A thought..

I was trying to get to soccer practice the other day. I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I decided to stop and get some sustenance at my friendly local Dillions Market. I walked in and grabbed a box of fruit snacks; 2 pizza lunchables and a gatorade.

As I approached the lines at the front of the market in order to pay for my items, there seemed to be a bottle neck at both of the lines that were manned by humans. Each line was filled with 4 or 5 people. I am currently reading a book called Are We Unique? which lays out the differences between human and animal intellect; the last chapter of which lays out the inadequacy of Artificial intelligence. With or without the book I still do not like using the self checkout lanes for four reasons: (1) There is nothing that beats reading the name tag of the high school girl that sacks your groceries and watching her face freak out wondering how this creeper in line knows her name; (2) I saw the Matrix (and in the off chance that robots do actually take over the world, I want to be on the ground floor so you can say that you read it here first), I think that by checking out at the unmanned lanes is simply leading to a machine dominated world; (3) Many have hypothesized that I do not get enough human interaction anyhow, so secluding myself even farther from society is not a wise decision; (4) cant beat human interaction.

Since I was on a deadline and had to be somewhere, I decided to forgo my addiction to human operated conveyor belts and lazers and go with the readily available self checkout lane. As I walked up to the only open lane (should have been my first clue). The nice lay who did the voice overs continually reminded me that I should remove all items from the scanner. After a couple minutes of muttering to myself quietly to myself, but also loud enough for the attendant to hear that the scanner was clean, I decided to move over to one of the other occupied lanes. I move to the only line with one person in it. As a quick reminder underneath the title "Self Checkout" reads the subtitle "Express lane," meaning quicker than others.

The woman in front of me scanned her items in a timely fashion. The problem lies not in her speed of scanning but the fact that she possessed a coupon for every item that she had purchased. Her need to scan each and every coupon that had not been sorted from a coupon book roughly the size of the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo is really what slowed the whole process down. Half of them didn't scan, so the number had to be typed in manually. The 10 minutes that this was going on the whole world, meaning every line around me, was all moving in the direction I desire; my line remained stuck. Luckily after all the waiting she was able to pay for her groceries. Swipe a card; nope. She started placing coins and bills into the slots until she had covered the cost. I did the math in my head. All the time wasted saved her almost 30 cents. Book the cruise and make the down payment on the BMW.

My transaction with 10 less items lasted a total of one minute: the definition of express.

The Struggles of Jr. High Ministry:

Every now and then a great idea for a series comes into my head. I feel like this series on community is a good one. The thing is, during these series there is usually one lesson that is extremely difficult to teach.

One thing I have realized in my work with Jr. High Students is that they have trouble comprehending really abstract thoughts. How do you explain faith; or hope; or love to Jr. High students?

As a matter of fact: how do you explain them to me?

Word studies just wont cut it. Most of the kids could care less that I can conjugate "elpis".

Its a different world in the days of Middle School ministry.

Long Day

No matter how much you shove into a day...there are those that expect more than can be alloted for in 24 hours.

Perfect example:

I got crap done this morning at a leisurely pace. Around 11:45 this morning my day got much more hectic. I met Josh Woodard for lunch at Taco Bell where we discussed Oasis conference and the upcoming fiasco that it will inevitably be. I look foreword to working with those guys with it, but trying to do a conference in a place that you cant visit right now is a difficult proposition; especially in this case where those that above me in the ladder have not put as much thought into it as I have and are not in as big of a hurry to get crap done.

Left that meeting to head into the church where I really didn't accomplish much; aside from plugging in my computer and answering questions that I didn't really know the answer too.

Soccer practice started at 4:00 this afternoon. I arrive half an hour early and answered more questions that I didn't really know the answer too. Coached soccer (or what at least could be mistakened for soccer if your eyes were crossed in just the right way) for a couple hours and then went to a coaches meeting.

I was told then that I needed to design a hooded sweatshirt; grade kids for soccer; and that some families had complained that I did not go to meals with the team last year. To this last one I reply that I do not have the money to spend $30 every time we have a soccer game. McDonalds, Taco Bell, or Arbys all fall into my price range and if they would like to accompany me there I will gladly oblige.

After the coaches meeting, I was supposed to stay for the parent meeting. I walked in and introduced myself and then left. The meeting hadn't started yet but my schedule was becoming ever-looming so I decided to speed along the process.

Left there and gassed up my truck. Then went to Tractor Supply to get some 2-4-D broadleaf weed killer to kill weeds at my land. Since it was going to rain tuesday, wednesday, and thursday this week tonight was going to be my only chance to spray this week, seeing as I have to Manhattan on Friday and Joplin on Saturday.

Got the weed killer and drove home. I was home long enough to go to the bathroom and pick up the chainsaw. I drove to my grandma's house to get a sprayer for my weed killer. Tested all of her sprayers and shot the bull for a couple minutes.

Showed up at the land at 7:15 and sprayed weeds until 9:00 p.m. I don't know if it is illegal to spray past dark, but I did. Don't know if it said anything about it in the directions but who knows. Found an infestation of poison ivy, bind weed, lespediza, and johnson grass up there. Killed the first three; but need to get round up for the johnson grass.

I decided to go see my girlfriend at this time. Ate a frozen pizza (my first meal since noon) and watched a half an hour of CSI: Miami. That dude who says the serious stuff all the time is a real piece of work. Left her apartment at 10:30ish to arrive home, where I was promptly questioned about: my whereabouts; my financial ability; my current agenda; my mail; and many other things, which lead me to believe that although I had a quite busy and, in the grand scheme of things, successful day, there are those who would believe that more was to be asked of me. Long Day!

God should have made the day longer like he did in Joshua 10. His was a little more action packed though!

Fredonia Rodeo

This last weekend was the Fredonia Bullriding.

It was the last chance for a while for Quentin and Colby to ride so we took advantage.

For those of you that were wondering why I was walking funny at church, in the middle clip you can see the calf shove his horn into my stomache and slam me agianst the slide gate; hence the limp and purplish bruising all over my lower back. If you don't understand what you are watching, here is what happened: when Quentin slid down on his calf, it laid down in the chute, and upon returning to its feet he slammed me into the slide gate. End of story.

It was a good time. I cant wait to get my arena built so we can practice up for next season. The Central Park Rodeo team has done well so far without the practice, so I expect great things when we can do this weekly.

Thank you very much to the Kansas Jr. Bullriders Association for all that they do. If you want to see results or a schedule of upcoming events, go to their website at www.kjba.org. It is a great organization for kids to get experience with rodeo. It is a rough stock only organization that puts on shows all over the Central and eastern part of Kansas. If you are interested in rodeoing and from around Topeka, give me a call or shoot me an email and we can make it happen.

Thanks. Great job Colby and Quentin!

A buddy of mine now

A couple weeks ago, I was in Falcon, Colorado at Rodeo Bible Camp. Most of you are shocked that they even have one of those things. Yes, it was a legitimate bible camp. Throughout the day each student would do chores; attend worship service, study and practice their rodeo events, and spend quite time with God. Looking back on the things that we had to get done; it is easy to see why I was up 5:15 or 5:30 in the morning to do chores. I wasn’t even aware that God was up at 5:15; but that hour or hour and a half before the kids were up was a blessing to my life that I would rank second amongst his blessings that week. The first was a conversation that happened between the other bullfighter and a student.

The students name was Cody. He actually wasn’t a student. About 3 weeks ago, a bull stepped on his ankle, crushing it. Goodbye rodeo scholarship; Goodbye professional rodeo. He will be out for about 2 months, until he will receive a full ankle replacement at the age of 18. At one of Grandma Jeanie’s four course dinners at camp, Cody was attempting to glorify his injury. The last statement he made was this: “If that bull had killed me that day, dying in the arena doing what I love. I am glad I knew where I was going.” Zac, the other bullfighter called him on it.

“Really?” Zac asked. Cody said yup. “You are really sure you knew where you were going?” Cody was unsure of the follow up question. “Are you positive?”

Zac was like a shark with blood in the water. Zac would be the first to tell you that he didn't always live the Christian life. One fateful night he met the God of this universe very intimately. Since that life-altering night; Zac has been on fire for God. He shoes horses now, and is one of the best farriers in SE Colorado, but there is no question about what (or should I say whom) he has really given his life too.

Cody’s faith had really been circumstance and fluff up to that point and Zac called him on it. He could tell that Cody was fooling himself with his own false bravado. Zac shared his faith with Cody that night. I sat at that table for an hour and a half without saying a word. Cody went foreword that night, was baptized later that week. Talking to him later that week, there was an assurance to his voice about where he was going and whom he was living for.

Zac is one of those guys whose passion has challenged me to rekindle my relationship with God. Funny how you go somewhere to teach and end up learning!

The Mulvane Rodeo

Colby and Quentin rode down in Mulvane this weekend as part of the Kansas Jr. Bull Riders.

Colby rode his sheep for a score of 64 points. Quentin got bucked off of his holstein calf. It was a pretty good time.

Invocation was given by Jess Pope who also took it to a steer later on with score of 81 points.

Soccer Camp

Soccer Camp is happening at Boswell Park. In a couple weeks (July 27-31st) there we will be putting on soccer camp for grades k-5. Cost is $15 and each student will receive a soccer ball and a shirt.