Before I was just confused with this area, now I am starting to wonder about their sanity.

I awoke a few hours ago to the sounds of pitter-patter on the gutters of my house. In winter this could mean a couple of things. Either the gutters had birds flopping around in them or it was raining.

I knew it was supposed to warm up today, highs in the Romeo area are expected to hit 50. So imagine my surprise when Kristen declares to me, “Romeo schools are closed for today.” What? Who closes schools because it is warm and rainy in January? It makes no sense.

Put this on top of another factoid. Next week the students have Monday off and half days Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I don’t want to hear any whining about homework or finals! They have all the time in the world.

The bad news for PA is that this could mean students will be bored today and want to hang out. Normally I like that but not on a Wednesday… My talk is barely in the sketch form and I have loads and load to do to get it to where it needs to be for tonight. Funny and to the heart.

I don’t think I have posted this here. But this Sunday I am preaching in “big church.” It will be a fantastic time to follow up on my last talk on making disciples. This weeks topic, get our car in gear from 1 Cor 11.

The title of today’s entry is a take off on a chapter in John Wooden’s book, I believe it is currently referenced a few time already recently.

Tuesday’s mean lots of time with my giggling gals. They meet me at 6:15 AM at the local coffee shop for a little latte and Bible Study. We’ve been slowly and methodically working our way through Revelation… As much as I like it, I kind of wish I could be done with it since inside I am already looking forward to teaching Acts next Fall! (By the way, I’m only on week two of a 14 week series on Revelation, so I better settle in!)

After school, I pick up the same crew of giggling gals for worship team practice. Today, I don’t think they even got downstairs to practice, but that’s OK with me. It’s more important that they are happy and excited about it than anything else! Contrary to most youth groups in the world, the worship part isn’t going fantastic. In fact, I am pretty sure the quality has gone down in the last few months… But the quality of the leaders is good… So that can’t be bad.

Next week are finals at the high school. For some reason, some of my students are stressed out. It’s coming from a bunch of different angles… Last year I barely heard anything about this. I fully expect the juniors to be stressed out because juniors are always stressed out over school. I wish I could lie to them and tell them that college will be easier… But the unfortunate truth is that the undergrad portion of the bachelors in 3 junior years of high school in a row followed by a cupcake year. (At least, it was that way for me!)

No news on a make-up date for my grad school class. Perhaps we all are going to get off scot free. I doubt it, but perhaps.

This is from Chuck Shepherd’s excellent column, The News of the Weird.

Least Competent People

A 39-year-old man in Chillicothe, Ohio, was hospitalized in December after an unsuccessful suicide attempt that accidentally blew his own house to pieces and did heavy damage to neighboring homes. The man had turned on the natural gas to kill himself, but then realized that other houses might be in danger, and just as he dashed to the basement to turn off the electricity, the house exploded (probably from an electrical spark) and was leveled. A month before, the man had tried to kill himself with automobile exhaust and a garden hose, but his car ran out of gas before he could die, and he then hooked up a propane tank for the same purpose, but once again, he outlived his fuel supply. [Chillicothe Gazette, 12-7-04]

Now, I’m not for people killing themselves. But this is quite a scene. This guy is the “unbreakable” of the suicide world. He tried to kill him self with his car… Runs out of gas. He tries to kill himself with his grill… Runs out of gas. You would think that if would really want to do himself in he would give up on gas-power killing him? Perhaps he would try something more conventional? No, apparently this guy was so incompetent and enthralled with going up in flames that he had to blow up his neighborhood and in the process, not kill himself.

This guy must have some hope. Three times he has come up with “fool-proof” plans to leave this planet and three times he has come up famous. Maybe he should read into that? Maybe it’s not his time to go!

For the past two years (give or take) I have been a very active member of an online community at Youthspecialties.com. That doesn’t mean in any way that I’ve been sluffing off on my duties in the office, but it has meant that I’ve found comfort, gotten advice, and given advice, and just getting to know one another.

At times the forums have been a frustration and at times they have been a joy. The “strange thing” is that it has helped develop a tremendous amount of community among these folks.

I am longing to create this with the YS forums. I know it is impossible in many ways, but I do want our website to become a content rich place where students will actually hang out. I want it to become their homepage. I want it to become an online refuge… Moreover, I want it to become a place where the curious can come and learn about us. I am naive enough to think that a good website can actually bring people closer to the Lord. That may seem idealistic, but it is the goal.

So over the last 3 days I’ve had to jump into a new forum life in order to get this site up and running.

Let’s just say, now I know what it’s like to be the forum outsider. I haven’t felt this way since I first joyed the YS forums about 2 years ago. But, I’ll just keep poking my little head in to ask some more questions until I feel like I can contribute something.

The only thing I’ve been able to contribute other than my own problems so far have been… “Oh yeah, I’m having the same problem!”

This is probably 20 times harder since I’m so unfamiliar with PHP. I feel like a complete imbecile! But I am a fast learner and I know I’ll get it all taken care of before long.

I am happy to report that Kristen and I are going out tonight. I’ve been on the home front without leaving since Thursday afternoon. (Of course, I done tons of work at home but I have been home!)

I don’t think it matters what we are doing so much as it matters that we are going out.

The charitable side of me says, “you are helping a student make some bucks.” Yeah right, the real deal is that a babysitter is well worth the cash… mom and dad need to become Adam and Kristen ever so often.

Paul (16 months) is quickly learning to use his tongue. Just a few weeks ago we were still fascinated by his simple words like “ma” and “da” and shaking his head “no” when he didn’t want something you tried to offer him.

Now, it is clear that he is trying very hard to listen to what you say and make his tongue answer back. For the most part it is still one syllable sentences. Like, “Va!” means, “Hey, it’s Violet! Can I pet you?”

Paul has also learned the value of body language in combination with his words. If he gives his cup to you and says, “juice” we all know that he wants juice. For him this has been a great relief to his frustrations. He now gets more of what he wants… Especially since he is so good at pointing to exactly what he wants and patiently waiting for you to get it right.

I am sure there is a tie in with this observation to the spiritual life. My best guess would be that of baby believers. They know what they want, they know what they are feeling. But often times the find it impossible to express something in the “right Christian language.”

Perhaps this is merely a reminder of how important it is that we, as believers, learn to speak the language of the new believers instead of the other way around. So in the regard the illustration falls apart.

As of right now, I have been working on the website since 9:00 AM. That’s about 10 hours too many if you ask me. I have a couple of little things to finish up and then it’s off to the rest of my day… or what’s left of it.

The good news is that the site is up and it looks good. I’ll be 100% happy with it once I get the menu issue resolved. I get the idea that this is a large scale problem though as it seems to be the talk of mambo-ites.

More on this later I am sure.

For the last few days I have increasingly fallen in love with the idea of launching a CMS based website that I can easily update and maintain from anywhere I have access to the internet.

This took about 2 days of fiddling with and trying to do it on my own, but eventually I broke down, spent a little more coin, and got it done.

This is a massive change since it will allow students to add content and comment on others content.

There are still loads of bugs to work out, but so far I love it. Even thought I am using a basic template, it looks pretty sweet.

In the past few days it’s become apparent that my once “private domain” where I could journal freely with only the private eyes of people whom I’ve invited has now been visited and commented on by people from the church.

Thanks to the power of Google, some people got bored and found this little place. So in breaking ranks I am changing my audience of All Blogs for just this one post. This post is directed at you kind folks who are visiting and searching this thing out of curiosity.

This note is for you… I’ll repost it every so often as a reminder.

When this came to my attention I had two initial reactions. First, I did move the blog. Back in early November I had an entry called anonymity in which I openly wondered if I should make the blog completely private so that no one would find it or if I should just make it public. I decided to just leave it as it was… But I had always meant to make it more private. Thus, I have now moved it to it’s new home and made it much harder to find. I’m sure it will be found by plenty… As the click counter continues to escalate, I have no doubt that the move to this URL was no big deal to those who want to find it. Second, I wanted to go all the way and privatize my blog, including all of it’s entries to another site altogether… Out of the public domain. (There are pay sites that have password protected blogs.

After some thought, I’ve chosen not to do this. In fact, for the last 9 months that this blog has been online I’ve written almost nothing about specific students. I have lamented and vented here about situations and frustrations, but not in a way to embarrass anyone. I’ve never mentioned names about situations… Perhaps assigned descriptive titles but nothing else.

So, moving forward there are a few guidelines I am requesting of visitors:

1. Know that while this blog is in the public domain, it is my writing exercise and it belongs to me. As the subtitle says, “these are the thoughts, good bad and random….” They aren’t messages to anyone special, they aren’t secret thoughts, don’t check here to see what Adam really thinks of you… Before blogging I journaled offline. Journaling is the practice of free thought for all who write, speak, paint, etc. (In case you didn’t know, 90% of pastors don’t write their own stuff they just buy it or steal it… But I write everything myself!) Keeping an active journal helps me categorize my thoughts, get stupid thoughts out, etc… In other words my blogging helps me write stuff for public distribution that is clearer and more articulate than it would be if I didn’t do it.
2. Unlike a lot of pastors, I refuse to keep two separate blogs. Scroll down my list of links and you will see some ministry friends who have nameless blogs. Even pastors whom I greatly respect have public blogs and private blogs. If you’re reading this one, that’s all there is. Don’t like what you read… Don’t come back.
3. Yes, I occasionally use the word “ass” in my writing. If you were to scroll through my posts, you’ll recognize it as a word I use fairly often. I’m not a prune, I’m Adam. Some may call this crass or gross that “a pastor uses such language.” Give me a break, if you knew the vices of most believers, including pastors, out there you’d realize that this is no big deal. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t gamble, I don’t do a lot of things that are common and acceptable among clergy that I know… So excuse me if I use this very descriptive and fun word every once in a while. It’s funny that those who have commented on that, I’ve heard 10 times worse come out of their mouths!
4. Keep things in context. It’s frustrating to me that some just scroll past the really good posts trying to find personal information. I know there is a lot of curiosity about me because to some I am the only “public figure” they know well. If you’re going to read my blog, please read the whole thing.
5. I rant. Get over it. Sometimes I’ll come across something in my studies or in a conversation that sends me off on a rant. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s a rant. Remember, this isn’t meant for the public domain, you’re infringing on my private space.
6. I’m a blunt person. Get over it. I’ve never been the type to sugar coat things. As I’ve matured I have learned to keep things to myself, but I tend to be pretty blunt here. If you read the whole of my comments you will notice that for every time I am harsh on a person I’ve been harsh on myself 10 times or more.
7. An agreement with my readers. By reading this, you are agreeing that you will keep this blog in context and that you won’t try to use these words against me. If you desire to destroy me, get in line. It forms to the right. 🙂