At times, I think life is a process where we slowly develop pride in ourselves and then an external incident breaks down our pride and brings us into a state of humbleness. It is within this humbleness when we truly begin to understand and we are truly able to worship. It is then when we truly understand the holiness of God and the distance that we, collectively as humans, are apart from the perfectness of our Creator. Isaiah was not necessarily a prideful man, but he was following after a king whose pride had taken over in recent years. Within God’s presence, Isaiah stood naked and shameful, to the point of saying “Woe is me, for I am undone!” Isaiah himself, in the presence of the Lord, had become disassembled. There is a humpty dumpty effect when we come into the presence of the Lord. While there was no one to put humpty back together again, we have an almighty God that is there to do it for us. He will break and he will heal. That’s awesome news to me.

If you haven’t read the previous blog, don’t waste your time reading this entry.

The Night the Audi Met the Deer (continued)

    So the tow truck driver, who sure looked the part with his Santa Claus body and grizzled face, put my car in two and started driving me back to the truckstop where his shop is and where I can find a motel. A very ironic thing happened… we, Grizzly Adams and I, took out another deer on the way to the truckstop. Since the tow truck was made for Mack Trucks, it was rather big and husky, the football player body of towtrucks. The truck plowed through the deer and the driver didn’t flinch an inch (that rhymes). I chuckled under my breath at his indifference and then proceeded on. Our destination was this standard middle of nowhere truckstop, with a little “country” kitchen, a texaco, and a cheap, rundown motel. I got myself a lovely room at the inn, though surprised when a hooker didn’t come with my room. The next morning I decided I’d fight the uphill battle with the insurance company about what they wanted me to do. In all my dealings with insurance companies, I have decided that I don’t have an affinity toward them. They are on a constant mission to cheat you out of any money they are obligated to give you. Anyway, they found a bodyshop for me near where I was and also found a car-rental place that would rent to someone under 21, which was a blessing in and of itself. After a nice country breakfast and some perusal of the gas station novelties, such as Missouri shot glasses, magnets, and various Native American collectibles, I called enterprise to come pick me up (because that’s their slogan… enterprise, we’ll pick you up, or something like that). I was taken about another hour out of my way (I will remind you that I still have school going on) and we ended up in Warrensberg, Missouri (indicated by the star on that map), the home of Central Missouri State University… the ivy of the farmers, I guess. I got myself a car and headed back to St. Louis.

    I come to find out that my car is at Bubba’s Auto Repair shop, which i think fixes appliances too. They called me to tell me that they had never seen an Audi before, but they would try their best, not news you want to hear as the car’s owner. Well… a month and a half went by and school ended, and I still did not have a car. My mom flew into St. Louis to ride with me home so I wouldn’t do that horrible drive by myself. We called the shop to demand the car and they claimed it still wasn’t finished, but we told them we needed it anyway. We drive back out to Bubba’s and found the car drivable but with a few glitches. First, the car shook in idle, which was a new feature. Secondly, the air conditioner didn’t work. Now, I’m from hot florida, but the heat and humidity in the midwest and southern states in the summer is just as bad. We drove the car back to St. Louis, packed it completely to the brim with all my college stuff, including a refridgerator. We even had stuff in our laps and at our feet. We drove the grueling drive with the windows down all the way to Ft. Lauderdale, and that’s the end of my story. Thanks.

Monday Storytime

I’ve decided after a conversation with Josh Doody that I am going to have a once a week story time, hopefully I guess on Mondays. Although today is tuesday, I’ll start the story early in the afternoon so I have the opportunity of another entry tonight.

The Night the Audi Met the Deer

    I hate to use this story on the first true storytime, but it is one of the better stories I have. My freshman year of college I was at school in St. Louis. My girlfriend at the time was still in high school back in Ft. Lauderdale. She and her family were going to go skiing in Winter Park, Colorado on her spring break and I decided that I wanted to meet them out there. As I perused the internet to find the best travel deal, I noticed that Vanguard Airlines (the prestigious vanguard airlines) was had round trip tickets from Kansas City to Denver for like $50. That price should reflect the first-class style of this airline. Since my gas for my car was payed for at the time, I figured I would just take the 4 hour drive out there and fly out of Kansas City for cheap. Upon arrival in Denver, I met her parents and we all went snowboarding for a full 4 days, which required me to miss a few days of school.

    My flight back was rather late at night, putting me into Kansas City at about 11:00 pm with another four hour drive ahead of me. I have never had a problem driving on little sleep or late at night, so I was not too worried. I got myself some Mountain Dew and some Stogies to pass the time away, a tradition of mine on long nightime drives. About an hour and a half outside of Kansas City is when the drive took a terrible turn. I was heading over an overpass bridge, going over some dirt road in BFE Missouri, and suddenly I saw my life flash before my eyes. The biggest frickin’ deer I have ever seen decides to do a 40 year dash across the highway right in front of my car. With the speed limit at 70, I was doing a good 80 to 85 mph so I certainly took that deer right out of commission. Immediately all the lights on my dashboard started flashing, sort of like in the movies when planes are about to crash. Not wanted to stop out of fear of where I was, I let my car roll to it’s eventual stop, about another 1/4 mile down the road. Not knowing what to do, I got out of my car and just stared at the highway. To sound like a total wuss, I was rather scared that a herd of deer were going to come and take their vengence out on me… they are rather mean animals. Every 5 minutes or so a truck would drive by, so I decided to start hitchhiking, something I have done before (that will be another monday). I knew trucks don’t pick up hitchhikers very easily, and most trucking companies have rules about it. After standing there with my thumb out in 50 degree weather for about an hour, I decided to start walking, hoping to find some sign of civilization.

    After almost 2 hours of walking, I reached a closed Citgo station. Lucky for me they had an outdoor payphone there so I immediately dialed 911 to report the accident. Having been shaken up by the accident, I didn’t take time to notice what milemarker my car was at. I just had to tell them I walked two hours to where I was, try to find it. I immediately proceeded to call my mom and tell her what happened. Apparently I had not made it clear when I left to go skiing that I would be returning on tuesday night, so I was already in hot water for not coming home on sunday night (though I KNOW i told her). Eventually a cop car pulled up to take me back to my mangled automobile. Upon arrival, the officer got out and examined the damage and asked me to come out and look at something. This was the first time I saw the car in the light and it was looking pretty bad… bad to the point that I would rubberneck, and I can’t stand rubbernecking. The officer pointed to a pile a green stuff, closely resembling the typical spinach dip, like that served at Friday’s or the other restraurant chain clones. The officer exclaims to me, “That’s what the deer ate all day.” Thanks for sharing officer. Eventually a 24 hour tow truck showed up to send me on my way. You know what, this is going to keep going, so I will finish it tonight or tomorrow.

Well, I spent last night on the official “everybody’s invited” evening out for the girlfriend’s birthday. We kicked it off with our inaugural trip to Eddie’s Attic. The artist we wanted to see was the Jennifer Nettles Band, formerly Soul Miner’s Daughter. The concert was pretty good, outside of my closeminded uncomfortableness in the over 75% lesbian populated concert room. The “attic” is a very proper name, given the considerably limited size of the venue, though still quiant and ecclectic. Although the stage was in the corner of a rectangular room, the small size made the acoustics surprisingly good. Jennifer Nettles played a jargon of music, from jazz to blues to rock, though she didn’t play some of the songs I know of hers, mostly from her days in Soul Miner’s Daughter. The concert made me excited about playing with my friend Megan at the open mic they have every monday. We, that is me and mandy and another couple, all proceeded to Rio Bravo for some birthday mexican. We thus headed to Jellyrolls, a dueling piano bar very similar to that of Alligator Rocks in Gainesville, just larger. This seemed the favorite for the bachelorette parties, given that there were about ten or so girls wearing their vails and drinking out of phallic shaped cups… well… they were penis cups, and they were all celebrating their marriages. The pianists were great, covering the songs extremely well, but they did not quite grab the crowd as well as some pianists in my previous experiences. Oh well… to bring it to a close, we had a great time and got little sleep.

I am heading to bed now because I have school tomorrow morning… take care of yourself, and eachother… goodnight.

well… much has happened since I last wrote an entry. I officially started school a week ago monday and it is going well so far. Let’s just say that may junior class (there is no freshman class, just 3 classes: juniors, middlers, and seniors) are not the type of kids i may hang out with on a regular basis, at least from first impressions. that can always change. here is my impression: these students seem to lack any presence of the holy spirit or at least lack the empowering of it. they all seem to know a lot about their faiths but living it does not seem to be real priority on campus; maybe their way of living out the faith is just different then mine. maybe there is a lot of behind the scenes ministry they do, especially in the rhelm of a servant ministry in the inner-city. they also just have yet to come off as “cool.” i guess i have heard so many pastors talk about these lifelong friends they made in seminary and i got my hopes up, but just didn’t hit it off with anyone. oh well.

i am beginning to understand why greek is the language that god chose to use to write the new testament. it is a rather poetic and interpretable language. with only 1/3 the vocabulary of any other language, much can be left to interpretation and context, which is important. people have had a history of taking verses out of context and using them for their own gain but through the goggles of greek translation, one must put those verses into context. i hear hebrew is very different, but one can totally still see why god would use hebrew. interesting…

my job has been rather interesting so far. when i was brought into the job, my boss/bosses seemed to hint that worship would be an integral part of my ministry. i am now just playing second fiddle to the worship intern now, who is leaving in less than a month. he is definitely of different style than me and not sure how well that works together. i definitely have a different style than Josh Doody or Graham Buck, but somehow those two guys meshed well with how i play… which is basically just strumming fast and pretending you know how to play guitar. at least those two have skill. i also have felt the burden of the unorganized setup at the church. tonight i had a lead a lesson that i was not adaquately prepared for mostly because i found out about it at the last minute. there seems to be a momentary lack of interest in the youth group which I hope will change come next fall. i have a clean slate to work with and would love to see all the kids really have a heart for the lord. that is my prayer.

i know i have not been deep in while… just give me a little time to meditate on some of my thoughts… i’ll be there.

Thought for the day: How does it make you feel knowing that it is likely that we will see Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibalistic, mass murderer, in heaven with us? Read Matthew 20:1-16 for a real kick in the pants.