Extemporaneous Ramblings

My recent experiences led me to recall an interesting ecclesiastical puzzle that a friend brought up some time ago and that I have observed several times in congregations.

Case 1: The Pastor of a protestant church (I have no Catholic experience to offer) announces that he has been ‘called’ to a new church and will leave shortly.

Although people may be sad and regret the situation (or not in some cases), they do not question for a moment that the ‘call’ is devine. He is wished well and sent off into the sunset as an obedient servant.

Case 2: Same senario except that this time a congregant member of a protestant church announces that he doesn’t fit at the church for one reason or another, and is moving to or looking for a new church.

In this case, the congregant is more often than not told that he or she has been placed in that congregation by the Lord for a reason and shouldn’t ‘run away’ from problems. His or her reason is assumed to be a man-centered one and certainly not devine in origination. If they do leave, the well wishes are often grudgeing, possibly judgemental and assume that the congregant has the problem.

So, what is wrong with these pictures?

In many (I won’t go so far as to say most) instances, the pastor in Case 1 was less than happy with the current church or he wouldn’t have bothered with the new offer. The legitimacy of that unhappiness is not relevant to our discussion here. The new ‘call’ may legitimately be a better devine utilization of pastoral gifts. It may also be just a more comfortable fit for the person. In either case, no fault is attributed.

The situation in Case 2, however, present a problem. Why can a Pastor feel a calling to a new situation (even one that suits better) and it is okay, even a blessing for all, while the same move by a congregant is treated as man-centered and a problem in the congregant?

It just doesn’t wash, folks.

Is the Pastor intrisically closer to the Lord? I don’t buy it as universal. Is the congregant intrinsically farther from the Lord? Again, makes no sense.

If the congregant should be working through whatever the issues are, then the pastor should be doing no less. If the pastor can hear a new and exciting call, then the congregant can do likewise and should have equal blessing. The congregant and Pastor should be regarded with unanimity.

Now, that doesn’t mean that there is not a clear time to go, or to stay. That is alway between the believer and the Lord. The problem illuminated here is the use of man-centered values and reasons to treat two situation differently.

Just something to ponder…

A good friend, who follows my blogging drivel, dropped me an email this morning that got me to thinking (yes, I know that is a shocking revelation). He commented that a certain situation that he was aware of was, in his words, “figuring in your rants”.

He was correct, but what it made me think about was the percentage of negative ranting vs positive ranting in the blog - not only my blog, but others as well.

Yes, this stuff needs to be said, and yes, often is strikes a common cord with many others. But like media in general, we are often soooooo negative in focus. There are lots of good things, honest there is. It is certainly cathartic to rant righteously, but we also need to rant about that good stuff as well.

Christians have eternal reason to rant positively. And so we are back to my “How shall we live?” thread.

I don’t have an answer, but maybe just bearing it in mind will be a step on the road…

As we race towards Christmas, I was thinking about the sheperds, minding their flocks and their own business in the field, confronted by the Angelic Host of the Lord. They were afraid but they caught on. We too would be afraid, but how quickly would we catch on?

Sure, with our current Bible knowledge, if the Heavenly Host directly confronted us, we would hopefully figure it out pretty quickly. But what about the more subtle circumstances of everyday life. As we bustle about, faced by the Lord in our hearts at every turn, how often do we ‘get it’? How often do we live in simple faith, accepting that what we may have constructed or planned simply isn’t what the Lord had in mind, and that it is okay? More than okay, it is perfect and good.

Those plain, common, at the time crude, sheperds had something to say to us about falling on our faces before the path of the Lord and what he brings into our lives. Sometimes, many times, it seems so hard to keep that simple fact in mind.

How then shall we live?

Most readers have probably heard of weekend warrior syndrome. That is when people (mostly guys one might speculate) who are largely sedentary and out of shape go out and do vigorous activity or contact sports, resulting is physical stress injuries of one sort or another.

Well, dogs are not immune. Last night, while playing with his buddy in a local yard, my dog caught his for in a wood lattice work while jumping around, and came up badly lame.

So, after a night in the living room with him, since he couldn’t climb the stair (yes, he is 85 pounds of spoiled Doberman), we were off to the vet this morning.

Now, if YOU had this injury in our fair Canadian city, you would languish in the emergency department for 4-10 hours waiting to be looked at. If would be free, but only if your time and pain are worth nothing.

The dog was seen by his first class doctor the next morning. We waited about 15 minutes. He received a more thorough exam than you would ever get at the emergency department. His treatment not only included conventional means, but also up-to-date naturopathic therapy that is used by Olympic atheletes.

Yes, it cost a few bucks, but if you were to work out the cost vs the time, it would be cheap at twice the price if you could get that level of treatment.

Now, I am not saying the medicare is bad, or that a completely private medical system is desireable. It isn’t. But there is something fundamentally wrong with our care system, which for all intents and purposes burns while the governments fiddle.

It is amazing how some people can’t take a hint graciously, no matter how clearly and politely it is delivered.

I held a post on a volunteer (let’s say that again loudly, VOLUNTEER) board of directors for a few years. In that position people tended to suggest that ‘we’ do things, of course meaning that in the end I should do them because they were busy or whatever. The end result was months of often singular and invisible labour, lots of blame from those that didn’t actually do, and eventual burnout.

Sooooo, in the end, after a few years of service, with the beginnings of stress related health problems, I politely resigned.

Although some were most gracious, as in “sorry to see you go and good luck”?, there were others who responded “you can’t go until we approve” and “you OWE more service”. They were of course in most cases the ones on whom the responsibility to do stuff would now actually fall. What planet are these people living on? A volunteer, particularly one who has sacrificed much more time and grief than they have, OWES them nothing, nada, zilch, zero…

Anyway, it is truly amazing how self absorbed people can be. No wonder people don’t volunteer readily for some things.

Go figure…

I was just amusing (and educating) myself by adding some WordPress features to my blog set-up, and I got to musing about blog content vs the medium. That, of course, lead to Mr M and his famous “the media is the message” statement. Although there is lots of great content out there, he was so correct in relationship to the time we spend on the blog set-up. The presentation is so much of our message. If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be a market for 1000s of themes for WP alone.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that this is a bad thing. In fact, it should spur on even better theme development. But maybe it is something that can be born in mind as we create.

Also, it might help us to NOT put the medium above the message content. Drivel by any other name is still drivel (witness this post…).

Now, back to interesting WP widgets…

I am a member of several interest groups and also a Board of Directors. These groups are mostly populated by intelligent and enthusiastic people. They communicate, for the most part, articulately and willingly. Their willingness to explore better communications ends abruptly and uncharactistically, however, when it comes to innovative use of technology to facilitate the dialog.

Most of these groups communicate regularly via the internet. Most have matured enough in net use to use email. As the group grows, of course, the cc lists become spotty as people come or go, and very long lists give some mail clients problems. Add to that the problems that come with an overloaded inbox, and you would think that people would embrace an alternative offering less symptoms and more convenience. You would be wrong…

I suggested that a discussion forum would solve many of the problems (and it would). But getting a large percentage of the group populace to learn the tiny bit of protocol needed to use a forum, let alone actually type a message into it, has proved to be a problem of shocking magnitude.

Then we have those who are challenged into terror by even too much email.

It leaves me shaking my head in dismay that the possibility of expanding group discussion while at the same time reducing individual overhead is so hard to sell.

I just don’t get it and it drives me crazy…

Well, it had to happen. As a commercial user my internet connection is Very stable. Nonetheless, when Murphy paid a visit today to a major upstream link, viola, no net.

Having just read the other day in the paper about CrackBerry addiction, it is interesting how totally dependant I am on net access for everyday life.

No email = major withdrawl and major disconnection from everyday contacts. Only when they are interrupted does it become clear how many interactive email conversations I carry on during a day.

No Web = the inability to contact people whose numbers or addresses needed to be looked up and/or GoogleEarth’d in order to find them. I eventually had to dig in the car for legacy technology - an actual map.

No connection with the online teaching system at work.

Sound like much todo about nothing? Guess again! The result was the inhibition of a set of habits that happen every few minutes one way or another. Had I not been out at a meeting (one at which ‘I’ didn’t need the net) it would have been much worse.

So here I am on the net reporting the pains from a short withdrawl from the net.

Good thing that I DON’T have a BlackBerry…Maybe I should refer to my laptop as a CrackTop…

I was thinking about the Israelites wandering in the desert, as I drove along mulling life and frustrations today. So often we (I, more appropriately) are like those hard headed Israelite soles, as they plodded through the wilderness with the Pillar of Smoke and Fire going before them. Always wondering where they were going, and ignoring the real way to get there all that time, as they looked for an external solution.

They needed to rest in Him and follow in faith. Seemingly easy, but what did they do? Everything else but what was needed, looking for the answer and their salvation in every other direction – mostly directions that annoyed the Lord.

How much like them we are as we rush along trying to define this and that, making things better and putting programs in place - all unrelated, and in fact often tangential, to plain Faith and a walk of trust in the Lord.

We are called as a people apart, and yet we strive so much to actual be part of the world. .

In the words of Francis Schaefer, “How then shall we live?”…

If you live in Canada, in a house, have you been visited by the ‘Fix Price Energy’ sales rep? They must train these guys at the same school that trains Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The guy comes to the door (selling a product that is MORE expensive in the short run and according to analysts likely will NEVER be a good deal) saying he is just doing a survey. That is the first lie. Then he wants to know if you have signed up to save money “just like all your neighbours”. All the neighbours - second lie.
I respond “Thanks, but I am not interested”. But being polite is unfortunately an error. Sir, you must want to save money. All your neighbours have signed up (they haven’t by the way), he insists. I try again, “Thanks, but I am not interested”. There must be a sociollogy paper in here somewhere. We do this dance a couple more times, then I start to get impatient with his inconsideration. After all, this guy is brain dead and I am just being polite. In the end I am intrigued by his stupidity and ask if he is getting the message. He says “Well since the door is still open you must really be interested”. Argh, we are back to night school for Jehovah Witnesses…

I tell him firmly that he should move off my porch and I shut the door.

So, did he do his employer, Direct Energy, any good. Not likely. Not only am I still not interested, but I won’t buy any service from them now.

So now we know that there IS human junkmail, and it is sent out by Direct Energy. Just doing a survey, of course…

An acquaintance of mine, Peter (www.jurankaimages.com), was reading my California blog and came to the post about gun shops. He tells me that they in fact DO exist and he was in one outside LA. To hear it told, it was like a big Shopper’s Drug Mart, except the walls were lined with glass cases of rifles, and the counter display cases were filled with hand guns and ammunition.

Rats, and I missed it!

On the side of things that just make you shake your head was a discovery I made in the main cafeteria at work yesterday. When I told other inmates of the place about it they were either incredulous or thought that I was joking. Unfortunately, it is true, and it says so very much about the whole senario…

I was in the cafeteria to buy a cup of tea - really a tea bag in a cheap styroform cup, covered with not-hot-enough-for-decent-tea water. I and a fellow employee were looking at the expensive new mural that had been added to the wall for ambience, when the manager of the place strolled up to extoll the virtues of his new decor.

We then noticed that water - not bottled water mind you, but plain tap water, was not longer free. It seems that too many people had the audacity to come in for a refill of hot (but not hot enough) water in their cup, and that this represented a diversion from ‘revenue from everything’ bottom line views. So hot water is now 10 cents a cup!! Now, just to be clear, in case you are confused, that doesn’t include the cup.

The explanation from the manager and perpertrator was “Nothing is free, you know”.

What can I say about this that you aren’t already shaking your head at. They had, of course, raised most other prices as well, but the water said it all - and a lot more by implication.

You will have to draw your own conclusions, but one might speculate that it is a good thing that they aren’t handling Ontario ground water resources, or you would be either mighty thirsty or mighty poor in short order…

Well, I didn’t say it, but I thought about it in jest…

Again we are back to considering Canadian perceptions of the US…

From TV (particularly), news, and the like, one often sees the US with gun (and liquor) shops on every corner, dispensing 9mm hand guns to all and sundry. One of my thoughts on visiting the US this time was, just out of curiousity, to visit a gun shop and see one of these places .

Well, perceptions lie again! No such luck to my astonishment…

In all the driving in cities and country, on small and large thoroughfairs, I did not see a sinlge ‘gun’ or even sports shop - nor a liquor store for that matter. Amazing, actually.

Granted, I didn’t look in the yellow pages to see if they were sequestored in some out of the way place - didn’t want to see them THAT badly.

But it did put to rest yet another stereotypical thought of the US and its people.

Since stereotypes go both ways, no wonder they marvel that there are no igloos in Ottawa when they come up here…

Okay, so I work at a place where collecting parking fees from employees is a cash cow. Ya pay about $500 a year for the privilege of ‘maybe’ getting a spot (incredibly, the contract small print states that you are not guaranteed a spot!). You would think that would be the end of it. Not!

I discover, having been on leave for a while, that buying the above pass for parking for the academic ‘year’ is not really for the year. The return to work date is Aug 14, but the pass isn’t good until Aug 21. Go figure.

Surely this is just an oversight, you say. Any reasonable person would think that, and in a reasonably administered world it would be. But not so here.

A quick call to the College parking police constabulary reveals that this is deliberate. To park the extra week is an additional $37 thank you very much. Or pay by the hour at $2.50 per hour.

Clearly, gentle reader, the claw-back of every last dime from any person possible is far more important and kept clearly in view than any good will or reasonable thinking…

Gilding the lilly, so to spaek, is all the talk about improving employee post-strike moral. So, if you were are new employee and had just recovered from paying your ‘yearly’ parking fee, how would your ’start the job’ moral be after they said “By the way, hand over another fee” for the first week?

Leaves one scratching their head…

Those readers who are old enough will recall Andy Rooney’s commentaries at the end of many episodes of the 60 Minutes show. You may remember chuckling at (as well as often likely agreeing with) his complains and comments on many of the strange aspects and occurances of life as he marvelled at them. In remembering this, you will have some idea where I am headed in this Topic.

We will see where this leads. The actual threads, comments and discussion will unfold as life does…