I love Halloween. Always have.
My mom used to make brothers and I's costumes. I've been Batman, Superman, Alvin (from Alvin and this chipmunks) and even a clown.
The past two years, I have gone with the whole vampire theme because of how easy it was. This year though, I am finding it difficult to choose a costume....and the clock is ticking.
It is mandatory that we dress up at the dealership. We actually get paid if we do and there are prizes up to $500 for the best costume. So why is it, when most the time I would rather be anyone but me, I am finding it difficult to choose which mask to put on or what to paint on my face.
And if that was not enough fun, I get to drive to Tulsa and go to Jaime and Arna's Halloween party. Lots of fun, I am sure, but the only downside is I have to be back in the city the next day for church. Still trying to decide which would be the best, driving in that night after the party or 6 am Sunday morning. I guess I will let fate decide.
The idea of Halloween has always excited me. It is the one day out of the year that you can dress up as someone else and not have to be you. You can do what you want or act as goofy as you want and no one will question you.
Face paint has always been my favorite. Mask get to hot and with face paint, you can cover up your whole face, throw on a wig or hat and no one will know it's you.
Lately, I have been contemplating the Joker. However, finding a purple suit has presented itself to be a challenge. I don't think it is a high demand suit color. The great thing about the Joker, besides the face paint, is I can act as quirky as I want and no one will think otherwise. Most the people won't even know who I am, which will be good for the identity protection when it comes to photos.
Don't really know the reason from writing this. Just felt like writing. These are the decisions I face throughout my day.
Well, have a great Halloween and B safe
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
what's your problem?
Sitting here, listening to Coldplay's new CD for like the fifteenth billion time. Chewing on a yellow guitar pick that I found in my jeans.
Funny thing about being a guitar player, you find picks EVERYWHERE. Most the time, if I need one, I look in the lent trap in my dryer. That's where they all usually end up. I keep them in that small pocket that is inside your right pocket. I don't know if women have that pocket, but all my jeans have them and I never could figure out what they were for. Then I found that they make great pick holders. I usually shove 3 in there before service on Sundays, just so I know where I can find one if I can't find mine during click off.
I saw "Moneyball" last Saturday. Great movie. I've been thinking about a certain part of the movie. Don't worry, I am not going to spoil anything.
There is a scene in the movie where the GM, Billy Beane, is asking his team, "what is our problem?" Of course, his team is responding with "we need to replace Damon and Giambi" (two very good players that went to different teams that season because they were offered more money).
Billy says "no" and asks the same question again. And like the first time, he gets the same answers. He then ask the same question and points to the new guy he just acquired. The new guy responds, "we need more runs."
THAT is the problem. Not replacing someone or something, the problem is runs. More runs win you the game.
Which, of course, I have been thinking about all week. What is my problem. A lot of people would say that their problem is "they need money," but that isn't their problem. Their problem is they need food, they need a house, they need clothes or an education.
When we go to God, a majority of us go to Him asking for more money. We tithe expecting to be blessed...financially.
I have heard SO many preaceher's talk about "sewing" your seed for a financial blessing. I actually heard on TBN a preacher say if you call in and give to him, you'll have a blessing in 24 hours.
Not that I don't believe in "sewing a seed" but when does it go from "sewing a seed" to trying to buy a miracle? And lets face it, most of us want a financial blessing.
Why? So we can pay our mortgage, make our car payment, buy that nice expensive pair of shoes that we have to have? Most of the time, our problems are not money. We think they are, but they aren't. Your problem is you need something that you don't have it. Society tells you that you need money and lots of it to get what you want.
Some might tell God that their problem is that a certain someone that they want to be with doesn't love them. That is not their problem. Their problem is they haven't found someone to love and love them in return. Maybe they need to start asking God for that.
Is happiness a problem, or is it greed in your heart that is preventing you to be happy with what you have your problem? I once heard someone talk about happiness only lasting as long as a clap. A new gold watch is only going to make you happy for a few days, then it's going to be the necklace to match the watch that brings you happiness.
If we sometimes could think outside the box, rather then the one way that we have been born to think, maybe we could get further and more out of this life. Sometimes you need to stop and think about what it really is you want.
Maybe God is asking us the same question Billy was. And maybe He is saying the same thing when we tell Him what our problem is. That what we think our problem is, really isn't the problem at all, but something entirely different.
Funny thing about being a guitar player, you find picks EVERYWHERE. Most the time, if I need one, I look in the lent trap in my dryer. That's where they all usually end up. I keep them in that small pocket that is inside your right pocket. I don't know if women have that pocket, but all my jeans have them and I never could figure out what they were for. Then I found that they make great pick holders. I usually shove 3 in there before service on Sundays, just so I know where I can find one if I can't find mine during click off.
I saw "Moneyball" last Saturday. Great movie. I've been thinking about a certain part of the movie. Don't worry, I am not going to spoil anything.
There is a scene in the movie where the GM, Billy Beane, is asking his team, "what is our problem?" Of course, his team is responding with "we need to replace Damon and Giambi" (two very good players that went to different teams that season because they were offered more money).
Billy says "no" and asks the same question again. And like the first time, he gets the same answers. He then ask the same question and points to the new guy he just acquired. The new guy responds, "we need more runs."
THAT is the problem. Not replacing someone or something, the problem is runs. More runs win you the game.
Which, of course, I have been thinking about all week. What is my problem. A lot of people would say that their problem is "they need money," but that isn't their problem. Their problem is they need food, they need a house, they need clothes or an education.
When we go to God, a majority of us go to Him asking for more money. We tithe expecting to be blessed...financially.
I have heard SO many preaceher's talk about "sewing" your seed for a financial blessing. I actually heard on TBN a preacher say if you call in and give to him, you'll have a blessing in 24 hours.
Not that I don't believe in "sewing a seed" but when does it go from "sewing a seed" to trying to buy a miracle? And lets face it, most of us want a financial blessing.
Why? So we can pay our mortgage, make our car payment, buy that nice expensive pair of shoes that we have to have? Most of the time, our problems are not money. We think they are, but they aren't. Your problem is you need something that you don't have it. Society tells you that you need money and lots of it to get what you want.
Some might tell God that their problem is that a certain someone that they want to be with doesn't love them. That is not their problem. Their problem is they haven't found someone to love and love them in return. Maybe they need to start asking God for that.
Is happiness a problem, or is it greed in your heart that is preventing you to be happy with what you have your problem? I once heard someone talk about happiness only lasting as long as a clap. A new gold watch is only going to make you happy for a few days, then it's going to be the necklace to match the watch that brings you happiness.
If we sometimes could think outside the box, rather then the one way that we have been born to think, maybe we could get further and more out of this life. Sometimes you need to stop and think about what it really is you want.
Maybe God is asking us the same question Billy was. And maybe He is saying the same thing when we tell Him what our problem is. That what we think our problem is, really isn't the problem at all, but something entirely different.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Road of Life
Been thinking a lot about life lately… and death.
It’s all around us. People living and people dying. We are told to “live like there is no tomorrow.” Yet, we all live as we are promised another day.
We are not promised anything. That’s the truth. But we live arrogant lives and continue through our medial days.
I would gladly give my life to save another’s. Sometimes I think I should have continued focusing on going into the armed forces. At least then, I could say I died for something. No, now I am a salesman and I wonder where the meaning in MY life is.
I really haven’t been the best example of a follower of Christ. I say that not in the sense that I am drunk on the roof with my pants down, but I really don’t talk much to others about Jesus.
I spoke a few months ago about a stripper that I dated. She told me the news and I really never gave her second thought or a follow up call after our second date.
I got the news, yesterday, that she just learned she had cervical cancer. Here is a young woman who is faced with a life threatening disease and I never once brought up the topic of Jesus.
I felt ashamed yesterday. Felt like I had let Him down… that I let her down.
I judged her the same way I had always been judged and passed her down the social ladder as everyone else has probably done.
I am talking to a new girl now. We talk all the time and pretty much had the same past history of broken hearts. I like her. I enjoy talking to her. There is only one thing about her that I don’t like. One thing that would prevent me from ever asking her out.
Then I start to wonder. “Does she know Jesus?” Maybe she has heard the same stories and rituals I had heard my whole life the kept me away from a relationship from Him and she doesn’t know that there is a better way to live.
Maybe I shouldn’t pass judgment on her so fast, as I have been tempted to do before. I am not saying that I have to be in a relationship with her, just be a friend.
My life, as meaningless as I think it is, maybe I can find meaning in the little things. If nothing else, the people I meet on a daily basis inspire me to be better than the rest around me.
Like Bruce, who taught me that there is a thing as true love. Or Frank, who quit his corporate job to start a non-profit foundation for Parkinson’s disease. There was Linda who, though she was 60, found a meaning to keep living after finding her husband with another woman.
These people remind me that life is what you make of it. It is your story to write. I was tired of the life being sucked out of me at the hotel, so I quit, to go do what I do now. I can honestly say that I have never been this relaxed.
Then I think of the girl with cancer, who I never talked a bit about Jesus too. We take Jesus for granted, thinking that others will do the job we were instructed to do. We think that “oh, someone else will tell them” or “who doesn’t know about Jesus?”
Maybe they do know of Him, but they don’t know Him like you do. Why else would they not be living for Him like you and me?
It’s fitting, I am writing about life while the movie The Green Mile, a movie about death, plays in the background for the second time.
We forget that sometimes that this road of life we are in, is headed in one direction. You can’t make it go anywhere else. The only thing you can change is the way you get there.
I end with this:
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.
Ecclesiastes 7.2
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