Wild And Wooly Weather Day In SW Ohio

It was pretty sweet....the best chasing day I've had in a while. Of course, the opportunities are few and far between here in these parts but the do happen once in a while. It isn't that we don't have our share of severe weather, it's just that I rarely get to be in the vicinity when it happens. Today was a bit different.

Started out with Paul giving me a heads up when the Storm Prediction Center issued Tornado Watch 395 for the rows of individual supercells lining up in Indiana.
Spen and I got home, made a quick forecast and did a quick plan of attack, trying to plot a path on these storms as they approached- one that would get us on the SW side of the storms that were warned. Luckily (for the chase, not people or property), there were Severe Thunderstorm warnings up for the adjacent counties in Indiana, so we didn't have to "chase" much at all....just get in position as you monitor the speed and course of the cells and wait to see what it did.

We managed to intercept a forming mesocyclone in Franklin County, Indiana from our position in Western Butler County, Ohio. The sequence of pictures that follow depict a small, low precipitation-type supercellular thunderstorm covering a span over about 20 minutes. We are about 8-10 miles away from the storm,which was in the beginning stages of trying to wind up into a fully rotating storm. It never really got there, but several organized structures appeared briefly in the life span of this storm, most of which are photographed.

This picture was taken looking due west toward Indiana at about 3:55 p.m. and had a severe thunderstorm warning with it at the time.

This was taken at 3:57 p.m., with zoom enabled.

Same storm, 4:00 p.m. Notice a better developed lower base and an inflow "tail" of warm air feeding into the updraft section all the way to the left.

You are looking at the SW portion of the storm from facing west. At A is the area called the rear flank downdraft (RFD) , which is a cold, dry shaft of air that plummets straight out the back end of the storm. These are believed to help the tornado actually get it's "spin." At B, is the actual wall cloud at it's most developed stage with this storm. This is the area that would produce the tornado. The arrow to the right of B is where the air flow into the storm is going vertically up. C along with the arrow, denotes low-level moist air flowing into the storm, indicated by the "beaver tail" cloud appendage at C. At D is the parent thunderstorm. F indicates the mesocyclone's connection to the parent thunderstorm, which would be rotating counterclockwise in a fully developed mesocyclone (which this is not). The area at G shows a flattened, almost block-shaped appearance to the meso. This is due in part to the effect of downward flowing dry air, possibly as a result of a meager RFD. H shows the mid level air flow coming in at a different direction and different speed than the flow at the lower level. This is called wind shear and helps the whole thunderstorm rotate. In the presence of wind shear, the appearance of pre-tornadic and tornadic thunderstorms appear to tilt with the direction of the prevailing mid-level winds.

This shot, taken at 4:05 p.m., shows the storm from a wider angle. The lowered base of the storm with a remnant, non-tornadic wall cloud is present at A. Notice the tilted orientation of the storm on its axis to the right as indicated by the arrow. At B is the fledgling meso. C shows the main precipitation core with the storm. D is the parent thunderstorm. At the upper left at E and portions above it is the underside of the anvil with mammatocumulus clouds (after the Latin, mamma for their udder-like shape). These clouds typically form on the underside of the crystallized moisture that is spreading out on the upper reaches of the troposphere, like smoke would flatten out as it floats up to and along the ceiling. They indicate the struggle between cold air on top with warm air trying to incur upward. These tops can sometimes reach up to 60,000 feet. G indicates where the RFD would be.

This shot was at 4:06. Note some of the structures previously described are rapidly fading.

The storm at 4:15 p.m. beginning to weaken, although there appears to be a small funnel cloud in the center, it was actually just a scud cloud (a detached, disorganized usually free-floating cloud in the vicinity of thunderstorms).
















This thunderstorm was photographed about 2 miles east of Oxford, Ohio on state route 73, looking southeast. This thunderstorm had a tornado warning with it 12 minutes earlier for Franklin County, Indiana. There was some minor damage and trees down in that area but no confirmed tornado. There is still the remnant of a lowered base in the left center of the picture.

Not a bad day for SW Ohio, given that the SpenDoc got to see his first meso.

Matt Blinn and Kelli Shearron from the Landing Place spent this past Friday evening and Saturday with us here in Oxford at Dana Drive. I am desirous of much more hang-out time with these two. I am convinced of really great things to emerge from them both.

I am convinced also that they need to show us a great time in the Short North real soon! Heh, heh.

THE DAVE-O TO GERMANY

We sent off a fantastic guy from our community and one of the best friends a man could have in David Dotson for a six-week art residency in Germany. He'll return to us, but dang it's hard to see him go. He just completed his MFA here at Miami and has definitely a quintessentially unique artistic vision. Go here to see his work.

Remember the cicadas a couple of years ago here in the Ohio Valley?

Here is a picture from a feature article on one of his pieces the Cincinnati Enquirer from May of 2004 of a cicada Dave made. There was a big contest for area children to name the cicada in honor of the insects' arrival.

I've been getting together with Dave on some level practically every week for the last 3 years either hanging out, caving, playing tennis, meeting with Spen and Jason or having some deep conversations. I guess I'm just in reflective mode and just ascertaining how much I appreciate him and what he contributes to all of our lives. I am not looking forward to the absence but it's a fantastic opportunity for him and we're behind him.

I'm so throroughly proud of my friend that I don't know what to do with myself.

May the road rise to meet you, David,
may the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall softly on your fields.
Until we meet again, may God hold you
in the hollow of His hand.

Would it not be a beautiful thing now,
if you were just coming instead of going?

-from Celtic Daily Prayer

Godspeed, my friend.

How 'Bout This?

Vega Obviously Has A New Best Friend

Chillin' On The Couch

Jason Gettin' What He Has Comin' To Him, Much To His Wife's Delight

Bowling, Micah-Style: Excellent Form On The Approach and Release

Bowling, Micah-Style: The End of the Follow-Through










It was a splendid time with Amy and Micah. Just a terrific lil' feller and one sharp, courageous and solid mom to boot. Some good food, deep conversation and perfect company shared with other Veritasians.

And, yes, I did fall to m'laydee in bowling Saturday night. I am not shaken because there is a first time for everything, for sure.

Right?

In just a few short minutes, I will be off for my regular seasonal time to meet Cathy's students, which is always pretty cool to see her do her thing. It's also humorous to see their eyes get really big and wide when they see me walk in. As most of you know, I'm nothing spectacular to look at, but the kids hear her talk about me and their reaction is like, "It's true!! He does exist!!"

One time, I took Jason with me to meet them a few years ago and they were absolutely smitten. They had their year books with them and it wasn't enough to sign them....we were signing books and clothing. We were doggone celebrities.

I think I was the last one to leave the classroom that day.

It's hard to get it much better in SW Ohio than when Amy and little Micah pay your home and community a visit, as they shall this weekend, deo volente.

Well, A Job Update...

We had some Laidlaw corporation honchos (VP, HR Director and Regional Director) come and do their song and dance before us, telling us how good it's gonna be working for their company. We got questions....they ain't got all the answers- yet.

Like: Will we get paid the same? Will we keep our seniority? Will you hire the same dispatcher we had (she had a separate interview with them later)? Will we be on the same shift? Will you support us? Is there any flexibility with the schedule? Blah, blahblahblah, blah-blah and blahblah, and so on and so forth.

We gotta fill out a 12 page application and have another meeting with the VP the first week in June for the first part of a ten-hour training session. We are 'sposed to have the details we need with which to make our decision by then at some point as well.

Apparently, they are trying to keep as many of us drivers as they can, and they should. It's just way too much trouble trying to hire and train new drivers.

I imagine I'll go through the process in order to ensure some sort of employment by the fall, but my antennae are perked for something else. I am not consigning myself to driving a bus, new company or not. I have heard less than favorable comments about the company from different sources, but I have to give them a fresh leg to start on regardless of what I've heard. I think they are trying and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

This post will be helpful to none and news to the same, but I just had to. I'm sure you've seen it...sans the cow perhaps. But the verbiage on a billboard or most likely a church sign. I passed a church tonight, a church I know, a church I'm familiar with, composed of some people I care about and there it was on the marquis, in lights.

That's why emerging generations are suspicious of the Jesus by-products we dangle as meat before the masses. They intuitively sense the kitschy sloganism of our reductionist faith. Jesus is a commodity. Something to possess, consume....attain.

Got Jesus? Nope. He can't be "had." If we are in a battle the hearts, minds and souls of such and if this is our hook of choice, it only underscores the schism between establishment churchianity and the seeking populace- pagans and especially Christ-thirsty followers who'll not be quenched by posterized Jesuses.

To be as forthright as possible, I've never resolved the struggle of the educational/personal/developmental investment that I sometimes feel I've traded away for this way of life- of which, I don't think I've fully delved into yet. And there are times wherein I feel nothing has been bartered (those places absent of the feeling is the realm of faith).

I don't suppose I'm supposed to resolve this thorniness. Additionally, I can't have seen it all thus far. Let's face it....this way of life is unglamorous, unkempt and almost no one recognizes what it took and takes to have arrived at the meager place in which you are. The vantage point is no pedestal and garners no accolades. And, no, this is not a call for lauds, honors and the like. This is more of an outward sloughing off of bindings, I guess.

Unemployment has a way of catching you in the netherworld of the "what-could/should-be's." This current situation only exacerbates the issue. Like computer software on the glitch with grayed-out clickable options that you need, the right window just doens't seem to want to pop up. I tinker with feeling like an absconder extraordinaire in that there is something I have to offer of myself (and not just for myself) that is not yet existent. I don't seek public recognition, just the inner recognition of what it is I am to be doing in concert with an infectious outpouring of a real move of God as the central thread weaving every facet of my life together.

In many ways I have no doubt I am on that track and in the right place. This is not a question of physical location as it is one of emotional/maturational.

There are money questions inherent in this, but they are not bourne out of greed. Is it a sin to get paid for something you'd love to do and something about which you are passionate and with which you are skilled? Isn't that what most of us are after? But is it what we should be after? IF I were a real Christian, I'd abandon these things and vow away my relatively "affluent" lifestyle (compared to some) for one more simplistic and truly sacrificial with its attending poverties of self and stuff.....selling what I have, checking my ambitions/motivations 24/7 at the door of "Do You Really Love Jesus Or Not".....Right?

Part of my past that haunts with prickly barbs is the fact that I have this reality of having afforded myself the opportunity to become educated. I went through having two degrees conferred upon me. However, I am not convinced that that segment of my life is being fully utilized by cleaning up baby doo, food scraps and saddling a thirty-six foot-long, 36,000 lb. diesel donkey with a love-jones for twenty, ten-to-fifteen mile-per-hour circles for seven hours.

But I determined to go to college and then to seminary to better prepare myself for something into which I was called long before the actuality of college/seminary was before me (well, a few years at least).

The simplest way I can conceive of it is that God crashed my spiraling self-destruct course and invited me at the burly old age of 15 into his Kingdom and I accepted. In that place, I found Home. Rather, it found me and propelled me outward so that I was immediately thinking about what my life would mean thenceforth. I would vow, by myself- beside a juniper bush on the campus of a youth discipleship camp on the side of English Mountain in Tennessee- that whatever I would do with my life, I would do out of gratitude for what He did for me. I would avail myself of whatever I could to make that happen. It might have been easy for me to do so because I entered the Kingdom SOOOOO profoundly "lost" that I have never, to this day, forgotten what that lostness was existentially like.

In short, my educational pursuit was not one emanating from the bounds of some boomer parents' ideation of the American Scream that they felt they had lost out on (and one they could live through me vicariously). My educational route of choice was not just one of the acquisition of information, but also the formation of self and soul. My way was not one enforced and I had no predecessors to influence me. I chose that for myself and made it happen with the gifts and abilities and talents that I knew I had, most of which paid my way through.

Having my education has allowed me to get "here." Here is better than the "thereness" of my way back when, or even yesterday. I was intuitive enough to separate out real life from the foibles of academia that could breed a mule mentality and a slave syndrome. In that sense, I met more invitations of God the further I went along.

My wife told me today that I've just been kicked in the butt. I didn't think so upon hearing it. But maybe I have. I just hope God didn't lose his shoe in the accumulative lard of sloth he was sure to have found on my posterior.

CURRENT MUSIC: "Prismatic" by Oxana

Bye-Bye Bus Boy?

This spring, the small busing transportation company I work for had their contract up for bid with the university amongst several other companies. At stake was almost 15 years working alongside Miami University as the sole company to cart stoodints around this campus and town.

We found out this week that we did not get the contract. Another national company came in and sold the university on a different vision, one perhaps coinciding with the university's vision that includes a slew of physical and philosophical upgrades. Might as well wipe the slate clean with a new prez coming in and all, and the busing service was no exception.

Now, I'm sure as of this Friday, I am no longer employed by Hamilton Tours as I have been for the past three and one-half years. What I'm not sure is if the new company is going to do regarding current HT employees. Rumors abound and short of our last driver's meeting next week, there's nothing to bank on. I'll include my job in that as well.

Of course I work three jobs (well, one- refereeing- is more like an avocation, but it's moolah nonetheless), but the bus gig was my primary source of income. It was the best kind of fit for my church planting bent....extremely flexible schedule, good bosses, good people, summers off, open access to the town and the students. I don't know if you could say I've been passionate about driving a bus, but it was a God-send in time and has allowed venues into ministering to people that I would have never had. I've liked it and I've not liked it. I've practiced contentment with it and have gained it I think. Am I called to be a bus driver? Has my life prepared me for such? Am I to be one for the rest of my days? Is it an open avenue for my own actualization, talent, creativity, dream and passion? I don't think so. Have I been and am I thankful for this experience? You bet.

I had been recently mulling and musing over the issue of vocation and whether or not I've been arising to the point of actualizing myself, my calling, creativity, etc. into something gainful for the Kingdom of God and my physical and spiritually extended family. But that should be another post because, as you read THIS line, it is because I have written enough to fill dozens of papyrii on the subject and I need to downsize for later posts, not to mention thine own sanity.

The Olden Daze...

One of a series of "interest" gatherings Veritas had in 2001 before our official "launch."
















We were on campus doing a servant evangelism project...this picture was taken while the World Trade Center was collapsing on September 11th 2001. We were still going about our business, having just learned of the crashes, and not really aware of the gravity of the situation.

Back when we were whuppin' up the weekly worship thingy.

May I suggest, for your edification, a regular reading of the Landing Place's blogroll (found here). Each of these are refreshingly sharp, dug in and deep to the core.

Of particular note was reading David Fessehazion's latest post, where he referenced his new fiancee, Amanda Taylor. You must read her April 6th post, if you are interested in just a part of the seeded legacy Mark Palmer has left in his wake. After reading, you will be moved to pray for a Kigndom insurgency in David and Mandy's corner of life with one another and their Lord in C-bus.

CAMPING

This Friday through Sunday shall see a handful of us camping in Hyoostun Wuuds. Blessed be I because it is a mere 10 minutes from my hoose. The Beanius and CeeMarsh and a host of Landing Place folks should be there. I am really, really looking forward not only to the usual Beanistics and the standard, hobbling Chris "One Shoe" Marshall (to whom I insisted that he bring his baseball glove, which was a dastardly thing to do, because he's just out of his air cast and will probably think he can rock around like he's used to doing. I will suggest he catch and let me pitch...at least he can sit for that).

I am also eager to spend some more in-depth time with some of these people from the LP. I've been watching them, reading about them and conversing with them will be stupendously enriching.

Yes, of course, I know it will rain ridiculously hard. You had to ask.

I feel like I'm on the verge of something. What kind of "verge" may remain yet to be seen. The inevitability of the collusion between multiplied, simultaneous convergencies and divergencies (both generative and degenerative) are currently warranted.

There are things I need to let go of and things I need to center around. Simplicities beckon. The eventualities of the March of 2006 still crowd and confound me. Imbecilic questions of worth gnaw like pestilent rats at my feet, so walking through this may seem facetious to onlookers and friends alike; I just hope not so self-indulgent.

I am merely 36 and I am not longing any more for a sports car now than I will be at that heralded, big 4-0 (note to self: should I perchance become independently and instantaneously wealthy, a one-off, Chrysler ME-Four-Twelve could ease such an hankering). I don't think it's a mid-life thingy because I don't know where the end of my life is enough to ascertain a mid-point. Such calculative luxuries may not be mine after all.

But I think, spiritually, physically and emotionally, there are developmental advancements and regressions that beg the above ballyhooed question. Are we talking of mere disatisfaction? Are we talking about legacy, impact, significance and influence?

I know there are creativities within that aren't being tapped into. There are disciplined excursions into the familiar wonders of the creation around me that I've been avoiding.

And you know what? It's 4:14 a.m., and this is waxing toward cyber-vomitus. I'll leave it, nonetheless, for your enjoyment.

One sign that the world around us is getting better.....another Veritasian, Andrea Birchfield, has taken the blogospheric plunge.

Keck, sharing his poultric bounty with lesser scavenging mongrels.

The march back to respective locales of service is on; some have returned, some are on their way. Now the reality sets in and the onslaught of time on this side of the funerals and memorials these past few weeks promise some gut-wrenching evaluation and processing. Friends disperse, but are not gone. In fact we are present now before one another in ways we could have never dreamed possible.

I know I am a changed man on the inside. I dare not speak much to it this early because the corpus of this regeneration is nebulous and needs formation. Intentionality and time will ensure its shape. It needs to be honed by the wisdom of fellow travelers and the abiding mercies of revered confidantes.

Ever taken a fresh flat sheet for the bed and snap it out in the air just above the surface of the mattress and watch it gently descend and alight upon the bed? That's the kind of release I felt descend Thursday from our commemoration of Palmer, in that some measure of fulness from the finished earthly life of Mark was being commuted to us, to feel that covering and to be warmed by it.

But I suspect that Mark knew that gentle heat is a consuming fire at its core....it can and shall find its way forward in the type of living that exudes a magnetic and approachable, reckless abandon for Kingdom things. That was the way of Christ in Mark's life that is still pouring itself out.

I'm just really numb and surprisingly, a tid-bit angry right now. I'm grated when someone whines on the bus. So I bark at them. I'm huffy when someone calls. I'm non-plussed when someone doesn't. I'm started because I have so much left. I'm flustered because I am wondering why I don't have enough. I'm pissed that I'm pissed and edgy and cantankerous right now, and in the grand scheme of things, I can't find any corner in this known universe that grants me the right to be. I feel a bit of sickliness coming on again. At night time I've been dreaming of climbing mountains and wrecking in cars, flipping several times and walking away, lamenting and weeping over the fact that I survived the un-survivable.

I am brooding over the realm of death, not as one frightened, but as one curious to know what my friends' existences are like now. What are they thinking? What are they looking at just this moment? What are they planning to do? Who are they talking to? What are the parameters of their consciousness? What was the transition like from this abode to that next one? How deep was that valley?

I am also taken in by the sustaining graces beautifully displayed by Amy, the LP community, Renee and her family and am grateful to be in the vicinity of these examples treading the path we may all take one day.

So I ride around in circles for a meager wage and this is the life? Funny how we all go about living as if we won't ever die. Myriad are all the ways we laugh, joke, assume this or that, without fathoming our impending demise. I just hope I am not found living my life as if I'm on death-avoidance. That kind of living just ignores the important things....like this moment, right now, like connecting with my wife on a deeper level than I have tonight, like bearing some hurts out to a friend and finding he feels the same. There must be a solidarity and unity of purpose to this semblance of a life I have and it must be spent soberly and wisely, fully cherishing my path and the trouble (both real and perceived) entertained. And I get to do this with the people I have now and the Lord I woefully don't fully appreciate as the connecting thread of meaning and vitality through it all.

But the compulsion of the Christ directs me to live not headlong toward debilitating death-mindedness. That is hogwash too.

It was said (I think by Heidegger) that until we have contemplated the fact of our own deaths, only then can we truly know how to live. Well, on second thought, here is what he actually said, and even though he is considered atheistic, the following applies with one caveat (below the quote):

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.”

The first part is our responsibility. The anxiety and freedom part....well, that belongs ultimately to God insofar as we bear our anxiety and pettiness to him. That must be the realm of freedom from ourselves and our circumstances.

If it is possible to sift a bit of the tilled soil of people's lives Mark has touched by viewing the 149 comments from Amy's last 2 posts....her first two since Mark's death.....Kingdom seeds are literally germinating from all over the world.

And on it pours......

Mark Palmer passed today. As crumpled as I feel, I know it does not approximate those who have truly and more intimately lost in this day.

I guess we got the Fight Club going on the other side. Looking forward to ambling up to the circle and joining my friends already at the feet of the Master.

We cry out to you, God.......where the heck else are we going to go?

Since It's Spring Break....

Go play Mad Shark. It's pretty freekin' luscious. Makes you long for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel this summer.

KIMMZLY ADAMS UPDATES HERE

Tha Kimster, ca. 2004

Whilst Kim is trekking on the Appy Trail, Jared has informed me that he will be giving us updates on Kim's blog as he corresponds with her by mail. This, as common sense would rule it, is a pretty sweet thing.

No Better Way To Put It...

The weekend Chad died....the same weekend Palmer also took a turn for the worse....was the very same weekend our regional/national collective of communities were to covenant with one another our mutual support in this journey of following Christ. In so many ways, we were expecting an infusion of the Spirit to flood over into our local places once we returned from the experience. No one planned on death. Not one of us. That weekend was to be about Life. God was unequivocally faithful to our expectations, but in his own inimitable way.

That weekend was more about Life than we might ever know on this side.

While I am only able to begin to put words to it, Kelli from The Landing Place eloquently peels back- well, nails back, actually- the veil a bit and helps focus my gaze upon the calm Christ at the center of this whirlwind. Go, and see for yourself.

I Can Mobily Post....

...is that a word? Methinks not.

But Ill have to contend with the pissy Yahoo footers
for now, since thats where I am posting from...

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NORTHERN ROOM

I had been fairly deflated since Jacobstone broke up, but lead singer Andrew Jonathan and keyboardist Tony Olla have coalesced a bevy of music-dudes to form Northern Room, a quintessentially Jacobstone-y sounding band that is by all means, quite pleasing. It does have the ambience of some of Jacobstone's earlier recordings (i.e., Glass Top Ships and Chambers and Volumes), though it's not as ethereal as Regions, Jacobstone's last LP.

Jacobstone had a song featured on Dawson's Creek a few years back and ascended to the "A" list on demodiaries.com for one of the best songs of the last five years and also had two songs in the top twenty on garageband.com.

Northern Room recently won the "Have A Nice Gig" contest on a local Milwaukee radio station and opened for Bon Jovi at the Milwaukee Bradley Center. You gotta "start" somewhere, I 'spose. The Bon Jovi part of this equation would have been enough to infuse my wife with pubescent giddiness.

This past February, Northern Room released their EP, Last Embrace and I am giving it a listen-through after ordering it from Northern Room's promo site.

I was a fan of Jacobstone's ambient gleanings with 2001's Chambers and Volumes and with all lyrics written by Jonathan on the current project- with wistful and reflective longing- Jonathan pines away again.

At only twenty-eight minutes long, the tracks are smooth, carefully produced and crafty soundscapes that can be listened to again and again. The catchiest tune- "Dutch Radio," (the first on the EP)- seems to recollect a jilted lover's search for patience amidst a relationship with someone whose grand aspirations rose above those inherent in that relationship. It might seem wickedly ludicrous to assume a musician writing a song about his relationship with another musician with similar(?) ambitions is exactly what this song is simply about. Or is it? While most of the songs are umambigiously about relationships, conflict, patience, stardom, failure and just trying to make sense of it all, you are left with a longing for some liner notes detailing a bit more about the motivation for some of the lyrics. But it generates interest.

If you are into ambient rock a la the Verve, Radiohead and Violet Burning, then give these guys a try.

Tonight, it really solidified in me that Chad was gone. I didn't get to see him in the hospital and the whole thing transitioned from "conceptual" to "real."

What a fantastic family it is that surrounded Chad on all sides; those by blood, by law and by Spirit. I am supposing the life I/we have remaining will be spent recollecting, resonating with and applying the ways we have been etched by Chad's time with us. I can't help but think so after hearing the stories and assessing the finished work of his physical life here on this planet.

Much is churning inside.....lots of speculation, evaluation and concrete resolutions. Uncanny how, in my feeblest inattentiveness, I require tragedy to center me and train me on what our "being" is all about.

Directly to your right you will see the button linking to the Chad Canipe Memorial page. Please go there if you feel inclined to learn about making a donation to support Renee, Colin and Aidan. Moreover, peruse Chad's blog to learn about how solid and inimitable a man he was.

You are profoundly missed, my Fight Club friend.

Freekin' sweet dust devil on Thanksgiving Day, Washington County, Tennessee, 2005.
Not feeling too loquacious the past few weeks, so I'll further dull you with pictures.

Me, myself, I, my family, my church, my life, my friends, compadres, my financial status, my dog (she keeps nipping at a festering wound on her hip)......are ALL due for some intentional, focused change. Or redirection. Rejuvenation, perhaps?

Now I know change occurs anyway and just because I notice the need to say the above does it mean it hasn't. One of THE MOST difficult changes for me to handle are the relational ones imposed upon me.....the ones outside of my control. And what am I really in control of?

If the grotesque, feral, hairy bitch of divorce marked its territory on the watering hydrant of my childhood, it was surely the one of relational vulnerability. And it doesn't leave me alone with my woundedness there, being in a college town, having the calling we have, with upward mobilopathy running rampant and the general socio-economic-relational transience leading us along.

I wax this way in the face of impending changes on our own relational front. In short time, we will have people moving on to one thing or another, almost coinciding in season. This is the life we have settled into and the one through which we will trudge. Seems to be a good time to take account.

We are no exceptional case wherein people come and go, whether for pronounced reasons or ones more elusive. It's the abrupt removal of oneself from one's place/people (or,relational ground of being) to the nebulous diffusion of undefined hope for continuation. Selective Relatectomies, I like to call them. Now you see 'em, now you don't. Causes are legion, I suppose, as are the justifications. Economic needs. Social needs. Emotional needs. Educational needs. Entertainment needs. Novelty needs. Stimulatory needs. Escapist needs. Avoidance needs. Needs we don't know we have. Needs we know we should not have.

These are the surprise, "I'm outta here's" and even the anticipated moves of people you've grown really, really close to over several years' time. It's these with the most time capital invested that ache the most. I pine with the noted philosopher Bruce Hornsby in saying, "that's just the way it is."

Is there anybody? Are we just damned to illusion? Has God forsaken this geographic locale, causing us to seek greater, better, over and away? When is our sense of Godforsakenness our own stuff to own and not the Oxford city council's...not Miami President James Garland.....not the crappy lot we have dealt and feel doomed to here? Are we to consigned to ask too, "Will you also go away?"

But we're here. We are seeking to create PLACE for wanderers to find their people and to carry seed if they have to move on. But we need fellow homesteaders in our staked plot here. And we are ever surrounded by wanderers. There is an abundance of Christian wanderers, but often these are weighted down by issues of self-absorbency or shackled by the parroted Christian faddism that easily besets campus Christian expressions, maybe even us included (this is not judgmentalism, just an observation). Most of these tire of the likes of us and move on. That's okay though.

I know it seems like I'm wont to put these issues on the post as my favorite whuppin' boy, so I don't really know if your heart hears me on this or not. It's no big thing if you don't. I'll be alright and maybe even God will transform me into something better and more productive than my current self as a result.

I know that deep, relational investments with those who will let me/us in are worthwhile for whatever duration I/we are blessed with. But for me and my fleshly house, I am thinking there is another investment I have branded as "outlaw" and that is increasingly the one with myself and me with God.

I need revolution. I need upending. I need castigation for the subtle syncretizing of self and comfort. I need to step up in an atmospheric kind of way. My 6 year old nephew got these jumpy, little "Moon Boots" for Christmas that go on your feet. Maybe I'll start there.

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD BLOW I.......

As a bearer of the stripes in the basketball courts of the high schools in SW Ohio, I've felt a little dogged at times.

Every official has had the mild or major misfortune for blowing his/her whistle for something he/she thought was happening or happened.

Houston coach Tom Penders collapsed on the sideline from an apparent heart condition during a play late in the first half of their loss to University of Alabama-Birmingham this past Saturday when a UAB player drove to the basket. This gave UAB the lead at 46-44. To top it off, a foul was called on Houston on the play with only :52 seconds left in the half.

The officials gave Penders a technical foul, thinking he was objecting to the call when he went down to his knees. When he didn't get up, the crowd was hushed.

Penders returned for the second half after receiving some oxygen.

This may be basketball's first technical foul assessed for a heart condition.

Current Temperature: 46
Conditions: Raw, Endlessly Cloudy and Foggy
Forecast: 100% Chance of Longing To Be In Nantahala In June

Ever suffered from a bad case of mistaken identity? Or had something ascribed to you- some loathsome thing or perhaps some feat of inimitable beauty and awe? Something for which you would not or ever could have been repsonsible?

Some wouldn't hasten to say that this wasn't a good week for God. But since the Western media has assumed a self-assigned god-hood status, that might serve to absolve the real God.

By character definitions alone, God can't give a miracle and then take it away. The media can, however. The miracle that wasn't in Tallmansville's Sago Mine in West Virginia this week is not primarily an assault on the character of God, in that God gave and then withdrew a miracle from the families of the 13 trapped miners who were somehow led to believe at least 12 of them had survived. This debacle was in part a revelatory indictment on the lust the media has to MAKE the news and not merely report it. To be the first to report it, confirmation be damned.

Whether it could be stopped or not once the rumor ball rolled, someone, (outside of God), somewhere knew the truth that only one had survived. This is not the first time misinformation has been reported as news and it won't be the last I presume. I don't imagine the greatest power is wielded in the fact that facts are fudged or not. The greatest power, mind you, rests in how adept these editorial minions fueling the media giants are in revealing and then withdrawing desired information to suit whatever agendas there may or may not be.

And what good does it do to offer supposed "messages from the grave" to the grieving families in the reporting of some notes being left by some dying miners that they weren't suffering, just merely "going to sleep?" And the families in West Virginia are supposed to believe that, in their last moments of consciousness, they devoted their time to that message, as opposed to sharing their loving goodbyes to the survivors they were leaving behind? Wouldn't that be the crux of any last words? If this was a part of the messages, why weren't we told they were? And this was beyond the point of any way physically furthering their survival? What were the means whereby they composed the notes?

Perhaps they did leave notes to that effect. But it sounds on the outside like an attempt to manipulate the course of grief by assuagement. If so, who would stand to gain from these goings on? The grief-ridden families? The perceptions and intuitions of the masses absorbing this psychodrama?

What you know isn't what might be dangerous to the ulterior agendas arrayed at whatever decency is left in the fabric of the American's heart and mind. It's whether you choose to believe what you know or simply dismiss it as fancy.

Well, I'm still here, but I'm not waxing too loquacious at the moment. I don't feel I have much of any significance to say right now either, so I suppose since my blog break wasn't intentional, things with me are either too mundane, old hat or just plain lazy. You get to choose.

I am entertaining my niece, Taylor, and her friend, Jade from Tennessee this week and that might be arresting my attention. We went shopping yesterday and I got more stuff than the two aforementioned twelve-year-olds AND my wife combined. That ain't right. Lard hep me.

I think I must be getting old. Older, maybe? Greyer, yes, if my beard stubble is any indication and new furrows and wrinkles now permanently engraved in places on my face where there used to be smoothness. No real worries there just yet....they emerge only when my countenance is contorted, as in a smile, or a grimace directed Jasonward.

Attending my chronological progression is a penchant toward Puritanism when it comes to my Weather Channel. Gone are the days of blossoming weather technology blending with the newfound power of a pioneering network who discovered the formula to bringing weather to our homes 24/7. All of that used to include the requisite nerdiness of the on-air personalities. Straight weather, humble, but still straightforward graphics and your local forecast with that teriffic music in the background with which my wife loves to fall asleep if I am away.

Now bring on ratings games. Cue the sex kittens who, bedecked with their surgically-enabled cosmetic redesigns, sway their arms in sultry abandon over Kansas and Nebraska along the tornadogenic cold front in my early Aprils. Here comes former on-air personality and forty-one year-old Marny Stanier from the late eighties and her lawsuit accusing the Weather Channel (TWC) of letting her go because they want their on-air talent to be under forty. Insert in the upper right hand corner of my boob toob little icons for Stihl or Campbell's Soup. Fashion cutesy commercials touting your bad self now that you know you have the market cornered. Cue up the new graphics on the new show with the new segment that TWC producers revamped AGAIN for the upteenth time this month. And how about playing the music on my local forecast and letting it cycle through more than once before shelving it a week later? It used to have the time to grow on you like a cicle of ice in a freezing rain event.

What does this have to do with weather? I think I want my old Weather Channel back.

Now, if you have a chance to grow to like something you see, expect it to change tomorrow, if not sooner. It used to be that the fact TWC even existed was something radical and new in and of itself. But now we have ratings. And ads to garner. And appearances with which to impress. And viewers to attain. TWC has been sucked up into the maelstrom of the pop-media culture and now imitates in pure impulsive construct and surface form what it used to represent in content and vision.

All is not lost. I have not abandoned my first love and I have nothing against hot weather babes per se, but what's so wrong with a middle-aged lady who knows her stuff and still has on-air mojo? And keep the old dudes like the late hurricane expert John Hope who had virtually no on-camera finesse but what you saw was what you got....flat personality but dead-on information.

Ah, the plague of the videodrome.

I must say that this weekend's regional coalescence at the Brownhouse imparts one more main nugget of import: it is God who validates our "one-anothering." Subsequent to that realization are the life-pregnant moments across the spectrum of the mingling, the befriending and the re-grounding of friendships.

I simply mean to say that there were moments when I was literally aware of an infusion of the incipient joy of God just being there and having others around me. This was intensely so in the levity and laughter, in the shared seriousness of conversation and in knowing people meant it when they asked me how I or how something with which I am connected "was." Such an awareness has not been a foreign thing there in the context of these people and I continue to learn much. This foretaste is not so much a sole possession any single faith community, but is a "gracing" (if you will) of what's to come for any one or community seeking, willing and available.

On that usual drive on I-74, I-275 and Hwy, 27 north to Oxford, I tend to wax thankful for my own community who have chosen to stick it out with me on this journey. Severely acute is the awareness of how far it is that I have yet to go, as long as God allows. I also ache a tidbit because I wish more of us could experience together the expansiveness of what God is doing outside of 1361 Dana, Oxford and beyond.

It is a downpayment of a fulfilled belongingness emanating from the place of God in which one day we will abide forever. Our experiential knowledge of it here is protracted by our extreme neediness, from things within and without our control. God sees fit and pleased to manifest his providence for such things through the fascinating contingencies of our human interrelatedness and this was evident. We share loads, undergird burdens and perform "dirty-foot works" for one another but it is not for us alone. I imagine it is practice for those we do not yet know and who are not yet part of God's kingdom. I imagine that is why we exist where we do and why we'll always have a people to "go" to regardless of where we are.

How you know we are in November......

This is the Real Time Severe Weather graphical display for USAmerica as of 12:41am, November 15th. Red boxes are tornado watches, green-filled counties are flood-related, yellow-filled counties are severe thunderstorm warnings, blue-filled counties are high-wind advisories, white-filled counties are winter weather advisories.

U might say this is a big ol' frikkin' storm. U be right.

Wanna see some more color? Check this out sometime on Tuesday, November 15th somewhere betwixt 9am and midnite. You can do that here.

Remember this?

Veritasian men of God maintaining the discipline of fun at- yes, church.

Beth Price has to be one of the most talented young ladies to come through the Veritas community. So it was quite the hard thing to do to "let" her move on to that fantastic city, Boston, to continue her education back in '04.

There are indeed times in my current existence when I am bombarded with thoughts of "what the heck is this all about? have we made a difference beyond what I can see? just what is God doing?" There are dark nights in my cumbersome soul that not many know, and a lot of this flows around worth, efficacy and similar identity issues. There are pastor-types out there intimately acquainted with what I am talking about.

And, so, we celebrated three years together as a house church here at Dana (and previously Hester) and we reminisced, recollected and told stories that just attached more meaning to one another and why we do what we do.

And, we read Beth's Letter To Veritas all the way from Brighton, Mass, where we flew in April 2000 to scout out for a potential church plant. God spoke to us very clearly in Boston....that we were to be in Oxford, for Beth (unknown to us then), so she could thrive in Boston, and one day- almost five years later on a birthday celebration on Dana Drive in Oxford- speak a sustaining, healing verbal salve to my soul. All this right in the very place God turned our hearts to Oxford.

God is a master craftsman......weaving the delicate intricacies of our lives into what is going to be a tapestry of colossal beauty....the likes of which are being threaded now into a work of beauty we'll have never known.

One thing I might miss about the traditional church: Pastor Appreciation Day

If there is anything on this green/blue orb hurtling through our present cosmos that stirs me up, it is when the little technical things that are supposed to make our lives easier tear up. Things like cars......water softeners.......plumbing behind the walls....computers that won't load up a game for your diversion from the previous three things. And when you know just enough to garner a bit of confidence in tackling the faltering things, it turns out it is only knowledge enough to make you dangerous enough to compound said problems.

....the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

Disraeli, Conningsby

Well, what a doozy of a willy-willy season it's been (that's what they call hurricanes in western Australia and I think I'm gonna revert to it from now on).

What can be next? But still yet, why have we had what we've had, in human terms? And when we extrapolate to the whole human experience and history.....just what does the providence of God mean in these (and other calamitous) times? What is the mode of God's providential activity? Why deliverance for some and demise for others? What of limitation, contingency factors and human freewill? And above all, what is possible in each given situation?

Any takers?

And so, we begin again. At 897 MB, Hurricane Rita became the third most intense hurricane in Atlantic basin history, in terms of central pressure- even more so than Katrina. But this present monster I think will only be a shadow of itself by the time it makes landfall at probably a strong cat 3. It will be devastating nonetheless.

Going to see the one and only Mission Man at the Balcony from 8-10pm tonight, who, by the way, has been a regular haunt at the Johnson household.

I really do get by with a lil' help from my friends

Oh, sometimes I long to accelerate out of my oft-infirmed listlessness with the speed of an X-Class solar flare. And there in the nether reaches of the voids of space-time I could float- lofty and unencumbered- ignorable as I would be in my familiar vacuum of melancholic ostentatiousness.

Just a perfunctory, medullar mind poot. Move along.

Wanna BET There's Something Wrong With This Picture?

Despite the plight of these thousands of poor and recently homeless in the Gulf Coast, Black Entertainment Television has revealed its self, albeit in the shadiness of its late-night lineup.

Actually for BET, it's business as usual on Sunday, late nights. With the talk of some around the nation beginning to center upon the cries of racism dictating the relief efforts, BET is apparently unfazed, maintaining and parading a clownish triumvitrate with these, their huckster-brand of health, wealth and prosperity vultures:

Robert "Diane-Sawyer-Is-The-Devil" Tilton

Don "Lemme-Sell-You-A-33-Dollar-Prosperity-Bracelet" Stewart

Peter "Got-Caught-With-An-Earpiece-In-My-Ear" Popoff

How are these shameless money-shafting minions still given the airwaves, in light of the times? How is BET serving their audience with this chicanery? Tilton was exposed by "Primetime Live" in the early nineties and described by then Texas attorney general Dan Morales as "raping the most vulnerable segments of our society -- the poor, the infirm, the ignorant ... who believe his garbage." On his BET time block, he frequently herds in black gospel singers to legitimize his presence. Don Stewart's miracle bracelet is yours free for a love gift of at least 33 USDollars. Peter Popoff may actually be shown here with the earpiece that his wife used to funnel "divine revelations" about his audience in his ear. (For more on Petey, see here).

Even BET's director of corporate communications, Rob Santwer, said (of Tilton's program) in the Salon.com piece referenced here that it was the kind of thing you'd turn the channel as soon as you'd see it. Then why pump it out?

This surely can't be on par with BET's credo toward black empowerment, can it? With these predatory poor-man's money reavers still on the loose, they aren't doing anything but holding all of us down, black, white or otherwise.

I know the need is nerually numbing and my sensibilities can't even hug this disaster, but I don't know if I'm ready yet for these superstar-studded benefits with promos and egos almost as big as the Katrina's eyewall itself. I know it's not impossible that celebrity can help and that some may genuinely care. If it does some good, very well then. What about writing checks in secret and not affording onesself the imposed good press that comes with headlining such a spectacle grotesquely overshadowed by this specter of suffering? Why can't potential ticket buyers just go ahead and give that money to pre-existing organizations? It's still not really selfless giving, because we're getting something irretractably and absurdly mundane.....a concert. Yeah, I should lighten up and go to bed.

There have been 275 hurricanes that have made US landfall since 1845. Only four have been like Katrina.

Here in Oxford, the 2.72 inches of rain courtesy of the same meteorological phenomena responsible for incomprehensible devastation a few states southward provides no reference frame whereby I can fathom what has/is unfolding.

There hasn't been a natural disaster in US history that measures up to this. Insured losses- which are next to impossible to estimate- nevertheless have been estimated upwards of 25 billion dollars. Typically about 40% of people do not have insurance so expect total losses to be double that of stated insured losses.

And now the cascade effect is beginning. 9 refineries have shut down and 60% of oil rig platforms have been evacuated. Gas jumped this morning .40 to.50 cents per gallon to an average here in the Tri-State of 3.09. It is now going to cost us 50.00 to fill up the Element. However if my fool butt had a Suburban, for instance, I could shell out close to 100.00 to fill up. There is talk that some places and stations could run out of fuel by the end of this Labor Day holiday weekend. Surely gas prices will ease after the holiday.

A coworker of mine took his grandson to school in Batesville this morning and was told by a fuel station manager that the station was not going to get a tanker in after they run out. This quick of an impact on the fuel industry in the US is unprecedented. I joked before Katrina that gas would be 3.00 a gallon by Christmas. I would not be surprised if it could get to 5.00. We shall soon see.

My last post showed the Richelieu Apartment destruction and the tragedy that unfolded there. Indeed, sometimes the incapacity of the human mind to contemplate impending peril is again demonstrated in the picture below. I do not know what happened to the wedding party after this pic was taken the Saturday before the hurricane- hopefully they got out. Despite warnings and evacuations, the wedding went on in downtown New Orleans. Note the boarded windows in the background.

FREEKIN' MUNKEBITES HURRICANE ALERT MODE!!!!!
Can you tell where the hurricane is?

I guess I'd put Munkebites into alert mode since everybody and their brother is.

But this is an historical thing in the making.....Katrina already has become the fourth largest/strongest in the recorded history of Atlantic basin hurricane records. Earlier Sunday, its central pressure dipped to 904 milibars and had sustained winds of 175 mph with gusts of 215 mph. By comparison, Andrew ranks 8th on that list. This is even stronger than Camille in July 1969. If it keeps this current path and strength (some fluctuations are likely), there could be a storm surge in the New Orleans area of about 20-30 feet. That would be devastating.

There is already unprecedented wording coming out of Louisiana local NWS offices. I've never seen them use words such as "devastating" in relation to a storm in my lifetime, while describing the potential for the storm to: "destroy most/all gabled roofs" in the direct damage swath; "cause high rise buildings to sway, with some collapsing possible."

There are even inland tropical storm watches for the southern central Tennessee counties below Nashville. You just don't see that often. The Ohio Valley (central and eastern mainly) could receive 2-5 inches of rain, sustained winds of around 20mph with gusts to 35mph, some sporadic power outages and localized flooding. Expect the Ohio River to rise to perhaps 35 feet in Cincy before this is all said and done. But, that is if the current models are tracking this thing right. They are not all in agreement this far out however.

I think the storm will weaken to a strong Category 4 hurricane before landing just east of New Orleans and the 12:35a.m., August 29th radar returns indicate dry air entraining into the west side of the storm, which will continue the weakening process until landfall. HOWEVER, this is still going to be an historic impact.

Already, there are rumors in Northern Kentucky with the attending runs on gas stations that gas prices are going to shoot to $4.00 per gallon. Although 20% of our useable fuel goes through the Louisiana processing areas, I don't think we'll see that big of a spike. Depending on the total aftermath, expect to see a widespread trickle-down impact across the economic structure of the country. Suffice it to say, I would not want to be building a house in the next few months, if you don't have your lumber ordered yet.

Pray for those who could not get out and pray for the sensibilities of those who, like those who chose to ride out Camille and have a hurricane party in this picture below, might perish because of their foolishness.

Cinebites

Since I like movies and writing about them, here's my site with my reviews of both current releases and DVD's. I've always been a critic of sorts and I've done some reviews over the years on Munkebites and I just wanted to be a lil' more up front with it since some folks have shown at least miniscule interest.

It's kind of hokey I know and very rudimentary, but I am gonna be working with it over time and you can let me know what you think, what I can add to it, and for you tekkie-types, you can tell me HOW to do it. Or you can sit back and laugh. But you can't stop me. The only hope you'll ever have on this planet is that I'll be contained.

Getting Back At It

So, after a summer where I dipped my shoulder and right wrist into mountain bike hades as well as crunch up Veritas' summer intern's car on I-75 in Kentucky, I am ready for some excitement. How about pumping up Oxford's population to the tune of 15-16,000 people in some 3-4 days? Or...how about sitting in a bus when it's all happening? Dang- do I need another vacation already?

Got the community room decked with window treatments as well as a work station, so the major furnishings are in place and that edges up the excitment meter on my part.

Tomorrow, we help new frosh move in and Saturday we give away free hemp necklaces made by Veritasians at A Taste of Oxford. I don't know if they'll make it there.

The necklaces I mean.

And it all comes crashing down.....summer break that is.

So, the annual arrival of the driver's meeting this Thursday signals the new year. I have to say that Oxford is the most seasonal place in which I've ever lived. The academic calendar seems to govern all of our lives. It ain't no complaint.....just an obzervayshun. Got my D.O.T. fizzkull and I'm ready to alight in the saddle again.

Well,Spen and I are back from a week in Naperville, Illinois for a conference and I am pretty sure I don't want to drive the I-80/94 corridor in south Chicago anytime soon. We had a rich and beneficial time and this time with tha SpenDoc sort of culminates our summer internship together at the Dana household. But he and his sis be moving in down the street just one house away so that will be stupendously nice.

Stoodints are returning and another season begins here and I am thinking/reflecting through what we are and should be about as a church. I'm not quite sure what that means other than some more internal transformation on my behalf to be who and what I need to be for the long haul. Some fire....some ice....but needed nonetheless.

Back from Rainsland.....and I am very thankful for their graciousness in giving us access there.

Got to engage with the Beanius and CMarsh for a couple of days and that never fails to invigorate.

The hi-lite had to have been taking the fellers into Bat Cave right off the Natural Bridge trail. Or maybe it was the Fence Lizard atop the Bridge, who- upon finally seeing me sitting beside its tree-side perch and seeing the two-headed, towering behemoth called the Marshbean approach- jumped off the tree, legs whirring mid-jump in high-gear in anticipation of a quick get-away. The little beast had not fully figured into the landing the amount of torque he was generating so that when he landed with a splat, he immediately did a two and one-half somersault in his haste, flashing us his white undercarriage in double succession and disappeared over the edge of the drop, committing what was (for me) the first ever Lizardicide. My heart sank and my jaw dropped as we looked at each other to register if what we saw was indeed what happened.

But alas......the creature did not perish, we concluded, as there was a ledge below on which he would have landed. God bless that base-jumping reptile.

I am exasperated by the seemingly undending tirade of newsstories regarding the disappearance of yet another girl/boy/young woman. If it's not terror, global "warming," or some barrell of Middle-Eastern crude-sludge threatening to bitch slap me at the pump, it's now that if you are female, you just might disappear.

It is not that these things aren't happening. They are. It's not that there aren't horrors being committed. There are. It isn't that there aren't people hurting.

The point is that terrorization of children and women have been happening all along (yeah, even here) and now it's a more worthy news item for the major media news slop troughs. Why now all of a sudden? It isn't that these stories aren't compelling either. But considering the other hundreds and thousands who "disappear" and do not get media coverage, who is it that gets to choose who gets coverage and who doesn't? And why?

Maybe if the alphabet news channels really wanted to help, one of them would dedicate a 24-hour a day news channel solely for ALL the missing. Or could it be that some of the missing serve a greater purpose in their absence for an even more sinister agenda and that is why they get covered?

What does the reality of the Kingdom of God in our midst have to say in this culture of fear taking a bloody root in this land and in the minds of a hoodwinked populace? How does the way we live our lives and the way we experience the community of God speak hope to this? Or are we, in our present yearnings for the new emergent ideations, in danger of retreating to ecclesiastical abodes more removed and voiceless in these times and other like matters?

Why do we relationally extend ourselves to the point of no longer being able to service some of the relationships we started? We are as unfair in such relationships as initiators/cooperators as we are unfulfilled as recipients. We hit it off, lose steam and bow out. Or we are drawn in, want to give more and we’re given the curtain call.

NEED FOR SPEED AND THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD

Yesterday we could have been killed.

Or seriously hurt.

Or hurt…period.

But for some reason and out of all the possible outcomes available to what happened yesterday, the one most beneficial to us physically was played out. I shall try to briefly ‘splain myself in a moment.

Our (mine, Spen and Dave’s) destination on this Saturday, July 16th, was not to stand and stare in amazement at Spen’s battered vehicle in the pouring rain smack-dab in the middle of southbound Interstate 75. Indeed, mile marker 102 just south of Lexington was to uneventfully pass on by just like it had on previous caving trips that I had driven. Yet, factor in three lanes of traffic and heavy rain and a pool of water and 6 seconds of life were suspended as our late-90’s Prelude entered a “fish-tail,” wherein the rear of the vehicle loses traction and sways out of control in an eerie smoothness. We were in the left-most lane when we hit the water and it hydroplaned our rear leftward. As the car came out of the lurch, we were fifty miles per hour and angled forty-five degrees into the crowded flow of traffic (yet mercifully still in our lane). Immediately, the rear wheels caught pavement in a sick screech and violently swung the car to the left. I just went with it, which in turn slammed us further left into the concrete center guard- first the front-end and then instantly the rear left side. I remember thinking “just keep it left….keep it left.”

We skidded and sputtered to a stop and realized we were okay…..at least in these emerging seconds. I began imagining other motorists hydroplaning into our rear end as we were not far away from the water hazard. We still weren’t out of the woods. I started the car again and it limped forward another hundred yards, presumably to where we hoped was “greater” safety. All the while, tractor-trailers, cars and trucks with boats zoomed by undaunted by the conditions and grossly uncritical of their speed.

Unhurt, we began to assess, recollect and plot our next move. Just as we contemplated calling the police for a report, a patrolman arrived within minutes behind us, and then a fire truck. The officer commented that the several calls made about us were “sure” there were injuries. He also said most all of the wrecks like ours that he had seen end up in serious injury and, of course, even worse. We weren’t aware of how bad the car was until he told us our rear left wheel was crooked. Milling around the fairly extensive damage to the left side of this car in a three-inch deep road river helped to make the whole episode real to us I suppose.

Now I want to tell you why the computer game series, Need For Speed perhaps saved our lives.

I will first make the foundational statement that it is God whom I attribute our preservation in this incident. I don’t know if there were suspensions in the natural order of the physical world and that we were miraculously spared. I just don’t know. There weren't any overt supernatural signs pointing to that...no angels taking over the wheel, etc. (though that would've been cool). There are several other more mundane markers of God’s providence, or a “seeing before,” to which I can point. And in the final estimation from my vantage, the compilation of these factors are just as miraculous because our survival might have hinged on Christmas day, 2003.

It was this day that my Uncle Joe gave me Need For Speed, a computer racing game programmed to be the most realistic driving game around. All the parameters of the gaming experience aim at real-time drive-and-response conditions throughout. If you jump your car or crash into a median, you feel it in your steering wheel. Conditions and reaction times are designed to mimic real world situations. I took this game home and was hooked.

I distinctly remember introducing this game to Jason, Spen’s older brother, and teaching him how to maneuver my car from the thousands of inevitable crashes and side-swipes into concrete barriers and medians so that you can control your vehicle. As foolish as this sounds, my response this day on the Interstate was the exact same response that I had taught Jason and indeed had virtually performed countless times. Every time you hit the barriers there are natural responses your car has that closely parallel the physical world. There are maneuvers you can employ to successfully “come out” of the impacts in order to stay straight....a sort of “hit-it-and-go-with-it.” The tendency for drivers to overcompensate on steering during a hydroplane or in barrier crashes is a major reason for injury and other vehicle involvement. Strangely enough, the fish-tailing, the skidding and crashing into the barrier was quite familiar. I suppose I was able to extrapolate the necessary skills from similar virtual crashes to the one we had Saturday. That’s what we joked about standing on I-75 too……”it felt like Need For Speed.”

If I think of all the contingent factors and chance factors at work in the crash and the weeks, months and years leading up to it, the mode of God’s providence starts to emerge in a fantastically creative way.

I was born into the family I had and have the uncle I have for a more apparent reason now. It is not out of the realm of possibility that God in his foresight knew the possibilities of our choosing to travel on this day, with this type of weather, with this type of car, with this type of road at this time of day with this spacing of vehicles at the time of the accident onset. You pair that with the free-will choices of the people to be on the road at the time they were, their driving skills, attentiveness, etc., and you compound the contingent factors that could have made this outcome different should any of these factors be altered.

Our emergence from this accident began one and one-half years ago when Uncle Joe gave me Need For Speed. I don’t think it is totally implausible to say that God’s providential activity bears out in this way- in the seemingly frivolous, mundane matters of our lives. Through our complex, interconnected human relationships and human freewill, he weaves together his providential and protective care like a master craftsman, weaving all the intricate threads into the stories of our lives. Most of the time, we aren't cognizant of these activities because we are always on the lookout for the "immediate miraculous." God is not God simply because he can do the miraculous. He is the Abba Father whose "thereness" on a rainy interstate on a busy Saturday afternoon began December 25th, 2003.

So This Is What's Become of It In It's Cyberabsence...

I know the Most Senior of Fockers and the Lord of All Jays may never blog again and indeed may never see this. Hence, I am resorting to my secret stash of weaponry with which I have long threatened him.....hopefully to raise his ire......anything will do. He should know, if he can get away from the Fock Market for a minute, that this is NOTHING like what I have. And this much from some very close to him. My allies run deeeeep.

Just an update here.....

I am languishing under the impact my 221 lb. frame endured last Thursday whilst mountain biking in Hueston Woods. We were going down a grade when we happened upon an embedded log laying perpendicular to the single-track trail. To me, it looked halfway jumpable, as there was only a drop of about 2 feet followed by another jump much smaller.

Well, tha SpenDoc walked down it and I had intentions of doing the same but I had to teach my younger protege how it was to be done. I went back up the trail so I could speed up my approach. I pedaled down and skidded to a stop just short of the jump.....I should have listened to my gut right then and there.

SpenDoc had already positioned himself so he could "see this." I made my second attempt and determined I was going to do it.

What happened next was all quick and time-suspended altogether. I did not get any "air" so that made my front tire go straight down. That in turn flung me over my handlebars and I landed on my left shoulder and skidded. That was simultaneously the stupidest thing and the most painful thing I've done in a while.

I had to walk the bike off the trail, onto the road and ride back to trail head with one arm. That sucked a bit.

And to top that Black Thursday off, I was attepmting to light my grill later that night and it wasn't happening the first few tries. After turning everything off again and waiting briefly, I hit the light button and became the center of an orange propane fire ball that promptly singed off my right eyelashes, forearm and digital hair. I smelled insane. But I survived. Again.

And, no, I did not go to the Dr. I am giving it a few days to see how I heal. If anything crazy persists/starts, then I shall be off.

(Although I am not a doctor, I play one on the internet).

SELF DIAGNOSIS:
-Deep Contusion/Grade 1 Sprain To Left Clavicle With Attendant Abrasions On Shoulder
-Bruised Sternum
-Bruised/Sprained (Grade 1)5th Right Metacarpal
-Bruised/Sprained (Grade 1) Hamate, Lunate and Triquetral Ligaments

Well, how can I complain NOW....after complaining for five years that I'd like to finally see/experience some severe weather? I'll miss this part of my tree.

There are things to which we are called that are not possible by our own nature or our individualistic aspirations.

While I am currently experiencing blog mania, I'll try this too (though I am wanting to forget)....

HOW TO END YOUR VACATION TIME.....

What do you do when your mother.....who is having to navigate her way through the tangly details of settling her mother's estate......tells you your younger brother has just been arrested for arson- the same drug-addicted brother on a progressively self-destructive path who had dropped out of his "Christian" high school a month before he was to graduate to get married? The same one who has an infant child.....who has been homeless a few times, "disappearing" for weeks with his druggie circles and showing up in homeless shelters all by age 18? And all this in the last year?

This saga with my younger brother has been going on now for the better part of a year and it doesn't get any more bizarre (well, I guess it could on second thought). It is quite eerie to be awakened to the panicked voice of another mother of a wayward child in your own mother's house early on the morning after my Granny had passed. My mother didn't need to have this upon her. I knew that this unfortunate chance encounter between these two women had my brother to blame. This crumpled stranger imploring about the whereabouts of her daughter to my mother could not bring her daughter back- wherever she was.

This is only one cog in this still-rolling, still slipping gear that is my brother's young and downwardly-mobile life. The stories are numerous, but this episode congealed it's crazy reality in the most macabre juxtaposition to an equally paramount transition in our family. And it really doesn't take much to vibrate the indented strands of pain already embedded in our family. It didn't have to get to this, thank you.

Being this far removed had its obvious advantages of course. But you are never really unaffected....one can just live under any such delusion if they choose. But I really want to know how I enter into this.

My brother didn't start just any old fire on any old place, it was the trailer his teenage ex-wife and infant daughter lived in (incidentally, I don't believe they were in the structure). I- we- really want to know how to simultaneously love a person and despise an action so tied to a person. I can get over not being able to see my mother because she had to visit with estate lawyers and communicate with her son's jailers. I'm not sure I can rightly categorize the memory of having to tell my mother to leave his ass in jail and not bail him so he can begin to decide if this is the life he wants. My mother is "there" and ready to do this, but I know I'll never understand the connection between a mother and child nor ever fully appreciate the stamina it must take to submit one's flesh and blood to the dire consequences.

Maybe the next time I see my brother will be in prison. Maybe that is the way it should be.

For now.

OF MIRTH, LEVITY AND HUMOR.....

Do you ever wonder if you push the limits in your relationships?

Ever try to step outside yourself to try to see if you are really the buffoon you suspect you can be at times?

Can the "class clown" syndrome of one's youth ever appropriately carry on into adulthood?

Do you ever fear if you are exhausting to people sometimes because you enjoy them so much?

Are funny people liked and are desired to be around mainly because they are funny and make others laugh?

Ever wonder what it is that people really see in you?

Is acerbic wit detrimental to a kingdom mentality?

Is comedic prowess simply the obverse persona of a true melancholic?

Here in Tennessee......on the last leg of our vacation to the North Carolina mountains. The camping was excessively wet (it rained 2-3 times a day- no kidding), but enjoyable with my father/stepmother joining us. Stayed in a bed/breakfast the last day there in Franklin,NC and found some cool eateries and local dives. And the annual drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway was windy, foggy and rainy and you couldn't see nuthin' (presuming said nuthin' was there to be seen).

Kinda ready to be back home tho. We still have to see some pipples still yet.

BTW, my blog seems to be loading kind of funky-like with my pic at the bottom of the page and no links (could be my momma-in-law's puter). Any one else getting the same?