Life at 3 miles an Hour

What are you made of? What’s at your core? How deep do you go? Or maybe the question is more importantly, what’s your foundation laid upon? I’ve rolled that around in my brain so much lately I’m beginning to suffer from a bizarre sort of motion sickness. I’ve been totally out of sorts lately, enough so that I wonder about things like the stability of the human mind and the limits that each individual are capable of. The Bible tells us that God will not give us more than we can bear “through Christ”. I’m not sure that this is much comfort. I use these thoughts at times as I talk to people about brokenness and life and things troubling. These words seem nice at the time. I’m not sure if they’re comfort or denial. I am sure that I don’t want to test that theory. How close to that line am I? I remember watching “A Beautiful Mind” for the first time and totally missing, the later on obvious fact, that the college roommate was the only one who never aged. He was merely an illusio...

What are you made of? What’s at your core? How deep do you go? Or maybe the question is more importantly, what’s your foundation laid upon? I’ve rolled that around in my brain so much lately I’m beginning to suffer from a bizarre sort of motion sickness. I’ve been totally out of sorts lately, enough so that I wonder about things like the stability of the human mind and the limits that each individual are capable of. The Bible tells us that God will not give us more than we can bear “through Christ”. I’m not sure that this is much comfort. I use these thoughts at times as I talk to people about brokenness and life and things troubling. These words seem nice at the time. I’m not sure if they’re comfort or denial. I am sure that I don’t want to test that theory. How close to that line am I? I remember watching “A Beautiful Mind” for the first time and totally missing, the later on obvious fact, that the college roommate was the only one who never aged. He was merely an illusio...

Here’s a great question…Why does it seem as if most people who have no business whatsoever in leading people usually do? I mean really. I can’t tell you how many times I encounter someone, especially in a mid level management position, attempting to lead a group of employees or even volunteers for that matter and just messing it up royally. I don’t think there’s a person in this country who has ever worked in a fast food environment or maybe a retail environment who couldn’t relate a story or two or ten about a boss of theirs who mysteriously made it to management seemingly to make their working lives miserable. Managers of fast food chains are almost the worst in my humble opinion. Some of you may argue in favor of your favorite boss to hate. Whatever your history, and mine for I have suffered as you have J, I have found some universal truths to these types of people. Feel free to tell me if you can relate. It seems as if many if not most of these people have a Napolean comple...

I’ve been gone for a long time. It seems like years since I’ve written here. Actually I think it’s only been a few weeks. I’ve been creatively challenged as of late. I just spent another week in New Orleans. I originally thought that a brilliant idea would be to bring my laptop with me and do a kind of daily log (blog, duh) of my experiences there this time. I brought the laptop. I even creatively found an open Starbucks to transmit from. I had my digital camera to record the images. I was all prepared to be the “live eye” @ 11. I wasn’t prepared for the experience though, once again. You know, I’ve already been, already “seen it all” I thought. And this time it really wasn’t much different at all. I’ve come to believe since returning home that this was exactly the problem. It wasn’t much different at all. It’s been almost a week and I’m just now, maybe, going to be able to put together a coherent thought. I’ve never more appreciated the sentiment expressed by Bruce Spr...

I’m a fan of tug boats. I’ve always admired them somewhat, but it’s become a genuine passion of mine since moving to the Northwest. This morning I’m encouraged as I see another one steadily plying it’s way through the waters of the Sound, dutifully and reliably dragging in its wake a well used, well rusted barge overflowing with whatever barges tend to overflow with. I don’t hold the same admiration for barges. In fact, I don’t really appreciate them at all. If I ever won the lottery, one of the first selfish items that I’d purchase would be a tug boat. The main problem with this plan is that I don’t play the lottery, but that’s another story for another time.  I’ve often considered taking a sabbatical from the pastoral thing for a few months of real work on a tug. My biggest obstacle (apart from testing my wife’s patience) would be that I would have no idea what I was doing on a tug. I’d probably not be of much use. However, if I bought it, I’d own it and then who care...

It’s somewhat humbling when you realize that the things you hold dear in life are not all that significant to others. It can be humbling, it can be disturbing, and it can even be maddening. I find myself many times distraught after giving some big dissertation on another brilliant discovery that I’ve made, only to have the person I’m revealing this to say something like “What does this have to do with me?”. They don’t get it. They don’t appreciate it. Maybe it’s just that they don’t want to better themselves. I tell myself this to soothe my ego. I can almost hear my angel laughing hysterically. His response to my brilliance would most likely be “duh, look who just caught up”. After all, he knows what I too often have forgotten, that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” I find this whole process of thinking oneself brilliantly enlightened to be an occupational hazard. My greatest fear as a speaker and teacher of God’s word is for people to roll their eyes and say “whatever.” ...

George Carlin once observed, on a flight across the United States, that everyone lives in their own box of stuff. I’ve flown many times across the country and every time I look down on a clear day I’m reminded of the same thing. We all live, if we’re fortunate enough, in a box of some sort which is mainly a collection of our stuff. When I was young there were times that I could climb into my toy box and there reside amongst my stuff. When the box got too full of stuff, I’d have to get a bigger box. What was I to do? It never occurred to my child sized self-centeredness that I could actually get rid of some of my “stuff” and therefore be content in the same size box. My how some things do not change easily. Now I basically still live in my toy box. It’s a bit bigger and I have to share it, but it really is a toy box. I’d like to say that I’ve grown up a bit and learned to live within my box. The truth is that I’m only determined to stay in this box because, in the area that I...