Recovering Baptist

Nine years ago this morning I was a basket case. While my friends were preparing to watch Florida beat UGA yet again I was preparing to get into my outfit. I had been up late the night before taking care of a few odds and ends, but I was plenty alert. It was a lot like today - the sun was amazingly bright and slightly cool, but I spent most of the morning inside. I really didn’t get to enjoy the weather until we left the church and arrived at the reception (where an old friend discretely told me that my Yellow Jackets were beating Maryland - how do I remember these things???). As I remember it the music at the service was beautiful, but nothing compared to the prayer. Every couple should get that prayer at their wedding.

It’s so hard to believe that we’ve been married for nine years. I don’t feel that much older than I was then, despite the occasional creaky knee and the little bit of gray in my beard. At times it seems like it was only yesterday. But then again, I can’t imagine life any other way - I’d be completely lost without her.

There are times when I wonder what we were thinking. I mean, who gets married on Halloween? Sure it was the only day that lined up the pastor (my old youth pastor and boss) and our church, but it’s kind of hard to have a romantic evening when kids keep knocking on your door looking for candy. On the other hand, it’s one of those dates that’s hard to forget, and besides, who else do you know who gets to celebrate their anniversary with a neighborhood party???

Saturday was a stunningly beautiful day. It was a perfect day to head out to the farm for a little bit of fishing with my parents and boys. My mom and the younger one didn’t have the patience to wait for the fish, so they spent most of the afternoon climbing on tractors. That left three of us at the pond.

The day started out on a slow note. I pulled in one nice catfish, but I spent a lot of time fixing tangled reels. By noon the fish had stopped biting altogether except for the 8″ bass the boy pulled in. We were starting to think the day would be a total bust when my dad started losing his bait. After a while he pulled in a catfish and a nice bream.

The large bream is a sign of health in our pond. Before we stocked it with bass last year the full grown bream were less than 6 inches. This one was much closer to 8, but it was also thicker and taller. After a few more nibbles dad had a big one on the line - when it jumped out of the water we knew we had our first big bass out of this pond. I measured him at 18″. Just before we left I pulled in a 19″ catfish - a satisfying way to end the day.

I think all the fresh air and excitement wore out my older boy completely. He’s been complaining of a stomach ache since yesterday morning. He’s going to have to miss school today. I wish he didn’t feel so bad. But it was all worth it. The joy of looking up to see the him holding that fish and sharing his excitement as he ran to see if his granddaddy caught anything more than make up for a couple of days of illness. Besides, whoever told me that Bass isn’t worth eating was very, very wrong!

OK, so everyone’s talking about it. I may as well join the crowd. I’ve grown up watching the weather; whenever it rains here my mom says, “I hope we’re getting rain at the farm.” Even my four year old says that now when it rains here. I remember my family weighing the question of whether to buy hay or sell our cows because of the drought in the mid ’80’s. You have to really be from Georgia (and not Atlanta) to remember our debt to the Oklahoma farmers who sold hay to us one summer.

Many months ago an older friend of mine from Moultrie told me that we were in the middle of the first spring time drought in his lifetime. That caught my attention. If he’d never seen a spring drought, then the summer should be horrible. I figured that the state would impose watering bans by June, but it didn’t. Then we got a little rain and I figured that things must not be as bad as I’d first feared. Of course, now we all know it was worse than we imagined.

I’ve read some arguments that Atlanta has grown too large too fast and that it can’t support a large population. But then I think of other large, growing cities such as Las Vegas that have no water and yet somehow manage to continue growing. And of course, plenty of people and politicians are blaming the much maligned Army Corps of Engineers. They’re bound by law, and it is not their responsibility to change that law.

As best as I can tell, there is plenty of blame to go around our local government. For starters, there should have been a partial watering ban in May when we knew the rest of the state was in trouble. And it’s absolutely wrong that contractors paid by state money were watering in new sod on Tuesday. The State should have immediately shut down all excess watering under its control.

What I found interesting in last night’s news, though, is one reason why the Corps has to keep the water levels in the river so high. It’s not just that the mussels need fresh water, but the Corps also has to protect the quality of the water in the river. A ridiculous amount of raw sewage is dumped into the Chattahoochee River every day, and the corps has to ensure enough fresh water is flowing to offset that pollution. I’m generally a very laissez faire person (I usually vote Libertarian), but if what I heard last night is true, then the time has come for industries to be shut down until they can clean up their act. And if that sewage is coming from the city of Atlanta, then my home city (yes, the most important city in the state) should have its water cut off until the sewers are fixed. It is irresponsible for a city to have a double-impact on the resources upon which the rest of the region rely.

Those of you who spent Friday night in a bed - either yours or someone else’s - probably didn’t notice just how cold it was Friday night. But I can promise you that everyone in our campground near Helen knew exactly how low the temps dropped. One weather site I checked reported that Helen dropped to 28 on Saturday morning. Now I’ve been in a cold tent before, as has my wife, but this was the first time my kids have actually been uncomfortable, and it was exasterbated by things like overflowing diapers, wet pajamas, insufficient sleeping bags, and a kid screaming in the tent next door. Friday night was so miserable we almost went home on Saturday. I’m glad we didn’t.

Enota is a beautiful place. The 60 acre campground was first built as a public works project, and it sounds like it’s gone through many iterations, the most recent of which started 9 years ago. That’s when a lady decided to establish a conservancy to run the property. It is entirely volunteer staffed which means there are a few quirks such as the most botched bonfire lighting ever (think a trail of gasoline leading from the fire to the volunteer’s feet). It’s also very family friendly. It has a great creek, plenty of open space for playing games, and a playground with three trampolines which serve as the gathering place for everyone under sixteen. Needless to say, the boys loved the place. How could they not? They could run and bounce as much as they wanted and scream as much as they liked.

We didn’t want Saturday night to be a repeat of Friday, so we decided to find the nearest Dollar General to buy a few extra blankets and some mittens. And that’s when we learned that unless you’re imbibing yourself, it’s best to avoid Helen during Octoberfest. Fortunately the stop and go traffic lulled the boys into a nice nap, and my wife and I could gawk in peace.

Dinner consisted of hotdogs cooked on a stick, and after watching the bonfire the evening concluded with s’mores. The boys were practically begging to go to bed. We warmed the tent with the lantern, added some layers to their pajamas, and tucked them in. They barely moved until the next morning. I don’t think they wanted to come home yesterday.

Overall, our first family camping trip was a roaring success. We may head out again this weekend if the weather holds.

Today marks exactly 13 months after my first meeting with the customer in Hawaii. I think I’ve spent almost half of the past 13 months preparing for this project and writing the contract, but today it paid off. I now have a signed contract in my inbox, and that means that I’m definitely heading back to the islands.

My first trip is mix November, and I’ll also spend the first week of December there, as well. I don’t know when or if I’ll get to return, but it looks like I’ll be working my ass off over the next 18 months or so. Oh yeah, if this project is successful, my next assignment will probably take me west of there to places I’d really like to see, such as Guam.

But now I’m getting ready to head to north Georgia for a few days.

Aloha!

My wife used to call me Captain Crunch. It’s not that I have a large white moustache or anything. I just used to be one of the most outdoorsy people she knew. A lot of our dates took place in the North Georgia mountains, and I proposed to her in a canoe in south Georgia. And up until we had kids a lot of our weekends and vacations were spent in our tent. But we’ve only camped once or twice in the last four years, which corresponds to the time our kids have been around.

Well, no more. Tonight we introduce our tenderfoots to the joys of camping. Granted, we’re going to the fairly plush private Enota campground, but it’s a start. It’s hard to find a better weekend for camping; cool weather and little chance of rain. And the campsite ought to be great - it’s right on the creek and we’ll have a nice fire. So we’ve got all the elements for a spectacularly great or a spectacularly rough weekend - cool temps, water, fire, and mud. No matter whether they enjoy it, I bet the first thing we’ll do when we get home is throw everyone in the tub for an hour or so.

It seems like every company has to come up with some sort of flash game advertisement. Samsung’s latest is plenty of fun and a little annoying.

It’s not as satisfying as the time we lit an old VCR on fire and dropped it out a fourth floor window, but it still serves to release a little bit of frustration.

Thanks Digg.

“Apparently deep fried pancakes are awesome!.” That’s the quote from my friend who, along with his daughters, crashed at my place for the weekend while the women were away.

How could pancake batter cooked in bacon grease not be? The shame is that I only cooked two that way. Now I know for next time.

My wife left for the women’s retreat 50 minutes ago and my hand is already sore from spanking our four year old. This may be one very long weekend. Enjoy yours!

Back in my Baptist days I never understood the Methodists. I knew (or at least thought) that their ministers wore robes. I knew that they had strange people like Bishops. I knew that the denomination had a lot of control over everything. And, oddly enough to me, I knew that they regularly rotated pastors.

This last one seemed so strange to me. Everything I knew pointed to the pastor as being the most important part of the church. How could the church survive regularly changing its figurehead? And how could the congregation be sure its next preacher would be as good as the last. After all, isn’t preaching what church is all about? These questions continued to cause me to wonder about our UMC brethren even when I became a Presbyterian.

I started seeing the value of the Methodist system a few years ago when I came to grips with the fact that the pastor has no business being the figurehead of the church. We should have no figurehead other than Jesus, and regularly rotating pastors helps enforce that fact.

Our church had to come to grips with this fact about 10 months ago when our founding pastor announced his future resignation. He felt that it was time to return to being a missionary, so he decided to step down. It’s been a good thing for our church overall. We’ve come to realize that the church is about its members and their relationship with Jesus, and that the pastor is just there to facilitate that. It’s also been an interesting time for me. Despite my better intentions, I was elected to the pulpit committee.

We’re now 9 months into a process that at many churches takes 18. On the one hand it’s been an amazing journey. On the other hand, I’m wondering about the futility of it. My conservative estimate is that we’ve now spent about half a man-year in meetings alone. That doesn’t include the time spent reading resumes, listening to sermons, talking to references, interviewing, and, of course, praying. And the burden is becoming more intense. If things don’t go well, if we don’t pick the “right guy”, if there’s a bad match, then we’ll be at this again in a year. If things go well, then we can probably hope to put this process off for about 7 or so years. I can see why it makes sense to have a bunch of professional Christians coordinate the rotating of pastors every 4-8 years; it just speeds up the inevitable.