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Daffodils, rodeos, and life looking through a fence

Well, I only mention daffodils because they are pretty. They are a nice flower and make me go back to my childhood whenever I see one. Going back to your “happy place” is a great thing when things are flying at you at the speed of food poisoning.

I’ve had to remember my happy place several times this week, but mostly the weekend. I don’t think I can go too much into the details here, but I will say this…

We are one less rider in the rodeo…and one less rodeo for a ride!

So how does that tie into the life looking through a fence??? When you take something that isn’t yours but belongs to Uncle Sam, that is the view you will have from now on.

Peace, love, and The Club for cars…

no time nor a brain to post

The new job is great. Already in a short amount of time we have seen so many changes. I have been on the job as of Saturday March 29th. I have rarely had a break. (the only true minus to working a salary job) But here is the deal…Sunday morning at church, there were 3 first time commitments to following Christ from our guys. God is truly preparing the hearts of the men to stand with Christ.

While I am weary, I am still energized. I counted up a little while ago that of the last 40 hours, I’ve been awake for 38 of them. So what am I running on? Change. (that and a lot of Mt Dew and coffee) God is changing these hardened mens’ hearts. It is a beautiful thing to watch.

I’ll write more later. must take a 3 hour nap to make it through the next 24-30 hours.

A little change will do you good…

I was talking with one of the Villagers last night. He is an older man…not old, just older than me. He has had a painful life. He came to us from the streets. He has an interesting story.

The other night, we were filming a few of the guys as the gave a brief description about where they were before they came to The Village and how they got there. This one guy (we’ll call him CD) was asked about talking on the video. He hung his head and said, “I can’t.” We didn’t pressure him. We just wanted a few guys to tell there stories. Come to find out he had some shame issues with his appearance. One of the leadership guys asked him about it. Then CD said something so innocent. “I can’t do it. I don’t have many teeth. (teary-eyed) I’m so ashamed.” The leader (Sean) talked to him briefly about it and encouraged him.

A few days pass and CD gets a call from Sean. It seems that Sean called some of his dentist friends and clients of his business. Sean told CD, “I set you up an appointment on Friday.”

CD was telling me this and he was weeping last night. I won’t lie. My heartstrings were not getting pulled…they were getting YANKED!!! He said, “I don’t deserve this treatment. A place to live, food to eat, and a chance to get a job. And now teeth…that are being given out of the kindness of the dentist’s heart.” He puts his wrinkled and worn face in his tired and over-worked hands…he breathes deep…he weeps heavily. He feels like he should tell me that he’s is just overwhelmed and happy. I can already see it.

This man’s life has been changed. How? By our being willing to be the hands and feet of God.

Sometimes the most meaningless thing to you is the most wonderful and gracious thing to another man.

May God bless you all.

A new day is dawning…

I am drawing my employment with SU to a close. As of Friday, March 28, 2008, I will no longer be an employee of the great and studious SU. I will start my new position with the Village on Monday, March 31. It is bittersweet leaving a great place even when you are going to a great place. I will miss the friendships that have developed over the nearly 2 years. We have all shared in heartache and loss. We have rejoiced as new life has come about in our families. I will miss my desk fan. I will miss the time clock that I have so slightly loathed over the months. It’s printing sound will not follow me. I will be going from an hourly position where I punch a clock to a salary position that requires a good bit of my time. I am grateful. I know that there will be a learning process to the next few weeks…time management and all. I embrace the change.

yup, I know…I embrace the change…

Week in Review

This past week was something else…Some pretty cool UPs and some dramatic DOWNs.

UPs – The Shiny Dome Music Group has been born. you can check it out on Facebook and Myspace. There is now a Facebook Artist page so you too can become a fan There is no music on MySpace just yet, but wait and it’ll be uploaded fairly soon. I have been talking about the music stuff with everyone I come across. Everyone that I’m around is SO PUMPED that there will be an EP coming out in the coming months. I can’t wait to get this running…

UPs – Storytellers GVC will be allowing me to play and share again soon. April 25th actually. It is on the events whether on facebook or myspace. Run, don’t walk and make sure that you are there that night.

DOWNs – Well, we have miscarried again. It happened last week. This is our third pregnancy and our second miscarriage. But, hey, don’t be sad. God has our babies. They are at the feet of Jesus celebrating the salvation He brings and they are worshipping the Creator of all. While we aren’t able to hold our babies, God is holding them.

Catching up…

So it has been a good long while since I really blogged here. It has been crazy, off the chain, kind of crazy.

Anyway (drama). Life is going at an incredible rate!!!! Little Bear is growing up like a honkin’ weed. Lovely is more lovely today than even yesterday. I am about 70 days into growing my beard-rat back. As you or may not have read, the Uber-Gnome family is expecting another Gnome-let. Yup. That’s right. Late October or early November is the proposed time of arrival for said gnome-let.

We are thrilled and excited that God would bless us like this. It is amazing, childbirth is. We will, but we can’t wait…

In other new, I’ve added one more gnome-year to my age. That makes me 360 gnome years old now. (That’s 30 human years.) I am beginning to “play some trombone” when I read, but I think it is funny. I used to (and still do) make fun of my dad for having to adjust his arm in order to read.

Other than that??? It looks like another round of guitar classes are about to begin at SU. Even though I will be vacating the day job with them I will still be teaching guitar at night.

Life really is exciting right now. Unpredictable, but exciting.

Many new arrivals…

More new information is on the way.

For many years, I have had an idea to promote and write music under my own music group. Also I would be able to gather other independant artists under the umbrella of this music group to help promote thier music as well. Well, it is beginning to take shape. I knew the name of it a LONG time ago, I had just never put any teeth to it.

So do you wanna know the name? Okay…

Let me say first that logos, trademarks, and copyright information is coming since I want this to do a legit thing.

Music is in the works as well as some events(gigs)…

You can check it out on the web at Facebook or on mySpace. Either way, it is coming into play.

Oh…the name?

Shiny Dome Music Group

AT&T is the spawn of Satan

If you work for AT&T this is only directed to your employer…not you. Everyone I spoke with today was very kind so thumbs up there.AT&T, you have screwed me up AGAIN!!! You have made more mistakes since your buy-out of Cingular a few months back than all of the previous years I have had a cell phone COMBINED!!!!!

You turn off my service because some one NOT EVEN ON MY PLAN DIDN’T PAY THEIR BILL. Oops, wrong account number.

My service goes out for FOUR DAYS!!!!! Why, because you say that never happened at first, then you come up with a lame story that you were working on one tower in my area. When asked what area that was IT WAS ABOUT 100MILES SOUTH!!!!!!!

Listen, you can’t help being a poorly run, over-managed cell phone monster. Just slowly back away from the old Cingular and die off. You’ve tried to come back, what, four to five times now. Get it through your thick, over-charging, lame excuse, no service, cheating head!!! Everything you have touched has had to be put on life support. Just pull your own plug and give me my Cingular service back. You could at least give your customers THAT much.

Do you lack compassion?? Rethink it…

I was sitting in church a few Sundays ago. The pastor was teaching about relationships with others and the correlation between how we treat/respect/honor others and how we honor God. He mentioned (this is my paraphrase by the way) that in most cases that we tend to respect/honor a complete stranger in just being polite (i.e. opening the door for them, “Yes, Ma’am, Yes, Sir,” etc.) more than our own family (i.e. spouse, child, friend, etc.). This is because we see our families and friends more often. We don’t put on much of a show for them because we know them and vice versa. How much easier is it to go off the handle when you child is throwing a fit or telling you “NO” in a disrespectful manner? How much easier is it to blow up at your spouse when something didn’t get done or was done incorrectly? How much more patient and compassionate are we with an old lady we don’t know that is walking about .0005 miles per decade, but you wait…you smile and hold the door open. I find that I am not as compassionate. I get so frustrated at my “inner circle” for no reason.

Case in point…(just to be transparent)

My wife (Lovely) is pregnant with our third child. She didn’t have morning sickness with our first two. This baby is way different. So I was JUST getting out of the shower and my wife comes and knocks on the door to say that she HAS TO get to the toilet RIGHT NOW. And apologizes for my convenience. I run out wet and with a towel barely covering what it needs to and I stand there and get frustrated…instead of having sympathy/empathy for her. I mean, kripes, man, she, your wife, is growing your baby. She is the one that is not sleeping and can barely eat and she is still patient with you.

I have to learn compassion. It know that this will be a tough lesson, but I must learn compassion. My heart rarely feels grieved anymore. This, my friends, is not a good thing. So here is some scripture for me to reflect on and pray that God would sear this into my heart.

Micah 7:18-20 (New King James Version) courtesy of www.biblegateway.com

18 Who is a God like You,
Pardoning iniquity
And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?

He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He delights in mercy.
19 He will again have compassion on us,
And will subdue our iniquities.

You will cast all our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
20 You will give truth to Jacob
And mercy to Abraham,
Which You have sworn to our fathers
From days of old.

We constantly fail God, yet He has compassion. Of course, this isn’t to say that He doesn’t discipline in order to correct, but He still has compassion and is patient with us. If we don’t learn the first time, He guides us along that path again.

Thank you, God for never giving up on me. I know that if I were in Your position I would have given up on me a long time ago. God change my heart and make it pliable…make it full of compassion and forgiveness. Amen.