Went to the football game today. They say I may be bad luck. The last two I’ve gone to at Autzen in the last couple of years the Duckies have lost. And they got hammered today. An absolute comedy of errors in the first half. Except it was more pathetic than funny. I mean they had two likely touchdown drops, they were at the 2 yard line and threw an interception, had two fumbles they lost, threw a total of five interceptions, and had two—count ‘em—punts blocked. You’d be hard pressed to play any worse. It was fun, though, but very hot. A record was set in Eugene/Springfield with a recorded temperature of 93 degrees.

We had a nice time of hanging with Mr. Shrock last night. He came back and answered questions posed by the young people. Jessica noted that, unlike most of these Q & A’s, neither the subjects of music or dating/courting came up. We mostly talked about church stuff.

I’ve been thinking about the first part of 1Cor. 4 where it says that stewards must be found faithful. How am I a steward of God’s? How can I be a faithful steward of His? It’s cool to think of it throughout the day, that we are a steward of the things of God wherever we are.

The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.
-Jack Handy

Ok, so I pull into the Ross Dress For Less parking lot and a guy comes up and knocks on the window. I open the door and he starts asking how my car got so dirty. Well, it is dirty but it was still a little strange that he came up and engaged me in conversation. Then he lowers his voice and asks me if I knew where he could get some (insert word for drug--likely marijuana--here) or are you a nonsmoker. Oh no, no, I don’t do that, I say, and he asks, do you go to church? Yeah, I do. So he starts talking about my car again, wants to know if I wanna sell it, then walks off. Sort of freaks me out, but I bravely make my way into the store. But I’m suspicious, so I step inside behind a window sign and just look out. He’s in his car with a buddy, just sitting there. I’m very suspicious now. He keeps looking back toward the store. Finally I decide I’m gonna get out of there, come back later and do my shopping. So I do, and though my car smells like cigar smoke, I escape safely.

I was in town looking for some shirts. I am helpless when it comes to these things. Like, I like to wear nice clothes, but to judge them is an uphill proposition. And that’s putting it mildly. I just have no idea. I see a cheap shirt that I think might be sort of nice, try it on, and am faced with inconclusive results as to its worth as a nice piece of clothing. Now, there are clothes that I could safely judge, but those are all expensive, out of my current price range. So I’m left with the sale rack, and iffy shirts. I need my mommy.

I went over to Rosie’s to talk about teaching music. This should be interesting, teaching appropriate theory to young children. And then there's the older ones. This is just a big unknown. One thing I know, I'm going to learn a lot.

Take me deep enough that I can see the bottom of Your heart
Deep enough that I can know Your will.
Take me deep enough to know that we will never be apart.
And when I get there, take me deeper still.
-Scott Krippayne, I assume

I heard this song on the way home tonight, and it really grabbed me.

I have a lot of hair right now. It's long for me. Hmm, the Bible says long hair on guys is a shame. I wonder by whose standard 'long' is determined. At any rate, I think I’m going to get it cut tomorrow.

I want to start a Noise Revolution at our church, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it is. Now, you totally won’t get this if you’re not from a quiet church. But everything’s against a person starting. This is how it goes. Say you’re really blessed by something the preacher says or something the singers sing, so what you should do is let them know it by an affirming “amen” or something like that. But then, as you are thinking about that, you inevitably start thinking about the fact that everybody around will hear you, probably turn their head toward you. Basically you'll stick out like a sore, bleeding, bruised thumb. So then your mind is off what you wanted to affirm in the first place and it’s almost like you’d be saying “amen” for wrong motives, to get attention. But if you don't overcome that and do it anyway, you'll never start! It’s tough, this fear of man thing.

By the way, by Noise Revolution I don't mean disordered racket. All I'm saying is that when God speaks to you don't quench His Spirit.

We had a wonderful service this evening. Just great. The sermon was on hungering and thirsting after righteousness, getting into the Word, and meditating on it throughout the day. I was pumped up afterward, very excited about the whole thing. It's so applicable to my life.

Then AHQ rehearsed. We sang a really nice new one (for us) call The Invocation. Very classy song and arrangement, hopefully we can come close to doing it justice. It's actually arranged by Terry Blackwood, originating from when he was with the Imperials back in the late 60's or early 70's (correct me if I'm wrong Tom). I’m excited about the album. We’ve now sung all the songs that we’re going to record, with the possible exception of one.

Today was a good day. I’m slowly learning how wonderful it is to be in God’s presence, to think about Him throughout the day. It’s not like I don’t know that it’s cool, but actually prioritizing it is a weakness of mine, something that I don’t do well at all. It’s a shame, and also something I need to improve in.

This was my last full day working at the mill. I’ll go in for a few hours tomorrow morning, but then it’s off to prepare for school and play tennis.

Most every day—especially when I’m working the early shift—there comes a point where drowsiness wants to take control. There are several remedies for this. One is actually getting up and moving around, taking a walk, jumping some rope, whatever. But the other—and this is my favorite—is to recline on our in-office lawn chair and take a light snooze. This usually works wonders. After just 10-30 minutes of that you feel great. I get a little self-conscious about it when truck drivers drive by my little window though. And today I was pleasantly drifting in and out of consciousness when suddenly my door opens and a guy sticks his head in wanting me to load some pellets. Evidently I was more out of consciousness than in, because he definitely woke me up. Thankfully I wasn’t in a deep sleep because 1. that’s not good when you’re looking after equipment that will eventually run dry and 2. because I wouldn’t have been able to communicate intelligently for several minutes.

The biggest news in my life is that I’m the new music teacher for Brownsville Mennonite School. This was a tough decision that had been weighing on me for more than a week. I feel good about taking the job, though the uncertainty about the time I’ll need to invest is a bit scary. Earlier this week there was a settling in my spirit about it. God didn’t strike with lightning from the sky, but I’m thinking that His still small voice did.

I think it’s very interesting to look at why people act the way they do. Like Mennonites and environmentalists. Nearly every time this group is mentioned in the presence of someone in my church circle, an unstoppable deluge of disdain (could it be anger?) erupts. Why? The easy answer would be the obvious one. Because environmentalists are perceived as extreme radicals who have lifted the creation high above the Creator. But why the environmentalists? I don’t hear people bringing up and decrying abortion doctor killers very often, yet their extremism is substantially more atrocious than all but the most extreme of the extreme environmentalists.

I believe it comes down to the fact that the environmentalist’s agenda hits close to home, while an abortion doctor killer doesn’t. Mennonites have traditionally been people of the land. The exclusivity of that has changed over the years, but our heritage and a large part of our current sustenance comes from agricultural-related vocations. So when environmentalists want to clean up the air (less field-burning) or legislate pesticides (harder to keep crops clean) or limit logging or over-regulate hunting, it’s almost personal.

Really, the foundation or core of the environmental idea is Biblical. We were given dominion over the earth, and you can’t really rule over something you destroy. At least that’s not God’s plan. Obviously, the environmentalist goes at it wrong a couple different ways. They truly have lifted nature much too high. And they have also failed to realize that God gave man the responsibility and the privilege to use the earth for his benefit.

The fact is that mankind has often exploited the earth terribly for his own greedy purposes. Christians shouldn’t feel “liberal” if they agree with an environmentalist occasionally, because not absolutely everything they say is wrong--though a lot of it is.

I’ve got this cough that won’t go away. But it’s not affecting my voice, which is an incredible blessing. I hate it when I can’t sing.

We’re having meetings this week at church. A man named Dan Shrock from Wisconsin is speaking on the Beatitudes. Turns out Paul and AHQ met him when we visited Maranatha Bible School several years ago. I like his speaking.

I lose belts like the Tigers lose baseball games, like the Clippers lose basketball games, like the Bengals lose football games. Ok, so I’ve only lost two, but that in the space of a month and a half. They surely can’t both be lost, they’ve got to be around here somewhere. I’m not one that owns very many belts—usually one at a time—and when my lone belt recently disappeared, I turned to my brother who has plenty. Then his belt that I was using disappeared. So to a belt I’m a black hole.

Here’s the question I was pondering today. Do I really have faith in God if I can’t tell Him that I trust that He will show me what to do in a specific circumstance?

We slash, abbreviate, murder the English language so badly. Let’s say I called my dad on the phone during the day and wanted to know where he was.

The way you officially do that in the English language is by asking, “Where are you at?”

But what actually comes out of my mouth is more like “Where yat?” Or if you’re lucky “Where ya’at?”

We’re in such a hurry to say what we “wanna” say, we often don’t take the time to completely articulate our thoughts. But if the goal is communication, it works I guess. And we’re so bad that it would almost seem overly formal or emphatic to say all syllables of all words in the course of everyday life.

Charity. Some of you are thinking “love,” some of you are thinking “church mouse,” some of you are thinking “church group.” I went to a meeting this morning that—if you insisted on classifying it—would probably be considered “Charity.” Very interesting. I find these people extremely challenging to myself.

I loved the way there were so many people of different backgrounds that attended the meeting. I loved the way that they feel free to express themselves in the service. I loved the way the preacher focused on Jesus (and in the testimony time one man got up and read the Apostles’ Creed as his testimony; I got chills) above everything else including any practical issues. I loved the way that people seemed to be sincerely seeking Christ and His will.

I don’t think I agree with them on some of the things they teach, they might seem to take some things out of context sometimes, but that’s not really the point. The point is that I can learn from them, take what is right and true and good from them and see if they can show me something about my own life and church that could be improved. I honestly went in there with my guard up a little bit, but I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong, I love my church and the people in it. I love it. But we're far from perfect, and we could learn some things from other people. I know I sure can.

So it was quite a game yesterday, Ducks and Wolverines. The Ducks pulled it out in the end, after dominating the first half and hanging on in the second. The strategy was to shut down the UM vaunted rushing attack and they succeeded there, holding them to a less-than-paltry negative 4 yards on the ground. That combined with huge special teams efforts and a key defensive takeaway preserved the victory. Quite exciting.