The Ankle

So It's not pretty, but it's mostly functional. I have a definate limp, and going down stairs is pretty awful, but other than that it's just really tight and stiff. I will say that I totally undervalue walking most of the time...

Fall Weekend

Today I came home from fall weekend. This year we went to Camp Kern in Orgonia with 3 guys and 8 girls. Most of them have been coming around long enough to have all been to either camp, fall weekend or both before, but as we stopped having club for the rest of semester for lack of vision among our group we thought this would be a really good opportunity to re-inspire a desire for Young Life to be a tool for sharing Christ.

The weekend started with Wyoming's win in the quarter finals of the State Football Playoffs. That makes them regional champs! It was a great game that Wyoming really dominated expect for poor clock management and turnovers in the red zone. I think the school they played might have had 150 yards of total offense in the game, and their only scoring drive had a huge freak play. Ultimately the better team won, which, yea for us, was Wyo. They next play on Friday night a Dayton's Welcome Stadium (worst field name in all of sports...possibly). The Stadium was/is really awesome though. There is a ton of parking and the field is really nice. The only drawback is that the stands are somewhat distant from the field because of a track, and if it's the same announcer as last week he sounds like he's calling a pirates game on a 110 degree day in august. It was a lot of fun being at the game Friday in part because as they get further in the playoffs a ton of graduates are coming back to see the games and I've had the opportunity to catch up with a lot of them. I think in their eyes being there still in a way adds credibility to the time I spent with them when they were in high school. So the football game ended at about 10PM in Dayton. We left ASAP and arrived about 10 minutes before club started (perfect).

For me it was sort of added fun because the speaker was a guy named Randy Nickels (spelling?) who was the guy who spoke at Champion when I was on Work Crew. Since then he has been running all over the world (Africa & Scotland) starting Young Life and sharing Christ with communities there. He was a pretty good speaker as far as speakers go. he didn't use and illustration really, but I still thought that his presentation of the gospel was clear and understandable. I felt like talking with kids about stuff (granted we took Christians) was easy and productive for their faith and fellowship as well and their vision for what Young Life could be if they wanted to invest in it. I guess like anything else though it's easy to be excited about things while they are happening and hard to follow through went the payoff is far away. All in all though, I felt good about the way things went. Maybe the focal point of the weekend, or at least the part I will most remember happened Saturday afternoon while all the guys were playing soccer. I jumped up in the air and came down wrong on my left ankle. I sprained it pretty badly and was rolling around writhing in pain for a few minutes (waiting for the hurt to go away). After a couple minutes I had some ice, and I was sitting on the field with my ankle resting on the ice. A group of people were standing around (like people do when someone gets hurt) and out of nowhere this football comes on a line drive right through a gap in the semicircle of people standing over me and blasts me right in the face. I guess these other kids where kicking field goals about 20 yards away and shanked one right at me. At the time, it hurt a lot (amazingly no one laughed) but it was really funny thinking about it now. Unfortunately my ankle is jank and will be for a while. I can walk, but it's not comfy for sure. Hopefully I'll be able to get my boots on tomorrow otherwise I have to go see a doctor...my work is sort of dumb about missing a day.

In spite of getting hurt & sleeping on a sheet of plywood I did have a really great time, and I think it was good for everyone who went. Now I am just looking forward to working a little and eating a lot this week as well as the STATE SEMI FINALS on Friday!

Fall Break

Tonight I officially washed my hands of my first term at Cincinnati State. I thought I was done last night, but one of my teacher called me tonight to ask for something he lost; I had to do about 12 seconds of work attaching a file to an email and that was that. My grades aren't online until tomorrow, but I unofficially collected 8 credits worth of A's this fall to add to my ever lengthening transcript-and that was just early fall. I am currently registered for 8 credit hours starting on this coming Monday, however there is a strong chance 6 more get added to that pending a pre req exemption from a professor. So 14 credits...Mondays and Wednesdays 6-9 and Thursdays 5-11, and then there's some sort of online class (unknown difficulty). Don't go back you read it correctly, I have class until 11 PM on Thursday nights until early February. With that in mind if you want anything from me on Friday you might be better served waiting a day. I really don't know how that's going to go to be honest. Maybe they're bluffing in the course description and it'll end at 10 every week, maybe it'll be like this quarter and run over a half hour some weeks and end really early others, maybe it'll snow a foot and get cancelled, or snow a foot and meet anyways; I'll just have to wait and see. As far as school is concerned I like it better than anything I ever did at UC. Not only do I see a finish line with an actual job in mind for the first time ever, but Nati State is actually a better run school. It's as if the people there actually want me to succeed, not just at school, but in life. They want me to do well. So being there until after bedtime might not be so better under those circumstances.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, "Self, when is he going to hang out with high school kids?...when is he going to hang out with me?" Well it's not as bad as it sounds. I have some down time at work sometimes where I'm surrounded by engineers who also have occasional down time. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good chunk of whatever hw I have done there. Additionally I still have Tuesday nights and the weekend free to do whatever. I am just going to have to be disciplined with my spare time and actually be productive when I need to get something done. The other super perk I have is that when I get home at 11:30 I won't have to worry about finding dinner because momma will already have something for me. I don't even care if that makes me lame. Oh, as an added bonus, should I wake up late one day I don't have to go to work because they won't let me in if I'm even 1 minute late. In that case I'll have even more time to hang out.

I am praying now this week that the end result of all this business will be increased faithfulness by me. I'm not kidding myself too much here, I know it's going to be rough, but I also know when things are hard for me it makes me more faithful. For one thing I'll have less time to be an idiot. My buddy Joe is preparing a talk on the person of Paul and it got me thinking, he doesn't strike me as a guy who just hung out a lot. I think solitude and down time are important, but maybe not to the extent I am generally accustomed too. having a lot to do is conducive to living life with a sense of urgency, the key is to focus that urgency on Christ. I hope that I will become more dependant on His work and His presence this quarter, especially during the holiday season when I have such an increased opportunity to witness to my family. If you feel like praying for me pray for these things; rest, intelligence, opportunities with friends/family and incite into those opportunities, and faithfulness to what He has called me too.

Stink

Tonight I have to be in class INSTEAD of going to Young Life. The truely unfortunate part is that for the next 45ish minutes we are going to go over a quiz that I got a 106% on. After that we may or may not go over some material that I need to be here to learn, I don't know which yet. Which brings me to my point, STINK! I would much rather be listening to Alli (spelling?) talking about Jesus than Steve talking about analyzing series parallel circuits. I guess for now faithfulness means doing the thing you don't want to do in the short term so that you can get the things you want in the long term. I thought in the meantime it might be good to update my blog that I so rarely find time to post on.

I have been stuck in Philippians lately. I think it might be my favorite epistle. There are so many things that come out to me in this letter. When I read it I tend to think of Paul as this legendary guy who I could never live up to or be like, and yet somehow the call to Paul is the same call on me; "Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ" (I love how he starts with only). The big challenge in this for me right now is to be encouraging to the people around me. I don't say challenge in the difficult sense, though sometimes it is, but in the this is the field this calling gets played out for me on sense. Paul starts his letter as with many others by saying "Grace and Peace to you" which I think can often times come in the form of encouragement. After all Paul is constantly encouraging people on to faith. So that's what's rolling around in my head.

And now I need to pay attention for a little bit. And possibly leave...

Dulce Venganza

This year I have been watching Hard Knocks and it's made me exceptionally excited about the Bengals this season. Do I think they can make the playoffs? It's possible. I can deffinately see them winning 9 or 10 games. If that's enough for the wild card they'll get in. The division is a wrap for the Steelers already. Their D looked way tough last night. Unexpectedly I am becoming a huge Ocho Cinco fan again. I used to love him, then I didn't like him and thought he might go, and now I'm back. He is the funniest player in the league and looks like he might have the talent to back it up. I started following him on twitter (I just got it this week), and already he is cracking me up. Today he posted this picture with the comment "Let the fun begin." I think he is going to play really well this year because of the constant attention he is getting on Hard Knocks and just in general being more in the spotlight than ever. Tonight I am going to try to catch the end of Leadership after I get done with laundry here then it's off to Norwood for the Wyo game, then to the Buehler's for the weekend. Tomorrow I and super siked to be going to my first UC saturday game. It's at 7:30 against South West MO State. Should be a blowout! Also tomorrow night OSU is going to lose another game against a ranked non-conference opponent, if it weren't for that Texas game a few years ago it'd be a really long time since they won one of those. I am just wondering at what point int he game the announcers are going to say "boy, this really reminds me of last year when these teams played..."

This just in...game not blocked out Sunday! I'm out.

Wet, Very Wet

At a power plant things are manufactured to last. It just makes sense to build stuff that is going to hold up over time, especially when not having it working can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour. When things are new everything runs like a dream, like it was designed, and everyone wins. Over time, however, even "industrial strength" components fail. Either from misuse, overuse, or not using it at all equipment breaks down. In a corrosive environment even things made out of the most durable of materials fail; wire insulation gets brittle and cracks off, terminal strips rust away, pipes explode, motors burn up...It's no surprise that these things happen, after all, it's not like people haven't seen it before. The funny thing is that in spite of this awareness everyone is seemingly still caught off guard when things break. With most things, you find out its broken when you need it most, but with other things it's like getting hit by a meteorite while reading your morning paper. Today became just that sort of day when a wire in a "deluge system" shorted out setting off, well, setting off a deluge. Nothing like running up 12 stories of steps in the middle of a "deluge" only to find no signs of a fire (I think that guy's still pissed). Of course you can't turn off the water to go investigate the fire because you might get there and find a fire... Today I got to fix a wire in a dripping coal tower, and all the while I was thinking about how ironic it was that they never thought to replace that wire occasionally considering the abuse it takes. Think 23 years hanging in the open air around hot vibrating equipment, often getting wet and baked in an alternating fashion and never once being replaced. I think I'd snap too.

Afterward (while I was taking our company van to get gas and a car wash) I thought about how my faith is like that. There are aspects of my faith that I set up years ago and think I'll just always have that if I ever need it. So I don't work on it or think about it for a long time until something explodes. Sometimes it's internal, sometimes everyone gets to see, in both cases it involves pain and some dirty cleanup work. Then on top of that there's the temptation to just put a bandaid on it and limp along with things still half broken instead of putting in a little more time and effort now to fix things right. What I think this boils down to for me is consistency, or more accurately inconsistency. Consistantly choosing to work on things, choosing to search things out that might be about to explode and ruin everything. I think this is what David is talking about when he prays "Examine me, O Lord, and try me; test my mind and my heart." It's healthy to get a checkup from the "great physician" even when everything seems fine. For the record, this is not how I roll most of the time. I'm all about waiting for the outward sign of the internal cancer. I think it takes a humility I don't currently have within me to daily go before the Lord in a posture of needy brokeness. More likely I use the Lord like a pez dispencer of grace. I don't do regular maintanence, I just repair the things that are already broken. I to often wait to call on the Lord until I feel like I need Him (I know...I know).

I don't know how this ties in just yet, but I have spent the last week reading and rereading the book of Joel. In it's own agrairian way it's a miniature gospel tucked away at the end of the Old Testament. Here are some exscripts...

1:6-7 "For a nation has invaded my land, mighty and without number; It's teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has made my vine a waste and my fig tree splinters. It has stripped them bare and cast them away; their branches have become white."

2:11-13 "The Lord utters His voice before His army; Surely His camp is very great, for strong is he who carries out His word. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome, and who can edure it? "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments." Now retuyrn to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and relenting of evil."

2:25 "Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent amoung you."

2:28 "It will come about after this that I will pour out My spirit on all mankind."

2:32 "And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered..."

I started to think of the different kinds of locusts as the different kinds and consequential effects of sin in my life. Ultimately these took away a great deal of my life, and if allowed would come and do it again. The "very awesome" part of the story is that God not only takes away my yoke of slavery to sin and restores me to health, but He also "pays me back for the years lost." I guess what I have been awed by these last few days is the redemptive depth of God's power and grace, and how it fits with my own irregularity, my own inconsistency. I think there are some aspects of God's work in our lives that are easier to point to than others; Several times He lists qualities in scripture that we should grow in over time, but some are more hidden. One I have found recently is that walking with the Lord over time is making me more consistent, more dependable, more reliable. I'm not saying I don't have a long way to go, but these are qualities He has and as we walk with Him, it's Him we become like. When we look at Christ we see ourselves more accurately.

Softball

This past weekend I put together a team last minute to play in the Denny Buehler Memorial Softball Tournament. It's a benefit co-ed tournament played at Spoils Field in Green Hills; this year there were 14 teams. The two great things that happened were one, that we were able to get a team together, and two, that no matter how awful your team is your guaranteed two games. Of course my team lost our first two games making a hasty exit from the bracket, but in spite of being run ruled I think everyone had a really great time playing. It's just a wierd atmosphere were winning isn't so important (this is very easy for losers to say) as showing up and being part of the community. Almost everyone who comes understands pretty quickly that its a lot more about having a good time and raising money for a good cause than it is about winning. I think that's why you see a lot of people sticking around Saterday after they're out and even coming back Sunday. Most of the teams that participate are many time alumni of the tournament, and it seems like everyone knows everyone. I've only been coming around for a few years and I already feel like I know a lot of people. Now that it's a little less daunting I am planning on organizing a team to play every year.

This year for me maybe the best time I had was late Saterday night after all the games for the day where over. Lot's of people are left drinking beer and haning out, and a few of us were going around picking up empty cups and stuff when I looked out on the field and saw Peg and a bunch of kids running around with a tennis ball and a wiffle bat. I realize now that this group of 8-10 kids had just hung out all day and watched their parents play a game they couldn't. Now it was thier turn. So Ed, one of his cousins, and I dropped our stuff and went out and played a little 3 inning game with them. It was awesome because all of them could hit the ball somewhat if you pitched it to them enough times, then Ed, Cousin, Peg and I would just chase them around the bases making errors and letting them score. Eventually we would get the old kids out and then it would be our turn to bat. Our general policy was run until you score or you're out with a couple exceptions. I don't know at what age your priority becomes hitting and not playing the field, but these kids weren't that old yet because I think they had just as much fun chasing us as being chased. In the end everyone was a champion.

For more on the tournament visit here.