Kobayashi Maru

Yes, it has been a long time.  Officially this is the longest I have gone without a post of some sort since I started this voyage back in 2006.  My bad.  It’s summer and things have been hectic.  Remember that Ferf broke her foot?  She milked that for a full 2 months in a big boot and “couldn’t really walk” and I was doing WAY more than normal around the house - which is saying something cause, let me tell you, on any given day I do A LOT.  Seriously, Ferf married well!!  But I was doing way more than the way more than normal I do, and bottom line - I (a) didn’t have time (b) was too dang tired or (c) couldn’t come up with an amusing was of telling any stories for a bit.  Oh, and add to that the fact that I had been working more than ever on Ferf’s website and running the business side of her occupation and well, one can only do so much.  At least I can only do so much.  A dear friend of mine recently said to me, “turns out I have a ceiling.”  Evidently I too have one, and unfortunately, the Maru was on the other side of it for a bit.  But two things have me encouraged - first, I am back on the Maru.  Second, I may have a ceiling, but at least it ain’t glass!!  (though that would be so cool during a thunderstorm - but probably not so much during a hurricane)

Anyways, this summer was back to nature here on the Maru.  We, as a family, spent a good deal of time outside and got back to the whole natural eating thing we had slipped away from for a bit.  To that end - we did some serious canning and freezing. So if Y2K ever shows up again, I suppose we’ll be ready.  But don’t you come knocking on my door simply because you didn’t prepare like I did.  I don’t have enough for everyone - but my neighbor down the street does still have a chemical toilet left over from 1999, and he’d prolly let you use that if you came by and needed it.

So, one of the things that Ferf wanted to do this summer was to get some fruit - lots of fruit.  She wanted blueberries, a whole lot of blueberries.  The upside of living where we do in Canada is that fruit grows here like mushrooms in sheeit.  It is everywhere and it is wonderfully sweet and juicy and yummy.  For those of you who were not blessed with knowing me as a young child (and believe me that would truly have been a blessing to you) you would not know how strange it is for me to have written a sentence like that last one - no, not the you would have been blessed to know me as a kid one…the one before that about fruit and it being described with terms like yummy goodness.  As a child I was NOT a fruit fan.  I would eat apples (red delicious only) and occasionally grapes (especially green seedless ones frozen in the freezer).  That was about it.  I simply did not like the flavor or the texture of such things.  I figured that if eating a piece of fruit caused the freaking fall of man, then I was better served to stay away from such things.  Imagine how much better off we’d all be if Adam hadn’t liked fruit.

Genesis 3

The Fall of Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her.

But Adam was not a fan of fruit and said to his wife, “No thank you.”  His wife said to Him, “But I have taken of it and eaten and did not die.”  Adam cocked his head to the side and said to her, “Look woman, this has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of eating a piece of freaking fruit.  You wanna listen to a dang snake, you go right ahead.  But I don’t like fruit all that much, so back up off me woman.”

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and she hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I’m over here, watching my wife try to hide from you in a berry patch.  I told her the thorns would hurt, but she dove right in.  It’s crazy!  She said she had to hide cause she’s nekkid”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she ate some.”

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Then Adam said, “honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into this one Lord.  She’s hanging out with snakes, eating bad fruit.  The whole thing is sketchy to me.”

And the Lord, wiped serpents, Eve and fruit off the face of his creation and replaced them with dogs that could speak, beer and women that were totally hot and utterly compliant.”

But that is not how it went down, and here we are today.  But that is not really the point of this post, I was simply letting you know that I used to loathe fruit and now, I really like it.   No, the point of this post is the berry picking portion of the story, which I haven’t even been able to get to yet, cause that saucy tart Eve screwed stuff up so long ago.  We’re still paying the price for her…<sigh>

Anyway, back to the story…let’s see, fruit, yummy goodness, oh yes, I remember!  Ferf wanted fruit.  We have an abundance of “you pick it” fruit farms around us here in the valley.  She thought we might go pick some fruit.  Blueberries to be exact - cause it was blueberry season and she wanted like A LOT of them.  I am into this a bit, but still leery that I will be doing the majority of the picking because the Muppet will enjoy it for about 10 mins before she gets utterly bored and Ferf has the broken foot…SO, I ask the ever-lovin’ wifey how many berries she is thinking about obtaining.  She tells me, “no more than a hundred pounds.”  Oh, good.  Nice to have an upper limit.  100 FREAKING POUNDS OF FRUIT!?  Are you kidding me??  And you want to PICK IT?  BY HAND???  “Well,” she tells me, “it would be cheaper.”

Admittedly, that does tend to get me attention.  “How much cheaper?” I ask.  “I can call and ask,” she replies.  (don’t you love the witty banter we have in our home.  We’re like the Gilmore Girls, only we’re not named Gilmore, and we’re not mother and daughter, and we’re not both female, and..you know what - turns out we’re nothing like the Gilmore Girls…just ignore that whole train of thought.)  SO she calls.  Turns out that to have them picked is $0.10/pound more than you picking them.  Hmmm…so if we got 100 pounds, that would be a $10 difference in total price…It would probably take me 2 days to pick that many berries doing 8 hour days, so my time would in fact be worth…<add the two, sum up, carry the naught, divide by the sum of the parts> $0.62/hour.

So we called and ordered 100 pounds of already picked berries.  WooHoo!!  The next day I got to the berry farm to pick up said berries.  I go to the counter and give them my name and they go to get the berries.  As I am standing there, I figure I’d give something a shot…So I ask the girl, “Since I am buying so much at once - I assume I get a bluk discount, right?”  She looks a little bewilderd, but says, ” I can give you $0.10 off per pound.”

That would be excellent!!!

I love berries!!!

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbtkhB3cFGs[/youtube]

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So today is an “anniversary” for me. At least that is what we call it. I have often wondered why we use the term “anniversary” colloquially only to refer to annual celebrations of weddings i.e. wedding anniversary, but we say birthday to celebrate the anniversary of our birth.  And we use Christmas to denote the anniversary of the birth of Christ.  And we use a length of time in conjunction with “reunion” when we celebrate the anniversary of our graduation from school (like this fall will be my 20th reunion - though I have not attended anything close to 10 others).

For those who pay homage to the great god google I give you this piece of intelligentsia:

An anniversary (from the Latin anniversarius, from the words for year and to turn, meaning (re)turning yearly; known in English since c. 1230) is a day that commemorates and/or celebrates a past event that occurred on the same day of the year as the initial event. For example, the first event is the initial occurrence or, if planned, the inaugural of the event. One year later would be the first anniversary of that event.

But this day is actually none of the above, but it does commemorate a past event - 12 years ago today my father died much too young.  He was 57 years old.  He never saw me marry Ferf.  He never saw me move to Nepal.  He never saw me get dual citizenship.  He never got to talk to me about my travels all over Africa and south-east Asia.  He never heard me speak exotic languages poorly.  He never saw the birth of the Muppet - nor any of the followig growth she has done in the almost 5 years since.  He never drank really good scotch with me and talked about my life and my goals and dreams.  He never saw me get my CFRE designation or the years of work that went into earning it.  He never celebrated my first 7 figure gift that I brought into an organization.  He never saw the first house I bought…or the second one for that matter.  He never saw me screw up so badly and then pull life out of the ditch (with the help of more friends than I could ever create nicknames for).

Bottom line…he missed a lot.  And the list grows every day.  I think that is one of the hardest things to get over.  He should be 69,  about to turn 70 this year.  That’s young…young enough to still be alive that’s for darn sure.

He died of cancer over a decade ago.  Sometimes I think I am still pissed at him for having the audacity to die.  Yes, that is incredibly self-absorbed to the point of bordering on narcissim…I’m comfortable with that.  At least I’m self aware.  SO many people miss the boat on that one.  But not me.  I got that going for me.  Which is nice.

It is an amzing thing that our subconscious can remember the anniversary of the deaths of loved ones even we don’t consciously think about it.  I had a list of things to do today that I didn’t really get through.  I just wasn’t feeling it, you know?  I couldn’t get in te groove.  I felt blaise and weird and out of sorts.  I wasn’t depressed but I was far from perky.  Then I looked at the calendar and it occurred to me that this was the day that my father had died on.  That gives me a complete pass on all things emotional I think.  It’s like playing the orphan card (which Ferf and Merf do WAY better than I because they have lost both parents at much younger ages than I lost the one, so in the scheme of things they totally win on this).  If I kinds sulk around on the 19th of May and just don’t get a lot done (or at least as much as you or anyone else thinks I should) then I get to play the “my dad died on this day in 1997″ card and you have to back off.  It’s like a rule.  No, more like a law.  A universal law that must be obeyed.

I am lucky in the one respect that my wife and her family totally get what I am going through.  Marvin married a girl and BOTH her parents are still alive!  It’s like she’s rubbing it in.  She can sympathize, but I get the full on empathy.  It’s a totally different ballgame.

So here’s the deal.  All of you out there with fathers that are still alive.  Right now, go….wait!!!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING??   Okay.  OKay, not RIGHT NOW…let me finish first.   Go get a pen and paper, or open your Outlook (or whatever email client you have chosen or opted to accept like mindless sheep because it came installed on your Bill Gates controlled PC - those of you who use Eudora or Thunderbird, you get a pass from that last rant.  If you own a Mac, then you get a cookie) and wrote them a letter RIGHT NOW telling them how much you love them and that you appreciate everything they do/have done for you - especially the being alive part, that is more important than you realize, trust me on this one.  It doesn’t have to be long, though seriously, if you are balking at this because of the necessary length of said letter, than you do not understand the point behind this and I am going to have to ask you to go stand in the hall for 20 minutes or until you realize what a selfish punk you are - whichever comes first.

Then, call them too.  Becaus hearing their voice is something you should do as often as you can.  Just because you can.  Besides, Fathers Day is coming up.   Get a jump on the crowd.

Go…

Go on,

DO IT.

I am going to call them and ask if you did or not.  I swear.  GO!

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And so it’s Earth Day.  A day where we celebrate…uhh…Earth.  I guess. If you area at all like me - yeah I know, scary thought and not something that you would publicly admit to anyway, but still, if you are, then you would suddenly feel this overwhelming urge - nay, NEED - to Google “earth day” and find out what this whole thing is about anyways…so, let’s do it.

Kneel down, close you eyes and say, “great oracle Google.  Please tell us…”  What!?  Oh sure, you don’t pray to Google.  You just use Google like a harlot.  Getting your needs met whenever YOU feel like it, but never giving back.  Have you ever even said Thank You  once?!  Well.  Have you?  I thought not.  Ok, Google whore user person.  Lets just go get what we want from Google and then move on to the next tab in our browser like we don’t care shall we?  FINE!

So Google tells us that

Earth Day, celebrated in the US on April 22, is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year. This date is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.

The United Nations celebrates an Earth Day each year on the March equinox.

That sounds all warm-fuzz doesn’t it?  Like we should take some time each year and nurture nature?  Let’s hug trees and dance naked in the forests at midnight in the light of the full moon…

But I digress…there is more that Google is willing to give us, if we would just be patient and a little kinder.

Like this:

In September 1969 at a conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin announced that in spring 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment. This occurred during a time of great concern about overpopulation and when there was a strong movement towards “Zero Population Growth.”

Nelson viewed the stabilization of the nation’s population as an important aspect of environmentalism and later said:

“The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become … We have to address the population issue. The United Kingdom, with the U.S. supporting it, took the position in Cairo in 1994 that every country was responsible for stabilizing its own population. It can be done. But in this country, it’s phony to say ‘I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.’”

OH OK!!!  So Earth Day was originally a big push to have people stop breeding.  I get it.  Love the Earth more and each other a little less…nudge, nudge, wink , wink, know what I’m sayin??

SO Earth Day is where we celebrate a pledge to stop procreating.  It’s like a birth-control celebration!!!  Only, don’t use condoms, cause those things don’t recycle.  (If you somehow think differently on that - Please, for the love of God and all that’s holy, don’t explain your position in the comments.  Seriously.)

I’m starting to understand now!!

Wait…what?  Google has more for us?  See how much better it is when you treat Google right Mr. Man?

Five months before the first April 22 Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the rising hysteria of “global cooling”^.

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”

OHHHHH….So Earth Day is to warn up about the dangers of Global Cooling!!!  I get it.  So we all go outside in parkas and mittens and then go out in the forests in the dark of night and rub our naked bodies together to create a natural heat that can turn the tide against this global cooling epidemic that will kill us all with the new ice age!

Wait a minute…what the hell am I going on about?  Global COOLING??  I am confused…I need me some more Google.

Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his old staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Alllriiiighty then…so on Earth Day we protest.  We are angry about deteriorating environments, and oil spills, and factories and power plants and raw sewage (I prefer my sewage medium well personally) and toxic dumps (as opposed to innocuous dumps I suppose), pesticides, and freeways (I hate those big things that are paved and allow me to go visit people and see things that I would otherwise never see or die on the journey to), the loss of wilderness (cause I need more wild in my life) and extinction.  These things all really chap  my hide.  Individually, I would probably just stew in my own proverbial juices, but when looked at collectively, it is a rallying cry to people all over to stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08[/youtube]

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA…what?  I’m sorry, what?  What do you mean there’s more?  Oh ok, what now?

Earth Day on April 22 in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide

Recycling??  Seriously?  I thought we were mad as hell?  So what, we’re so mad that we’re gonna create blue plastic bags…and we’re gonna put cans and bottles and plastic stuff into different blue bags and neatly set them on our curbside every week!  Yeah…that’ll show them…Geez.  That’s not even worth getting undressed in the forest for.  Earth Day sucks…

Errr…WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? What does that Google biatch want now?!?!  I’m starting to understand your emotional detachment to Google.  That is one seriously high-maintenance relationship.  Even act like you care for one minute and it just won’t shut up…

Ok.  What now?

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy.

NOW JUST A FREAKING MINUTE HERE!!!  We started this whole thing because of global cooling!  Oh, alright, so we actually started it because of over population, but we moved onto global cooling pretty quickly there at the start.  So what’s the deal?  We did such a good job keeping the planet from getting cold that now folks are pissed that it’s too warm?  Are you kidding me??  It’s like my wife wants to be in charge of the Earth’s thermostat too!  “It’s too cold…now it’s too hot.”  Is the Earth pregnant?  Is this really global warming, or just a hot flash?  Honestly, the Earth could just be in menopause.  I’m not sayin’…I’m just sayin’.

Ok, so now (for the moment anyway) we are running off to the forest to dance naked in the moonlight…cause it’s too darn hot to do it durng the day?  Cause a sunburn on your hoohoo would not be pleasant? I’m confused.

Can’t we just go hug a tree and be done with it?

I for one have been celebrating Earth Day all week long.  It’s true.  I swear.  No really.  Ok, I’ll prove it.

On Monday, for some unknown reason, I started getting up at 6am - which is the butt crack of dawn.  Honestly, if you get out there early enough you can see the horizon hitching its pants up in the back and going from galactic plumber to morningscape.  Anyway, I started running.  It’s not like it is the first time in my life.  I was on the track team in high school.  Yes, this year will be my 20th reunion…so what!?  Point is, I have run before.  Sure, not in a while.   But running is like riding a bike right?  Only harder and you can’t coast downhill…and you can’t buy a spiffy new runner that has 12 speeds like a bike does so you can pick the right gear to make peddling easy like on a bike…and there’s no cushy seat (with a gel seat cover) to rest your fat bum on…you know what?  Running is NOTHING like riding a bike.  I don’t know why I said that.  Bike riders are lazy compared to runners.

Anyway, I started running again.  Not particularly fast.  Not particularly far.  And definitely not particularly pretty.  But I do it early so people don’t have to see me.  They shouldn’t be looking out there anyway unless the want to see the butt crack of dawn and that’s voyeurism anyway and worse, who wants to see buttcrack?  People don’t even do Google image searches for buttcrack…

ok, go ahead.  you know you want to now.  Do a google image search for buttcrack.  We’ll wait.  Oh for Pete’s sake…make sure safe search is on you sicko…ok.  Back now?  Happy you did that?  I didn’t think so.  Did you see the one really fat guy that had a…errrrr, I mean, none of us want to hear about your perverted little foray into pictorial buttcrackdom.

Butt I digress…heh…get it?  BUTT I digress….with two T’s…it’s a double entendre…

Anyway, I am running again.  Not right at this moment, but conceptually I mean.  I run.  I have been running for 4 days straight now.  And I get up WAY early and put on sweats and nice comfy new runners.  (ok, they aren’t NEW new.  I bought them like 4 years ago actually.  But I had never worn them until Monday when I started running again. So…new.)  I grab my ipod with 500 sngs on it, you know, in case I ever get to the point where I need more than the 4 I listen to now…during warm-ups and stretching and running and cool down.  WHAT?  I’m efficient!!!  I plan to do more.  I’m working up to it.  Next week…FIVE songs!

Again, I digress.  So I was proving to you that I have been celebrating Earth Day all week long.  So Monday I was hugging a tree on our street cause I needed something to hold onto when I started retching and puking from not having run in freaking years and suddenly thinking it was a good idea and just up and starting again without consulting my body who was OBVIOUSLY a little upset and not fully on board with the idea.  Then Tuesday, I hugged a tree - no not the same one, I made it a little further - to steady myself when the world started spinning as I hyperventilated…from not having run in freaking years and suddenly thinking it was a good idea and just up and starting again without consulting my body who was OBVIOUSLY a little upset and not fully on board with the idea.  Then today I hugged yet another tree as I desperately tried to stretch out the cramp in my calf because while the rest of my body seemed to be coming around to the idea of running, my legs have taken it as a personal affront and are united in their desire to cause me as much pain as physically possible without there being an infant at the end of the ordeal.

SO there!  I have indeed been hugging trees all freaking week.  Earth Day is like apathy…I have been doing Earth Week.  AND I went to an Earth Day celebration at the Muppet’s school today.  That was a treat let me tell you.  They all sang a song, that I can only assume they have been practicing, because as much as the Muppet likes to think that life is a musical, the probability of 40 something pre-schoolers and kindergartners suddenly breaking into song spontaneously is pretty slim.  I leave you to do the math if you are that interested in probability…plus they all knew the words:

Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, my backyard, my backyard

Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, we must recycle.

Yep…when sung, it sounds about how it reads.  No rhyme, no rhythm, nothing that one usually mentally connects with the word “song”.  But those details did not stop them from singing it.  Over.  And over.  And over.  And over.

You’d think being an institute of learning they would know that Earth Day and recycling is SO 1990!  Obviously they don’t Google there.  Bet they didn’t hug three different trees this week.  Posers…

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[youtube]tK_jDA3qrUU[/youtube]

This little piece of PSA musical history is for everyone.  Cause evidently Valentines Day is for everybody.

FYI, I am not one to buy into commercially driven “holidays”, but I do special things for Ferf on Valentines Day every year cause why not.  Of course, I do things the other 364 days as well - which proves I am no romance rookie - but I do my own thing on Feb 14th that makes the Mallmark Mafia no revenue at all.  (one day I will wake up with a valentine’s horse head next to me in bed when those wiseguys catch up to me, but until then I shall mock them unmercifully and wave my private parts in their general direction.)

That being said, Ferf and I will be joined by Hamie and his South African Hottie for an stay at home double date.  Hamie and I will be preparin dinner from scratch and the ladies shall be ordering off the menu.  Of course it is a 3 course meal and they are allowed to order 3-4 items per course.  Unfotunately for them, the names of the items on the menu have absolutely nothing to do with the actual foodstuff, so they could end up ordering coffee, salad dressing and a pat of butter for the first course - but that, my dear friends, is the fun part.  Eventually they will get everything that we made, but only over the course of the dinner and in the order that they requested them from the menu.

Dinner will be good, hilarity will ensue and I will get laid.  Hamie, on the other hand…well, lets just leave it at “on the other hand” cause this is a family show…

Happy VD!!!  It’s for everybody!!!

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Seriously.

[youtube]jpEnFwiqdx8[/youtube]

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SO I was listening to Dr. Dave Currie the other day talk about Christmas.  It was not your normal Christmas sermon, homily or summation.  It was more like deep thoughts on Christmas.  He suggested 10 gifts that are not normal nor really expected.  So I share them with you and maybe even add some extra thoughts…

1. Gift of Affirmation - write a letter to a person telling them how much they have meant to you.  This gift is particularly important if there is reason to believe that the person you are writing to is going to be celebrating their last Christmas.  Dave had spoken to 2 people this week who thought that this could be their parent’s last Christmas.  I suggest that you not wait that long to do this.  Whoever has really made an impact in your life, that is who you should be doing this for.  Believe me that it will mean more to them than anything you could possibly buy them.  It doesn’t have to follow any particular format.  Just tell them that you love them, and WHY.  The more specific you can get, the more impactful the gift will be.
2. Gift of Encouragement - send a little card to someone just to encourage them.  This is not the same as the longer and more thought-intensive gift of affirmation.  This is simply a little card to say, “Hey, I’m thinking about you and I like you.”  It’s like a quick note on a Facebook wall, but because it is hand written and snail mailed, it means more.
3. Gift of Your Presence - drop in on someone.  Again, this gift is particularly important if the person is a shut-in.  Someone who cannot get out and see you.  The elderly and the infirm are the very best recipients of this gift, but other potential people are those you haven’t seen in a long time, old friends that you have lost touch with, or family members.  Down South, we like to call this “goin’ a visitin’”.  Don’t even call ahead.  Just show up.  Bring them a coffee, or bring nothing but your own smiling face and some free time to focus on them.
4. Gift of a Phone Call - this is for those who are not close enough to go visit.  Reconnect, reminisce about days gone by and just appreciate them for their friendship.  This is extremely easy to do, but somehow we all neglect it.
5. Gift of an Invitation - add a place setting at your Christmas dinner table and invite someone who is away from their family.  Everyone knows someone who is not able to get home this year - especially with the economy being what it is.
6. Gift of Forgiveness - within your own family especially, identify a hurting relationship and seek to reconcile with that person.  Possibly the hardest of the gift suggestions.  In fact, most people would rather spend money on a gift…
7. Gift of Blessing - write a card or note to members of your immediate family to share why you love them.  Call it a Blessing and then bless them with your words, emotions and heartfelt thoughts.  Personally, I think you should do this verbally IN ADDITION TO writing it down.  The written piece can serve as a reminder, but nothing is more personal that standing in front of someone, putting your hands on their shoulders, looking into their eyes and speaking love and blessing directly into their soul.
8. Gift of Gratitude - email someone who has been important in a specific area of your life - a mentor - and thank them for the part they played in your learning.  For some of you, this will require some thought as to who is a mentor in your life (or who has been in the past).  But once you figure that out, then you can do this with some ease.
9. Gift of Cash - random act of kindness to someone who is tight financially and could use the help.  Put some money (how much is really unimportant) in an envelope and put it somewhere they will find it (preferably where no one else will find it first).  No note, no nothing.  Just a gift of that which they need.  And believe me that no matter how strapped you are right now, there is someone you know who is worse off.  That is the unfortunate truth in this world.
10. Gift to God - spend 2 uninterrupted hours alone with God to thank Him for your life and everything in it.  Yes, I know 2 hours is a long time.  Yes, I know that 2 uninterrupted hours is even more difficult.  I don’t care.  The suggestion stands.  Just say yes and do it, or say no and don’t.  I’m not the one you’re giving it to (or not giving it to).

So there are some serious gift ideas.  They don’t cost much, if anything, at all except some thought on your part.  That is what makes them so special.  That is why they are more important that something you can buy.  And why I’ll be expecting lots of these from all of you.  I’m kidding….as far as you know.  But in case you are concerned that I am not, then I will accept any and all of these. Except the last one.  Even I am uncomfortable being confused with God.

Merry Christmas!!

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Now seems like a good time to break into song…

[youtube]2Fe11OlMiz8[/youtube]

I love musical interludes…

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So I got sent this link today and I have found it to be one of the best videos I have ever seen.  I wish every church in North America could see it.  I am providing this for you to watch and then we can discuss it.  Tell me what you think!
[youtube]D7_dZTrjw9I[/youtube]

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Ever feel this way?  I wonder sometimes about our culture.  Where are we going and will we be happy once we get there?  In fact, are we actually even enjoying the journey?  We have a whack load (yes, that’s a technical term of measurement - I think it’s based on the metric system) of gadgets and things that save time and make our lives easier.  And yet, we have less time than we used to.  We have less energy than we used to.  We have more people who are depressed and sad and overwhelmed.  “Burnout” has now become a normal reference with regards to jobs and even ministry.

In the meantime, nothing seems to be good enough.  Now, I am a huge fan of looking forward.  I love to have BHAGs (Big Harry Ass Audacious Goals).  I never want to become satisfied with today.  But, that being said, I think we need to learn to appreciate what we have.  I don’t want to get to the point where I am taking things for granted.  I get that we all do it to some extent.  Have a cell phone for long enough and we forget the freakishly awesome technology that runs that thing.  We get pissed with the cable is out - forgetting that as kids we moved the rabbit ears and held our tongues right to get a signal.  The Muppet gets her picture taken and immediately wants to “see it” on the LCD screen on the back of the digital camera.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  My mom still has 35mm film in her house that hasn’t been developed yet from t-ball games Marvin and I played in the late 70’s!!!  When we get used to immediate gratification on such a grand scale, we end up easily so disappointed.

I think this is what this guy was talking about:
[youtube]vbIGbZ6gq_Y[/youtube]

Now, confession time.  What do you take for granted?  What ticks you off WAY too much and too quickly when you think about it objectively outside the emotional moment?

I will go first.  It’s only fair.

For me, I get totally bent out of shape when someone doesn’t have an answering machine.  When a phone rings and rings and rings…I get so choked.  It’s like “spend the $20 and get a freaking answering machine!!!!”  And second to that, I get miffed when someone doesn’t respond to an email in a “timely manner”.  Yes, timely is a realtive term that is directly proportional to the importance of whatever it is I am asking.

How about you??  Confessions on the Maru anyone?

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