I struggle with fear. Many of my friends do not think that I do, and i hope that I do not respond to life in a fearful manner. Regardless of those issues, I feel fearful right now. I have no idea if it is for a good reason or not, but my hands are shaking a little and my stomach feels very queasy…

On a better note, I do love my daughter, and as this picture indicates: she loves me!

How in the world could I not post this picture???

I have a question that has nothing to do with my messy baby, or the fact that mom gives her prunes periodically to… well… Um, if you don’t know what prunes do, check on Wikipedia or something…

Why is it that everyone, when you ask for more time for friendship, a good cause, or whatever all of a sudden is shockingly broke, busy, and exhausted? Is it a priority thing? Is it true? Is it partly true?

Thoughts???

I know the second one is my favorite excuse, and I usually use my wife and baby as excuses… When the tired one hits I usually fall back on, “Am I really tired or are my prioroities mixed up?” (because I am thinking that I am tried because i didn’t do something (like read, watch a movie, some work, hang out with my baby, wash my car) for a series of reasons…) Oh yes, I will use double Parentheses if I need to!

You?

My wife and baby are in memphis visiting family (and fleeing the 85 foot tall tree we are having cut down), and so you might think this post is about that. It is not.

I am simply amazed by the ways we (and by ‘we’ I mean myself) put ourselves out there. I have a podcast, a blog, a facebook, a myspace, an e-mail address, and an AIM name. I have GREAT reasons for each one: podcast – Mike asked me to do one, and I can’t refuse Mike anything. Blog – lately, it is my excuse to put pictures of my daughter all over the place. Facebook – I’m a youth pastor, I can comunicate with 100 kids in three minutes using Facebook. Myspace – there are friends who only use Myspace, and that is the only way to read their blogs. E-mail – I have sent over 5000 e-mails since I came to work for Greentree. AIM – I have had blzrscool for 13 years now!

Anyway, I am amazed at how we put ourselves out there (often different selves for different venues), and yet we are still so lonely. Chap Clark said (to 700 Jr. high kids) that loneliness is the human condition. I think he is right, and when I think about how lonely most people (and myself many days) are, my heart is broken.

I wonder if the great irony is going to be all this technology pushing us back into human contact because it is such a great need in all of our lives. I wonder if the lesser irony, everyone sitting at coffeeshops typing away with their headphones on, will ever strike anyone like it does me…

Thoughts?

Seasonal Affective Disorder; many people are somewhat affected by this. It is simply when the weather changes afffect your mood; for good or for ill. Today I feel close to depressed. It is, in fact, gloomy outside. I am about to transition jobs and am less able than usual to flee to the idol of productivity. I was hoping to just sit and read my Bible when I got to my coffee shop (from whence come all podcasts and most blogs because of their coveted high speed connection). I haven’t don’t that yet.

My great friend Mike Higgins has a cliche’ riddled paragraph about attitude on his desk. Lloyd Dobbler thinks similarly, “Why can’t you just decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood?” Webel has always fought to be controlled by anything, which seems like the antithesis of most people I know who are just looking for an excuse to act tired, etc. Isn’t everyone tired and busy though?

I just wonder how much I am supposed to fight? How much am I just supposed to roll with it and look forward to tomorrow, hurt as few people as possible in the process? Or should I seach out what the real problem is and address it?

Pictures like this make me wonder how I could ever be in a bad mood…

(My wife and baby)

It is hard for me when a philosophy is presented that is not a philosophy. These recent elections (I’m of course writing from Missouri) had an interesting result that seemed more about ‘change’ than any particular political platform; unless of course rejecting a platform is a platform!

Examples of my earlier point: loyalty, sincerity, and ‘change’ are not, in and of themselves good or bad, they just are… I heard someone say yesterday (he happens to drive a jaguar and his silver hair – so, stereotype and judge all you want), “Well, Claire McCaskill won’t be able to find her way to Washington, so it isn’t a big deal…” His comment made me sad. I did not vote for McCaskill, but I do support many policies that she claims to hold. More importantly, I want her to do well because she is in office. This is not a war anyone lost (hopefully!) it is politics…

My fear is that we were so busy screaming for change we weren’t paying attention to the issues, our own hand in shaping them, etc. Instead, we were busy reacting to things we don’t like. I think of Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black answering Will Smith’s question, “Why not tell people, they’re smart, the could handle it?” “A person is smart; people are dumb stupid animals and you know it…”

I myself wonder if I voted as a person or as a group of people. I also wonder what the recent changes in our nation will bring.

What does it mean to settle?

Can someone reconcile for me the difference between buying into the American Dream (which I would say is a fallacy, in that it doesn’t deliver anything emotionally – instead it just delivers stuff) and the flip side of our culture not (generallly???) having the courage to believe in the romance of life… Are we, in fact, settling for the American Dream?

And, of course, one more picture…

the discussions are waning, but I don’t want anyone to miss out on some of our latest pics…

I’m pretty sure this blog is supposed to be about going to game five of the series… I did stand on 7th street for an hour high fiving people after the game…

But, I want to know (and my e-friends, with the one noteable exception, are not responding super-well to these questions) how much we should give to one another. One of the counselors I used to see used to draw a circle and then a line in the middle of it. He would then talk (briefly because he is a very good counselor) about when one person gives 50%, the other only 25, how there is then a void… (and what should we do with that void???)

I think everyone responds to the void differently, give more, give the same (His solution) amount you were before, give less (kind of a negative reaction I would think, but one could argue for it), or chuck the relationship entirely.

Lately, I have become really aware of how much and how many relationships I desire, but I realize also I don’t know how to love many of my friends well. Some live in town and I don’t do well, some live in South Carolina and I don’t do well. Some live in New Jersey and I think we do a fine job… (Those are all people, I’m not good at ‘examples’ who are truly anonymous… )

How do you give? When do you feel like you could give more? Are your friendships improving at this point in your life? I didn’t even get into family… So much harder, yet with so much more natural love there…

I put in a picture of my wonderful daughter because 1. She is the main attraction to my blog. 2. This is HER FRIEND, Princess Poodelina Rose, and 3. She is currently asking me very sternly if I could (perchance?) leave the keyboard and fix her some applesauce and barley.

I just received an e-mail from someone (I do not know who because they did not leave a name) who was listening to my podcast for some time apparently… They will no longer be listening after a comment I made where I said, “Jesus screwed all this up…”

I honestly don’t remember exactly what I was talking about and am forced to assume this was in response to my last podcast about sub-cultures and counter-cultures and my own interpretation of which one Jesus was promoting through his Gospel.

The writer also was astute in pointing out that I am too-often abstract. I mean it that she/he was astute, I am abstract – I think that way, write that way (much to the chagrin of professors), and have always been led to teach that way (much to the chagrin of the students I get to teach).

I have two purposes in writing this blog: one to explain to the writer how their e-mail made me feel, and two: to fight e-mail as an actual mode of communication.

It sent a chill through my body, especially through my neck, and made my heart beat faster. Because I do not know exactly how the writer felt, I am again forced to assume that she/he was left upset by the comment I made. There was no dialogue. For all I know the listener has more knowledge and education about everything I talk about than I do. So, I am left with my heart beating quickly and no resolution whatsoever. I would be interested to know how I was wrong, i would be excited to ask forgiveness if i had offended, and I would be more than willing to talk if there was a misunderstanding. Instead I am left to write this blog…

A pastor in Michigan calls gossip verbal pornography because we want the rush of being in someone else’s life without taking the time and energy to be in their life. It might be an imperfect analogy, but hey, it isn’t mine! The point with e-mail is similar. If you have something to communicate that is more than just news/weather/sports – please communicate it in a two-sided way. I would like to write adjectives about my opinions about these e-mails. I won’t. I just wish we might all learn a little something about people, and how to love them well this side of the New Heavens and the New Earth – we could start by communicating…

I know I want to do this… I know some aspects… and I know I want it to be me-specific… is that bad? What does it mean to leave a legacy? how much of it is your family? How much is it like getting published or something…

I took this picture (unlike almost all of the others… taken by my wife). I love my daughter, she is such a trip…