Apomo

One of the reasons I was optimistic about having my own agency was there were two large housing subdivisions being planned to start w/in the next year. Between the two of them they would have been over a million square feet of commerical space and about 3500 homes. I figured that would expand the market enough to where I could get a piece of the pie if I were in the fight. Don’t you love how I mix metaphors?

However, since I’ve decided to not open the agency one of the projects was put off for quite awhile, they’re saying 3-4 years, and the other one was rejected by the city planning commission and will be put off for awhile as well as they have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to meet the city’s demands. The climate has changed here in our city. Whereas the city would give developers anything in the recent past now the city is playing hardball in a tightening market as the leverage is on their side now. The developers need the city more than the city needs the developers.

So, it appears that opening an agency in my city is not as good of an option as it was before due to these new developments (I do puns too).

Funny how things work out, huh?]]>

* I start my job as the agency manager on Monday. Whoo hoo!

* I’ve been reading the Bible like mad the last couple of weeks. I’ve read almost the entire NT in the last week. As I read I’ve noticed that really there are only three things that Jesus and the writers say over and over and over.
1. Love God
2. Love others as yourself.
3. Don’t be religious.
That’s really about it. It’s a simple message.

* I was telling a co-worker about U2 yesterday and how so much of their music is Christian. She thought that was cool. But then she started laughing and said that she’d been to a U2 concert a few years ago. She said she was drunk and the only thing she remembered was  a chick giving a guy head during the concert a few feet from where she was standing. haha.

* Was talking to Russ yesterday. It looks like things are progressing rather nicely. We have three or four people who have expressed interest in doing the music. Maybe they can form our worship band. All of them are very, very talented. Plus, we have 15-20 people who have committed to come and help out. We’re going to meet with the pastor in a few days to lay it all on the table and get his blessing and then we’ll meet with the team and brainstorm and then we’ll set out first meeting date. We discussed maybe getting the group involved in the local AIDS Walk benefit. Not for any sort of evangelistic purpose but just to help out.]]>

Ephesians 3:7-9

If this doesn’t summarize what’s been going on my life the last few weeks and months I don’t know what does.]]>

Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it is
I’m not afraid to die
I’m not afraid to live
And when I’m flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did
‘Cause hardness, it sets in
You need some protection
The thinner the skin
I want you to know
That you don’t need me anymore
I want you to know
You don’t need anyone, anything at all

Who’s to say where the wind will take you
Who’s to say what it is will break you
I don’t know which way the wind will blow
Who’s to know when the time has come around
Don’t wanna see you cry
I know this is not goodbye

In summer I can taste the salt in the sea
There’s a kite blowing out of control on a breeze
I wonder what’s gonna happen to you
You wonder what has happened to me
I’m a man, I’m not a child
A man who sees the shadow behind your eyes

Who’s to say where the wind will take you
Who’s to say what it is will break you
I don’t know where the wind will blow
Who’s to know when the time has come around
I don’t wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye

Did I waste it
Not so much I couldn’t taste it
Life should be fragrant
Rooftop to the basement
The last of the rockstars
When hip-hop drove the big cars
In the time when new media
Was the big idea
That was the big idea
]]>

“…Then the train station goes away and I’m standing on the edge of a very large empty field, maybe 300-400 acres with a tree line in the distance in the background. There are a couple of trees but mainly it’s just flat farmland, no brush. In the distance I see a herd of large machines coming from my right. As they get closer I can see the first few are duece-and-a-half army trucks. They’re driving extremely fast for the topography and their size. They fly by me going maybe 50-60 mph over the dirt fields, bouncing all around precariously. One of them goes past me and slides to a stop sideways about 50 yards to my left. It seems there may be a road or some sort of boundry to my right but I’m not for certain.

Then behind these vehicles is a group of large earthmoving, tilling machines that are moving in a concerted but seemingly chaotic and hurried fashion. They’re all kinds of different machines that I don’t recognize but in their own way they’re tearing into the soil and churning it up. Some of them are tall like combines, othes look similar to ditch witches and hybrids of normal earthmoving Catepillar type machines. Some are dragging hooks, others have discs, some have blades, some are pushing dirt. Dust is in the air.

Behind them comes another row of earthmovers that move the earth even more than the others. They feel ominous as they approach. I feel a sense of awe, almost fear. They’re very low slung and squareish with large tires, like the pushers that move airplanes. A plume of dust rises up between and behind them as they tear into the earth. These machines create deep rows of large nearly perfectly rounded furrows about 5 feet high.

I feel compelled to go touch the dirt on these furrows. I feel kind of weird because I don’t know why I want to touch it and I feel as if I have to act like I know what I’m doing even though I don’t. I run to the other side of the field and approach one of the furrows so that now I’m facing the opposite direction than before. The trucks are now to my right. I put my finger in the dirt and rub it between my fingers as if I know someone is watching (I think it’s a driver of one of the machines that seems to be stopped nearby to my right) and I have to act like I have a purpose in wanting to touch the dirt even though I have no idea why I want to touch it and don’t perceive any significance in the texture of he dirt. It’s just dirt. I walk away from the furrow rubbing it and nodding my head knowingly.”

The last couple of days I’ve been studying a very controversial subject. So controversial I don’t even want to mention it here, at least for the moment. In the course of my study I discovered that I need to study something else, unrelated to the controversial subject, but something that is just as controversial in manner. It’s foundational, it’s bedrock as far as interpreting the Bible and the resulting application of interepretations go. To be honest, I a little afraid to go there because of what I might find. But, I’m going to go there anyway and see what Truth teaches me.

As I lay in bed this morning in that half awake, half asleep state I call “The Twilight Zone” God showed me that this is meaning of the second part of my dream.  In the first sequence machines came and dug up the soil of my belief system and changed the landscape of my mind through a series of seemingly random events, books, and blogs. But that was just to set the stage for even more deep, foundational change. One that burrows deep in the strata of my belief, my faith and brings up the rich, fertile soil underneath. It’s one that alters the landscape dramatically. That’s what I saw in those large machines that dug deep, deep into the earth. I ran to look the dirt but was facing the opposite direction of where I started. I think that’s what’s happening to me in my studies, I’m beginning to understand the Bible from an entirely different view point than before. These machines produced a sense of fear and awe of the reverent kind. That’s how I feel about these subjects and the Truth that’s taking me there. I’m afraid because I don’t feel I have the intellectual capacity and perhaps the spiritual fortitude to engage them. But Truth wants me to go there so I go and act like I know what I’m doing but at the same time feeling way over my head. I prayed for Truth. Be careful what you pray for is a phrase that comes to mind.

As I was waking up to get ready for the day this portion of a chorus was stuck in my head, playing over and over. I think it was God telling me not to worry, just trust and obey.

“Who’s to say where the wind will take you
Who’s to say what it is will break you
I don’t know which way the wind will blow”

I’ve always felt this was Bono praying to God and how God takes you places that test your faith.

When I got to work I looked up the rest of the lyrics as I couldn’t remember them all by heart. Here they are, they’re pretty appropriate to the moment I think. It’s so weird how God is leading me through such subjective and “weak” things as dreams and poetry. Things I’ve never valued before now.

]]>

As stated by Dr. R.S. Truluck, “Paul’s writings have been taken out of context and twisted to punish and oppress every identifiable minority in the world: Jews, children, women, blacks, slaves, politicians, divorced people, convicts, pro choice people, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, religious reformers, the mentally ill, and the list could go on and on.  Paul is often difficult and confusing to understand.  A lot of Paul’s writing is very difficult to translate.  Since most of his letters were written in response to news from other people, reading Paul can be like listening to one side of a telephone conversation.  We know, or think we know, what Paul is saying, but we have to guess what the other side has said.”]]>

As I was driving and praying I had some music playing. The volume level was real low and with the road noise you could barely hear it. Just the drums here and there and part of a vocal once in awhile. There was no way to know who was singing or what they were singing. It was just kind of real low background noise.

A couple of miles before my exit I started praying the Lord’s prayer. When I was done I just started praying about the part where God’s will in heaven is done on earth. I started praying that God would help me to not walk in my “flesh” but to learn to walk in the Spirit. To learn to read the signs of the spirit and to respond. To hear his voice and respond. To trust and obey. I was pretty adamant about it. It was a little frustration speaking, a little raw emotion crying out to God. I told him if we’re going to do this thing then let’s get it on! I’m tired of wasting time, like the prophetess said. I want to see what you see! Do what you do! I don’t know if I actually said all of that, but it was what I was thinking and feeling.

When I got to my exit I pulled off. When I got to the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp I could now hear the music because the road noise from the highway was gone.  It was Bono crying out to God….

I can’t wait any longer
I can’t wait till I’m stronger
Can’t wait any longer
To see what you see
When I look at the world

I’m in the waiting room
Can’t see for the smoke
I think of you and your holy book
While the rest of us choke

Tell me, tell me, what do you see?
Tell me, tell me, what’s wrong with me

Maybe it’s just me, but I think God was telling me he’d heard my prayer. Cool, huh? She works in mysterious ways.]]>

Sing a song, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight, pray. He said to have no more than two or three speakers.

It’d be cool to have two or three people speak. One teaches a short lesson, the other tells a story, another gives insight regarding the story. Or something along those lines. Take the normal Protestant liturgy and bust it all up and re-arrange the order and flow.]]>

I Cor 13:8-13

We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.]]>

I think it’d be cool to use the technique of Christ and tell stories and parables. We can do like Flannery O’Connor and C.S. Lewis and take ancient stories and wrap them around modern context.

We could use stories that others have come up with or we could make up our own. The idea would be to tell the story to the audience in about 20 minutes and do one of the following…

1. Not interpret the story. Just leave it be and let each person interpret it for themselves with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus did this alot. Ears that can hear will understand.

2. Give a couple or three or four possible interpretations to help people apply the moral of the story to their own lives. Leave the interpretation open ended so that the Holy Spirit can guide each person to the truth of the story in their own lives.

3. Solicit repsonses from the audience and generate a group discussion as to what the story may mean.

Maybe there are other things we could do with this. I just think that stories are so powerful and flexible. Preachers can drone on and on about theological blah, blah, blah and all I can think is “yada, yada, yada”. But when they start to tell stories I tune in no matter how bored I am before and after the story. It’s part of being a video/movie/tv generation I think. Maybe not, maybe it’s human nature because Jesus told stories all the time.]]>