Waiting...

Andrea is officially due to give birth tomorrow. I'm pulling for tonight and hoping she's not a week late like she was with Kayla. It just feels weird to wait...I'm going to take a few days off when we have the baby boy, and I'm not feeling motivated to do anything else but get ready to have a family of four.
We are also still working on a name for the boy. If anyone has an idea, feel free to reply to this post. Actually, I'm sick of people telling me in person, so please do post here if you have an idea. Ideally, it should have meaning and sound cool (even with Millheim after it)

The Cobalt Season in early December

Poem for Middle Schoolers

I tried to write a really simple little poem about Jesus as Teacher for Life for middle schoolers we're hosting this weekend...I think it's a little cheesy but I wanted to make it at a 7th grade level...


Jesus, Jesus, Jesus

We like to use his name
But is it just a game

Bumper stickers and T-shirts
But will we follow when it hurts?

We watch the movie that Mel made
But what about after it’s played

A necklace with a cross
But are you ready for a loss

Give your stuff to the poor and follow me
But I’m afraid that might not make me happy

We like to pray that prayer and sing those songs
But MySpace is where my time belongs

All that stuff He said about love
That’s harder than me becoming a dove

But I tell you there is a better way
A way to live above the fray

The power that Jesus has thrown out to us
Power that can overturn the bus

The bus that heads to selfishness and fear
The bus that makes you call someone queer

When they need your love and care
But you don’t know if you can bear

But I say that you can
You can live by the Jesus plan

You can live in the way of the Son of Man
You can, You can, You can

The love revolution has begun
And I’ll tell you it’s a lot more fun

Than you may think
So let’s rethink

Reimagine our lives
How we love our brothers, sisters and wives

Love the homeless man in the gutter
And the weird boy who tends to stutter

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
More than a name or a game
More than a way to gain fame

A way to live and move and breathe
The only way to weave

Weave our fractured lives and make them whole
Yes we all have a special role

Today it is about more than fun
May your Kingdom come your will be done

I think I've become the Dad who is convinced his daughter is so adorable everyone on earth should look at a picture of her every day...

THE BUSINESS OF GOD: MINI CONFERENCE

THE BUSINESS OF GOD: Mini Conference

The Business of God
A mini-conference to explore emerging thinking on the role of business in the Kingdom of God with Brian McLaren, Nathan George, David Batstone .

Ever wondered how your faith connects directly to your skills in business? What has the ability to read a balance sheet, design a marketing campaign, or craft a legal operating agreement got to do manifesting the reign of Christ on earth? Are you really only in your secular job to act ethically and be a good witness? Could there be a bigger picture that God has – a role created for you that uses your skills?

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to come and hear both theory and practice of how God is using business to bring good news to the poor and release to the captives.

First Presbyterian Church, Burlingame, California
13th November 13, 2006 from 7:30 – 11:00 am
Cost is $5 at the door (to cover light breakfast)
Schedule
7.30am Business and Transformation – the role of business in the Kingdom
9:00 am Break (everyone is invited to both sessions but there will be a 30-minute break for those who need to leave)
9.30am The Church and Business – Explore the theology and practice of integrating mission with business

Speakers:
Brian McLaren (www.brianmclaren.net ) is a leading author of the subject of the emerging church, author of The Secret Message of Jesus, and the Board Chairman of Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
David Batstone (www.davidbatstone.com ) is the author of Saving the Corporate Soul, the editor-at-large of Sojourners, a founding editor of Business 2.0 magazine, and founder of Right Reality.
Nathan George (www.ambata.org ) is the founder of Ambata, a business focused on using consumer spending to create jobs for people freed from human trafficking and poverty.

Event Sponsors:
Sojourners/Call to Renewal , Ambata.org, First Presbyterian Church, Burlingame

More pics to share

Picture Share - the Trip

Father, let me think your thoughts and feel your feelings for the people I see

My thoughts
Sometimes they get all messed up, they get all jacked up, they get all tripped up

I see the tough guy with the wife beater under the double x t shirt
Gold chains hanging down and a scowl on the brow
And I feel threatened, I feel offended, I feel defensive

I see the hipster with the precocious smirk, listening to some band he’s proud to know because other people don’t
The t shirt with the cute little graphic
New Balance shoes, Cool tattoos, the funky hat
The Ritual coffee cup and the road bike that makes him peg his right pant leg
On his oh so tight jeans

My thoughts get all messed up in my head
I’d like to love but I’d rather not
My own insecurities and my own peculiarities are calling

The little boys hop the fence into the half way fixed up park
Pipes and rocks are used instead of the baseball bats and balls that never came on Christmas morning
Rocks are whizzing past my baby girl’s head. Anger rises in my veins like a wave at Mavericks.

What feelings am I feeling now? What thoughts race through my tired brain?

When the man at the park scolds me, shaking his head, for not bringing him a bicycle
While my family sits the drunken man knocks on the window of my car and complains that we will not give him food. He shakes his head in anger and disgust, scaring my two lovely ladies

What now? Thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings

I need to breathe. I need to stop. I need to rest.

My God says He loves, He cares, He sympathizes, He wishes well
He created…………In HIS IMAGE

He grieves when He sees the heroine needles
He cries when He sees the lonely child

Jesus spoke of a life abundant
A life He came for us to have

Echoes from my Sunday school childhood ring in my ear…

Change my heart oh God, Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God, May I be like you

Let me be so in tune, like a head bopping to a Jay Z tune
My thoughts full of your thoughts

May my brain be full of good thoughts, full of generosity
May my heart be filled with a compassion it has never known
May my feelings find direction and inspiration from my Creator

May all of us and all of them become simply all of us

And may we all feel His love,
ALL OF US
Swim around through it
Run in it without getting tired
Rest in it without getting bored
Float in it forever and ever and ever
May His love ooze out of our pores
And make us new

Barrio Libre!

I've heard rumors that some people really dig these posters that are all over the Mission District and want to meet whoever it is that is behind them.
Thanks to Ryan and Holly for designing these...

Greyhound

A friend told me he has been seeing commercials for Greyhound Buses full of smiling, happy people enjoying their deluxe trip on the bus. I feel like I should have taken actual footage last weekend and put it up on YouTube.

We (Adam, Mark, Josh and I) were dropped off by Lisa at the Greyhound station in San Francisco. After walking by several homeless men sleeping in the walkways and a few people screaming at each other, we made it to the ticket counter. We asked Ryan, the man behind the counter, if he had any tips for our long trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ryan said that we need to remember not to drink alcohol or smoke anything on the bus, but that if we saw any ladies we could feel free to take them to the back of the bus and have a little fun. "If the bus driver looks at you funny, it's just because he's jealous." Okay, thanks for the tip. Ryan then informed us that it was our lucky day. Not only would we be riding on an Express Bus (the first of several times we heard of these mythic super buses), but there were going to be some strippers on our bus!! Could it get any better??

The only thing I cared about was getting some sleep on the first leg of our trip which started at 10 PM on Saturday (San Francisco to Los Angeles). Alas, the story started off a different way. A woman sat behind Adam and myself and asked us not to recline our seats. She then spoke in a very loud voice the entire drive. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, never really sleeping, I heard lots of talk of praying and pastors. The ironic thing is that I don't think I saw one other cell phone amongst the hundreds of other Greyhound riders I came across during the trip.

We stopped in Oakland, Coalinga and Glendale on the way to Los Angeles. At Coalinga most of the other passengers grabbed some quality food at McDonald's. Having read Fast Food Nation a couple weeks ago, I definitely passed and thought about standing at the entrance and begging people to not eat the stuff, but instead I stood in the parking lot and stretched.

Upon our arrival in Los Angeles, we took a look at the waiting room full of metal chairs and interesting smells and decided to take a walk downtown. As soon as we reached the sidewalk we were offered bikes for $10 each by some local businessmen on the corner. We thought about it but continued to walk. We passed an organization I had heard of called Midnight Mission with around a hundred people in the courtyard (this was around 5 in the morning). On the surrounding streets were dozens of tents and makeshift homes of cardboard and shopping carts. Trash filled the streets along with boxes of clothes that had apparently been donated to the people of the street. We wondered aloud how much good was being done by this type of rescue mission. The presence of the mission seemed to have created a dense ghetto that chased away the rest of civilization. A heavy spirit filled the air and the complexities of helping the American poor rushed to my thoughts.

We returned to the station for the 7 AM to Phoenix and were about to board when a woman yelled to stop. There was no more room on the bus. The crowd quickly accepted the bad news. I was puzzled...no one would complain? We asked the woman, all the while suspecting that the bus was full of people who had tickets for the 9 AM trip to Phoenix. She gave us some meal vouchers for the food area and promised that the 9 AM bus was an "Express Bus" that would get us there right on time. Sure...
After choking down some free food and wondering where the bacon and eggs originated, I found Mark and Adam sleeping on the floors on opposite sides of the room. I tried to make my old Ipod mini work, but since the batteries have been on the fritz for a year or so, that didn't quite work.

Finally on the way to Phoenix!! We stopped in San Bernadino for 10 minutes, and I hopped off the bus to enjoy the sun and call my wife. After listening to a voicemail that Ryan and Holly Sharp had a new beautiful baby named Paxton, a young man, probably 18 or so, suddenly yelled at me that I could not stand there. "On the bus or in waiting area!!" was his command. A part of me wanted to yell back and inform the young man that 1. No one talks to me like that 2. Ever heard of a thing called customer service? 3. Since when is it illegal to step outside? After the 5 second burst of anger rolled through my veins, I smiled and nodded and slowly walked back into the bus, feeling like a part of a herd of cattle. I later chuckled when Adam recounted Mark being called "boy" when an agent demanded his ticket.

We needed to arrive in Phoenix in time to get on the 4:25 bus headed for Albuquerque, but we took several stops that were a bit too long and got there at 4:45 or so. We were told that there was another bus coming in 10 minutes so we had better hop in line. After waiting in line for half an hour we sent Mark to the ticket counter. Before long we finally were informed that the next bus wouldn't depart until 11 PM, but we could have some free meal tickets :) We met a woman with her son that told us there was a bus at 5:30. Suspecting she had been lied to we talked with her for a while and advised her to head to the ticket counter and make sure she got the scoop. After we took a walk in the rain in Phoenix and turned down some Rolex watches, we were finally on our way to Albuquerque, and we were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM Monday morning. The problem is that I had booked a hotel on Priceline that we had planned to enter at 3 AM. We realized that you can't make firm plans when riding Greyhound and wondered what it was like to live like that. On top of that no one had cell phones, so it added up to some serious waiting around and never knowing when you would arrive.

The crazy thing about the experience is that our tickets cost $79 and my return flight from Albuquerque cost $94. Add in food at McDonald's and the Greyhound stations (we didn't see anyone else get meal tickets) and not only have you thrashed your body but you've also spent another 15-30 dollars. Factor in having a job that pays by the hour and does not include vacation time, and Greyhound is a seriously bum deal. I suspect that many of the people on our buses do not know how to find cheap tickets on the Internet and may not factor in the total cost of the entire trip. You also don't need a credit card as you would to book a cheap flight ahead of time. I think our bags were checked once the entire trip, and our ID was never checked. We saw many prison tattoos. What really got me was the single Moms with their kids. Little humans being yelled at by their mothers for not being willing to hold more things in their laps. I heard whispers of former husbands and boyfriends and lives of frustration and desperation.

Someone had an interesting thought: is there any company that is geared to serve poor people that is run well? If anyone has a thought I would love to hear it.

As for me, I am committed to carving out some time to calling and writing a letter to Greyhound to complain about some of their practices and how they treat people and take advantage of them. It feels so luxurious to ride in a car these days...