Life at 3 miles an Hour

I would guess that everyone has had the experience of being misunderstood or misunderstanding someone else. In a life where speaking and listening is a profession, this can be very demanding, confusing, and sometimes exasperating. It's my theory that the gap between a persons mouth and someone else's ears was established during that Old Testament Tower of Babel incident. You may recall that as the inhabitants of the land were making a valiant attempt at constructing a tower up to God He confused their languages mid-project and forever more communication gaps have existed between people. They don't teach you those things in pre-marital counseling. when you could really use it. The whole process of preparing teaching moments and preaching series can seem like such a waste of time when people come up to me and say things like, "I loved it when you said...." and I have no idea where that thought came from. Sometimes it scares me. Sometimes I have to question wh...

I remember the original "Rocky" movie. Even though I haven't seen it in quite some time I still remember many moments from it and many famous lines. One section of dialogue I've been remembering more and more lately as our church wrestles with a new budget is a conversation that Rocky has with Adrienne about gaps. Do you remember it? Excuse my memory but the basic thought process that was being exhibited was this: "I got gaps...you got gaps...but together, we don't got gaps". The idea is simple. Everyone has something that they lack, but for everyone the lacking is different. You find compatibility when you find someone who makes up for your "gap" and you for theirs. A healthy relationship acts that way. It isn't draining, it is enhancing. It doesn't make excuses, it mends holes. Faith needs to be that kind of a relationship. Jesus told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you". In other words, whatever you lack, His...

Spam, I hate it. I always have. I don't like the canned version nor do I appreciate the version that slimes my email account every single day. It's ridiculous. In my profession I hear more often than I care to about how peoples lives are a product of their family environment and disfunction in childhood. Save it! You want disfunction? Every month of my growing up years we had a "spam night" in our family. My father loves the stuff and therefore we got to experiment with it at least 12 times a year. I can't even look at the can. To this day I have a serious aversion to any combination of blue and yellow paint schemes. So I guess that naming the disgusting, annoying, crap that clogs my computer everyday spam is a stroke of genius. I wished that I had coined the phrase. I opened my mail today and had 234 unwanted messages from unknown, unseen, cowardly, high tech telemarketers. That was in one day! Imagine what happens if I don't check my mail eac...

This morning I was watching parents drop their kids off at our school. We have distinct markings going into and out of our parking lot. They are very noticable. Not only that, there are only 6 weeks left in the school year. Despite these previously mentioned facts, I witnessed this morning a number of cars going the wrong way. It was obvious to me that they were going the wrong way. I didn't have to see the arrows or be standing directly in the lot. It just looked wrong. Have you ever had that experience? Have you ever watched people in behavior that just looked wrong? When this happens for me, it is as if my whole balance is thrown off. It makes my concept of the world not seem right. It's bothersome. I find it interesting though, in watching them, that they don't all seem to be bothered by going the wrong way. It seems like a well thought out process for some. A few of them were visibly embarrassed by their mistake, but some of them this morning started into...

I'm an admirer of cars.......Most of the time. I'm an admirer usually until it's time to repair one. I've been cursed with a mechanical aptitude that most of the time won't allow me, in good conscience, to boost my local mechanic into the next higher tax bracket. Too often I find myself cursing the designer of the vehicle when I'm trying to resolve a failure in the design. In the last few weeks I've cursed those who collect paychecks from Honda, Hyundai, and Volkswagen. Don't worry though. For all of those "buy American first" types reading this. I've cursed my share of Ford and GM engineers as well. The other thing I've been cursed in is a background in engineering, more specifically mechanical engineering. It allows me the opportunity to play God when encountering their designs. I think thoughts like "If I designed this", or "If I planned that". Not being able to see into their minds, I have a hard time understandi...

I really like it when someone appreciates the same things that I appreciate. It is true that opposites attract. My marriage is a living testament to that theory. However, I think that it's also true that there is tremendous value in finding someone to share a mutual appreciation of something of importance in your life. Ideally in a marriage relationship you can experience both the opposites and the similarities. I find myself at different times longing for various opportunities to participate in some activity or other. The difference between the longing for and the participating in is most of the time a lack of someone to participate with. For example, I'd love to get involved with kayaking. I've tried it before and really liked it. However, I don't have anyone to do it with. The same goes for serious cycling. Not having someone of significance to share the experience with lessens my desire to actually participate. I'm beginning to have this conflict lately with the...

I haven't written in awhile. It's been too long actually. It's been long enough that I can feel it. I wrote earlier that this was probably becoming a therapy. That probably explains the way I feel when I stop for a time. This past week has been..., well let's just say that it's been life. I had to laugh the other day when I passed the sign in front of our church and read "share a real life experience here". I thought, "well yeah, jump on in, the water is fine". It has been real life this past week. I guess it always is. It was just harder without the writing. This morning as I thought about it I also came to the conclusion that not only had I not written much, I also hadn't spoken much... to God that is. My writing has become a conversation and a way of expression just as prayer has to be a conversation and a way of expression. I lived real life this past week and came to the realization that real life, the life that really hap...

I remember my earliest coffee days. I wasn't even married. It seems like many years ago. It was. My wife to be and I would hang out at a friends house, sit around the table and drink coffee for hours and talk about everything and nothing at all. I was hooked. Starbucks was only an infant in the northwest. I had Folgers, or whatever else was on sale. There were no coffee shops. Only diners and truckstops if you wanted to go "out" for coffee. But it wasn't really the coffee we were looking for, it was the company. So any table would do. Just a table to know each other over. It was that way for us through all of life's moves, changes, careers, births, deaths, you name it. We shared coffee and life. Of course over time, coffee itself became a bit more important. I remember our first grinder. I remember the excitement of first travelling down the aisle of specialty coffee beans, collected in the clear tall dispensing containers. I remember the smugnes...