Even though I live in a fallen world the essence of the Creator can be seen woven through and through what He has made.
I will be the first (and not the last) to admit that I do not have a scientific mind. No matter what my experience is and no matter how many times people say the opposite I still think it makes sense that when I jump in the air while in a moving airplane I should be slamming into the back wall of the plane. Not only does this make sense to me, but it would be colossal fun.
Evaluations are hard for me. Very hard. But they are such a gift. They are a gift I don’t want. But they are a gift that I need. See how I am? The problem with me and evaluations is that I have a picture in my head of who I am and how good I am at a certain thing.
I am happy with that picture. Most of the time. One of the great things about that picture it that it is one that I can draw and re-draw as much as I like. I can even select a nice comment over here and a nice comment over there to provide a different perspective of that drawing. Maybe I could even use those nice comments to color my picture in a specific way. If there is a negative comment or two…as long as there are less than two (or three) I can ignore them and continue happily painting my picture of how awesome I am at something. I like my picture.
But, then there is the specter of the evaluation and the possibility that the picture I have in my head is not shared by those that observe me. In fact, the evaluation can be so negative that I would have to redraw some of the picture. Maybe I would even have to crumple it up and start all over again. What if I can’t (read “won’t”) draw the picture that the evaluations demand I draw? What if the standard I believe I am meeting is not reflected in real life? What if I have let my Spiritual Gifts atrophy? What if I don’t actually have the ones I think I do?
I do want to be awesome. I want to be comfortable in my picture of awesomeness that I have drawn up in my head. I don’t want to be told something different. But I need that. Oh how I need that.
Hey restless!
Can you sleep tonight?
Something’s going wrong, got to make it right.
Wake up now! Before you sleep the night away. – Restless, David and the Giants
I am not sure if you have had this experience before, but this morning I was restless. I couldn’t quite understand the feeling – there was a dread that was hanging over me that I could not shake. I even exercised this morning and had a great cup of coffee which I thought would brighten my mood somewhat, but the feeling persisted. I wondered what it was all about and talked to God a bit about it.
Well, I was in the middle of a conference call when my wife called. I couldn’t take her call but, listening to her brief message to call her back I knew something big just went down. I prayed and participated in the call the best I could. She called again and I jumped off the call to talk with her. She, indeed, shared some very bad news with me. We spoke very briefly about it and made some quick plans and I hopped back onto my call. Immediately the feeling lifted. It was almost as if God had snapped His fingers and lifted that dread-filled feeling…it was absolutely palpable.
I think, as complex as it was, the feeling had everything to do with the news coupled with the unknown. I do not get the “something big is going to happen” or “something big just happened” feelings often so when they come they throw me for a loop.
My prayers have changed now that I know what God was pointing me to (preparing me for?). I just pray that I go to Him often enough that it makes a difference.
OK, so the browser statistics for my blog are as follows:
Type of browser used to visit my blog (all versions):
Firefox – 67%
IE – 10%
Chrome – 9%
Opera – 3%
Safari – 2%
Others – 9%
I am happy that there are so many quality web browsers to choose from. I like using all of them (except IE 6) and they all have their strengths independent of the other. It also goes to show that my blog is a bit on the geeky side of things. In fact, the most popoular post on the blog continues to be my resolution of a tightvnc key mapping issue and one person has even reported that it has helped them. It is nice to have a blog that people actually visit. Even if it is heavily concentrated in one post.
What a comforting word “waited” is. Even if that what is waited for is an unpleasant event the fact that it is hear and that I am either going through it or have gotten through it is something that, at the very least, reduces ambiguity. I hate waiting. We were at a party last night where my boys had to wait until they got to do one of the very things that we attended the party to do. They didn’t have to wait long, but I could tell that they were ready to jump out of their skin in anticipation. But, then, they waited…it was all in the past and their wait was swallowed up in the now. It was over. And the night was everything they could have hoped for. At least that is what they reported to us.
The trick for them, and me most of the time, is to revel in the waiting. I waste so much time looking forward to this, that, or the other thing. I can’t always be looking forward to something. My vision has to be much more limited than that.
On another note I made some coffee today in a plunger pot and I need to regulate the amount that I put in there a bit more. It is, maybe, even too strong for me. But, if I keep this up, I may get some hair on my chest.
Your eyes shone on that night
They were diamonds
Under the ocean’s moonlight
They were diamonds
It was only a moment in time
You were laughing, I was falling hard. It was over
Then the light of morning hid the stars. And it was over
I remember it well
The night I fell so deeply into your eyes
And I wondered if you would feel for me
The way I felt for you
It was only a moment in time – A Moment in Time, The Choir
And when was that moment? Was it the night when she said “yes” to my marriage proposal? Or the night that we knew that our firstborn was growing deep inside of her? Was it the night that we moved from the house that we began our life together in and struck out into uncharted water? Or was it when we realized that we were not only deeply in love with each other, but we were deeply in love with the same God?
Or was it last night when we kissed each other, bade each other a good night, and drifted off to sleep?
Yes. I dare say it was. I love you Diamond Eyes.
I work with an older man that likes to say “Hey, Lucky” every once and a while when he passes me in the hall. I usually just smile as I walk past him.
Today I responded saying: “Hey, Crusty.”
I don’t think he appreciated that.
I have been teaching in our “children’s church” program (called HighPoint) for a while now and I will have one more lesson to give before I transition into teaching our adults in our new classes on Sunday that begin next month. I can honestly say that I have mixed feelings about it as I love the stuff we are doing in our HighPoint program and it is great to be up in front of a ton of kids every week…including my own.
When I was asked to do this a while back there was a gnawing sense inside of me that this was the B-league of teaching. In other words, I had to rail against the tendency that I constructed to treat this as a second-class teaching assignment for people who couldn’t quite cut it for the adult classes. When I finally snapped out of that flesh-driven thinking, I set out to pour myself into the teaching as much as I would any adult class that I would be given responsibility for.
Hopefully I have succeeded in that. Thankfully, I have the 5th and 6th grade Champions class every Wednesday to keep me in touch with at least some of the kids that I have fallen in love with. I am now preparing to co-teach a couple of classes in Theology and Bible Study methodology using the book of James. I know I will enjoy these classes but I am also looking forward to “subbing” in HighPoint when one of the other teachers won’t be able to make it.
“Is there anything a wiki can’t do?” – Samuel Malachowsky
Just looking for a new direction
In an old familiar way
The forming of a new connection
To study or to play – (Keep Feeling) Fascination – Human League
There are at least three things that have led to this post: my exploration of the Chromium OS, the fact that I am creating a wiki page to house a bunch of requirements that I am working on, an article of Slashdot that points to a study of the connectedness of the tweens and teens of today, a song stuck in my head since the 80’s, and an off-the-cuff thought-provoking comment by a co-worker. OK, that’s four things, but I was never very good at math. Anyway, it seems to me that the thin client that has been promised for such a long time is something that the average user (me in my home life) can actually work with. The web browser and the web itself has grown beyond a fun and nifty way for a business to display its wares. It is more interactive and functional than ever before and it is blowing the lid off of how I work and the space that I occupy.
As our internal wiki grows and as I mull some technology changes for the school auction that we are a part of one thing is clear to me. There is no “out there” anymore. Whether for good or bad “out there” and “in here” have swallowed each other and this is something that is, at least, beginning to confuse “mine” and “yours”. This new method of centralizing, distributing and disseminating of information that has been around for a while now has embraced the means to produce and manage that information as well. The web and the web browser are a platform now to build applications and manage information.
I know this post is very behind the curve, but I have been on a quest recently to perform my work in as much of an OS-agnostic way as possible. I think I may begin anew the quest to perform all of my work in a web browser thereby hurtling headlong into this. We’ll see how it goes.
I get into these funks on occasion and need something to snap me out of them. Every once and a while there seems to be stretches of time when I am not motivated to do anything. Even blogging, which is a release for me, is something that is on the back burner. Actually most of the stuff that I should be doing is on the back burner and I am not even sure there are front burners to occupy at this point. I get to thinking that there is something that I would like to do and I find some way to put it off until tomorrow. Of course, when tomorrow comes (does tomorrow ever really come?) then there is a way to shelve it until the next day too.
I need a fire lit under my butt and I am sure someone (or something) will do it.
Until then it seems like I am in a holding pattern and not all that motivated to contact the tower for clearance to land. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. If it ever comes.
