Unbelievable...

Sometime soon I will share (much to Ben's delight) some regrets I now have about the way we went to war in Iraq. But for now, let me just ask, didn't we go to war in Afghanistan to stop crap like this?

Thomas Bickle...

Check out the blog of El Mol sometime today. My Site Meter tells me there's enough of you out there to put a huge dent into the needs of a deserving family.

In Search of a Pat on the Ass...

A few months ago I ran into an old friend who lives here in Waco, but who I don't really see that often. We exchanged the obligatory "What are you up to?" 's and "Have you heard from?" 's. Somewhere in the conversation it came up that there was this lady who had become his Life Coach. I gave the obligatory "That's cool." I'm quite sure the tone of my "That's cool," suggested that a.) I didn't know what the hell a Life Coach was and b.) I didnt' really think it was cool to have one.

Today after work I had my weekly Monday afternoon game of racquetball with Nathan. I came home, grabbed a bite to eat, then began to prepare for the writing group I'm a part of. On my way out the door I was thinking about my day and my week and the Annie Dillard quote that used to adorn Myles' blog that read "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

I'm loving the way I spend my days these days. I cram in work and a little excersise. I try to read a little and catch up with the news. I try to get all that out of the way so I can spend time with people I love and who love me, like the three kids whose fingers I'm wrapped around and people who tend to celebrate birthdays once a year, like Harris did today.

But in the middle of it I'm getting the feeling that my days are getting a bit too crowded. I've had my ego stroked enough that I want to spend more time writing. There are financial goals I'm just now considering fullfilling, like getting a lot of bills paid and exploring the possibilty of purchasing a house in the next couple of years.

The spirit is willing, you know the rest.

As I was driving I had this thought: I need a Life Coach-- Someone to tell me what to do and when to do it. I need someone who can take my erratic work schedule that comes out once a week, scan through it, and begin planning the next couple of weeks for me. This person would call all the people I should spend time with and work my shedule out with theirs. They would tell me when I should be writing, when I should be sleeping, and how many miles I should run on a given day. I'd wake up in the morning, walk out the door and they'd yell "We went over this yesterday, remember? You can do it buddy! Go get 'em Tiger," and then slap my ass as I got into my car.

Anyone interested in the position? If you were my Life Coach, what would you tell me to do?

Revival Ramblings...

Growing up we had church meetings twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday. Once a year, however, a week was set aside to have church every day and this was called a "Revival."

Some of you know what I'm screamin'.

Revival services were led not by the local pastor but by an itinerant preacher known as an "evangelist," which in most cases was a misnomer seeing how evangelism was not the point of a revival. Re-vival was the point. Or was it? Wednesday nights (which in my early childhood was the middle night of revival services-- later on it became the last) was set aside as "Bring 'em Back Alive" night. On this night we were encouraged to bring our friends who were not Christians to church where they could become alive. The hope was that these souls who were dead at 6:30 p.m. would be alive by 10:00 p.m., just in time for the local news.

The problem with this is that in all of East Texas there are only about four or five people who don't claim to be Christians.

So rather than bringing our nonexistent non-Christian friends we instead brought not people who didn't worship, but rather people who worshipped at different places and in different ways. Revival weeks were times to pick off members of another congregation and add them to yours.

Another result of being in a place during Revivals where everyone was (or called themselves) Christians was the phenomenon of people who were thought by all to be of the faith who came to the realization that although they prayed to God and read their bibles daily and believed in God the Father, Jesus the Crucified and Resurrected Son, and the Holy Spirit, they were not, in fact, "saved," (which is the words we used for being a Christian.) Sometimes these people got "saved" at every revival. It was somewhat scandalous, yet extremely enjoyable to watch

When I got to college I began hearing the word "Revival" in different contexts from the once a year week long meeting I had grown up attending. People began to say "revival is coming," yet not once reference an evangelist or a "Bring 'em Back Alive" night. It seemed they were talking about something that was at best, True. At worst, Fun.

Later I learned that when people said they thought revival was coming what they really meant was that soon something will happen and the faith of everyone else will look just like my faith. "Revival is coming, and when it does, I want to be there," really meant "Revival is cominig, and when people look for the reason for it, look no further than right here at me."

It's funny, but I haven't heard anyone talk about revival in the past five or six years. I can't decide if incessant revival-talk is primarily an East Texas occurance, if something people in Waco are too sophisticated for, or if people have just gotten tired of it.

To tell you the truth, I haven't missed it one bit.

Looking back on the revival meetings of my childhood I realize the greatest thing about them was the sharing of meals that would happen before each service and the opportunity to hear a different preacher (even if they yelled much louder than ours--a feat that seemed impossible but that occured nevertheless.)

I typically cast a cynical eye towards revival talk. Maybe this isn't good, but I think it's a defense mechanism because generally people going through what they claim to be "revival" can be a bit too exclusive and snoody for my taste, without even realizing it.

____________________
(This post has been a ramble-- trying to make it into a book chapter.... sorry for the abrupt ending.)

No, No, No,...

I don't claim to know much about heaven or what emotions and feelings we have when we get there. But I can safely say right now that Kyle is pissed.

Interesting...

I've spent the past couple of days in an empty apartment in the center of an empty college town. I've left for errands, but mostly I've just wandered back and forth between this computer, the chairs occupying this room, and the couch in front of the television.

I sit in silence reading about the Azusa Street Revival and the birth of global Pentecostalism. I come to a stopping point, place the bookmark (which is actually the receipt from the purchase of the book) into the crease, close it, place it on my lap and inhale a deep breath. I consider my brushes with the many strains of strange (to me) churches and practices and beliefs. I wonder how they have shaped in ways good and not so good. I revisit in my mind the time I spent at a church that always thought I was good but just hadn't quite arrived to where I should be because I was a novice in "True Spirituality." I haven't thought these thoughts in years. They come and go. I obsess over them for months at a time then convince myself I'm over it until a year or two later when a book comes across my eyes or a conversation darkens my door. My life has been a reaction to this.

Then I'm stunned into the realization that my hand is still reacting to the impulse caused by my contemplations. The impulse to reach into my pocket for my cell phone to call Kyle and tell him, hey, next time we hang out remind me to tell you about...

Then I take another deep breath. Not the "I'm enjoying life, breathe and breathe well" type breaths, but rather the "I guess this is when I should cry, but I'm just getting too tired for it" breaths.

Yesterday I watched the movie Sideways. I enjoyed it, thought probably not as much as others would have liked me to. The thing about it that moved me was how Jack, the character played by Thomas Hayden Church, despite his lack of interest in the nuances of wine loved his friend Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, so much that he was willing to suffer gladly Mile's love affair with everything wine-related. Yet it was so much more than suffering gladly. Jack actually slowly, over time, developed a novice's appreciation for the fermented nectar because of his friends obsession. I would never be Miles, but it was something.

This was one of Kyle's greatest gifts: He never lost his genuine curiosity about people and life and ideas that fall to the wayside for so many of us the farther away from childhood we get. One of his favorite things to say was how at UBC we are not a people who "posture holiness." And for Kyle it could be said by anyone who was ever engaged in a conversation with him is that he could never posture curiosity. He was curious.

Everyone was always interested in Kyle because he always made you feel interesting. In front of him you always felt special, like you were a real person. Unlike many leaders who see you as a cog in the machine of their organization, Kyle saw you as a friend with a world of life to be mined and enjoyed.

I pick up the book and continue reading.
And breathe.

What I've been up to...

I've kind of used Spring Break (which I am not a part of) as an excuse to not write much. Everyone else has checked out, so I guess I have as well.

The things I've been doing this week are as following...

-- Becoming familiar with Graphic Novels (comic books for us old timers.) I've given up the gift department to Carol, who has a much better eye and talent for that stuff, and have taken up the Manga, Graphic Novel, and Role Playing Game Department. I'm going to become a nerd. But better a nerd than having to clean up journals every day.

-- Helping Jen move into her new place next door to Jessica Simpson's grandparents and scheming how I can become the next Mr. Jessica Simpson. (I'll even settle for Mr. Ashley Simpson if it will guarantee me a place on the cover of at least one tabloid. Is she 18 yet?)

-- Working on some writing stuff about Kyle.

-- Listening to some of Kyle's sermons.

-- Running on the treadmill and suspecting I have some fluid on my lungs because it's been a little harder to breathe lately. Perhaps it's something in the air.

-- Reading a book on the Azusa Street Revival and the birth of global Pentecostalism.

-- Waiting patiently on everyone to return to Waco so we can continue this great big party we call life.

Out.