Huh? What? How'd That Happen?

A few weeks back I heard this phrase: "want God to laugh at you? Tell him your plans for the next six months." That's a paraphrase, but I'm sure you get the gist of it. Something has happened in my life that I am still scratching my head over, its a good thing, a blessing, but something I totally was not thinking about. I have met and started dating someone. I have a girlfriend. We have been dating about six weeks.

Six months ago, the very idea of getting involved in a relationship like this was almost laughable. I probably would have laughed if someone had said I would be in a relationship.

Its been an amazing experience getting to know her. She is kind, funny, smarter than me (which is one a good thing and not too hard to be); she's a Lutheran, her father is an LCMS pastor in Ft. Wayne, and she laughs at my bad jokes. She has two beagles, Heidi and Gracie, who she calls affectionately "the girls."

I've met her parents last weekend. And over the Thanksgiving holiday I'm sure I'll meet her brother and sister-in-law. She talks alot about her brother and his wife. About ten years ago he and a friend biked across the country, it took 44 Days to go across the country from west to east. And he also goes to France every year for the Tour de France. He sounds like an interesting cat.

My girlfriend, who I shall dub Guns for this blog (a nickname I bestowed upon her right after we started dating), works in one of the local hospitals as a labtech and she loves her job. We have odd working schedules, so we see each other when we can and strangely, its been working okay. There is some frustration that we can't see each other more often, but in this case maybe its quality of time is better than quantity, yes? I don't know.

So, there it is. I'm dating someone, I'm not sure how she fell into my lap, but she did and I'm thanking God for her, everyday.

Thoughts on ELCA

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy to serve churches as pastors. Last weekend the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, voted in convention to allow openly gay men and women to be ordained and pastor their churches. The resolution was passed by a majority of 619-407. To say that I disagree with this resolution is an understatement. I think it flies in the face of God's word.
In Colossians 2:8 it says: "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." The ELCA, in my opinion is trying to be "culturally relevant" (I actually saw that phrase in a Twitter message the other day. However, once one goes does that path of "culturally relevant" it becomes a slippery path. You start to give in to society a bit more and bit more and before long you start to mirror society. The ELCA lost its cultural relevance this past weekend when in convention they voted the way they did.

If you read the Scriptures, we are constantly reminded time and again not be of the "world.' We see this particularly in John 15:18-19 when Jesus says "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." We, as Christians are in the World, but not "of it." In short, we are not to be 'lemmings' in search of a cliff.

It is my fear that the ELCA has done exactly that. The ELCA's liberal (I hate using that term) interpretation of scripture has, to say the least, weakened it. In short, I am afraid that ELCA has decided that, in fact, it is a good idea to "do as the Romans do," or perhaps it is better said to "do as the Corinthians did." I do not think that it was God's intention, or Jesus' mission validate sinners and their sin. No, Jesus' mission was bring them up from their sin, to make them holy in God's sight.

The church is culturally relevant by not being of the world, by being in the world and not of it, by being a beacon of light to a dark world that is full of sin, that is where its "cultural relevance" lies.

Pres. Gerald Kieschnick, the president of the LCMS, Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod, addressedthe ELCA convention with very profound words of sadness. He said:

I speak these next words in deep humility, with a heavy heart and no desire whatsoever to offend. The decisions by this assembly to grant non-celibate homosexual ministers the privilege of serving as rostered leaders in the ELCA and the affirmation of same gender unions as pleasing to God will undoubtedly cause additional stress and disharmony within the ELCA. It will also negatively affect the relationships between our two church bodies. The current division between our churches threatens to become a chasm. This grieves my heart and the hearts of all in the ELCA, the LCMS, and other Christian church bodies throughout the world who do not see these decisions as compatible with the Word of God, or in agreement with the consensus of 2000 years of Christian theological affirmation regarding what Scripture teaches about human sexuality. Simply stated, this matter is fundamentally related to significant differences in how we understand the authority of Holy Scripture and the interpretation of God’s revealed and infallible Word.

The LCMS is not antigay, or homophobic. We believe that sinners must be ministered to and brought the words of Salvation and Grace through Jesus Christ, but we will and and cannot put a stamp of approval clothed in church jargon of sin, any sin. We believe that we are all fallen from God and only through His son Jesus Christ are we forgiven.

I will continue to pray that ELCA will come to its collective sense, but I fear it is too late. The die is cast.

In Which Your Faithful Narrator Almost Admits Defeat, Sort Of

I almost have myself convinced that I "need" an iPhone. It's not something I actually "need" at all, it is quickly becoming a "want," though. Or maybe it has been a "want" all along and suddenly my subconscious has convinced my conscious that I really do "need" it. Who knows? The next question then becomes "can I afford it?" Yes and no. I have the money to buy the phone and the money to get it activated. I have a landline that I never use, the only reason I have the landline is for my internet (I have AT&T highspeed and I have to have a landline for that). That costs a little over 50 bucks a month: about 30 bucks for the internet service and 20 for the phone). I like having a phone line in my room. I don't use it very often, hardly ever, actually, but for some reason I'm loathe to give it up.

I went to an AT&T store yesterday to look at the iPhones. I was impressed. Too much fun. Really. I stopped at a TMobile store recently and looked into the BlackBerry, but I wasn't all the impressed by the salesguy. I've been with Tmobile since it was "VoiceStream," so that's been a while.

The reason I'm looking into these various phones is I starting to become more "connected." I do more and more things online from banking to twittering and blogging and facebooking. Maybe I don't need to be connected so much and I have tried to fight it and since I'm writing about this it is safe to assume that it has been a losing battle.

Julie and Julia

I'm reading the book Julie and Julia. It started out as a blog. Julie Powell decided to cook every recipe in the book called Mastering the Art of French Cooking and then, as we are want to do, blog about it. The blog became popular and a publisher decided to go from the digital to the analog and voila (dig the French term) a book was published, bought, and then, to beat all, made into a movie.

I'm a bit jealous. Sort of. I've been blogging intermittently, off and on, for roughly five years or so. Probably closer to the "or so" than the "five years." And nary once have I been contacted by a publisher or a movie production company about the possiblity of making this blog into a book or, for that matter, a movie. Of course, I realize that if one goes through this blog (and trust me, not many people do) you will find a hodgepodge of poorly written, not very exciting, banal entries. A few flashes of brilliance here and there, but on the whole, probably not so much.

Why blog, I mean what's the point? I never really thought of myself as a cyber-narcissist. And I never really thought of my blog as a "bully pulpit," though, I have used it for that purpose from time to time. I call this, to sort of steal a phrase "my own slice of cyber-heaven." Its not even that. Its just a little stop on the great big cyber-highway. Barely a blip. Not even a one-horse town. I guess, in short it, and I hate this phrase, is what it is. Whatever this it "might be" I'm not too sure.

I've read one or two other books that started out as blogs and ended up on the bookshelf. One was by a female cabdriver in New York City. I can't remember the book's title, but it was a decent story. Had a few laughs and a cringe or two. Not a barn burner, but an entertaining read.

That brings me to Julie and Julia. Essentially the reason I picked up the book was this: I saw a trailer for the movie and though hmmm, that might be fun movie and since it is a book, I further thought let me read the book and see what the movie is about. I am currently on page 128 of said book and I am fighting the urge to either skim the rest or just put the book down. I'll do the best I can and continue reading it. Its not a bad book, but is just, I don't know, almost silly. Powell, the Julie of the story, as narrator can be a bit... allovertheplace. She loses focus and digresses and then suddenly reverses course and goes back to her original point. If I'm lucky, it lasts a paragraph or two, if I'm not it goes on for a pager or more. These "digressions" are, I think, supposed to be "backstory," but they don't always work.

It is nice in this regard: I don't have to think about it too much. Its not that deep, its almost shallow, but not in bad way. I don't have to worry about solving for Pi which is actually a good thing because I don't solve for pi. I don't even eat pie, not a big fan.

So, I'm not bitter or angry about my lack of bookdeal and movie deal. Really, I'm not. I promise.

Tisza

It's been too long and I've neglected this blog. I've typed a few things here, but then decided I didn't like them, there was no flow, or somesuch verbal ailment that neccesatated the need to delte.

I helped a friend yesterday. I got my first "gig" as a "freelance" writer, I guess you could call it. I wrote a biography that is posted on his website. I've known Brian since I think second grade. We went to school together. My mom and I bumped into he and him and his mom one day at a bakery. The two moms started talking and before I knew I had a someone to walk home from school with. My father, as a pastor, had his office at home so he was there when we got home from school. Long story short, we became pretty good friends and, as is often the case, the pastor's family moves away. We did our best to keep in contact, but like all things we kind of drifted apart.

Our mothers kept in contact more regualarly than we did. I was able to "keep tabs" on Brian that way.

Brian is a photographer and I think I had something to do with that fact. Brian and his parents came and visited us one summer when we lived in Accident, MD. At the time, I myself, was an "ameteur" photographer, and I mean that in every sense of the word, but I had taken a picture of a flower, a Jack-in-the-Pulpit and submitted it to a photography competition at the county fair. It got a pretty blue ribbon, I think, if i remember correctly, it was tied as "best in show," but I could be wrong about that.

Brian saw that and a light went on in his head. He got reall intersted in taking pictures. He went to school near Atlanta and learned how to take proper pictures. He is an architecture photographer. I was just looking at his website and the pictures he takes are amazing. He really does have the "eye."

Check him out.

Neck-snap Music Memories

Erin hinted that I needed blog more, I would, but I have been at loss as to what I should actually blog about. There is enough drivel and bad opinion in the cybersphere, and my short, not vert well thought-out blogs will do nothing more than muddy the waters, or perhaps just cause some more pond scum to cling to the edge.

One must have a topic to write about. I could pontificate on nothing and you would be rewarded for your endevoured reading with, well, nothing. I figured I'd mine Erin's blog for a topic. She wrote about music and songs and how particular songs whisk her back to time and place. As I read the post I let my mind wander down the path of amnesia. I was thinking what songs rip me back to the past. There are two that came to mind. And they both take me to the same place: the student lounge at GCC, circa 1993/1994.

The first song that knocks me back to the future is Beck's "Loser":


For some reason, I taken back to the pool table. I never really played pool, I would knock the balls around for fun and to "play with physics." I was usually there after lunch or before class. I think it was the hook that got me. That guitar riff at the beginning. I remember just kind of bopping along to the tune. I'm not doing a very good job of getting the feeling across.

The other song that zaps me back to the past is The Cranberries "Zombie."
This song I have an even more visceral reaction to and I don't mean that in a bad way. I remember playing Mortal Kombat. I was never good at Mortal Kombat, but it was fun to play. We'd have tournaments and the like.

I think one of the reasons why I have such a deep memory neck-snap to these songs is they were in heavy, and I mean heavy rotation on MTV and that was the only place I could watch MTV when I was living in Garrett County. We didn't have cable at home (that wasn't a bad thing, either).

This entry has kind of rambled and teetered and tottered a bit. By the gist is there.

Head Spins

The big news today, it seems, is the Ashton Kutcher, the actor (term loosely used) has reached a pinnacle that, to this point, has been unheard of: a million plus Twitter followers. I, too, use twitter I have a grand total, of, drumroll please, nine followers, I think. Well, I must clarify, I don't use twitter use twitter, if you get my meaning. I do play around with it and send pithy (okay not so pithy) tweets from time to time. I'm still not really sure what twitter is for. Though, I have actually started using Twitter to help in my job search. I have started following libgig which hosts job posting for libraries.

I find myself a bit overwhelmed, truthfully, when it comes to all the new things that are popping up almost daily online and in technology itself. Just seven years ago I thought I was on the cusp of it all when I started my "online diary," who know that would turn into "blogging" and then from there, well, here we are, I guess. When my father was alive one of my favorite things to do was to go to BestBuy or another electronic store and walk around with him. Sometimes I'd walk a little bit behind him and listen to him as he looked at the new "fangled" things. He would often turn to me ask me what such and such was for or what it did. If I was lucky I had an answer, sometimes I was just as baffled as he was and now, I find myself getting even more baffled by things like twitter and even tweetdeck , which seems to be a great "clearinghouse" for all things twitter and facebook related.

Yes, my head spins, too. I can't even write to it effectively.