I Wonder If There Will Be Swag?

This looks to be pretty interesting:

Músico a Músico announces Nashville Conference of Praise and Worshiping Arts

I wonder if they’d want X-Alt to present on how to navigate church politics?  How to re-invent yourself after you’ve been fired?  How to fit 11 people on a 15-foot stage? How to vary your service based on the congregation (for vagabond acts such as ourselves)? How to develop a thick skin, because grumpy, picky congregants are not shy?

Seriously, I’m very interested, if only as  an attendee.  To say that Nashville has a thriving praise and worship scene is an understatement.  There is some real worship going on out there, in little churches dotted across our city, if you look past the megachurches.  And even there, you can find worship. 

I’ve been in more diverse churches, diverse in every way, in the past 3 years than most people see in their entire lives.  Most people lack that perspective; I wish you could see what I’ve seen!  I’ve seen every type of worship there is; some focus on “spirit”,  some on “truth”, the best ones have a balance.  If it is Christ-focused, it’s ALL good. 

Merry Christmas To All From Shoot The Moose!

I pray that each and every one of you receives joy and peace.

You know, I’ve always swore I’d never become one of ”those people”, the ones who, when asked what they want for Christmas, reply “I don’t want anything - I’ve got everything I need.”

Well, I’ve become one of those people.

This is a weird Christmas; because of the events of the last month, we’ve been unable to go to any parties, or shop for surprises (we’ve had to be together while we shop this year), or any of the other usual stuff at Christmas that stresses us out. 

And I swear, this Christmas, with minimal (but heartfelt) decorations, and a lot of time spent just at home with one another, appears to be turning out to be one of the best ever.

Lintilla’s prognosis is good; it sounds corny, but how could I want more? Jimmy Stewart once said that Frank Capra made you pay for your happy endings.  Well, had it not been for the end of November and early December, I’d be complaining and stressed out about this crazy Christmas.

Instead, I am filled with a joy that is hard to describe.

Yesterday, at church, we dressed the kids up as much as we could without things coming to blows (Trillian is much more cooperative), and went to “big church”, the traditional service.  The tween kids were to read passages in between verses of “The Friendly Beasts”, which the little kids were singing.  All of them were adorable.

Zaphod came to his podium (our church has the two-podium setup), and read his lines flawlessly.  I was so happy, because he’s balked at doing things like this before, and I was afraid he’s say something crazy or roll his eyes in front of the entire congregation.  But, he gave me a wonderful gift by just showing how articulate he is, and not showing out for his friends.

Later came Trillian’s turn.  She stepped up to her podium, and I swear, at that moment, the sun streamed through the stained glass and bathed the left side of her face. She literally looked angelic.  Her soft, sweet voice read the lines (the hardest of the bunch) beautifully.  I was struck to the point of tears.

As she stepped down and the little kids began singing again, I looked at the cross between the two podiums, and thought to myself:

Thank you.

I am living a life I certainly don’t deserve. and have been given the gift of an even better eternal one.

I want to say that I thank God for each and every one of you.  You really are a gift that few men ever receive. 

If You See My Mind

…just drop it in any mailbox.  We’re back from the metropolis of Milton,FL.  It was a hectic, but nice Thanksgiving.  While visiting with the folks, it occurred to me:  my mom is melodramatic, my dad, morose.  I got a good dose of both. No wonder I’m insufferable sometimes.

I also realised, for some unknown reason, that I will most likely never see Halley’s comet.  It came in 1986, but I was too involved with whatever trivial nonsense was going on my my life at the time, and didn’t bother to look to the sky.  I’ll be 99 when it comes again, if I make it that far.  Somehow, it seems to be a good metaphor for life.

Tomorrow is the day we get some real answers.  Lintilla and I meet with the oncologist, and we’ll not only find out more about the nature of the cancer she has, but also answers to some of those logistical questions that we need answers to ASAP: how long will she be in the hospital?  How long do I need to stay home with her?  When can she drive again?

My job needs to know what kind of leave I’m going to need to take -and I can’t answer till I have answers myself.  Also, we’re quite stressed out over the logistics of getting the kids to/from school. We don’t think about how precariously balanced our lives are till one of the pieces gets disrupted.  I work 6-3, Lintilla 7:30-whatever.  We do this so Lintilla can drop the kids off at 7, and I can pick them up at 3:15.  Once we find out more from the doctor, we can make a plan (I hope).

We have no idea how we’re going to handle things like Christmas shopping this year.  Thank God we live in the Amazon age.

I’m expecting some bad news today about an old,dear friend of mine. 

Something funny: I bounced my tithe check.  OK, not “bounced”, we have overdraft protection, but it’s still embarrassing.  We’re not broke (yet), I just messed up the timing of paying a few things.

Anyway, in better news, I get my performance review today…

5th Grade Boys Update

I promised you I’d tell you how things went last night.  Well, I can truly say I was impressed.

Granted, only two 5th Grade boys showed up last night.  But hopefully that will change, once word gets out amongst the boys.

The pastor didn’t hold back.  It was a classroom type discussion, and an advanced one at that.  I know many adults who would have had trouble with the material.  He even discussed the two different versions of the creation story in Genesis, and the two stories of the birth of Christ in Luke, and whether they could be harmonized.

The boys were engaged and seemed to relish the idea of being taken seriously intellectually.  Keep in mind, the majority of our 5th graders (when they all show up), are advanced students.  Zaphod has taken religion classes at school since first grade.  I saw his eyes light up at the idea of getting validation from An Authority. 

This bodes well for the future.  Hopefully, the rest of the boys will show up next week, and they’ll have a lively discussion.

Can We Blame Spongebob?

It’s almost as if Kat is psychic or something.  Every time she has a “church” post at her place, it seems to dovetail with something going on at my church.  For instance, this post is quite related to something that’s on my mind right now.

Now, before I proceed, I must tell you, my church has an awesome youth program.  I don’t know what they are doing (I’m not a youth parent), but they seem to be doing something right.  In fact, the kids are so engaged, and can be so insular within their group, Lintilla and I have jokingly in the past called it a “youth cult”.  And considering what else our youth could be doing, we say that as a compliment.

But that’s not what concerns me right now.  What is really worrying me, and apparently the entire children’s ministry at BMUMC, is “The 5th Grade Boys”.  You have to say it just like that - and every time you say “The 5th Grade Boys”, it must be accompanied by scary music and lightning.  I’m allowed to say this, because one of them is mine: Zaphod.

There are no 5th grade girls.  There was a strange Y chromosone baby boom in 1996, I guess.  OK, I exaggerate.  But I can say with certainty that the few girls that age were driven off from Sunday school and Wednesday night programming by those boys.

We are changing our Wednesday night programming again, starting tonight, because The Boys have not responded well, just as they haven’t responded well to any program, since they were in the 3rd grade. 

This last time, the Boys had a point, though..  We made a mistake in trying to have a “children’s music time” on Wednesday night, bringing together all kids from preschool to 5th grade.  Needless to say, the older kids found the songs too “baby-ish”; no doubt if we had geared the music toward the older kids, we would have lost the younger kids.

But what I want to talk to you about is why they seem unteachable and unreachable.  Which isn’t true, BTW, it’s just easy to get frustrated.  This is a good, super-smart, very friendly goup of boys.  Nashville, these are your future leaders, mark my words.

At the same time, they are cynical, and snarky, and sarcastic - AND - they see right through any attempt at manipulation or child psychology.  I am convinced that they are not only smarter than my generation was at 11, they are far more blunt and smart-alecky.  We have a generation of Oscar Wildes coming up out there.

The reactionary Republican parent in me wants to blame Nickelodeon.  And, I have a little proof on my side: every time we’ve cut off Nick programs as a punishment for this or that bad behavior, Zaphod’s attitude changed for the better.  He was less smart-alecky, less sarcastic.

But then again, perhaps the programming of Nick is the way it is because that’s already the personality of its target audience, and that explains its popularity amongst tween boys (Disney has the girls).  I don’t know why it seems this upcoming generation is that way, but, at least at my church, they consider themselves too smart and too cool for any organised activity.  And we’re Methodists, so it’s fruitless to suggest we allow their church time to be unstructured.

Anyway, I know it seems like I’m being hard on these boys, and maybe I am.  We only have to get through this year, then next year, The Boys will be in our church’s youth program, which seems to be cool enough, even for them. 

We’re trying something with them tonight that I think would even meet with Koblian approval.  Our pastor himself is going to take the boys under his wing, and I am going to help.  We are, in effect, going to treat them like adults.  We are going to talk about contemporary issues (as they pertain to 5th graders), and throw a little Bible study in as well.

I’ll let you know how it goes.  I just wish we’d thought of this when they were in 3rd grade.

Happy Sanity Day!

A few weeks ago, I looked at my upcoming schedule, and I saw “Colts game” and “Emmys” on the same day. 

At that point, I was already near frazzled.  I’ve been basically working one full time and two part time jobs, along with keeping my house sort-of clean and cooking dinner.  I knew that another 16-hour day, on a Sunday no less, would probably be too much (yes, I know the Titans part is leisure, but it still involves having to be somewhere, and having to plan tailgating, etc).  I knew I’d be up late, the night before a work day.

So, I scheduled a sanity day today.

I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t take time off from work unless he’s taking a vacation.  I’ve been extremely fortunate that I don’t get sick very often.  So, I’m always at the maximum of accrued paid time off days. (My company, like most, combines sick and vacation time).  Needless to say, I’ve never taken a sanity day before.

I could get used to this.

I slept late.  I did some extra Ugly Betty blogging.  I cleaned the kitchen, while listening to the morning sports boys on 104.5 - I never get to hear them.  I went to the grocery store, and stayed under budget because there was no one there to impulse buy for.  I made lasagne.  La-freakin-sangne, on a Monday!  With homemade sauce. 

I got caught up.  It sure is nice.

Deep breath.  Now, I’m ready to do it again for another six weeks.  Back to the grind.  Work, church responsibilities, band responsibilities, blogging responsibilities are all calling, all at once.  Let the insanity begin anew!

Because I took a sanity day, I think Im ready to face it.  I highly recommend them.

A’s and B’s

The young man, a boy really, stood up during prayer requests.  I turned around to look, he seemed about the age of my own children.  Something about the tone of his voice told me this was about somethng very important to the young man.  I didn’t hear the beginning of what he said (many times prayer time is like a press gaggle, with everyone starting at once, with one coming out dominant). 

Anyway, what I gathered was that the boy had been struggling in school, mightily.  And measures had been taken to help him along, mainly giving him a quiet area to study and focus.  And he was glad to report that the changes at home had helped: in the past week he had received all A’s and B’s.

And he was in tears.

I followed suit shortly thereafter.  I was convicted, and I was a little shamed.

You see, my children have never, ever struggled at school.  A’s are pretty much the norm, with the scattered B here and there.  And yet, I never tell the kids how proud I am for this.  High academic acheivement is just something that is expected.  Lintilla and I aren’t “those” parents: think Anthony Michael Hall’s parents in the Breakfast Club.  We don’t push; at least we don’t think we do.  We’ve never doled out punshment for a C.

Yet, because we’ve set up a household where high acheivement is the default, maybe Zaphod and Trillian are under more pressure than I imagine.  I know that I unwittingly feel a tinge of disappointment when they bring home a C or less, and certainly they pick up on that?  And I don’t know how to turn that off.

All  I can do is pray to receive the grace to smile as long as good effort was put forth (it always is).  And tell the kids how proud I am at all they do in school.  And show them, somehow.

Lintilla and I have always had a parental saying “Smart is easy.  Good is hard.”  Well, that isn’t true for everyone.  We’ve been extremely fortunate, we set incredibly high standards,  and so far our kids have risen to them.  We are very lucky, indeed.

So, I want to thank that boy for standing up this past Sunday.  For his tears over his struggle, and his profound joy for gettng really good grades.  His heartfelt praise touched me in a way I cannot fully express - and taught me that I need to work on appreciating my children and their accomplishments more.

Doubts

We had our first week of Wednesday night programming at church last night, and Lintilla and I were assigned to the preschool set.  Well, actually, it turned out the kids ranged in age from two to five.  Even though the term “herding cats” comes to mind, it went extrordinarily well.

Lintilla and I learned something about ourselves last night, though.  When our kids were that age, we did it weird.  We never baby-talked to them (even when they were babies), we had an expectation that they would sit still and listen at appropriate times, we spoke to them, both in tone and vocabulary, as if they were little adults.  We rushed every stage of development: they were on solid food early, potty trained early, in full size beds at 18 months, given independent tasks at two years, and so on.  We were never harsh, we just had certain expectations, and children usually rise to expectations given to them.

Sometimes, a little shadow of doubt creeps into my head.  Maybe we did it wrong.

Maybe Zaphod’s apparent sociopathic personality can be traced to my parenting methods.  Maybe we are the reason Trillian is so quiet and seemingly unsociable.  Eventually, all the other kids will catch up to them academically, so what did we gain by rushing things?

But then again, such doubts go against my parenting philosophy: that a child isn’t a building to be designed and assembled, but a flower to be nurtured.  I still believe this, so I must ignore the doubts.

Anyway, some of the kids last night were so cute.  Sometimes I miss that time as a parent.

Breathe Again

This has been the kind of week where I just need someone to point me to where I’m supposed to be, I do what I do, then move on to the next thing.  Some of it is my fault, some of it not.

 At “real” work, I had a 3-day, all-day class that kept me away from my officle.  And this week, we had a major change to a system we developed move into production.  It’s a big deal, and some things inevitably went wrong and had to be dealt with, class or no.  Added to that, certain things are going on with certain people that caused me to make a sign to hang on my officle wall:

Drama??!!!??  There’s no drama in web development!!!!!

Why do people have to drag everyone else into their own personal drama?  It adds exponentially to the stress level of the week.

On top of this, at the exact same time X-Alt was preparing for our Wednesday night show at Belle Meade UMC.  This made for several 16 hour days for me.  But I don’t want to complain, because Wednesday night was such a blessing to me.  Go to the X-Alt Blog to see Ford’s writeup of this wonderful evening.  It was quite cathartic. 

I’ll write my own thoughts about this soon.

And then last night, I had to go to a meeting at church about our new Wednesday night children’s programming, which Lintilla and I have volunteered for.  One very cool thing came out of this: Lintilla and I will be dealing with 4-6 year olds.  I’ve been dealing with snarky, know-it-all kids for so long, It’ll be a nice change for me.  There is an extra-gentleness you have to display with kids that age, and using that approach is very good for the soul.  I think it’s something I need badly (although it means I’ll be even busier this year).

Somewhere during the week, I fed my family pork chop pie on Monday, and chicken fajitas / cheese quesedillas last night.  Tuesday ws KFC and Wednesday was church food (yum!)

In between all of this, I have posting responsibilites at Ugly Betty News, along with attempting to build a network and community around the blog (which is much harder than writing). My wife is a little wary about the fact that so far, this community seems to be populated with college-aged girls.

Speaking of UBN, I just posted my first real snarky post over there.  Let me know if you think the last line is funny.  I can’t be a fanboy all the time, and snark doesn’t come naturally to me, so I’m hoping it doesn’t fall flat.

Anyway, hopefully things will slow down enough for me to post regularly again.

That’s the Fact, Jack

My kids and I have mutally decided that if we ever started our own church, we would no longer close the responsive reading with “Amen”.  We like this better:

Pastor: In the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It’s all good.
Congregation: It’s all good.