When Uninstall won't work

Friends, I have to admit to you that I have been rather dazed and confused this entire week. That is until now.

I have an old PDA. It is a Handspring Visor. I've had it four about 7 years now and I love it. It is rugged, dependable, and usually reliable. I use it a lot! It is my lifeline to being the anal retentive, calendar driven individual that I am.

On Monday, I tried to Hotsync my PDA with my computer, and when I did - it shut the computer down completely. This is not the first time this has happened to me in my years of using a PDA, but usually it happens once, and then I can move forward. Not on Monday.

After several hours of attempting this sync, I resorted to trying to reinstall the software. When that didn't work, I went online for some suggestions about compatibility problems with the recent time patches for Outlook, etc.

I then went to the Palm Site (Handspring was purchased by Palm years ago). I got some advice. Found some FAQ's about the problem that I was experiencing. They told me to uninstall and reinstall the Palm Desktop software using the Uninstall program on the computer.

I did - nothing. At this point, I was at a full blow!!! My children were asking my wife what was wrong, and all she could say was, "just stay away from Daddy!"

I walked away, tried to eat dinner, and tried a hard and soft reset. Nothing!!!!!!

I then proceeded to write tech support to ask for some help. The response was to uninstall.

But did you know that is not enough? It turns out that you need to search for hidden files! How frustrating is that!

Long story short - I also told myself that I was going to wait until today to try to do anything. It is my day off, and what would be a day off without a little frustration, right?

I followed the directions, which were four pages long by the way, and IT WORKS!!!!!

Is there a connection to the church? Sure there is! I think that sometimes as Christians we do our darnedest to remove sin from our lives. We focus on that during lent. We repent, we reaffirm our faith, we try to move onto Perfection, and still there are the hidden things in our lives that prevent us from being who God has called us to be.

Because of that - we have to dig deeper and deeper, pray harder and harder, and continuously seek God's grace in all that we do.

The Gospel of Matthew says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect."

I seek that!

But now I have to repent for all the bowling words I used this week.

Apocryphal Renderings

I don't know whether you know this or not, but apparently there is a little known text that goes like this:

As Jesus was about to ascend into heaven, he said to his disciples, "as soon as you make disciples of me, forget everything else that I have said about the poor, the hungry, the lost. Forget about the sheep, they can feed themselves. Worry about yourself, your kind. As soon as you grow my church to be about the size that you want it - stop. Put a hedge around it, insulate yourselves from the outside and wait. I'll be back. And before I go - don't let too many people help others, I don't trust them. Let those who are paid, be paid to do your work."

I know what you're thinking - where did that come from? I don't know either, but it must be there somewhere. I say that because I have been a part of so many discussions this week with others that lead me to believe that we have a real struggle on our hands as the people of God.

When did we get to the point that we were more worried about ourselves than others?

When did we get to the point that we thought that it was the "paid professional's job" to care for our children?

When did we get to the point that we leave a church because we didn't get enough attention?

When did we get to the point that churches will poach, steal, and accept good disciples in the name of church growth instead of fulfilling the Biblical mandate - and I'm not referring to that fictitious one from above.

I don't care what church you are in (I know there are a few exceptions), but we have a lot of work to do. We have got to do a better job of teaching, modeling, preaching about our responsibility to those who are not here. It is not the paid professional's job - only - to care for those who are already here.

And just another thought. When did we get to the point when you were the number one priority?

Those are my thoughts - if you can tell me where to find that text from above, I'd love to see it.

March Madness

There are a few times of the year that I get excited, but this happens to be one of the times that I get really excited. In terms of sports excitement, March Madness has me captivated.

I enjoy College Basketball, and enjoy the coming weeks. I enjoy watching teams compete, as well as the opportunity for the underdog to soar! Cinderella is invited to dance, and many times she is given the opportunity to find her Prince Charming.

I happen to be a Duke Apologist and so I enjoy watching my team on television more than we are accustomed. However, alas, Duke already hit a major stumbling block. After winning 7 of the last 8 previous ACC tournament titles, Duke lost last night in overtime to NC State.

Previously, Duke was probably looking at about a number 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, but I am afraid that due to their recent loss to the dreaded Tar Heals of North Carolina coupled with this early exit from their conference tournament, Duke is now looking at something far worse.

I may be a Duke apologist, but I am not foolish enough to place them out of the second round. But that won't stop me from rooting for them, screaming my head off, and rooting for Cinderella to get her shoe.

No Duke game to sit and watch this weekend. Guess I just have to wait until next week.

Let's Go Duke!

It didn't take long

I got my first Gold Dollar the other day from a friend. I was excited about the new dollar and looked at it quite closely. I enjoyed the new look of the dollar and as a coin collector, I look forward to seeing all of the Presidential Dollars as they are released. One thing I liked about the dollar was that instead of a smooth edge like a nickle or the ridges of a quarter, the new dollar has words printed on the band or edge. It was unique enough to me that I took notice.

Well, today I got one of those emails. You know the ones that people feel they just have to circulate in order to preserve our heritage, our christian way of life, our freedom. You know what I'm talking about. This one was decrying the decision to not include the words "In God we trust" on the new dollar.

I knew immediately that it was a scam. I am looking at it right now - there it is! In God We Trust. But just to see if there was any information, I went to my favorite site for this junk. Snopes.com is a myth-busting, urban legends, and scam page. If you have never used it - you should check it out. I like to check it out any time that I get something fishy. Here is what they say about the email today.

There is a part of me that doesn't understand the mind of a person that chooses to intentionally manipulate information. What is so funny about it? What gain is there?

The person that forwarded the email was a well intentioned individual from my congregation. I suspect they forwarded it to me because I just used the Dollar in my children's message on Sunday. What bothers me is how these emails really only affect those who trust others enough to believe what is sent to them. They then send them, in all sincerity, to others who get caught up in the game.

For the most part, I hate forwarding emails. But what I hate worse is sending a reply to someone telling them they were the brunt of a joke. It makes it even worse when it is a parishoner and you have to tell them not to worry, Touched by an Angel is not being cancelled because they say God, and no Madeline O'hare is not alive, you are not going to win a shopping spree, etc, etc.

Anyway - go use the coin. I want to see it in circulation regularly! And check out Snopes.com

Call Me Old Fashioned

Just the other day, Carnegie Mellon University announced plans to allow co-eds to live together in the same room. At first hearing, I was confused because the story was leading me to believe that they were going to allow for co-ed dorms. Not true - the proposal is for co-educational living spaces. Male and female in the same room!?

Call me old fashioned, but I think this is a bad idea!

Maybe the argument is just a continuation of a trend in our institutions of higher education, but I thought that the current trend would have been a good place to stop. I remember hearing that co-ed dorms were the trendy thing to do. People flipped out over males living on one floor and women living on another. I don't have a problem with that one.

Side bar - I laugh when I remember the first time I came home from College with a new style of underwear. I left home with the classic JCPenney Briefs, but returned with a whole basket full of colorful new boxers. Never mind the full explanation of the choice - but I took great joy giving my mother a stroke by telling her it was because "the women liked them better!" Sorry - I digress!

Then there was co-ed by hall. In other words, one hall of males might be separated by a door, or a stairwell. Males had their own bathrooms, females their own, each on their respective halls. That was my experience in college. Third Floor Baldwin was co-ed by hall. Some of my dearest friends were females from the next hall. I don't have a problem with this one either.

Shortly after I graduated, the college moved to some buildings that were co-ed by room. In other words, a male room maybe adjacent to a female room on the same hall. Ok, so you run into the difficulty of bathrooms on different halls, but when modesty clashes with this ideal, you simply wear a robe! Yes - it pushes the envelope, but I guess I justified this one by saying that young adults will soon be moving into living situations in apartment complexes when they will live next to people or roommates of the opposite sex. I didn't have a problem with this.

Carnegie Mellon prides themselves on being a one of the finest institutions in the nation - but I think they failed to think this one through. Women and men go through too many changes at this point in their lives to place this as just another stupid decision that they have to make. We struggle to place boundaries in life so that we can make intelligent choices, and yet this one was removed. Some might argue that this is not about "sex." It may not be right now, but human nature will take over and then what?

Personally, I don't know how many parents who are footing the bill for college are going to fly with this one. I know I would not, and you can guess where my parents would stand based upon the earlier story.

Call me old fashioned, modest, a prude, but I think this is an egregious crossing of the moral and justifiable boundaries that we should be upholding as a people.

The apostle Paul once wrote, "do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed . . ."

I know, I know, I conformed when the ladies told me I should ditch the JCPenney brand while I was in the laundry room, but I don't want to conform to CMU's morality experiment.

Being Seen

This week has posed some interesting challenges for family life and ministry. Tuesday and Wednesday brought a winter storm that Western Pennsylvania hasn't seen in several years. School was cancelled and roads were impassable. I am not like most pastors who live sometimes within walking distance to their churches. I live 26 miles away. So the better part of reason caused me to remain at home both days.

Thursday is my day off. However, I went to the office to get some work done. While at the office, I wrote an email and I mentioned that in many ways it was to get some work done, but in other ways it was to be "seen." That single word sparked a back and forth email conversation, and someone even just asked if I would have the "gutts" to write about this.

Why did I do it? Why did I say it? Because in so many ways, I think our ministries are driven by people who live and work in a society that is driven by a time clock. We work in ministry in an annual conference that has a piece published by our Board of Ordained Ministry that says that the typical work week is 50 hours on average. Further, we work in churches that have unrealistic expectations. I think I base this on past experience and the experience of those I work with in ministry. I have actually read evaluations of pastors that said that they were not spending enough time in the office.

To the average bear, that is translated in so many different ways. But at its worst, 50 hours is 50 hours. How you spend those 50 hours is not of concern for them, they just want to know that you've done your job working 50 hours.

To be seen means being seen in the office. Work done outside, in Starbucks, in the home, on the road, at the conference center just doesn't count.

Some of it is guilt. Maybe there is the internal part that judges our performance based upon some of those worldly standards. I will admit to you that I find it hard to work in the home with children running all over the place. Further there are things that just can't get done unless you are there at the desk, in the church . . . being "seen."

I think I have a level head about this because I know that making disciples of Jesus Christ does not happen at a desk, in an office, and simply by being seen. I did get work done on Tuesday and Wednesday preparing for sermons, reading, preparing for Bible study, and checking up on future projects.

Plus the better part of my day was spent ministering to my children, building an igloo, having fun and being seen as part of their lives. For that I am thankful.

Yes, Thursday was my day off and I came into the office to get some work done and to be "seen." Unfortunately, no one saw me except my secretary.

Let me hear your thoughts.

Snow Shoveling

Over the past few days, there have been several news stories reminding people of the dangers of snow shoveling. Snow shoveling can be dangerous to anyone because of the amount of energy it takes just to move snow. I heard them warn people that if they were not "in shape" to take it easy out in the snow.

I found out why today when I went out to shovel snow. On top of the several inches of snow that fell yesterday, there had to be a good half inch of ice on top of that! I consider myself a relatively healthy individual, but after that experience today I understand why people die. That was painful!

After that - I had to go and extract our van from its icey tomb.

But what am I complaining about? There are people in upper NY who have been shoveling for over a week straight and have walls of snow surrounding them!

I guess I'll take the ice over 120 inches of snow. Stay safe out there.