notes from the front

(and by front I mean life, not any real battle or anything, just to be clear)

I have two for you today. The first comes courtesy of my lovely daughter, who just turned ten and her Mom took her for an overnight trip and had the "talk" with her. It should also be noted that my mother-in-law is grieving the loss of her mother and is going through rather normal emotional swings. But, Saturday after Maggie's soccer game, we went to Mimi's for dinner and Mom was explaining to us how she was about to tear up and didn't know why. At just that moment, My daughter comes up with the answer and yells out, "Puberty!" Now, that is funny, I don't care who you are.

The second is a headline from today. I don't always read the articles, but I am fascinated by headlines. Today's headline was, "US official says 3 pirates may be dead after shootout." Well of course they may be dead, how can you fight against a gun when all you have is a sword and a parrot? And, that eye patch can't help your peripheral vision! Anyway, cheers to all and have a good week.

worship theory update

I want to thank my great friend Paul for taking the time to offer to engage in this conversation with me. As it looks like no one else wants to join in that conversation, I suppose we will just chat on the phone about it. Every so often I have a decent idea, but many of them end up as only neat to me (Paul, do you remember me burning Milli Vanilli tapes at your NYE party? I thought everyone would like that and nope, no one cared). It is such a small number of people who actually comment on anything that it would not have worked out the way I had hoped anyway. My wife has 50-60 people per day who look at her blog (should be thousands) but only about 2-3 comments per week, so I don't feel too bad. By the way, if anyone wants to bring a topic up, make a comment and I will start something up and we can see if anyone wants to comment. Thanks for reading, friends, but seriously you can comment on anything.

Welcome

I wanted to give a welcome to any guys who decided to read my blog after hearing me talk about it this morning. There are very few things I hold back, so I am sorry if this causes some of you to lose some respect for me. However, these are bad things I did, bad choices I made and the consequences which flow from this sort of thing. There is not much nobility in my actions as a young man, but be assured if you stay with me, you will see that God picked me out of the slime of my own plan and has continued to dust me off and refine me for His plan. Please feel free to comment on anything, that is why it is public. You do not have to be succint and I would love to have people post replies which tell some of their stories. I moderate posts due to some unfortunate previous comments, but your comment will go up within a few days. Let me know that you are checking it out by just commenting and I promise that it will not change what I write, even if I think my writing will offend you.

Thanks!

Oh, one other thing....I claim honesty and the closest thing to accuracy I can get. I am not naive enough to believe that I can be totally accurate, but I can be true to my memory and experience. If you know or think something I have said is inaccurate, please post it and we will discuss. I could always be wrong.

Part XXXI

After being booted out of the class from which I most drew my identity at the time, things sort of spiraled out of control for me. Instead of using this situation as a kick in the pants to straighten out my life, I used it as another excuse and got even lower in my stupidity. A friend of mine had spent the year as the only male cheerleader in the district. He told me many stories of being one of only three guys at the annual cheer camp with over 500 hot girls, so I decided I would be the next year's only guy cheerleader. Rather than actually give it a good try, I decided to work the system and just hang out with the girls. My total lack of commitment or care really showed and my lack of respect for how hard and how important this was to all of these girls was pretty evident. My purpose was to be near, and date, as many cheerleaders as possible. I would like to tell you I had some other motive, but seriously, would anyone believe me? Anyway, I did not make the team.

One of the cheerleaders I had dated a little bit was named Christine, she also did not make the team and was devastated. We had planned to go to the Junior Prom together, but she ended up getting a real boyfriend who was actually there for her a week and a half before the prom. Since I could think of nothing less fun than going to prom with another guy's girlfriend, I took a side step and let Christine go with who she really wanted to go with anyway. Some people will hear that as noble or nice, but it was not. I was just thinking of what a drag it would be to go to prom with someone who wanted to be there with someone else, it was all about me. During this time and through most of the summer, I also held small parties in our apartment while Mom would be away for the weekend with some guy or other. I had identified every place within ten miles where my fake ID would work and I became such a regular at these liquor stores that they stopped carding me and new me by name. Now, the name was the fake name on my fake ID (Jeff someone or other), but that was okay with me.

I had, at the time, a stunning amount of false confidence and would entertain my friends by boldly lying or scamming to achieve just about anything I wanted. I showed a fake ID right next to a cop in one liquor store where my friends just freaked out and I gained a sort of legendary status with them. I also gained quite a reputation for making out with just about any girl in the immediate area. One night some friends and I got real drunk on blackberry brandy and went to a school dance, where I proceeded to kiss every girl there. No kidding, every girl ... even girls who were with other guys. Many of the guys didn't even care because it was sort of my reputation to do crazy things like that. I had a weird talent for heading directly into any situation where I could be harmed or damaged, but I did it with confidence and usually came out without a scratch. All of this just built this rep. One of my Christian friends from school once called me conceited and I responded that "conceited means that one is good and knows it, so thank you for recognizing how great I am." Yeah, I know, what a jerk. Hidden behind this false confidence was a rather swelling amount of self-loathing and what I now see as blatant attempts to harm myself. But, I was also playing with the power of words and this would be a defining trait of mine for a long time. I began to realize the strength in spin, and the way people believed what you told them, so long as you said it with confidence. Truth became what I told you, real became what I made up and everything became a way into people's trust and a means to an end. While I was pretty heavily engaged in drug use at the time, it too was just a means to an end. Although I used some fairly powerful narcotics, I attribute their lack of a hold on me to their purpose in my life, to get what I wanted...girls, friends, power, girls and did I mention girls? When summer came around, I quit my job and I laid by the pool all day or watched TV. At night, I partied or looked for places to pick up girls. It was the summer of 1984 and my life was like a teen movie for a bit. I did not know how rapidly things would change.

worship theory

Due to many circumstances in my life right now, I am again looking at the topic of worship theory. Worship theory is the idea of how one worships, both individually and in a corporate setting. However, my interest right now is in the corporate setting. A few years ago, I wrote a paper (for myself) on this topic, but now I can't find it. Also, since I am fascinated by the blogging medium, I thought it might be interesting to get as much feedback as possible. Since it is not about me or my musings, I am thinking of creating a new blog to delve into this subject. My question is this, would you be willing to engage in an honest, non-judgemental conversation about what worship in the corporate setting should look like? I am specifically interested in ideas from those in my church, but would love to hear from those outside. I will wait to create the blog until I hear from folks who would be committed to getting a little deeper on the subject. If you have an interest, please let me know. Thanks!

Part XXX

Fremont High had a policy that simply was ripe for abuse. There was a day on which one could no longer pick up new classes, it was just too late to get the education one would need to get anything but an incomplete. The day to drop classes was three days after the date one could no longer pick up new classes. The minimum number of classes for a HS student was 5, so I signed up for 5 and the day after the "no new classes" date, I dropped one. I thought I was so clever. I had way too many credits as it was and still could have graduated after my Junior year if I had taken one semester of American Government, but my goal was not to graduate early, it was to milk the time and abuse the system. There was a loophole, and I was hell-bent on using it even though it did me no good at all. So in late January of 1984, I had the fewest classes of any student at FHS.

On February 1st, my Mom and I moved away from Bud to an apartment right across the street from the school. This made it easy for me to run home and watch TV when I did not have a class. In my self-absorbed perspective, I did not realize the difficulty that having only my Mom and I in an apartment would place on her pocketbook. She told me I had to start paying her rent of $200 per month. Since I did not bring home that much, Mom made me call my Dad since he had kept all of the money in my bank account (around $1200) when I left Colorado. Dad responded in writing with a letter that I kept up until a couple of years ago, it was not nice. He was keeping my money, told me that no one knew my agreement with him and that he was basically counting it as rent I had paid him. It was not a good day. I told my Mom I would pay the rent, but I don't think I ever paid her a cent. Mom would go away on the weekends still with guys she was dating and I would have parties at the apartment with 5-20 people. As an adult, I still can not imagine the amount of money and frustration I cost my Mom. At the time, it never occurred to me to care.

In late February, I was blessed to make the first trip to Chapman College in Anaheim for an annual singing competition which our small ensemble always won. This was no different. We also got to sing at Disneyland and enjoy a day there. The group was the most fun I had been in since I left Colorado and I bonded with many of them the way I bonded with my fellow actors before. Unfortunately, I did not rightly judge my instructor's care for me. One day in early March, one of my female friends gave me some crap and I flipped her off behind another friend's back. Mr. Stretch asked her if I had just indicated my IQ and promptly told me to get out. Within two days, he had kicked me out of the group. He had put together an elite group and one day while he was out sick, the school had added this new kid (me) without the benefit of an audition for Mr. Stretch. I simply gave him an excuse to put me out and he did. The effect of this, due to my maneuvering, was that I was down to 3 classes. When Spring break came around 10 days later or so, Mom took me up to the cabin and I got a perm. Yeah, that is right, a perm ... it was 1984, what can I say?

Part XXIX

Touching down at San Jose International Airport on October 18th, 1983, my heart felt lighter. I thought things would be better because my Mom pretty much left me alone and her husband made pretty good money. We went to a motel in Santa Clara as Mom and Bud informed me that we needed to look for an apartment because Bud had taken a job as a VP in the missile division at Lockheed in Sunnyvale. We checked out and rented a 2BD apartment in Sunnyvale and then headed back up to what would now be referred to as "the cabin" a 5 level, 3BD, 5 BA huge house in Camp Connell which Mom and Bud had built and I had stayed in the year before. When I boarded the plane, I thought i was moving to Camp Connell, another small mountain town, but I was actually moving to the metropolis of the Bay Area.

On October 31st, we moved down to Sunnyvale to the apartment. I am not sure how I convinced Mom to go along with this, after I had been out of school for 2 weeks, but it was Halloween, it was a Monday and I got to take the day off to ready myself to begin at a new school. So, on November 1st, I began at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale. In CO, my creative writing class had been an advanced class where only Juniors and Seniors were allowed. At Fremont, they took it as a remedial writing class and began what was to be a series of diappointments in my education there. It was bad enough that I already thought I was too smart for school (I had believed this since the 5th grade), but being forced to take classes that did not even reach a low standard was too much...I checked out mentally for almost the entire rest of my high school time. My classes that first semester were US History, office aide, choir, writing (ugh), small vocal ensemble (called SmEns) and biology. This small ensemble and my teacher there, Bill Stretch, were among the best in the nation. While I had been a good singer for Woodland Park, I was now in the midst of a rather elite group of vocalists and I knew it withing minutes of getting to class. I did not belong there, but I made my best friends in that class and learned more about music than I have in any other period of my life. While in Woodland Park, I had been identified by my acting; in Sunnyvale, I was identified by my flirting and occasionally my singing. I was still involved in theater but chasing skirts was my main pastime.

The first weekend we were there, Bud made me get a job. I walked across the street and was hired at Wendy's. I was late for the first training class and did not attend. Still to this day I think being late says so much about a lack of care and commitment, but at the time it was a mortal failure in character and I got to the door and turned away because I was three minutes late. I still struggle with this view of tardiness, if you are 2 minutes late, I have been waiting for you for 32 minutes. Anyway, later in the month, a friend from Smens got me a job working with him at Cole National Key Company. It was the little kiosk in Sears that made keys and engraved things. It was a fun job because I worked in Sears but not for Sears. We spent many weekends and most holidays at the cabin that fall and winter. I spent as little time in the apartment as possible as I was making new friends and had given myself a new personality and background. I was not popular, but no one treated me like the dork I really felt I was inside. I was invited to most parties, because I could be counted on to do something that was worth talking about later. Getting too drunk, throwing up, making out with the pretty girl, making out with the ugly girl, getting in a fight, jumping off the roof, toilet papering passed out people or just generally being the story of any given party gave me a certain reputation.

In December, some of the girls I sang with invited me to their church with my friend Pat. We were heavy partiers and they cared a lot about Pat, I may have invited myself. They went to Valley Church in Cupertino, a fairly conservative evangelical church with a pretty large High School group. When we went, I was stunned at the number of attractive girls there. In early January, I decided to pray to ask Jesus into my life. It was not the first time and it did not take. This time, it was the weeds, the cares of the world and its entanglements, that took me down. Well that and a really bad motive, I thought the girls might date me if they knew I was a Christian. A few weeks later I went to a party with a senior cheerleader named Charlene. Char was Japanese, fun and beautiful and for some reason she liked me, even after I nearly threw up on her shoes that night. A few weeks later, I showed up on a balmy California Sunday morning to church in a turtleneck which did not quite hide all of the hickies. A few of my church friends gave me serious crap about it and I just stopped going. My life was about the party and I made a choice of the world over Jesus. Shortly thereafter, Char and I went to a party where her boyfriend, that's right boyfriend, was also there. He had gone off to college and told her he wanted an open relationship. He dated no one, she dated me. I was the kind of guy he hated and I realized that night I was a pawn. It didn't really bother me either, because we did not pretend to be exclusive. It was, however, a little uncomfortable to sit on a couch with the guy and make small talk.