Pam is Really Cool

I have a break and thought I would brag on Pam for a second. Over the past few weeks I have been I’m preparing a seminar with her and it has been an amazing reminder of how awesome the woman I am married to is. Pam is really cool.

One of the companies that I chaplain for does random seminars for life. They have a core value of “Learn & Grow” and last year they purposely expanded the idea of “Learn & Grow” to areas of “soft skills” and other areas of life outside of work. So they asked me if I could do a course on relationships. After 4 weeks of discussing how to have healthier relationships a few people asked for a parenting seminar. I mentioned Pam’s credentials and expertise from her field to the company and they thought it was a great idea. So yesterday Pam and I led a seminar at this company on the subject of Parenting.

She has a wealth of experience, both personal and professional, as well as a good grasp of research on the subject. We have both thought about what we would lead during the seminar and really started finalizing everything this past weekend. Yesterday we led the seminar for the company and it was really cool watching her lead a group of people that she had never met before and them discovering what an amazing person she is. She knows her stuff and it showed yesterday.

On another note

One of the things leading this seminar reminded me of is the desperate fear that so many parents walk around with that they will somehow, unknowingly, screw up their kids. Often parents of all ages live without much deep interaction in the lives of other parents and thus can have no idea what is a normal struggle and what isn’t. What kids will grow out of and what is an actual danger sign. Because of the size of our families now we aren’t around significantly younger kids much anymore till we have our own kids. I, for one, didn’t spend much time at all around babies till I was the parent of one and thus I live with a constant fear that I was somehow going to “break” Adam for the first few months of his life.

Used to be you would have been involved in the “parenting” of much younger brothers or sisters if you were one of the older kids in the family, or if you were one of the younger kids you would have been involved in helping your older siblings with their first kids. We had lots of “practice” at parenting just through our daily lives. Most people don’t now. Thus parenting is often an initially foreign skill set for parents and to make matters worse many don’t have a broad social group around them to help them face these new challenges.

I’m not trying to romanticize the past. Various aspects of the past were better in some manners, and WAY worse in others. The same is true for parenting in the past. Some of it was better and some of it was worse.

I guess what I am saying is perhaps we older parents should invite younger couples with kids over for supper often, not lecture them about parenting but just to be with them, listening to them, and maybe help them bare the fear and worry of parenting, so they can better experience the joy and wonder that is also there.

Or maybe cook s’mores with them. That would be real helpful. Let’s invite younger parents over and fill their young kids up with sugar. That should be helpful. 🙂

Ok it probably isn’t. I’m sure your small group, if you are involved in one, is fine too. I’m just really loving my small group right now.

In case you don’t know what I mean when I say small group is is church talk for a group of people who get together regularly and discuss how our faith affects and interacts with our lives. We help each other follow Jesus. Some churches call them “grow groups”, or “life groups”, or “DLT – Doing Life Together”, or any number of other names that I’m not cool enough to come up with. They were called “small groups” when I first experienced one in the late 80s/early 90s and thus they are still small groups to me. I believe they are incredibly helpful and I personally encourage every believer in Jesus as Lord to have a group of people that they regularly meet with to talk about faith.

Pam and I have been a part of this group for around 10 years and while we have loved it for a long time (I’ve posted about it before here and in several other posts). We usually swap between reading through a book of the Bible (right now we are reading through 2 Samuel) and reading some devotional writing together (for example Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Life Together“). I have loved our small group in the past but a couple of things have happened over the past 6 months that have caused me to love it all the more. They are:

• We started eating a common meal together. Not really a potluck as much as a themed meal. We pick a theme and everyone brings a part of the meal. For example, yesterday the theme was pulled pork, which Pam fixed, someone brought buns, another person brought chips, another coleslaw, etc, etc. We meet at 6 so the meal is always nice and easy so no one has to rush to make something complicated. Eating a meal together with this group is one of my favorite parts of the week.
• We have a great deal of diversity in age ad experience. From almost retired to born only a few months ago. Our kids, well except for our youngest group member, contribute to the conversation. I print out kid bulletins pertaining to the passages we are reading (we typically read 3 chapters a week from a book of the Bible to discuss) so they have something to do if they get bored, but usually they sit with us and add to the conversation about the subject.

This group of friends is fun to hangout with but they also help me to think about, know, and, more importantly, follow God better. During this Summer we have usually sat outside on our patio, eaten together, talked about scripture and faith, prayed with and for each other, and then often cooked smores together. I appreciate them so much.

I hope you have such a group. If not I hope you find one. If you are in the Point area you are welcome to join us. You may even get the Special Red Plate and therefore get to wear the small group crown that we have (yep we have a crown. It is pictured above)

SIDE NOTE – I think one of the most beautiful things in faith is a diverse group formed around nothing other than their common Lord eating together. I don’t mean friends, though that too is beautiful in a different manner, but instead people who aren’t eating together because they like each other’s company but because they love their Lord. Friends get together because they like spending time together. The Church gets together because we have a common Lord and there is something very beautiful when believers share a meal together. We grow to like each other because we realize Jesus loves the other person and we need to love the ones that Jesus loves. It is a different kind of meal.

I am presently sitting outside in our backyard listening to Sandra McCraken’s live album “Steadfast Live” and hoping that the Thermacell Lamp I just lit will start chasing away the mosquitoes quickly. Seriously, Thermacell is great – I attract mosquitoes like I’m a free steak dinner and two lamps pretty much keep our whole patio free of these stupid little creatures, even when I am around. I just reached the point in the album where she stops singing into her mic and everyone there sings the doxology. It reminded that my favorite part of gathering with the “threads” of Tapestry each week is when we sing the doxology together as our ending prayer (well that and setup – I really like setup too. It is pretty awesome and fun). I’ve written before concerning why ending the doxology is so meaningful to me.

The sound of us singing the Doxology is one of the things that I have missed with us gathering at the IDEA Center during the Summer. Though I am very thankful for the IDEA Center letting us meet there during the Summer and I will continue to support Create Portage County because it is a great organization, the acoustics in the IDEA Center aren’t as amazing for the a cappella singing of the Doxology each week. I love it when the words “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow” echo around the hardwood basketball court and mason brick walls of the gym. That floor and those walls may make hearing the rest of our gatherings pretty difficult sometimes but they make the Doxology sound amazing. “Praise God” bounces around and around on all those hard surfaces.

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

While I sit here watching the fire burn down, enjoying the fact that the Thermacell is now working to the point that I haven’t been bitten by a mosquito in a while, and sadly not seeing any flying squirrels because I ran out of corn Thursday and apparently I am nothing more than a free meal to these cute flying rodents, I am also smiling while thinking about singing the Doxology with my friends and family. Today’s message was about Jesus being raised on the 1st day of the week, the 8th day, a new 1st day of the New Creation. If you are bored or need some good sleep producing reading material you can find the written version of the message here (typos and all). In my opinion, remembering the Doxology and living it out is a pretty good way to live out the joy and hope that are a part of the dawn of the 8th day, the 1st day of the New Creation that we will continue to live in till Jesus makes the day finally break and we live in God’s Kingdom face to face and no longer see His Kingdom through a glass darkly. When people who proclaim Jesus to be Lord live the Doxolgy we will remember the rules of the 8th day, the 1st day of the New Creation, (the Beatitudes). We will live hope instead of fear, love instead of hate, we forgive instead of judging, we welcome the other instead of despising the stranger, we welcome in our neighbor instead of turning our backs to needs both big and small, etc., etc.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. May it echo through my, and your, week.

I have mentioned before the Pamela thinks that I have EOG (Early Onset Grumpiness), as described in this great Portlandia sketch.

Well according to Pamela my EOG came out today.

You see the power went out at our house so we decided to go out to eat after church rather than open our refrigerator and let the cold air out. We went to Qdoba. I like Qdoba, it serves a good product, fast, in a nice environment. Unfortunately the Qdoba in Stevens Point, Wisconsin also has this type of Coke dispenser.

I HATE these Coke dispensers (I know my Midwestern friends would say “Soda dispensers” but I’m sticking with Coke for this post so you can deal with it – see my EOG is coming out) . These single spout, tons of choices dispensers drive me CRAZY! They slow everything down. Don’t give people all these choices. We can’t handle all these choices. All that happens is that someone is going to look through all the choices, be overwhelmed by it all, and then just go ahead and pick Cherry Coke. ARGH!!!!!! You wasted all that time just to get something that most normal dispensers have!!!!!! Just give us a regular multi-spout Coke dispenser with Water, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and throw in a surprise flavor every now and then as a treat. “Hey look this dispenser has raspberry flavored half Dr. Pepper/half Spite. That could be interesting.” See that’s fun and fast!

Breathe Robert. Breathe.

Anyhow I think I have figured out how to allow these dispensers for those foolish enough to enjoy wasting their time and still take care of us normal people. You can have one of these “too many choices, not enough spouts, and touchscreens that almost never work” dispensers at your restaurant if you have at least one other multi-spout Coke dispenser in the restaurant too. That way I can go quickly grab my regular Diet Coke while you have to wait for your preteen to try every combination possible. See this would be a win for everyone.

Qdoba you should fix this. Your burrito bowls are great and all but the drink situation is horrendous.