$500,000

I have spoken with several folks recently, who when a loved one passed away they came into a goodly size sum of money.

I have also worked with several churches who have had the same blessing shared with them.

I posit for your consideration:

You just received $500,000, how would you use it?

Your church just received $500,000 how would they use it?

For those who would have the fortune of being able to speak from experience, I would like to ask you to imagine what would happen right now - not what was, as that experience has certainly shaped how actions might change or be affected at this moment.

Peace,

Slacking

Maybe you have noticed that most of my blogs of late would qualify as Tweets in Twitter as well. I could take the cut and paste pieces and just add the shortened URL to the post.

I still want to add content. I know of one friend who reads this blog from time to time that he has deviated from his blog content, but that his tweet rate has gone way up. The thing of it is that those tweets are not as much original content as retweets and the like.

I wonder how much to tweet - and tend to keep it about three a day (though I have started to add in about 3 Retweets per day now too). And I wonder what that means for the content of this blog.

I have contemplated the change before, and wonder what it would mean. I started out with a bit of the "Doogie Howser" in me, where I wanted to quantify and qualify each day with some sort of thought that summarized things for me. I quickly remembered why I did not get into writing screenplay or for TV. I don't have that kind of pithy commentary. Nor do I necessarily have the drive to write in earnest every day, let alone the time every day to do so.

And, so I return to the old conundrum of what to write and why. I suspect that it will be a conflagration as it always has been, of posts about what is working in the church, what causes me to stumble, sermon notes and ponderings, foodie items, daily musings, and stuff that just catches my attention for one reason or another.

You see, ultimately, it is Doogie Howser at work as it is a journal of my life. I do not write the pithy comments, or the beautiful prose of others. I don't spend the time to really work my writing over here. I express my self at the moment it occurs to me to do so. I am trying to discipline myself to write, something, anything, even if it is someone else's work, everyday, so that I can come back and follow the trajectory of my life.

I concede that this is self-serving, as so many have labelled blogging to be. I write about my life. I don't tend to focus on anything necessarily external, like my cat, my wife or my child, let alone the community I serve, but about my history for the day.

In that way I suppose I am creating a bible of my own. It is my story of my relationship with God and my fellow human beings, the creation around me and how it all ebbs and flows from one element to the next. I pull from those sources in my context that are prevalent, and occasionally appropriate them for my use, and my understanding, recognizing that for someone else they may not be the same, and may even be quite different in meaning.

I appreciate those of you that bother to come around. I appreciate your silent and spoken support. It is for this reason that I blog. I know that I need community, and I do express my self more clearly and more cleanly in this medium. I hope that from time to time you experience some benefit from my musings, my culled quotes, and even some stuff you have probably already read elsewhere, or will read later by someone who is able to write more cleanly and clearly.

Peace,

Reading

Today while around the table with a bunch of other clergy from UMCs in the area one of the pastors asked what we were reading of interest these days.

I answered two-fold:

Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" and Terry Goodkind's "Law of Nines"

As I listened to the others around the table I heard non-fiction after non-fiction and theology book after theology book.

I began to wonder if I was the only pastor who reads fiction and Sci-Fi at that. I am excited about the continuation of The Wheel of Time series originated by Robert Jordan and being completed by Brandon Sanderson. I read through all of the works by Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks. I enjoyed the Eragon series and several others.

I was struck if this kind of reading of Sci-Fi was the same kind of dirty little secret that reading Comics is. In particular I love those Apocalyptic literature pieces. I love the debate of theology that comes in reading folks like Terry Goodkind. I am engaged in the learning of other religious traditions that comes in reading and talking about Robert Jordan's works. Terry Brooks writes such inspiring works, and challenges my assumptions here and there, as well as suffering simple lessons in broad strokes.

All the best to you in your reading.

Peace,

More On LLoyd Saatjian

I didn't have many words at the time I heard of his death. I was however interviewed by Noozhawk, found here.

But, I wanted to share a little more about where I was quoted.

LLoyd always wanted to do a sermon titled, "It's Not About the Camels". I got a chance to preach much of that sermon last year, as I did a Christmas message.

Year after year First United Methodist Church in Santa Barbara does a Live Nativity. And time and again, when asked why they came, people would respond, "To see the camels."

Many folks would come to LLoyd's office, just to see the array of camels. I can recall taking a few of the youth through the office one day, just because they had heard of this amazing, and extensive collection of camels, though they had never met LLoyd. LLoyd wasn't in, but I did a quick "pass-through" with the youth as they marvelled at the hundreds of camels in the office.

As a thank you to LLoyd, I gave him a rug with a camel design. This was as he was retiring and as I was leaving First UMC to take an appointment at Del Rosa UMC, in San Bernardino.

In each of these instances it really wasn't about the camels for LLoyd. In the case of the Live Nativity, LLoyd genuinely wanted to share the Christmas message with the community, and sometimes getting them there by hook or by crook (or by camel) meant that we could share the message of Jesus Christ in yet another venue. That was his aim. Listening to LLoyd when I asked about the camels, I immediately discovered it wasn't about the story of the camel and where it came from, and what kind it was, and how it was made, but instead the story of the person who gave it to him, and what they have done, and about how their lives had intersected. It really wasn't about the camels, but instead about the relationships it fostered. Rugs have been a passion of mine for many years, and LLoyd was kind enough to offer some nice words about the rugs I had. I shared some stories of the rugs, and when the time came to say "Thank You" at his retirement, I offered him a rug I had had commissioned. I did this out of the limelight, because I wanted him to hear the story, I wanted to be able to say thank you privately and I didn't want him to have to fawn over it in front of others if it wasn't genuine interest. The rug had a camel on it, but it was made in an area near where his ancestors came from in Armenia, was a reprint of a very famous rug from the region. It was a mistake as the copyists had done the numbers backwards in Armenian, and so there was humor in it in my eyes. I had asked the guys at the rug shop to do some extra work on it, taking some of the stitching out, and replacing it with "Saatjian" written in Armenian lettering. It wasn't about the camel, as much as it was a story of his heritage. Maybe just maybe he could find a way to work in a story of the Hodja with reference to the backwards writing of the dates, and the story would be a little more complete.

Thanks LLoyd.

To-Do Lists

So there have been a host of things going on around the church, and the house. We have made considerable progress in both areas, but both still have some work to do.

I was making the list for the house this morning, trying to enlist the help of my brother-in-law.

If you would like to help here is what I have to offer in the way of work/compensation. Consider it a mission project to Santa Maria.

The projects I am hoping to get done this next few weeks are:

Hang/Install Flatscreen TV

Install Shelves for Stereo/TV Equipment - connect all together

Prepare/Transplant the garden

Finish hanging the security door

Place a gate in the Fence on East Wall

Touch-up paint

Door locks

The catch is that I have now overspent so much of my money that I am well in the hole for the next few years. I can offer a warm bed, free TV, phone/internet access, and food.