think you're getting ripped off at the pump?

i am finding out that i have lived much of my life in a bubble. since quitting the ministry (pastoring gig) i have been forced to get a real job and in many ways a real life. i am discovering things that i should have understood decades ago, in some ways feeling emotionally shunted. i have said it before but it bares repeating - i have learned more in the year since i quit than in the previous ten.

it is painful to read old sermons now. the naivete is overwhelming.

i once preached sermon after sermon about visioning and goals and living your life for a purpose. What I am coming to realize is that i was not qualified to speak in this regard. pastors live their lives from event to event. you always have a short-term goal to live for. you constantly get breaks and opportunities other people can not imagine. in many ways, being a pastor is not a real job. i have always said that, but am now understanding it again for the first time.

real jobs have no real goal. you don't get up in the morning imagining an ending. there is no end and often no attainable goal. you simply work for the week, then live for the weekend, then go back to work again. you have no long term goals in a labor gig. you just go to work. and go again. and then get up and go again. it's relentless. it doesn't end.

if you aren't in the pasturing gig it may be hard to explain how this differs from the religious deal. as a pastor i never thought of my job as endless. it was replete with variety and opportunity. there were always new ideas and adventures just around the corner. it was intensely stressful on some levels, but monotony was not an issue.

it is very easy to pontificate about vision and dreams and goals and exciting ministries when you have the luxury of creating your own schedule and spending a majority of your time planning events in line with those same goals. it is not difficult to speak of personal growth when you get paid to be introspective and study. it is another thing altogether to have to live a mundane life, spending every spare moment doing laundry and cutting the grass, driving the brats to and fro. pastors often berate parishioners for not having a 'devotional life' (which many pastors do not have) forgetting they have paid quiet time in their workday. it is another thing to fit it in before your hour-long commute in the morning.

i miss the flexible vacations. i miss the paid quiet time. i really miss how people felt obligated to buy me breakfast. the lack of accountability.

i'm not being facitious. i really do. i intend on getting that life back someday. but i wouldn't give up this lesson for anything.

right now.

i just looked up on the calorie counter how many calories my lunch at mcdonalds was - cheese burger, filet o fish, fries and coke.

1390.

my daily total for a guy 6 foot 2 is 2200.
i had a 400 calorie muffin and a 70 calorie coffee for breakfast.

can i eat the lasagna we have planned for tonight? (600 calories for 2 pieces)

how can people live with this information?

a bran muffin with cranberry is more calories than a krispy kreme doughnut.

descarte - better a satisfied pig than a dissatisfied philosopher...

i attended one of the local megachurches this weekend. it was nice. like thousands of others this sunday i found myself looking for a place to celebrate easter.

the church was a fine church. the acoustics were to die for. they seemed to have an aggressive head hunting strategy (some guy in a suit b-lined for us the second the service was over and turned us quickly over to an affinity contact). the sermon was delivered flawlessly. even though our seats were unhindered by a view of the stage we could imagine what the senior pastor was wearing. the sermon was pretty good actually although it reminded me of the sermons i would preach when i didn't have anything new to say about a worn out topic. and for some reason i had overdressed. me... overdress.... wow.

there was a testimony by a yuppie chick about how she and her husband were told by god not to vacation on a certain island which just happened to be wiped out by the tsunami. in her position i might have believed the same thing but a part of me could not help but wonder why god hadn't told anyone else who was killed there that day. what made this woman so special? god works in mysterious ways i guess.

the service closed off with the hymn 'amazing grace'. now i hate hymns but i like amazing grace. (whenever i tell someone i hate hymns you would have thought i was strangling puppies, but hey, i hate them. they suck.) but i digress.

christians have their own language. it sounds like english but it's kind of like if someone learned the language out of a book, without the benefit of conversation. christians, when they are in the building of god don't seem to use contractions. and they say funny words that i wouldn't be caught dead using on the street. they 'trust' we had a 'blessed' morn as we commune together in the presence of the almighty with the kingdom of the saints. christianity certainly is a subculture. but i digress.

so we were singing amazing grace and wouldn't you know it, the usher decided to strike up a very loud conversation with some lady about cars or shopping or p.m.s. or something, i can't remember. they were talking as loud as those freaks who think they need to yell into their cell phones in public and it pretty much killed the song. it didn't help either that they started to stack chairs around this time. i guess they needed to get the aisles clear so the stampede could beat the baptists to IHOP. (umm ihop).

we decided to stick around for the baptism service. it was a fascinating cultural event that annette and i observed from the outside. there were 4 candidates, all teens, all second or third generation christians who had found faith when they were 4 or 5 years old. i've done lots of baptisms but don't remember ever doing something like that. at my last church most baptism candidates had to butt their smoke before they got baptised. sometimes they swore in their 'testimony'. they used words like 'clean time' or 'suicidal' a lot. sure we baptized straights but they never seemed to be the norm. at new heights or northern lights baptism happened in a lake, soon after conversion, long before people were squeaky clean. (hey it kinda rhymes - new heights, northern lights, i plant lots of churches, kid dynamite!).

after all the formal stuff we made the mistake of lingering too long. you see, they were handing out eggs with chocolate and a mandatory bible verse to make it all kosher as you left. and they ran out. how was i supposed to slay the fatted bunny and celebrate the holiest of holy days now?

When Tony Campolo was 16 years old, he attended his first funeral at a black Baptist church. "I was there," Tony said, "because my good friend Clarence had died. He wasn't young, but he wasn't old, and my heart was broken that my friend had died so suddenly.

The pastor began the service by talking about the resurrection and the glory of that day. He left the pulpit and spoke directly to Clarence's family. He talked to them about the 14th chapter of John, where Jesus said, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. I wouldn't have told you this if it weren't so. And I'm going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go there and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself."

Then the pastor did something strange. He turned from the family and approached the casket and began addressing the dead man. "Clarence!" the pastor said. "Clarence!"He said it with such authority, Tony says, "We expected Clarence to sit up and say, 'Yes, what do you want?'""Clarence," the pastor said, "you left us too fast. You left us too soon." And he recalled the story of Clarence's life. He told Clarence of the ways in which his life had blessed the church, blessed his family, blessed strangers and people in his neighborhood.
"Now, Clarence," the pastor concluded. "We have said it all, and there's only one thing left to say."And with that the pastor grabbed the lid of the casket and slammed it shut with a resounding BANG!
"Good night, Clarence!"The pastor turned toward the stunned congregation and said again, "Good night, Clarence!" And then, with a sly smile, "We'll see you in the morning."
"Good night, Clarence," the pastor said. "Because God is going to give you a good morning up there. Good night, Clarence, because God is giving you a good, good morning. I know, I know," he said, "I know there's a good morning up there."And the organ began to play and the choir began to sing, "On that great gettin' up morning, we're going to rise, we're going to rise. On that great gettin' up morning, we're going to rise." And the pastor and the congregation began to sing with them and the people moved into the aisles hugging and crying and laughing and crying some more, clapping and singing and dancing with the choir and with Clarence and with the great cloud of witnesses who have gone on before.

Three stupid guys just died and are at the pearly gates of heaven. St. Peter tells them that they can enter the gates if they can answer one simple question.
St. Peter asks the first man, "WHAT IS EASTER?"
The man replies, "Oh, that's easy, it's the holiday in November when everybody gets together, eats turkey, and is thankful..."
"WRONG," replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second man the same question, "WHAT IS EASTER?"
The second man replies, "No, Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus."
St. Peter looks at the second man, shakes his head in disgust, looks at the third man and asks, "WHAT IS EASTER?"
The third man smiles and looks St. Pete in the eye.
"I know what Easter is. Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus and his disciples were eating at the last supper and He was later deceived and turned over to the Romans by one of his disciples. The Romans took Him to be crucified and was stabbed in the side, made Him wear a crown of thorns, and He was hung on a cross. He was buried in a nearby cave which was sealed off by a large boulder. Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out, and if He sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter."

I tried to phone superstore this week. Ever try? They aren’t in the phone book under the white pages, neither are they under any of the ordinary denominations in the yellow pages either. That’s power baby. They don’t even need to let you get a-hold of them. They still know you’ll come shop there. That arrogance is amazing. So after I finally find a number under pharmacy, I ask when they are open, the guy only says, “the regular hours”. Regular hours. The guy just knows I already know when they are open. And the sick part was, I did. That’s power man. That’s arrogance.
They could care less if you like them. They have you and they know it. I hate that. I hate the idea that someone has control over me. I want to believe I’m in charge of my own destiny. That my decisions, not some power monger, determine my life. Of course on the same hand I like to play the victim so I have someone to blame when those decisions don’t turn out. I want to control my life – but I don’t want to be blamed for it.

i was driving annette's car today and happened to notice the auto-eq was set to 'country'. immediately realizing i was too cool for such a setting i changed it until i found one i liked. jazz, it's not punk but it also isn't country. about 10 minutes later i realized the setting was the exact same. but somehow i still felt better...

read how i was nicked while fighting off ninja's to defend my child here.

I envy Kevin.
My brother Kevin thinks God lives under his bed. At least, that's what I heard him say one night. He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom, and I stopped outside his closed door to listen. "Are you there, God?" he said. "Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed."
I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. Kevin's unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But that night something else lingered long after the humor. I realized for the first time the very different world Kevin lives in.

He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of difficulties during labor. Apart from his size (he's 6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult. He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a 7-year-old, and he always will. He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed, that Santa Claus is the one who fills the space under our tree every Christmas and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them. remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different. Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life?

Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the disabled, home to walk our cocker spaniel, return to eat his favorite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed.The only variation in the entire scheme is laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child. He does not seem dissatisfied. He lopes out to the bus every morning at 7:05, eager for a day of simple work. He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores.
And Saturdays--oh, the bliss of Saturdays! That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on the destination of each passenger inside.
"That one's goin' to Chi-car-go!" Kevin shouts as he claps his hands. His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights.
And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field trips.

He doesn't know what it means to be discontent. His life is simple. He will never know the entanglements of wealth or power, and he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats. His needs have always been met, and he never worries that one day they may not be.
His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he is working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it. He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does not leave a job until it is finished.
But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax. He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others.

His heart is pure. He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of argue. Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry. He is always transparent, always sincere.

And he trusts God. Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God--to really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for an "educated" person to grasp. God seems like his closest companion.
In my moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity, I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith. It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions. It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the handicap. I am. My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances--they all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God's care.

Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn? After all, he has spent his whole life in that kind of innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness and love of God.
And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts, I'll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who believed that God lived under his bed.
But Kevin won't be surprised at all.

(Author Anonymous)

i tend to read over old sermons looking for material for talks or blogs. sometimes it is interesting and enlightening. sometimes it is embarrassing.

take last week for example. i was reading over an old sermon about living in the will of god and ran across a paragraph on quitting your job. i was emphatically beaking off about how, if your job isn't fulfilling and changing the world, you should quit it. after all, i reasoned, even though you have wasted the past 20 years that is no reason to waste the next 20.

i read it through different eyes for the first time. i found it disturbing as i recalled my station in life when i wrote those words. i was paid full-time to do what i loved. i had absolutely no accountability and a completely flexible schedule. i could blow entire months and no one would know. i was living in la-la land.

real people can't just quit their job and go into something that changes the world the way i, in my narrow perspective, touted they should. very few people are paid 40k a year to drink coffee with friends and listen to their junk between reading and hanging out at the park talking about vision. most people work for a paycheck. most people, if they quit their jobs on a whim to pursue their dreams, will lose their house.

i still believe those things i said back in the day. but somehow i think that were i to do that sermon today i would approach it with a great deal more humility and understanding. i would explain to people how honorable it is to work to feed your family. i would suggest long term goals not short term reactions.

it's staggering how much i have learned since quitting the ministry.
it's shocking how little ministers know of the real world.

from stupid church people: The "call" is hard to explain, but I hear others use it outside of ministry. It is being passionate about something, having to do that "calling" above all else. I wanted to be a pastor, but I didn't want to waste my life fighting in church meetings, running from petition signers and battling deacon boards. There had to be a better way, a different way...and there was (well sort of).

the call. not just for pastors but it was for me. i never wanted to be a pastor. i thought pastor's were geeks, social retards on a power trip. if you would have asked me as a teen if i was going to be a pastor i would have laughed at you. i didn't even want to go to church, let alone work in one. ministers were losers.

some really are. social rejects? well i've seen more than a few in the pastorate. i think it is pretty obvious as well that most ministers were not exactly the most popular kid in high school. the nerd quotient is fairly high. accountant high at least. i never wanted to be a minister.

but more than 20 years later i still feel the call. though i don't currently serve in a paid ministry position i can't seem to escape that pull. i really don't know if i'll ever serve as a full-time minister again, but for some reason i can't get away from it.

some people feel 'called' to be a teacher, an entrepeneur, a mom.
i never wanted to be a minister.

At one point I talked with my pastor, and spoke of shaky faith. I've referred that that period of time in previous posts. I kept telling myself that I was being selfish and letting something bother me that shouldn't. In times like that I reminded myself how fortunate I am here in Canada. My family hasn't been killed by a bomb and took my leg off. I don't live with rickets and life threatening disease. I haven't been prostituted to make an income for the family. Compared to these things, my complaints were petty. When discouraged it's tough to keep that perspective, and I didn't always win the course. But I kept trying.

What do people in those other situations have to be thankful for? I'm sure if asked, some of them would have an answer. I cannot fathom. But I know for my small part, that what you believe or how you feel is derived by a choice. Some is environment, but a huge factor is what you do with the emotional part of it. Sometimes you too might wonder what there is to be thankful for.

read the rest of annette's post here.

van (loser) finally breaks his silence and writes a great article (loser).
Jesus never uses a cattle prod or shock treatments to steer the disciples. Jesus never took a big title, called down angels to destroy his opposition, or “set a schedule” as this Pastor would have you believe. He loved, he inspired, he listened, and then he walked.

(...loser)

giving up unbiblical things
via jordon

In November, 1975, 75 convicts started digging a secret tunnel designed to bring them up at the other side of the wall of Saltillo Prison in northern Mexico. On April 18, 1976, guided by pure genius, they tunneled up into the nearby courtroom in which many of them had been sentenced. The surprised judges returned all 75 to jail.

I was talking about 'finding direction' at church today... this was an example of working hard at something only to find that it's work in vain.

from adam.

i hate whiners. and i love to whine.

it's fun to whine. to bemoan our fate like we have the greatest load of all. the hardest life. the greatest burden. there is an old amish saying, "every donkey thinks it's load is the heaviest."

i remember when my ex-wife left. i remember it like it was yesterday, it is seered into my memory. at the time i believed that no one could feel the pain that i felt. to be fair, i did obsess more than most people, but down deep i knew that nothing anyone else could experience would ever compare to what i was feeling. it was crushing. waves of nausea, hours of crying, for over 2 years. but life goes on.

it's still tempting to whine. there is never enough money. never enough opportunity. too many bills. too many enemies. too much gossip. too much betrayal. whine whine whine. it's the mom who constantly complains that she isn't appreciated. or the man who feels constantly demeaned. the teen who knows that no one understands them. everyone else has the opportunities. everyone else gets the breaks. everyone else has it easier than i do. whine.

most of us hate to hear others complain unless they are complaining about the same things we are. most of us still spend far too much time thinking about what we do not have, not what we have. i am one.

Cost of rehabilitating seals from the Exxon valdez - $80,000/seal
First 2 seals (160,000) finally ready to be released huge party
Released – 20,000 people show up to watch them swim 100 feet and then be mangled and eaten by 5 killer whales

Or the man who was in his kitchen with a wire running from himself to the toaster.
He was gesturing wildly when his wife walks in and realizes he’s being electrocuted
- she grabs a plank from outside and smacks him in the head and arm to break the connection – and of course breaks his arm in two places and gives him a concussion.
Only to find out he was only wearing a walkman while cooking…

Or the animal rights protestors who were protesting at a pig slaughter house then as they were leaving they were trampled by pigs.

nate has new pics of hawaii and the great wall/chinese disneyland here.