Ugh.   I hate that facebook has the ability to ruin my day.  It seems that at least once a week, somebody posts some warning or story or update or call-to-ban-something-else that ends up in my news feed that lacks critical thinking and common sense.  The interior argument gets stuck in my head and I have a hard time functioning the rest of the day because I’m so irritated with the absurdity.  Here’s my attempt at exorcising my “demons of frustration”.

Halloween: opportunity to celebrate and encourage community, fellowship, dressing up, make believe, playing silly games, free candy, joyful childhood?  Or too literally dancing with the devil?

Let’s see, if we’re truly worried about the taint of its roots in pagan rituals and celebrations, than you need to get rid of Christmas and Easter, too.  And Valentine’s Day.  And you better not be teaching your kids to say “God Bless You” when somebody sneezes.  Because that’s basically practicing voodoo by trying to ward off the demons and spirits that are out to get you and have an opening when you sneeze.

If you’re trying to get your message out to people who don’t share your belief system,  you sound like a kook and you’re not convincing anybody.  There. I said it.  You want some truth? There it is.   We’re talking about candy, costumes, games and visiting your neighbors’ for Pete’s sake!  Nobody cares or even knows about the pagan symbolism of traditional Halloween decorations until you start talking about it.  It was all about fun until you started trying to make it scary.

And while we’re on the topic of fear:  let me suggest that getting yourself (and trying to get others) into all a tizzy about all this could very well be an indication of weakness of faith.  If nothing else, it’s coming from a position of fear.   You’re giving Satan and his minions way more credit than he’s due and not exhibiting a belief that God is bigger and stronger than anything the bad guy’s  got.  Consider:

1 John 4:16-18

16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

No fear in love.  Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.   If you’re afraid of the devil and ghouls and ghosts and witches, you’re not trusting that God can protect you and your kids (who just want candy).  If you’re afraid God’s not going to be happy that dressed your kid up and went out and talked to your neighbors and got your kids free candy and/or welcomed little neighbor kids into your home and put a smile on their faces with treats, then not only are you just being loony, you’re fearing punishment.  ”The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Finally, consider as well: Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Which scenario sounds more like overcoming evil with good?:

-Dressing up, eating candy, playing make believe,  laughing at spooky decorations or costumes that startle us, ringing the doorbell of a neighbor and taking “trick or treat” as an opportunity to introduce yourself, extend a hand of friendship, build community, take opportunity that happens once a year when people expect and welcome the doorbell ringing and strangers smiling at their door…

or

-Researching all the pagan symbolism of traditional Halloween decorations and customs, telling friends, neighbors, (facebook), to watch out for the devil and explaining all the symbolism they didn’t know or care, turning off your porch light and prohibiting your kids from costumes and trick or treating because of demonic forces they’ll be” implicitly celebrating”…

Now that we have that settled, we need to focus our efforts on burning all the books about that Satan worshipping 4-eyed spawn of hell warlock, Harry Potter….

The idea of blogging hasn’t even crossed my mind lately.  I feel really busy, but when I think about it, I can’t really say that I am overly so.  That doesn’t mean I’m not more busy than I prefer.  (I am in no danger of ever being a workaholic…) Mostly,  I think that I’ve realized and accepted that I can’t multi-task to save my life.   Hence,  random bulleted list of stuff as I can think of them:

• Been reading lots of Young Adult Fiction so as to model for my students.  Recently finished World War Z which is written as a bunch of interviews of people from all over the world and their experience surviving the Zombie outbreak, epidemic, and ensuing War with the undead.  I thought it was pretty interesting even though I would never characterize myself as a zombie fan.  I also think it would fly over the head of most of my 8th graders.  Currently about half way through Catching Fire which is the sequel to the book, The Hunger Games.  HG was easily the best new YA novel I’ve read in a long time and Catching Fire seems to be just as engrossing.  My two beefs with it are the adolescent internal dialog of the main character as she tries to figure out who she’s really in love with (gag me with a twilight novel) and secondly that it’s a trilogy with the 3rd novel coming out in a year.  I don’t know why this annoys me so much.  Somehow I feel like all these YA novels have so many sequels just to try to make more money even though I know that HG was conceived as a trilogy.  Maybe I just hate having to wait.  Oh yea: that’s it.
• I’ve done next to nothing musically as of late, although I’ve found myself having some lyric ideas and thinking that I should sit down and work on something.
• Was asked to play piano on a singer/songwriter’s recording a few weeks ago.  Ending up spending way more time at the studio than expected, but helped edit the guys song into a much stronger piece.  Artist was open and appreciative and felt like  we made it stronger too.  I felt good feeling like I could still make valuable contribution.
• I’ve been particularly frustrated at school for a couple of reasons.  Although I may have the best behaved, friendliest group of students yet, I am frustrated at their refusal to use their own brains to think for any reason whatsoever.   I find myself at a loss.  I can do everything I possibly can to teach them, but if they don’t try or think, I can’t make them.  I’ve threatened their grades, I’ve talked to parents, I’ve tried to encourage, I’ve even pleaded a little.  Not interested.  They’re sweet kids, they just don’t care at all.  We just took our 2nd big test of the 9 weeks.  I’m more depressed than ever.   Secondly, I am crazy overwhelmed with all the team building/strategy/edu-speak/documentation that’s being asked of us by upper administration.   I don’t know how many times it’s been recognized that all the things they’re wanting us to talk about are things that we already do and our school’s test scores show it.  So, everything we’ve been doing has been simply codifying, naming, initializing, and documenting the success we’ve already had.  So, how/when do we have time to actually do the things we were already doing to keep being successful?  I appreciate my principals so much because I feel like they’ve been standing up for us a lot.  I just feel like the pressure is mounting everywhere.  It’s just odd that I have great students, great faculty, great principals, AWESOME schedule this year, and feel more overwhelmed and frustrated than I have ever felt before.
• Mostly, I just find myself wanting to hang out with Ivy.  She’s getting so big and I just hate missing time with her everyday when I’m at school.   At the same time, I’m so thankful for the job I find myself in, it sure would be nice if the paycheck went a little farther.
• I’ve been trying (rather unsuccessfully) to stay away from topics of politics and religion.  Both just seem to get me frustrated and I can’t do anything about them.
• My good friend, Kevin and his son came this weekend for the AR vs. Auburn game and spent the night with us Saturday night.  He’d had a long week and was pretty tuckered out, but it was a lot of fun to see them.
• With all the meetings/deadlines/documentation/etc. being asked, I was just thinking on Friday on my way home from school that I really need some kind of PDA to help me with calendar issues.  I have an old pda, but I really like using my google calendar for everything and I wanted something that I could sync with google directly. Lo and behold, Tyler (Kevin’s son), and I start talking about his itouch.  I’d been rolling the idea around in my mind for awhile.  I really liked the idea of some kind of hand-held web portal, but I’m too cheap to think about the iphone and the $30/mo data fee.  However, I knew that the itouch was basically the iphone without the phone (and fee) and that it still had wifi.  Most everywhere I am at has wifi (they keep promising us that our campus is supposed to be completely wifi soon.)  Then, Tyler started telling me about the google sync that he uses with his itouch….game over.   I still consider it spending a dark force point for buying anything apple, but I found somebody on Craigslist that gave me a really good deal.  I picked it up on Sunday afternoon and have had fun playing ever since.

“Christians, sadly, tend to believe more in the negative power of sin than they do in the redemptive power of Christ in the lives of His people.”

This quote perfectly reflects my frustration with the way I feel most Christians live their lives.   If what you are doing (or not doing) is motivated by fear, you’ve got it wrong.  period.

I found it in an article on Home Schooling at Burnside Writers Collective here…

I have many friends (some close and some not as close and some not as close as once were) who are going to be shocked and appalled that I would put up this link.

The 9/12 Marchers and the Far Right Subversives

Again, I don’t believe that I am anywhere near a position or vantage point where I feel like I could accurately comment on national policy most of the time.  I have heard others argue that  Frank Schaeffer has proven himself to be an untrustworthy narrator of his experience and commentator of current events.   However,  I am convinced that Frank Schaeffer has a much better vantage point from which to accurately perceive and understand and comment on what’s going on with the wackos from the far right that I am hearing about constantly.

And yes; I said wackos.   And I am getting more and more freaked out by them every day.

Please understand:  although I’ve never stated affiliation with any political party, I would have considered myself VERY conservative as recently as 10 years ago.  I voted for GWB…twice! (albeit with great reservations the 2nd time…)  The idea of big government does not excite me.  Ginormous national debt is very troubling to me.

But willful belief in disinformation, proclamation and belligerant support, whether in words or actions, of that disinformation scares me much more.

I don’t think, or at least I don’t know that I know any of these far-right nutjobs that would one day walk into a church on Sunday morning and shoot a man because he provided women with abortions.  But, I am bombarded, it seems like daily, with msgs from friends and acquaintances all around me who are on different altitudes of that same slippery slope.

Birthers in my inbox, various/numerous chain emails about Obama’s “secret muslim faith” or whatever, calls to ban this or that corporation because they support “the gay agenda”, buying up ammo as soon as Obama was elected because they were afraid he was going to take away their guns, warnings of the “death panels” in the health care plan, pulling children from public school because of the fear of indoctrination (when really it’s that they want the children at home so they can be indoctrinated properly),  saying “I just don’t trust the guy…” with no reasoning (other than subliminal racism), hearing statements like: “I’m just surprised he’s even made it this long.  I didn’t think he’d make it a year…”,   ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???!!!!   (I am so thankful my school didn’t have class the day of the President’s school address and I didn’t have to deal with that BS…)

Just so you know, I am a Christian.  I am a very imperfect follower of Jesus.  But I also believe that all of the things that I just listed (and numerous other things) are NOT Christian and are NOT Godly and are NOT patriotic.  So, quit assuming that I agree with you.

It was one thing when fellow Christians assumed I agreed with them on whether or not it’s ok to read Harry Potter.  This is way scarier.

out loud and in public (but H usually gets an earful….) This is mostly because I think that too many people open their mouths when they have little to no idea what they’re actually talking about.

And again, McLaren comes to my rescue with more eloquence, grace and knowledge than I can muster:

A plea for a new generation of Republican leadership (click link)

This quote gets to the issue of why I can’t sit quietly on this one.

“The Obama administration needs a worthy loyal opposition, just as any group in power does, and the president himself often says so. But people who shout “hitler, nazi, socialist” don’t constitute a worthy loyal opposition.  Nor do the birthers. Nor do the nostalgics, who seem to keep waking up in the 1980’s year after year, quoting Ronald Reagan.”

I told H last night:  I’m so tired of the demonization of “the other side”.    The fact is, I don’t think that either side has it completely right and to completely and blindly align myself and label myself with one political side seems stupid to me.

All I want is to be on the other side from stupid.

And it’s been exactly a month since my last blog entry.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Our Japanese exchange student, Saori, only has one more week with us.  She’s fixing us dinner tonight.  This afternoon,  Holly and Ivy were still napping.  I asked Saori if she missed Japan and was excited to be oing home soon.  She said that she wanted to stay here and that didn’t want to go back.  She said that she was worried about her host family, but that we’ve been very nice and that it’s been a good experience.  That’s nice to hear.  We’ve had fun with her, too.  I don’t know what Ivy is going to do when she leaves.

School has been good.    I haven’t said it out loud very much cuz I feel like I’m going to jinx it in some way.  It’s crazy that we’ve only been in class something like 10 days and I already feel way behind.  I lucked out with a fantastic schedule this year.  Another big plus for teaching in PG is that I get two days for Labor Day instead of just one.

Big deal on the horizon is Bill Mallonee is coming on the 17th.  Still trying to figure out how to get people to the show.

Ok. blog. done.

Ok, I didn’t wear the shoes (although I’m quite certain I owned some very similar at some point), and i can’t say I had all the fashion sense, but the character of Duckie cut way too close to the bone for me.  (I did wear a bolo tie with my tux to Sr. prom-see pic below….)  I really wanted to be Ferris Bueller.

The truth of the matter was that I really didn’t have the best high school experience.  I was from a tiny town in NW Kansas.  I wasn’t into sports.  I had allergies and didn’t do well on the farm or in the field.  I liked to sing.  I liked to read.  I played piano and liked synthesizers and Depeche Mode and Erasure more than Whitesnake or Cinderella.  I was skinny.  I cared how my hair looked.  You can go ahead and guess the label I got stuck with.

Of course, what the hayseeds didn’t realize is that I have always liked girls.  I know that most boys hit this stage in their development where girls are suddenly very interesting and not so gross anymore.  I never hit that stage because I’ve always liked girls.  While other boys were wrestling in the dirt and learning baseball stats, I was getting about a 6 year head start at figuring out how to spend time with girls.

Weirdly, I have always romanticized high school; even when I was in it and it wasn’t the best.  John Hughes gave me stories to hook my ideas into.  Like I said, I was Duckie.   I liked to think I was a little bit the nerd in Breakfast Club (without the drivenness and i would never take shop anyway…) who had the brains and reflection to give words to others’ feelings.  I was Keith in Some Kind of Wonderful, who could show the girl what she was missing if she’d give me a chance.

Anyway, thank you, John Hughes.  It’s silly, but your movies always make my favorites list.

Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club

(5,000 points and bragging rights to whoever can name the obscure reference the title of this blog came from!)

I so rarely remember any of my dreams, I thought I needed to share this.

I was hanging out at Daniel Lanois’s studio with Daniel Lanois.  (If you don’t know who he is; shame on you.  He’s an amazing musician/songwriter/producer best known for producing such albums as The Joshua Tree and So by Peter Gabriel.  Thanks to Rustin for turning me on to his solo music.)  Of course, I don’t know Daniel Lanois personally, but in my dream, his personalilty and the way I was talking to him was kind of an amalgam of two Nashville producers that I know.

We were pretty much just hanging out, listening to music, discussing songs and production and I said something about how all of the records I’d recorded so far, I felt like I’d found the best producer for my money/songs/project/circumstance I could find at the time.  But, I also knew that I’d not done anything to that point that could compare with what Daniel Lanois could do with me and my music.

Daniel’s response was as gentle and as nice as he could be while it was obvious that he was trying to be honest and just tell me the truth.  He told me that what I’d done so far was good, but that I might need to accept that maybe the producers I’d worked with were the best I should hope for.  Essentially saying he didn’t think he saw the potential in me and my music to feel compelled to work on a project with me.

He was very kind and I appreciated his honestly, but I was still very saddened and a little crushed.

At that point, we were all supposed to go to this debut performance at this little theatre coffee shop.  A friend of mine had taken all of my songs from Gypsy Heart and fashioned them into this 1 man musical/operetta/review that he was performing for the first time with a keyboard player.  I was not looking forward to it.  I thought the whole idea was kind of dumb and I was afraid it would be really cheesy.  Not to mention, when I agreed to let him use my songs, I had no idea I’d be going to see it the first time with Daniel Lanois, who’d just told me my music was good, but he didn’t think it would ever be great.

So, we went to the show.  And it was AWESOME!  By the time the lights came up, I was in tears, Daniel Lanois was standing and clapping with tears streaming down his face.  He turns to me and tells me “I get it.  I’m so sorry.  Forget everything I said before.  I’d listened to all your past records and didn’t really pay close attention to Gypsy Heart when I listened to it before.  Please, I would be so honored if you’d let me work with you to produce your next record.”

Then, I had to go around the corner because I had a taste test.  It was at a little bar and it was a mixed drink, so there were all these ditzy sorority girls hanging out in this little salon. They handed us each a drink.  I said it was good.  And then everybody started to leave except a bunch of the sorority girls because they’d ordered more drinks.  Then, I was confused and didn’t know if I was supposed to pay for the drink I had or if I was getting paid for the taste test.

it was a dream…

A writer/movie critic that I enjoy reading, Jeffery Overstreet, challenged his readers to consider favorite movies from ‘99.  He posted a list of all the movies released that year, so it took me awhile to figure out what even came out then.  I posted this on his website in the comment section and thought it might make a good blog over here.

What would make your list?

He said top 10. This is Top 10 in no particular order.

Magnolia- still love it. Began my love of P.T. Anderson and wish that he’d get movies out more frequently.

The Matrix- First movie was beyond awesome.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace- I’d been waiting 15 years for that movie and when the fanfare began and creeping intro began, I cried like a baby. It wasn’t till much later that I realized just how awful that kid playing Anakin was and how JarJar was really just annoying. I can’t escape the fact that the lightsaber dual between Darth Maul, Qui Gon Jin, and Obi Wan was the payoff for 15 years of waiting to see Jedi knights kick ass.

Fight Club- Edward Norton rocks and this movie was twisty and creepy and interesting even though it was stylized to death. The ideas in this movie stuck with me long after I got out of the theater. Oh yea, and Meatloaf? Fugettaboutit…

Cider House Rules- I love John Irving and this was his redemption for leaving his masterpiece to the idiots who came up with the crap can that was Simon Birch. This was a great adaptation of the novel with pitch perfect casting and stellar performances all around.

Office Space- Wasn’t really successful until it played on repeat on USA channel. I liked it and was quoting it after the first time I saw it in the theater.

Notting Hill- I’ve got to get one romcom on here and this is one of the best. This was sweet and funny and I loved the way it charmed American audiences with its very British sensabilities.

The Sixth Sense- M. Night hit it out of the park the first time out. Maybe he hasn’t reached this masterpiece since, but this was a fantastic movie. I will never forget the way I literally sucked in my breath when it dawned on me at the end. Perfect setup and execution.

The Green Mile- Love Stephen King.  Love Tom Hanks.  Great adaptation.

Toy Story II- Unbelievable that Pixar pulled off a sequel that is as amazing as the first. They get it: story, story, story. Why can’t the rest of Hollywood figure it? They keep trying to feed us swill the likes of Transformers II (and I)? We’ll see if Pixar can do it again.

Honorable Mentions:

Election- Didn’t see this in the theater and don’t think I saw it in ‘99. Especially insightful to me since I grew up in the Midwest.

American Beauty- Never saw it in the theater and saw it a couple of times before I decided I liked it. I seem to recall that Jeff and I disagree about this movie which surprises me. It’s not perfect, but there are a couple of things in it (voice over during the dancing bag) that make it fantastic and redemptive to me.

Dill Scallion- Never even heard of this movie until I caught the last half of it on a free Starz weekend.  I wish somebody would release it on DVD so that I don’t have to worry about my (used) VHS being destroyed.  I quote this movie all the time and nobody has even heard of it.   I also wish somebody would release the soundtrack (all songs by Sheryl Crow!)  Hilarious!

Being John Malkovich

“If you really want to bless the Lord and pour out your love on Him [worship],  he has told us how to do it….’In as much as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.’ (Matt. 25)”  -Mother Theresa

Apparently, Mother Theresa said these words to some one whose area of expertise is supposed to be “worship”.   The bio blurb of his credentials said that he’s a songwriter, producer, publisher of “worship” music.  He’s an author who has written books with a name like “The Adventure of Worship”.  He’s a “worship teacher” for some organization called “worship schools”.

Whatever.  I’ve never heard of the guy.   But it really bothered me to think that Mother Theresa’s words were so revolutionary to this person who’s supposed to be an “expert” on worship.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the most dissappointing part of that article.   There were 4 comments at the bottom of the page.  3 of the 4 articles were jackasses informing anyone unfortunate enough to read their BS that Mother Theresa’s beliefs in general was not accurate and that she taught a “false gospel”.  Let me give a short quote from each of these idiots:

“We need to minister to the poor, but if we fail to give them the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, we have oppressed them worse than anyone.”
“Have you researched, on your own, the Catholic Church and it’s core and true beliefs? Misinformation is the reason we are separate. Jesus weeps at our separation…”
“M. Theresa, humanly speaking, did a lot to help the suffering of the lepers of Calcutta, but by teaching a false gospel she condemned her hearers to a Christless eternity. “

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

If anything, Jesus weeps at your ridiculous, asinine, pharisaical blather.  Shut the frak up already!

I really need to read The Myth of Certainty again…