me watch bidedo

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....(breath)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...(breath)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...(breath)

Okay. What's so funny? Friday marked my last day as a full time employee at IMFT, which was not really cool with me. Yes, I was disappointed. Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, I was even somewhat hostile in feeling toward the situation and those who made the decision. But I was inevitably going to be okay. I was going to get over it. I certainly was still happy I had work, so I was just going to go along with the decision.

Today marked my first day back in outdoor surveying. So after a late night of movie watching with Janine, I woke up 45 minutes later than usual (a nice perk of the job location change) and did my usual tooling around in the A.M. for coffee and rummaging around for clothing, albeit winter clothing this time. I ended up getting out a little later than I wanted but still made it to work on time. Well, in all honesty, it was a good day. It was clear and crisp thanks to a weekend bout of windy weather, and I got to work with my old crew chief. We had a good day catching up, discussing family, politics, religion, books, and survey. We had a pretty laid back job, so there was no pressure for me in needing to remember my outdoor survey skills immediately, although I sense the transition will not be as difficult as I originally anticipated. Anyhow, we finished our job early and without any issues. We went back to the office, unpacked our gear, filled out our daily paperwork, and we were done. With the remaining time (I had to wait to discuss things with my boss) I decided to check my email. Immediately I see an email from my tool superintendent from IMFT requesting me to be back ASAP because of datums that were either missing or tampered with. One day after they didn't want me anymore. They wanted me back.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...(breath)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....(breath)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...(breath)

okay...I feel better.

So it has been quite some time since Janine and I stayed up and watched a movie together, but last night we gave it a try. We had agreed earlier in the week that we both wanted to see Blood Diamond, so we checked it out (yes, Josiah, we check out items from the library) from the library. We ended up staying up past midnight watching this movie that was okay, but certainly not great. Either way, it was fun to just relax (we only had one or two kid interruptions) and lay around without anything really going on. We might even watch another movie tonight.

Funny thing: At around 5 this morning, Andres comes waltzing into our room. I hear him shuffling (he really shuffles more than he runs or walks) around the bed to Janine's side and hear him saying, "Mami...Mami...me watch a bidedo (Andres and Juancho talk for 'video')?"

"What are you talking about Andres? It's 5 O'clock in the morning. No, you cannot watch a video. You need to go back to sleep."

"Okay, Mami," said Andres as he shuffled back to his room to go back to sleep.

So I wonder how much we as Christians want to be changed. Sometimes I sense that we are much more like those presidential candidates who say that they believe in this or that, or that they will promote change this way or that way, but when all is said and done, nothing more was done than to keep things status quo. I am pretty sure that at one time or another, many people have thought of me as simply liking to discuss change or trying to implement change for the simple notion of being different, of being edgy or whatever. But this is not the case, and this is certainly not what I am talking about. I truly wonder if people want to be transformed, to be made into something that they profess to desiring, that they really enjoy reading about (or at least they like others to think they do), or that they claim they have the inside track to becoming. I really don't think that they do want to be changed. I don' t think that we want to be changed much at all. We like how it is, the ease, the overall feeling of being accountable to no one, to nothing. It soothes us to know that we are in control, that we make the decision to go this way or that, that anything that we are compelled to do is either part of the natural order (eat, etc.) or a cognitive, perhaps even logical, decision (go to the Training Table instead of Arctic Circle to eat). It fills us with confidence to know that our next step will be this way or that way, but that, in the end, we are the ultimate deciders of our own fate. So we don't want to be transformed. Sure, we love to talk about it, to discuss our life-long transformation, to speak as if Christ's death and resurrection are somehow out there suspended in time and inapplicable to us in the here and now. We like the fancy rhetoric, the flowery poetry of our theological discussions, the empowering worship services that embolden us in our steadfastness to remain the same, to not press and be pressed on to the call to which Christ has summoned us. We choose life, not in a sense of life eternal, but life in the real sense of living for ourselves. We choose us over God. So we are left unimpressed, underdeveloped, untouched by the true life giving and life changing living water that is Christ our Lord. We are eloquent in our tongues in speaking the language of church, and we are well versed in our apologetic for our lack of growth and service: eternal sanctification that allows us to excuse ourselves and a stigma in which we would never want to even appear like we are doing works. So we fail to challenge ourselves, we fail to be challenged. We fail to challenge our community and we fail to be challenged. We fail to aspire to the call of Christ and fail to inspire those around us. We fail to recognize that Christ threw down the gauntlet when He spoke that whoever wished to follow him must lose his life, take up his cross daily, and follow. Our interpretation has made it that we only have to believe that partially, if at all, and that we can always set Jesus down like a book or a video game and move on to our more important things like work and leisure and paying taxes. We have long ago decided that we are our own gods, that we choose to worship our own desires more than to worship God, and that the best way to do that is to never be challenged, to not rock the boat, and to maintain the status quo, living in the shadows, failing to see the brightness of the Son behind us, in front of us, all around us. Forget being challenged. We love our own god-substitute, our egg beater godhood, if you will. It is so much easier, isn't it?

The Portland Trailblazers are doing well these days.
So are the Tar Heels.