Double-Digit Fan Base...w00t!

I feel like a bit of a dumb-ass. It only just occurred to me that I have subscribers I don't know about. How did I stumble into this revelation of genius proportions? I do my own share of following myself, as you can see in the side bar...keep scrolling, you'll find it [thinking it's time for a 3-column site...I digress]. Anyways, I use google reader so I only visit the actual sites to make comments. Well I realized that I wasn't showing up as a follower on quite a few sites. It then hit me that I was only showing up on the sites I chose to follow through Blogger. So many people didn't know about the hours I devoted to hanging on their every word. But the well-oiled gears in my head kept turning...is this happening to me as well? How could I find out? While I was ruminating on that thorny issue I headed over to twitterfeed to register this blog so every time I post it'll automatically be sent out as a tweet as well . I had to enter my feed url [aaaand I just lost a bunch of you who are soooo not interested in the technical side of things....sorry....but hang in there, there's a point coming] so went to feedburner which manages the feeds.

And that's when I discovered to great shock and amazement that I have fourteen [that's 14...one-four] subscribers. Who knew?! This may not be considered a legion of dedicated minions [and I'm one of the followers so it's really 13 but I had to make sure it worked didn't I?] but still... DOUBLE-DIGITS BABY!!

So what's the big deal about double-digits anyways? I'm sure it's just the result of psychological conditioning, or the indoctrination of the decimal system, but there's some sense of achievement when we do anything for ten years or more. Jen & I just celebrated ten years of marriage, so I'm speaking from experience. I'm sure when Jesus got to disciple #10 he was like, "Ok, now we're rolling. Ummm...I guess two more won't hurt. Let's go peeps."

As a society we celebrate decades of dedication. When was the last time you went to a 27-year party for anything? But that ten year mark also causes us to pause. Like milestone birthdays [of course since I'm slow on the uptake it didn't hit me that I was 30 til I was 32]. I'm sure I'll have issues when I hit 40. And for those of us who fear success more than failure [yes, it can happen] it scares us that we've been doing something right long enough to get us this far.

So to my 14...I mean 13 subscribers...no 14, I can thank myself if I want to... again, to my 14 subscribers, thank you for reading. This might be a good time for a disclaimer: don't hold me to anything I write here. Five years from now I'll look back at this and think "what the hell was I thinking." Five years? Shoot...I might be doing that next week!

It's NOT 25 things about me

The '25 Things About Me' meme is making fast rounds on Facebook. I got tagged a few times but being a less-is-more guy I think 25 is waaaaay to many. Five questions, however, I can handle. So thanks to Wonder-Rachel for the short yet provocative interview. And if like me you like to keep things simple, read the instructions after I bare my soul.

1. Name one book you think everyone should read.

It was tough to narrow it down to one book, but I believe this world would be a profoundly different place if everyone read and lived THE FOUR AGREEMENTS by Don Miguel Ruiz. Imagine if everyone (i) was impeccable with their word, (ii) didn't take anything personally, (iii) didn't make assumptions, and (iv) always did their best. Relationships just got a whole lot easier. Not just personal ones, but possibly global ones, which when you think about it, are just personal ones anyway.

2. What is the hardest thing you've ever done?

I was on a camping trip in the Wind River Range, WY. The first day we started around 9,000 ft and climbed to 10,000 with 40 pound backpacks. I never fully recovered from that and developed HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) a couple days later. It's usually reserved for Mt. Everest-type elevations, but considering Kansas City was the highest elevation I'd ever lived, not such a big surprise. I had to be evacuated and hospitalized. I lived to tell the tale, and I'll be telling it from as close to sea level as possible from now on.

3. Tell about your last crisis of faith and what helped you turn the corner.

My last crisis of faith happens to be my current crisis of faith and there are no corners in sight. One of the unintended yet unavoidable and necessary rites of passage in this ministerial program is essentially unpacking every belief and deciding if to keep lugging it around. One of those happened to be my personal theology. What do really believe about God? Do I even believe in God? My earlier post about being a reverend agnostic should give some indication about my inner process. I do know that the individual's relationship with their own divinity is what ultimately determines their life outcome, so the question is do I need to figure mine out before I can help others with theirs? Clock's ticking.

4. Name your biggest vice.

Hmmm....I don't know I'm ready to share the biggest one yet, so I'll give you two that fall lower in the rankings as a peace offering. First, I admittedly spend way too much time online. Between blogging and reading blogs, facebook, twitter, and I'll count my Blackberry, I'm hooked on all things web2.0. Secondly, I spend too much on music. Ever since I decided to act honorably and stop illegal downloading, my wallet has suffered. I may have come up with a solution: $15/mo Zune Pass. It's a subscription service that let's me download all the music I want, but I can only listen on my Zune; I can't burn or share it. It's a deplorable trade-off but it's what I choose to afford right now.

5. Tell us about the best date you've been on.

Because my wife occasionally reads this, the RIGHT answer needs to be a date I was on with her. Kidding. But it actually was. What I will never forget was that we went back to her place to watch basketball and she fell asleep in my arms. I think it was only our 2nd date and we hadn't even kissed yet. She was mortified, but how safe must she have felt? I remember just watching her sleep, lips slightly parted, and thinking how angelic she looked. I was fairly hooked at that point.

Whew! This was quite cathartic. Anyone else want a turn?

****
Here are the meme details:
If you'd like to play along, just follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be
sure you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.
Easy Peezy!

Last rant for '08

As you can tell, no xmas post. If you follow my tweets [cause I'm so ridiculously important] you knew I was at my in-laws who live so far out in south Virginia country even the cable company won't go there. It's about the one place Verizon isn't reliable, and I wasn't going to wrestle with her dial-up connection. Love blogging and all but it took my wife an hour to buy tix online 'cause the page kept timing out [I swear it was two tins cans and string technology]. But it was good family time. Lots of table-top foosball with Joy [I shoulda done the Dad thing and let her win every time but what's so character building about that?] and I made out like a bandit with the gifts. [Click here for my fav-thanks hon] Then it was back to the never-ending unboxing of the house that's still not done. But after a week I'm feeling blog-withdrawal, so here I am, the junkie getting his fix. 

It occurred to me as I was unpacking that I never vented about the wonderful chaos the Mayflower company referred to as my moving experience. Let me uncharacteristically start on a good note: nothing was lost. Every last bit of everything we owned made it safely halfway across the country. Well everything except some shelf they have on their list that no-one can remember or misses right now. But considering how it all got here, that in itself is a pretty freakin' HUGE xmas miracle. 

It started with a tragic underestimation of how many treasures [read:crap] we had crammed into our little split level in Kansas City. We aren't pack-rats by any stretch of the imagination, but we know how to cram. So when the moving truck showed up, there was only enough space for about 90% of our treasures [again:crap]. The driver was all full of swagger and bravado when he first walked in:"Oh yeah, we'll get it all on. Not a problem." Well it became a problem when his truck was bursting at the seams and there was still half a garage to pack. Driver with a lot less swagger: "Seems like you had more boxes than I thought you would." 

And here was problem number two: the lovely ladies who boxed up our treasures [you-know-what by now]. I knew I should've been worried when they huddled in their truck with the heater on for a smoke break every couple hours, but I try not to judge [I said I try...nobody's perfect]. A friend of mine told me if I don't want it packed either get it out of the house or sit on it. They weren't kidding. These gals packed EVERYTHING! Even the stuff they said they couldn't pack, like cleaning fluids. Even the empty broken trash can. Even the empty [and evidently precious] beer bottle sitting by the back door found its way back to me. I wouldn't have been so flabbergasted if the day hadn't started with a walk-through and a "tell us what you don't want packed." Obviously a wasted moment as I gingerly unpacked my slightly mouldy loofa sponge [now who's judging?] which I said to leave because I planned to shower the next day [soap got packed too!]. And they really wondered why they had so many boxes? Did they really believe I had a strong emotional attachment to three empty plastic bags?

Then I became intimately acquainted with the 'overflow routine': a second smaller truck; a trip to the warehouse for an undetermined length of time; a hunt for a new driver with room heading in the same direction; maybe a thrid-party shipper. Again I sing a small hymn of praise: this costed us nothing extra since it was their fuster-cluck to begin with. Five days later and against all odds [what with it being xmas] the second truck arrives with the rest of our boxes to fill the space we had just cleared [...*sigh*].

Unboxing has been qutie the adventure in itself. Unwrapping memories I forgot I had saved was sweet. Disagreeing on where to put things not so much. It's been contributing to the re-entry process Jen and I go through when we've been apart for a while. Even though we spoke every day, and even though we saw each other via the techie wonder of Google Video Chat [Skype sucks on Vista] almost every day, we still had to do our Space Shuttle routine: we enjoyed our time in space, there's no place like home, but those first few minutes in the atmosphere are bumpy and hot-things have to be approached at exactly the right angle or KABLOOM!! No more shuttle. The last couple weeks have been constant adjustments. But after a singed wing-tip or two, it looks like there'll be a safe landing.

Jen announced what I thought was an ambitious goal of a house-warming party in six weeks. I'm certain we'll be unpacking well into April, but by February the house should be in decent enough shape to entertain. One thing is absolutely clear: all things considered, we're never packing a u-haul ourselves again.

The Big "M"

So I got this friend who's generally not keen on the idea of marriage. The other day she asked me what's so special about signing that piece of paper? The question threw me for a minute; not because I don't have wonderful reasons to support marriage, but because signing the piece of paper was about the last reason I had for doing it. I don't think it even made the list.

Yes, that piece of paper is important in the legal context of marriage, but that's not what it's about. To be clear, I'm not using this to contradict my support for gay marriage...denying one group of people a right afforded to another group is discrimination, plain and simple. Even if that right is the intricately complex gift called marriage.

I can only speak for myself (and in part Jen but I've learned NOT to do that without prior agreement...did I mention the intricate complexities?), but something happens when you make a pledge of commitment in front of others and before God, however you understand God to be. It's like you're saying I'm going to make the effort and sacrifices to make this relationship work because I love this person standing across from me and who I am when I am with them. And marriage is work...any relationship is work if you want it to last. And, yes, you make can those promises to any significant other without 'signing a piece of paper' but again...something different happens when you do.

The best analogy (and y'all know you love my analogies!) I can come up with is this: Dating is like getting a bachelor's degree, and marriage is like getting a Doctorate! It takes a higher (and deeper) level of commitment, maturity, flexibility, sacrifice, connection, surrender, willingness. To play devil's advocate (and I do so love to play the part) perhaps I can make the case that this is an argument for lifetime commitment, and the best we have right now as a legal and religious 'catch-all' is the institution of marriage.

Could Jen & I have chosen to spend our lives together without getting married? Sure.

But trust me on this one...something deeper happened when we did.

How do you wake up?

One of my favorite spiritual teachers told me that the intention with which we start our day tends to dictate how that day goes. Problem is many of us start with fear & deception. We scare ourselves awake with loud blaring alarms then hit snooze, essentially lying to ourselves about wanting to start our day.

I usuallly wake up too dazed to even remember my name so I let music set help me start the day right.

Here's what I wake up to:

1. GOOD MORNING (INTRO) - John Legend - Birds chirping, yawning, strings, soft crooning

2. GOOD MORNING - John Legend - "Before we start the day I'm whispering in your ear...Good morning." Wake up love song. It's a new additiong to the list & Jen hasn't heard it yet but ikm thinking it'll lead to some morning suga.

3. GOOD MORNING - Lenny Kravitz - "Good morning, nice to see you, how ya been, the beginning of another lovely day." Mellow Lenny walks us through morning routine including cold shower. It is nice to see the family first thing.

4. RAINBOW - G. Love - "I woke up this morning rainbow filled the sky...that was God telling me everything's goona be alright." Nuf said.

5. THREE LITTLE BIRDS - Bob Marley - "Don't worry about a thing cause every little thing's gonna be alright." I believe I always see the glass-half-full because I grew up embedding songs like this into my consciousness.

6. I SAW GOD - Victor Wooten - "I saw God the other day...she looked like you...he looked like me." On the latest solo album (Palmystery) from Bela Fleck's bassist. It ain't easy seeing the divinity in some folks so it helps to start with a daily reminder.

7. YOU ARE THE UNIVERSE - The Brand New Heavies - "You are the universe, and there ain't nothing you can't do...you're a driver not a passenger in life" A fun affirmation song by my favorite British imports.

8. CITIZEN OF THE PLANET - Alanis Morrissette - "I am a Citizen of the Planet...my laws are of attraction...my favorite pastime is stretching." I don't need to go on again about my big love for AM. This song humbly reminds me that it ain't all about me...most of the time ;)

9. ENERGY - The Apples In Stereo - "And the world is made of energy...and the world is synchronicity...and the world is possibility" Fun pop romp just in case I'm actually still in bed at this point.

10. ALLE-ALLELUIA - Rickie Byars Beckwith - "Surrounded by the Presence...the source of all creation all creation allows my heart to sing again." Just in case the day before sucked, I got another chance to sing & smile. This song actually starts with annoying old-school alarm bell ringing so it's last onthe list.

So my early holiday gift to all of you who might be reading this: go to http://www.box.net/shared/hegnx86g07 and download the tracks. No cost to you but I no guarantees they'll all play since not all are in mp3 format.

So reply and tell me...HOW DO YOU WAKE UP?

I gave a 3-min talk in my Homeletics class today centered around our camping experience. I griped enough about comping before, but I admit I had a great time this weekend. So while a 3-min talk (2:40 to be precise) doesn't quite encapsulate the experience, it's a pretty good relfection on what I came away with. Plus, I'm just to lazy right now to type a whole new thing about it.

(Disclaimer: The talk had to follow a particular format, so if it seems rote and repititious and non-spontaneous [i.e. so NOT me!] it's not my fault...i promise)

During the summer of 2006 I had a camping experience I would just as soon forget. I was part of a wilderness adventure in the Wind River Range outside Lander, WY. After trudging through mosquito infested woods and mud for 4 days with 9 strangers at 10,000 ft while carrying a 40lb backpack, I developed High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (or fluid on my lungs), and I had to be evacuated and hospitalized. So when my wife said we were going camping I thought my objections were well justified.
But after my camping experience this past weekend, I realize that camping is an invaluable family experience.
You see, camping creates unbreakable bonds.
Camping creates unbreakable bonds in two ways: first, it creates opportunities for cooperation, and second, it promotes a sense of belonging.
Many aspects of camping call for cooperation: assembling the tent, gathering firewood, building a fire, cooking, and cleaning up. These tasks are accomplished with greater ease and speed when done together, leaving more time for another valuable cooperation opportunity: fun & games.
I say again, camping creates unbreakable bonds.
Camping promotes a sense of belonging through the working, playing, and sharing together as a team. As she sat on my lap during share-time around the campfire, my 8-year-old daughter made me feel like father of the year when she said, and I quote, “I feel appreciated here…like I belong.”
Through camping, your family can experience cooperation and a sense of belonging that will remain long after the trip.
Because, camping creates unbreakable bonds.
So make some time to go camping. It just takes one weekend.
I may want to forget my Wyoming experience, but I can’t wait to make more camping memories with my family.