danielredbeard’s weblog

Thank God for SafeEyes on my laptop for work. I have set it up so that most entertainment websites are not permitted. Otherwise I would be very unproductive. Case in point: Hulu.

Made note to check it out on the other computer some day, and when I did I realized how much of a time-waster this site would be for me. Just to watch Arrested Development, News Radio, The Office, and 30 Rock, alone, would kill 4 work weeks! And tonight I noticed a section for movies. Wonder if it will always be free?

So tonight we also rented our first flick from iTunes: Mean Girls. Hadn’t seen it – put it on our watch list. Since we’re big fans of 30 Rock (arguably funnier than The Office as of late), we had to see where Tina Fey started to get her stride. It was ok. Not as funny as I had been told. But the big bene was testing out iTunes’ renting feature. I couldn’t figure out how to get it on my iPod, so we watched it on the computer. No biggie there. Still – I’d like to figure out the iPod thing.

Today was a funky day. Woke up at 7am, struggled to get motivated, then just gave up and went back to bed. Slept til around 10am, worked, blah. I can’t put my finger on why, exactly, this funk hit me today. I think it’s a lot of things: out of rhythm, unmet expectations in myself and others, lack of nearby friends, and just weighed down by the world – the chaos.

I am currently reading Seize The Night by Dean Koontz, and in the last 20 or so pages, it has really become a fascinating book. The beginning was tough. Koontz’s main character is hard to digest at first, but now the stor is really coming together.

For anyone in Christian ministry employment, or anyone who is thinking about it, I highly suggest reading the blog of Chris Marshall. Chris is a friend and an elder/pastor of the house church network we’re part of, though it is not his paying-”job.” In his recent posts he has stirred up a fury of discussion about ministry jobs, and what it might look like for the traditional church in America in the near future. It’s not doom and gloom stuff – just putting the dots together. I would suggest also reading this post to get a dashboard view of how Chris’ post spread like wildfire.

As someone whom as only been employed part-time by a church, but has several friends that either are currently or formerly full-time “ministry job” folk, I see this conversation as a big weight being lifted. It is refreshing. This will be harsh for some to read, but I say it in the context of the topic: Most of the ministry job people I know are terribly out of touch with the average working man and woman. Blue-collar, white-collar, regular office stiffs, business owners, etc. – totally out of touch with us. It is bitter-sweet because everyone I know is very well intentioned, and intellectually/spiritually rich with ideas and communication vehicles for getting their points across. But what has always bothered me, even when I was somewhat part of it, was the “come to us” systemic thinking, be it subtle or blatant.

The “come to us” thinking can be innocent. It can be a dynamic outreach event or – cringe – street corner evangelizing. It is the thinking that programming, events, cute websites, trendy design, or controversial topics will somehow cause a person to answer the call of Jesus to follow Him. Entire mega-churches are thriving on this because for the most part, the “come to us” thinking, if executed well, really works.

“Come to us” thinking can get you 5,000 butts-in-seats, paved parking lots, AV equipment that would suffice for any headline concert, and branding that P&G brand managers would perk up over. But is it worth it? Why am I wanting to draw all kinds of connections between this and Fight Club right now?!?!

The intentions behind these words are not to take down the mega-buildings, as Tyler Durdin did at the end of FC. I am not about to do that because God will not be mocked. No matter how silly, how over the top, it will not have the last word.

If there is one thing I am driving at with these thoughts it is what I have been realizing more and more in the teachings of Jesus: That intentions are really, really important, and what appears to be important might not be. I refer to stuff like Luke 13, where He talks about those who know Him and those who think they know Him. Luke 19 and John 12 stick out to me as well – each point having a person or persons with what seem like good intentions only to be corrected by Jesus.

It’s Martha buzzing around the house prepping a meal… it’s the ministry job folk looking down on Jesus for warming up to a sleazy tax collector (or maybe someone gay or an illegal alien or, for me, a Leftist Liberal in today’s terms?)… it’s Judas pointing out that the expensive perfume could be sold for a good deal of money and used for a ministry event (“outreach” thing today???).

Of these three instances that have resonated with me, it’s John 12 that eats at me, and the Judas/Jesus exchange. Just considering where it took place – the home of Lazarus – after what had happened not long before this scene. I asked this question in house church a few weeks ago, and it’s worth asking now in the context of the “ministry job” conversation:  What if Judas wasn’t the slimy guy I was taught to see him as? What if he was a ministry funding, brand message-focused CFO of Jesus Inc. wanting to make sure that ministry resources were utilized in the most efficient manner possible? “Financial Sustainability” comes to mind. What if he gave Jesus up not because he was evil in the Hollywood sense, but in the sense that he thought he was seeing the breakdown or end of his little corporation? It’s a slippery slope. And I am in no way arguing to paint him as a victim. I just wonder why, if he was the blatantly-corrupt guy I was taught to see him as, why the other 11 guys didn’t see it. Based on how John refers to him in a few cases as the guy who would later turn Jesus over, it came as a shock to see Judas as the bad guy.

I think this has important questions embedded in it for those of us in The Body in America, and our big programs, careers in faith, and education systems that grow consumers of “ministry.” I could paint this much, much uglier, but I think that it would be a lot of emotion on my part. Best to keep this as objective as I can.

Lots more to get out of my head, but the rest needs more time to digest. I’ll do that in a few days.

I’ve had two sparks lately of that which I find greatly amusing, so I thought I should jot it down.

First, tech-speak. Yesterday a new client called me, with full-on frantic voice, asking why I didn’t include “wireframing” for the design of a website I will be working on. The client is very much IT-minded, and used terminology throughout our discussions that I quickly got the grasp of, even if I didn’t immediately understand it.

I tend to believe that humans, and our minds, are incredibly designed – capable of more than is often given credit, even in the humblest of people. Just last week I told a friend, “Don’t take this as arrogance, but sometimes I am freaking amazed by what my head can retain and bring up in a nano-second! Just our daily lives are filled with systems and assumptions that are grossly underrated.“

Anyway, that’s why “wireframing” didn’t bother me in terms of not being regularly familiar with it. I figured I knew what it was under a different name, and I was right. Nonetheless, a bit of hand-holding was necessary over the unfamiliarity. Understandably so, I suppose.

Tech and web folk use other terms I adore. “Deploy” is such a cool word. I wish I could deploy more stuff – anywhere, for any reason. Just spend a day deploying. Then there’s .NET Framework. Not to be confused with the “.net” everyone on the planet knows. No, .NET Framework is a Microsoft programming language. Typical MS – their tagline should have something to do with confusion and frustration.

Really, any industry I work with has their own language that they assume I know all about. It’s endlessly entertaining for me to start a conversation and hear these new terms and acronyms, seeing how long I can go before asking, “WTF does that mean???”

The other spark I mentioned came tonight: It’s when I have an Ah-Ha! moment that is usually only interesting to me. For whatever reason I was talking to Andrea about birthdays, when it occurred to me that as someone who believes that life begins at conception, I find it interesting that I count the years of my life by my birth. On the surface, it’s the kind of thing that makes most people’s eyes roll. I admit that if I heard this from someone else, I would likely roll my eyes.

But seriously, the abortion debate has really charged a lot of people to furiously defend that life begins at conception, yet if you asked them their age (how many years they have been alive), it would be according to their birth! LOL. I just find stuff like this amusing. I’m not looking at this condescendingly – it’s just amusing to me.

Tonight I finally got to the pile-o-mulch in my driveway that’s been sitting there since early March. There is no way to access my backyard with mulch with a wheelbarrow, so I have to shovel mulch into my recycling bins and schlep it up and back. It is the definition of “grunt work.” But it felt great to get sweaty, dirty, and sore. Still have a little left over. Might put it on craigslist for free. We get it for free anyway, as our city collects leaves every autumn and spring, and keeps a community mulch pile. Then they take orders for full and half-loads in early March. It’s good stuff!

Time to put my sore hands to rest.

We had another great house church gathering tonight. Seems to really be clicking the past two weeks. Tonight we had a bounty of a meal, lots of good laughs, reflective time with music and communion, and once again a recorded story of Jesus took on a totally new meaning. Tonight we dug into the story of Zacheus (sp?) and his famous tree-climbing venture to see Jesus. Toward the end of the night the conversation turned to spiritual gifts, a la the post I had the other day about that topic. These are very interesting days – I have a very abundant life!

I have so much work to do with my business. The projects have really piled up lately, to the point where I think I am going to hunt for a freelancer or two I can work with and possibly hire. Doing this, being a business owner, is such a gift – I work every day with the sense of “someone pinch me!” because it’s amazing that it’s actually happening.

It’s sort of like when I met Andrea, my wife. Seven years ago today (4/20/01) I met her in a Yahoo! chat room for christian singles (*blush*ashamed*). It’s been a good journey. When I met her and soon realized she would be my partner for life, I went through a similar phase where I asked myself: What do you do when what you have been longing for actually happens? Same thing happened when Garrett came along. Now it’s the business. I have a sense of what the next thing will be…

Speaking of Garrett, he’s pretty much sitting up nearly unassisted. He can’t raise him self just yet, but he’s added sitting up to his arsenal of preferred postures. My folks get to spend a few days with him this week. Last time they saw him in-person he was 2 weeks old! Boy, are they in for a treat. He’s a really happy baby. Sleeps for around 12 hours every night now, 10-10, but rarely naps for longer than an hour, if that, throughout the day.

One thing he does that cracks me up is that when I’m changing his diaper, he stiffens his legs and seems to push and grunt! It’s especially alarming when we’re on the lookout for a poop. He’s been irregular lately, and the grunting when he’s in full-glory is a lesson in expediency. Part of me thinks that he is the one whom is entertained.

Better get back to work…

We just had a bite out, and I sat there pretty much in a daze the whole time. Garrett crashed for almost the entire time. Andrea was yawning throughout the meal. We’re soooo exciting to be around. At some point I perked up and said, “I just want to go home and spoon John Stossel.” It was a self-amusing way of expressing  how I wanted to crash on my chair and watch 20/20, but that’s what came out. First, a little blogging…

I am so wiped out tonight. This has been one very long week, but I feel it has been a balanced one. It is both an incredible high and quite humbling that so much of my life has been streamlined down to work, Garrett, work, and marriage. No complaints. It’s just a different tempo as I’ve not experienced before – so simple yet so demanding.

“Yappidy-yap, shut that trap” is the the latest phrase to come from my wife’s mouth, directed at me. Sometimes she just doesn’t care for my rambling, and a phrase like that comes out followed by a good laugh.

I talked about Art Bell a few posts ago, and how I spent many a late nights listening to Coast To Coast AM while in college, and while traveling to Ohio while Andrea and I did the long-distance thing. The program is fascinating, and Art just has one of those classic radio voices – the programs are taken with a lot of salt, and I always got a kick out of the topics. But due to it’s late airing, and that Art has “retired” a few times, the show lost a bit of its magic. Well, a fellow fan has created a gem for those of us who loved this show by way of a stream of 5 or so Art Bell shows that run non-stop all day, every day. Sometimes the server is too busy to handle all of the users, so they set up a backup feed, though it doesn’t seem to support Mac (boooo!). Nonetheless, it’s what I’m listening to while I work this week. Great stuff.

Two nights ago I was riveted awake by a single thought/question: If prophesy is a spiritual gift, how is one to discern if they possess this gift? Lately I have been taking notice of my tendencies to trust my intuition on any given situation, coupled with my seeming ability to sense that something is about to happen. I can sense when a person or client is going to call me a lot of the time. Not all the time, but I’d guess that at least half the time I have a sense that someone is about to contact me, or something is about to happen.

I am either seeing aspects of a greater gift – one I don’t understand – or I am simply noticing the detailed ebb and flow to life, and how every little thing relates to or impacts something else. Or this is just part of being a creative, hyper-sensitive to the world around me.

I have to say – Springtime sure has come with a fury around here! In what seems like a few days we have flowers, green trees, green lawns, and all of our big trees look now as they did last May. Though our two wisteria trees haven’t shown too much life yet. We were robbed last year of their glory due to a few 20-degree days in mid-April. They have the coolest looking flowers. We seem to have lost at least one mulberry bush to the drought, but we’re planning on getting a movable fire pit so it will just be kindling once I chop it down with my handy hatchet.

Time to go spoon…

 Things are going well. I’m up to my ears in great projects, Garrett is in a stretch of being a very happy baby, and we’re simplifying our lives.

We put some items up for sale on craigslist.org, one of which was our Toyota Matrix. We put it up on a Thursday, and had a buyer 48 hours later. We closed the deal yesterday, and now only have one vehicle. We also sold some bikes that were never going to be used, for various reasons. That paid for a tank of gas ($50) and groceries. We still have a webcam and soon a kennel for sale, and I’m already eye-balling a few other things around here that I’d like to see gone.

On Easter Sunday, Garrett got to be around a lot of kids at one of our house church gatherings of all the house churches in our “network.” It was the first time he has been around a lot of kids, and he came away from it with lots of new noises and facial expressions. It was amazing to see him change that rapidly. Aside from gas or being tired, he’s a really happy baby. He will lay on a blanket on the floor of my office from time to time, just making all kinds of happy squeals, gurgles, sputtering, and other noises that don’t have names. He rolls, too. I can see him being a fairly active little jabber-box when he becomes mobile. Here’s a pic of he and I taking a break:

My break from non-essential internet has been going well. We have 2 Macs in our home, a laptop and a eMac. The eMac is the wife’s machine, which she keeps in the bedroom downstairs. I work in my office upstairs, and have an internet filtering program called SafeEyes to keep me productive. So we just set it up so I can’t access places like myspace, facebook, etc. upstairs – I have to have “extra” time to be downstairs and on the computer. The thing is, when I’m down there, I’m usually with the boy, thus little time spent on the net these days. It’s been very gratifying so far

One last rant on taxes for a while:

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, it’s not the price of gas that hurts, it’s the taxes we have to pay. Last month we wrote out several checks that could have paid for various home improvements we are eye-balling.

We would have paid for a product that: People make… people ship… people sell… people install… etc. Instead we give our money earned in Public enterprise to a Private government with zero accountability.

What amuses me is that media and politicians talk sheeple into believing that Big Oil is the enemy, or better yet the so-called “wealthy.” What is cleverly left out is how much Uncle Sam gets for each tank of gas.

Add to that how much Uncle Sam takes out in all of the assorted taxes, and any clear-thinking human being can see that it is not Big Oil that reaps in “windfall profits” (or whatever Billary Obama is calling it these days, it is the obese Uncle Sam.