Almost Done

I went and looked at my new house tonight. The floors are in as well as the counter tops and lights. I should be moving in less than a month. Everything looks real good so far, we were afraid that the colors we picked out were going to look strange together, but we're pretty happy now that we've seen them in the house.

With the move and our vacation to California coming up, the end of July should be fun. Even with the 120 degree heat.

Mmmm... TPS Reports

I've been catching up on the episodes of The Office I don't remember or haven't seen. I'm going to finish season two tonight and watch season one sometime later this week. I also need to watch the movie Office Space again soon.

I have a new appreciation for office comedy since I started working in an office myself. It's kinda fun to think about how work throws you together for 40+ hours a week with people who you'd never be with normally. The characters on the office may be exaggerated, but if you've worked in an office, you know that it's not by too much.

I wonder what character I'm most like. As long as it isn't Dwight I think I'm alright.

Four Days

I've had the last four days off. I mean really off. I didn't go to work, I didn't have any weddings, and Jason preached this Sunday. The only things I did that could be counted as work was loading/unloading the truck, doing a little packing for our big move, and helping Tyson and Bekah hang vertical blinds and install kitchen lights (the former was a success, the latter not so much). The rest of the extended weekend was spent with my family or hanging out with my friends doing my favorite thing, nothing.

A little time off is a good thing. It keeps you from going insane and hurting someone who probably deserves it. I've got a couple busy weeks ahead of me, but then I'll be taking off another four days next month to go to California and see my friend the beach for a little while. I think my sanity can stay intact until then.

Meanwhile, I'm going to keep working on a plan to invent something that will enable me to retire at 30. Unfortunately, until I get the kinks worked out of the car that runs off coffee grinds, it looks like I'll have to settle for the four day weekends.

Sticks and Stones...

Anyone who gets to know me finds out pretty quick that I'm the type of guy that will joke about anything. I've gotten myself into trouble a few times for saying something about someone who'd passed away or joking about something that was apparently taboo. I've always felt that anything that can be laughed at can be survived and life's more fun when you can make fun of everything around you. This means that if you are one of my close friends then chances are we've talked a lot of trash about everything from each others mothers to eating habits.

Amazing as it may seem though, I do have some boundaries. I was talking today about how, I've never felt right joking with the women in my life about their appearance or intelligence. That's right I have no problem teasing my wife about her mother being dead, but in nine years of marriage I've never jokingly called her stupid or teased her about anything in regards to her physical appearance. When the couples I marry ask for my advice on marriage I tell them to be careful what you say when you joke or fight, because words can do more damage to people than actions.

So why only women? Good question. Words hurt men as well, God knows there have been times in my life when I've carried around what someone has said about me way too long, but I think it's a little different with women. Now, I don't claim to know anything about women, I'm not that chivalrous or romantic and I'm sure I say the wrong things a lot, but after twenty-eight years of living, working, being married to, and friends with women I've noticed one thing. Little comments, even said jokingly, tend to pop up in their minds later to cause them doubt far more often than it does with men.

I know some of you might think I'm making too big of a deal about this and that's fine. This is my conviction and I don't expect it to be anyone else's. If this means that the girls in my life get to take a few more jabs at me with out me retorting back then the men do, then fine, but it's a small price to pay to keep them feeling good about themselves. Now, as for the rest of the stuff about women, I'm still trying to figure that out.

Father?

Fathers' Day was never a very special holiday for me. It might be because I grew up without a dad. Not having a dad as a kid sucks, but what's worse is having to deal with your mom's boyfriends. They were always some old dudes missing body parts and working jobs like landscaping and horse grooming (when they actually had jobs). I always wished my mom could've dated and married cool guys so that I'd have a dad you could be proud of, not one who you found sleeping off a fifth of Jack in your front yard on Thursday morning. So in honor of the holiday here are a list of guys that I think it would be cool to have as a dad:

1. Ozzy - Hey if your going to have some stoned guy you can't understand as your dad, you might as well go for the gusto.

2. Billy Dee Williams - Because who wouldn't want Lando for a dad?

3. Elton John - Because it would confuse him as much as everyone else.

4. Brad Pitt - Hey, he's adopted so many kids, what's one more? Although it be a bit weird seeing my wife drool over my dad.

5. Jack Bauer - Although, he'd probably end up torturing me to save the world somehow.

6. Sean Connery - He could call me junior.

7. Prince - So I could barrow his clothes.

8. Antonio Banderas - Because a sexy man deserves a sexy son.

Hope

I've said before that for the first time in my life I feel like the future isn't written, or at very least I don't know it. Always before I had some kind of purpose that I felt I was working toward such as getting my degree or planting this church. Now, I feel like I'm no longer striving for some place, but rather I'm in it. Before, I always knew that God was bringing me to this place and one way or another I'd get here. Now, that I'm here I have no idea where I'm going to end up.

The funny thing about not knowing the future is that it can have one of two effects on you. Either you dread what's coming next because you doubt it can possibly be good or you look forward because you have the hope that it will be. Doubt and hope, this is what ever day you get out of bed comes down to.

Today was a good day. I believe tomorrow will be too and whereas I don't know what the next few months are going to bring in my life, I'm looking forward to them. I know I'm right where I'm needed and there is hope in that.

Waiting to Die

I was sitting in my cubicle today thinking about the patients our pharmacy provides medicine for. We take care of the drug orders for long term care and hospice patients, so it is a common thing to have a few of our people to die each day. There is a big difference in the way doctors give out medicine to someone in hospice care verses someone else.

In regular care the doctor's goal is to help prevent or cure diseases, or at least treat it so the person has a high quality of life. In hospice care the disease has already won, death is coming it's just a matter of when. In hospice care the doctors will write prescriptions for doses of pain medicine that would damage a normal person liver, but when you and your liver are going to be dead in 6 months no matter what it matters little. The goal becomes to keep a person as comfortable as possible until they die.

It made me think about how most of us live by hospice rules. We are just trying to keep ourselves as comfortable as possible while we wait to die. This means avoiding pain at all costs while seeking after whatever takes our minds off the discomfort for a little while. For most people this leads to seeking after money and things, and just like narcotic pain killers, you always need more in bigger doses to keep comfortable.

I think I have more to say about this, but it'll have to wait for now.

Two Weeks Free

I don't have any weddings to do for two weeks! This will be the first Saturday I've had free since the beginning of March. This means I haven't had a weekend free from weddings since we launched the church. Weddings are a nice form of income, but I really need some time off.

The bad news is that on 7-7-07 I'm doing 11 weddings and might have to do as many as 12. It's not going to be fun to spend 12 hours at the MGM on a Saturday, but after that I'm cutting down to doing just one wedding a month or so.

It's funny to think about how four years ago when I first moved to Vegas weddings were such scary things to me. I would practice my ceremony for hours at a time before a wedding always worried that I was going to make a mistake. I dreaded each wedding and was relieved when they were over.

Now I can go through my entire ceremony without thinking about it. I still dread doing weddings and are relived when they are over, but now it's for different reasons. It's funny how the things that scare you can become mundane.

Yard Sales

I remember once in California we had a church yard sale to raise money for the youth group to go to camp. We asked everyone in the church to bring whatever they didn't want anymore so that we could sell it to make some cash. I was shocked at the things that people actually brought thinking that we would want to touch it, let alone try to sell it to someone.

For those of you who are thinking about donating items to your church's yard sale this year, here are somethings you might not want to give:

1. Used underwear, especially if it's a thong.
2. Polaroids of your family
3. Porn
4. Old thermometers and I'm not talking about the oral kind.
5. Socks that have holes in the toes larger than a quarter.
6. Broken eye glasses.
7. Used toothbrushes.
8. Your daughter's dairy.
9. Prescription medication.
10. Your old retainer.
11. Half full bottles of Pert Plus.
12. Books of completed crossword puzzles.
13. Bedpans.
14. Ceral.
15. 100 pens each one completely out of ink.

You think I'm kidding. I wish I was.

To Speak Truth

I noticed something today. Words do a bad job capturing truth (or maybe just my words do). I spend every week using words to try to convince people of what I know to be true, but what makes preaching hard isn't finding the truth, it's finding the words that convey that truth. When I try to get someone around me to see what I see and they can't I usually just end up sounding awkward and repeating myself a lot (kinda like I do when I blog). It's funny, after all these years preparing sermons and preaching you'd think I'd be better at using words, yet they still fail me.

Maybe, though, words can't perfectly convey truth, only give us a taste of it. Anyone who has tried to explain what they think heaven is like can probably understand what I'm trying to say, your heart has an idea, but your mind can't form the words to explain it. There are so many things you can see or feel, but can never seem to say.

You might be asking, "What about Scripture, are the words of God imperfect?" Yes and no. God's Word is perfect, yet scripture is God's Word in human words. Think about John 3:16. God so loved the world that He gave His only son is true, but those words can't even begin to capture the truth of what they are saying. That is why ever since God has started speaking to people he has used other people to explain His Words, this is what every pastor who speaks is called to do, explain God's Words by using their own. This is a crazy thought, imperfect men and women using imperfect words to explain not quite perfect words that are trying to explain perfection.

So this is the job I find myself in, trying to explain what I know and never getting it quite right. When it comes to explaining the perfect, the only thing I can do is keep using my imperfect words over and over again in the hopes that through repetition and brief glances people will start to see what I see and start to know what I know. It's how I learned what is true...it's how I'm still learning. Maybe when we get to heaven the tongues of angels will be adequate enough to allow me to say the things I want to say, but until then this will have to do.

Okay, I think I've been deep enough for one week. Time to get back to making lists about how sexy I think am.

Life...

So, my wife might quit her job and do the stay home and baby sit thing. This is cool with me she can make enough money to keep us alive and she'll be able to be off when everyone else is, which is something I know she'll enjoy. Another plus is that now we won't have to cancel our Santa Barbara trip (I miss the beach).

Speaking of California, this weekend marks the four year anniversary of me and Autumn leaving California to move back to Vegas. I remember how hard it was to leave the people I cared about and how the future was so uncertain. Now, four years later the church has been planted and most the people I care about are now with me again.

It's funny what four years can bring. I'm looking forward to the next four.

Feeling Cocky Again

I was depressed last week. This is a strange thing for me because if anything I tend to be overly optimistic. I can't remember the last time I was depressed, it must of been way back in college (those were depressing days if I ever saw any). I think it was a mixture of lack of sleep, the inability to control every situation in my life, and a little self-doubt (okay maybe a lot of self-doubt).

The funny thing about it is, I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. So many great things have happened in the last two months that I really feel like I'm the luckiest man in the world, my son being born, the church plant starting, getting out of debt, starting a new job at Bekah's work just when I needed it, and watching our first home being built, just to name a few. It's funny how you can let fear and doubt keep you from enjoying the best things in your life.

I realized I over analyze things too much and I need to enjoy each day I'm given. This week I feel my confidence returning and I think I'll be back to normal by tomorrow or the next day (well, what passes for normal for me anyway).

Heat

We had some problems getting the air on in the school for our service times in the past, but we talked to some people and got it fixed. The last few Sundays have been really good temperature wise which is a good thing since we've been climbing into the 100's here in Vegas lately. Today, however, was another story.

We we got to the school this morning we noticed that the hum of the the AC units that we have grown to love was nowhere to be heard. When we got into the school our fears were confirmed by the oppressive heat that awaited us inside. Fortunately we had thought ahead and brought fans with us for just such a situation. The fans made it bearable, but not perfect.

I'm thinking that this was just a paperwork error since we had to refile our lease agreement with the school this week. I hope it's on next week because it's only getting hotter here.

To give you an idea of how hot it is, here is a list of the only things hotter than the school without AC:

1. Hell
2. The inside of a 1976 LTD Ford parked in the Vegas dessert in August (childhood flashback)
3. The inside of a incinerator used for cremations
4. Me with my shirt off
5. The Sun

Move

My house is almost finished. I figure in about a month I should be moving. I like the idea of going through things and figuring out what I need and what I don't. It feels good to get rid of useless junk and see what new things I need to buy that I've been putting off for awhile. It's amazing how much stuff we hold on to that serves no purpose. My wife gets scared sometimes because she things that I'm getting rid of things we might need one day, but my response is that we can always get a new one if that is true. I'm one of those people that can only be bothered by so much.

This is kinda like the reason people told me I'd fail at this church plant. I had a pastor once tell me that I would never make it as a pastor because the only thing I cared about was my friends. That's a bit of an understatement, but it isn't that far off from the truth. I care about more things than just my friends and family, its just that I decided that I won't sacrifice those two things so that I can carry around everything that the world ( or the church) thinks I should care about.

I've been thinking about the times in my life that my friends needed me and I was there, whether because they needed help moving, or had a big event in their lives, or just needed someone to be there when they were hurt. I realized that at those times if I would've been made to choose between being there for the people that I love who needed me or being there for the church as an organization, the church would lose.

I think this makes me a bad pastor. I think this means that it is beyond me ability to have have a large church. I think all the people who told me that this is why I would fail might be right, but I just don't care.

I have watched countless pastors sacrifice their friends and family for the "church" until they are alone despite being surrounded by people and I just can't do that. I have failed the people I love many times in my life and I will keep failing them, but if I'm going to spend time and energy in one area of my life this will be it. I believe God put the people who are close to me in my life for a reason and I won't throw that away so that I can handle more stuff that doesn't really matter.

When you move to a new place you have to decide what can be replaced and what can't. I've made my choice.