There’s nothing better than the feeling of waking up in the morning after staying up past two the previous night. In fact, it is now three in the afternoon, I’m sitting in Starbucks drinking their dark roast coffee, and I can still feel it. Speaking of Starbucks, right now as I am typing this entry I am watching some friends of mine attempting to move the castle that used to be in children’s book section. Chapters decided to get rid of the castle, and my friend happened to be at the right spot at the right time, so Chapters let him have it for their church’s Sunday School. There is a couple sitting outside Starbucks laughing at them during this whole process.
Yesterday was awesome.
The day started with church in the morning. I got there at about the right time for church and when I parked my vehicle it started pouring rain. Luckily there was a blue and white Wal-Mart umbrella in my van, which I used to stay dry. I walked into the foyer/lounge area of the building and headed to the coffee area. There was an older gentleman sitting by himself drinking coffee, and having spoken to him the week before with Tyler I decided to say hi. From this point on I will call him Yellow Suitman, and if you are not sure whom I am talking about, then ask me in person and I’ll tell you. I greeted Yellow Suitman and said his name, but I don’t think he heard me too well so there was a moment of confusion between us. Yellow Suitman invited me to sit with him and have coffee at his table in the lounge, but I had to politely turn down his invitation because the services are very important to me. It’s really a tough decision for me, to decide between sitting and talking with someone, giving them my time, or doing something that I want to do instead. I do not believe that there really is a right or wrong choice, but maybe depending on the situation there is a better choice. In this case I turned down Yellow Suitman’s invitation because what I wanted to do was something that I thought was important for me spiritually. Well actually I just quietly slipped away, which might have not been the best thing to do.
Ray did the sermon Sunday morning about worship. It is my belief that ADHD, or ADD, or whatever they keep changing the stupid acronym too, is a benefit to pastors, speakers, and teachers because it makes them interesting to listen to; it gives them a special dynamic to their speaking. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a drug that would give people ADD when they needed to speak in front of an audience. It would be like the reverse of Ritalin and much more powerful than sugar; I could use a drug like that. I walked into the auditorium just as the service was starting, so everyone had found a seat. What I usually do when I come late is to walk straight to the front of the auditorium where I know there will always be empty seats. It beats having to stand around at the back of the auditorium looking around for empty seats next to people who we’d want to sit next to, and who will let us. I wonder why no one ever wants to sit at the front row seats; I find it kind of funny to be honest. Everyone would love to have front row seats to their favorite band’s concert, or ice level seats to an NHL hockey game, and yet no one ever wants to sit up front at church. Are we afraid that people will look at us or something, that we’ll stand out somehow? I wonder why we find it more comfortable to sit towards the middle or back during the service. The nice thing I find about sitting at the front is that I can rest my arm on the top of the chair next to me and turn my head so that I can see the whole congregation. Yesterday morning I saw a friend sitting next to her mom who normally doesn’t come to Red Wood. I pray that she was blessed by the service. After the baptism was done and the music continued Ray sat next to me; I guess since I was sitting at the front row and pastors usually sit there so they can jump on the stage at an opportune time written out in the service outline. Some of the things that stood out in Ray’s message was self-consciousness when we worship, which I’ll comment about later when I talk about Plunge, and the rollercoaster.
After the service I bumped into Yellow Suitman again and he invited me out to coffee. I had to contemplate his offer in my head, go through a quick inner guilt trip because I am a selfish looser, and then I accepted Elmer Fudd’s offer (see Blue Like Jazz pg. 224, or if you don’t own the book read James 2:1-9). He bought me a coffee and a muffin, and of course I was blessed, as I am sure that he was too. He talked a lot about his life and his family—I asked him questions about each. It turns out my dad was one of his teachers back in the day; probably around the time he first started teaching. So now, twenty-five or so years later, Yellow Suitman is having coffee with one of his teachers’ son. I asked him about what he learned in life and he talked about the various lessons he learned, mostly about trusting others. My time with Suitman got me thinking, and I know I could be wrong about this since I never asked him about Jesus—that will be next time—so this is not to judge him, but rather us. Suitman has been going to Red Wood for about fifteen years and I think it would be a crime if during that whole time he has never gotten to know about Jesus, or if no one has ever really shared Jesus with him because he is an Elmer Fudd-like character. Suitman could know Jesus very well—I have no idea since I never really asked—but I just wanted to bring that up so both you and I are aware of how we treat the Elmer Fudds we may meet in our lifetimes. And maybe one day it will dawn on us that we’re Elmer Fudds too. After our coffee time I drove Suitman around to pays some bills and then I took him home.
I spent a bit of time at my house talking to my mom, petting my cat, and then I picked up an Atkin’s wrap from Subway and headed back to Red Wood. I spent some time cleaning up the network cables on the mock wiring closet, replacing the store bought Belkin cables with shorter ones I made. When I was done I wrote a little message on the box of cable, which people will probably laugh at when they see it—I hate that cheap Telco cable, but I guess it’s nice for doing cable runs in certain situations since it’s small and thin.
Worship at Plunge was awesome. I did the thing I started doing when Nathan spoke about worship, where I will go to the front of the auditorium by the stage and just let myself loose. I do this for a few reasons. One, it’s easier for me to focus when I’m at the front by the stage because I see nothing except the band and the lyrics of the song; I am completely zoned out of everyone around me, and worship then becomes a time of just me and God. The second reason I do it is because normally I’m kind of a quiet, held back type of person, and if the only time people know me for not being not like that is when I am worshiping God, then I think that is great. It is also a battle of self-consciousness for me; I can choose to be reminded that there is a ton of people behind me who may be thinking that I am some kind of freak, or I can choose to think that everything is between me and God. One thing that touched my heart about last night was when I turned my head to look at the people around me. At the very back of the worship area by the curtains I saw a few older people raising their hands and worshiping God with us younger folk. I thought that was the coolest thing ever because in my head I have this stereotype that somehow people who look like them are different in how they view or interact with God. I might be wrong about this, but I think that one of these people was a mom who brought her son and daughter out to Plunge because they just moved to the city—she had her arms in the air.
We were privileged last night to have a band play for us who were touring and doing outreach work in native reserves. I strongly believe that they blessed us as we blessed them. The ministry going on at Plunge blessed them, and their company and compassion blessed us. After the service we went to Friends and I shared various kinds of wings with Nate—the suicide wings weren’t very suicidal, the joys of being half Malaysian. And after the whole night just as we were paying for our meals Nate bumped into a girl at the bar who started a conversation with him; I recognized the girl from high school. The conversation went on for a long time, which is why I didn’t get home till after two. I believe that it meant a lot to her to have someone who she didn’t know listen to her talk about her struggles in life and actually care about her. When the night was over and they were kicking us out of the building I gave her one of the Plunge cards, and Nate wrote his email on the back of it.
Last night I was thinking about how religion is a stumbling block preventing people from getting to know God. My prayer that I prayed in my heart while we were praying for the posts was that religion wouldn’t be a stumbling preventing any of the people who posted from reaching God, and that it wouldn’t be a stumbling block for their parents either. The girl at the bar reminded me of that when she talked about people forcing their religion on others.
So that was my day yesterday. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Before I finish this rather long entry I would also just like to give a quick thank you to the various people who have been giving me a lot of encouragement for my writing (or blogging). I really appreciate it, and it helps me to keep writing stuff. I like to write about what I’m thinking and what’s on my heart, as honestly as I possibly can while trying my hardest to keep my pride and ego far away. I think this is a gift God has given me, or at least something that he wants me to do, so I’m trying to put as much work and effort into it as I can. Maybe someday I’ll write a book; today I thought of a very original title for it, “Plunge: Dive in the water’s great.”
And keep writing in your blogs too, I enjoy reading them very much.
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