Entries Tagged 'Life' ↓
July 14th, 2004 — Life, Uncategorized
Making People Fishers of Men
When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a Harvest Crusade.
In fact, I don’t think we had anything even close to the Orange County-born phenomenon. There were no stadiums full of people, or Gen-X bands playing music for the Lord. No, there was nothing of the sort-not even a cool bumper sticker to put on my skateboard
There were certainly no web casts, which the Harvest Crusade folks are now offering–free of charge, of course–on their website.
It’s amazing.
What started at the Pacific Amphitheater in 1990 has grown into a mega-event attracting millions around the country. And though some might say that it’s crossed the line between Christian fellowship and social event, founder Greg Laurie has managed to hang onto its most admirable traits:
It’s still free
It’s still non-profit
It’s still about Jesus and the Bible
It’s fun.
The fact that it’s fun is the most important ingredient. How else can you convince people that God is worth their time unless you make it a fun and exciting experience? No one wants to worship a deadbeat God like the one before the Harvest Crusade–back when the closest thing we had to fun and the Lord was Bible camp.
No music. No party streamers. Just God and a woodshop class.
Call me simple, but I liked it that way. I remember one year in particular. The challenge was to make cutting boards, so when the teacher gave me the old, lead-heavy paper pattern, I jumped right in, tracing the shape onto a thick piece of knotty Pine. Then I cut it out–this took a few tries, because my lines were lopsided and I didn’t have a real firm grasp on the jigsaw. But I persevered, even though the camp counselor got a bit fed up watching me cut it out wrong.
As this was Bible camp, she could only mutter under her breath while I tried and tried again.
On the third day I carved it. I can still remember holding my breath as I cut each letter into the face, and ever so carefully wiped the stain into the words of the saying:
Jesus said, “Come with Me and I will Make You Fishers of Men.”
From Bible camp to the Harvest Crusade, it’s still about the same thing: making people Fishers of Men, teaching people about God and discovering the precious wisdom of the Bible.
That summer, so long ago, I learned that God so loved the world that he made places kids could go to make cutting boards and, in the process, get a little closer to him.
I wonder if today’s kids can get as close to the Jumbotron God we now worship, and if He can deliver the same message of personal love and sacrifice I received on my own, so many years ago, in a dark and dusty woodshop class.
June 16th, 2004 — Cars, Life, Uncategorized
The sun hit asphalt and made it sizzle. I can see the waves of heat coming up off the road, I can feel it seeping through my boots and baking my body up through my toes.
Damn thing always seems straight up over me anyway. I must be stupid to be out here. Dumb. Completely ignorant. Why I’m out here on Interstate 5 walking toward San Diego with red face and blistered lips is beyond me now. I lost the reasons while I was explaining the importance to myself; somehow it all just slipped beyond the grasp of my brain.
I know only that this is where I’m supposed to be.
Perhaps San Diego will be a better place. I hear San Diego is the perfect place for a fella with no home. And when I get there, maybe I’ll get lucky and find shelter, get a job, then a fast car…
Do you like the sound of that one? I do. Truth? Who cares about the truth? I don’t want to think about the truth, that once apon a time I sold myself on the idea that lying on a park bench and begging for scraps was easier then going out and earning a paycheck. I was wrong. Sleeping on asphalt is a hell of a lot harder than flipping burgers. It doesn’t matter ’cause the truth doesn’t matter. After awhile the streets drive you crazy, and then you now you are where you belong. Just another wacked out street person, feeding off society’s leftovers.
I walk to San Diego at a fast pace, to get away from the sun and the people who spit on me and try to knock me down. “Get a job, asshole.”
“Freak. Hope you fry!” Now you’ll run me off the road. It happens. Shit happens. Hope I fry. I said that once, in a more tender time, when I believed life was all about shiny things. Be good and nothing bad will ever happen to you. Fly straight and you’ll have the best things on the block. I said that when I believed that nothing bad could happen to good people.
Poof. Right into thin air. Explain it–make all this craziness make sense. Or shove me back into the closet where no one can see or hear or smell a rotting life. You told me, all my teachers told me that life wasabout being successful, about building families and careers.
Out here in nowhere land, life is to be survived. No one told me about that. They didn’t have a lecture about that, no books or chapters. Not even a movie. No–life only ever about collecting shiny things.
Hey! What happens if you fail? What then? Teach that. Somewhere, somebody–maybe a teacher, a father or a mother–is explaining the little uglies that happen as you sail toward that bright and limitless future. My future’s bright–as bright as the godforsaken sun on my back as trudge toward a preordained end in a back alley or on the side of a darkened interstate..
Failure is the only thing I ever did well because there was nothing better to do after the sitcoms got boring and Jerry Springer got predictable. After that, there’s nothing else to do but get good at being a loser. A man needs to be successful in something. Just one thing–that’s enough for most men. It’s enough to do one thing all their lives and end up being good at it. But there’s some that are good at lots of things–they’re greedy and should be castrated. They took the one thing I could be good at and I want it back. If all of us just stuck to one thing, there would be enough for everybody. It’s only fair. Instead I got stuck with being a good loser.
I’m a bad sport now.
Hope I fry. I hoped you’d fry, but I never got that satisfaction. That’s why I’m out here walking in this inferno, why I see nothing but crazy rage.
You die today. A little piece; a very tiny piece of you sacrificed for the pleasures and promises of this day. For the shiny baubles you buy. I, too, die in much the same way. Just larger chunks. And that makes me mad. That enrages me. I am no less than you, Mr. BMW man. One is one is one is one, no matter how you dress up or what you climb into. I am no worse of a person, a human–just another creature walking around on two legs with an overly-developed brain and a greed thirst. I am more than you who spit on me and call me names because I do not hide from my rage. It is my shiny thing–my thing to hold up and admire. It is my thing to die for. Rage is so much better to die for than shiny sheets of metal and stone.
Rage justifies me. My rage gives me a name.
May 11th, 2004 — Life, Uncategorized
<>The View
From where I’m standing, I can see for miles.The tops of buildings stick out of the inland ooze to form a crooked pathway deep into the valley. And just below the horizon, the sun’s rays glint and shimmer off the Pacific Ocean.
Few sights are as beautiful, or as rare. What with the rain and wind of recent El Nino-generated storms, however, there has been ample opportunity to see Orange County clearly, and one of the best places to do so is Santiago Oaks Regional Park in Orange.
For a $2 parking charge, you can spend the day hiking and exploring a tangled web of trails, from steep hill climbs to easy walks alongside historic dams. But no matter what trail you take or how far you go on it, there’s plenty to see and appreciate. Here is a small example of the inspiring natural beauty of Orange County carefully nurtured in a park where we can reach out and touch it, look at it and marvel over it.
I can see Catalina from the peak of a hill in Orange.
And that’s the point behind Santiago Oaks: a place people can go to appreciate, and maybe learn about, our natural environment. At the center of the park sits The Oak Canyon Nature Center, with 60 acres and six miles of hiking trails reserved for the study and preservation of live animals and native plant life. You can grab a brochure (be sure to put it back at the end of the trail) and follow your own curiosity, or arrange for a Ranger-led group.
From where I’m standing, I can see for miles.
For the more adventurous, there are numerous trails spread out over 350 acres, all of which allow hikers, horseback riders and mountain bikers plenty of room to roam and discover.
The trail I liked best was the one where I could see the most. That was at the end of the nature trail, a moderately difficult hike that starts at the base of the picnic area and ends at the top of a windswept hill.
April 14th, 2004 — Life, Uncategorized
Lovely Loretta
Way back in the early Seventies, before the expensive homes and fancy clothes, Loretta Sanchez was probably a hot little Chola. Young Loretta, in tight shirt, purple eyeliner and frosted hair, all gussied up for a night out in Anaheim. Innocent Loretta, with nary a thought of politics–only of cute tough boys cruising her OC ‘hood. My…How things change. Whatever would Mrs. Brixey’s friends up on the cliffs of Palos Verdes–and down at the Playboy mansion– say to that spectacle?
There are some snapshots of the past not meant for public scrutiny–until it’s time to go slumming in central Orange County, cadging for another term. Then the cute photos come out in otherwise vicious attack mailers–there’s Loretta sitting in an Anaheim City police car, there’s Loretta posing with her family, laughing with friends, kissing cute little Hispanic babies…If you’re Brown, Loretta’s got your back. Better think twice about that. Better ask whose opinion matters most when Loretta puts on the manacles of representation–her poor hometown girls and boys in the district she’s paid to represent, or all those rich Crackers on the cliffs of LA County?
The answer, like Ms. Sanchez herself, is as ambiguous as Cold Duck. Is she the anti-Dornan, a shining example of the power of the American Dream? Or is He really “more Hispanic” than She? As one of this nation’s few Hispanic representatives, one hopes Sanchez would keep her roots, as opposed to her riches, foremost on the agenda. And she has–kind of. According to LULAC, the oldest and possibly most respected Latino rights organization in Southern California, Sanchez has voted the LULAC way eighty-three percent of the time. But it’s one thing to stand up and say Yea. It’s another to take an active leadership role for her people and her district. She is arguably the most powerful Hispanic woman in American politics–or could be–and she has not led the charge on a number of issues crucial to Latinos living in central Orange County.
OC Growth plans: What has she done to ensure that Hispanics in central Orange County get their share of the economic boom? Corporate hiring: Do corporate giants such as Disney and Ingram Micro hire enough executive-level Hispanics? While the number of Hispanic families buying homes in central Orange County increases in leaps and bounds, their influence stay the same: Loretta’s active leadership could help ensure that these families are not just whistling down a well, but are actually being heard. Has the community taken full advantage of local Enterprise Zones? Could Sanchez have better helped promote investment and growth in these areas? The people who have borne the harshest brunt of Orange County’s freeway overhaul are people living in her district, people who could have used the backing of an official whose public clout far outweighs that of most sophomore reps. After all, everyone knows Loretta. She’s on the TV all the time. So what was it again that she that she believed in?
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March 16th, 2004 — Life, Uncategorized
Food for thought
What’s the Internet good for? There’s fantasy sports, political mumbo jumbo and oh yeah–grocery shopping.
It’s 2 a.m. and my fantasy bowling team just rolled another strike.
Wow.
And they said there was nothing to do on the Internet. Thanks to the wonderful worldwide web, I can fritter away a significant chunk of my life watching little simulated men run around. It’s awesome: from chat rooms to video streams and fantasy sports, I can totally isolate myself from reality, glaze over and do a pretty fair imitation of Howard Hughes.
Or I can do something useful, like grocery shopping.
When I first heard about grocery shopping on the Internet, I wondered how they got the big stuff through the tiny little cable. Maybe apples, watermelons and canned goods spewed forth out of the printer. I was amazed when I learned that they actually delivered the stuff.
But I wasn’t sold. I had these visions of neighborhood kids riding home to tell their mothers about the poor people who had groceries delivered. “There, there, now Junior. We mustn’t make fun. The nice people at the shelter deliver food so they don’t starve. Now run along and tell your Dad to get the gun out.”
My wife had no such misgivings. Online grocery shopping was like a beacon of freedom shining just beyond her reach. Here was the opportunity to turn a hellish grind into a 30-minute pleasure cruise. It became her obsession, and she threw herself into convincing me of the benefits. She insisted that the cost was the same, and the delivery free–I thought she was delusional. I just knew that it would be more expensive–you know those shady Internet shops.
The truth was that I wondered if it was really necessary. Would it improve the quality of our lives? I had often wondered what took so long. Surely she dilly-dallied over the cheese-wiz section, or spent too much time contemplating coffees. A properly organized man could do the job in half the time–and save money, too!
She smiled when she heard that. It was an evil smile, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck try to hide.
Okay, she said. If you really feel that way here’s the deal: I could do the grocery shopping, without her assistance. If I still felt that it was a worthwhile undertaking, I could do it all the time. If not, I would let her try the online thing.
I should have known not to take the bet. But male pride demanded that I prove my righteousness. I would show her that grocery shopping was enjoyable–and she would thank me for not allowing such a delightful experience to leave her life. And it really did start out that way. I found the carts with no trouble at all.
It was either aisle four or five when I began to lose my mind. I think that’s when I started muttering about hygiene; and I think I also made up a little song about toilet paper.
All I know is that I saw little kids laughing at me. Some even followed me around–I was like a crazed pied piper, leading evil midgets through the grocery forest.
To my credit, I finished the job–only four hours and $200 more than usual. And even though I insisted that my experience had been fruitful and pleasant–I pointed to the special limited edition snow cones as proof–and that I really would love to go again, I did the gentlemanly thing and let her try her online grocery shopping.
It truly is a wonderful thing.