Angel

I have always been a loner. Matter of fact I have, at times, revelled in being a loner. I quite like it. I've been a watcher and a "noter of life." In short I participate, but more often than not only on the periphery. Because of my "loner-ness" I tend to be viewed as "standoffish." Sometimes I'm thought of being rude and even, believe it or not, thinking of myself as being better then others. All of this is not true. I just feel more comfortable looking in instead of looking out. This has served me well, though.

One of the toughest things for me to do when I was in college and working at a summer camp was to "share the peace" during our communion service on Thursday nights. I would often slip off to the side and watch as everyone else hugged and shook hands, I tried to make myself as unseen as possible. For the most part I think, my fellow camp counselors understood this. A couple times I ventured out and into the mix, but not very often.

My loner-like tendendies have been useful to me, though. I'm the guy that tends to notice someone else on the outside looking in. I can see it in their face, they want to participate, but they don't know how. I'll go over to them and say its alright go ahead and I've been known to take them by the hand and take them into the mix of whatever is going on-- doing the exact thing I hated have done to me. A few years back I had the opportunity to work on a servant trip to a town in Oklahoma. There were hundreds of kids and adults there. At night after working on houses all day we would gather in this big school gym and have a devotion of some kind. One night they had a particularly powerful devotion that left everyone a little bit wrung out. The finale was for everyone to do a basic "share the peace of the Lord" thing, so everyone moved in and started hugging and shaking hands and talking. Everyone that is, but me. I didn't feel it. Well, I did, but I didn't. I needed to watch it. To see it. To see all those people revel in the Lord. And I did. And then I saw a girl on top of the gym bleachers crying. No one was around her. She was all alone. Crying.

There is a story from Acts 8 about Phillip hearing the Holy Spirit tell him to go and talk to the Ethpoian eunuch. Philip sees the man sitting in a chariot reading Isiah 53 and he didn't understand what he was reading so Philip explained it to him. I saw this girl crying and after a minute of hesitation I started up the stairs. I came in from the left, for some reason I felt it would be better if I didn't come at her from straight on. I sat down next to her and put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me with tears rolling down her cheeks. She'd been crying hard. I smiled and maybe even chuckled a little and said "Its alright." I asked her what was wrong. She told me about her brother who was in his early twenties and a raging alcoholic. He was sick with the disease. His body was being ravaged and she was scared for him. I remember her saying distinctly "He's throwing up blood." What do you say to that? Nothing, I decided. Let her talk it out. So she did, with a little prodding. She held my hand the whole time. Crushing it I might add. (My hand throbbed all next day). She calmed down a bit and I asked her simply if she'd like to pray.

I discovered quickly that she knew who I was. Most people did. I had written nickname that I had picked up along the way "Pnut" on the back of my shirt. No one knew my name, but they all knew I was "pnut." (I've discovered the its easier to talk to someone named Pnut as opposed to a Karl). Any way this girl said she did want to pray. So we went to a dark corner away from the rest of the group and we prayed. I asked her if she wanted "to dial or hang up?" She didn't get that, I translated: you wanna start, or finish? She started and as she prayed she cried and crushed my hands, again. After she was done praying and letting the hurt out, I hung up. I ended the prayer by asking for God's blessings on her and her brother adn asked that God guide and be with her. When it was done the tears had stopped and smile was blazed across her face. A thousand pound weight must of been lifted from her shoulders. She hugged me in a bearhug and thanked me.

A few days later I found a note in an envelope. She thanked me for being there and then said "Thank you for being my angel the other night." I was flabbergasted. I wasn't anyones angel, I was just a loner who happened to see someone in need.

That's how the Lord uses me. I'm a listener and a watcher. I listen to people and they tell me things that they don't usually tell other people, I don't know why-- its one of my peculiar gifts.

Taking it Down a Notch

I woke up this morning, grudgingly. I could hear rain outside my window and I just wasn't down with rain today. I had somethings to do that required walking around and I didn't want to get all wet. It was cold, too. A cold nasty rain. Bluch. I got up, put I got up with protest. But it was my day off, so that made it that much better. Any day not at work is a good day, right? Not always, but sometimes.

I went to downtown Indianapolis today. I'm starting grad school this summer. I had some questions that I needed to get answered, but I also went to just feel the school. When I was looking for a college to attend after highschool I went many different schools. I didn't realize it then, but I do now. I went to get a feel for the school. When it comes to a college each one says the can do this or that for you, but in the end its the "feeling" you get the makes you decide to apply or not. Well, I applied and was accepted to grad school, but I never really spent much time on campus. So I did that today. I went and sat in the library for a while and then went to the student union and ate lunch there and then went back to the library and sat down, again. Listening to it all. Getting a feel for it. And it felt good. It felt very good to be there. Some of the fear and uneasiness left a bit.

I left the campus and headed home. I stopped off at best buy and poked around for a good long time. I went in with no agenda, meaning I didn't have anything I really wanted to buy. That's can be dangerous for me sometimes. I ended up with two dvds and a cd. And they are:



and last, but not least:



I've always been a U2 fan. Though, I think that they never quite reached the same level in their albums that they did in Joshua Tree, though their song "Wanderer" with Johnny Cash is one of my favorite songs.

The Wall is just a great movie. I have it on video, but I've wanted it on DVD for a while. Today seemed like a good day to do it. The other film, Short Cuts, I know nothing about. Really. Nothing. It just sounded cool and it has a great cast in it. Its a Criterion Collection DVD and I just love Criterion disks. This one is even a bit cooler because it has a paper back of short stories by Raymond Carver that came with it. I certainly thing it was worth the money.

Camp Weird Dreams and Other Stuff

I've been sitting here for the last Idon'tknowhowlong going through Netflix picking movies to put on my queue. I'm not sure why I keep putting movies on my queue, I have over 140 in there waiting to be watched. I never really liked going to video store. I could walk around for hours on end and not find anything I really wanted. Bah! So, be it.

I had weird dreams last night. I started looking at air fares for a weekend trip to Texas this summer. I've been thinking about going down to the bbq that the camp I used to work puts on every year. As I get further from the camp experience I realize how much it really affected me. I find myself mining a nugget of truth or understanding almost weekly, sometimes daily, that I learned when I was there and am able to put to use now. When I have a problem or a task I need to work I often look at it as a challenge course element and when I make a mistake I can hear the words "rule broken" echo through my head.

I had weird dreams last night that dealt with camp. One that I remember was seeing all the cabins, but they were being forced out by a large subdivision. There were others, I'm sure, but that's the one I remember.

Quotes from the Front Page of My Online Diary

"... This has all the hallmarks of postmodern thought. It is pompous, verbose, and incoherent."


-- Dinesh D'Souza
Letters to a Young Conservative
"...I always suspected that democracy would come to this... A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss."

-- Ignatius J. Reilly
Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole

Teaching literature, art... whatever name we're going to have-- after we give up literature-- teaching books is a strange occupation because its teaching pleasure...

-- Leslie Fiedler (Literary Critic)

You can't possibly enjoy being so ignorant. It's not bliss. Bliss is putting a lit match to every fart of Art Dogma this gassy century has seen fit to squeak out. And learning how. Divine

--The Cheesemonkeys
Chip Kidd

lady will you come with me into
the extremely little house of
my mind.

--E.E. Cummings

Say it! No ideas but in things.
--William Carlos Williams

"... I don't find life gloomy!" She cries "To me, books and people and things are endlessly fascinating. Don't you think so?"

-- Walker Percy
Moviegoer

"Have you noticed that the narrower the view the more you see?... It bothers you a bit, too, doesn't it? You are shy with me. But you like my window and my little view, I can see."

-- Walker Percy
Lancelot

"... it's a great adventure you've embarked on. Books are a wonderful avocation, wonderful. You know, some people think it is all right to go out and play golf every morning, and I don't want to criticize, but there is no substitute for great books..."

-- taken from Used and Rare
by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone

I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe
where there is nothing but sex, death, and typewriting.

-- Billy Collins

"I already think you are crazy.... (b)ut if as you say, the world's a mental hospital, you might just be the perfect ringmaster for this little traveling circus."

-- Kinky Friedman
Steppin' On A Rainbow

"... you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age," Ignatius said solemnly "Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That mostly is dangerous propaganda. Now that I think about it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.... I recommend Batman expecially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman."

-- Ignatius Reilly
Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

-- Holden Caufield
Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger

I got Honky Tonked

When I was a kid I used to enjoy watching wrestling. There was on wrestler that I always kind of found to be silly, but his finishing move was always quite a lot of fun. That wrestler was The Honky Tonk Man. He would often swing his guitar over the head of an opponent and, admist the debris of shattered guitar, would pin his opponent 1...2...3.

I just got Honky Tonked.

I just read the following verse from Isaiah:

“I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

“I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols.
-- Isaiah 42:6-8

I've just spent the last few minutes reading it, over and over again. Getting re-Honky Tonked. What more can you say to that? There is nothing more.

Then there is this in the next verse:

See, the former things have taken place,
and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
I announce them to you.”

And further down in the chapter is this little nugget:

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
I will not forsake them. (v. 16)

I can tell you from experience: that is MOST certainly true with my walk. I have gone to places that scared me the death (in a Spirtual sense) and felt things that made me numb for days... I've learned to hold onto that hand and when I've let go I haven't much liked what happened.

One of Those "Wow" Moments

The other night I was reading my Bible. I have been working my way through the Old Testement on my quest to read the whole Bible from cover to cover. This is not as easy as it sounds, but I'm doing pretty well. I'm probably halfway through. I was, and still am reading, Isiah. As I was reading I fell upon this:

Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying "This is the way; walk in it." Isiah 30:20, 21

I just read that over and over again. I was amazed. I grabbed a highlighter and highlighted the passage. And then I thought about a passage in James:

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life thatGod has promised to those who know him. When tempted, no one should say "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed... James 1:12, 13

Which lead me to Proverbs 17:3 "The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart."

Then there is this nugget from Romans three, verse 22:

This righteousness from comes through faitih in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified FREELY by his grace through redemption that came by Jesus Christ.

Who says that God doesn't speak to us through His Word. I get a kick out of it when I hear someone say that the Bible is an outdated archaic book. I'll bet dollars to donuts the person that said that hasn't read a word of it. Its these kinds of verses the keep my ship upright and correct.

Spring cometh... soon

I just noticed something. I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I noticed it any way. Its 5:46 pm and its just starting to get dark-- the days are getting longer. That's so nice. These short winter days kind of wear on a guy after a while. I'm ready for spring this year. Winter was fun, but I'm ready for spring. There are some spots of snow on the ground, but its mainly deadgrass so far. In the next few weeks the trees will wake up and the leaves will start to bud.

Baseball season starts soon and I'm quite excited about that.