Monthly Archives: January 2006

Valentine’s Day Warm Up

My sister-in-law Shari tells me I’m a dork for some comment I make 8 out of 10 times that we chat online. One guaranteed story that will surely cause many readers to think that I’m a dork was the smooth move that I made when I first told Jessica that I was attracted to her. I told Jessica that I was attracted to her on Valentines day. I steered the conversation that direction, dropped the ‘bomb’ on her and then, in typical Randy-hates-commitment fashion changed the subject. Two days later I asked her if she would “Go out with me.” She asked her mom.

Basically I have been a horrible romantic my whole adult life [not to indicate that I was a better romantic prior to that]. When I proposed to Jessica I did it at my place of employment. I did it there due to the element of surprise that I believed I had. I bumbled out the proposal words in shear nervousness and even mentioned something about being married to me until death. I mentioned death in my proposal!

Of course I had bigger, more grand plans of proposing on Christmas as the ultimate present but Jessica mentioned earlier that year that she thought that people who proposed on Christmas were goofy. She got that right, I am goofy, even if I chickened out on the Christmas day proposal.

Personality Cult: Rachel Ray

How bad do we have it for the food network in our household? Jessica was told by Abby that she shouldn’t talk to Abby for a while because Abby was on TV like Rachel Ray.

Abby was cutting things (fake things with a fake knife) for a while and talking as she did so and then she stopped and said, “OK, don’t go away, I’ll be right back but we’ve got to take a quick brake.”

I do so hope that she starts picking up on more Alton Brown 😉

Girls of MySpace or I Just Want You For Your Bloggy

As I have been in practice of doing in the past I like to highlight the morally corrupt practices of Playboy seeking out possible pornographic material in the marketplace that is today’s culture. In the past they’ve looked for ‘women’ [I think they redefine it to mean purely gender and have no moral conotation] at Home Depot, McDonalds, Starbucks and Enron. Now they’re after women on a blogging service. My Space is the place for people to find blogs, but over time has also gotten its share of adult content. Why Playboy continues to operate is clear: most men are willing to look at naked women most of the time. Why women continue to pose for Playboy is beyond me. Women are special and should not be treated like so much skin and fatty curves and instead should be treated with respect.

Yes, I’m a huge fan of marital sex, yes I think that sex is healthy, no I do not think that men should be searching for pornographic material, whether its on a blog or on a site dedicated to adult content.

PAL

Last night at dinner I was helping abby with letters and I wrote PAL. She identified the letters “P-A-L.”

Then I asked, “What does that spell?”

“Pal.”

And thus I am now the father of a girl who has far more knowledge of letters and words than I expected of a 3 year old. Not that I thought Abby was dumb, but this is rather amazing for my brain and heart. She’s growing up fast!

How Do You Pray?

I have been really impressed with the idea that we often pray the wrong prayers. Sure, now you’re thinking that I’m making up rules about how you should pray, which I’m not, but I’m going to ask you to pray with doctrinal soundness. That is to say when you pray, don’t ask the Lord to do something that he’s already done. For example, I just heard the pastor of Mars Hill, a church in Seattle, pray, “… for this to be made possible that you would send us you’re Holy Spirit….**” Here’s the kicker, the thing that drives me crazy when I hear this sort of prayer: The Holy Spirit has come, has entered our lives and is indwelling believers right now as a secured seal until the day when we are taken up in the rapture to get our new bodies. Praying for the Holy Spirit to come is like asking God to make your body with about 70% water – it’s done!

When we pray we need to not pray for our weakness to be turned into strength, but instead that we may reflect His strength in our flesh being dead – our life is in Christ, when we live that life, we have the strength of Christ living and working in us. Instead of wrestling with the flesh, hoping that it would be conformed to the image of Christ, instead pray that you would moment by moment reckon the flesh as dead (Romans 6:11). God has promised in Romans 8:29 and Philipians 1:6 that you will be conformed to the image of Christ. Positionally, since you have been identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascention, seating and are now hidden in Him (Colossians 3:3).

So, when you pray, the power of your prayer is not that you proclaim your weakness and need for His strength and working in your life, but instead it is the power of His life working in you and your reckoning or applying what He says is already true of you. I’m not talking about ‘word of faith’ type teaching that is full of selfish name-it-and-claim-it stuff, but instead that your attitude towards your life [which is His life, really] is from His perspective and that you take what God has revealed about your newness in Him as a given. This allows us to take into account for nasty things like suffering and trials and see them as lessons for our own growth (Hebrews 12:1-13).

What I’m writing is not an easy shift, but it is one that comes with an understanding of God’s word and the true life of the believer. The flesh wants control, it wants us to pray for its reformation because if it can be reformed then its not dead. I can pray that I would stop doing what is sinful, or I can pray that the Lord would help me identify where I’m letting the flesh creep into my thinking instead of reckoning it as dead. As we learn to see life from God’s perspective it allows us to grab hold of situations and see the lesson rather than having been grabbed hold of by a situation and ripped apart having learned nothing.

I am involved with a few situations currently that are frustrating me, but in their resolution I’m seeking God’s perspective. Maybe there is no resolution because there doesn’t need to be resolution yet because I’ve still got things to learn. But whatever learning there is to do, I’m looking forward to it because I know that God has a plan for my growth that will work in tandem with my life situations so that I will be praying His will, proving His will (Romans 12:2), and showing others God’s will by His life through me. It’s exciting stuff and it makes me want to pray for whomever reads this that the Lord would draw you to His word for inspiration in your prayers and insite into His character in you.

**This quote is from their podcast dated from 01/23/2006, Pastor Mark Driscoll.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

No, that’s not a Beatles reference. It is what we as parents of Evie say to her over and over again. If we say something and she smiles, then we repeat it, if she smiles again, we repeat it again. I swear she must think we’ve got the smallest vocabulary! When she gets older, she might read this and she’ll say, “Dad, what on earth did you think you were doing?” And I will reply carefully, “Trying our best?” Which won’t cut it because, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” makes for some pretty lame rock lyrics as well as not much for a baby’s mind to grab onto. Fortunately I have a goatee for her to grab onto instead of words.

Happy Remote Day!

OK, so the company that I work with a lot in Texas, Alt-N, has another employee that will be going ‘remote’ such as I did in 2004. However, they’re having a party for his departure and I was ‘commissioned’ to perform a song for the party (remotely, of course). Here it is in MP3 format: Happy Remote Day!

EmOverload

There is a style of ‘rock’ music called ’emo’, which is short for emotional. It is a label used to describe rock music that is emotional in contrast to rock musical that is not emotional. I suppose that you could make that contrast if you were comparing Britney Spears to Nine Inch Nails, but I generally equate music with emotion. Anyway, I bought an album by a band called “House of Heroes” due to hearing a few of their songs. Unfortunately the album drones on after a while. But what I’ve noticed is that all emo bands tend to wear me out. By the time things are over I’m ready to listen to something else because the sound never changes on the album. I used to think country music was like that, but I was wrong, Emo out monotonizes other music that I’ve exposed myself at present with the exception of some of the electronica that I’ve heard.

However, with iTunes shuffling my playlist I don’t get burned out on too much anymore. Other than some of the goofy clips I’ve got on there.

Splinter

While in Washington [state!] over the holidays I helped install a beautiful wood floor at my in-laws. I got one splinter in my left ring finger tip. That little piece of wood has been in me for more than a month and it has been irritating me. This morning if finally came out of me and it was like a limp noodle when I pulled it out. My body had had enough of its craziness and decided that playing the guitar was way more important than hurting.

Sure, I could have pulled it out earlier, but I’m not a big fan of needles and tweezers digging into my flesh for a small piece of wood. Heck, it wouldn’t even help start a fire let alone be worth doing anything else but throwing away! So, I just let my body do its thing until they come out. Yes, I could get an infection and lose my finger. Yes, I could have the splinter work its way through my body and come out of my head 30 years down the road. But most of the time, to my knowledge, my body just rejects them and pushes them back out.

And I’m OK with that.

Happy Birthday to Becky Katzorke

Happy Birthday to Becky, my really, really, really old younger sister. She’s 23 today. So if she’s really, really, really old then I guess that makes me parents nearly dinosaurs and my grandparents must have been friends with Adam and Eve when they were younger. Or I could be blowing things out of proportion.

Either way, happy birthday Becky Jane.