Remembering

So, right now, I'm watching NFL network. They're showing this:

It's the U2 halftime show from the Superbowl following 9/11.

It's amazing how clearly I can remember small details from that day.

When the first attack happened, I was supposed to be in my Interpersonal Communications class, but I slept in and missed class that day. When I went to my next class Economics, folks were talking, but I couldn't piece stuff together. The professor tried to quiet everyone down and have a normal class, stating something to the effect of "no need to change until anything is known". I passed it off as nothing and as usual didn't pay attention to his lecture.

When I got to my next class, Physics, was when I finally got to see television broadcast of what was happening, and we started talking about it. Dr. Fisher came in visible shaken and told us that today was no day for class, and that we should all go home and call our family to make sure everyone is ok, and then he left. So, I went to McIntosh Center to get some lunch with Josh Ketelson. We took in some more television, and then had lunch: chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, which were lumpier than usual.

After that, we headed back to the house. We stood dumbfounded all day, watching the TV, calling friends and family, wondering how to proceed with some sense of normalcy. Brothers we rarely saw at the house, including Dr. Banfe, stopped by, and we all seemed to eat Taco Bell. A couple of brothers went with me to prayer at the chapel, and then most of the brothers went to the chapel service where we watched President Bush address the nation. His resolve and compassion that night still strike me to this day, and that will be the President Bush I remember 20 years from now.

It's almost surreal to me how clear the day is to me still. A little clearer than Columbine, but it does allow me to wrap my mind around my parent's tales of the day JFK was shot.

I wish the day had never happened, but I hope the memories never fade.

Out To Get Me

Have you seen the movie Final Destination?

If so, I'm sorry. I, too, wish I could have those couple of hours back to spend a different way. For the rest of you, I envy you, for not having wasted those hours. There are also two sequels, which I've never bothered to take in, but again, if you have I'm so sorry for your lost time.

To sum up the movie, you basically get on a collision course with Death and you're stuck on that collision course. If you avoid it somehow (like missing a plane that crashes), Death will track you down. I'm fairly certain the sequels are the exact same things, just with Death trying to get you in new and different ways. And, yes, you can feel free to insert a Gilmore Girls' joke here.

Anyways, I'm starting to think there's some truth to the premise of this movie. And that death has relatives who do the same thing.

Take for example, Death's distant cousin Burn. I think Burn is out to get me, and send me to the ER.

Consider the following: Last weekend, we were in Columbus. I was trying to reach the microwave at my mother-in-law's house to reheat some dinner (mmm ... Bob Evan's slow roasted pork dinner). As I do so, I bump my finger against a hot iron. A small scar exists to this day. But, my quick reflexes kept it from being as bad as it could have. Or should have, I suppose, because Burn stayed after me.

Sunday night, I was cooking dinner. I made chicken w/vegetables with brown sauce and steamed rice. As I'm plating dinner, one of the bowls I'm putting things into starts to fall, and I instinctively reach out to catch it, causing hot, freshly steamed rice to fall onto the the corner of the palm of my hand. The same hand that has the burn mark from the iron, a week earlier. Fortunately, I got the rice off quickly, and put some aloe on my palm, and have only a very small mark from this encounter with Burn.

But he wasn't done yet.

Today, I was working down in Marion. I got hungry as I was set to leave town, so I went to Starbucks. I got a tall coffee (just plain coffee. Not a mocha latte caramel sissy drink. Straight black coffee ... coffee the way Jesus drank it) and an old-fashioned donut. As I'm traveling up 23 and throughly enjoying my snack, I'm moving the coffee from my mouth back to the cup holder, when I hit a small bump in the road. A very, very small bump. But, the laws of gravity were defied for a few moments, as a large splash of coffee jumped from my cup, through the spout, and landed on my leg.

No mark today, but still ... I got the reminder that Burn was still after me ... watching, waiting for his next move. I hope he gets bored and moves on soon.

The Surreal Life

No, not the craptastic VH1 television show. My life. The past week. It's honestly been surreal. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. A city underwater. A river reaching near-record levels (depending on what measurement you trust). My city on the national news night and day, the lead story on every Toledo newscast. And yet, I was only inconvenienced by it. The street we live on flooded on Tuesday and was not drivable.

It dried up by Wednesday morning. I couldn't work because the roads connecting to mine were closed, under emergency orders and the such, but that was only an inconvenience, not a threat to myself, my belongings, or my future.

I'd read in the newspaper that the city looked similar to New Orleans after Katrina. I didn't believe it, because it didn't look that way when I peered out the window. It wasn't until I saw the aerial shots (as shown above) that the actual impact of the flood started to hit.

But it still doesn't feel like it happened in my city. Findlay feels too small to have such an impactful thing happen and not really impact me. And yet, I know it happend. It just doesn't feel like it. It just seems so ... surreal.

Repost from this time last year

This is an entry I posted last year on this date. I'll post it again:

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Happy Anniversary Rachel.

I love you.

Rainy Days

I've never been a fan of rainy days.

As a child, rainy days weren't really a good thing. Sure, sometimes you got puddles to jump in, but in general it didn't make things safe. It canceled the picnic. It temporarily closed the roller coaster. It postpones the baseball game. It makes it more dangerous to drive.

At least snow has the ability to cancel school when we got enough of it. Rain only caused my school to close once: my freshman year of high school, when the roof leaked so bad the entire top two floors flooded. So, they released us, but not until we got there. But even then, I had to walk home (just under 4 miles, as the crow flies) ... dodging pop-up downpours as I went. Yeah, what fun that was. And when I got home, there wasn't even snow to build with: only wet pants to take off and smell.

I'm just not a big fan of rainy days.

Today was a rainy day in Findlay. Downpour on and off in the morning. And apparently, Findlay can't handle that kind of rain, because we lost power this morning. Which delayed the start of my work week. And then coming home from the grocery store, the rain and wetness must have decreased visibility, because the guy across the street almost backed into me as I was driving down the street.

Rain, rain, go away ...

When Technology Fails You ...

So, I went to load my Dynasty mode on NCAA Footbal 2005 today for the Gamecube. And my file was corrupted! I was about to go after my fifth straight national title with the Buckeyes and challenge the all-time record for consecutive wins, too! I was so sad!

I ultimately decided to start over, this time with Army.

Oh well

Coincidence? I think not

So, the other day, Rachel, her mom, and I were shopping at Kohls. Now (and this might be hard to believe, for all you guys out there) I wasn't really in the mood to look through women's clothing and/or shoes. So I wandered off on my own.

After a good bit of time (which would have probably felt eternally longer had I been with them in the women's section), I get a text asking where I am. I reply with a text stating that I am in mens.

However, upon entering it, I learn that the default for the keys 6367 (which gives you "mens") is actually "odor" on my phone.

So, you want mens, but get odor.

So mens=odor

Coincidence? i think not

iTunes and Music

I love iTunes. I hate DRM and I'm often described as a copy-leftist, but I love iTunes. I love being able to buy just one song and be over-charged for it. I love that no longer do I have to shell out 13-18 bucks to buy a CD, when I only want 1-3 songs on it.

A little bit ago, I got a $30 iTunes gift card as a thank-you. To date, I've only spent about half of it. I've enjoyed the freedom to let a song come to my mind, let me think "I really wish I owned that song" and then go and buy it ... without actually spending a penny of my own money!

Anyways, I'll list the fifteen songs I've purchased, so you can get a taste for how odd my music likes are, then see if you can offer any suggestions for good songs I'd enjoy owning as well. Here they are, in order of when I purchased them:

1. Made to Love, by Tobymac
2. Searchlights (Indoor Soccer Remix), by Falling Up
3. Love Addict, by Family Force 5
4. Fully Alive, by Flyleaf
5. You Never Let Go, by Matt Redman
6. My Savior, My God, by Aaron Shust
7. Open Wounds, by Skillet
8. Anna, by Ellery
9. Your Owls Are Hooting, by Showbread
10. Time After Time, by Spoken
11. Rise Up, by Disciple
12. Everything You Ever Wanted, by Hawk Nelson
13. The Invisible Hook, by House of Heroes
14. Remember the Name, by Fort Minor
15. Pride (In the Name of Love), by U2

I really, really, really hate Stupid "Christians"

Pet Peeve 1: Christians who view Christianity as a "Get Out of Hell Free Card"

Pet Peeve 2: Christians who protest/picket an event without actual knowledge of the event, the patrons of the event, or the Biblical principles they think they are representing.

Pet Peeve 3: People who can never see the forest for the trees, or the trees for the forest.

You know what, just watch this:



and visit the horrible website

The Great Misunderstanding

There seems to be something that gets lost in translation when an imperfect people (that's all of us, folks) try to represent a perfect being, and explain what and why He is.

There seems to be something that gets lost in translation when people with an agenda (that's all of us, folks) try to explain what exactly a being that is 100% love expects and wants from us.

Ryan asked a question tonight at jOURney. I'm not going to quote it exactly, but I'm going to try my best to capture what I believe was the intent. He wanted to know (in the context of Acts 11), how to respond when God asks us to do something that is outside of our norm. When we've spent years doing things a certain way, and then suddenly, God asks us to change.

How can we know it's really God? How can we know that a change is needed? Why wouldn't God have stopped us before if he wanted it a different way?

My thoughts are that the truth is, we have a misunderstanding of God. And we've thought he was a certain way. That his way lead to a certain stance. And when we start to see Him more clearly, more perfectly, more accurately, we have a need, a desire, to change the way we've done something.

Maybe that change is to be more accepting. Or perhaps it's to be less accepting. I've known people on both ends of that spectrum who claim to be representing the almighty. Hell, I've been on both ends of the spectrum, on both parts of reception!

Maybe that change is to accept that we're just sinners, and that's how it is, and we can't be perfect. Or maybe that change is to accept that we need to strive to live for more than just sin and mediocrity. Again, I've lived both ends of that spectrum.

Maybe that change is to listen more, and advise less. Or to advise more, and listen less. Or maybe that change is to ponder less and act more, or act more and ponder less. Or so many things, that upon reflection, I almost feel bipolar, or at least spiritually bipolar.

Maybe I've just reached a place on my journey where I don't need to focus on the destination, because I know it. But I need to focus on the journey towards it. And because of that, I reflect on the path I've taken so far, and I'm afraid I've misrepresented God so often, and over corrected so often, that I just hunger to find the right spot, and I'm not even certain that spot exists.

Or maybe ... maybe faith is about maybe. True faith is about accepting maybe, and understanding that we'll never understand in certainty. And that the great misunderstanding, is that we can understand it all.