I Believe In You

I was at church yesterday having a particularly hard time paying attention because of an exam I have been studying for for DAYS. Anyway, I got consciousness back for long enough to really get what the pastor was saying. He was telling us that we have no right to give up on people, or to entertain the notion that we know what God is going to or not going to do. That hit home with me, because I have realized that there are people in my life that I had kinda of given up on making a decision for Christ and choosing to live constructively. I had allowed my lack of success in reaching some people to make me give up, when I reality, it was never me, we are relying on God to change people. Which gives me no right to give up on anyone, so I will not. One of these people is my best friend who I have spent years trying to model Jesus to. I realize I have failed horribly so many times, and I continue to pray for him. But I have noticed that I do not carry the same faith in the actions of God that I used to. I used to believe that God had me in this person's life for a purpose and somewhere along the line I forgot that and need to remember it again. Nothing is an accident, if anyone should know that it is me. So I will believe again. I will look at those who I have doubted and believe in them and believe that God has something for them and is using me to help them reach that destination.

My Endorsement Goes To...

Sarah Palin for president!

If you haven't seen Sarah Palin's speech from the RNC, you should watch it. It was pretty inspiring. It gave me a reason to vote this year in an election that has brought me no excitement at all. She may not have been in politics for long, but look at what she has done while in politics. She sold the government jet on ebay. She got rid of the personal chef, and she did away with the limo. Alaska may not have the population off New York, but it runs with the same government that she has somehow reformed in Alsaka. I like her. One of my friends are going to vote for her just because she is easy on the eyes, so maybe there is hope for the Republicans after all.

The Time Machine

I have seasonal music. Not just Christmas music, I have that too, but music that I typically only listen to during that particular season. It is music that puts me in a different state of mind, like when you walk into an elementary school and smell the pencil shavings and crayons, it puts you back into 1st grade eating paste and picking your nose. Or I walk into an old church and smell the carpet and pews and I am instantly back in a crusty old lady made teddy bear costume performing an annual Christmas play expected to make mistakes so everyone can laugh and say how cute I was. And I was cute. I like that feeling. It makes the sad days better, like now. The
following are just a couple of my Fall seasonal listenings and watchings. Post yours in the comment section.

Music:
Tori Amos
Cat Power
Counting Crows (I have to admit, I listen to this one year round)
The Cranberries
Radiohead
Johann Johannson
Ryan Adams
Denison Witmer
Elliott Smith

Movies:
Great Expectations (I know the book is better, I just like the movie)
The Electric Grandmother (One of the few that make me cry)
The Halloween That Almost Wasn't
Powder
The Myth Of Fingerprints
Harold & Maude
Vanilla Sky
Big
All 80's Horror Movies

To Be Awakened By Rain, But Finally Awakened

The other day, I stepped outside at about 11 PM to sit on the swing and listen to some music because it was so nice outside. Well, I fell asleep and was awakened at 6 AM by the rain smashing bricks on my face. I had somehow laid down on the swing and was crunched up in some origami looking shapes. My neck still hurts, but I don't regret it. Sometimes it is good to sleep under the stars. I wish I did it more. You wake up scared and disoriented, but it makes you appreciate the warmth of coming back inside where you belong. I think that is what God does with us. I think He lets us make mistakes, some very bad ones even because it is beneficial to step outside of where it is warm to experience the fear of being out in the cold. God doesn't cause our sin, but He does allow it and I think He works in spite of it maybe even using it to reach us. God is good. If I know nothing else, I know that. Sometimes we just have it coming though, and we have to see a little of life behind bars to remember the joy of Christ's love.

August And Everything After

It is now entering my favorite and least favorite time of the year. During Fall, I get excited, and nostalgic. I take walks, I drive around just to be out. I look at old houses I have lived in, and I sit under trees with books. However, the Fall also brings on a pretty major depression every year. Every year, I get broken. I enjoy the ghosts, but hate the demons. You can't have one without the other. I will wake up one morning and have a hard time getting out of bed, then stroll to the bathroom mirror and get pissed at what I see. I'll stop and think about all of the great things and horrible things that have happened this time of the year. Both the great and the horrible cause pain during these times. My wife will ask me 5 times a day if I am OK. I will say yes, because I am. But I will be silent for a while, then wake up one morning and it will be gone.

I was saved in the fall. I tried suicide in the fall. My friend took his own life in the fall. I have walked aimlessly in the fall. I have awoken in strange place in the fall. I have had horrible nightmares in the fall. Yet I was resurrected in the fall, reanimated. So along with this pain comes a sense of excitement in my faith. I remember more vividly the moments I heard Christ speak to me the loudest, and I will remember hearing and listening. I will remember sitting in my apartment alone until most of you are getting up for work reading my Bible pouring cup after rotten cup of brown hot water. I was absolutely amazed with God. I wanted to know everything. I still do, but sometimes forget how I long for God. How I need to hear Him clearly, how I need to feel His presence, how I need His forgiveness. I need to be overwhelmed, to be overcome. I need to be broken and mended. I need the Lord. I need Him to fill my eyes, I need Him to weaken my knees. I need Him to break my will, I need Him to breathe. May our God give you everything you need, not everything you want. May God heal your bodies and those around you, May God bring you to your knees in worship. May God bless you.

Aging Cheese

60's

70's

80's

90's

Present


This is from a fun website called Yearbookyourself.com. I was playing around with it and came up with these funny pictures that reveal what I would have looked like in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. I had fun with it, but it leads me to the question. At what age do people stop changing with the styles? I have a theory that people remain the way they are when they graduate high school. Maybe because there is less pressure to be cool, or because we mature and realize the futility of trying to remain cool. Except us youth pastors who look just like any other student except for with less hair. Not me though I have a beautiful Quoff, but most of my youth pastor friends have that back of the head bald spot going on. I try to remain, but I think that as you get older, you look more and more foolish trying to look younger and at some point we have to decide to go ahead and stop resisting and fall into a fashionable redundancy hoping to take on the sophisticated aged appearance everyone talks about. I was reading in Men's Health that there are sign posts that tell a man when to hang certain things up. At 30, no more print shirts or band t-shirts. At 28, no more holes in the jeans. At 23, no more cartoons. At 19, no more going to the mall to hang out. Well, I want to do all of these things still. Does that make me lame. Anyway, go do the website thing and have fun, send me the pictures, I want to see them.

American Idiot

I used to train kids many years ago in the ancient art of ninja. I was young, sadistic, anti-Christic, and demented. There are a few horrible things I must admit to before I continue.
1. I hit a kid in the head with a bat.
2. I forced my friend Vern (Another alias) to dive off of a top bunk bed head first to the wood floor with his hands tied behind his back. To teach a ninja's high threshold of pain.
3. I made my students walk across the cross beam of the swing set and they could move on with the training, when and only when they made it to the other side without falling. No one ever did.
4. I nearly killed an old lady with a home made stink bomb and then taught her granddaughter how to say horrible words.
5. I had a huge crush on Verns mom.
6. I made small children punch each other in the face.

Ok, that is now a weight lifted. I of course was a little boy myself only a little older than my students. And I had no karate experience except for the Bruce Lee movies I watched all the time. But believe it or not, I was successful for a kid. I charged $5 per person for a whole year of training. In the end, all the kids died and I still train. No neither of those things are correct. But I do realize why my mother thought I was such a monster. Because I was. In high school and just after, she on several occasions called me Satan. Now to put that into perspective, she is Pentecostal, which focuses much of what happens in the world to spiritual warfare. She really was only trying to get Satan to leave, but he didn't. Not yet at least. I now can look back and see that I am invincible. I should definitely be dead or in jail with all of the shenanigans I routinely pulled. I pulled a knife on a neighborhood kid for no reason other than to scare him. I invented backyard child fighting rings which are running ramped now. I smoked weed in the 4th grade. WTC. (What The Crap) (Since I try not to curse unless I hit my head or stub my toe) How am I still alive? I had a heart attack at 19, was saved from suicide, and saved a Chinaman from drowning. God wants me alive I think.

God also laughs at me often. Not with me, but at me. I am an idiot. Not the kind that you find endearing, but the kind, you walk away from and say, "What an idiot" under your breath.

Love and Dogs

Love is an interesting topic of discussion for today, would you like to tell me about the time that you felt most loved? No thanks doctor, but would you like to know why I hate dogs? I was in eighth grade and I was walking to school one morning, walking to school is what little boys do sometimes, when I saw before me, about a hundred yards away, two horses, at least they looked like horses, turns out they were pit bulls, what luck. I began to run shortly after they started chasing me, but too late to hop a fence. So I ran. The horses gained a lot of ground as I neared my street and I started to hear them panting and snarling, and doing that thing that horses do when they sneeze, and I could feel hot air on my ankles. What do you do Zombie? Scream, no by the time help arrives; I’ll be a biscuit for these horses. Turn and try to fight? That is now the funniest idea I’ve ever had. Maybe I’ll reason with them. I’ll just turn around and explain why a skinny little boy like me would never make a good meal, why they would be much more satisfied with a nice packet of oat meal. I jumped. I jumped right up onto a car and I was saved until help arrived, that, Dr. Smorgasbord, is why I hate dogs, and walking to school.

Avoidence

I have very stereotypical neighbors. I have the shirtless old man with Sanford and Sons backyard. We have the political guru with all of the campaign signs and opinions that follow. I catch myself playing the avoidance game a lot. But God never called us to play the avoidance game did he? We make contact easier and easier on ourselves by using phones instead of face to face, texting instead of phones, email, websites designed to connect you with others, when all we need to do is step outside and talk to someone. All of those things are fine and good unless they are replacing the love we need to be showing others face to face. The kind that inspires Jesus to reach out and physically touch a leper. There is this old slogan that says “Preach the Gospel always. And when necessary, use words.”

My Olympic Sport Would Be Those Carnival Water Squirting Races

I am watching Olympic speed walking right now. It is weird. Most of these women I see see on my block, granted they are wearing bullet proof vests here, but they are like regular people with no real athletic features. I wish they would have a contest and the winner would get to participate in the Olympic sport of their choice. I would do the gymnastic floor exercise. I have skills in the cartwheel, the round-off, and the somersault. I could be competitive, maybe bring home the gold for my country. Speaking of gymnastics, I saw the men do the high bar thing and I can't believe this is actually possible. To spin around on that thing, like what if your spouse came home and caught you flipping around and spinning on that bar like on the cross bar of the backyard swing set. She would poop. Then I would stick the dismount.

A few embarrassing facts that I should never share over the internet.
1. The last time I pooped my pants was less than 8 years ago.
2. Until last winter, I thought it was the wind shield factor.
3. I enjoy sleepovers (The clean kind)
4. I have seen every single Dawson's Creek episode
5. I once pretended to be slain in the Spirit to get someone's approval.

Arnold Gets Pissed

A friend showed me this. He says it is like a bad porno gone wrong. (I say all porno is bad)

A Cycle Of Neglect

Last night, Laura and I were watching this True Life Documentary on kids trying to find their dads. One of the little girls had this cute little guy who she tried so hard to get his daddy to love but with no avail. It was really sad because the mom knew what it was like to grow up without knowing your father, so no matter how ugly this kids dad was, she wanted the kid to know him as his dad. It makes me sad because the statistics get worse every year for kids born into broken homes, and the world wonders why this generation is more angry with more self-destructive tendencies than ever before. Imagine the next generation, and how they are going to be. Every generation has a diminishing respect for the family and it's importance. Soon enough, things keep going the way they are and kids will hate the idea of family, no one will have a dad, or mom for that matter, and everyone will think only about themselves. We are not far off from this. My friend's ex wife just tried to kill herself with her kids present. Imagine the message this sends to the kids. Imagine the repercussions of our actions. They all of the grown ups responsible sit back and scowl at the youth and the bad choices they have made without recognizing the the role they played in the disaster. The baby boomers thought they would rule the world and they did, they had so much success, they conquered everything including communism. But as a whole, they neglected their kids. I say this as a generalization which I try not to do, I realize the many exceptions to this, many great parents coming out of all of the following generations but the truth is the truth. They criticized their kids for their lack of success. They called them the Bridger generation, because they weren't quite right, they were too effected by the poor parenting and would do everything different than their parents did, they weren't good enough but would bridge to something amazing, the Gen X. This Generation would master the computer age. They would conquer everything again. They would reach for the sky, but then they denied their kids. And here we are; Generation who knows. Our parents who are responsible for raising us, call us the me generation because we are so selfish, yeah we are, as if they weren't. We underachieve and will follow the same cycle the Bridgers did. We will do everything different and will have highly successful and neglectful kids. Meanwhile our families are divided physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

All Work And No Play Makes Zombie A Dull Boy

Tomorrow I am off for a 72 hour bender of work as I take the students camping in Muskegon. Robbers beware, our house is being guarded.


Boxes, little boxes made of ticky tacky little boxes.

Vacation Seen Through A Preview Screen

I have recently considered the impact of the digital age on family vacations. We noticed that the single thing that motivated us most to visit certain vacation spots was the ability to get great pictures. We found ourselves, not focusing so much on the fun and beauty of the places themselves rather trying our best to get the best photo of it as we could, to prove we were there, choosing photographic proof over memory. I notice this with my kids activities too. My son plays baseball, so I take a lot of pictures of him at his games, and it has occurred to me that most of the balls I have seen him hit were seen from a little digital preview screen instead of live in front of me. Anyway, here are some of our memories reduced to millions of numbers making a photograph.





Sometimes I don't even care if anyone alse is in the photo, as long as I am.

The Cell From The Outside

It is easy to see God as this loving father, who while we deserve all the pain and sorrow we can et dished on us, continues to pour out his love for us faithfully giving us what we don’t deserve. Like children who have made many mistakes over and over again, he continues to gently discipline us, showing us the right path and the reasons not to choose the wrong one again. It is also just as easy to see God as a god who desires forgiveness, but continues to hold us under water with the curse of sin. I try and try to do the right thing, to live perfectly or at least live well for Him yet at the end of the day when I lay my head down on that pillow, I am still guilty in my heart. I didn’t do well enough, I didn’t live as a sacrifice, I thought too much of myself, I wrote my foolishness and shame on this blog for anyone so see. I killed people with my words, even those that I love the most. I fell into the temptations the world waved in my face. I killed with words, I corrupted with my hands. I lusted with my eyes. I have stolen with my pride. I go to sleep guilty every night, then wake and do it again. I think this is the mind set that a lot of people struggle with. I know I do. Living in the freedom God has given is not as easy as it should be. A prisoner gets set free without bail, without further guilt and he walks outside of that cell and can’t leave it behind. He has no idea what to do with his freedom he has been in chains for so long. So he commits more crime to go back to jail where he is comfortable. I think I sin because it is more comfortable to me to be in chains, at least in my mind. The truth is sin is paid for by Christ’s blood...completely. Why is this such a hard concept for the church to accept. We want to argue over dogma and religions and what is sin and what is not, yet we forget the freedom God has granted us. He is not an unforgiving God who holds us down in this curse. He did away with the curse. He asks us simply to believe to accept that gift. But still we find reasons to make it harder than it has to be.
I wonder all of the time what Jesus meant when He said, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. I have never seen this life. All I have known of faith is the fight. I have never known the easy part and I think the easy part is that we really do not have sin as a problem. I haven’t known the easy part because I haven’t accepted the easy part. It is just too easy to try and chain myself down. This makes me sad at the myself and sad at the world that hates me, and sad for everyone else who struggles to accept that Jesus closed the cell doors with us on the outside and we are free.

Freeway Typing Isn't Easy

I am going up north right now. Remember the commercial where the guy digs a hole and is in the grave looking hole on the internet. He had one of those internet cards, oh crap I just sounded really old with that last statement, like he had one of those phones, where you can take them outside with you but only for a few houses then they get static. I have one of those from Laura's work. I just did some homework and am now passing the time on the intenet. Anyway, the semester is over today and i get a week off of school, so we are taking a 5 day sabaticle and going up north to the cabin. Be jealous, I am going to pull one hundred unedible and tiny fish out of the lake, then build a sub par fire that I need gasoline to maintain burning, then going to eat all weekend and get fat. On an unrealted note my friend The Body gave me a glass he found at the house he is moving in to from Boblo Island. Most of you have never heard of such a place, but for Michiganders, Boblo was the cheapest vacation at home you could ever go on. You had to go get on a ferry boat and you get there and it wasn't really special, but still we went back until it closed. The gates froze over and they tore it down to build mansions. I miss Boblo Island, I even wrote a song about it, here it is on one of my Myspace pages. It is called Boblo Island and I am listed as Noi. http://www.myspace.com/thebluesection

Garbage Picking; Ok or Stealing?

The weirdest thing is happening right now. In the last few minutes, I have put out three random items for the trash on the curb. 1. A broken vacuum 2. Two halogen lights with no bulbs, basically small pieces of sheet metal 3. A wooden, framed in light. After I took out the vacuum, I was on my way back out with the halogen frames and there was a guy tearing apart my vacuum for parts. He looked up like Gollum and jumped back into his truck. Then as I was taking out the Framed in lights, a different guy was grabbing the halogens and he road off. Then just as he left, a different guy rolls up and takes the rest of the vacuum except for the hose which he tossed on the grass and the framed in lights. It is so weird by my house. I had mentioned before that someone went through my trash one night. It was so weird.

A Question To Ponder

I would really like to know. What do you folks in the blogosphere think about the Mustache?

The Terrorist Story

I was eating Chinese food at the best Chinese Restaurant in the world, New Peking in Garden City yesterday. At the table they have those Chinese zodiac things as place mats. I was reading mine, which was a Horse and it did a pretty good job at describing who I was, I was the only one that matched, but it did for the most part. At the end of the about the horse part was a list of good jobs for me to have and explorer was one of them and that reminded me that I love exploration. I do not really care about finding new places that no one has been to, I really love going to abandoned and forgotten places. In Detroit almost everywhere is abandoned, so there is a lot for me to explore. You can see some in the Forgotten Michigans link in my link list. A couple years ago I hung up my explorers bag after getting a trespassing ticket for being in the parking lot of an abandoned mental institution. But before I crossed the law, I had been to some really cool, and some scary places. Well this one time I was going with some friends to explore this abandoned hose factory in the middle of the woods and this turned out to be one of the craziest nights ever. It was in Salem, and we had to drive down many small, dirt roads to get there. Well, we came across this house that was in the woods kind of and there was this red light pouring out of the windows, nothing that is at all normal to see. We stopped and glared in for a couple of minutes at the magnificent weirdness of the light. Then we carried on. We ended up driving into the woods on a little road for a few miles. Well we saw the land mark we were supposed to see. It was an abandoned and graffitied school bus and we parked next to it and started to get out. I stood up just outside of the car's drivers seat and looked at the bus and as I did a cars light came on behind us. We had been followed into the woods. I was pulled back into the car by I thought my friend who was behind me in the back seat and we flew out of there and into safety. Turns out, my friend asked me how I got back in the car so fast. She didn't pull me back in and she was the only one behind me. On the way home, we saw this abandoned house next to a cometary that looked menacing, so we pulled into the drive-way. As we did, we smelled this terrible funk and saw a raccoon burst out of one of the windows. We had decided that there was something dead in the house or somewhere close. So we bolted. Well I looked up the place the next day and to my surprise, a dead body had been found there the same morning. Murdered. Also, they had found some terrorist materials and plans and maps in the abandoned hose factory as well. Here is my hypothesis. God gave us the red light. He did so because if we would not have stopped and stared at that light for a few minutes, we would have already been out of the car and into the woods walking toward the factory and unable to escape the terrorists inside. The one that followed us was a lookout for the terrorists who were planning to poison Detroit's water system, which is one of the largest in the country. Maybe I am wrong. I don't think so though, so I called the FBI and reported what had happened and they said they would check it out and that was it. This should be enough to scare me away from urban exploration, but it only fueled me to want to see more. But I will no longer trespass. There is something about being in a place that people used to be long before I was born, doing business, being incarcerated, and functioning and thriving. But now it is all gone and the place is rats now. The architecture is beautiful, every room is haunting. The past is an obsession with me, both other's pasts and my own. I see ghosts everywhere, not the literal kind, but the ones we leave behind as we pass through.

Abstract Vs. Analytical

I will ask for some participation now. Do you think abstractly or analytically? Most can do both on some level, but I am talking about how we mostly use our brains. I think mostly abstractly, I will see something, see some potential, get a grand vision, then botch it all up trying to get it done. The problem with thinking abstractly all the time is that you are a dreamer that can't really get things done to an acceptable degree of satisfaction with the product. The problem with thinking analytically is that many times we don't see the big picture or the beauty in the work to get there. Neither schools alone can get the job done, but when put together, they do amazing things. Look at the disciples of Jesus. Fisherman, and doctors, revolutionaries, and tax collectors. Jesus chose both kinds of people and I think it was to balance each other out. One came up with the idea, the other new how to get it done. Neither more important than the other, but essential to the job. One of my friends, his name is Harry, (Not his actual name, but to keep his identity safe, I have gone with who I think he looks like, which is Harry Potter) he told me that I go about the most difficult way of getting everything done, he is of course an analytical teacher who is very practical minded. The room all laughed because they all knew that. I am trying to lead with no idea how to get things done, I guess that is why God sends people like Harry to help me out. There are frustrations and beauties in being the way I am. But I love needed others, and I hate it. I hate asking because of my insecurities that I am bothering someone, but I love working side by side with people that think totally differently than me. I think that is how God intended it to be though. People clash because they don't understand each other, but God tells us in His Word to put up with each other, showing grace and mercy. I am one that makes a lot of mistakes, and needs a lot of grace and mercy. As an example, I refuse to proof read these posts for errors, so my loving wife comes home form work and goes back in and fixes the mistakes because I am too careless and maybe lazy to do so. Tell me how you think.