That Annoying Feeling: Cake, Boots, and Theology Part 1

More than two months. I remember writing my first entry on here and being so excited to finally be writing again, about stuff that fascinates me, and planning in my mind a "weekly topic" with a "question-and-answer" format. Four months and three posts later, all I have to say is dag-gummit this is hard.

But here goes my second try at starting fresh. I don't know what it is about writing about anything, something, everything, that just thrills me and gets my heart going and my mind a thinkin' up new ways to use as many apostrophes as possible'''''''.

It's not that I don't have time to write here; most nights after work when the house is quiet, I have a good couple of hours to read, watch television, sleep, or write, and I usually end up doing a mix of the first three and ignore the last one completely. That was a really long sentence to say: I have time but don't write.

But that's not the only reason. School was especially annoying this term, with some harder classes than before and some that I just didn't want to finish, but knew I needed to. My grades definitely won't reflect my best work, but they won't be anything to cry about either. Nevertheless, for about the last six months I have been struggling with school and the future and career and purpose and all the now cliche stuff that my generation frets about. Thankfully, I have been blessed by my Creator Father with a love for certain subjects (history and theology/ministry), and a love for school and learning and homework, so it's not as concerning a struggle for me as it for others. The real battle though, the part where I find myself pulling my hair, biting my nails, and pacing all around, is exactly how to put those loves to best use, in order to meet both eternal and earthly needs.

You see, it took me a long, long time and a lot of stupid decisions with a lot of pain as a result to discover a simple truth: I'm not the center of the universe. I thought I was, and I would treat others like filth even if they didn't know it because of it. I considered myself smart, talented, and all-around better, to the point that I didn't need anyone, and I made others suffer because of it. It wasn't too hard for the Father to show me how foolish and selfish I was being though; how does the old saying go, never judge someone until you've walked how far in what again? And never mind the over-used answer "...and then you're far away and can take their shoes!" Saying that just reveals how much farther you have left to walk. Slowly, and much later than I would've like, the Father was able to show me how powerful and mighty he is, especially compared to the little ol' homeschooled socially-retarded nerd that I was/am. He did this by finally opening my eyes to how my decisions and thoughts were hurting those around me.

I've never been the same since. I'll admit (and my wife will too) that I am not perfect at all, that I have a long way to go, that I can still be dumb and foolish and selfish ("Honey you're mean you never let me watch the Big Bang Theory!") But forgetting for just a moment about hilarious TV shows, it actually shows how far I've come. Years ago, I would've watched the show anyway, without asking what anyone else wanted to watch, no matter how bad their morning sickness was. I would've just turned it on, never given up the remote, and just done whatever the heck I wanted. Nothing like getting married and having kids to change your TV-watching habits. Well, that and realizing how dumb you are and how dumb you can be.

Time to start wrapping things up: I don't write enough, school was hard, I was dumb, I am a nerd for life. And here's my big point: these journeys, these bad decisions, these loves, I want to share them with others but I don't know how. That's one of the reasons I started writing here in the first place; it was a chance to talk and share and hopefully change someone's life, all while laughing and quoting Star Trek. But what's the next step, the next road, the next stretch on this particular journey? I've taken up 15 minutes of your time and dragged out for too long one too many jokes just to say this: I don't know what's next.

I do know this though: if I have learned nothing else from all my dumb homeschool days, Bible college days, young family man days, and nerdiness, it's that my Father knows what's next. The trial, the test, the battle that rages within me and all of us is deciding whether to trust Him during whatever storm is coming our way.

End Part 1

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Those Over-Dramatic Spots

So I noticed the last time I wrote here was oh back in August, so I dragged myself onto the computer yet again to punch out a witty saying and inspiring quote. Trust me when I say that I will be making this writing thing a more, how shall I say, permanent activity. But I like sleep also, so this might not be terribly long. Read on and find out.

The title of today's post represents how I feel about all those dozens of political commercials (tv-spots, I believe is their official title) that have been plaguing our television sets for months and months. Just a couple minutes ago I saw another Obama ad with pictures of scared-looking elderly all sitting around with an authoritative voice saying how McCain will cut Medicare costs and how worried people are and how Obama doesn't support hurting the middle class. But this post isn't about the benefits or cons of one candidate's positions versus the other; frankly I've had enough of those over the preceding months, and that actually is my point.

When did the American political system become such an over-the-top commercialized electronic show of dazzling sights and sounds instead of the methodical, weighty, intellectual process that it used to be? I for one am done with the never-ending ads and news flashes about the latest personal attack and how one candidate has changed his position yet again. This is not to say that politics do not still fascinate me; I still am going to and always will vote, and I still want to teach politics and government someday soon. All that I am saying is that people have been running for president since- sheesh didn't Obama declare he was running back in February 2007? Since almost a full two years ago this has all been going on. Now, pretty much from the beginning I was active and involved, sorting through all the multitude of candidates running, researching and discovering who would be the best for our country and who would be the worst. After just a little bit of digging, I was able to make my first choice of who to support, quickly by who my second choice would be, then third, fourth and so on (there were a lot of folks running). Finally it came down to McCain and Obama, which is where we've been at since, what was it, this spring? Alls I'm saying is that I'm tired of it all.

I know and I have known for a long time who gets my vote, and all I want to do is cast my vote, see the results, then watch as this country either sinks or swims. In the end, I have that peace that surpasses all that so-called understanding of the politicians, and political pundits, and media, and socialists- er, I mean sociologists; everyone who lives and breathes politics just because they have nothing better to do, nothing more to look forward to. They can preach change all they want, and put country first all they want, but you see: that peace that I have, that surmounts anything this world has to offer, that peace tells me that no matter who wins, no matter who I vote for, there is Someone more mighty with mightier plans than even (gasp!) the president of the most powerful country in the history of the world.

I leave you with this quote:

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.
-Sir Winston Churchill

The Relentless Clock: Waiting and Waiting

A month after my previous (first) blog, I decided I should probably post more often than, say, every month. So here I am.

I've never been patient. I can't stand still, and it's not a nervous twitch or an itchy scratch, it's because it's hard for me to sit anywhere or do anything without actually, um, doing something. Scientists and psychologists call it some attention deficit disorder-thing, but I call it impatience. Especially when you come from having an entire summer off of school to relax and forget about school things, then start the next school year. I hate the feeling of having just finished something, then having to start over or realizing you technically weren't finished, but you've already celebrated the end and moved on. School is the number one thing that blows out the little candle that I like to call "my patience." When I stop and think that I have another three years before I finish just my bachelor's, I get mad. Mad at myself, for not starting school sooner after finishing high school a year early; mad for not starting community college a whole year sooner, when I could have; mad at having to pay to take the same classes I took in high school again (what, the first 3 math classes I took didn't count?!?). Really mad at a system and culture that places such a high level of importance on a degree, a title. It isn't necessarily the same thing as an education; you can earn any degree out there and still not really learn anything. But, when in Rome...

So, for my almost-conclusion, I'm not patient. It doesn't come naturally, or easy, nor do I find it fun. And it doesn't help that people can throw out those sayings like: "Good things come to those who wait," "Patience is a virtue," and "We'll get there when we get there!" You see, I don't want to have to wait, and I was reflecting on this earlier (which made me want to write it out), when I starting thinking of the Adam Sandler movie Click. It's one of my favorites, and one of the few of Sandler's that I love. He plays a character with a great family, great career, really has it all. But having it all isn't good enough all of a sudden. His family is demanding, he's overworked and can't reach that elusive promotion, and the dog has to be let out. So he comes across this fancy doo-dad remote control, something to "make his life a little easier." It allows him to rewind, fast-forward, pause, skip over anything. Almost instantly, life get's easier; he's able to skip the unpleasant family dinners with his parents, fast-forward through work projects, and the dog "goes" faster than ever. Life seems great.

But it isn't. Soon, the remote begins programming itself, fast-forwarding through the things that its user wanted to skip. Family fights, dinners, work, all goes by in the blink of an eye now. And when before he was just moving forward by a couple minutes or an hour or two, now he jumps ahead months and years. It gets to the point where he wakes up one morning, and he's divorced with his kids all grown up; he has gotten all the promotions without remembering doing any work; and his beloved dog has died, to be replaced with a traitorous impostor mutt. He was able to skip all the hard, tiresome, and mundane things in life, but ended up ruining everything, losing everything. The movie shows that those seemingly hard, tiresome, and mundane tasks we humans face on a day to day basis, are the very things that can make life worth living. Family fights can be vicious and brutal, but people aren't perfect, and couples that argue are at least communicating their feelings and thoughts instead of holding it in and drowning under the pressure of things unsaid. You can slave for hours and hours in a dead-end, stupid job while slowly rotting to death in your cubicle (if you're really lucky the company will lay you off before that happens) but sitting in a cubicle every day is better than hearing the hungry and cold cries of my family. And I can't count how many minutes and hours I've wasted sitting in traffic, or how many poopy diapers I've changed recently, but if that traffic is what I have to get through to work, and if those diapers are what I need to change to spend time with my son, so be it.

But my story doesn't end there. Even after watching that movie several times (and crying every time), I still didn't fully grasp its message. I'll admit there were times that I wanted to fast-forward through school and silly jobs to a finished degree with starting out on a great career. So I went through another couple years of being impatient, cursing at traffic, and loathing the school system.

Finally though, a breakthrough; finally, a light bulb clicked on somewhere, somehow. I was staying up extra extra late trying to finish my latest book, Gettin' There by Steve Farrar, when I came upon one of those sentences that you wish you had read years ago. Farrar was writing about impatience (surprise!) and one sentence on page 90 reads like this:

The problem with waiting is that when we wait, we think that nothing is happening.

That one sentence hit me hard. Hard enough for me to start walking excitedly around the bedroom at one in the morning and waking my wife up ("What're ya' doin'?" "Nothing, just reading honey, go back to sleep." "Whatever.")

I realized what my problem was; I always felt like nothing was getting done by taking the same classes over, working dead-end jobs, doing mundane chores, on and on and on. Oh but there is something going on, something amazing, miraculous, heart-stopping. We are being prepared. For what? For the next step, the next season, the next duty we are to perform and fulfill in this short life. Look at Moses, who grew up in the Egyptian royal palace, murdered someone, ran away, and wandered the desert for 40 years before God brought him back. Look at King David, who was anointed with oil by Samuel in preparation for the throne of all Israel but didn't actually sit on the throne until years later. They both had lessons to learn before, not after, they were supposed to lead entire nations.

So the next time you're stuck in class listening to another lecture on how 243 times 8.5 equals F, remember that this is preparation for the next class, the next degree. Next time you find yourself stuck in rush hour traffic, remember that you just worked your butt off to provide for your family and they can't wait for you to be home. Next time you get in a fight with your spouse (and you will, if you truly value honesty and communication), remember that they are an imperfect human being, just like you, who desires nothing more than acceptance and love, from someone they can share the class troubles, the traffic, and the poopy diapers with.

That's all the time we have for now folks. I really got going, thanks for sticking through till the end!

Next topic: Why No, You Actually Won't Use this Mathematical Equation in Any Real-Life Situation Whatsoever.