April 2008 Archives

I felt vertigo coming on just before the first service yesterday. Things were a bit dreamy during the song package, but I made it through.

But the second service was worse. I have a two-keyboard arrangement. When I switched from one to the other, I also switch foot pedals, and need to look down. The head motion sent things spinning. The last song of the package was a hymn which I played at the grand, just me and a singer on the platform. Pianists are supposed to watch the songleader. But the glance toward the stage started the spinning again. I decided to just look straight ahead.

Tim prayed after the hymn. We don't like to use prayers to move people around. But I decided to use the prayer to make my exit to the back of the sanctuary. I knew I might stagger a bit, and though the incognito route was better.

I found a couch in the basement and laid down for the rest of the service. told the guys not to expect me for the last song.

This vertigo stuff is the pits.

After a beautiful day yesterday, cold weather blew in this morning. It warmed up somewhat in the afternoon, but a chill remained in the air.

Hillary blew into town this morning for a rally.

I had a major, debilitating vertigo episode Wednesday night, while visiting some of Pam's relatives. Spent a couple hours on their bathroom floor, the world spinning around me. Not fun. And not exactly civilized behavior for a guest.

So I'll be seeing a specialist on May 5. Seems a long way off, but from what I hear of Canada's system, I probably wouldn't be able to see someone before Christmas. Of 2010. So 10 days isn't so bad.

Four things aggravate Mineire's Disease: salt, caffeine, stress, and alcohol.

• Salt. At the grocery, I read the sodium content of nearly everything. Most frozen foods, especially TV dinners, have outrageous salt levels. Banned from my life forever.
• Stress. Can't control this one. Had quite a bit of stress the past few weeks, just very busy at work leading up to the unveiling of our new brand. Stress levels fluctuate.
• Caffeine. This one pains me. I switched to decaf coffee a couple years ago. But I'm afraid I need to cut out even decaf, which still has some caffeine. I love everything about coffee. Hate giving it up.
• Alcohol. That leaves alcohol. I guess I'll need to forgo the Bud I have when...oh wait, I've never in my life tasted beer (unless beer-battered fish counts). Maybe I can handle this one.

When Yao Ming entered the NBA, commentators noted how the game was too fast for him. But the more he played, the more it would slow down.

I remember my first school game, in 8th grade. I started. But the game was nothing like practice. Everything happened so fast, and I was lost. Probably looked liked an idiot out there.

Table tennis is a fast game, and I try to mentally slow down. Don't rush shots. Try to get in slo-mo mode. Let the ball come further back before striking.

I'm reading The Revolutionary Communicator, by Jedd Medefind and Erik Lokkesmoe. It looks at seven communication practices of Jesus. The chapter on "Attentiveness" examines how Jesus noticed everything around him. He looked in people's eyes and perceived hopelessness, fear, anxiety, heartbreak, frustration, and whatever else was going on. He noticed people on the margins, people others ignored.

Things were always happening around Jesus. When a man's daughter lay dying, he hurried off to help her. But on the way, he stopped to say, "Who touched me?" As others waited impatiently, he talked to a woman and healed her before moving on. I think life moved slowly for Jesus, because he noticed everything.

I thought of this the other day while eating in a restaurant. I, as usual, was buried in a magazine, hardly noticing the waitress, who came by my table several times to make sure things were okay. I grunted replies without looking up. Finally, having just read this chapter, I realized how inattentive I was. Jesus would be paying attention to this waitress, not ignoring her. So the next time she came, I sat back, looked her in the eye, and spoke to her. Baby steps.

Wow. this is what it's about. This is the approach Jesus would take.

This is from Kinetic Church, a church plant in Charlotte, NC. They meet in a movie theatre. The trailer containing 75% of their equipment was stolen. This video was done in response.

The Executive Leadership Team for our denomination met last night and today. Good meeting. Today's lunch was at Huntington University. We had a taco salad. It was okay, after I scraped off the sour cream and guacamole. But not what I would have picked. Not that I got to pick.

Susan Hoopingarner was the administrative assistant five administrative assistants ago. Yes, lots of turnover lately in that position. Anyway, Susie always ran the menu past me, so I could pick something that I most definitely liked. I'm sure our meals were a bit boring back then, because I'm not culinarily adventurous. Ham croissant, chips, salad, cherry pie. Something like that. That's what I would pick.

Then Susie left. Sherry, Erinn, Marsha, and now Cathy--none of them have deemed me important enough to review the menu. And so, everyone ends up with a tremendous taco salad that THEY all think is pure heaven, but which I'm not so sure about.

Just one of those small sacrifices I make for the cause of Christ. I'm sure my reward will be in heaven. Preferably with a butterscotch topping.

Watched Beowolf Sunday night. Didn't really care for it. Don't know why they did that cartoonish effect. I guess the director had a "vision" for that, but it was a stupid vision.

I'm enjoying "Combat!", the TV show from the 60s (which I grew up watching). Very good stories. We're on the fourth disk of season 1.

At Anchor, we're working with several Presbyterian churches in a Habitat for Humanity project. Only need to raise another $1000, and that should be easy with the Nelson's BBQ event in a couple months.

Yesterday, I heard that a family and location have been chosen. Can't remember the location (I think I heard a Paulding reference), but the home will be for a family of seven from Somalia. Cool.

Yesterday was a sacred day in the Steve and Pam Dennie household: the first Saturday after April 15. Meaning, the first Saturday of the year that Pam didn't have to work. The first Saturday she could sleep in. The first Saturday we could go see a movie.

Well, no movies appealed to us. Seems like the same was true last year. Instead, we hung around the house mostly and took it easy.

• Started out by giving both Molly and Jordi baths. Molly always wails the whole time, like we're water-boarding her or something. Jordi took it like the 16-pound man he is.
• I made bacon and eggs.
• Lots of reading.
• I spent some hours on work stuff. Pam's busy time is over, but I'm still in the middle of one.
• Went to see Mom and Dad for a while.
• Finished the "Combat!" DVD we had from Netflix, season 1, disk 2.

According to Popular Mechanics:

• Macs, both laptops and desktops, run Vista faster than PCs.
• PCs, of course, are actually designed to run Windows operating systems.
• Vista was more sluggish than Leopard. Duh.

Pam and I make a run to Sam's Club every time we get low on water. By "water," I mean Ice Mountain bottle water. That's the kind we prefer. A shelf in our refrigerator holds one case of Ice Mountain bottles. I'm not sure which icy mountain the water comes from. Maybe it's in Nepal. Or maybe it's from a tap in downtown Chicago. I don't know.

At work, we have a Culligan water dispenser. I tried some tap water the other day, and it made me gag. I keep a big cup in my office for the good Culligan stuff.

But our tap water at home tastes good. We even have a cold water line in our freezer door, next to the ice dispenser, so we never need to drink unchilled tap water. But rather than use that, we just grab a bottle of Ice Mountain.

My pastor, Tim Hallman, published an excellent piece about bottled water. He mentioned buying a 24-pack of bottled water for $4. Then he did some calculations based on his water utility bill, and concluded that filling those bottles with tap water would cost a mere 24 cents. He also mentioned an NPR interview he heard in which he learned that making one bottle of purified water requires four bottles of water (for making, purifying, and transporting the bottle). And we're in a water crisis.

Hmmmm.

What does God think when I ask God's blessing on my meal when I eat at...McDonalds? Or Wendy's? "Lord, please bless these jumbo fries, double cheeseburger, and Frosty to the nourishment of my body." Is God going, "So in other words, you're asking me for a miracle?"

Should we actually pray for forgiveness? "God, I know I'm exercising poor stewardship of my body by eating such a non-nutritious meal. Even as I chomp these fries, all I can do is ask for your forgiveness."

Actually, I suspect this is one of those free will things God just doesn't get hung up about.

Read an article in Time about Charlton Heston, who died last week. Most impressive part: he and his wife were married for 64 years. Now there's a Hollywood maverick for you.

One of our churches was mentioned in an article about the use of technology in churches. The online article included three comments. Before looking at them, I figured they would be people griping about how we've become entertainment-driven, worldly, etc. And that was true of two comments. And yet, I found some things that made me smile.

• "I have a hard time seeing the blood drenched Christ being impressed with 7 microphones on a set of drums." To which another person commented, "That must have been a small drum set."
• The third person complained about how songs keep getting louder and louder, and how God must have gone deaf. He described today's songs as "seven-eleven songs: 7 words repeated 11 times." That was clever. Dad would agree.

Pam spotted a nail sticking in her left-front tire, so getting it fixed intruded into my schedule today. That schedule had featured three things:

1. Work on a new website for work (we're in a rebranding initiative).
2. Go to the table tennis club.
3. Go work out at the YMCA.

The Tire Barn repaired the tire. Said it would take about an hour. So I grabbed a New Yorker magazine and headed across the street to McDonald's. That McD's had some comfortable, heavily padded chairs with a big-screen TV displaying Fox News. I sat there reading Jeffry Toobin's superb article about the mess at Guantanamo, and the Bush Administration's lack of basic humanity, cluelessness about what it means to live in a free society, disdain for the rule of law, and apparent hidden psychological admiration for glorious totalitarianism. The article was written objectively, but I managed to inject oodles of subjectivity. Perhaps you could tell.

And that was my day. Pam went to bed 45 minutes ago. SNL starts in 15 minutes. Will I stay up to at least catch the opening bit?

Yeah, I think I will.

My brother Rick attended an Obama rally in South Bend, Ind., and wrote about it on his blog. Interesting stuff.

My Canadian friend, Brian, sent me this. That sounds like I only have one Canadian friend. I probably have at least a handful of Canadian friends.

So I'm horrified by factory farming, which grossly abuses cows, pigs, and chickens. What should I do about it?

The other day, I bought some eggs. I noticed containers marked "Cage Free" which promised that the chickens weren't pumped with vitamins and hormones. They were 80 cents more, but I decided to buy them. If you go on the basis of cost, then you merely support the factory farming industry, which is all about sacrificing humane treatment in return for efficiency...which means lower costs. But while hoping for the best, I remained a bit skeptical. Was I merely being fooled by the packaging?

A little. Some internet searching told me that "cage free" doesn't mean the chickens roamed free. They might still be packed into huge sheds. They're just not jammed into cages stacked to the ceiling, unable even to flex their wings--which accounts for 95% of U.S. eggs. The "free range" label only means the henhouse had a door that was open part of the time, enabling chickens to get outside if they wanted.

What I really want is "organic certified," which means the hens had plenty of access to the outdoors, they ate organic feed, and weren't injected with drugs. "Free farmed" means the operation met some rigorous standards of the American Humane Association. I didn't see any such labels in my grocery store. There simply isn't much demand for humane treatment. People prefer cheap eggs.

It's so much more convenient to NOT know the abuse animals suffer to provide our meat and eggs. It would be easier if I didn't watch those myriad videos on You Tube. But I know, and I can't ignore it.

At the same time, I realize there are sanctimonious people eager to scoff, "If he only cared as much about lost souls as he cares about stupid chickens...."

(I wrote about factory farming on February 18 and February 19. People left comments both days, comments which just got published yesterday. As I explained yesterday.)

Oooops. I've been wondering why nobody's been commenting on my extraordinarily insightful musings, not to mention the other 99% of drivel on this site. Turns out that, in cranking up my spam filter, all comments--including comments from Yours Truly--were getting shunted into the Junk file.

I took a peek into the Junk area and discovered about 30 legitimate comments lurking among the 4000+ comments since the beginning of the year (lots and lots of frustrating spam). All of the non-spam comments have now been published. I hereby grovel at your cyber-feet in apology. I will accept contributions of dust and ashes.

Those comments include a bunch from my September 2006 post about Ann Kiemel. We're up to 43 comments now. Type "Ann Kiemel" into Google, and that post is at the very top. Amazing.

Visited the eye doctor this morning. Three years since the last exam. I've had to squint to read the wall menus at Starbucks and Panera Bread; the lettering keeps getting lighter and lighter. So it was time. Or past time. I've been intending to set up an appointment since November.

Every time I get a checkup, I feel like I've waited too long. And yet, every time, the doctor tells me, "Well, you have a little change, but not much." That irks me. I KNOW there's a big change. They are MY eyes. I can TELL. (I will now stop shouting at you. I apologize. You didn't do anything to me.)

I don't trust that machine, the one where you play the game, "Which is better, A or B?" Well, it's not always that easy. I'm sure that I gave the wrong answers, thereby resulting in his diagnosis of only minor change. He wants an A or B answer, and I keep wanting to qualify it--B is lighter/darker, a bit blurry, I'm seeing double, that might be an E or an H, but I think it's an E. The doctor doesn't want to hear stuff like that. He wants a definitive answer, so he can go on to slides C and D (which are not much different).

I believe the doctor, who is nearing retirement age, just makes assumptions about what I need based on having done such exams thousands of times. So we play the game for a while, he writes out a prescription, and he tells me to come back in a couple of years. And I'm left thinking, "I know I should have told him A. I'm so STUPID!"

As I write, I'm having trouble focusing on the computer screen, thanks to those dastardly drops he puts in my eyes.

I had a good night at the Three Rivers Table Tennis Club. Only lost once, that to Mike, whom I've never beaten in four years, and I at least won a game off him, losing 3-1. Jenning, an Asian player, and I go at it every week. We're very even. Sometimes he wins, sometimes I win, and it always goes down to the wire. Tonight I won, 3 games to 2, and it was 11-9 in the last game. Had two other matches that went to five games, and I won both of them. So it was a good night.

Got the big St. Joseph Valley tournament coming up the first weekend in May in South Bend. Plan to play in three categories, all the same day, so really need to prepare these next few weeks. I want to get my rating up to 1200 this year. That's a 90-point increase, and I only have three tournaments to do it (South Bend, Indy, and Highland).

Barack was in town last week. No, I didn't go hear him. I do have a dilemma, though. I like John McCain. However, the issues I care most about right now are not Republican issues. They include:

• Instituting a national health care plan. I believe it's scandalous to have 47 million people without any medical insurance, when nearly all other industrialized nations provide universal health care for their citizens. Too many people live on the brink of financial ruin, or just neglect their health out of financial necessity. Shouldn't happen in 2008 USA.
• Getting out of Iraq. It's a matter of national security for me. Our military is so depleted equipment-wise and over-stretchd, that we couldn't handle a new crisis that might arise (something NOT of our own choosing, like Iraq was). Get out wisely, but do get out and restore the military.
• Combatting global warming. This is a very real threat to our planet. It's true, Rush.
• Relief for the poor. Republicans tend to cut stuff that Jesus cares deeply about. The gap between poor and rich always widens under Republicans.

A new national survey of 2000 doctors showed that 59% favored a national health insurance program, up from 49% in 2002. Said one doctor, "As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care. More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem."

Saw this on Chris Elrod's blog: "“Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone can see it…but only you can feel the true warmth!” It sounds cute, but I'm not totally sure what it means. Is fellowship the same way? I think I've cogitated about it long enough.

For the last month or so, Dad's been building me a display cabinet for my bayonet collection. I've watched it come together with eager anticipation. My bayonets have been displayed in a wall case in the basement, a case which once displayed my niece Paula's Barbie collection. From Barbie to the battlefield. I don't think Ken is a bayonet kind of guy.

Anyway, Dad called to tell me that the cabinet was finished. Pam and I picked it up on Wednesday. Last night we decided where to put it--a spot in our great room--and I spent the next two hours filling it up. The bayonets rest on dowel pegs, giving me a lot of flexibility in how I arrange them. I fit all 43 bayonets, plus 4 fighting knives, into the cabinet with room to spare. I'll be able to squeeze in another 8-10 bayonets.

The cabinet is beautiful pine with black hinges and handles. There are four doors--two large ones for the upper part, two smaller ones for the lower part. I LOVE it.

Here are some photos--the entire case with doors closed, the upper part, and the lower part. Click on the thumbnail to get a large view.
      

Barack Obama rolls a 37 in bowling. That's my kind of guy. A common man, in touch with the blue-collar values. A champion of the working class. Everyday folks.

37? I've not bowled in 20 years, but short of an unexpected quadruple amputation, I think I could exceed 37. For crying out loud, Stevie Wonder could do better. Or Stevie Hawking.

What were they thinking?

I regularly read Craig Groeschel's "Swerve" blog. He's the pastor of >LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma City, one of the most innovative and internet-savvy churches in the country. He puts some outstanding leadership stuff on the blog.

I just learned of a new initiative which I think is pretty exciting. They call it "One Prayer." It's a four-week (or more) series starting June 7-8, focused on the premise, "If God would answer one prayer for the church at large, what would you pray?" Various megachurch pastors will prepare messages in advance titled, "Make us _____." Groeschel will do "make us One." Perry Noble of Newspring will do "Make us Dangerous." Ed Young will preach "Make us Creative." And there will be many more.

Churches can download these messages and show them in their services. I sent a note to my pastor about it. It sounds like a pretty neat thing to me. Something the broader body of Christ is combining to do.

You can watch a video by Craig Groeschel here, and also visit a special One Prayer website.