ my Junior year in college, I wasn't quite concerned with ministry beyond my female peers, high school girls or small children. Eventhough I was studying engineering at CSULB, I was very much open to the idea of being a missionary with Campus Crusade or getting married and having kids.

My College/Singles Pastor's successor held nearly equally restrictive views on women in ministry so those ideas were reinforced in me even more. As the Lord changed my plans from both missionary work AND marriage (long story for another time and place), I began to move into my engineering career and into those "allowable" roles for me within the church. Around that same time, we had a change in our Senior Pastorate. One of my dear friends and mentor served on the search committee and had warned me that the candidate had "liberal views on women in ministry". "Aha", I thought, "I will skewer him."

I remember pointing my little finger at him during the "meet the Senior Pastor Candidate Q&A" and asking how he could be such a heretic to hold that women could be pastors. He challenged me to read "the other side" that was held by men and women who believed in biblical authority as much as I claimed to. If you know me at all, this was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. A half dozen books later (books by Catherine Clark Kroeger, Rebecca Groothius, Alvera Mickelsen, Craig Keener, to name a few) and I was strongly egalitarian.

Although there were many persuasive biblical arguments on both sides, one of the most spiritually compelling for me at the time was found in Kari Torjesen Malcom's "Women At The Crossroads". Ms. Malcom, who grew up as a missionary in a foreign country, posited the idea, quoting Fredrik Franson, founder of The Evangelical Alliance Mission, that it was to Satan's advantage and perhaps even his strategy to convince two-thirds of the converted world in the church of Jesus Christ (the women) to be "exclude[d]...from participation in the Lord's service through evangelization. The loss for God's cause is so great that it can hardly be described." Such a waste not to utilize their (& our)spiritual giftedness to the utmost out of a fear of potentially disobeying the Lord's intended order for the church.

I looked at this situation in light of Jesus' parable of the talents, where the harshest rebuke was reserved for the wicked servant who, instead of risking his talent in an investment for his master, buried it in the ground. His "excuse" for not doing anything was basically "I didn't want to do anything that would get you mad at me if I made a wrong choice"; that didn't fly with the master at all.

If people who are honestly committed to following Jesus and faithfully upholding His Word can both, in good conscience, disagree, then I will take the risk, doing as much as I feel called and gifted to do by His grace. If when I stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and find that I have overstepped the role He assigned to me, I will accept that my deeds for Him will burn as wood, hay and stubble. I shudder to think of the disapproval for me and others who haven't been all we could be if I am correct, though. It's kind of a "Here I stand, I can do no other' position.

Since then of course, I have read even more on the subject that reinforces my "conversion"; yet, I think like everything else we believe, there are those moments when we decide to stake out a position and little can be done to move us out of it. If I had adopted my position by ignoring biblical authority , as some who promote practicing homosexual clergy are intent to do, I would be in grave peril and would fear the very idea of posting my thoughts.

Reflections of a Single Parent

2005-11-25T17:16:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a friend's email to me. With her permission I have published it here as she does not yet have her own blog.

"It's amazing through all of the disappointment of my failed marriage, to this day I struggle to find where my former husband was any kind of a leader, provider or protector of our family, but I simply can't. Divorce recovery takes a long time and I hope some day I will be able to help our growing community of single parent families. If I try to do that now I would simply be taking away time from [my daughter] and that is not an option. Alas, my heart is the right place for knowing there is a ministry for me to help, but my young daughter absolutely comes first. I love that my priority is in the right place and in the meatime I will be out there getting better educated on the subject.

What is amazing throughout the last several years is that regardless of those moments of self-pity (sorry), I always came back to the fact that Jesus Christ is the leader, protector and provider of my family, He loves me more than I imagine, and He is the best most compassionate friend when I confess my struggles to Him.

I read the site connections as well about how singles are viewed as temptations or threats. While I agree that is an ugly reality for singles, I'm not sure that includes single mothers. Single mothers seem to be kept socially at a long arm's length because their needs are so great and they are viewed as burdens, and I don't believe the same prejudices are held for single fathers. Social conversations with single moms after church are often short and sugar-coated so [my child] doesn't come across as a burden, and not lose the little amount of socialization she gets. Beyond that, there is no denying [that with]the demands of {my daughter's} day, marrieds and [those with] extended families are better able to manage .

I remember an email I got a few months ago from our Brownie Troop leader regarding a mandatory parent meeting at 8:30 on a Thursday night and the message read "only one parent need attend". Ooh, shamefully I did not take the high road in my reply: "Since I AM the only parent, 8:30PM is out of the question". This is the same mom that gave me grief last year and said that she works too (2 days a week).I have a long way to go! I don't mind my walk alone with Jesus Christ, it's actually a sweet place to be because He is the most wonderful constant in my life.

I have been subject of strange behavior and conversations lately, though. It's been three years and I have finally, quietly let my coworkers [be]aware of the situation. I wish I hadn't said anything but the interjections here and there about my spouse, when there is none, were getting old. One of the guys means well but cannot keep his mouth shut and since he has spurted out some weird comments. Another guy, who was my boss at [my former company] and didn't realize the situation, went on a rant about how he was offered an opportunity to consider managing an estimating department out in [another site, going] on and on about how the entire department was nothing but single mothers and what a hassle that would be. There are a lot of demands on single mothers and I'm sorry that our status implies we too are a such a hassle! No matter what our status is, there are perceptions far and wide. You really didn't need that raise or promotion - you don't have a family to support!

The director of education [of my church] finally replied this week and said my note made her think again about how to reach single parent families and singles in general in our congregation. Whatever happens, it won't happen over night..."

The Search for Me

2005-11-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

Recently, I challenged one of my young friends who is a denizen of the My Space form of blogging to try to find my own My Space site. I established a fairly anonymous one to better observe my high school students's postings (see my comments on a previous post - Blogging for God? as to why.) I have told my students that I do this as a means to remind them that they never know who might be reading their sites and "would you feel comfortable knowing your Sunday School teacher is?"

Anyway, the challenge expanded to also discover my Xanga site (which I use to communicate with a missionary friend) and this one. Should she find all three, I am to reward her with her favorite Starbucks beverage. So far, it has provided a worthy challenge for her, so we shall see.

One reason that is difficult for her at all is that I do not use my last name anywhere within the blogs. I do this for various reasons -the nature of my work and the culture of my company, the fact that I am a single woman. I also have a unique last name that less than 100 people in the USA share. When I had some outstanding blessings enter my life last year, my name was "splashed" over the national television, print and internet media. This led to numerous letters, phone calls and e-mails from folks who had easily found me knowing only my name and city, people I did not know from Adam, deciding that I needed to share my blessings with them. Despite Andy Warhol's claim that people only get 15 minutes of fame, my identity is still out there to be Googled and found for years to come.

So dear friends in the blogworld, now you know more about the mysterious Ann.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, our first service worship leader Mark, was relating how Thanksgiving was his favorite holiday because it was the only one of the major religious holidays (Christmas and Easter being the other two) that hadn't been completely hijacked by crass secular materialism. There is no corresponding Santa Claus or Easter Bunny figure for the holiday and even the most non-religious person will, prior to indulging in the gluttonous feast, offer some words of "thanks". (to Whom? is the real question)

I do love Thanksgiving as well, but perhaps for a slightly different reason. Yes, I love the pure ectasy of eating turkey with all the trimmings and the pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top, but I also love the best sense of family that came with the holiday. Some of my fondest memories of childhood are of Thanksgivings long ago.

For more than half of my life, Thanksgiving meant putting extra leaves in the dining table either at my Grandmother's or in later years, our house. It meant the heavenly smells of my Grandmother's baking cornbread and biscuits in the days preceding so that she could make her cornbread stuffing. It meant walking around the Antelope Valley (where my grandparents lived) in the cold, crispy autumn air. But it also meant the odd assortment of relatives and guests that would arrive for this splendid feast - sometimes it was my mom's relatives, but mostly it was just my immediate family and the grandparents.

When the celebration moved to our house in Torrance, the place settings became more numerous, as my dad's sister and paternal grandmother where added along with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and other "orphaned" souls. I remember the first year that both my grandmothers were in the kitchen at the same time and how Grandma (paternal GM) was quizzing/challenging Grandmother (maternal GM) on all the whats and wherefores of her giblet gravy.

After my mother became sick, my younger sister assumed the mantle (still with deference to Grandmother's leadership) of cooking the Thanksgiving meal until she got married. With my mom gone and Grandmother in a nursing home with dementia, we lost our tradition for a while - even going to Grandma's or my dad's sister's was definitely not the same -until my sister divorced and subsequently bought her own home. She then again began hosting "The Big Meal", thinking nothing of inviting 20+ guests. She invites friends and friends of friends, family members and their family members that are no relation to us. It is different but she always pays homage to Thanksgivings of the past, sometimes intentionally by announcing that she's using Grandmother's recipe for stuffing or gravy. To the "real" family though there is a much more subtle reminder of our childhood Thanksgivings, Susie's dining room table and chairs were Grandmother's, the very one that we would put the extra leaves on Thanksgiving for all those years.

A Bit of Personal Good News

2005-11-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

Forgive me for this piece of vanity.
This week, my boss calls me in to let me know I've received a promotion and a raise. In company lingo, I am now a level 5!!! Eventhough my salary is still a ways behind most of my peers, I feel much better knowing that management made an effort to rectify my situation. (Others have attributed "my situation" to my gender or the fact that I have never jumped from job to job.) Whatever the cause, it was a little frustrating knowing I was performing the same job as a "5" but for 20% less than he (most of all them are "hes" in my line of work) is making.

And for those that thought I should be glad to "suffer" because I am a single Christian woman and afterall, "you're a single woman -you don't need as much as a married man supporting a family"(Believe me I've heard that, but if the company practiced that openly, it would have serious legal consequences -that sort of practice is against the law.), here's a thought- my male Christian co-workers aren't paid less than their peers. As for my suffering in silence as a Christian, I have mostly been silent, complaining once a year to my boss when he hands my "better than average percentage raise" which I know dollar-wise is still less than what the guy with the larger base salary got with his average percent boost. The gap between us worker bees just got bigger.

The EETimes has published their annual salary survey if you're curious, BUT I would warn those paid by non-profit organizations not to look. Although I have never met an engineer in the profession for the money (you're better off going to B school if that's what motivates you), EE salary is a direct reflection of how valued you are by your company. We are often seen as expensive pieces of equipment to be moved around as needed - the company tells those in our management as much. To be of lesser value is a very bad thing -why not replace you with a "newer" model if you need to be cheap?

More On The Church & Singleness

2005-11-19T00:45:00.000-08:00

I had a second response to yet another person's rant but I deleted the e-mail. This gal had abandonded the Church (for her this was the Roman Catholic Church) as it had "nothing to offer singles" and was dominated by out-of-touch male priests.
I empathized with her, although I am not Roman Catholic but pointed out that some of her difficulties were not caused by adherence to Scriptural teaching, but to cultural ideas. My previous blog description of the de-facto ostracization of singles by marrieds in the church is not sanctioned by the Biblical text and is in fact contrary to the way Christ would have us treat one another.
Besides the fact that the RCC elevates marriage to one of her Holy Sacraments and the Church offering holy orders for the religious Catholic single, it has no room for the divorced Catholic since re-marriage within the Church without an annulment is verboten. Obviously Catholic Singles ministry is limited to the never married or widowed single.
The Protestants do not have the same theology for a celebate priesthood, a sacramental marriage conveying sanctifying grace or an anathema for the divorcee.Yet being an Evangelical all my life has not led me to believe that we treat singles much better.
What can't we see that our unquestioning embrace of offensive Christian traditions causes unbelievers to turn away from the very place they need the most? I'm not talking about the Gospel or Jesus, non-Christians should be offended by the Cross. I'm talking about non-Christian singles being turned off by the Church's idolatry of marriage.
We seem to forget that we serve the Single Man from Nazareth.

The Church & Single Adults

2005-11-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who recently was "ranting" on the sorry way that the Church reaches out to singles particularly single parents. This is my response:

I hear you… the Church as a whole is quite poor in how they minister to singles in general, single parents in particular. The difficulty arises in that they elevate the two parent family beyond what is intended in the New Testament church. Marriage is preferred to singleness (although Paul states that singleness is the preferred condition for those serving the Lord) and couples are "pushed" into marriages before either partner is ready because they don't want to be labelled "old maids". Once the couple gets married, the church busybodies want to know when they are going to have children- childless couples are looked down upon in the same manner as singles as "an aberration" in the Church family. Unfortunately, our society as a whole has created hyper-sexualized "adults" who are emotionally still adolescents at age 25, who in turn get married (in the Church, the only biblically acceptable outlet for sexuality) and have kids. No wonder, the divorce rate for evangelical Christians mirrors the rate for the unchurched. Regardless of the number of single parents actually in the church, the numbers in our community are exploding.

That being said, because the Church has this over-idealized vision of family, anyone not conforming to this ideal is forced to fend for themselves. Divorced persons, particularly women, tend to lose not only the financial stability of marriage, but also the support network of friendships and Church relationships (small groups, Sunday School classes, fellowship groups which might be geared for couples). Related to that is near certainty that the economic loss related to the divorce settlement forces one or both parties to relocate out of their church community area to a more affordable one. This causes the Church to view divorcees as transients in the church community.

Ministry to single parents must by necessity be intentional and incorporational into the larger body. The trends of the last thirty years has been to carve out specialized ministries to singles as an answer to perceived "felt" needs; this has led to a "ghettoization" of singles/single parents away from the church body as a whole. My feeling is that while it is good to offer additional assistance (parenting helps, support groups, divorce recovery, financial training), segregating singles away from marrieds is neither healthy nor good for the Body of Christ. Ideally, loving brothers and sisters would come alongside the newly single and their family -men acting as "big brothers" to fatherless sons and daughters. I am also of a mind that those who lead ministries must have a particular passion for the group they are ministering to/with rather than filling a "slot".

I commend you for wanting to do something about it (when you have time) but realize that very few outside your own circumstances will even see the need as you do because of the reasons I've mentioned -that may include your education director. I would recommend that you begin praying to find some like-minded folks with whom you could start to build a ministry at your church. Don't just look for other single parents, but also perhaps some married people that have a heart for reaching out in this way. After you have established a core group of quality potential leaders (5-8), begin networking within the congregation to find those who would like to be a part of it. Advertise in your bulletin or newsletter. Above all, fight the notion that divorced people need to have their "own" exclusive ministry, separate from the rest of the body -it should be a subset, not an appendage to the congregation. Churches that reach out with the goal of making everyone a part of their community in this way are the ones that are healthy and growing.

Gus

2005-11-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

I have a cat named Gus (actually it's short for Augustus, as in Augustus Caesar). Gus is a 15 year old Ginger Tabby - Laura has a picture of him posted on her blog. Poor Gus hasn't been feeling too well lately, the doctor says his liver function is off ; he thinks it is Cholagiohepatitis (a liver infection) so right now he's on two kinds of anti-biotics and Prednasone. He's back home after a stay at the animal hospital where they attempted to find out what all was wrong with him. X-rays didn't show anything but the doc's concerned that he might have an intestinal tumor. I'm hestitant to have the doctor do too much more as that might require surgery on the old boy and there is not much we would do anyway for a kitty of such an advanced age. His brother Julius (died 7 years ago from kidney failure) was treated very aggressively for his Lymphoma when he was diagnosed at age 2. Of course Julius was young and had health insurance so the chemo treatments were not extraordinary care - the biggest hassle was taking him down to the OC for treatment. A dear lady (now in heaven herself) prayed for my kitty to be healed of cancer and he was. What that taught me was that no concern is too small to bring before the Lord and He cares about the things that concern us.
So if you feel like praying for my furry friend Gus, go for it.

A Critique on Modern Feminism

2005-11-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

A friend forwarded a copy of Maureen Dowd's column "What's a Modern Girl to Do?" and asked for comments.
The following is my response:

As usual, MoDo can certainly describe the symptoms of the disease, but she can never quite get at its root cause.
The feminist movement's greatest flaw was not that they wanted to have it all or even be just like men, but that they wanted to have all these things and more stripped of traditional morality.
In rejecting Judeo-Christian mores as an artifact of patriarchy, they also jettisoned its demand for virtue, loyalty, fidelity and chastity.
The modern feminists embraced "sexual liberation" with the Pill and abortion on demand as the means to true freedom and fulfillment. Some said you didn't need a man at all for sexual satisfaction and embraced lesbianism as the means to their fulfillment. You don't even need a man in your life to get pregnant; just go down to the sperm bank and make a withdrawl. The lie of "Sex and The City", Cosmo, Playboy/Playgirl is that you can go from one meaningless sexual encounter to another without consequences. Sure, maybe these gals don't get an STD or have an unplanned pregnancy, but in treating and then trading sex as a commidity, they have helped to stigmatize women as sex objects. In rejecting the notion that men and women are "image-bearers" of a Holy Creator, humans are reduced to mere animals, subjected to their evolutionary cravings. When you don't have a Transcendent Being defining who you are, you are left confused and rudderless. How does a man know who is supposed to be, how is he to treat and care for a woman (and his children) if we are each just a law unto ourselves, the mere product of our DNA?
It's why people look to books for guidance such as the ones mentioned in this article, "How to Get A Man", "The Rules". People look to something outside themselves to tell them how to think and behave because if we don't get it right, we'll have a crummy life on this planet.
To get at the root cause, we must look at the original purpose that God put man and woman in this world. He placed them here to fill, subdue and rule the world together- both the male and the female, both equally made in the image of God. It was the entrance of sin into the world that upset the design. The curse on man to have to work for a living in "painful toil" all the days of his life, while to the woman, He gave pain in childbearing. To them both, He gave marital turmoil, "Your desire will be for your husband (literally to be the one in control, including sexually) and he will [try] to rule over you." [italics and emphasis, mine]
As a Christian, I believe that Christ came to remove the effects of the Curse and that He shows us a more excellent way to live as men and women in relationship with one another. We are to "consider the needs of others as more important than our own", we are to practice mutual submission to one another out of respect for Christ. We are to reflect the Fruit of the Spirit -love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If we were to practice these things and not give into our selfish wants and desires thould be no "battle of the sexes", no sexism, no hedonistic lifestyles. Men would know who they are and not feel threatened by more successful wives. Women would know that their husbands would not be replacing them with younger, Maxim type models because inner beauty would be more highly prized than outer beauty.
My suggestions are not advocating a Theocracy where the women suddenly become second class citizens; true feminism, especially as advocated in the 19th century, was often led by very godly women who sought to have society reflect their biblical egalitarian principles and was only later hijacked by the godless hedonists of the latter 20th century. Unfortunately, all society now reaps the so-called benefits sown by the Friedans, Steinems and Helen Gurley Browns of that generation.

Sick Again

2005-10-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

So now I have a cold. This year has not been a good one health-wise. In January I came down with the flu and would've been sick longer had it not been for the Tamiflu medicine. I've missed days due to my back, my ears (tinitus), my lungs (bronchitis), my head (migraines). While some of these are more prevalent due to the fact I'm becoming older, I keep thinking that one day I will be fairly free from exposure to cold germs. Afterall, I've been experiencing headcolds for 45 years, you'd think I finally run into one I've had before and therefore resist it with my hardwon immunity. But wait, there are thousands upon thousands of variations on the common cold so maybe this will apply when I'm 200 years old (NOT!).

Deutschland Ueber Alles! (Or Me as a Country)

2005-10-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

This link came from Laura's blog. And to think I was just telling someone yesterday that my personality is so German. I don't know about that Green Party stuff -I'd be more at home in the CDP.

You're Germany!

You have a really ugly past, one that defies description.
This gives you tremendous guilt, but you've coped with it and flourished
into an awfully good person, considering. You've finally made peace with
yourself, in so many ways, and you've been able to build on that for a bright
and capable future. You've become so enlightened that you're probably
a member of the Green Party, or at least listen to their demands.

Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

The Ant & The Grasshopper

2005-10-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

My officemate sent the following to me, I think it illustrates quite well the victicrat mentality that seeks to rule this country :

OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green"
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican

Random Musings

2005-10-25T23:41:00.000-07:00

- This month has seemed to go on forever-maybe it's because I'm looking forward to the two weeks off at Christmas.

- I told the High School girls in my small group that I had read their "My Spaces" blogs - you should've seen the look on their faces. Priceless.

- Still reading Ann Coulter's book "Treason", finished her book "Slander", still to go "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Really Must)". Bought them all on the cheap at Costco.

- Went to the Sea Empress Restaurant for Dim Sum today. Yummmm!

- Contributed to the Member Forum on the ABE website for the first time, I'm getting braver in the blogosphere.

- Time to go to bed, I have an early meeting (8:30 am is early for me, don't laugh).

The Face We Have

2005-10-22T23:25:00.000-07:00

Abraham Lincoln once said that you’re not responsible for the face you’re born with, but your face at fifty is all your fault. Every once in a while you run into someone that illustrates this truism. Laura has remarked that our Congresswoman Maxine Waters is a perfect example of Lincoln's comment. Although Waters' website shows a smiling, relaxed countenance, I have seen her press conferences on TV where she more resembles a snarling dog, with her bitter, paranoid ramblings (she proudly asserted, and still does that the CIA sold crack in Los Angeles and that the minority rioters in 1992 were practicing "civil disobedience" when they burned and looted their own neighborhoods. BTW, I should know - I live there and the folks running down the street were not carrying "essentials" from the liquor store. They looked a lot like they were stocking up for a huge party with their fifths of whiskey.) Anyway, she seems to carry so much rage at all her perceived injustices that the angry look has frozen permanently on her face. Perhaps she is proud that her face bears the marks of her suffering and if that is all that has caused it, I will comment no further as I have now discovered a better example of Lincoln's statement.

Recently, I shared an elevator with a woman I worked with about 18 years ago. I don't rightly know this woman's exact age, although I can estimate it as close to my own (+/- 3 years) based on conversation during the time we worked in the same building. She was then, pretty and petite, but with a mouth on her like a longshoreman (sorry longshoremen). You could hear her halfway down the hall, swearing at some guy that had crossed her. Because she had such an outspoken manner, everyone was aware that she liked to party. She was hard-drinking and hard-smoking; she often stood in the pouring rain to get that one last drag on her cigarette before she'd have to come back into the building. Someone had mentioned to me a few years ago that she had gone through a number of marriages/relationships since I first knew her.

Anyway, when she got on the elevator last week, I almost thought that she had been crying -her eyes seemed red and puffy, her face crinkled with lines (what they call the tracks of the tears). On further observation, I realized she hadn't been crying at all, but that her face bore instead the imprint of a very hard life. It was very sad that this once pretty woman had been disfigured by stress. Furthermore, she had tried to cover up the lines and such with make-up techniques that seemed to have been learned at the Tammy Faye School of Cosmetology.

I say all this, not to mock the poor woman, she is afterall, a person made in the image of God whom He loves dearly ( as is true for Ms. Waters), but it reminded me of an important lesson found in Proverbs 31: "She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs with no fear of the future. ... Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised." (NLT)

When we adorn ourselves with strength and dignity, with "inner beauty" as Paul writes about, we will have an ageless quality that will not need to be hidden by make-up or re-arranged by the plastic surgeon.