Month: November 2017

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Sleep Tight Little Lady

Tonight Buddy was placed in storage for the Winter (thanks Michael). This is a little later than I wanted but still fine. My only concern is that she may have seen a little salt residue on the roads from the past week. She has been waxed well so I am fairly sure any little salt residue she experienced shouldn’t be a big deal. I may also spray a can of WD40 on her underside just to add a little more confidence concerning her storage.

Anyhow it was a Summer of extensive work on Buddy (thanks Conor). She came out of storage with an automatic transmission and went back into storage today with a manual transmission. She is now a ton more fun to drive because of that standard transmission.  Lots of small cosmetic improvements from replacing emblems to knobs whose print had worn off, and various other mechanical work on her.

The goal for next Summer involves swapping in a 2.3l turbo engine from a ’87-’88 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. Woot woot! I just have to find the engine at a reasonable price now. If only this can be arrange Buddy will no longer be “all show, no go.”

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Doesn’t Matter That It Is Cold, The Steak Has To Be Cooked

Yes it may be 16° outside (right now we have unusually cold weather for this time of year) but Pam is gone to the ASHA convention (because I married a boss), therefore it is time for me to cook myself a rib eye.  It doesn’t matter if it is cold outside, charcoal still burns.  There were four pork chops also available to cook so that I can eat them later in the week.

Why does this have to happen even though it is cold? Well, because when Pam is gone I cook myself a good steak. That’s what I do. It is what brings me comfort when she is gone. There might not be any sunshine when she’s gone, but there is rib eye. 🙂

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Discipleship

I don’t know when discussions of how to disciple someone (lead them in growing closer to Jesus) began, but I know it started long before (as in millennia before) I began studying to be a minister. People have written really good books on the subject, preached amazing sermons, and developed grand traditions that were meant to help people grow as follower/learners of Jesus.

Many of them are very good and you should probably go read one of them right now. I’m a big fan of Brother Lawrence’s “Practice of the Presence of God” (a wonderful little read that focusing on seeing the work of God around us) and Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” (a wonderful book on disciplines that are meant to point us to God). I’ll add a new work I like, John Ortberg’s “The Life You Always Wanted” which has a cheesy Oprah Winfrey cover and title but solid content on spiritual disciplines, though Foster’s work is still my first choice.

Still I struggle with programs that are designed to disciple a follower of Jesus. My struggle is that I believe they can be very helpful while also being very detrimental. It seems to me that Jesus very clearly defined what one of His disciples is supposed to be about when he described the great commandments 1a and 1b. We are to 1a” “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37), and 1b: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). That’s what disciples of Christ are supposed to be about: loving God and loving others. So if certain actions help with 1a and 1b then they are good for helping in discipleship.

The problem is that I believe often the things that are meant to be means to help us reach our ends (1a & 1b) regularly become ends in and of themselves.  We become more focused on the actions of the program, rather than loving God and others as the program is supposed to help us do. Means are not meant to be ends. When our means become ends we usually call such situations legalism, because the actions have become more important that the actions are meant to help us achieve. This is part of my struggle with such programs.

The other part is that the opposite of using such programs is to simply throw a new believer in Jesus Christ into “deep water and hope they can swim”. That’s not cool.

So here are my simple suggestions for growing as a disciple of Jesus. i.e. here’s my recommended list of means for growing in the ends that Christ set up for us, 1a & 1b.

  • Try to notice something for which you are thankful to God for this week and thank God for it/them. (gratitude)
  • Ask Jesus for something you need this week (dependence & prayer).
  • Try to forgive someone this week because of Jesus forgiving you.
  • Try to help someone this week because of Jesus helping you.
  • Read/listen to the Bible or someone talking about scripture for 10 minutes this week.
  • Try to tell someone something Jesus has done for you.

If these help you follow Jesus better then great. If they don’t then skip them. There is nothing sacred about my recommendations. They are just means and means that don’t help us reach our ends should be dropped. The only things that matter are our ends. In this case those ends are 1a love God and 1b love others.

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Best Friends?

One of Pam‘s dreams happened this morning – our dog and one of our cats snoozed together.

For a long time Pam wanted to get a dog and a cat at the same time because she was convinced that they would become best friends. It looks like she might actually be right. I can’t say that Helen (the cat – who I generally call Hellion) is Clive’s best friend (obviously that would be me), but I can say that Clive is Hellion’s best friend. She loved being around him and generally has to be where ever he is (which, obviously since I am his best friend, is with me).

As usual Pam is correct. I may not be a very good hunter, but I marry very well.

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LSU Love Week

Today is the Alabama/LSU game. Having been raised an Alabama football fan, and then serving as a minister in Baton Rouge for seven years, which ultimately led to Pam graduating from LSU with her PhD, this game is one that brings up a little trash talk between me, certain family members (hey cutie), and many friends. When South Alabama plays various teams from Louisiana the same thing happens, but there are more people involved in the Bama/LSU trash talk.

Anyhow many of my LSU friends talk about the week leading up to playing Alabama as being “Bama hate week” (“hate week” being a traditional rivalry game thing) because this is a big game for them. Not so much for Bama. So I will just refer to this as “LSU Love Week.”

Why?

Well because I love …

  • … the look on their faces after they finally realize they are going to lose (usually in the second or third quarter).
  • … their attempts to find something or someone else to blame the loss on (it was a bad call, Nick Saban used some black magic, an actually elephant was on Bama’s offensive line, etc., etc.)
  • … the whining (closely related to their attempts to find an excuse) that will happen for the next decade as a result of their loss.
  • … how they will claim that the SEC rigs the games for Bama.
  • … how they pretend to actually understand what their coach is saying.
  • … how the loss will push them closer to my prediction that they will now go through 3 coaches in 5 years because of getting rid of Les Miles.

Oh how I love this week. 🙂

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Sitting in Bad Weather = A Wisconsin Cheese Slice

This was me using my phone to check if my camo buff was on the right direction, because as you can see from the small section on my cheek the reverse side is basically white, which isn’t the best camouflage.

The video above is of the weather about an hour into deer hunting yesterday. I expected it to snow a little yesterday but I didn’t realize that it was going to end up snowing enough to cover the ground. It continued to snow for the two hours after this video that I continued to hunt. It is too early for such snow. We’re supposed to have flurries right now. Yes, they might be heavy flurries but still flurries.

So I sat in the deer stand slowly being covered by snow and randomly scaring deer. I scared 5 of the them: 1 because I had to stop reading my kindle (touchscreen kindles freak out when snow lands on their screens) and had to put it in my bag, I looked around but didn’t see the deer when I decided to move, he, however, did see me, 2 others were scared by walking up downwind from me and catching my scent, and then I scared 2 more when I was walking out – just call me the deer scarer. It was an enjoyable evening even though I didn’t get a deer.

A Wisconsin made of cheese is kind of meta.

The reason I am posting this is so that I can share with you this work of art that Eric G made for me. Eric said that me bow hunting in a deer stand in such bad weather (it wasn’t just snowing, it was also cold and windy) I had finally become a real Wisconsinite because unlike gun season (which is only 9 days long) you can blow off bad days when bow hunting because it is a much longer season. Apparently for Eric, choosing to stick it out in bad weather equals being a Wisconsinite and the reward for being a Wisconsinite is cheese cut into a slice of cheese.

I felt very honored … and then ate the Wisconsin cheese slice.

SIDE NOTE – I tend to read my kindle when bow hunting because it requires less movement to “flip” pages. I may have to rethink this for snowy days. My kindle kept swapping fonts because of the snow interacting with the kindle’s touchscreen.