Personal Update

It has been a crazy and tough couple of months. Right now I am putting off my grad school work which consists of writing a total of at least 63 pages of stuff for 4 papers, the last of which is due Dec. 7. Pretty much I have one week for each of them.

Over the last couple of months it seems I have been dealing with death and funerals. In early October within a week I went to a funeral for a 1 day old, a 32 year old, a 54 year old, and a 80+ year old. The 32 year old was tough because he was close to my age and died of congestive heart failure. His only surviving relative (well, that seems to give a crap at least) is his older brother Philip who has become a dear friend, and it has been really hard on him. It's almost like he lost a son. In the past couple of weeks I have another friend Nick who lost a grandparent, and then another friend Hailey who had a good friend of hers pass away suddenly at 28. She died of some type of heart condition but was in otherwise great health. Even though everyone dies, I am convinced it is not natural and is a curse of sin. We were made to be eternal and death shakes us so hard because it makes us deal with unnatural mortality. Death makes us crazy for awhile.

In the middle of all that I feel like all my time for my youth group has been taken up by grad school and funerals. Ashley is grounded for her grades (she hasn't been turning in homework, and I mean like ALL of it. Well, that has changed the last couple of weeks.) She has been working much harder at school now, and she is discovering how smart she is.

In other things my home computer died and I am...not really missing it. I knew it was on its way so I was able to move all my files to my back-up hard drive so I haven't lost any information. I can do everything I need to do at my office (although forget the movie reviews and music reviews for awhile, at least until after my semester is done. But go see Fireproof. Usually Christian cinema ends up being pretty cheesy, but this is a really good illustration of what it means to love as Christ loved and the characters and actors seem like real people, not Hollywood people, which irritates the fire out of some, but I like dealing with life as it is. I will do a review eventually.) Anyways, I have decided to pay for grad school as I go and pay off my debt, so a new cpu is well down the list. Unless you know someone who is getting rid of an old one that works fine, or is selling a laptop for really cheap than let me know. At this point I very much prefer a laptop. I have so little financial responsibilities, and it is time to pay crap off. I am trying to break through that thinking of what I need into what I want. I have much more than I need and will never have everything I want. I would rather not owe anybody anything so I could enjoy giving people anything. I don't know how much I agree with Dave Ramsey's view of money, but he is so right on the debt part I'm convinced.

Wednesday I took a vacation day to work on some grad school stuff and to go to Cape Girardeau, MO (about 2 hours from Martin) where I saw Waterdeep (just Don and Lori Chaffer) and Derek Webb in concert. It was outstanding and I helped load stuff for them after the show so I could talk with them. My two favorite artists playing together. Yes!! Sandra McCracken played with them to, and she is really growing on me. Waterdeep did a set, Sandra and Derek did a set, Derek did a set by himself, and they played together for several songs. Don and Lori make it a comedy show with their stage banter. They are going back to touring and I am happy.

I'm so glad the election is over. It took me a long time to decide who I was voting for, and I finally came to my conclusion a week before the election and early voted. I voted against all my Congressman running because they were for the socialist bail-out package, so any R's don't dare talk about Obama being a socialist, because R's are too only they give the money to those who have had and squandered others savings while running away with plenty, which is just as immoral as abortion and homosexuality, and the Lord spoke against stuff like that much more. Read Amos and then come talk to me. And yes, I know the D's voted for it too. So that's why I vote based on the person and care nothing for R's or D's or any other designation. I find more and more party has nothing to do with morality, character, or responsibility, fiscally or otherwise. I have serious issues with Obama and McCain on their moral stances (abortion for Obama but he does seem to be interested in the poor, which is a huge moral issue biblically, and McCain's policies seem not to do much there.) Being equal on the moral issues in my view (both have much to be desired) it came down to who they are. McCain seemed to really changed during his run. He went from a "maverick" to a Republican base panderer whose campaign was based on questioning who is the real Obama instead of giving much good tangeble information (okay, you changed John, so who is the real John McCain? What a stupid question.) He either changed to win the office, or listened to really bad advice and did not identify it as such. He seemed to return to good McCain for his concession speech. But I do not want another president who is going to not question bad advice, and stick with it when it is failing. Obama seemed to be more consistent through his whole campaign, and dealt with tough things with honesty and maturity. Basically I thought back to his Philadelphia speech on race. Obama has been saying a whole lot of something and it is not empty as some say it is. His acceptance speech was excellent, especially as he acknowledged the difficulty of the task and that there will be mountains to climb and missteps and that not everything will be able to be accomplished. I'm hoping he chooses a politically diverse cabinet.

There is a beautiful irony to a black family moving into the White House that was built by slaves. I was surprised by my emotional reaction to the moment where it seems racism has not the hold on society that it used to (well, at least against African Americans. I'm afraid that Hispanics are becoming the new racial punching bag.) I don't know if Obama will be a good President. I don't know much of anything of the future or what is best. I do know that I'm all about fical responsibility and that Republicans are not as much as they want to talk about it. Anyways, politics is awful and dirty and I'm glad its over, and I think I would have been fine with either one. I did like both candidates for a change. I'm also convinced that neither one will have much of an impact on my life.

On top of all that I feel like I have had almost no prayer life the last couple of months. I am letting everything else get in the way, and I can feel the disconnection. I can tell a tremendous difference in my spirit and how I see and respond to others when I am praying regularly and when I am not. If anything can be consistent in my very inconsistent life this has to be it. Let me know what I can pray for for all of you. It will remind me to stop and pray, and you will be the beneficiary. post or e-mail timspain@gmail.com