July 2012? Seriously? Where the heck have I been?

I'm kind of stunned that this blog is still here. Intellectually, I knew it would be but I'm stunned just the same.

I won't go into nauseating detail about the changes in my life since my last post over 3.5 years ago. The highlights:
- We moved into a bigger house in a swankier part of Michiana.
- A fourth child. He was a surprise. He has Down Syndrome. Another twist to my life that I never saw coming. He's helped me grow more than any other kid except my first.
- I am now my boss, or something like that. I took the position that was formerly held by my boss. He's still my boss, but he got promoted too. I manage two departments, 5 direct reports and 3 contractors.
- The changes in my work situation have given me better control over the way I handle conflict. I deal with it a lot more now. I'd probably still curl into a little fetal ball and start crying like a 4 year old if someone physically assaulted me, though. I haven't been yelled at in a while (unless you count my wife), so I'm not sure how I would handle that either.
- One way or another, I only have about a year left with this employer so I'm left with a sense of dread about my future.
- Work has kept me so busy that I had to stop coaching basketball. I haven't coached at all for the last two seasons. I miss it sometimes. Mostly I miss the connections I made with those young men on the team. Basketball was just a means. It was all about building a mentoring relationship with those middle school boys. I really miss that part of it. Screw you if you can't read that without assuming something sinister.

Maybe I'll get around to posting something about my thoughts or opinions again. I do have some new ones I'd like to unload, but history indicates I won't get out here to say anything about them.

I'll drop this one though - my management philosophy:
1) Inspire. To lead people, you must have a vision. You must communicate that vision to those you lead and convince them that it is a vision worth working for. If you cannot inspire people, you cannot lead them.

2) Empower. Once people have the will to work, they must be given the skills and opportunity to succeed. Train them. Guide them. Direct them. Remove obstacles from their path. Do whatever you can to maximize their success.

3) Get the hell out of the way. Leadership is service. Once you have done the things to provide every opportunity for your people to succeed, step aside and let them succeed. Do not modify, tweak or take credit for their work. Do not assume responsibility for their failure. People must grow and do so by choice.

Hmm...choice. I wrote a blog once about there being no rights, no fair and no deserves. I still feel that way, but have decided that we, as God-created human beings, do indeed have two God-given inalienable rights: life and choice. I'll talk about that more another time.

God bless the conflict-challenged men of the world. Maybe I should change this to FLWMWISSOC's (Freakishly Large White Male Who Is Scared Sh*tless Of Conflict) blog. I'd really hate to try to pronounce that acronym though.

Basketball - Season 5

Once a year is pretty pathetic. But, as I mentioned last time, it's not like anyone reads this drivel, so why should I care?

Today starts yet another season of coaching basketball. Except this year I finally hold the reins. I am finally serving as the head coach for 7-8 basketball. Lord Almighty, what have I gotten myself into?

2008 has, I suppose, been a busy year. The days always seem so full when there is a baby in the house though. Last year at this time, Caleb couldn't even sit up by himself. Now he zooms around the house and has a limited vocabulary. If we all live through the experience, he'll be as different from Josh and Sarah as they are from each other. So much for nurture being more meaningful than nature.

I don't know that I have any deep or meaningful things I've learned about myself or the world this year. Our presidential election was the other day and I'm contemplating life in a socialist nation. One nation, under Obama, with socialism and a guaranteed loaf of bread for all. Or something like that.

Generally, I have a conservative, Republican turn of mind. I didn't vote straight party ticket though. Not that I ended up voting for any Democrats. I just didn't want to add to the vote for any sleazy Republicans that I didn't know anything about. And I really didn't want to lend any strength to this Republican-backed socialist concept of a Right To Work Law. The government needs to protect the public from dangerous products, not interfere with private business to enforce a job-based welfare program. Go do something meaningful like shutting down a back alley clinic that's slaughtering our kids and leave private business alone.

Well, work calls. I find myself absorbing absurd amounts of stress again as I buck for yet another promotion. Again, I don't know if I really want it or not. But I'll keep working like I do because more money would really be nice. We desperately need a bigger house.

Hiding in public

You know, I can't figure out if I'm disappointed or relieved that no one reads this blog. But I suppose that's what we all feel. I pour my deepest, darkest fears out to the world here - where anyone and everyone can read them. That release is cathartic and terrifying at the same time. The power I give others with knowledge of my weaknesses. But it doesn't matter. It appears I'm all alone in this little corner of the Internet universe. Lonely but safe.

Creeping up on another Christmas. Basketball has been good. The other coach has kept his word. More than kept his word. And I think the difference in the team is obvious. They may not take the court with the determination to move mountains, but neither do they cower in fear of making the slightest mistake. We are 3-0 so far. I wonder if we'll face a real challenge before we head to Lafayette in February and have our backsides handed to us.

In the meantime, if I don't see the inside of another airplane for a year it will be too soon. 4 trips in 8 weeks just about killed me. Liz may have actually died a little. California, Minnesota, Germany, and New York in October and November. Gracious. Other than a day trip to Indianapolis sometime soon, hopefully I won't have to climb into another plane until my next planned trip to California in February. That will make two consecutive Valentine's Days in California. How wrong.

I'm not sure I have quite the joy to play The Elf like I have in the past, but I'm not dreading it either. This week and next week are elf weeks, so I just need to get on with it, I guess.

I wonder if I can set something up after New Years to deal with my conflict issues. I've felt much more empowered since the crisis that drove my last blog entry, but I know it's a shallow empowerment. I know that the next real conflict I face will put me right back into my shell of cowardice and shame. It's oh-so-easy to ignore these things and think that maybe they've gone away. But then they come back and cripple you when you need strength the most and the cycle starts over. Except this time you have the added failure of having planned to do something and not getting it done. Last time I looked into my mental health benefits offered by my insurance, they only covered the sessions if the problem was one that fit into one of their ridiculously pigeon-holed categories. At the time, I was looking for something on anger management. That wasn't covered. Depression was, though, so I just said my anger management issues were making me depressed and I was good to go. *roll eyes* Absurd. I would hazard a guess that psychological crippling due to conflict in a man is not covered since, scouring the Internet, it's clearly not a problem for anyone but me.

Yeah, right.

So I guess I claim it's depressing me again and get on with it. What a stupid game.

I've flirted with the idea of creating a web domain dedicated to guys with fear of conflict. Problem is that I'm convinced no one would show up. And I wouldn't know what to say. And I'd just screw up and mismanage it like I have with the TBR and RA forums because I don't have the time or motivation to make it meaningful.

Wow. In a mere three sentences I've managed to talk myself out of yet another meaningful way to help others. Brilliant.

Hmmm....maybe that means it's lunch time and I can focus on the one thing I do really really well. Eat.

Basketball - Season 4

You know, August 10 really wasn't that long ago, but it feels like forever since that last blog post.

Summer is way over. The kids are in school. Josh has not only started his fall soccer, he's almost done with it. The travel mayhem has started again.

Oh, and basketball has come again. My fourth season as a coach.

Last season was difficult. And this season started with deep, overwhelming fear. Last year, the head coach and I had some significantly different approaches to motivation. I felt mine was positive while his was negative. The Bobby Knight approach to coaching just doesn't work on 12-14 year old boys. Coaching through fear, intimidation, humiliation, and the occasional physical altercation did some things to me that brought my own childhood back with frightening clarity.

I might have been a 34-year old man standing there during last year's practices with a whistle around my neck, but every discourtesy done during those practices opened up the mind of a terrified 10-year-old boy facing a father with a very long fuse, but no control when the fuse burned out. I was transported back to those incidents that left such deep scars when my father yelled at me and told me how worthless I was and left me broken, physically and psychologically, on the floor of my room. And my mother stayed silent and out of the way. And here again I was, standing in the gym, watching my father wearing another man's face do the things my father did. And, like my mother, I stood there silent.

Over the last year, I have thought about those basketball practices over and over. Like every man terrified of conflict, I played the conflict fantasies through in my mind - what I wish I had done, confronting the other coach with my anger and my courage. But it all stays in my head. Because while I have the anger, I don't have the courage. I never have. Even now, as a grown man, personal conflict makes me start to cry. Really cry. And the shame is unbearable.

So, this past Monday morning, I woke at 4am and my mind was on the first day of practice. And the stress was unbelievable. Can I do this again? Can I stand by and watch these young men be ripped apart and left to die?

Do I have a choice since I don't have the courage to stop it? Where do I draw the line between protecting my players and respecting the authority of the head coach? Do I have the guts to step in front of him and tell him to stop in the middle of practice in front of the players knowing that the chances are my chin will start to quiver and my breathing will become ragged?

No. I can't do that. I can't take that much shame.

So I have to do something now. Before it happens again. Before the visions of a broken boy become so overwhelming again that I find myself once again huddled in a corner seeing the shade of my father and his belt looming over me.

And I did. And, what a relief, he listened and admitted that he wants to be different this year. And I even told him that he can't manhandle them that way. He looked at me in clear disbelief that this was an issue, but he must not know. He must not know how dirty and guilty and worthless being touched like that makes people feel. He must not know the despair of not having a safe place. But he said OK.

And I didn't cry. I didn't even come close.

But I still need help. I've spent the last 25 years like this and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being terrorized by intimidating people. I'm tired of only expressing my opinion in the safety of my own mind. I'm tired of the fear that overwhelms me every time I see injustice. And I'm really really tired of staring into the eyes of a coward every morning in the mirror.

But worst of all, I see the same cowardice in the small eyes of my children when they look at me. I have taken my lack of control and imposed it upon them. I have taken away their opportunity for healthy conflict and replaced it with authoritarian discipline. And now the guilt of who I've become wars with the shame of who I've always been.

I can't be alone, can I? Am I the only man out there afraid of his own shadow? Am I the only man living passive-aggressive fantasies? The women support each other, but we men can't face the shame. But shame or not, I refuse to turn my kids into this. Let them shell out the cash for therapy when they are 25, but not because their father turned them into cowards.

Not that. Never that.

Summer in, Summer Out...

And there it goes.

OK, I know it's not even mid-August yet, but it's close enough. The kids only have one more week off before school starts. I have to admit, I'm really not looking forward to the whole drive a bazillion miles a week thing again.

Sooo.... let's see how the summer stacked up to my expectations:

- Baby

Hard to put this one off. Our little Caleb David was born on July 12. He was 6 pounds, 15 oz and 20.5" long. Little compared to the first two. We're still not getting any sleep.

- Phil and Christy's baby

They couldn't put theirs off any more than we could ours. Joelle showed up 2 days before Caleb. Caleb and Joelle are already betrothed.

- Paying off the minivan

I wish I could enjoy this, but the obscene jump in school tuition took all this money away. At least I don't have to pay both. *sigh*

- Paying off the last student loan

Don't think this one's gonna happen this year. Maybe next year.

- Golf

Much less than I hoped. I finally got my first 18 in yesterday. August 9. And not one outing with Phil. *depressed*

- My son in his first soccer season

This was kinda cool. The team wasn't very good, but that didn't matter much. Josh finally, in the last three games, seemed to get into it. We've got him signed up for the fall too.

- New CD from 12 Stones

Still officially waiting. Though my friendly neighborhood torrent site has eased that pain somewhat. And yes, I have paid for the CD. Pre-order. I'll get it next week, I think.

- Cool new music from other Christian artists, known and unknown

This didn't really pan out. TBR is still the newest artist. Since I can't get any Christian radio at work, I can't discover anyone new :(

- Turning 35

Another thing that couldn't be avoided. Oh well. It's still not 40.

- Travel to New York, California, and anywhere else they ship me

A couple of NY trips. Nowhere else. It could have been a lot worse.

- Dealing with unreasonable people

Like this is ever going to go away *roll eyes*

- Paying a bunch of money for 2 kids in private school

Urgh. This still gives me heartburn the middle of every month.

- Refinancing my house

Turns out, my calendar was off. My 5/1 ARM isn't up until next summer. Yay!



So there it is. My golf game was mediocre at best. I started some websites to host fan forums for This Beautiful Republic and Radial Angel, but I haven't put the time into them to make them anything special so they have just kind of floundered.

*sigh* And here's the annoying part. Lovely bride just stopped in to say "baby's asleep". This means we both need to drop everything we're doing and try to hurry up and get to sleep. Because we're not gonna get much so we'd better grab whatever we can.

So, off to dreamland for a few minutes. Hopefully something substantive later. Like my displeasure with the standard Christian views about Harry Potter...

Is this place still here?

Wow. Been a while, hasn't it?

Winter is finally on its way out. I think. This is northern Indiana though and the general rule is that spring can't start until it snows in April. 5 weeks until the start of the golf season, though. I am so ready.

What happened this winter?

My sister-in-law, Diana, was diagnosed with cancer last fall. Right about the time I posted my last blog entry. She's spent all winter fighting it. Tough times for my brother and his family. Lots of worry but at the same time I get to figure out how to approach it. I've talked to my brother a couple of times, but it's clear he's not real comfortable talking about things. Honestly, I guess I'm not either. What do you say to your brother when his wife is critically ill?

Um, what else?

Well, our friends Phil and Christy (mentioned in a blog entry some time back) are expecting their 5th. Another girl. Just as well, I suppose. Putting a boy into that house would totally mess up their family mojo. A baby girl amongst boys is a princess. A baby boy amongst girls is a disaster.

And speaking of baby boys, we have our own coming in July. I guess I'd better get my golf in by the end of June because spare time is gonna be in short supply after that. 2 adults, 3 kids, and a dog in a 900 sq. ft. ranch house on a slab. With one toilet. Man, I gotta find a bigger house soon.

Another basketball season passed. It wasn't the same. I lost those 8th graders I loved so much last year. And I just didn't gel with this team the same way. And I don't think I can be an assistant to this year's coach again. I just can't watch him destroy those boys anymore. Hopefully God gives me some real direction for next year. And hopefully that doesn't include having to tell him just how I feel and precipitating a conflict with someone who intimidates me.

Wow. You'd think after 25 years of that fear I'd have found a way over it. I wish.

I got my promotion at the beginning of the year. It didn't bring the money with it I expected, but I was foolish to have hope it would. All it's really gotten me is a lot more travel. Mostly to New York. The family is adjusting fairly well, though.

I thought about putting up a rant about something the lead singer of MercyMe said at a concert here recently, but I'll save that for another time. Maybe.

So, welcome to 2007. Things to look forward to this year:
- Baby
- Phil and Christy's baby
- Paying off the minivan
- Paying off the last student loan
- Golf
- My son in his first soccer season
- New CD from 12 Stones
- Cool new music from other Christian artists, known and unknown

Things to moderately dread this year:
- Turning 35
- Travel to New York, California, and anywhere else they ship me
- Dealing with unreasonable people
- Paying a bunch of money for 2 kids in private school
- Refinancing my house

I'm sure there will be more to add later.

I should really update my music player. Some new Skillet. Red. This Beautiful Republic. New Seventh Day Slumber.

Another year...

Wow. Hard to believe I've been at this blogging thing for over a year. But there it is. Been quite a year too.

Started basketball practice for a new crop of young men today. Had two on the verge of puking and four in tears.

It was a good day :D

It certainly could have been worse. I was supposed to be in Japan this week. Thank the Almighty for small favors.

Saturday evening, my family got together to celebrate my brother's birthday. My mom, however, was at a women's retreat so the planning was left to my father.

Probably not the best idea.

The plan was to meet at a local pizza place. Turns out that was mostly so my nephew would join us. He decided not to come. And my brother, the birthday boy, had pizza the night before.

Spoo!

So we're all standing around outside this pizza joint that doesn't have seating for 5, let alone the nine of us. And my 78-year-old father and 52-year-old brother look at me and ask "So what do we do?"

...

Let me give you a little background here. I'm the youngest of seven. Waaaaaay youngest. My oldest brother turned 56 this year. I'm 34. My mother was too pregnant with me to attend my brother's college graduation. I've always been the baby (albeit an enormously large baby now). Respect from my siblings, particularly my brothers, has been very rare.

Non-existent would be closer.

My father was always in charge. If he had doubts, us kids never saw them. Dad is solid. Unshakable. He's got a faith that puts Job to shame. Natural disasters would crash against my father's will and bow to their master.

So here is my brother. Not the eldest, but still 18 years my senior. And my father - the rock that never cracks. Turning to me for direction on what we should do.

I immediately checked the sky for airborne pork and felt around to make sure that untamed primates weren't escaping from various bodily orifices. A thermometer in hell probably sounded an alarm.

Very weird.

And yet, not so terribly shocking at the same time. At home, I'm a dad: someone who speaks with the voice of authority and booms pronouncements of doom with the voice of Zeus. At school, I'm the coach. I vocalize my demands in a voice heard in the next county and even the slightest hesitation to accede to my wishes is met with the 4 most hated words in the gym:

"Get on the line!"

And now work has me in a position to make decisions. Decisions that affect others and their assignments. Decisions that change processes and how our products are made. Decisions that could make us money or cost us more. And get me fired. And get others fired.

Seems my life is about me being in charge. People call me "Mister" and I don't even think to look around for my dad. I know they mean me. SO I told my dad and brother what we were gonna do. And we did it. And it worked out OK. Sorta. I also ended up picking up the tab. :|

How did this happen? Am I that old already? When did I grow up? Just because I don't even worry if I try to buy alcohol at the store and I forgot my ID. No one has carded me in years. Some workmates are shocked to learn I'm under 40. I don't feel that old. Is the money I make and the respect I get worth the loss of my perceived youth?

What's a year worth?

What about 15?

I guess I'll go take some pain killers, rub some Ben Gay on my aching legs, take my heart medication and think about it some more. If I can stay awake that long.

The wages of sin..

... are death.

I don't know what, exactly, got me thinking about abortion while I was in the shower this morning. But I was thinking about it and it got me all riled up again.

I kept thinking about that quote from Mother Theresa. At some point she met with President Clinton and he made some comment about the poverty in Calcutta. Her response was "Poverty? It is a poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Ouch.

Over 49 million of them since January 22, 1973. 49 million. We, as Americans believe ourselves to be the pinnacle of culture.

49 million murdered babies.

We rally and froth at the mouth because of human right violations in China and North Korea and Sudan.

We've callously performed and defended 49 million executions on complete innocents.

We give our convicted criminals air conditioning, education, food, cable TV, Ph.Ds, health and dental care, even sex change operations.

And we've killed 49 million people who never even got to take a breath.

What in the world can be going on in this country that compares to this mass slaughter of children? There is no terrorist in the world that can wreak the kind of devastation on our country that we have chosen to wreak on ourselves. And all in the name of freedom. Freedom! Freedom from responsibility. Freedom from consequences. Freedom from recognizing that each life has inherent worth regardless of the financial, economic, political, or personal circumstances.

How many children? Forty-nine MILLION. Let's put faces on those, shall we? Let's put those 49 million people into our country. Now walk through downtown at lunch. And count.

1
2
3
4
5
6
die
1
2
3
4
5
6
die
1
2
3
4
5
6
die
1
2
...

Get it? Every 7th person dies. We spend millions and millions each year finding cures for cancers that will kill hundreds each year. As we should. We spend more millions in lawsuits from people who chose to smoke themselves to death. We spend millions creating people so we can kill them and try to harvest their cells for a technology that will theoretically help thousands but doesn't show the slightest chance of being clinically feasible.

Help thousands. We kill millions to help thousands? Help me understand that. Michael J. Fox, help me understand that. Patty Reagan, help me understand that. Hollywood, help me understand that. C'mon Michael Moore. Where are your documentaries now? How much more of a story is there than the deaths of one in seven people because we feel like it?

1 in 7. Dead not from some illness. Dead not because of the war in Iraq or Vietnam. Dead not because some whacked-out militant terrorist group came and ripped those lives away.

Dead because we wanted them dead. Dead because we decided our plans were more important than their lives. Dead because we felt like it.

You wanna bash George W for the war in Iraq? Go right ahead. I don't much care for it either. You wanna bad-mouth him for sending American jobs out of the country. Ok by me because I'm rather upset about that myself. But he's the first president I've seen man enough to stand up and protect the children. Where were your other presidents when those babies were having their skulls punctured? Where were your other presidents when the little fingers flexed for the last time and the hearts stopped beating? They were in Washington chanting "You go girl! Take the life from that baby! It's your right!" No, I don't agree with a lot of what Dubya's doing. But the single greatest human rights violation in the history of our world has happened and continues to happen right here in the U.S. entirely with our blessing.

Hey, I'm all for women's rights. I just wonder what rights are there for the 25 million women we've killed so far.

Failures of the Lost

What is it about these June pregnancies? *sigh*

I've been thinking a lot about my earlier blog post from last November about hope. Phil and Christy had that beautifully healthy little baby and honored my wife and I by asking us to be Anna's godparents. Poor little Anna is just past 8 months old now and is miserably cutting teeth. Poor thing :(

And somewhere in all this, my wife and I have tried to have our third. Tried and failed.

Twice.

Two miscarriages. Two failed implantations. The best the OB can give is "bad stuff". What the heck does that mean? Does the sperm have a criminal record and is thus doomed to fail? Do the eggs have issues with self-worth and self-esteem and give up before they've had any real chance to succeed? There doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with either of us (except that I'm old and fat).

So do we keep trying? Where is my sermon on hope now that I need it? Where is my faith now when the random emotional breakdowns come from nowhere and disrupt my safe little cozy life?

Sadly, I don't know. I've been working too much to tell you. 55 hours one week. 65 the next. 75 the next. Since February. And no real break in sight. Supposedly it's earned me a promotion but I wonder if that's just a gateway into more of the same. Odd that I would choose to see Adam Sandler's movie Click in the middle of all this. The last place I expected to find a wake-up call to my life was an Adam Sandler movie!

Family Force 5 has been a bright spot though. Sometimes I crank up FF5 in the car on the way home so loud that the tires rattle. And it takes a lot to make tires rattle. I should add them to my player here on the blog. *shrug* Maybe later.

So, with no more answers than I started, I'll leave. No meaningful homilies today. No words of hope and wisdom for the masses. No annoyingly profound messages to salve the tormented consciences of my non-existant readers. I'm human too and subject to fatigue and despair.

Why despair? Because my prayer life sucks. I know the answer to this problem just as I know the answer to my obesity. I just haven't found the will to do anything abut either. I have chosen not to pray just as I have chosen not to jog. I have chosen not to read my Bible just as I have chosen not to eat healthier foods. Because I'm lazy and apathetic.

Disappointed? *nod* You should be. I know I am.

So now what?

Well, I got the news yesterday that I passed that exam I took. So why do I feel even more confused now? Now that I have the certification, what do I do with it? Do I take it to my boss as of September and try to leverage a promotion out of him? Do I talk to the Quality Systems group about turning me into some sort of protégé since there doesn't seem to be anyplace to go in the Software Quality group?

And my active interviewing is over, for now anyway. I decided not to take the job for which I had been interviewing. It seemed pretty clear that they were going to make me an offer, but that job was just as dead-end as this one - probably moreso. So why would I take a pay cut for it? So I removed myself from consideration.

Plus, here I can still coach basketball in the winter. If I took the other job I might not be able to do that. And here I have the Tuesday golf league in the summer. That's a good thing.

Maybe I should just forget about certifications and new jobs for a while. I have a project to finish and 15 days to complete the testing. And I have a mere 8 days to the Pro Life Music Festival in Warsaw.

Speaking of which, I added 4 Sanctus Real songs. They will be playing in Warsaw next Saturday, so they're on my mind.

It's about time

Well, it's long past due, but I consider summer to finally be here. I got a birthday next week and that always convinces me that the snow here in northern Indiana is really gone. At least until October.

I had a professional certification exam this morning to get a national certification for auditors. Quality auditors, not financial. How frustrating. All of the practice questions are so clear and obvious, but the questions on the actual exam are oh so different. It's all multiple choice and all questions have 4 options (A, B, C, D). But on so many of these things, 2 or 3 of the answers are correct. But only one is right. It's like seeing this:

4 + 1 =
A) 3 + 2
B) 5
C) 6 - 1
D) Florida

What's the answer? Why C, of course. Why? Beats me. It all seems to depend on what hallucinogenic drug the question maker was on when he came up with it. So, I don't know if I passed or not. I'll find out in 2 weeks.

In the meantime, my golf addiction is really taking over big-time. I'd play 36 holes every day if I could find a way. *sigh* But my project at work is high pressure and the next 4 weeks are the culmination of it all. At the same time I'm actively interviewing elsewhere since I just don't know if I can go back to my old job in September - even though that's exactly what I just took that exam for.

Fooey. I obviously need to just be a MUCH better golfer.

Listen to the Dakona song I added today.

20 days to Warsaw.

Pride

Can you imagine just how fantastic relationships would be if we cared passionately about our beliefs but didn't care about being right all the time? I'm not sure how that could happen, but it sure would be nice.

What is it about pride that makes it so darn hard to put on a shelf? Particularly for us Christians. We talk about ways to battle lust. We talk about loving each other. We schedule time to study the Word. But all it takes is a simple conversation for our dander to get up and suddenly nothing else in the world matters except being right. It only seems to take about 5 minutes for "Really? Well we belive that..." to go to "... and that's what God really meant and if you don't believe that then I hope you like it in HELL!"

*sigh*

I think I'll add some Kutless to the music player today.

Radial Angel - Luring the folks from kutlessrocks.com

Just an update to the blog template. Thanks to my friends John and Tim, I managed to add a music player to the blog page. Happiness!

This update is an unashamed lure of my friends at www.kutlessrocks.com to my blog. I posted a thread over there touting Radial Angel as a cool band, so I had to put some music up as evidence.

So, no more Today's Music with a single song embedded into the page code. Now I'll just add songs to the RadioBlog player and switch which one starts playing by default.

For now, I have 2 (or 3 if I get it loaded) Radial Angel songs. Enjoy.

There Is No Strength Without Pain

(Today's Music: Photograph by 12 Stones)

Lesson Five: There Is No Strength Without Pain

This one is quite familiar to most. This lesson is more succinctly quoted as "No Pain, No Gain." Similar to the previous lesson, this one just further punctuates the point that it's really the hardships in our lives that define who we are.

We've almost reached the end of the basketball season for my boys. Over the course of the season they (well, some of them anyway) have finally gotten it through their heads that it's going to take work, work that hurts, if they want to achieve the strength and endurance they will need to win. Sometimes that pain is physical, sometimes it's not. We held practices over Christmas break, for example. That was psychologically painful to many of them, but it meant that when they came back in January, they hadn't lost their edge. It was clearly worth it to them then and they have, so far, gone undefeated in January.

I've seen one movie that got this right. Star Trek V. The movie sucked, but they got this right. For those of you who don't remember, the focus of the movie is a half brother of Spock's that has ability to reach into people's minds, pull out their biggest fear, make them face it, then absorb their pain. This liberates these people and makes them fiercely loyal to him. He then steals the Enterprise in a quest to find where God lives (Voyage of the Dawn Treader, anyone?). Anyway, when Dr. McCoy tries to convince Captain Kirk to take the crazy Vulcan up on his offer, Kirk responds, "Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" Regrettably, perhaps the only good thing about Star Trek V.

I know. Star Trek quotes. I'm not only a geek, I'm an old geek.

The lesson is simple: if you want something, you're going to have to work for it.

We had a player last year who was phenomenal. He was, and possibly will be, the best 8th grade basketball player I've ever seen. We'll call him Timmy. Timmy routinely scored over 30 points per game. He could dribble and shoot and there was often no need for the coach because Timmy already knew more than the coach. Not that he was prideful and arrogant. Quite the opposite. He was confident, but not cocky. He was also a huge crutch for the team. There were some other really talented boys on this team, but they had no reason to work. We didn't have a team. We had the Timmy show with 4 accompanying custodians to try to clean things up when Timmy occasionally missed a shot or was sitting on the bench for a rest. We had a guard who launched ill-advised 3-pointers (that rarely went in) and who never learned what it meant to be a leader because he never had to be. He never had to endure the pain of pushing his pride aside for the sake of the team because Timmy bore that burden. We had a forward who was, by nature, a hard worker and truly had a Jesus heart. But he, too, never had to step up and lead. He worked hard, but really only for himself. Again, Timmy bore the burder of leading the team. Timmy took the pain of the one loss we had when he played and grew stronger for it, as much as he could gain strength when playing for coaches that knew less about basketball than he.

And maybe that's where this is leading. There are really two kinds of pain: physical pain and psychological (emotional) pain. At some point, athletes learn that the physical kind is much less disturbing than the psychological. It hurts less to be tired with aching muscles than it does to have failed in your weakness and to have let your team down. And so they run harder and learn more so that when it comes time to perform they are ready. They can stand in strength and declare "Not Today!" and "It Doesn't Matter!" and "Finish It!" Or they can say those same three things while sitting in defeat and those things mean something very different.

You endure the pain to gain strength.
You face failure to grow and don't fear failure.
You never stop until you're finished.
You dismiss past failure or looming obstacles as irrelevant and focus on the now.
You adopt an attitude of success that leaves no room for failure.

It's really got nothing to do with basketball. But it has direct relevance to basketball because it applies to any athlete in any sport. But it's not about sports. Yet it has direct relevance to sports because it applies to everything in life.

Think it. Do it. Finish it. Learn from it. Work at it.

Make Jesus proud.

There Is No Growth Without Failure

(Today's Music: Bounce by Thousand Foot Krutch)

Lesson Four: There Is No Growth Without Failure

And so we graduate from the repeatable phrases that can be yelled in the pre-game huddle to the underlying messages about basketball, about all sports, and about life in general.

Lesson four is one of the basic instructions that lurks behind the cries of "Not Today!" and "It Doesn't Matter!" Not Today sets an attitude of success and a determination not to fail. It Doesn't Matter accepts past failures and dismisses their relevance to the present. But while an attitude that focuses on success and doesn't dwell on failures is important to achieving success, the cold hard truth is this:

No one grows through success.

Success boosts confidence and that's a good thing. Success helps build a positive self-image and creates a bond amongst teammates. Also a good thing. I'm not saying that success is bad. If success was bad, we wouldn't pursue it. Success is an end for which we all strive. But success is an end. Success, by it's very implied nature, means you're done. You finished and you won. There is nothing left to do. There's no more growing to do.

And where self-confidence and positive self-image are great things, they aren't growth. Growth, fortitude, integrity, and character are a sword forged in the searing fire of failure. These are the weapons used to endure future trials.

In the end, feelings of self-worth won't bring about the Kingdom of God. Character will.

Self confidence is, especially in young men, a brittle thing. It can be easily constructed and even more easily destroyed. The point of growth is not to change what you are, but to change who you are.

Success, once achieved, requires no more effort. Failure requires work to overcome.

Failure often requires introspection. Failure means examining the details, identifying things that need to change, then changing them. Of course, when we're talking about our personalities, making changes is no trivial task.

In John 15 Jesus says, "[The Father] cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." We, the Christians of the world, are the branches from the Vine. When we live for Christ, we bear fruit. But we still sin every day. We still covet things and strive for things that have nothing to do with glorifying God. These are branches that God prunes. The method of pruning is often personal failure. Why? Because, like weeds, branches that bear no fruit suck vital nutrients from the branches that do bear fruit. If your mind is focused on wealth or power or sex, then it is distracted from what God wants you to be doing. And so we screw up and the money is gone. We fail and our power disappears. And now, when we've told ourselves It Doesn't Matter and we've pushed our self-pity aside, we can look at the failure and recognize it for what it was - God gift of an opportunity to grow to be more like Him.

So, again, what does this mean for the boys on my team? It means this: Declare that you will not fail today, but don't be afraid of failure. Fear of failure means fear of growth and learning. Failure is a powerful tool that you can use to build a better, more lasting success later. Don't dwell on failure when it occurs by immersing yourself in self-pity, but examine your failure to identify why you failed, then establish a plan to change it.

Boys, you're 14 years old. Right now, everything about you seems to be about growing. So use everything you are right now to strive for success. And when you fail, grow. Become something bigger and better and new. Then do it again.

Finish It

Lesson Three: Finish It

This one isn't so much a yell and respond sort of message. I had intended to hold this one off for a while so that "Not Today" and "It Doesn't Matter" could sink in a little more, but once again circumstances (or, more likely, Providence) have intervened.

We had a game last Thursday. We led the whole game. Never trailed once. But in the 4th Qtr, the other team pulled it together. Oh, and they pressed too. Now, we've practiced press breaking, but the boys started to panic. And with the panic came the mental errors. The other team only led once, but it was for the last 2 seconds of the game. Like so many of my favorite teams (Cubs, Chargers, Notre Dame), we couldn't close the deal.

So, the third lesson is Finish It. Finish It is about perseverance. It's also about sustaining the intensity necessary to win. I want them to learn that a success hasn't been achieved until the job is done.

There's no such thing as success at halftime.

This lesson is also about the inherent uselessness of good intentions. As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." In order to finish it, you must first start it. But even that isn't good enough. Once you've started it, you stop at nothing until you've seen it all the way through.

"Not Today" and "It Doesn't Matter" are about orienting your mind toward success. "Finish It" takes it from your mind and implements it into physical activity that accomplishes a goal. It isn't enough to try. Maybe Yoda summed it best.

"Do or do not. There is no try."

On expansion, this may well be the most difficult of the three lessons to accept in a Christian life. We frequently hide behind the lie that "trying" to be a Christian is good enough.

"I tried to be good, but I just couldn't help myself."
"I tried. I really did. But it was just too much."
"Believe me, I tried to hold the marriage together but it just didn't work."

Lies. All of them. The first one is a common phrase from my 6-year-old. The second is just someone's way of saying that they didn't want it badly enough. The last is an extension of an underlying pride that has forgotten that the entire purpose of our lives is one of servitude and that what we do or don't get out of it is totally irrelevant, popular psychology to the contrary. Just another smattering of excuses for failure for which we don't want to accept personal responsibility.

Christianity is a life-long battle that is renewed every day. There is never a time at which you've "done your part." It's never someone else's turn. No matter your age, you are never entitled to retirement from God's service. Not until you hear it from the Father Himself. When you stand before Him and hear the words we all work for, "Well done good and faithful servant," then and only then are you done.

Ask my parents about this one. My Dad and Mom graduated college together at 66 and 63, respectively. Then started their own business. Now, with my Dad in his later 70's, they aren't killing time in Florida living the good life. They continue to suffer through one harsh South Bend winter after another, teaching the Word to those who want to learn, marching and praying to protect the lives of the innocent, and working to stabilize the lives of two divorced 50-year-old children whose lives have fallen apart. My mom's brother has one home in northwest Indiana and another in Fort Myers, Florida. He has all the money he needs and plays 200+ rounds of golf per year. It isn't fair, but then if you've read enough of this blog you'll know what my views on "fair" are. But Mom and Dad will be ready. Uncle Ed's going to need to explain why he buried his talent instead of doubling it.

So, getting back to the boys and their basketball. Gracious, did I ever wander on this one.

There are lots of ways to apply this one:
When they are tired of running ladders (aka line drills) and start to jog the last few yards instead of sprinting. It's time to give whatever they have left and finish it.
When they miss the layup. It's time to grab that rebound and put it back up. And if they miss, get it again. No stopping until the bucket has been made.
When they miss the jump shot. Follow every shot and get the rebound. Don't stop until they have scored.
When the temptation is to relax, become more aggressive instead. If we have the lead, protect it with the press.
Focus. Use the game clock wisely. Use fouls intelligently. Employ every trick to preserve the lead instead of assuming it will preserve itself.

Finish it. If you haven't succeeded, then you aren't done.

It Doesn't Matter

(Today's Music: My Heartstrings Come Undone by Demon Hunter)

Lesson 2: It Doesn't Matter

Me: "He's bigger than you are!"

Player: "Doesn't matter!"

Me: "Last time you tried that, you screwed up!"

Player: "Doesn't matter!"

Me: "You've been out there all game. You're tired and your mouth is bleeding."

Player: "Doesn't matter!"

Me: "You're slacking! Their team obviously wants it more!"

Players: "No coach. Not today!" (I love it when they figure out my tricks)

So what's this one about? This one is about overcoming adversity. Where "Not Today" is about refusing to fail, "It Doesn't Matter" is about recognizing the inevitability of failure and putting it behind you quickly. It's about not losing confidence in yourself and your teammates when shots aren't falling and the other team is killing you with the press. It's about getting angry instead of getting depressed. Low morale feeds on itself and makes pessimism a reality because that's what they expect to happen.

Thus, you get quitters. Quitters in basketball become quitters everywhere else too.

And so, I take their perceived failures and amplify them. I force them to fail even worse. If they are failing to make the shots, I'll harass them to make them miss even more. If they keep losing the dribble, I'll steal it too. If they fall down, I'll push them down again when they get back up. Again. And again. And they get frustrated. Some start to cry. But those are the ones who will then get mad. Then no matter what I do, they will get back up and get in my face just to defy me.

And then I win.

Because now they know that I can push them down. The other coach can push them down. The other players on their team can push them down. The other team can knock them down and elbow them in the face and punch them in the crotch. But defeat is a decision they, and only they, make. Others can and will knock them down, but only they can keep themselves down. Because the enemy is in their heads, not on the court and not in the classroom and not in the world. Despair is a choice and if they believe that no one can keep them down, then no one can.

Of course, this technique comes with a bunch of caveats. The "push them down" thing is entirely metaphorical. I'd have a mess of lawsuits on my hands if I really went around shoving my players to the floor. And some, many in fact, just don't have the personal courage and character to endure this kind of punishment. The point is to forge them, not to break them. The 13-year-old ego is a fragile, complicated thing. But the leaders, the good ones whose parents and teachers have done their jobs, will grow.

You've never been good in math before. Doesn't matter.
They tell you you're too slow. Doesn't matter.
He said you suck. Doesn't matter.

You got up this morning and lifted your eyes to Heaven and faced the day with the conviction that today you weren't going to let your Savior down. But now you've done it anyway.

You had a chance to defend that younger kid when others were making fun of him and you didn't because you were afraid of what others would think of you. You failed.

You had a chance to turn and walk away when your buddy pulled out Uncle Mike's stock of old Playboys. But you didn't. And you fed your mind with images that turned these women into things instead of people. And now they replay in your mind like a song you can't shake. And you see them over and over. And the guilt wars with desire. And you failed again.

Then your mom came home from work and was clearly anxious. She was frazzled and trying to get dinner ready and still stressing over the things that happened today. And you were so wrapped up in your own self-pity and guilt and anger that you walked away and shut yourself in your room instead of helping her. Now you failed again because you failed earlier.

It doesn't matter. So you failed. Get over it.

Self-pity has no place in this world, or the next. There is no benefit to self-pity. It is evil. It is sin. Always. Every time.

So your failures do not matter. Get on your knees, lift those eyes to Heaven again and tell your Redeemer that you failed and you're sorry. Really sorry. But you know it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter now because you know He has washed it away. Now it doesn't matter to Him either. Because when you've failed in the past, it doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter how badly you've failed because Jesus will never leave you, even if everyone else does.

Because Jesus knew what mattered - and what didn't. Money doesn't matter. Pride doesn't matter. Power doesn't matter. Control doesn't matter. Sex doesn't matter.

Life matters. Salvation matters. Looking to God for the answers matters. The Bible matters.

So why didn't He come down off that cross and smite the Pharisees and fry the unbelievers and put Caiphas up on that cross? Why didn't He save Himself? Because it didn't matter. He loves you. That matters.

Not Today

Lesson 1: Not Today

So how do these lessons work? It goes something like this:

The boys are doing a drill. Maybe it's a shuffle drill or a defensive drill or a rebounding drill, or whatever. As they are doing the drill, I'll come up and yell in their faces.

"You're gonna miss that shot!"

And they yell back.

"Not today!"

See how that works?

"Their forward has scored at least 20 points in the last 3 games!"

"Not today!"

It's about overcoming the odds. It's about determination and refusing to be intimidated. It's about believing in what you can do, not just what you have done. Some of these boys haven't grown much yet. Others are monsters. I only have 9 boys on my team this year. Three are under 5 feet tall. One is 6'5". Remember, these are 7th and 8th graders. 12 to 14 year olds. As they grow, their coordination is, well, questionable at times. So they've become accustomed to being clumsy. They have resigned themselves to a certain percentage of failure.

That attitude has no place on my basketball court. That attitude has no place in this life.

It doesn't matter a whit what they did yesterday. It's irrelevant what they do tomorrow. They have a choice to make right now. A choice about today.

Have they dribbled it off their foot? Oh, yes. But not today.
Have they airballed a shot? Many times. But not today.
Have they been out-rebounded by teams that work harder? Yep. But not today.
Does that other team want it more? Not today.
Does that other team have more heart? Not today.
Are they going to fail? No. Not today.

They have fun with it because they quickly start to understand that it's not always about basketball.

Are they going to be lazy and skip their homework? Not today.
Are they going to feel sorry for themselves because that girl didn't smile back? No, not today.
Are they going to make any of a thousand excuses for failure instead of getting the job done? Not today.

And the end of season lesson?

They failed to prepare for a test, and now they have a perfect opportunity to cheat without anyone else knowing. Will they do it?
The world will challenge them every day to choose it over the Will of God. Are they going to listen to the lies of the world?
Their hormones will tempt them to break faith with Jesus and to use their bodies in a way not meant outside marriage. Will they give in?
Satan is waiting around every corner, within every decision. Every decision of every day is a choice to accept the Will of God or to turn away from God and sin. Each morning, these boys will face the sunrise with the opportunity to be righteous or to sin. Will they defy their Maker? Will they take the easy path and give in to Satan's crooning?

No. No way. Ain't gonna happen. Not today.

Basketball's 5 Lessons for Life

I coach basketball for the 7th and 8th grade boys at my daughter's parochial school.

I make a special point of mentioning "parochial" so that later when I admit I use the word "Jesus" in front of these kids, I won't get some self-absorbed, screwed-up, card-carrying ACLU freak calling local lawyers trying sue me.

Oh. sorry for the redundancy.

To my knowledge there are no ACLU types who aren't self-absorbed screwed-up freaks.

Anyhoo, each week I've been introducing a theme to the boys. A short, easy to remember phrase for the week. Then I yell at them to provoke them to yell the phrase back at me. Since I consider these little lessons to be even more important off the court than on, I figured I'd jot them down here. It would be a hoot if one of them were savvy enough to find this blog.

So, let the 5 basketball lessons for life begin...

Hope: It's not just a means, it's an end.

(Today's Music: Falling Further by Spoken)

So, while I was sitting in another of my company-sponsored voyeur sessions (in Cincinnati this time), I got the news: my job and all the jobs in my current building in northern Indiana are being relocated to New York effective sometime 3rd quarter 2006.

Great. Well, that sure inspired me to work harder, didn't it?

So, while I worked long hours in Cincinnati, I must admit that my motivation was precisely nil and I spent much of the time worrying about how I was going to make it. My wife and I had moved away from Indiana once (before the kids) and it really didn't work out very well. Trying to imagine moving with the kids was almost more than I could comprehend.

Thus, the despair set in. That took a few days.

And then I got to talk to my friend Phil again. He reminded me of something I had noticed before. Not that he said anything, because he didn't have to. It's just the way he and his wife Christy live their lives. They live in hope. See, Phil and Christy have 3 beautiful girls but they have had some real problems having a 4th child. Lots of miscarriages. Lots of dashed hopes as one child after another was lost before they ever got to see him or her. Yet, for a reason I couldn't understand, they kept trying. And trying. And every time they laid their hearts out to the Lord and each time another piece was cut out before being returned to them. How could they be so masochistic about it? How could they keep doing this to themselves?

And then, after they got pregnant yet again (Christy's in her 32nd week or so now and we're all praying like crazy), the Lord opened my eyes to the gift of hope.

Now, let's back up for a sec. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is expounding on his quite famous lecture on love. This is the passage that gets read at almost every Christian wedding to which I've been. You know the one, "Love is patient, love is kind, etc etc." But at the very end, Paul makes this statement: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Fair enough. The greatest of these is love. And the whole Bible is one huge, overwhelming message of love. And the Bible is one example after another about people of faith who mirror a God of faith. As Christians, we have no problem grasping that without love we are false and without faith we are lost. We may not successfully live these things every day, but intellectually we "get it."

So why have we ignored hope? What is hope, anyway? Hope is the optimistic longing we have that we will receive something we want. Please note the 2 key words there: optimistic and want. So what happens when we don't get it? We are disappointed. We pray and put our hope in our prayers and then we don't see our prayers answered (which doesn't mean they weren't, of course) and our faith is shaken. But we get over it and the Bible strengthens us to never stop loving and to "keep the faith." So we love some more even though it might hurt and we are faithful even when it seems the world around us is not. But the hope starts to die. We forget that hope must also be strengthened and renewed.

Why?

Because our Christian teachings have drilled it into us that love is an end, not just a means. Loving is good because it is loving, not because loving gets us what we want. Faith is an end, not just a means. Faith is the openness to Christ's saving love and faith is good because it is faith, not because faith gets us what we want. And hope? Err.... And here is the problem. We still see hope strictly as a means, an optimistic means of getting what we want. It rarely, if ever, occurs to us that hope is an end too. There is blessing in hope. Not because hope gets us closer to something else, but because hope is so intertwined with love and faith that the separation is quite impossible. Love without hope is just resignation. Faith without hope is just a lie. Hope has to be there too because hope is the thing that lends the optimism to the equation. Hope means that we trust that God knows what he is doing.

So, here I am now facing unemployment. But I'm fairly young and I have some decent skills and my family is strong. So I throw the updated resume out onto monster.com and dice.com because I have an optimistic desire that the Lord will find me something else that will bless me even more than I'm blessed now. So what happens when this job disappears, the severance is gone, and the savings are depleted? I don't know. But hopefully I'll remember that even though my hopes weren't actualized that I was blessed anyway because I had hope.

Just like Phil and Christy. And their hope is named Anna.

The FLWM's Hidden Eyes

(Today's Music: Caroline by Seventh Day Slumber)

I'm sitting here in Chicago at a user study for one of our products. The setup in so conspiratorial that I feel like I'm in some prime time cop show. I'm sitting in a darkened room behind a two-way mirror watching people respond to questions. I can see them. I can hear them. They don't know I'm here. I can sit less than 5 feet from them and look deeply into their eyes and they don't know. They can't see me or feel me.

The repressed pervert in me thrives on this sanctioned voyeurism. This is better than a movie. This is better than spying on my sister's friends through the hole I drilled in her closet wall. I find it exhilarating and very naughty all at the same time.

But it's what I'm supposed to be doing!

My conscience tells me that this can't be right. This can't be moral. I must be offending God somehow. And maybe I am. Not because what I'm doing is morally wrong but because I'm getting such a sexual thrill out of the whole thing. How do I stop feeling like this except to leave? But I'm taking notes on the answers and am expected to use that information to make the product better.

Thank you Lord for not making me work in marketing where I would have to face this conflict 6-10 times per year! For now, I'll look at my legal pad while I write and I'll focus on the engineering issues and I'll try to not look at the people so much.

"Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil..."

Putting the "Rat" Back in "Pack Rat"

(Today's Music: Fall In Line by Seven Places)

Scattered throughout the house - in closets, in the attic, littering the garage floor and usurping vehicle storage - are "reminders" of our children when they were younger. Of course, the kids are only 6 and 3 now, so the collection has only begun, I'm sure. We have bibs, but they're "special" bibs. We have "special" jeans and oodles of "special" frilly dresses. For the love of Pete, we even have "special" onesies with poop stains! The ultimate, of course, is the christening gown - in a frame on the wall. I don't even want to think about what that has been through.

*shudder*

These are precious, priceless, irreplaceable items, or so my wife tells me. My wife tells me that these things are dear to her heart and make her happy. Then, when they have been buried amongst the other "treasures" for a few months and my wife discovers them again, she cries. They aren't tears of joy. They are tears of sadness and regret that the kids have grown past these things.

Hmmm...so let me get this straight...

These items that occasionally phoenix themselves into view every so often that have no practical value that will never be used again that make you sob in depressed anxiety are precious and irreplaceable and make you happy???

Huh.

So I just have one question. Why do I get nothing but scorn when I insist that the holes in this pair of underwear are meaningful? Why do I get flinty looks when I insist that those sneakers are fine and have plenty of life even though the soles flap on the bottom and are only attached for about an inch at the heel?

OK, that was two questions.

But why is it sweet and wonderful for you to keep old nasty clothes and insensitive and disgusting when I do it? Why am I the pack rat while you get to be the pack angel?

"You wouldn't understand. Now throw those disgusting things away or I will when I do laundry."



*sigh*

Yes dear.

Redeeming the Declaration of Independence

(Todays' Music: Falling by Radial Angel)

So I went and did it, didn't I? I poo-pooed all over the (unfortunately) most sacred text in the United States, the Declaration of Independence. I spat on the flag. I flipped the bird to all those soldiers and public servants for the last 240 years who have fought and died to give me the freedom I use to belittle them.

*sigh* It looks that way, doesn't it?

But let's move to Part 2 of the point. K?

I talked over what I posted yesterday with my brilliant wife last night. And she challenged me to come up with a better way to set up a country. She reminded me of what the founding fathers were trying to do and the message they were sending to those bloody Brits when they wrote the Declaration. And when we got done talking, I came to understand how it works. It started to dawn on me how this country has become such a great place to live.

It wasn't about them.

Who "them"? The founding fathers "them". It was about Josiah Smith the tobacco farmer. It was about Miles Jones the cobbler. Later it was about Paddy O'Reilly the plantation worker. And about Stan Klosky the meat-packing worker. Made up names, of course, but you get the point. The "rights" identified by the Declaration of Independence are guides to the rights of others.

The Declaration of Independence breaks down when Bob Johnson holds them up and says, "These are my rights!" Those rights (gifts), like our lives of faith in the Father through Christ Jesus, aren't about us as individuals. To point to them and say "My rights!" is to abuse them. They are examples of the way Jesus treated others. And so, they are examples of how each of us should think about everybody except ourselves. Let me expand.

Life. The greatest gift given to us by the Lord. Certainly Jesus was all about life. The beauty of the lives of our children. Eternal life in heaven. Jesus even identified Himself as the Life. But when it was all on the line, it wasn't about His life. It was about ours. He could have saved His life and been no less the Messiah for it, except His Father asked for more. Jesus treated us all as if we had the right to live, as long as we were willing to recognize our place and our service to the Father.

Liberty. Jesus sure seemed like a free spirit, didn't he? All of my images of Jesus were of a man who wouldn't have been particularly out of place at Woodstock. But the irony of it all is that His freedom, His liberty came because of a slavery so profound that we can't even comprehend it. He was a complete willing slave to the Will of the Father. And in doing so, he used his freedom to guarantee the freedom from sin we all now have. Nothing binds us, tortures us, and controls us like sin. But in slavery to Christ, we have freedom. Now use that to free others. It's not about my freedom. God wants my life to be about your freedom, because I love Him and I love you. That's what the founding fathers did. They made personal sacrifices, their lives when necessary, to free those around them that they loved. That's what all of those proud, heroic soldiers and public servants have done for the last 240 years - sacrificed for the freedom of others. And that's what it's really about. That's why freedom isn't free. That is the story of the United States. That is Christ.

Pursuit of Happiness? Hmmm...I may have to mess with this one a little. The greatest lie I have ever heard told amongst Christians is this: God's greatest desire is for you to be happy.

Nope.

God's greatest desire is for you to be holy. Does God, then, rejoice in your suffering? No, but you should. In order for you to bear fruit, you need to be weeded and pruned on occasion. In order for you to become like Jesus, for you to become like the Father, you need to grow. And in case you never noticed, you never grow with happiness. You never gain with pleasure. Growth comes only through struggle. Maturation requires pain. And satisfaction comes only with the risk of devastation.

Ask any parent.

If you are aligned with God and His Will, then His Will becomes your will. Then, in holiness, you will find the only true happiness instead of this perfumed fecal matter the world sells you as happiness. So, I suppose working toward others' pursuit of happiness (and your own) is valid, as long as it's true happiness.

"This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
There it is. This is how Jesus has loved us. By working toward our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of eternal happiness - all at the cost of His own. So this is how we live now, by working toward these goals for others, at the cost of our own. This is Christian America. This is the real United States.

Fair. Deserve. Rights.

(Today's Music: Cornerstone by Day of Fire)

I subscribe to a number of Internet user forums as a way to connect to other people and to feed my continuing Internet addiction. I get a lot of growling from people about my sig. I don't mind because it's a challenging statement. It goes something like this:

There is no "fair". There is no "deserves". There are no "rights". There is choice and there is Grace. Everything else is just an excuse to live a life of sin.

Cynical? Maybe, but I don't think so. We spend so much time coming up with reasons why it's not our fault. We depend on someone else to establish excuses for our inability to abide by the most important rule: to love the Lord God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength.

Are there absolutes? Yes. Dare I say, "Hell, yes." Hell is one of them. God is another. Orange is a third. Justice is not - at least not earthly justice. Therefore, there is no "fair" because fair implies an objective justice, which only exists with the Father. "It's not fair" is a subjective statement which really means "It doesn't comply with my personal views that are heavily tainted by self-interest."

"Deserves" is no better. I go back to my favorite movie line ever. Clint Eastwood, at the end of Unforgiven, sums it up beautifully as the Gene Hackman character lays dying on the dirty saloon floor - "Deserves got nothin to do with it." Do you know what we deserve? Death. Hell. Eternal torment. That's it. Nothing else. We don't deserve forgiveness. It amazes me how Christians have taken all these years of Biblical teaching and have turned it in their minds into "I deserve God's forgiveness." Because God's forgiveness is freely given if we are willing to confess and repent, we believe that it's our due. So we sin with the expectation of forgiveness when it's over.

Newsflash - you aren't forgiven.

When you sin with the plan to ask forgiveness for it later, then do so without conviction you have accomplished nothing except to further delude yourself that God is subject your overinflated ego. You are not forgiven unless you are really sorry. Chew on that for a minute because it's just become words. If you are not really truly ashamed and deeply regretful that you just flipped that crazy driver off, you are not forgiven. Christianity is not that easy. The message is simple enough: Be like Jesus. The execution is much more complicated. Every time you aren't like Jesus, you sin. For every sin you deserve to die. Without repentance (we won't go down the confession to another person road today), every sin still merits death. I'll leave the "deserves" topic with that for now.

And finally to our last and favorite crutch - "rights". Bad news, people. The Declaration of Independence does not hold equal weight with the Bible. I'll bet that really makes you mad. Too bad. The Heavenly Father did not write the U.S. D.O.I. It is not divinely inspired Scripture.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Horse-hockey.

I'll give you the first part. All people are created equal in the eyes of God.

The rest is a lie. These are not rights. These are gifts. They are gifts given to us by God that are given entirely out of His love and mercy. We do not deserve any of these things. We deserve death. Okay, I'll waffle a little on the Life thing. I still stand by it being a gift, not a right, but I believe that Life is the most precious of gifts and that life given by God is not the province of men to take away. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness? No way. These are the words on paper that we cling to when we want to love ourselves instead of God. Liberty is about us. Pursuit of happiness is about us. When we cling to the things about us, we are not loving God with our whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength. We are loving Him after we've taken care of ourselves. It's a lie. It's a lie that has been falsely allowed to become Gospel because we want it to be true. Truth, however, is another of those absolutes that has nothing to do with what we want.

Like orange. Wondered when I would explain that, didn't you? It doesn't matter who you are, what you think, or even if you're color blind. Red and yellow still make orange. A demonstration in front of the White House won't change that. Lobbying and filing a case in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (which will challenge anything) won't change that. Having a "right" to believe that red and yellow make green won't change that. You can wallow and splash in your rights all you want, but you ... will ... be ... wrong. We don't challenge orange (well, DesCartes might, but he was wrong about a lot of other things too) because we accept it. Yet we challenge other things that God has told us are true:
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."
"Thou shalt not kill."
"This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church."

These are as fundamental and unassailable as "Red and yellow make orange" but we don't like it, so we rationalize it away as restricting our "rights".

Enough for today. I'm sure you're as tired of reading this as I am of writing it.

Distractions

What is this sickness of the Internet that draws us in like moths to light? I actually had to resist posting another entry in this stupid blog yesterday because I wasn't willing to admit that I'm that addicted to the Internet. Yet here I am blogging on a Saturday while my wife and kids play together.

Somewhere inside is a deep, clawing need to be distracted. No matter what I'm doing, I feel the need to be distracted. I think it's another of those signs that it's time for me to get on my knees and pray. God in my life is a powerful focus mechanism. Plenty of prayer, Scripture study, and the constant mental conversations with God that mark the pious, holy people all bring a sense of purpose, direction, and especially focus. So, when I spend all day at work looking for ways to be distracted from my work or when I spend a day at home doing something meaningless then it's a sure sign that I have drifted. Again.

Don't see it? Look around.

The world around you is obsessed with distraction. The Korean youth has turned it into a lifelong passion with online gaming houses and murders for virtual weapons. We men latch onto the internet porn as a way to distract ourselves from our marriages and our families. Wives are work. Internet porn is a distraction that provides instant gratification. Our wives, meanwhile, latch onto more "acceptable" things - romance novels, keeping the children mindlessly busy by enrolling them in a thousand activities a month. The women run themselves into the ground with a million niggling details while the men hide in the office with their virtual smut and punch the clown.

What are you doing here?

Get on your knees and get your life back.

What the hairy heck am I doing here?

(Intrigued? Email me: tromos@mail.com)

I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm supposed to be working. It's a downright miracle that I'm able to get to this site at all through my corporate firewall.

It's all Google's fault. I was trying to look up information on a Christian rock group from Indiana called Grace On Demand and ended up looking at the blog of some user here named XOC. I got sucked into reading through his blog and found myself having way too much in common with this guy (age and world perspective, if nothing else). He claims to be part of the "last true minority: God-Fearing, Gun-Owning, White, American Males" I got a chuckle out of that. Granted I don't own a gun, but only because my wife won't let me. Not that I would shoot anyone with it. To me a fundamental truth of Christianity is respect for life. All life. Born and unborn. Innocent and guilty.

But I'm not here to launch into a monologue on abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment ... today. Maybe some other time.

So here's my life in a nutshell:
- It's all about Him.
- It's not about me.
- Christian rock has come a long way in the last 15 years and I regularly indulge myself in Christ-focused music that doesn't lull me to sleep or make me gag: Skillet, Kutless, 12 Stones, Day of Fire, Relient K, Seventh Day Slumber, Falling Up, Seven Places, Radial Angel, Subseven, Dakona, Spoken, Disciple, and many others. Now why won't any of these bands come to north-central Indiana??!?!
- Thank God for RadioU.com and cmradio.net.
- Fatherhood is the toughest thing I've ever done. It continues to challenge me every day. God didn't make me an instinctively great father, but He expects me to do it anyway.
- Is anyone still using Apple computers? Why?
- Linux and the open source community are worthwhile ventures and worthy of pursuit - in academia. Like it or not, the real world uses Microsoft so step off that self-righteous open-source-will-save-the-world platform before an airplane takes your head off.
- Geeks rule. But if you have reprogrammed your handheld and your cell phone to run the latest distro of gentoo or you think it's only a matter of time before Opera topples Internet Explorer, then you need to find some real skin-and-bones friends and get a life.
- Star Trek is better than Star Wars.
- Car manufacturers need to stop building the dashboards so far toward the driver. Of the 2005 model cars, trucks, and SUVs made by all of the major auto manufacturers, I fit in less than a dozen models.
- People shorter than 5'10" have no right to sit in the Emergency Exit row of an aircraft - especially if the flight includes someone over 6'4" who is crammed in a regular seat. I already stated I'd never shoot anyone, but these people sure tempt me.
- The Wheel of Time PC game is the greatest FPS ever. Too bad Infogrames screwed the developers and Atari continues to screw the user community.

Wow. I think I've used up all of my blog topics for the next month. How stupid was that?