Re:action - The Pink Elephant

The Pink Elephant

Dave and I were talking about what’s going on in our lives yesterday and the topic of faith came up. Long story short he gave me a message series that he’d listened to and loved for a long time from a guy named Michael Wells. I had never heard of him before but Dave made it sound important and worth the listen. He tells a story about how early on in his ministry he used to slander people in the church. He’d tear everyone down and he knew that he needed to stop. He tried all sorts of things, but decided one day that he should take his sin before God and for 40 days he fasted. At the end of his fast he realized that he hadn’t stopped, so he fasted for another 40 days and again didn’t stop slandering. In fact he says at the end of both of these fasts he was the skinniest slanderer around. I had these messages playing in my ipod yesterday as I walked the few blocks over to the park for my late lunch. He’s a great storyteller so i enjoyed listening, and his insight into Christian faith was so refreshing to ponder.

When I got back an old friend of mine named Katie, who was in my bible study a few years ago at a Fuge Camp in Glorieta, NM, facebook chatted “hello”. I said “Hi” and she explained that I probably didn’t remember who she was, but that she needed prayer for her cussing problem and asked if I would pray for her.

Re:action - Social Networking

Social Networking

I just had a great conversation with my good friend Dr. Fermin Whittaker this morning about the topic of Social Networking. We talked about ministry effectiveness and the need for authenticity in all of our motives. Are we really after the numbers or is there another bench-mark that we should place our aim? We talked about community and how that word has become elemental in our culture.  Questions began streaming as we talked, I’m asking myself: What am I doing to take what I do to the next level of impacting lives? How can I do a better job of communicating?
Dr. Whittaker is an out of the box thinker, which allows him to step into the thinking processes of young people and look at what’s coming soon with excitement for change rather than dread. Speaking of change…

Re:action - Mountains On My Mind

Mountains On My Mind

It’s after 1am and I can’t sleep. I have to be up early tomorrow morning to meet with the guys for prayer and coffee, but every time I try to force myself to fall asleep my brain kicks into overdrive and I start to think about hiking in the mountains. I’m consumed by it. I bought a book the other day about places to hike and camp in California, I started reading a little bit and it’s seriously keeping me up at nights. Just looking at the maps and thinking about the wilderness has inspired me to want to climb all the highest peaks and see the most beautiful vistas California has to offer. I read about a bunch of 3-4 day backpacking trips in the Sierra’s that until now were never really my idea of fun, but now i can’t stop imagining how great it would be go leave tomorrow. I’ve decided that I need to buy a whole bunch of gear too. Every time I try to close my eyes, hiking boots, backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, the new camera I want to get all flicker in my mind. They would cost over $2,000 if I went out and bought it all. If it’s not the gear its my need to get back in shape and ready for my next exciting adventure that has taken over my life. I’m losing sleep and all because of this new found passion I have to climb things. Seriously, more so than my birthday and Christmas, I can’t wait until July 8th-12th when I’ll be hiking up Mt. Whitney with Tim and Joe Gentry. I really need to sleep before then.

Re:action - Out of the Rut

Out of the Rut

Music is an extremely important part of my life. I don’t play jack, but I listen obsessively. When I used to buy cd’s along time ago (now I buy mp3-4’s), I would listen to it over and over again until it became a boring sound. The cd’s were great. I practically wore the shine off of Matchbox Twenty’s “You, yourself, or something like you,” but they got old really quickly. I was in a musical rut for the last couple of months and I was listening to great music. It was so good that it was pretty much on loop. I do not recommend using the loop setting on your iPod. Most people do this with bands like Coldplay and Jimmy and my advice to you is STOP! Take a break from it or you’ll ruin great music! You’ll be like one of those smug music snobs that looks down at people who listen to music that’s not in “the scene.”

Re:action - Mother Mary’s Head

Mother Mary’s Head

It’s way past midnight and I’m not tired. 32 ounces of Monster energy does a number on the mind and body, none of which is good for it i’m sure. That stuff tastes like I’m drinking candy. I had a really cool last few days. Mother’s Day was spent with mom, which was nice. It’s always good to be home for a few days. The day after Mothers Day I went up to a really cool peak in the San Jacinto Mountains called Lily Rock and looked out over a cloud-ocean covering the Inland Empire all the way until the faded horizon a hundred miles west. It was a nice little hike and a beautiful day for it. I thought of something on the way down though. Climbing a mountain can be really boring and sometimes just a mundane chore. Trails switching back and forth, slowly winding around rocks, each step defined clearly with an easy to follow well traveled path are monotonous even to talk about. We didn’t do that at all this time, or at least it didn’t feel like it.

Re:action - Professor David Wayland Marler (1937 - 2008)

Professor David Wayland Marler ( 1937 - 2008 )

He was my favorite professor. A very wise man, absolutely stunning. I would sit in his office and listen to him talk about History for hours, those were some of the best hours of college I ever spent. I went on a trip to East Europe on the Holocaust remembrance tour with him in 2005 with a class of about 25. Dr. Marler was head over heals in love with the girl on the left of him in this picture. She was our tour guide for the day and she spoke czech so beautifully, he kept asking her in German if she could speak a language he knew so that he could ask her to marry him. He definitely had a sense of humor. It was a challenge and a joy to learn in his classroom. Though, the topic of discussion usually went on 4 tangents before we talked about anything regarding the classes purpose. What we learned from a lecture or an assignment from one of his classes was so often secondary to what we learned from his passion. He loved history, he loved reading books and talking about them, but there was a sense that he actually loved each one of us as well. That’s why will miss Dr. Marler.

Re:action - too busy.

too busy

I left my phone at home today. I feel naked. There’s no reason to have my phone today, so I shouldn’t feel anxious. Like most days I will drive home later on and probably won’t need to pull over and call someone for help. If I need to call someone regarding work, or even if I want to call home, I have my office phone right here on my desk. I have so many other ways to communicate it’s ridiculous. My computer blips with a new email recieved every few minutes. I check facebook at work. shhh…don’t tell anyone. On a normal day, I’m communicating electronically all day long. Whenever I do something it’s almost as if something electronic told me to. I wonder what would happen if I unplugged for a day. Or what if I took a sabbath day. I think I would nap.

Re:action - Your Future Self

Your Future Self

In church they told us to write down our prayer requests and look back later on and see where God has worked in our lives. Such a good idea. I never do it, but it’s a really great thing to do, I would just have to assume. But all of that aside, I’m not writing a spiritual post today. Today it’s about remembering.

About a year ago believe it or not I was in Muskat, Oman visiting my friends Ross & Jennifer. It was one of those trips that so much happened within a couple of weeks there would be no way to decipher the order of of events or the many things we did without recording it somehow. As you may know, my prefered method of recording is through text. Old fashioned, i know but it works for me. So I journalled a list of words and short descriptive phrases from my trip. This might have been the coolest thing I have ever done.

Re:action - The Bear

The bear

While I was in college, I had the opportunity to be a lifeguard and summer staff leader at Pine Summit Christian Camp with my friends Thomas and Christal Castro. One of the best things about that summer was that I got to spend a lot of time hanging out and getting to know high school students. During one of those weeks of camp, a young man named Tony graced us with his attendance. Tony was in 8th grade and was too tall for his age making him just a bit uncoordinated. He wore the punk getup, with a sideways cap and baggy jeans perhaps to fit in or maybe to look dumb intentionally. This kid from the beginning had an easily identified M.O. He was there to impress the chics. Everything he did had the hidden or not-so-hidden agenda of scoring himself a camp girlfriend.

Re:action - “Thank you for that.”

“Thank you for that.”

I woke up today and thought to myself “I enjoyed life much more when I was writing.” I realize that by writing this thought down, my mom will upon reading this call and ask if I’m depressed. So, the answer will be no, because I’m writing. The trouble is where to begin when it’s been nearly 6 months since my last post. A few months ago, I lived in the suburban town of Clovis, in a new neighborhood, in a new house that my roommate Mike had bought right behind a brand new elementary school. We’ve been good friends and he knew my financial situation so he gave me a really good deal on rent. I had my own room, my own garage space, I could go out in our 100 sq. foot back yard (really little, but also nice and quaint) and sit on the brick wall and look at the stars at night. We had a fireplace and a huge tv, wireless internet, and a community pool 100 yards away, much more than a missionary needs. It was great and I was content. Mike is getting married at the end of May to his fiancé Ersilia, so a natural inclination to change domiciles became apparent.