Perception

Last night at my work in the group home, there had been some kids who had extremely bad days/weeks. When I arrived for my 3-11 shift the kids were on their version of lockdown. They call it "room reflection." They are only allowed out of their rooms for meals and school. They had been pretty difficult to deal with over the weekend (or so I hear). There is one certain child about 10 who really pushes the buttons of the staff. I have seen him in his glory and he is pretty difficult. Yesterday he was having one of his bad days. He was cussing, running around, and not doing what he was told. Driving everyone nuts. So I was watching the hallway to make sure the kids were not doing anything that would hurt themselves and others. And this one certain kid that was acting so bad started singing softly to himself. I couldn't tell what he was singing at first but then I realized he was singing amazing grace. I don't think anyone else heard it, but it took me aback and put this kids life into perspective. Here he is being an absolute pain in the butt but yet there is something there that I can relate to in my relationship with God.
Lets just assume for a second that all of us have guardian angels. Can you imagine the reports they would give to God each day on our attitude or our actions? God might turn to them and smile and say I know they are a pain in the butt, they do dumb things but they still are my kid. I almost started crying when I heard this kid singing amazing grace. He had no idea the theological implications for singing this song, but grace is for him even though he drives me more crazy than certain middle schoolers at real life.

Consumer fly wheel

This past weekend I have been reading "Serve God Save the planet" by J. Sleeth. If you are in the mood to be convicted about your lifestyle than read it, if not stay far away.
How did my life style and thinking on what was appriopriate consumerism thinking evolve? In comparing myself to the American dream I would say we are ok. Not to much of an extravagent lifestyle, no credit card debt. Nothing that gives a huge warning sign. Yet subtly there are so many ways that my lifestyle can improve to help both my consumerism and the enviorment.
There were some aspects of Sleeth's book that got me thinking. One was if every household in America changed their top five most used light bulbs to compact flourescent lightbulbs the country could take twenty one coal fired power plants off line tomorrow. This would keep one trillon pounds of posionous gases and soot out of the air we breath. Another thought from the book was how much stuff in my house do I have or even need? His presuppisition is that the reasons Americans have such big houses is to store unneeded stuff. Bigger houses=More energy spent= More pollution in the air= more cancer and other air breathing diseases.
I haven't thought much about enviormental issues, but I am beggining to realize that the way I treat consumerism, the enviorment, and what kind of world I want to leave to my kids and grandkids is a direct result of my faith. It starts with consumerism, the more we want the more unhealthy we become.

Bringing heaven to earth

It is so easy for me to lose focus. Plans, ideas, and days start off with great intentions and then all of sudden I am sidetracked and worrying about something totally unimportant.
Update on my current youth for christ situation. Fundraising has not went well, if I was to try and live on what I have brought in I would be making pennies an hour. So I have been discouraged by that and not from people, because ultimately if this is what I am suppose to do God is going to provide. Knowing that this was going to be a long process I am working at a group home with troubled kids. The schedule right now is 3-11 tuesday-saturday. It is a lot tougher schedule than I originally thought. With Kyle in school this morning is the first time I saw him since monday. So I haven't been in the greatest of moods.
So with all that said my current frame of mind has sucked to say the least. I went to a meeting yesterday and I was in an awful mood. It was with one of my former co workers at Real Life. After sitting there for an hour I began to remember and realize why I am where am. It wasn't negative thoughts it was remembering the idealism of "bringing heaven to earth." How and where I make money is irrevalent (unless of course it is immoral or illegal). The point is that if I am going to follow Jesus and He is my role model than I need to be like Him. One of the most important aspects of His life was healing broken people and inspiring people not to live for themselves.
Although I have seen people physically healed, I have seen so many more people who are broken on the inside. Seeing a teenager who has special needs and doesn't know who his parents are because they dropped him off when he was a baby, that is someone who needs healing. He needs to have heaven brought to earth for him.
It is easy to get sidetracked in the Christian faith. We can get so caught up in going to classes, church services, and missing out on having the opportunity to be able to bring heaven to broken people.
Many times I get so caught up in details I miss the big picture.

A weekend of camping gone bad

Labor day weekend is the annual family camping trip to Plymouth's Yogi Bear camp ground, it is a celebration of Kyle's and my sister in laws birthday. Camping isn't bad once a year, it is always interesting meeting people at camp grounds. Like the guy who was talking to me and this other sports fan. He was concerned about the Bears new tight end who pulled his ACLU.
Camping was going as well as camping goes until this morning. The pop up camper was put away and we had hooked up the car, gathered all the kids and other camping junk into the car when I noticed Kyle had bug bites all over him. His face began swelling as we drove down the road. Our plan was to stop at the nearest store and get benadryl. A few miles later Kyle tried to ask for a drink, his voice sounded weird so Jill turned around and realized he was having an allergic reaction and his throat was swelling. My father in law was following us and we stopped and Jill and Kyle jumped into their car to rush him to the hospital. His throat kept swelling shut and they had to call 911 and an ambulance had to meet them on the road. They reached the ambulance before he went unconsious but was in pretty bad shape. He recived an epi shot, benadryl, and a steriod to fight off the allergic reaction. He was in the hospital in the large town of Knox for a couple of hours and was released.
I hate the feeling of not having control when it comes to my kids. This has been about the third time already in Kyle's life where he has had "life threatening" type situation come up. I feel like an emotional wreck now. It definately puts life in perspective when these type of situations come up. As I was driving behind Jill thinking about how I always complain about camping I realize how little that matters when it comes to life or death with my kids.
It is also through these moments that having a faith in something much bigger than myself also helps quite a bit. (understatement). I am still trying to learn about not having control in these situations but man it is hard and I have very little fingernails.(I have chewed them off).

The little moments of life

I shouldn't worry. As my wife Jill says "your life isn't that bad." It isn't bad, my life is fairly relaxing. The things I worry about are minor in the big scheme of the time and the universe. Yet even with all that said I still worry on a regular basis. I have been a worrier for most of my life. I developed this habit a young age and have perfected it over the years. I worry about the future quite a bit. I think I have worried so much about the future that I have missed many present moments. I don't think any of my worries have come to fruition. My worrying also has not affected the outcome of any event. Yet I still find myself worrying.
I have been present in my kids lives but my mind has been other places many times. Present in body missing in mind, that is how I would describe much of my life. I missed many moments while a youth pastor because of my worrying. On youth trips (which are great for everyone but the youth pastor) I would spend much of my thought time thinking of every worse case scenerio. (Granted a lot of those instants happen with teenagers). I enjoyed many moments after the time but missed out on the present.
It is a daily struggle to keep myself from worrying. My kids help me quite a bit, they keep me from worrying about my insignificant problems. My son Ayden keeps me laughing daily. The other morning he is sitting in my room and I was folding laudry (yes men can fold laundry). There was a tank top that we had picked up at sea world (one that is over priced and has an iron on on it). It had the manatee iron on. I asked Ayden what it was. He was thinking and he has a stuttering problem and so he says "sham, sham, shampoo." I am thinking what is he talking about, then I realized he was refering to the whale at sea world.
About a month ago I am laying in bed not wanting to get up. Ayden comes in the room with a "i just ate lemons" look. He tells me "I don't like ucky donuts." I realize that we don't have donuts. I am thinking what was he eating. I go into the kitchen to see the leftovers from red robin the night before. Ayden had gotten into the to go box and had eaten onion rings.
These are the type of moments I don't want to miss because of worry. I am working on it.

My first real baseball game

Last night was suppose to be the big night and it was a really cool experience until the rain came in hard from left field. There was an announcer, and all the teams were on the field and then the rain came and we were canceled.
So today (fathers day) was my first official game. My arm felt like crap from the beginning. I think I can pitch 4 innings every two weeks. I struck out 3 in 3 plus innings, 4 hits, 2 earned runs (2 more runs were scored with the help of 4 errors) and I gave up a hr, and hit a batter. It was semi pleased with the outing.
My hitting was a different story. I doubled in my first ab, and drove in 2. I singled and scored a run in my second ab. When I was taken out of the game in the 4th we were up 6-4. When I came up for the third time it was tied in the bottom of the 8th. Runners were on first and second with no body out. I was figuring I would get a hit and win the game. Well the coach had other thoughts, he comes up to me right before my at bat and says bunt. In all my years of baseball I have never bunted in a game. I was shocked and look at him a second time, he gives me the you had better bunt look. I just start laughing. So I bunted and with my blazing speed I beat out the bunt. (So I ended going 3-3.) The next batter hit a ball between first and second and we won the game.
The coach gives game balls out after every win and I got my first game ball ever in baseball. I get to pitch again in two weeks.

My first high school coaching experience

A couple of months ago I wrote how I had volunteered to assist with coaching a high school baseball team. I am now assisting with their summer schedule. Last night the head coach was busy so he asked me to fully coach the team. Of course the game he asked me to coach was against the team that just lost in Semi-State and was extremely good. The good news is we won 3-0 and I am now 1-0 as a coach. :) The game didn't go off without it's interesting moments. Of course there was a practical joker on the team I was coaching who decided to see what I was made of. He tried to run onto the field and play third with hospital goggles on. Then there was our pitcher who didn't enjoy the mound and was trying to loosen up the dirt and kicked some of the dirt/clay into the grass and the coach on the other team started yelling at him. The best part was of course when we scored our first run of the game. One of the slower players was on first base and I thought I was giving the bunt signal to the hitter of course it was the steal sign and the kid started running to second and would have been out by ten feet except it was a horrible throw and it landed in center field. he later scored home on a double steal. Beginners dumb luck.
I get to pitch in my first game this Saturday night against the league champion from last year. I have started to gel with my all spanish team. They decided since I was the only one not of spanish decent to give me a nickname- paco. If anyone would be interested in seeing our first game it is saturday night 7 pm at the Highland Babe Ruth field. (94 west to Kennedy ave, kennedy south to the bowling alley take a left, at the first stop sign take a left and the field is behind the softball fields). If nothing else I got a pretty sweet jersey out of the deal. I am the starting pitcher so get there early it could be a short night.