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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. 🙂

https://youtu.be/tIdIqbv7SPo

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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.

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Seeing Ourselves In The Best Light

A few years ago I posted about the beginning of my first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Every now and then I get comments on older posts, such as my post concerning CPE. I received such a comment on this old CPE post. Since, I don’t want to encourage some of the internet wackos I have my blog setup where your first comment has to be approved by me before it will display on my blog. After you have one comment approved by me all your future comments will automatically display on the blog without me having to approve them. So this individual’s comment was put in the waiting to be approved category for me to look at the comment before I allowed it to be posted. I decided I wasn’t going to approve it but thought I would save it to blog about later.

Here’s the comment:

It’s very hard to get a unit of cpe because providers are so few and programs are limited to just a few students. It’s highly selective as well. I felt as if I was rejected for being too old & too Christian. Being over qualified is another possibility for being rejected. I’ve smelled pc & felt discrimination at 2 providers now. I’d be a fine chaplain but I can’t get in. Does all chaplaincy have to be ACPE?

When I was a workman’s compensation adjuster I was training to trust my gut when something seemed off and look into it until I was satisfied. This comment set my gut off. It’s tone just didn’t seem to reflect that the world (read CPE) was actually out to get him, rather than him being rejcted for CPE for possible legitimate reasons. So on a lark I decided I would find out what I could find about this commenter. Thankfully this commentor left some information by which I could track him down. I am also related to one of the best stalkers in the world (hi mom).

I searched around and quickly found some of his comments on other websites. I also found his twitter profile.  Here are the last two tweets from this commentor.

His other interactions, that I found, were similar to the tweets above. Maybe it is just me but I kind of feel like this commentor may have a little difficulty relating to people who are different from him. Perhaps that is why he wasn’t able to make it into two different CPE programs.

We do tend to see ourselves in the best light. I’m sure this commentor thinks he could be an instrument of comfort and hope to all sorts of people, and maybe he could be in real life interactions (after all, the only experience I have with him right now is through viewing his online interactions as a spectator – maybe he is completely different in real life). My democrat-loving commentor isn’t alone in this behavior. We all join him in this behavior (though hopefully for most of us not to the same extent). It is so much easier to just blame someone else, rather than consider our own possible faults.

The ancient Delphic maxim “know theyself” is hard work. Blaming someone else isn’t. Though one leads to continual improvement and the other just pacifies for a little while.

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Yes I Own A Gorilla Costume

I can’t tell you the number of times it has come in handy owning a gorilla costume. Seriously, my boys and I have gotten a fair amount of use out of it. You should get one for yourself and you will suddenly find lots of uses for it that you never imagined.

Tomorrow it will come in handy as part of my “Trunk or Treat” setup for giving the “thread” kids at Tapestry a fun memory before church. I have the whole thing worked out in my head and just need to finish a few of the decorations for tomorrow, which is the perfect thing to do while watching college football.

Here’s hoping that this doesn’t actually backfire and accidentally scare the kids. I can see some kids on a counselor’s couch years from now explaining why he is scared of church because of the gorillas that obviously live in churches. Additionally to this fear Eric G is trying to convince me to do the message for the church tomorrow while in the costume. As much as I would enjoy doing that I figure it is probably best that I not to do so.

SIDE NOTE – I thought it would be funny to have the song where Gwen Stefani spells out “bananas” playing in the background. Apparently I had never actually heard the song other thank her spelling bananas and saying she isn’t a hollaback girl. After listening I think it is best not to have it playing in the background.

SIDE NOTE – for those who might be wondering what it looked like, here is a photo from today.

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Clive Likes the Theology

The price of the book has really jumped.

I believe Jürgen Clive may have taken being named after a German theologian and an English religious thinker to heart a little too much. The photo above shows what he did to my copy of Fleming Rutledge’s work “The Crucifixion” when I left it as “low-hanging fruit” in my suitcase from my last trip. Since hardcover copies of the book are presently selling for $289 on Amazon I don’t think I will be replacing this any time soon.

I’m all for Clive devouring theology (especially good theology, because Dr. Rutledge’s book is excellent) but I wish he would do so a little less literally.

Dr. Rutledge, Clive liked your book so much he drooled a lot. Of course, he drools over everything, but I am sure this was special drool because of your book.

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Butt Fedora

I’m not one to curse. At one time in my life I was (boy was I), but then I turned 16 and I decided that I really didn’t like using curse words or vulgarities. They don’t really bother me when other people say them. I was a workman’s compensation adjuster in a shipyard when I graduated from college. You really haven’t been good and cursed out till you have told a shipbuilder that he won’t be receiving his workman’s compensation next week because you have denied his claim. When you can receive that salty word slapping and remain calm then you can handle most things in life. So like I previously wrote, I’m not usually bothered by other people cursing (except if you are very vulgar in public in front of children or using the Lord’s name in vain just to get my goat), but I don’t use them myself.

Except for one phrase that makes me laugh. I might not say it out loud but I think it a fair amount. The phrase is “ass hat” and it makes me laugh every time I hear it used. I don’t know what it is about the phrase (the picture of an ass hat, the sounds of the words together, the perfect description of the stupidity that just occurred in front of me), but whatever it is I love the phrase. However, I still don’t say it out loud.

That’s why Pam and I developed another word phrase to take the place of ass hat. We now say that someone is being a butt fedora. I may actually like butt fedora better than ass hat. The original phrase is more succinct but butt fedora (that was fun) brings up a more vivid mental picture in my mind. It is a wonderful phrase to describe someone who has done something incredibly dumb.

That guy keeps on driving in the left lane. What a butt fedora!

See, it works. Makes me smile just to think of it. I hope you have a day with few butt fedora interactions.