The Bittersweet Paradox

I was hanging out with some friends last night, and I started talking about my love for Neil Diamond. It's true. I love him. I do. Unashamedly.

Then, my friends started discussing that when I talk about having a crush on someone famous, he's almost always really old. And then I thought about it, and they're right. Bono, Harrison Ford, Sean Connery... I was HARD PRESSED to come up with a young actor who I have a crush on. The best I could come up with was Patrick Dempsey. I just googled him, and he is 39. Hardly a spring chicken. People like Matthew McConaughey and Matt Damon just don't get my blood flowing.

What does it mean when you only have crushes on people who are older than your father?

See title of post.

I was working at my desk today doing this random test they were giving people at work (I would assume to see how smart the people they hired are) when I looked down at my packet full of multiple choice questions and noticed something with great consternation. The paper was white, and so the four dark brown hairs on top of it stood out plainly. During the 20 minutes it took me to take this test, I lost four hairs. Now, I've always known that I shed. But four hairs in 20 minutes? That's 288 hairs a day. (May I add that that's also a problem which could've been on this test). I'll be bald before I'm 30.

See title of post.

P.S. I got 100% on my test:)

Those jacka**es. Yeah, that's right. You read that correctly. I rarely feel the urge to swear, but this situation fits the bill. Strong words, I know. I don't like that that's what comes to mind, and I'm sure it's not what Jesus would be thinking, but they're the thoughts I'm having.

My friends Clint and Diana and I were coming home from getting fast food and we noticed that traffic was annoyingly backed up from what looked like an accident. As we got closer, though, we got increasingly more annoyed when we saw what was actually happening. On our left, there was a church hosting a military funeral. On our right, there was a group of idiot protesters holding up the most incensing posters I have ever seen. We quickly realized that the police were there not to clean up an accident, but to prevent some rightfully pissed off driver from causing one by running his car through these group of crazies. These signs so articulately protested the war:

"Your pastor is a whore"

"God hates you"

"Fag body bags"

And other signs with stick figures doing things too inappropriate for polite society.

The thing that makes me most angry about the whole scenario is the poor family bereaved from having lost their son or daughter in a horrible way. These people in no way respected the life of this soldier, or the cause for which he or she died. And to do all this in the name of Jesus. That may be the thing which makes me most angry. Speaking for God, as if that's their job, and yelling at those driving by that God hates them. Well, I have a message for these protesters.

God LOVES you.

...Can't live with it, can't live without it.

The reason I have found the time to type this blog entry while at work is because our system is down. I can't decide how I feel about this. Part of me is glad for the excuse to be able to do nothing. The other part of me REALLY wants to get the stuff done that I need to get done, and since it just short of documented fact that doing stuff makes the time go faster, wanting the system to be up is winning out right now.

And, since I feel a tad self-conscious about the length and detail of my last post, I'm going to leave it at that.

All I can say is "wow." Or maybe "holy crap" would more accurately reflect my feelings after the whirlwind of last week. I've been trying to stop saying "holy crap", but I really think it applies here.

I've been debating about giving a general overview of the week, or a complete blow-by-blow. I've decided to do the blow-by-blow. Anyone uninterested in the detailed run down can skim.

Tuesday, November 8
5:00 pm. Book it to the airport.

6:00 pm. Realize that booking it to the airport was completely unnecessary as I'm sitting in front of the gate and my plane doesn't leave for another 50 minutes. Go to the mini-food court (everything at Will Rogers airport is mini) and eat Schlotzsky's. Realize with a panic that the change from the twenty dollar bill I used for lunch at McDonald's is still sitting in the register at McDonald's. Use debit card for Schlotzsky's.

6:50 pm. Board what ended up being a $450 (round trip) flight.

8:30pm. Arrive after an uneventful flight. Go collect baggage and negotiate my way through airport to the rental car shuttles.

9:00 pm. Get rental car. This was an ordeal in itself as I am only 24 and don't have a credit card. Thankfully, Enterprise rent a car will let you use a debit card if you're not 25 yet (don't forget the under-age service charge). They may have made themselves a customer for life as I was literally unable to get a car with any other rental agency.

9:15 pm. Begin to negotiate traffic what with the I-90s and 190s and 294s and Northwest tollways...It's no small miracle that I made it anywhere at all.

9:45 pm. Get first look at church.

10:00 pm. Receive call from person's house I'm staying at. Told her that the directions I mapquested were wrong. She redirects me and I turn in the right direction.

10:15 pm. Arrive at my host home. The lady I stayed with graciously waited up for me as she usually goes to bed AT TEN. I don't blame her.

11:30 pm. Read Bible, pray fervently, go to bed.

Wednesday, November 9th
6:30 am. Wake up with a nervous knot in my stomach. No surprise there.

8:40 am. Arrive at church for my first appointment. This was with the man with whom I had an unusually intense two hour phone interview back in July. It was good to put a name with a face. He gave me my schedule and a map of the campus. It's sprawling, and, to be honest, a little confusing.

9:00 am. Don't have my first meeting until 10:00, so I did a little exploring. It was extremely cool to see the facility.

10:00 am. Have first interview with the High school ministry pastor. This went very well. He was from South Africa and had a really fun accent. We had a great conversation. I liked him a lot.

10:51 am. No interview until noon. Drive to Subway for lunch. Kill an hour and 9 minutes.

12:00 pm. Have second interview with the minister of the college-age twenty-something pastor. This was a good interview too, although maybe not as good as the first one. I felt like he gave me some good practical pointers.

12:30 pm. Kill a half hour.

1:00 pm. Here's where it gets a little weird. Now I meet with the Director of Next Gen ministries which includes college and high school age students. I got a weird vibe from this guy, and for some reason it completely freaked me out. His questions seemed prodding and critical, although I'm probably (definitely) hypersensitive. Didn't leave with such a good feeling after this one.

1:30 pm. Kill a half hour while beginning to freak out a little.

2:00 pm. Meet with the HR director. She was quite nice.

2:25 pm. Kill 35 minutes.

3:00 pm. Meet with doctoral student doing her dissertation. Yes, that's right. Someone is doing a doctoral dissertation over this internship program.

3:17 pm. Kill 43 minutes in the auditorium. I kinda sneaked in and looked out the windows in the auditorium with the trees changing and the wind blowing. It was really pretty, although I really am starting to freak out about the whole thing at this point.

4:00 pm. Meet with the internship director. Here's where it gets really freaky. He could tell from the beginning of me walking in that I was feeling overwhelmed. He begins to ask questions to purposely get to the heart of the issue, and he succeeds. I leave the interview crying. I'm not kidding. Although he told me that I was being authentic, I still really hated crying. Oh well....I guess I was just being me. I'm a crier. We decide to add one more interview to the lot of them with the junior high ministry.

4:45 pm. Hide in the bathroom hoping no one will see me since I have obviously been crying. It didn't work. The internship administrator came and sought me out and we had a good talk. She was fabulous. Funniest quote of the week:

"Let me get you some water. I wish I could get you something stronger than water." --internship administrator

5:30 pm. Go to my next interview having mostly pulled myself together, although my face is still a little blotchy. This was with a very lovely woman who reports to the elders. This one went much better and I left feeling quite encouraged.

6:15 pm. Get a snack at the coffee bar and praise God that the day from Hades is over.

7:00 pm. Enjoy immensely the Wednesday evening service. It really was great. As tired as I was, I'm sooo glad I didn't wuss out and go home.

8:30 pm. Go home praising God a little more that the day is over.

9:00 pm. Arrive home to realize that I have no way of getting in without my hostess being there. She wasn't. Call hostess, go to Walgreens and buy chocolate snowflake as a reward for surviving.

9:30 pm. Arrive home with my hostess getting there soon afterwards. We had a good chat and she gave me some good pointers.

10:30 pm. Fall into bed.

Thursday, November 10th
6:30 am. Alarm goes off. Dang it.

7:20 am. Leave home b/c I was told that 8:00 traffic is a bear. It was.

8:00 am. Arrive at my first interview of the day with the programming director of the Next Gen ministry. This interview went great. He was great, and I think we had a great talk. This was also very encouraging.

8:30 am. Kill an hour and a half reading at the little coffee shop.

10:00 am. Go to the mini fundraising seminar. Had a good talk with the internship guy from the first meeting about his experience.

12:00 pm. Have lunch with current interns. Also ate real pizza. It was stinking fabulous. The interns shared with us pointers on how they raised the funds for the internship. That's right, you read that correctly. You have to raise the money to be an intern.

1:00 pm. Continue with mini fundraising seminar.

2:00 pm. Get whisked off to my next interview. This was the late addition with the junior high ministry. It went very well. Clicked personality-wise very well with everyone I met. Leave feeling like this is easily the best prospect for the internship.

2:30 pm. Have wrap-up interview with the intership director. He tells me the weak areas he sees in me, along with the positive. He very intuitively picks up on things I knew deep-down are wrong about me and called me out. It was unnerving, but strangely good at the same time. We both agree that the only good prospect was with the junior high ministry. This means that since I didn't get to meet all the necessary people in the junior high ministry as it was kind of last minute, that I will still have to have several more phone interviews before a final decision can be rendered. Sheesh....

3:00 pm. Head back to the house to get stuff and go to airport feeling more tired than I've felt in a long time. Stop at Pier 1 and DSW Shoe Warehouse on the way home. I've missed DSW.

5:30 pm. Book it to the airport.

7:00 pm. Realize that booking it to the airport was completely unnecessary as I'm sitting in front of the gate and my plane doesn't leave for another two hours....

This week is going to be a big one for me. I'm doing something completely unnerving at a relatively large personal expense. Something which I have no idea will even "work out." I guess I can take comfort in the fact that if God's involved, it's guaranteed to work out, even if it's not how I would have liked it. It's something I've been thinking about and even dreaming about for a long time. And I'm actually going to make the first substantial step towards doing it this week. Holy cow.

It's hard because even though I've known I've really wanted to do this for so long, I could show up, and the other party involved may say "thanks but no thanks" or "we just don't think you're a 'fit'." And I may not be. I suppose them saying that would just confirm what I've been thinking to myself every time this situation has crossed my mind. Whether or not I am a "fit", I'm not even sure. I pray that that's one of the things God reveals to me this week.

It feels a little like I'm Indiana Jones at the end of The Last Crusade when Harrison Ford is looking over the edge of a cliff hoping there'll be a bridge there to catch him when he steps off the edge. Lucky for him there was. My sometimes shaky faith in God says that there will be a bridge there for me too, I just haven't seen it yet.

Sadly, my Bible has gone missing. I was going to grab one from the bookshelf at home yesterday morning, and I ended up grabbing my dad's old retired Bible. My dad used to pastor a church when I was a tiny child, and as I opened up this old Bible, I found his sermon notes from February of 1983! How cool! (Random side note...my father was a mere 26 years old in February of 1983...it's hard to believe that anyone anywhere close to my age already had children). From what I can tell, the sermon is about Adam and Eve, God's original intention for man, the fall, and the resulting chaos in the hearts of man. Anyway, I was at lunch perusing these notes, and he said some way cool stuff. I will share.

"God has always intended for man to be more than a creature, His servant. God has always intended for man to have fellowship with Him as a prized possession. We are designed to enjoy the honor that befits a resident of heaven. A child of the great King."

"Sin separates from God--totally. Position with God has tremendous benefits--and having lost that position, man has been trying to get those benefits back in different ways ever since."

"Consider the actions, desires, and needs of the non-Christian. It seems to me that almost everything people do is out of the desire to feel important. A person puts on a show of pride and arrogance, trying to convince others that he is important. A young lady or man will become involved in a promiscuous relationship because they want to feel loved. To be loved is to be important. Every sin seems to be a perverse way a person uses to try to feel important or it is a reaction that comes from the way someone feels when he feels unimportant."

"The one who created man with honor and dignity to begin with has made steps to restore it. Eph 2"

"Our place--seated with Him--a place of honor, can you think of a more honored seat?"

"We can't feel at home in this world because we are above it. That's why it is such a tragedy for a Christian to sin...we live above this world so our standards of living are above the world."

"The Bible tells us to be humble, but only a person who understands his position with God has the courage to be humble."

It really does go on...I won't bore you with continued references. Seriously, though. Good stuff.

I've been thinking especially of the quote about man needing to feel important, and I've been hard pressed to think of a sin one commits that is not because that man was trying to convince himself or others of his importance, or was reacting sinfully because his sense of importance had been violated. Not that that excuses sin, but it certainly helps explain it. It makes me think hard about how I treat others. Clearly God has created us with an inborn need to feel important. I want to help people feel important, but more than that, I want to help show them their true importance in Christ.

Preach it, dad!