Get Her Words Out

I'm doomed

One of the reasons I came to the General Assembly is that I desperately need a job and I hoped to do some networking and find some leads here.

Sometimes when you are doing something like a job hunt, there will be a moment of clarity when you know that you are on the right track, you're doing what God wants and that eventually everything is going to work out fine.  Those moments are just great.

But sometimes you have one of those moments of clarity that give you exactly the opposite message:  you're doomed.

Pretty much the only actual lead on a job I've gotten here was when I heard that one of the advocacy groups was hiring an intern.  It sounded like a good job, and it was even with a group I agreed with.

I walk up to their booth in the exhibit hall and I say, "I heard that you might be looking for an intern."

And the nice woman behind the counter replies, "no.  Well, we were looking, but we had to stop because we needed that budget money to pay for our new Executive Director, Rick Ufford-Chase."

I can't find internships because I am competing with Moderators.

I'm doomed

If I were running for moderator...

I have been at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) since Thursday, and it has been a great experience, but I haven't had any time to write anything about it until now so I'm trying to catch up.

The first major order of business for the Assembly is the election of the new moderator.  This year there were four commissioners who were nominated, for each of them a person spoke to nominate them, then each of them spoke on their own behalf and finally there was a time for the other commissioners to ask them questions.

During the question and answer period, one question would be asked and then each of the nominees would have a chance to answer it.  One of the questions asked was "what do you think is the biggest problem facing the PC(USA)?"

After hearing the answers from the nominees, I want to offer a brief answer of my own:

One of the biggest problems is that we are convinced that church growth is a valid metric for the strength of the church and that some of us believe that we can find the answers to the church's problems in focus groups.

A Celebration

Some time around 12:45 pm Central Time on the sixth of June, 1996, I smoked my last cigarette.

I have made it through a decade!  Whoo!

(Happy birthday, Jo-Ell, wherever you are!)

Sticky # 2

"I only see the mistakes"

This came from when I was painting the back drop for the Spring Dance a few weeks ago.

When people complimented me on how it looked, I would just cringe.  Part of it was because of all the time I had worked with professional painters who could have done twice as good a job in half the time, but most of the cringing was because I only see the mistakes.

This is something that has been true with most things I have built or created through the years.  When I look at them after they are done, all I see is the conglomeration of errors that went into the making of them.  It's very hard to take the step back to see the thing as a whole and to realize the mistakes are really only a very small part of it.

I think the places where we make mistakes are also the places where we put the most thought and the most worry, how can I fix it?  will some one be able to see it?  The parts that go well, that just flow, are over and done with almost immediately.  As the project goes on the amount of time we spend thinking about the errors begins to outweigh the time we spend on the things we're doing right, until it seems that we're not doing anything right and the whole project becomes defined by the mistakes.

The best cure for this I have found is to repeat an old theater saying over and over again to myself:

"If it is done, it is beautiful."

Amen.