openswitch

I’ve seen this type of mistake happen more than a few times since I’ve lived in the South. So, for all my Southern (and Yankee) readers I’d like to share this tiny tidbit of proper driving procedure.

Car A represents me. Car B represents the doofus in the pickup truck in front of me. Car C represents the stationary car which is transporting two 20-something ladies.

The road on which I was driving has a posted speed limit of 55 mph (88.51 kph) so of course I was going along at a good clip; roughly 68 mph (109.43 kph). The doofus in front of me wants to turn left onto a side street but notices that car C is waiting to turn left onto our street. What car B doesn’t realize is that HE has the right of way and car C has a stop sign. But instead of slowing down and turning left like he should have, car B decides to come to a complete stop in front of me to let car C pull out in front of him. This means that I slam on my brakes (remember, I’m grossly speeding here) and skid off onto the shoulder. Thankfully car C isn’t stupid enough to pull out and I lay on my horn as I skid past car B.

I was so scared I almost spilled my Diet Pepsi and my Doritos went all over the place. (I jest, I wasn’t really eating or drinking.)

Look, Southern hospitality is usually a good thing. I like opening doors for ladies and letting ladies go first. But letting ladies go first DOES NOT apply to driving. This is Southern hospitality to the n-th degree, folks, and anything taken to the extreme is usually a bad idea.

Today we buried my friend, David, who passed away yesterday. I get weirded out at funerals because when I go up front to give my last respects and say goodbye to the deceased my mind always wanders and I imagine them sitting bolt upright and looking straight at me. One too many cheesy horror movies I think. Needless to say, this has never happened and I hope it never does because I very rarely carry an extra pair of underwear which surly would be soiled in such an event.

The funeral was well done, the pastor gave a great sermon from the book of Revelation in which John describes the scene in Heaven which was revealed to him. The entire youth group all sat with my wife and I in one of the über-long pews my church has. Seriously, those middle pews are three hundred feet long if they’re a foot. But what struck me about this situation is that this is the first time since I’ve been at Southside Baptist that the youth group has acted like one. They were all there supporting one of their own who had suffered a tragic loss. They were all crying with her, talking with her and hugging on her. It was beautiful. No one was making sarcastic, cutting remarks to each other. There were no cliques, there was no “popular group.” They were a family. I believe I saw a brief glimpse today of how the Body of Christ is meant to act. Why is it that these horrible times can bring out the Christ-likeness in us?

You know, for all the complaining I do about Christians not acting like Christ and stuff, there are some things that many Christians do really well, and supporting others in times of loss is one of them.

Everyone should drink coffee. It should be as ubiquitous as Coke or Pepsi. Coffee has seen me through some long nights in college and has kept me on my toes in ministry. Here are but a few places we should be seeing more coffee.

Mothers should put coffee in their baby’s bottles (well, decaf).

Upon seeing a wounded soldier in the field a medic should, instead of a cigarette, give him a cup of java.

When a proud father wants to celebrate the birth of his child he should pass out cups of coffee instead of cigars.

Coffee should replace baseball as the national past time.

The “World Cup” should be renamed the “World Cup of Coffee.” (At least then it would be exciting.)

When two lovers get married they should exchange mugs of coffee instead of wedding rings.

Got milk? Got coffee?

Where else should we be seeing more coffee?

I won’t feel bad if you skip this entry. Usually when I run across a post that’s a song’s lyrics I click “mark as read” in my RSS reader. I just don’t have the patience to read through lyrics and usually they don’t mean as much to me as they do to the person who posted them. I vowed I’d never post lyrics to a song but I’m breaking my vow because sometimes you find a song that so completely describes how you feel at the moment that you simply have to share it.

Indigo Girls – Love?s Recovery Lyrics

During the time of which I speak

It was hard to turn the other cheek

To the blows of insecurity

Feeding the cancer of my intellect

The blood of love soon neglected

Lay dying in the strength of it?s impurity

Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together

They?ve all gone and

left each other

In search of fairer weather

And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast

To the slim chance of love?s recovery

There I am in younger days, star gazing

Painting picture perfect maps

Of how my life and love would be

Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection

My compass, faith in love?s perfection

I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen

Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together

Left each other one by one on the road to fairer weather

And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast

To the slim chance of love?s recovery

Rain soaked and voice choked

Like silent screaming in a dream

I search for our absolute distinction

Not content to bow and bend

To the whims of culture that swoop like vultures

Eating us away (eating us away)

Eating us away to our extinction

Oh how I wish I were a trinity

So if I lost a part of me

I?d still have two of the same to live

But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal

As specks of dust we?re universal

To let this love survive

Would be the greatest gift that we could give

Tell all the friends who think they?re so together

That these are ghosts and mirages

All these thoughts of fairer weather

Though it?s storming out I feel safe within the arms

Of love?s discovery

Life is fleetingly short. We spend so much of our time whining about lumpy mashed potatoes that we overlook the fact that life is too short to be worrying about such minutiae. A good friend of mine is ill. His wife and children have been told that he has less than a week to live. What a tragedy. I won’t disclose any more details publicly until I can confirm a few things. If you’re really concerned you can contact me and depending on my relationship with you I may give you more pertinent detail.

The point, however, remains. We are such fragile creatures; from the day we are born we begin to die. The death sentence awaits us all. It is said that men on death row are pragmatically already dead. They are “dead men walking” as the movie title says. In fact, we are all dead men walking. Whether our time is later this week, later this year or fifty years down the road is irrelevant. We must embrace each moment, each day, and make it worthwhile because we can never know how much longer we have.

Carpe Diem takes on new meaning for me as I’ve never had a person with whom I’m such good friends become this ill. I’ll post more later as I’m enabled. In the mean time please pray for my friend, his family and my family as we muddle through this.

Yeah, is that what you thought to yourself when you came here recently and saw three columns? You’re not alone in your confusion. I wanted to try something new here and three columns has always been tempting for me to use. As I’m trying this style on for size please let me know if you come across anything that doesn’t look quite right. I’m not sure of all the repercussions sitewide that may have happened so certain things may need tweaking.

Also, I’d like your feedback on whether you like this layout better or the two column layout better.

Edit 7/9/06: I forgot to link to the guy to made the original 3 column k2.

My whole family (except me) has been addicted to the TV reality show, “So you think you can dance“ since it first aired earlier this year and I’ve got to tell you it’s mildly amusing. It’s amusing not for its good dancers, of which there are plenty, but rather for its bad dancers. Overweight, uncoordinated men (in that respect men just like me) shaking their laffy taffy on a stage in front of crabby, maladjusted judges makes for great ratings it seems. I’m obviously in the wrong line of work.

So this got me thinking, what if I started my own TV reality show and called it, “So you think you can preach?” Yeah, I could take a bunch of preachers from across denominational lines and challenge them to preach in styles very different from their normal ones. I’d get the crazy Pentecostal preachers to deliver their sermons like a crusty Southern Baptist preacher and vice versa. Only, they would have to do it in front of their home church congregation on a Sunday morning! Ha!

I could even pull in a few ideas from other reality shows like Survivor and Big Brother. The preachers would have to live together in an apartment while doing an immunity challenge each day without their shirts on. Of course, the Methodist women preachers would have to wear skimpy bathing suits. What kind of immunity challenges could I have them do? Meh, I don’t know, I’ll leave that up to the marketing department (i.e. my wife.) She’s great at that kind of crazy game stuff.

I’ll tell ya folks, I think I’ve got a winner on my hands here. Who’s with me on producing “So you think you can preach?” It’s a completely untapped viewership! We could air it on Sunday mornings during the “Holy hour” of 11am-12pm. I’ll bet we’d get better ratings than those over-starched television evangelists; and hey, why couldn’t we ask for a “offering to the Lord” at the end of each airing? Double the money baby! Who’s with me?

An interesting article has been published by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly (view article) which deals briefly with the fact that in general there is a declining number of young ministers in mainline protestant churches. By “young” they mean under the age of 35. This statistic doesn’t surprise me; it saddens me but it doesn’t surprise me. One probable reason why this is the case is pointed out by Kurt Levensaler:

…He says long working hours, starting salaries as low as $20,000 to $30,000 a year, and the stress on a minister’s family are among the reasons young people shy away from this vocation.

I can personally vouch that all those conditions are very real in the life of a minister. I would argue that low salaries even outweigh the stress on a family as a deterrent from entering ministry though I’m sure some would disagree. But these obstacles aren’t the only reasons young ministers choose other vocations. Kurt goes on to say that

Ordained ministry requires a high level of commitment across one’s life, and in this day and age, in my generation we’ve almost elevated our personal choice to the level of God, and so that sense of commitment that’s required, I think, is one of the obstacles.

Again, I agree with Kurt. I think he makes an astute observation that many young adults grow impatient with the time and effort it takes to effect change in an established congregation. Maxine Beach, though, has perhaps the best and most accurate explanation for declining numbers of young ordained ministers:

A lot of young 20-year-olds really believe that they can probably make more of a difference someplace else, that churches have become comfortable. They’ve become places that are interested in their own survival, and a lot of 20- to 25-year-olds, 30-year-old people do not want to buy into that dynamic. They want a place where they really believe that Jesus can be real and new.

Regardless of the reasons young adults decide to not pour themselves into full time ministry I think the Church as a whole needs more of them. As a 27 year old married man with a two year old son I can understand the hesitancy to enter vocational ministry due to low salaries, increased stress levels and “stick-in-the-mud” congregations. But as far as I can tell, the church in which I’m currently serving needs me. I bring a youth and a vibrancy to an otherwise middle-aged congregation. I constantly ask them, “what about the children?” And keep them on their toes regarding budgets and policy. I love being a minister and can’t see myself doing anything else at this point.

As I celebrate the 4th of July I want to talk about why I like being a citizen of this wonderful country. Of all the perks that come with being a U.S. citizen here are a few of my favorites:

1. On the 4th of July we get to celebrate our independence by blowing crap up. Albeit sometimes it’s our own fingers.

2. We don’t have to suffer through the Fifa World Cup and the boringness that indubitably ensues because the U.S. sucks at soccer. Last I saw of today’s game it had been over one hour and still neither team had scored a point. Yawn. That’s worse than baseball.

3. Only in America can I see and wave to Emanuel Lewis on my way to the local Mexican restaurant. This happened yesterday.

4. We get a brand new leader for our country every 4 years or at most every 8 years. We don’t have to suffer through bad leadership for their lifetime like with a Monarchy.

5. Gas only costs $3 U.S. a gallon as opposed to $5+ in the U.K.

6. We have the Super Bowl. ‘Nuff said.

7. We don’t have a national religion. That would be bad.

8. Seinfeld.

9. Elmo lives here. This fact makes my son extremely excited.

10. Blue jeans and a tee shirt is our national uniform. Happy me.

My regular readers know that I’m not really a huge fan of Christian rock, or of Christian music in general for that matter. But Flyleaf is a band I wholeheartedly recommend to those of you who are hard core rock fans. I know I gave this album a 5-star rating, my top rating, but I don’t throw that kind of praise around lightly; this band really rocks.

You may have heard their song, “I’m so sick,” on your local rock station. If you live in the Atlanta area that station is 105.3 The Buzz; where I first heard Flyleaf. This single is fairly representative of their style as a whole but isn’t necessarily their best song. This is an album full of great music.

The lead singer, Lacey Mosley, has an Amy Lee-like voice but honestly, I like Lacey’s vocals more than Amy’s (no offense to either artist, just stating my opinion.) Lacey’s throaty screams and fair serenades are full of emotion and if you look at her pics you’ll be amazed that such a sound could come out of so tiny a body. I love the fact that I can clearly understand every word she says, but she still conveys all the appropriate emotions. Of course, keep in mind that I’ve always been a big fan of clean vocals more than “dirty” vocals; and that’s just a matter of personal taste.

Aside from the vocals the rest of the music isn’t predominated by any one instrument so far as I can tell. It’s full of growling guitars, thumping bass riffs and killer drums. But then again the focus of each song is clearly the vocals. I wish I could give a more detailed critique on the other musicians because they’re obviously very VERY talented but I’m just an average Joe, doing a grass-roots review of a great Christian rock album.

The music is excellent and it’s complemented by superb lyrics. The message matches the media as you’ll find the lyrics dealing with the depressed, empty feelings so many people live with day to day. Flyleaf doesn’t leave the listener wallowing in a pit of despair though, they’ve done a fine job sprinkling their verse with inklings of God’s love.

This is a very excellent CD throughout which I highly recommend purchasing if you like your music hard and loud.