Charis' Birthday Cake

Six years ago, around this time (actually it was quite a bit earlier in the morning) I was waking up after sleeping on a barely sleepable hospital window seat, with a daughter. She was laying in something not unlike half an aquarium, with a blanket on the bottom, next to the real bed that my wife was sleeping in. After some business with the hospital, we got to take her home.

Charis turned 6 yesterday. We had a fun little party. There was amazing cake. It both looked and tasted amazing thanks to my wife's friend Jeanna, who bakes cakes for a living. It was bluish outer space colored, with an edible space shuttle and variously sized cake pops representing the planets on sticks on the top. The cake pops were so realistic that when Charis corrected me for saying that she had eaten Earth when she had really eaten Neptune, I had to concede. Earth had green continents on it, while Neptune was just blue and cloudy.

Charis' grandparents and great-grandmother came over for dinner. I BBQ'd shish kabobs. They were nice. Then there were presents. She got a kindle, a sweet new doll, and a set of 7 harmonicas in a carrying case. Jo and I bought her the harmonicas because she has one in the key of C, but when I am playing the piano or guitar in a different key, it sounds awful. Her playing is actually pretty good, but if the song isn't in C, it doesn't work. Now she has a harmonica for every common key. That's the kind of thing that makes us good parents.

Joanna spent the night before Charis' birthday at the hospital. Her sister was in labor. As it turns out, Charis' "best" present is that now her new cousin Evie will share a birthday with her. I'm giving that two years before she decides it was a lame gift. Of course, it will take Evie a couple extra years to realize that sharing a birthday with her close cousin is also almost as bad as being born on Christmas, but she will figure it out eventually. Fortunately, all us parents will be able to save money on cake.

I was a 1990's CCM fan. It was really all I knew. It was also what my peeps were into. I largely left the CCM genre in the 00's, but the 90's were it. I oversee our in-house radio station at work. While the song selection is chosen by recommendation by the staff, I end up getting to craft most of the vibe of the station. Consequently, there is a good selection of songs from that list of albums that get into the rotation on Kroc Radio. Why, because of my personal nostalgia.

I started a new session of the Kroc Church Membership class on Sunday. I typically set up the class to run for 6 weeks in 2-hour segments. Since it's summer and no one wants to have 6 of their summer afternoons (or whatever passes for summer afternoons in North Idaho) taken up by doctrine and philosophy (except me of course) I am abbreviating the class to 3 weeks of 3-hour sessions. Sunday's class went rather well, if I do say so myself. We got through the Our People documentary and the first 4 doctrines. I had to go quickly through some of the finer points, and gave a bit of scripture to take as homework instead of looking it up and discussing it in class, but I think it went pretty smoothly.

It's a small class this time, only 8, but I think it will be a good one. Lots of interest in what we are doing and a desire to be involved. Truthfully, I'm not interested in making members and soldiers that simply want to get a certificate or say that they are connected to our church. I want people who are excited about the mission of God and want to get their hands dirty with the work of the ministry. I don't think this class will disappoint. There are several staff represented, a couple from my Community Group, and a few others that have been in the process of checking us out for awhile. It's a good group.

It's interesting, but I think there is something to be said for having membership classes more often during the year. The last class I taught was in the late winter, February/March. Since it's July, any momentum and excitement for membership that we could have generated from the Spring enrollment is gone. We will enroll new members and soldiers from this class some time in August, and then the next class will be in September. I am planning on doing 2 classes this fall, almost back to back, to further capitalize on our congregation seeing the new recruits and the enrollment prompting others to sign up. It's quite a bit of work teaching two sessions in a semester (back to the six week per session format as well) but I think there will be considerable fruit from it. Whether people become Salvationists or not, the knowledge of who we are and what we believe in invaluable if someone wants to be connected to our ministry. All I have to do now is raise up someone else to teach the classes so that I don't have too all the time!

My wife and I got into a fight yesterday. For some reason, the family was gathered around watching The Muppet Babies, and Jo said that she remembered them being better when she was little. She also remarked that maybe an episode of My Little Pony or Chip N' Dale would be better. She nearly had to sleep on the couch. Honestly though, this is a great cartoon. It's full of pop culture references, goofy humor, and Gonzo. Lots of Gonzo.

Isn't it true that you are nothing but a low-down, two-faced, dirty, sneaky weirdo?

This is classic TV people. Classic.

I am conflicted by my blog's spam filter. You see, when I get a comment on a blog post, the spam filter automatically decides whether or not it is spam and puts it in a special "delete me" folder. It doesn't even bother me with it (typically I get an email asking me to approve comments). My inner turmoil comes from the fact that I 1) don't want spam comments and 2) want more comments. Comments are an indication that people are reading your blog. Now, not everyone who reads a blog comments (I rarely comment on the blogs I read) but, statistically, I would assume that the more people that comment, the more readers you have. So, I want comments for my own self-worth's sake.*

However, I don't want spam. Spam comments are not real readers. They are just robots that scour the web for places to unload their ridiculous advertising information. Here are a few of my recent favorites:

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He's right, I know it. Totally off the charts. I use Facebook's power to heat my house.

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You are the first to claim this. Thank you. Also, "anyway" is one word.

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Location: Genuinely Informative. And hey kids, watch out for those brussels, they'll bite off your legs. All the best to you too!

I realize a good amount of people today have had various things to say about this publish, and a few of them are doing a good point, but I do recognize the way you watch it. Very good sharing.

Isn't "I do recognize the way you watch it" a lyric from a Beyoncé song? Maybe not.

See, I don't really want comments like this on my blog, but it still makes me a little sad that when I check my spam filter, I don't find that it has made any mistakes. Just once I'd like to be able to rescue a genuine comment from an interwebs passerby that mistakenly got caught. Not today folks. Not today.

*Only sort of not true.

I really don't like the concept of "Christian" things. I'm not the first person to notice this, but the word Christian is a noun. It's a noun, that over the centuries, has meant "one who follows Christ" more or less. It's a word for people. People who have given their allegiance to Jesus, the Christ, or savior, of the world. There are a couple things that drive me crazy about the label "Christian," whether it's music, movies, art, literature, or, as of today, home electronics. One reason is that the word has become a marketing term. If we put "Christian" in front of it, there is a whole demographic that will just rush out to buy it. Is it good? Can it compete in the marketplace of ideas? It doesn't matter, it's a Christian thing.

Another reason I really dislike the adjective is that it gives a wrong impression of the definition of the word. To the outside world, Christian should mean:

a person or group of people, set apart for Jesus Christ, dedicated to serving Him through loving others and sharing His message of freedom from sin and death and restoration as subjects of His wonderful kingdom by grace through repentance and faith.

Instead, because of the adjectival usage of the word, it comes across as:

Nice, wholesome and bland versions of real culture, dumbed down for those people that don't want to interact with the world at large.

Is that harsh? Yeah. Are there examples where "Christian" things are not any of those things? Probably. But by and large, the average person sees an article about the "Edifi" and sees a second-rate Kindle Fire with limited functions and applications for people that are what, too afraid to buy a real Kindle Fire? It's either that, or Christian Family stores, the makers of Edifi, are just trying to capitalize on a captive audience. I'm not sure which is worse.

I don't wear Christian clothes. I'm not sitting on a Christian couch. I didn't have Christian coffee for breakfast.

I am a Christian. I love and follow Jesus Christ. I want others to be Christians. Christians are people. Christian is a people word. Christians need to use it as a people word.

Update! Gizmodo has an article on the Edifi.  Notice how the default assumption is mockery. Best comments?:

 Does the Tablet come with the 10 commandments etched on the back?

It comes with five of them. The other five are on another tablet.

A couple days ago my friend and co-worker April offered to bake me cookies in exchange for fixing up her grandfather's new computer. What was wrong with it? It was brand new and chock full of terrible OEM HP software. REE-DIK-YOO-LUSS. To help explain the crazy here, I have decided to list what the strategy of HP OEM software would look like at a car dealership.

1. Every car comes free with all the options that any particular person ever may or may not want, except they are all cheap, poorly designed rip-offs of the real thing designed, built and installed by the dealer. Would you like a GPS? How about Dave Smith In-Car Navigation? DVD player? Sure, straight from Knudtsen Electronics and Hi-Fi. There are even really advanced options like the Robideaux Fryer Grease to Diesel Fuel Conversion Kit, just in case you're into that.
2. In case you didn't know that your car comes with all these features, they all automatically activate their singular function whenever you turn on the ignition, and you have to reach under the frame, next to the oil pan, to turn them off, individually.
3. They are all ridiculously branded and designed to match the dealership's awful website color scheme so that you know they were made by the dealer and that while they aren't the real thing, the dealer really cares about your convenience.
4. There is just a little something funny about each one, like the guy that designed the custom child safety seat that came with the car has never actually seen a baby. It's close, but it's still something you'd never use.
5. As soon as you drive out of the dealer's parking lot, all the warning lights on your instrument panel light up saying that all these features are due for scheduled maintenance.
6. If you don't like all these extra features, the easiest way to remove them is to simply gut the car to its frame and start over with the features that you want.

I think the person I feel the worst for is the poor software designer in charge of all these sad little programs that I and every other reasonable computer user are deleting. He must hate his job. Oh well, at least I get cookies.

I don't like loose leaf spinach. I really don't like it at all. I don't think there is ever a time when, if given the choice, I would eat loose leaf spinach. Unfortunately, that's what my wife buys. She loves loose leaf spinach. Don't get me wrong, I eat it, but I would much rather eat iceberg lettuce, or romaine, but loose leaf spinach is the salad green of choice at my house. A long time ago, I didn't like the way it tasted. It's got a bitterness to it that is missing from my other favorite salad greens. I got over that. I sort of like how it tastes now.

Then I thought it was the texture. I still don't like the texture. It's too thin. A good lettuce is ripply, like a potato chip, and crunches. It is also packed full of water in its inner structures. I like this about lettuce. It's refreshing. Not so with loose leaf spinach. It's like eating paper, and not in a good way.

A couple days ago I think I had an epiphany. I think I now know why I really don't like loose leaf spinach. It's too big. The leaves, at least in the containers we get from Costco, are around two to three inches long and the stems extend from them at least another inch. That's too big for the salad bowl, too big for my fork and too big for my mouth. If I had a nice head of romaine or iceberg, I could cut it into reasonable, bite-sized pieces. Not so with loose leaf spinach. It comes pre-configured in its loose leaf shapes. Shapes that are too big.

The size problem is further compounded in a salad. I can manage to get one piece of loose leaf spinach into my mouth just fine, but a half dozen on a fork, covered with salad dressing and possibly accompanied by a tomato, mushroom, or piece of grilled chicken, is too overwhelmingly large to make it through my lips without getting ranch on my face. I don't like getting ranch on my face.

For the foreseeable future we will likely stock our fridge with loose leaf spinach. Can I chop it before we make a salad? Is that allowed? I think I will attempt it next time. There's probably a rule against that. I am not afraid.

When I was in Bible College, I was taught the OIA method of Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, Application. First you look at the text. What does it say? You can answer a lot of questions about a passage just by reading it carefully and making notes about the concepts that the author is communicating. Secondly, What does it mean? The interpretation of a passage is singular. The author had a specific thing in mind when he wrote the sentences and, based on what you observe from the text, you need to make a judgment about the interpretation. Since there is only one, it's helpful at this point to see what other, much smarter people have said about the passage in the past. My guess is that you and I are not discovering an interpretation that 2000 years of the church missed. Third, What does it mean to me? Interpretation is one, but application is many. There are often several different ways to apply the one meaning of a text to yourself, your family, your church, our culture, etc. All that introduction to say, I think we confuse interpretation and application sometimes. On the one hand, we make many interpretations. This happens especially in a small group setting when you read something and one person says that the passage means one thing and another person says that the passage means a complete opposite thing and everyone nods in agreement. Two completely opposite interpretations cannot both be true.

The other error, the one that I find myself looking at more often lately, is that we are firm on the one interpretation, but we are also firm on the one application. We do not allow a text to have more than one application* because we like a single application the best. Here's a for instance in Galatians 1:8:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

We are beginning a study in the book of Galatians next week at Kroc Church, and I get to teach on that verse. So, what immediately comes to mind when I read that verse? Mormons. We live just north of major Mormon country here in North Idaho, and the Latter-Day Saints have a large presence here. My pastor growing up was somewhat of an expert on the cults, and whenever the Mormons came up, we heard this verse. You see, according to the Mormon faith, Joseph Smith was visited by an angel named Moroni and shown the location of some golden plates that he needed to translate into the Book of Mormon. So, an angel from heaven preached a different gospel to him.

Don't get me wrong, that's a great application. Mormonism is a false gospel no matter how it came into existence, but if a so-called "angel" delivered it to Joseph Smith, that's a superb application of this verse. However, Galatians 1:8 was in the Bible 1800 years before Joseph Smith, so how was it applied then? If I connect the application of this verse so tightly to Mormonism that I don't allow for other applications, I will miss a lot, specifically because I'm not Mormon!

Throughout the book of Galatians, Paul isn't teaching against Mormonism, he's teaching against legalism and license. He goes back and forth showing that a failure to trust God results in either an assumption that the cross of Christ isn't enough (leading me to add works-based righteousness to the gospel) or that God doesn't have my best interests at heart (leading me to disregard the commands of God because I think they are burdensome). The false gospel that is being preached to the Galatians is that they need to be circumcised in order to be Christians.

When I read Galatians 1:8 and only see a proof-text against Mormonism, the verse becomes meaningless to me. But, if I hold to the interpretation (that there is only one gospel and we need to reject all false ones) and can freely apply it to my context (where I hear many false gospels through people, media and culture all the time), then all of a sudden Galatians 1:8 is relevant to me and the situations that I find myself in.

So, interpretation, one. Application, many. Observe, Interpret, Apply. Learn it, live it, love it. And if an angel shows up on your bed tonight, just make sure you ask some probing questions.

*That's not to say that every application is valid. Applications need to be firmly grounded in the observations and interpretation of the text. 

You know what's a terrible idea? TVs in showers. If there is a spiritual discipline that I am most attracted to, it's silence and solitude. Unfortunately, it's hard to get. I try to make time, at least once a year, to go out in the woods or something for at least half a day and spend time listening to God in the quiet. The closest thing I get to silence and solitude on a regular basis is the shower.

There is very little to do in the shower. Some soap, a little body wash, maybe shampoo, but little else. Wash, wash, wash. A nice relaxing shower is really only at most 25% getting stuff done. The other 75% is just hot water and thinking. I do some of my best thinking in the shower. There is no internet, no other people, no books, no music, no paperwork, nothing but me and my cleaning solutions. I have yet to really be distracted by the list of chemicals in my shampoo.

What could possibly ruin all that? Putting in a TV. That is a huge waste of silence and solitude. TV is the absolute non-thinking, non-listening-to-God device. It's not bad per say, but it's definitely something that takes over your mind while it's on.

So, value silence and solitude, spend some time alone, and don't ruin the experience with a TV in your shower.

There are things that I like to do: Play music, dabble in video, etc. There are other things that I don't care about at all: bow hunting, Chinese calligraphy, etc. It's very interesting to me that when I am doing what I love, I am incredibly picky about it; when I'm not, I'm not. I will spend literally 24hrs of computer resources because a video I am working on really could stand to be just a little bit brighter. It won't be perfect, but it will be darn close. When I built the fence in my backyard though, there were many things that were just good enough and I don't even care that I didn't go the extra mile (my father-in-law the carpenter could point out all the little things I didn't bother with from at least 30 feet away though). I notice this behavior in others too. Today the marketing team at work (who sit on the other side of the cubicle from me) were talking about choosing fonts. Immediately (as font discussions inevitably do) they started talking about the horrors of Comic Sans. The use of this font, ever, according to them, is tantamount to design suicide.

This phenomenon is interesting. The more knowledgable that we get in a certain field, the more detail oriented and flat out picky we get.  The blessing of learning a craft is that you get better at it: I'm a better musician that I was years ago, our marketing team are presumably better designers than when they started. The curse is that you see imperfections in the work of others and have less tolerance for them in your own work.

I think the worst part is the resistance that comes from those that don't know any better. I think people are trying to help when they tell you that "it looks great" "no one can tell" "that's not even that important." However, it's the little things, the things that no one but those that do the craft notice, that separate ok work from excellent work. I can't tell you exactly why top end Italian furniture is better than Ikea, but I can tell that it is. My non-musician friends can't tell me why a mid-level local musician working hard at his craft sounds better than a lazy beginner that can't bother to practice, but they can tell me that he does.

I've learned to hate Comic Sans because of the little bit I know about design. In areas that I don't know, I have learned to trust the opinions of those that do. Whether I can see the minor details or not, I know that paying attention to them will end in a better product. Besides, the computer isn't doing anything else all night long. It might as well be working for me.

I was reminded both by Territorial Commander Commissioner Jim Knaggs and by Major Ben Markham (at service yesterday) that yesterday was the day, that all around the territory (maybe the world?) Salvation Army officers preached at their new appointments. The Salvation Army is fairly unique in that its head pastors, "officers," are itinerant. They move from church to church, appointment to appointment, throughout their careers, typically every 3-5 years. In what I consider great news, Major Ben, who with his wife Joann have been our associate officers at Kroc Church for the last three years, announced that yesterday they officially began their new appointment as our Corps officers and executive directors at the Kroc Center. Ben told me that they even got an official letter that said they were supposed to depart their old appointment last week as associate corps officers in Coeur d'Alene and they had 4 days to report in at their new appointment as corps officers in Coeur d'Alene. It's a long trip.

There is a lot that can be said about the pros and cons of moving pastors around. That's for another post though. Today I am grateful that my senior leaders are a couple that have been with us since the beginning, understand our culture, the unique role that we play in this massive organization and are prepared to fight for the gospel, the people under their care and the city that they are called to ministry in for many more years to come.

There are a lot of things I love about being part of The Salvation Army. There are also things that totally drive me crazy. That being said, I want to approach an issue with as much grace and an attempt at understanding a different opinion as possible. The New Frontier magazine (available at a Kroc Center receptionist's desk near you), Volume 30, Number 09, featured a front page story by Karen Gleason and Amy Jorgens entitled "Soldier Numbers Rise In The West." It seems that soldiers (Salvation Army church members) are on the rise in the Western Territory of the United States.

First off, that's great. I'm a soldier. I teach soldiership classes. The commitment to being a soldier is one of the things, in my opinion, that is great about The Salvation Army. What bothers me about this article is a quote by Reno, Nevada Corps officer Major Janene Zielinski. The article says:

Offering adherency as a viable and attainable church membership option is also helping to grow the corps. "People (young families) are responding by the boatload," she said. "They are thrilled to be accepted, valued and not judged for where they are in their spiritual walk at the moment."

To be fair, I don't know Major Zielinski, and have no idea what the context of this quote was outside of where I read it in the article. However, all I have to go on is this quote and there are several things that rub me the wrong way.

It was an adherent member of our church that pointed this article out to me. Jeff is a member of our music team (he leads about 25% of the time these days), he's a member of our Corps Council (sort of a TSA deacon's board), he serves on the Social Services committee, his wife (also an adherent) is an employee of the Corps and oversees our children's ministry and their whole family are models of faithful service to Jesus. Jeff was totally appalled by the above quote. The way he took it (and the way I read it) is that those that choose to become soldiers are somewhere ahead in their spiritual walk of those that choose to become adherents. It seems like Major Zielinski is trying to communicate that adherents are accepted while at the same time labeling them as spiritually inferior. It's totally possible that I am taking the statement "not judged for where they are in their spiritual walk at the moment" the wrong way. I would like to know how I should take it if so.

I think there are two extremes when it comes to this issue. One is that soldiers are clearly superior and adherents (which I have on good authority is a word we shouldn't be using anymore - they are members) are just dodging their responsibility as Salvationists. Soldiers do commit to a pretty strict way of living life. The Soldier's Covenant (aka, The Articles of War) contains lines like:

I will be responsive to the Holy Spirit's work and obedient to His leading in my life...

I will uphold Christian integrity in every area of my life, allowing nothing in thought, word or deed that is unworthy, unclean, untrue, profane, dishonest or immoral...

I will abstain from alcoholic drink...

...giving as large a proportion of my income as possible to support its ministries and the worldwide work of the Army...

Those are just a few of the commitments that soldiers make. The entire member's covenant says that they:

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to follow Him

Participate through worship, fellowship and service at a local Salvation Army corps

Identify with the mission of The Salvation Army

So, if a soldier is the real deal and the member is being "valued and not judged for where they are in their spiritual walk at the moment," why do we even have members in the first place? If the call to join our army is soldiership, why would we lower the bar just to get more people on our rolls? If soldiership is where it's at, it totally seems to me that members are cop-outs and the army that created that "adherent member" was just trying to pad its statistics by making it easier to get signatures. Again, that's a harsh accusation, and I am fully prepared to be corrected, but that's just what it seems like to me.

The other extreme is that soldiers and members are the same. I think this is both true and false. The big question is,are we disciples of Jesus? That's the club that the Bible forms: the church. Members, adherents, soldiers, officers, those are all things that we have made up since. I don't have a problem with that, but we can't forget the categories that God's Word puts us in in favor of categories that we make up for ourselves. So it one sense, the sense that my good friend and TSA member Jeff is operating from, soldiers and members are the same: disciples of Jesus Christ who seek to live out the mission of His church with The Salvation Army.

However, soldiers are also different, and I hope that's what Major Zielinski was getting at. Soldiers are called not only to identify with Jesus and His mission in specific ways, we are called to identify with The Salvation Army in specific ways. If I am taking my soldier's covenant seriously, I am limiting my personal freedoms, sacrificially giving of my resources, and seeing myself as an ambassador of Christ through The Salvation Army. Can members do all those things? Yes they can, but they don't have to commit to doing them, and they aren't committing to do them while taking into account the values and needs of The Salvation Army.

In our church, there are certain things that only members can do, like lead a Community Group. Why? Because I want to know that they have taken a class (where they learn all about our church), that they really are Christians (as much as we can tell), and that they can represent both the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Kroc Church whenever they are asked. The members of our church love Jesus, are generous givers, volunteer their time in service and believe in what we are doing.

Soldiers are a little different. We always have fewer soldiers to enroll than members, but if you become a soldier, you are telling me that you aren't just committed to the Gospel, but you are committed to the leadership of our church and our philosophy of ministry. You are a soldier in the army and you are willing to do what it takes to get the job done. If you are soldier, it might take me a while, but I'm gonna find you a job to do, and in a perfect world, I'm not going to have to make a lot of accommodation for you to do it.

So, where does that leave me and the quote from the New Frontier? Frustrated. Frustrated that we sometimes see officers as more committed to Jesus than soldiers. Frustrated that we see soldiers as more committed to Jesus than members. If you are part of Kroc Church, do I want you to become a soldier? Yes. If you prayerfully consider it and decide to become a member instead, do I look at you as less than me? No. The Salvation Army soldier is not given a higher calling than any other Christian, just a different one. And depending on your views on alcohol, it's not even a radically different one.

Do you ever give genders and personalities to inanimate objects or concepts? Throughout history, ships and cars have been designated as "ladies." There are probably many other examples of common things that we think of as being male or female and give human characteristics to. Here is an example. I don't know why, but for as long as I can remember, I have assigned gender and personality to notes in the musical scale. I have never really identified a correlation between my anthropomorphisms and the way the notes sound, but there might be a link.

C Major is male. He is unassuming, but confident. He can be passionate and lively, in the right situation, but he can also function equally well as the wallflower at the party. He has a couple good friends, F and G.

D, who is a close friend with G but can't stand F and doesn't get along with C, is also male. He is sweet, charming, a little boyish and silly. He catches the eyes of the ladies more so than C, but he's not as nuanced and interesting once you get to know him. G is a close friend, as well as A.

E is somewhat of a pompous jerk. If he drove a car, it would be a fast one. If he had a house, it would be a big one. He makes up for lack of depth and character with the sheer awesomeness of his presence. He runs around with a lady on each arm: A and B.

F is classy. She is a full figured woman, with all the right kinds of tastes. She appreciates the calm confidence of C. She has a temper, but it is shaped by wisdom and poise. She can't stand B though, and does everything in her power to wreck her day.

G is warm and gentle. He is equally at home at a party or in a reading room. C and D are his two best friends.

A is a lot like G, but she would never admit it. She loves the reckless confidence of E and the crazy antics of D. She is light and airy and is always brightening rooms and turning heads.

B is brazen, unforgiving and conceited. She is condescending and outright mean at times. There is nothing that can stand in the way of her getting whatever she wants, and she has the means to live her life as she pleases. She keeps E around for laughs, but she doesn't really care about anyone but herself.

There you go. I promise, since I was a little boy, I have thought of the notes on the piano is just those terms. If you know anything about music, it's apparent that the notes hang out with one another based on their relationships as tonic, dominant and sub-dominant chords in the scale. The notes don't get along when one key sharps or flats another. For example, B is so self-centered because in her key, all the notes but E are sharped. I don't know why my mind interprets that as relational strife, but it does. I'm sure this has to do with learning to play in the key of B on the piano. It's one of the hardest ones for a young student to master. This kind of thinking is so ingrained in my mind that I always have a brief second thought whenever I play a song in B. I don't like B. She's a jerk.

So, is it just me? Am I alone in my crazy anthropomorphisms? I think not.

Sunday afternoon the family and I were driving home from a great 4 days in Seattle visiting family and hanging out. It was lunch time and we were in Ellensburg, Washington so we stopped at Arby's for some sandwiches. I've always felt like Arby's was just a little higher on the fast food chain than some of the burger options. I'm sure at some point I felt like eating there would be a healthier option than Burger King. I don't think that anymore, but I am still attracted to Arby's when I want something just a little fancier than a cheap burger or taco. Irrational reasoning or not, we drove up to Arby's and went inside. There was quite a line. Lots of Arby's folk in the back making food, and one lone girl at the register. She was trying to make the best of it, but, at that moment on that day, her world sucked. You see, Arby's had run out of roast beef. At least, they had run out of prepared roast beef. As I neared the front of the line, someone was frantically pulling chunks of hot meat out from some hot meat maker in the back and throwing them on an automatic meat slicer where another someone was just as frantically pulling them off piece by piece, weighing them and make sandwiches as fast as the slicer would let him.

The hard thing for April (that was the girl at the register) is that she was being told, pretty regularly, that she needed to let all the customers know that any beef product would be a ten minute wait. I think this was supposed to disuade the customers from ordering beef products. It wasn't working. Why wasn't it working? Because all of these shenanigans were taking place at Arby's. The roast beef sandwich place. April was making the best of it though. She asked the customer in front of me what name to put on the order. "Connie." "That's the name of my car," she said. "What?"  "Yeah, I have a Lincoln Continental. I call her Connie."

I ordered my roast beef sandwiches, much to April's chagrin, and went to the side to stand and watch. Each customer heard the same warning that the customer before them did: "Any beef sandwiches will be a 10 minute wait." No one changed their resolve for beef. At one point, the manager, or at least the girl in charge of the shift, after continuing to see beef sandwich orders appear on the monitors around the kitchen, came up, again, to make sure that April was telling her patrons that there would be a long wait for beef. April assured her that she was informing each one of the perils.

As I put in my 10 minutes, it was fascinating how frustrated the staff was about the beef. Now, I'm sure they were frustrated about there not being beef: whose fault was it that there was no beef right at lunch, is there anyway to bypass some steps in order to get beef faster, etc., but the way that their frustrations kept coming out was: why do you people keep ordering beef?

It's funny how we misdirect legitimate frustrations toward those totally not responsible for our problems. The way we see a solution, but it doesn't involve hard work, an apology and possibly personal loss, but instead a scapegoat that we can blame. The right thing to do would have been to suck it up, apologize profusely and give everyone free sodas (that's not even a statistically significant personal loss but it would have gone a long way) but instead the staff decided to blame all those pesky customers for their problems. If only we had gone to Taco Bell on Sunday, Arby's would have never run out of beef.

I only stayed long enough to get my 'Shroom and Swiss Roast Beef, Regular Roast Beef, Jr. Roast Beef and Large curly fry, but as I was walking out the door it became clear that the staff of the Ellensburg Arby's was going to get their wish: the shift leader announced that instead of just being behind on beef slicing, the restaurant had actually run out of beef. I'm sure the line subsided shortly thereafter.

Ok, here's a thought. You know when you are walking behind someone and they can't see you, and you're trying to pass them but they keep shifting their weight slightly and you aren't really sure of what direction they are going but they seem to block you every time that you try to get around them but it's not really their fault because they don't even know you are there? You know, that? Or, when someone cuts in front of you in a line but they aren't trying to be rude because they didn't see you?

We spent the weekend in Seattle with Jo's brother and his wife. They are great. But, this means also that we did the obligatory Seattle things: Woodland Park Zoo, Pacific Science Center, Ikea. All those things are great in and of themselves, but I find myself in the above situations constantly when I am in large crowds. I really hate it. People make me angry. Why don't they simply widen their field of view in order to perceive me!? Am I not important enough to be perceived?? Now in reality, no, I am not. But I feel as though I should be. I care SO MUCH about my life, my agenda, my walking path. Why don't others?

I have felt this way all my life, but lately I have begun to think: I wonder how many times I act like that? How many times am I the one slightly adjusting my walking pace and direction so as to inadvertently block someone behind me? How many times have I rudely cut in line in front of someone without even knowing it? Probably lots. Thinking like this helps me have patience when others make me angry. It's not their fault, and when I do it to you, remember that it's not my fault either.

I don't want to do everything that there is to be done, but I do want to do a lot of things. I recently completed the creation of a video for my bosses' going away party and I loved just about every minute of it. Except for the rendering. Lord save us from the rendering. Now, I'm not that great at it (I spent the evening after its debut going frame by frame with my wife on all the things I wished I had done differently) but I'm reasonably competent and I believe I would get better with time. The problem is, I don't have any more time for another skill set. There are days where I think I'm a preacher. Days where I fancy myself a worship leader. At other times I think I could be a writer, or a recording engineer, or a producer, or a videographer, or a concert promoter, or et cetera et cetera et cetera. Now in reality, I have a fairly narrow set of talents. I can speak and write decently, I have a reasonably good ear, and a marginally good eye. That's about it. I can't create anything with my hands, can't draw, can't do physical art in any form, I'm not naturally good with children, and my people skills are something I put on for special occasions. I live with, work with and know many people who's gifts and talents constantly impress me, partially because I don't share them.

That said, as I grow in my gifts, I see the need to specialize. I don't have the time and energy to get better at everything that I enjoy doing. I have to choose. My personality won't allow for that. So, instead, I get crazy about different things at different times. Last week I was editing video and thinking it might be super fun to do it more often and actually figure out what I am doing. A couple days ago I was a songwriter. Today I am planning another conference and tomorrow I will be putting together a Community Group training. I have to confess to a certain dissatisfaction with any one of these things that prevents me from doing the others depending on the mood I'm in.

I anticipate that this feeling will only get worse as time goes by. I hope that I will continue to have the time to grow in at least some of the things that I somewhat enjoy while I focus on the things I most enjoy and that I am, more importantly, called to for the glory of God and the good of His people. I'm not sure today what the difference between "somewhat" and "most" is. What I can take comfort in is that I know it's not pottery. I'm terrible at that.

Every 15 years or so (at least that's what I'm told) The Salvation Army in the western United States holds a territorial congress. This is a big weekend full of meetings, concerts, theater, workshops, food, etc. The first weekend in June was my first congress. It was called "The Gathering" and that's what we did: there were over 5,000 Salvationists present from Alaska, down the west coast, Hawaii, Guam, the whole territory was represented. It was pretty cool. This event immediately followed Boot Camp at the same location, the Pasadena Convention Center. A couple thoughts: 1. At Boot Camp, Kara Powell of Fuller Youth Institute taught on how church can be compared to the "adult table, kids table" arrangement at holiday meals. All the basics are the same, but the kids are segregated and separated. The tone and feel of their meal is markedly different from the adults. Bill Davenport actually pointed this out to me, but Boot Camp was the kids table. Everything there was specially arranged for the youth workers in attendance. As soon as The Gathering started, the tone and feel of the week changed drastically. This isn't necessarily a criticism, just an observation. I'd like to criticize it, but I'm not sure if I can.

2. That brings me to #2. I hate it when, at the close of the message at our church, people get up to leave. It's my assumption that they don't understand the importance of musical worship, they are self-centered and not concerned about the body as a whole, church is all about their private consumption of an entertaining message, blah, blah, blah. It really gets on my nerves. I especially dislike it when I believe that individuals choose to come to church late or leave early because they don't like the style of music being played. I make the musical choices that I do for a lot of reasons (which I might write about later) but I find it annoying when someone's perception of what good music is doesn't allow them to see through their preference and worship with the assembled body.

Having said all that, I was that guy at The Gathering. My party almost always came late and definitely left early. I was absolutely interested in hearing the word of God delivered by the General (our international leader) but totally disinterested in the pomp and pageantry of the rest of the meetings. Now, I could come up with a list of "holy" reasons why I have "theological" or "philosophical" problems with the liturgy of the event, but the bottom line is I just don't like it. It doesn't relate to my past or current experience; I have trouble connecting with the forms used, and the rituals are foreign to me.

There are many people in the army that have problems with the way we do church. I definitely have my thoughts on this, but my realization at The Gathering was that I can very easily become the guy that I am so easily annoyed with. All it takes is a liturgy that is not my "style" and I become the person that I so easily accuse of carnality, self-centeredness, or lack of understanding of corporate worship.

The truth is, there were a whole lot of people at The Gathering that were blessed by the services as a whole (I still loved what the General had to say). If I had been in charge of the corporate worship experience, it would have gone differently, and I would have probably created an environment that was foreign and disinteresting to many in that population.  With 5,000 people from a whole bunch of different backgrounds, you can never please everyone. I don't have any wisdom on that front. I do hope though, the next time someone walks out of service in The Kroc while we are singing "From The Inside Out" or "The Stand" when I think everyone should be rushing the altar, that I am a little less judgmental and a little more understanding of the foreign culture that I am presenting to some in our church. If my role is to lead our people in corporate worship, I need to be aware of how to guide them into the forms that I am presenting and help them navigate what is foreign. Maybe "when we've been there 10,000 years" the church will have this multi-generational thing figured out. I look forward to it.

The staff and I at work made this video to celebrate the promotion of our leaders to new roles. John and Lani will be greatly missed.

I returned from California on Monday after 9 days (as my 6 year old kept reminding me) at two Salvation Army events in Pasadena. The first event, Boot Camp 4, was put on by Roy Wild and Jim Sparks in the Territorial Youth department. It was awesome. 4 days of great music, really great teaching, and hanging out with cool people. Boot Camp was one of the best conference experiences I've been to. I got an opportunity to teach (on apologetics no less) and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about teaching actually. Jon Acuff, in his main session presentation, advised us that we should never compare our beginning to someone else's middle. I am constantly guilty of this, as I was last week. Jim Burns, Doug Fields, and several others just wowed me with their public speaking skills. I want to be like that. I want to be able to speak with that kind of ease and mastery of the subject. It got me sort of depressed at one point, but Acuff's reminder is a positive one. I am almost two years in to my occasional public speaking career. I love doing it, and I am hopeful that I will continue to do it more and more. I hope that means I'll get better and better. We'll see.

Boot Camp was followed by a Salvation Army Congress, called The Gathering, of which I will remark later.