Silent Sitter

Often people that know me well accuse me of being a talker. But tonight I just listened. I attend a small group consisting of 4 other guys and myself. Each week we discuss a different article, most of the time relating to faith. More often than not we get into some pretty deep discussions. Tonight was no different. I consider my inteletic to be towards the bottom of this great group of guys. Among these guys my quite side comes out. Its is not that I feel dumb when I say something. It is just that I feel that I can get more from just listening.
Tonight we read an excerpt from a book called Searching For God Knows What by one of my favorite authors, Donald Miller. It was good to re-read this chapter this week, it provided a boast in my currently seemingly dull (not sharp) faith walk. The following is one of my favorite parts of this book. Miller talks about not taking a lot of stock in formula, when it comes to figuring out Christianity.

From Searching For God Knows What:

I know there are people who have actually gone from misery to happiness, but
they didn’t do it by walking through three steps; they did it because they had a certain set
of parents and heard a certain song and knew somebody who had a certain experience
and saw some movie then read some book then had something happen to them like a car
wreck or a trip to Seattle, and then they called on God and a week later read something in
a magazine or met a girl in Wichita, and when all this had happened they had an
epiphany, and somebody may have helped them fulfill what this epiphany made them
feel, and several years later they rationalized this mystic experience with three steps, then
they told the three steps to us in a book. And I’m not saying they weren’t trying to be
helpful; I bring this up only because life is complex, and the idea you can break it down,
or fix it in a few steps is rather silly. The truth is there are a million steps, and we don’t
even know what the steps are and, worse, at any given moment we may not be willing or
even able to take them and still worse they are different for you and me and they are
always changing. I have come to believe the sooner we find this truth beautiful, the
sooner we will fall in love with God on His terms, who keeps shaking things up, keeps
changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us not to rely
on easy answers, bullet points, magic mantras or genies in lamps, but rather in His
guidance, His existence, His mercy and His love.

Cashman

So this past weekend I saw "Walk the Line" a movie biography of the late great Johnny Cash. I have to admit this moive was one of the "biography movies" I have seen. I have always been a fan of Cash's music. My dad would always listen to him when I was a kid, but not until I say this flick did I have an appreciation of the life of "the man, myth, and legend" of J.R. Cash. He was a man that went after what he wanted. What he wanted in his career. Never giving up, whether someone was standing in his way, or wether it was his personal demons. Also what he wanted in his personal life. He loved his wife June Carter- Cash even before she loved him. He never gave up on her.
Cash put out some great music. I just borrowed a his last CD that he put out before he passed. It contains some great songs including The Man Comes Around, and two covers of songs that I grew up with Hurt, and Personal Jesus. You should check it out.

Here are the lyrics to The Man Comes Around: Cash says that this song might have taken the longest to write out of all the songs he wrote. The lyrics are based on passages from the bible, mostly coming out of Revelations.

The Man Comes Around
And I heard as it were the noise of thunderOne of the four beasts saying come and see and I saw
And behold a white horse. There's a man going around taking names and he decides
Who to free and who to blame every body won't be treatedQuite the same there will be a golden ladder reaching down
When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up at the terror in each
Sip and each sup will you partake of that last offered cupOr disappear into the potter's groundWhen the man comes around
CHORUS
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers one hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to a big kettledrum
Voices calling and voices crying
Some are born and some are dyingIts alpha and omegas kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn trees
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till Armageddon no shalom no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chicken's home
The wise man will bow down before the thorn and at his feet
They will cast the golden crowns
When the man comes around
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around

blog blog blog

So yeah as my buddy reminds me daily I have not updated my blog in a while. I think he is the only one beside myself that actually notices. I have been busy lately, but just been real lazy. This is the first week in a month that I have not bee traveling. So I am going to try to do a better job of keeping my blogdom up to date.

Random News

So I always find some crazy news on the internet. The other day it was some guy in Boulder was sewing a major hardware store because he accidentally was the butt of a practical joke by some of the stores employees. (He got his rear-end glued to a toilet seat) HAha. That makes me laugh. Today I ran across the following about some dude in Cali trying to beat the system by putting a dummy in his passenger seat as he cruised the HOV lane by himself. Check it out. I am hoping to find some more crazy stories like the following. If you find some feel free to post them as comments.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - Say what you want about police officers, but they are no dummies. The California Highway Patrol gave Kevin Morgan, 28, of Petaluma, a $351 citation for driving in a high occupancy vehicle or "HOV" lane with a kickboxing dummy propped in the passenger seat. The dummy was wearing a Miami Dolphins windbreaker and a baseball cap, but Officer Will Thompson noticed that the "passenger" had no legs. "When I looked inside his window, I thought, 'Oh, that's cute,'" Thompson said. "I didn't even ask him where he got it. I think he was pretty embarrassed because all the people driving by were laughing." Thompson often parks next to a car pool lane and stands on his car door rail to look down into passing vehicles. His point of view allowed him to see the legless dummy. "I think about the only thing he said was, 'Well, that didn't help me very much today, did it?'" Thompson said. "I said, 'No, it didn't.'

Where is the Snow?

So it is November 4th and it is 56 degrees. What is the deal. A typical November in Colorado means cold rainy short days. But instead I have to put up with these nice warm, not a clould in site days. And the ten day forcast does not show any promise of any precipiation, not even a drop of rain. If we had a weather man in this town, I would punch him in the face.
Now you might be asking yourself why the pestimistic attitude? Well those of you that know me, know that I spend every single spare moment I have on the ski mountain. And these blue-bird days are not contributing to my habit at all. I am hoping and praying for a good base to start forming soon. I hope in a month from now that I can post about my exploits on the mountain after a sick powder day, and not horror story about shreading rocks.

So what is Church?

So I am attending a Collegiate Minitry Conference for the domination that I work for (to protect the innocent, the I will not name the demination) this week. I was listening to this guy speak today and asked for a definition fo church. The 30 or so dudes in the crowd (no woman at this party. bummer) began to scratch their heads. Then they started spouting out answers, "Well I think it is this" and "I think it is that" they said. I just sat back and listened, as I came up with my own answer in my head. Then to my shock the gentleman that was leading the disscusion gave his educated answer.
Here it is: Church: A group of Christ followers who funication as a body of Christ in community and believe themsevles to be.
Now I didn;t think that he was too far off,until his next question. Which was "Could non-Christ followers be included in this definition? He said no. But I say yes.
Is it not true that Jesus called us to love everybody? So who are we to be so exclusive to not include. Non-Christ followers. A lot of my friends are non-Christ followers, but I would for sure include them in my church. And I think that Jesus would too.