Doh

Well, the poem that I just posted, which probably appears below this one, is screwed up.

The words are there, and the line breaks, but the spacing is ALL wrong. If I ever figure out how to fix it, I'll repost it.

I'll probably post some of my other writing exercises here, too.

I'm currently reading a book about writing, and its filled with exercises.  This is the result of one of them.

                                         March 20


Images of the sky
                                         reflected in melting icicles
        (unseen by unseeing eyes)
moving by rote
                     rocking a newborn boy

Black hat
                Black veil
                                Black dress
     twisting in a frigid wind

A sea of mourning
    seated on blue cushions
One blue suit amidst the black
                                          (a young man openly weeping)

Silent tears tracing silent paths
               cascading down a numb face
                           pale blue eyes focused on a memory of

Nurses running
                screaming "Code Blue"
                                                                Blue lips, cyanotic
Fixed, unseeing eyes, staring at the ceiling

Looking down,
                seeing Grandpa's eyes
                                 watching from a newborn's face.




Let me know what you think of it.  If you have questions about it, the symbolism, the scenery, let me know.

Afraid

I picked up a book about writing. This is the product of an exercise from the first chapter. Write about the word "Afraid."

As people, we fear many things. We fear pain and loss. But, we only fear for those things we care about. We fear for our lives. We fear the loss of our loved ones and our prized possessions. We fear failure.

We only fear for those things we care for. But, if we care for nothing, then we will have no fear. Our God commands us with these words though: Fear Not. He also commands us to love. Deeply and passionately. What we love, we should fear to lose.

How, then, can we love and still have no fear? "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." What can we lose? Everything. What is eternal? God.

If you live your life with God, you have nothing to fear. If you live without God, you live in perpetual fear.

‘Mystery worshipper’ scheme could go nationwide

Well now, all I can say is "Its about time."

At first I was offended at the idea of a "mystery worshiper." Of course, I assumed it was some humanist/atheist/government group sending in the "mystery worshiper" in order to discredit that church, or the Church, as a whole.

Instead, it was a church organization who wanted to check on its friendliness and accessibility to the unchurched. They hired an unchurched person and sent them in to grade the church. They looked at warmth of welcome, length of sermon and style of music, among other aspects of the church service. They also looked at eye-contact and help with directions.

I was in a leadership training conference, and the speaker said, as a pastor, he hired local business men to come to his church and evaluate it, as a business man. $20 bought him professional advice. They mentioned things like light bulbs not matching, tears in the carpet which could be a tripping hazard, and bathroom cleanliness. When people go shopping, they have certain expectations. When people come to church, their expectations are often higher, since the Church represents God, and business are only looking out for themselves.

Just thinking about my church raises several questions in my mind. In my particular Sunday School class, their is a box of 'junk' sitting on a dresser in the corner. The dresser is used for storage, and the box of 'junk' is just ... a box of junk, as far as I can tell. As the Sunday School director, I need to look at all the rooms and see what we have, and what they need. The teachers can't be relied on in this area. Not because they are incompetent, but because they are inured to what is around them. I often don't see the mess at home because I'm used to it being there. The teachers, and everyone else in every church around the country, doesn't see what isn't there, because we're used to working around what we don't have.

Hopefully this "mystery worshiper" concept will catch on and we'll be able to improve our churches.

By the way, the churches had an average rating of 85%, with five scoring a perfect 100%. We're doing something right.‘Mystery worshipper’ scheme could go nationwide

To Vote or not To Vote? (What ridiculous choices we face)

Honestly, I haven't really looked at the candidates yet. Why bother? Its either in the hands of God, or the media. I trust one, but not the other.

There are roughly 300 million people in America. I'm not sure how many can vote, or how many will. Lets say .... one in ten? I'm probably over-estimating. That's 30 million voters.

Unfortunately, the way I understand things, I'm not voting for the president. I'm voting for someone who may or may not vote for the president: an electoral candidate. So, in California, lets say 100 people vote. (I know it will be more, but the math is easier this way.) 51 vote for a flaming liberal, and 49 vote for a conservative. The liberal wins, so the electoral candidate casts his vote for the liberal. What just happened to my vote? It became void. Useless. Of no account.

Do all the electoral candidates of a state vote as a block, for the candidate with the most votes in that state? (I think so in most cases.) So, the WHOLE state, in effect, votes for one candidate.

I live in California, a real big liberal state. My children will be taught about health, but not morals. Homosexuality, but not abstinence. Evolution, but not ethics. As a state, we will probably vote Democrat.

I honestly believe my vote will have absolutely no effect on the outcome of this election at all.

So, what can I do?

What do I do?

I play a game online. I go to work. I play around on Myspace, and a little bit on Facebook. I blog and I write. Oh, and I read. I attend church with my family.

Is my life making a difference?

I was reading the M88 blog on Myspace, and they were talking about the new Knight Rider movie on NBC. (I used to love that show.) Michael Knight's tag-line was something about one man making a difference. M88 was asking, in today's world, can one man make a difference?

Jesus' did. His life has changed mine, as well as those of my family, and many of my friends. I suppose my vote my not (probably won't) change things one way or the other. But my life, lived daily in front of friends and family, will affect those around me.

I've been re-reading a set of books I really enjoy, "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny. Book Five is called The Hand of Oberon. In this set of books, there is a black highway leading from the Courts of Chaos straight to the Amber. (If this doesn't make sense, don't worry.)

The current king is making plans with his family and friends on how to defeat the hordes that are marching up the road. "Why don't we take the war to them. We've got an army that can stomp them flat." Thats a paraphrase, by the way. Eric doesn't think so. Yes, he's got the armies. But, he realizes theres another problem.

The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.

Yes, this is true. It is not the outward threats that are the greatest, but the inner ones. On a national level, we are threatened by terrorism. Yet, the greatest defeat we suffered was at the hands of people we allowed into our country. Now, we are much more vigilant. We argue and bicker amongst ourselves on many levels: national politics, local eminent domain, families, and ourselves. Whose the best leader? Republicans? Democrats? Does the city have the right to seize private property for public interest? Who does the dishes and picks up the kids?

What do I do know? Should I be doing this? Another book I read was part of the Enemy Mine set, by Barry Longyear. One of the races he created was small and weak. They're path to self-defense lay in misdirecting enemies towards each other, and away from them. 'Ensure that the stronger enemies wear themselves out fighting each other, and leave us alone' type philosophy. But, what if you only had one enemy? How do you deal with him? You divide him against himself. "You want to cross this line. If you do, I'll break every bone in your body. Now you don't want to cross that line. And yet, you still do." The lone enemy was then divided against himself.

We have many enemies in life. Yet, as was stated above, we must deal with our own inner weakness before the outer enemy can be dealt with. In the case of Amber, it was the road that needed to be dealt with. So we destroy this particular army, yet leave the Black Road. The enemies from the Courts of Chaos just raise another one, and another one, and another one. We will wear ourselves out fighting the same battles over and over and over.

What we need to do is remove the Black Road from our lives. For each of us, it is probably something different. But, we need to do more than remove something. That only creates a vacuum. And a vacuum must be filled with something. I, for one, prefer to chose what fills that vacuum than to let random chance, or worse yet, my enemy, decide what goes there.

Many people quit smoking, only to gain weight. You have to fill that vacuum somehow. Jesus said that if a demon is cast out, it goes and looks around, then comes back to check out its original host. If that host is still empty, it returns with seven more worse than itself. That host needs to fill that place with the Holy Spirit.

Here's another analogy: Ever have someone tell you NOT to think about chocolate cake? Do you know how to succeed in this? Think about something else. Reading. Work. Writing. Blogging. Play a game. Play with you children. Trying to NOT do something is hard. Try to do SOMETHING in its stead.

Most of us have a BlackRoad that the enemy uses to assault us. We need to deal with that road to keep the enemy at bay.

Goings on

Well, its been a while. Things got busy, and I lost my place in my little book, which is rather embarrassing considering its an abridgment. I have the full thing somewhere else, and perhaps I'll take a shot at it next.

Since my last blog, which is a looooong time ago, our pastor asked me to take over as Sunday School Director, which really surprised me, considering I'd only been to Sunday School twice. In four years. And now I'm trying to figure out who I can call on in a pinch. And I'm getting pinched right now. I have ten teachers. One wants out. And two are leaving for the next three months. Its hard enough finding a volunteer for one or two weeks, let alone twelve.

I started NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. One month. Thirty Days. Fifty thousand words. It started off fun. I whipped out 12-15,000 words in the first few days. Then Ryan got sick. And Hope. For a week. Then they gave it to me. And to Faith. She got better right around Thanksgiving. So, I worked good for a week, then sickness and disease ripped the heart out of November, and left me with roughly four or five days at the tail end to make up 30,000 words. I made it to 38,000 before time ran out. But, I'm continuing on anyway. (I want to see how my story ends. And Sandy would probably hurt me if I quit in the middle of it.) I've been posting it to my igoogle documents page, and she's been reading it. Every day. Even printing it off and taking it home with her. Even Faith read the first few pages and enjoyed it. Of course, school and work and family prevent her from finishing it right now. And it it pretty daunting. Nearly sixty pages so far and counting. If you don't have time to read an actual book, you probably don't have time to read this either.

So, due to life and everything interfering, a lot of things have fallen to the wayside. Hopefully, I can pick up the pieces in December.