Burnout again?

I might be working too hard… but I can’t take Saturday off.

I worry sometimes that I’m suffering from burnout.

I did it once before, when I was working nonstop for about four years straight with no vacations. After that point I realized the value in taking the Sabbath—Saturday, of course—and arranging to do nothing on that day. You notice how everyone schedules stuff for Saturday because it’s the one day we all have off? I decided I wasn’t going to do any of it. Absolute rest, like God intended. No nothing, unless there were any emergencies.

Can’t do that in the Teacher Education Program. Saturday is just another day of classes. So that means I have to pick another day of absolute rest… except I haven’t, and it’s frying my brain. So I’m going to make it MONDAY, dangit, and do NOTHING on that day if I can avoid it. Which isn’t easy to do.

Dead pastors aren't much fun.

When God takes someone, it sucks. But life sucks.

God killed my roommate’s pastor this week.

If that statement shocked you, it shouldn’t. I believe in free will, but I also believe that no one dies without God’s permission. God may not like the way we die—I’m sure he didn’t enjoy the death of Jesus at all—but if it serves his purposes he will allow it and even approve of it. This is not because he is heartless or callous; this is because he knows that death isn’t permanent. Life is.

From our perspective, it feels permanent, and it sucks. The guy was only three years older than me, and his death—from pneumonia—was completely unexpected. His church and family are in mourning. They don’t yet know why he had to die; and grief tends to make any reason appear petty and superficial. (For that matter, most of the reasons they’ll hear over the next year will be petty and superficial.)

What can we do? Wait for the grieving to accept the circumstances. Be available; let ’em talk it through. Be realistic—none of this “it’ll get better with time” crap which isn’t true. Be sympathetic. Give space when it’s needed. Hide the liquor. And pray.

A frequently-overdone and misquoted worship song.

Enjoying worship music isn’t something we need to repent for. (Not worshipping with it—that’s another issue.)

🎵 I’m coming back to the heart of worship

🎵 And it’s all about you, all about you Jesus

🎵 I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it

🎵 When it’s all about you, all about you Jesus.

That’s from a Matt Redman song. Worship leaders love it ’cause it fits them so often. So they put it in the worship cycle and the rest of us have to sing it along with them. And then we start to question what thing we might have made worship; and maybe we didn’t.

The song isn’t about worshippers; it’s about worship leaders. It’s about people who put more into their performance than into their worship. I’m not a worship leader, so it doesn’t apply to me. And yet I got suckered into thinking, “I listen to this stuff for fun. I’m losing sight of who it’s about.” God had to interrupt and yell at me.

“You’re supposed to like worship music,” he said. “You think you’re supposed to worshipme in a way we don’t mutually enjoy? Do you really think of me as a sadist?”

“But what about when I’m enjoying it for entertainment?”

“While you’re being entertained, does it make you think of me?”

“Well, yes.”

“So it’s doing its job.”

He got me thinking about that question—“Do you really think of me as a sadist?” How many times have we figured we shoudn’t be enjoying something that God made for us to enjoy because we’re supposed to be “holy”? How messed-up does that make our view of “holy” and of God?

Creepy internet graphic of the day.

An odd combination of piety and ghosts.

Creepy image, isn’t it? Especially since George Washington was a Deist—so what’s his ghost doing there?

I found this at a Salon.com weblog referring to the Save America Now website. Some Evangelicals are putting together a video that they intend to show lots and lots of times on TV before the election. This is because one of them got a prophecy that 2004 was an important year.

Assuming the prophecy is true (for the sake of argument) I don’t know that this necessarily means the election is what God finds most important about the year. Christians may recall that Jesus never expected the politicians of the first century to fix the problems of society; his message was to the people. Then, as now, politics was an ungodly source of power. When God wants us to pray for things, I think he wants us to pray for elections about as much as he wants us to pray for World Series winners. God could really give a crap.

So these evangelicals are wasting their time and money—sorry, God’s time and money—pushing for Bush. Sure, they say on their site that it’s not important whether you’re Republican or Democrat. (And it really isn’t, so long as you’re voting for Bush.) But if they really trusted God, or their petitions to him, to take care of the election, they wouldn’t be asking for money, would they?

Unhealthy self-image isn’t helped by unhealthy standards.

Wanna know what guys like? Ask a guy.

Too many women have a messed-up idea of what men find attractive.

Much of this, I pointed out to the women at my table, would be cleared up if they simply asked one of us.

So S asked. I answered. They didn’t believe me. The other guys at the table agreed with me; but the women simply refused to accept it because they had never heard such things before.

How messed up have the fashion magazines made this generation of women?

Recently N pointed out that it’s not just the fashion magazines; it’s the porn. The fashion magazines take their cues from popular pornography as to what men like. Therefore if you follow the magazines’ tips, you’re unconsciously contributing to the warped view of sexuality that porn encourages.

That certainly does explain a lot. Disturbing, huh?

Water: Drinking the Scotts Valley swill; and floating on Alaska’s water with Charles Stanley.

A little discovery I made about our local tap water.

If you live in Scotts Valley, you know that the local tap water smells and tastes awful. There’s no reason why most of the population must independently filter or buy their own water. The local water board should be prosecuted for fiscal mismanagement because they should’ve taken care of this decades ago. In this day and age there’s no excuse for it.

Especially after my little discovery. I was taking water from Café Bethany and pouring it into my 2-gallon water cooler. The café filters it; they don’t mind if we drink it; and it didn’t hurt to have a little extra in my room to make coffee. So one morning I’m filling my coffee carafe when I notice an unwholesome odor. I open the lid on my cooler and discover I have a mold. (Café water comes out the same tap as the fruit punch; if any sugar gets into the water, mold can grow.) Down the drain. But as I’m scrubbing the cooler, I realize—the moldy water smelled like the freakin’ tap water.

Coincidence? COINCIDENCE? I don’t think so. In the process of testing the city water for lead and mercury and other brain-fuddling chemicals, has anyone bothered to test it for biological agents? Somebody call Erin Brockovich.

Gambling: Not immoral; but not wise.

Sometimes decisions are more logical than moral.

Tonight my small group leaders decided they wanted to play poker. Everyone has to cough up $2 to put in the pot. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

I have no objection to gambling on religious grounds. There’s nothing in scripture for or against it. I simply object to it on a purely logical basis:

20. If it isn’t reasonably certain,
    it’s a stupid decision.
6. If it is reasonably certain,
   yet the other party doesn’t recognize this,
   you’re preying on the stupid,
   so it’s a moral decision.
   (Basically immoral.)

Sometimes I’m just too logical for my own good.