Month: May 2010

Tweets for the past week

  • Emma and Rylee on their way to Carina's bday party. http://twitpic.com/1qh9jy #
  • I'm satisfied with the LOST finale, now to talk about the ideas presented – open door to discuss life & death? #
  • It was a bad idea to "empty deleted items" in my email this morning… it takes a while to delete 182,314 items… #
  • Yay, 182,314 items removed from "deleted items" in my email – let's roll. Surprisingly it wasn't running slow, I just got tired of them. #
  • Need a feel good story? – 95 year old woman gets H.S. Diploma 77 years later after Great Depression closed her school: http://bit.ly/9mJBkt #
  • Hey @trimet bus #2602 has a leak on the right side somewhere… #
  • @Pastor_Jas My Alexis says that slug killing is "revolting and disgusting, inhumane…" the normal dramatics… Just sayin' in reply to Pastor_Jas #
  • Let's roll on with today's work, shall we? #
  • Finally going 2 eat, ths is wht happens when ppl choose the wrong phn option & I end up helping sum1 4 something unrelated 2 my department. #
  • Very excited to sleep in tomorrow!! Good night! #
  • Emma eating a grilled cheese sandwich with a spoon! http://twitpic.com/1sjh48 #

Tweets for the past week

  • I'm pretty sure I'm locked out of our house. Alexis went to Port Angeles today, and our house keys have been missing for months! #
  • I asked for a little miracle & Jessus answered! Door was locked, but under the mat was a key! Alexis & I looked there many times before! #
  • Seriously bored without Alexis or Emma home 🙁 #
  • Good night, apparently I occupied myself to be up past 11, morning is going to be groggy. #
  • @Pastor_Jas & @marcustar – Nice picture – so Marcus Kiedy kawa z ja? (use Google translate) 🙂 in reply to Pastor_Jas #
  • @marcustar You're not socially awkward to me 🙂 in reply to marcustar #
  • Being a glorified secretary at the moment, it's ok – truly it is. #
  • @marcustar Great, now I feel socially awkward! 😉 (in response to http://bit.ly/dzLAF4) – Grace/Truth line and empowerment, not enablement! in reply to marcustar #
  • Still being a glorified secretary… but with the right music, & right co-workers, all is well w/ a little sideshow of twitter/facebook 🙂 #
  • Concerned that a backpack was left on MAX and the operator just said OK & it's just sitting on the floor at his door. Security? #trimet #
  • Alright it's finally time to watch LOST! #
  • It's been rain and sunshine off and on all day. Fun stuff. http://twitpic.com/1p99tr #
  • Thunderstorm downtown PDX – W00t! #
  • HEY Friends! The weekend is here! Can we protest the rain? #
  • Emma loves playing in puddles, thanks to mom! http://twitpic.com/1q2ila #

Barfing and quirks

marcus&I.jpgMy buddy Marcus (the one actually attempting to dance) posted a couple of blog entries recently which got me thinking.  I don’t have a lot of time at the moment to expand on my thoughts, but two quick responses…

When it comes to “are you a barfbag friend?” there are definite seasons in which I feel like I’m on either side of that equation.  The beauty of being in a (caring) Church family is that, no matter the season you are in, people will be there to simply listen (not giving advice, or suggesting action plans and lists) to what’s going on.  They’ll (hopefully) consider how they can help rather telling you “what you should do is…”.

The balance in this though is, how far do you go before gracefully and lovingly telling a friend, “hey I think you need to do something about…”, and for the most part I think we (we being the Church, weather it’s a culture issue or not) are afraid of confrontation, thinking that we “can’t tell someone what to do” – however I challenge that mindset, we should be able to tell someone what we think they can do, but it is all about tact, grace, and options – not “you should do this…” Of course this needs to be done tenderly, preferably out of relationship, yet I do believe there are times, where as brothers and sisters in Christ – we just need to speak loving truth, even if it won’t be well received – otherwise we may find ourselves with a brother/sister who ends up with deeper consequences because no one loved them enough to give them another perspective.

As for Marcus’ “20 of my quirks” post, man, do I have a lot of quirks (just look at me in that picture), many of which are directly tied to my own insecurities… Since I’ve run out of time for this post, I’ll have to do a whole entry on this – I have a lot of history on this blog, I think I’ll find plenty of quirky things to look at over history (or just randomly click on the archives tab on the right).

Good work ethics are demotivating

image

Picture was taken at the central Library MAX stop downtown Portland waiting for the train home. Mobile post ahead, spelling and typo errors ahead…

I work with a lot of people, both in ministry and in my vocation. A lot of these people are fantastic hard working people, and…. well a lot are just not. Now when I say hard working I’m not talking about the work-aholics, that’s a different breed. I’m talking about people who have good work ethics, people who take on what is theirs, don’t blame shift, and look for solutions. When people opperate like this then I’m glad to work along side them, past mistakes, and help accomplish the bigger goal.

When I’m working with the type of person who is constantly blame shifting, covering up mistakes, and not looking for solutions then I begin to get frustrated. This is always a hard line to walk, because ultimately I need to walk the high road and love the person through the conflict without enabling them to live/work on in dysfunction. The issue and temptation I run into is paitience within myself to work with God and find the teachable moments.

Whether Christian or not, people are in one of these two categories, to varrying degrees of course. Living in harmony as Paul instructed the Romans is key to my walk with Jesus, so a value I live out is having a strong work ethic, working alongside others who don’t share that is frustrating, but not a license to micro manage, freak out, or ignore the issues. Nor is it the time to become demotivated and give up on humanity, it’s exactly the opposite, it’s time to act and be who I’m called to be and work in my skills and gifts.

A little bit of throw up

Man I’m tired of filtering what I write (actually, most of the time it’s filtered completely out before I even write, hence the sound of crickets around here).  There’s been a lot going on in my life, all of it is “good” – but that’s a very relative term.  My “good” stuff has mostly smelled like vomit though.  Now, I’m sure you’re trying to figure out how good stuff can smell like vomit, trust me, when you walk with God, sometimes good smells like vomit.  You see, it’s taken a lot of bad smelly stuff to realize that I need to work on some (more) things in my life.  I like being stretched, but man, recently this stretching has taken me to a new level of trusting in God.  Okay, so I’ve said a lot without really saying anything.

So the stink that I keep referring to are things where God has shown me where I fail to walk in the person he created me to be.  Places where I still shy away from being the real man of God I need to be.  None of these things are a “should be” they are a “called to be”.  What I mean by all of this; is that when I choose to walk in the picture that God has called me to be, then the stink is much more mild.  But when I just walk around, operating in reaction to people and circumstances, then my stomach starts to get upset and vomit starts spewing onto those around me.  Envisioning myself as the called child of God takes burning the stink out, making mistakes, but most of all love.  Walking in God’s love, with each decision produces a life of hope and makes each day something to enjoy.

I want to write more, I miss it, but for some reason I feel like I need to filter my thoughts.  Here’s to hoping that goes away…

Tweets for the past week

  • Emma at the rose gardens people watching, just like mommy and daddy. http://twitpic.com/1mijx8 #
  • Had a great mother's day! Alexis is an amazing mother, who is certainly building the framework for Emma to be a woman of noble character! #
  • Make money, rent your car, rent other's cars? Article here: http://bit.ly/9aL5qF- Gettaround, Inc. http://gettaround.com/ #
  • I feel like I just got off a long haul flight, I only wish. But I'm glad so far the weather is nice. #
  • Um, I think I have a cold, or some kind of nasty sinus thing. It feels weak though, but its annoying and I'm tired. #
  • Alright world! I'm choosing to make this a productive, fun, enjoyable day, in mind, spirit, and body. Take that – pow! bam! any evil doers. #
  • Um, I think I have a cold, or some kind of nasty sinus thing. It feels weak though, but its annoying and I'm tired. #

Tweets for the past week

  • I could have slept many more hours, many more. So, how will yesterday's learnt lesssons be applied today? #
  • Paying attention to the color of train one boards is important. Red is not blue, nor is The airport Gresham. #
  • New blog entry: When projects control your mind http://bit.ly/aFzGrC #
  • Although I stayed up far to late last night, I'm ready to contribute to my tasks at hand today. A little artificial energy might be used. #
  • New blog entry: Lunch time thoughts http://bit.ly/czLrPs #
  • @ Test tweet 🙂 #
  • Alrighty, lets see if I can power through 75+ upgrades! #
  • Oh, how I love self-made projects that turn into hours and hours of learning! #
  • I like the sun, don't you? -waiting for the bus- http://twitpic.com/1lrlfx #
  • This is so true – even for men, well men like me: http://bit.ly/cH8tw9 #
  • Having fun waiting in the Max congo line to Loyd Center… power outage. #trimet #
  • Emma playing outside in the wonderful sun. http://twitpic.com/1m82ce #
  • @Pastor_Jas agreed! Was a fantastic message for all! in reply to Pastor_Jas #

Filtering life

A mobile post from the ride home, enjoy.

There is really only so much we can do in life, so making “life worth it” can seem overwhelming and unobtainable. There are a lot of different approaches, and to varying degrees I’ve watched many ways fail to bring about the “worth” people talk about. I’ve been a swinger (no not that kind) just rolling around from one thing to the next, unsure why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Now it’s different, there’s meaning, and sometimes that very meaning is what helps me realize – I never had any worth. At least I never had a need to seek worth, because I’ve always had access to it. Simply through God’s grace and sacrifice, which compels me to recognize my faults, and live for him.

So now I live life through that filter, a redeemed man of God who needs not seek worth, but live in God’s worth! I live my life filtered by God’s priorities, his grace, and love.

The hardships of this life are enormous, many of which I have been through and often felt angered at God for one selfish reason or another. From sexual abuse, family crisis, deaths, relational crisis, depression, and just about everything else you can imagine in the lives of those around me. It isn’t because God has protected me, nor is it some super power, nor is it because I’m smarter than the next person. The victory I have experienced is all due to the fact that I and we have made it a priority to put God first, every yes or no we say is because we have filtered it against our walk with God.

Of course we fail in this at times, of corse we get overwhelmed and make mistakes. Yet overall because of te intentional decisions to fiter our decisions to God we have been spared the worst of the consequences, consequences I know would be devastating.

Lunch time thoughts

I can’t wait until certain things are “official” – then I’ll be fairly free to write about all the amazing, cool, great, fantastic things going on… But until then – I’ll just have to wait, and you too.  So right now I’ll just post some random thoughts from my quick lunch “break”.

  • I can’t wait to someday live in the center of a city, I am a urban dweller by heart.
  • I have a huge travel bug in me right now, although we were just on a trip, I want to take a trip to some far away city somewhere.
  • Cars are not what people really think they are – you know how much I get done while riding the bus or train – A LOT.  Sure, slightly slower at times, and not “always” there – but the potential is there for amazing livability without cars.  I know some places “need” cars, maybe we should think about how we live and move around?
  • When thinking about the Church and ministry, and living a Christian life, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on that… just not sure where to start… maybe I shouldn’t care where I start?
  • Emma is growing SOOO fast, and I can’t seem to see her enough!
  • Alexis and I are working on a big idea… can’t wait to reveal it.

Thanks, that’s pretty much it for now – much more after “details” go official.