Coincidence or Calling?

In an ideal world managing a strip club is unlikely to occur along the path to Glory–the key word being “ideal”.

Here’s something I wrote late December 2014 (certainly just a coincidence–I turned 34 last July): “33 is a big year for me. Laughing, I told George the other day that only after having finished this book did I remember that I predicted back in church camp years ago that 33 was when I’d start my calling. Ha. Everyone else always acted like it was in/around college that they would begin their calling. Well, at 18 I said that I felt mine would begin at 33 because that’s how old Jesus was (give or take) when they killed him. Immature, misguided, morbid, delusional, but true [I said it] nonetheless. And you can bet I never imagined my calling would be a book centered on divorce. Suffice it to say, I can’t wait to hit 34 and laugh at my prophetic abilities. Either way, I’m certain that no matter what it is going to be a helluva lot of fun.”

That was about two months before my first day (on the job) at the club.

Five-ish months later I was sweating whether or not I’d get my application to a master’s program at a seminary in on time. (New passenger? Welcome aboard. Now read this.)

When I visited campus they had a movable-type board with my first and last name on it welcoming me. Imagine me staring in disbelief at the board. It had my name and the name of the woman who I went to church with (after skipping for a decade) and whose pastor introduced me to N.T. Wright’s New Testament and the People of God books back in 2013–the reading of which subsequently led me to return to church Dec. 2014. Naturally, the name on the board wasn’t representative of my friend, it was just that there is more than one woman with that first and last name and apparently one of the other ones was visiting campus that day. Coincidence–that one’s easy.

Hoping to move onto campus asap, and with my current lease running out in October, I discovered there was no room at the inn. At least until December, but even then it would be iffy. May for sure, they said. Setback.

Then in late September as I was trying to make arrangements with my apartment office, I stopped into the campus housing office and they actually had a family moving out mid-semester due to finding a ministry position that wanted him before the semester was up. My lease was up in October and so I moved onto campus in October. Ehhh. That one could go either way, coincidence/calling. Let’s stick with coincidence.

December 11th rolls around; it’s the last day of class. I completed four of five finals on that day alone. And I was alive. Full time work and 15 hours of masters courses passed. My folks were scheduled to visit us over Christmas and then I’d catch up on some Greek before the spring semester started.

December 14th I’m fired from the club. Despite having been promoted to manager in record time and receiving a healthy raise only a month earlier, “Poor performance” and “making employees and entertainers alike uncomfortable” the reasons given. Uncomfortable? God doesn’t exist, right? Masters in theology shouldn’t be any different than a masters in literature. Whatever.

H- and I were therefore able to visit my folks and siblings etc. and when we returned I headed to a pizza place to inquire about a job as a delivery dude. When I was applying (my first time in the store) I saw a familiar face in the back and soon discovered he’s familiar because he’s the vendor that also delivered to the club. His high praise added to the moment and I got the job. I’m sure his being there was a coincidence.

So this semester I’m paying the bills, and have plenty of time to dedicate to my studies, which may or may not be my calling.

Campbell’s Tomato Juice Is Not V8

You know, you’re walking through the grocery store and need to buy some V8, which you have coded “special drink”, for yourself and your daughter. So you’re walking through the store and as you’re about to check out you remember you need some more special drink. Terribly disappointed, you discover that their stock is out of the economy-sized jug. Like any self-respecting American man, you apply your fickle-as-a-woman’s-mood frugality to the situation and decide to just buy another brand than buy the kick-a-man-while-he’s-down regular-sized, overpriced jug. Having tried the store brand once before and finding it less than pleasing to your palette, you move on to Campbell’s tomato juice.

Days later, you find yourself studying Koine Greek in an effort to get right with God. Realizing it’s almost bedtime, and so time for a glass of that glorious act-of-vegetable-eating replacing special drink, you move to the fridge. “Ah!” you exclaim as you open it and remember you get to test what Campbell’s has to offer to the people. “Will it be bad?” you cringe. “Could it be better?” you hope. Excitement builds. Scanning the label to discover just how many servings of vegetables you’re about to ingest, you shrug off the creeping doubt that this red elixir is no equivalent to special drink. Pouring the beverage into your cup, you again fight away thoughts such as, “You know, V8 really isn’t just tomatoes, and this seems like it is just tomatoes.”

Then you sniff it. Then you stop your practiced chugging and conclude that, in fact, Campbell’s tomato juice is tomato juice, and not special at all.

Oh well. Only 16 days until the now open jug can be thrown away guilt free. 16. Guilt-filled. Days.

Just Left My First Christian Apologetics Class Session

For those rusty on theological terms, when Christians use the word apologetics, they intend to communicate its root sense which is “to defend”, not in our common sense of admitting fault. Be that as it may, my question to any readers with time and energy is, “What is a Christian?”

In other words, (and I asked this in class just now) “What does conversion look like? How can I measure whether I have defended Christianity? What am I selling? What are people rejecting or ignoring?”

Random Observation Regarding Divorced Men and Conspiracy Theories

Perhaps it’s because I plain and simple talk too much, but ever since my divorce I’ve noticed that divorced men are huge conspiracy theorists. Have you noticed this? Now that I’ve mentioned it, do your observations support my claim? Or no?

Last night at work a gentlemen was trying to explain to me all about the Illuminati and Freemasons and some letter written in 1871 that successfully predicted the first two world wars and also looks to predict a still-to-come third world war. What gives?

All I said to provoke all of it was that I was attending school where I am attending school. I think I was just musing about how awesome it is to work at a pizza place again at night while doing school during the day. Then boom. Can you imagine it? It was three on one. Three fellas citing this, that, and the other about the most outrageous claims about the nature of human life on planet earth, and all the while I just said, “I don’t see any hope in those beliefs, in believing what you believe. All I see is that it takes all responsibility for proper living out of your hands if you believe some secret societies are controlling everything anyhow.”

The point is, this isn’t my first encounter with these type of divorcees. There’s something about the breakup that causes men (I’ve never noticed this in divorced women) to just latch onto conspiracy theories. Maybe it’s because they return to drinking fluoride-laced tap water (you know what that does, right?) out of the sink instead of bottled water. I don’t know. I guess it’s just an observation I wanted to get onto this blog for the record.

Review of Black Swan, by Darren Aronofsky; also Something for Consideration Regarding Public School Teachers

My main man when it comes to movie reviews is Bill Gibron. Back around the time that the internet first came to be there was a website called filmcritic.com. I discovered him there, I think. Anyhow, I have always appreciated his reviews and found them to be helpful in deciding whether or not to shell out the big bucks for a movie ticket. Over time I have noticed that he has had a particular love affair with Darren Aronofsky. Because of my esteem of Mr. Gibron, I have desperately sought the same love affair, but never quite saw the “genius” that Mr. Gibron did. I really enjoyed Mr. Aronofsky’s films, I just didn’t fall in love with the man like Mr. Gibron seemed to. All that has changed.

H- just began to learn Peter Tchaikovsky’s epic Swan Lake theme on the piano. It is a force of nature even when played with just one note at a time. In any case, this event taken together with a real desire to give Mr. Gibron’s passion one more go led to me viewing Black Swan for a second time. This time around I finally see the genius. Black Swan is the story of a ballet dancer who is trying to be the best as would be indicated by her dancing the role of the swan queen in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in some hot shot’s revision of Swan Lake. So it’s a movie about a revision of a very famous ballet that includes themes of sacrifice and pressure to perform etc. But it’s not! It, Black Swan itself, is the revision of Swan Lake for movie-going audiences! And that’s why Mr. Aronofsky is a genius and deserves our attention. He cuts through all our defenses and serves up Tchaikovsky’s timeless story in a new way that forces us to reckon with all of our notions of love and happiness and truth and sacrifice. It’s an amazing film. Watch it. Watch it again.

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Perhaps some of you think I am too hard on public school teachers. Here’s something to consider. A public school teacher with an amazing (if any divorce blog can attain such a title) blog mentioned that she finds herself teaching “frustration management” to her students. At this point, I would like to call my roughneck friends to the discussion. You see, when I was working in the oil fields, there was work to be done. Manly work. And yes, I mean that in the gender specific way. Work that men and only men can accomplish. For instance, every time we finished drilling a well, we had to move the rig to a new well. One of the things that this move required was the tightening of nuts onto bolts. The nuts were about the size of a woman’s fist, and the bolts were just over a foot long. The way we tightened these nuts was by swinging a sledge hammer as hard as we possibly could against a hammer wrench which was placed around the nut. Out of a twelve hour shift, how many minutes do you think we were given to not swinging the sledge hammer in favor of discussing how to deal with how frustrating the task was?

Do not hear me say that learning is not frustrating. And remember that I am the one who quit being a “teacher” because I refused to buy into the “be the change” mantra that schools with poor performing students chant. Instead, hear me calling public school teachers to realize that they are making the weather that they are complaining about. No other group–no other group–who controls their destiny does it in such a poor fashion as public school teachers. That’s what frustrates me (and I think most non-public educators).

By way of example, guess which specialty runs the Air Force? Pilots. Guess what pilots do for each other in the Air Force? Take care of each other. They ensure the flying is safe and smart and everyone is compensated well. Public school teachers, on the other hand, cite chapter and verse about all the limitations and massive time requirements etc. that they have to operate within and never once consider that just like Air Force pilots they are the one’s who write the book. Spending time teaching kids how to deal with the fact that learning takes effort? That cannot but be a disservice to the child–and I think teachers know that. So stop doing it. Kids need to learn to hit the hammer wrench as hard as they can and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment after the task is completed and completed well. And the only way to learn this is for teachers to tell the kids that the nuts must be tightened by a sledge hammer. As it stands, the only thing kids are learning is that the nuts don’t need to be tightened. Maybe teachers agree.

A Note On Public School Teachers

Long-time readers know of my, how shall I put it, no-love-lost relationship with public school teachers. Yes. That’s a fair way to describe the romance. Of course, it is a difficult thing to critique people who do thankless jobs. However, because teachers are adults and I know what being an adult feels like, I won’t hesitate to critique them.

This morning I went to help the kindergartners read. They each have a reading folder which contains an appropriate skill-level book and a sheet of paper on which data is recorded, data like book title, date, skill level, and the like. To give feedback to the teacher or next volunteer, there are three boxes to choose from which describe the contest between student and book: Just Right, Too Easy, Too Hard.

(New readers: My daughter is in the class.)

Anyhow, the teacher is setting me up at my spot just outside the classroom and she actually told me, instructed me, to not mark any “Too Easy”. (Pause for effect.) How could she possibly know the future?

More than that, she emphasized heavily that everything should be positive feedback and that I wasn’t to use the word “no” or say “that’s not right”. More than that, she gave me the okay to give the student the difficult word rather than have them sound it out.

If my daughter was overly shy and unkempt and occasionally had bruises that she hurriedly covered up and could not ruh-ruh-ruh-ree-add, then maybe I could see the need to talk to me about the nature of teaching the skill of reading–maybe.

Oh and another thing. One little girl was pouting because her dad’s finger accidentally touched her cheek as he got her out of the car. After sending the little girl to the nurse to get some ice, the same teacher looked at me knowingly and said, “Sometimes all it takes is a hug and a little ice.” All it takes for what? What exactly is the predicted/anticipated/desired future for indulging that kind of behavior? If you’re less than fifty and have kids I blame you. It’s probably against some policy somewhere to tell a 5 year old human-in-training, “Stop crying. You’re not hurt. Move along” because either you or parents you knew complained that a teacher with your child’s best interest in mind was being a meany.

Three Random Thoughts

It’s true, I’m a confirmed bachelor. But you’re not going to ask me to stop dreaming, are you? Well, as you can imagine, delivering pizzas in the 21st century involves a lot of time interacting with a GPS. Last night these two worlds combined. If I ever re-engage in the battle for love, I think I want a woman who will give me the same relationship that I have with my GPS. I do what she tells me, but I choose where we’re going.

Before work, I was eating and I cannot eat by myself without watching something on the internet these days. I ended up watching Jordan vs. Lebron youtube videos. I’m not sure what exactly triggered the following thought, but if I had to guess, I think it is all the young guys at work. I was thinking about what it was like to watch MJ play every season and besides the fact that no basketball player will ever capture kids’ attention in the same way due to the amount of social meeja distractions, there is something more. I grew up on movies which had Rocky Balboa giving all his strength, all his power, and all his love to win championships. Real life had MJ winning and winning and winning. It’s difficult to say who was more influential to me, but a great life lesson was contained in the fact that both lived by the same ethic. Who do kids have today?

When I first began a search for a church home just over a year ago, I noticed that many churches I visited had an older congregation. The churches that had younger congregations clearly catered to them. They had power-point, beautiful praise teams, and a very professional feel–no mistakes. The church I chose, thought I didn’t know it at the time, has something like 100 members who have been members for 50 years or more. And there aren’t many members my age that attend regularly. But I have come to love my church more and more and here’s why. What type of Christians do you think go to same church for 50 years? Scratch that. Let’s try, what type of Christians do not go to the same church for 50 years? 50 years? I can’t even conceptualize that behavior. Yet, after getting to know my church’s members a little better over the past year, I want my walk with God to be more like theirs. Talk about living faithfulness. Christianity is not about church, folks. It’s about God–God about whom the psalmist wrote Thou faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. 50 year relationship? I’m in. Are you?

Oh. And a fourth. You know how sometimes you are texting someone and it’s not going well so you admit that there was a “text fail”? Yeah. It’s time I confess to the world that I am a text fail. Proceed at your own risk.

Psalm cxix. 90

Sermon #1

Kidding. Well, sort of kidding. I gave the following speech for my number ten speech in the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual a couple years ago. A fellow member, in her evaluation, mentioned I should think about becoming a pastor. Naturally, I shrugged off the suggestion. That moment is fairly laughable these days.

In any case, I watched it the other day and kind of inspired myself. So I thought I’d share. It’s ten minutes, so it isn’t short. But it’s worth it. (Even on mute. 😉 )

Click here.

 

Concerning Prayer – Part 1

How does one pray? That was my starting point. I wasn’t concerned with silent prayer, but an out loud prayer which I had resolved to perform by myself in my apartment. I hadn’t prayed out loud for over a decade, but had decided that I wanted to break the streak. I was going to pray an honest-to-goodness heartfelt prayer–no matter how weird the physical manifestation of this desire felt.

“Should I sit? Should I stand? If sitting, can I be reclined?” I wondered. None of those options felt natural. “Ah, kneeling,” I remembered. “I could kneel. Yes, that seems universal. I will kneel at my bedside in a classically American nighttime pose of prayer,” I determined.

Leaning over, my elbows resting on the bed, I closed my eyes. My mind traversed all the greetings I could recall from all Christian prayers I had ever heard. “Dear God”, “Father”, “Our Father”, “God”, “Heavenly Father”, “Jesus”, “My Lord”, and a few others passed between my ears silently. But none came out.

Naturally, I was embarrassed by this speechlessness. It is a rare thing. I tried to rationalize and told myself, “Don’t sweat it. You’re praying the Lord’s Prayer in Greek when you read your homework. That should count.” But it doesn’t count. When I do that, I’m working on pronunciation, not speaking from the heart. Then I became a skeptic and thought, “This is bullshit anyhow. There’s no God. That’s why you can’t get yourself to address one.” But that felt more like a lie than counting the Greek thing did. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t address God, Almighty God, the Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth out loud because I didn’t feel worthy of an audience with Him.

In seminary, as in most formal education, some classes have the word “survey” in the title. “Survey of (whatever).” Well, as I was kneeling there speechless, I surveyed my life and concluded that for the last 12 years or so I had been in the muck, in the mire, and been offending God. Physically, I would describe the feeling that overcame me as I concluded this as that of my heart imploding. Shoulders collapsing forward together. However slight the offense began some years ago, it culminated in my last job. I wasn’t (don’t) feeling guilty about nipples or alcohol or partying–that’s an entirely separate discussion. My feeling of unworthiness stemmed from the fact that that job fully highlighted that I had been living without purpose. Or for the wrong purpose (fame or money) which is the same thing. Here I am, a created being brimming with potential, and I have been living most of my adult life without regard for my Creator. And now it’s been so long that I feel like the gulf between us is too great. The worst part is that I know the end of the story and yet I still feel this way.

In any case, you’re going to get another post in a couple hours which contains a link to a speech I gave a couple years ago. It’s about 10 minutes long, but the audience in the room seemed to think it was alright, so you might too. More to come concerning prayer.

While I’m On The Subject of Jesus…

As I mentioned a few posts back, for most of my adult life pizza delivery always has received a nod as lucrative part-time work. As I recently developed a need for part-time work, I decided to test the theory. A shop nearby had a sign in the window, so I applied, got the job, and can formally report the rumors are true. It’s good money per hour. The trouble is Americans are trained to view dinnertime as only a three-ish hour window. That said, my new goal is to train you all to think dinnertime is all day. Wish me luck.

Only slightly changing gears, I found myself adding some pepperoni to a sandwich yesterday at home, and I realized that if I were giving the Sermon on the Mount, or perhaps it’s safer to say, if Jesus was here today and gave that sermon, he could easily have substituted the word “pepperoni” for “salt” when he declared, “You are the salt of the earth,” without losing much theological ground. Just sayin’. I can’t think of the last time I added salt to anything. But my fridge hasn’t been without a red Hormel pepperoni bag in over a year. Sandwiches, salads, burgers, and of course pizza just wouldn’t be the same without pepperoni. White gold was soooo yesterday. Red gold is where it’s at. Can I get an amen?

I wonder if it would improve waffles. Anyone able to report?

By the way, did you know that Oprah eats dinner every meal? It’s true! I swear it!