Quote of the day

I ran across this whilst reading my devotional this morning:

“The alternating beats of the Christian heart are receptivity and response-receptivity to God and response in work from us.”

-E. Stanley Jones

The roused mama bear on the bus

So my dear friend Amanda said in comments on one of the posts below that she’d be interested to hear what I learned from having my car towed at the Amos Lee show (besides where not to park!).

Two things come to mind that I’d do well to share.

We Christian folk have a very well-oiled way of presenting holiness and life change to the world (even when authentic), until someone manages to glance us from just the right angle. (Think of a Jenga tower, perched precariously, but not realized until you look at it from an unusual angle.)

Well, my unusual angle was money, specifically, someone taking it from me and there being NOTHING I COULD DO ABOUT IT (i.e., the car being towed).

You see, I exercise EXTREME discipline on how I handle my money. (This is in part due to so many years in school. A good thing, too, I’ve decided.) I keep up with every cent. I consider a trip to Starbucks a luxury I can do without, and I’ve been known to skip lunch entirely rather than eat out at work. (I suspect I share that in common with Los Geidls as well!)

So you can imagine the simmering potpourri of rage and cauldron of bubbling hatred (yes, I chose those specific words on purpose) that engulfed me as I was working out the details to get my car back.

Well, the car was in far south Dallas (geography tidbit: I live in far north Dallas) located conveniently-not-close to a bus stop. My roommate just so happened to be going out of town that weekend (to propose to his girlfriend now fiance!), so my main avenue for help on that front was gone.

It pains me to admit that I was loathe to even ask him for help anyway, however.

No one at work knows about the Towing Incident, nor do anyone in my family.

You see, I’m too proud, in a place deep, deep down, to cop to having needed help. A lesson I’ve revisited time and time again since college has been that mankind’s sin problem manifests powerfully in the deep confidence all of us have to affirm which says that we can “do it by myself”.

Whenever I get too sold, too sprung, too confident in my own ability to get things done (in this case, taking an extremely complex trip on three buses and two trains, in addition to walking a mile or so) without any help, I know I’m not walking by the Spirit.

Or when my silent mantra, deep within my soul, becomes “can’t let them know I need help”.

And whenever someone messes with my money, son, you’d best watch out-I’m like a momma bear protecting her cubs. Cute, fuzzy, and inviting… until you get to know her from an authentic angle.

Get to know her well and get to find out what she cares about more than well, you.

So I used my long sojourn to get the car back to do a bit of reflection (as well as put in some time with an old legend) and to plan for a bit of spiritual discipline.

You see, I’m not normally a vituperative, combative guy… but the folks who’d towed my car, well, they deserved the worst I could unleash upon them, I reasoned.

I’d found my mind wandering to entirely justifiable places, where I’d say some, well, highly creative (yet non curse words!) things to Those People about their lot in life, how they made their living, and what I hoped for the fate(s) of their children.

On one of those buses, however, I decided to contort myself into a God-honoring place that would prove gracious to the towing people.

And, somehow, I did it.

Heck, I even managed to squeeze out a ‘God bless you’ to the lady. (Bet she hadn’t heard that in a while!)

So, I guess the lessons learned on this little adventure were twofold: when exerted toward the use of different ‘muscles’ or seen from a different angle, the Dixonator is still very, very controlled by those parts of himself he’d rather lament in others.

Money does that.

So does needing a hand.

United Towing got far less than $209 dollars.

Realizing all of this makes me say perhaps, just perhaps, I’m the one that came out ahead here.

Randomness worth sharing

Of course, I’m a big fan of Pandora, but I’m also fascinated lately with Last.fm. Two things really take me about it: a), the fact that it ’scrobbles,’ or keeps up with EVERY SINGLE TRACK I play on my computer, and b) that I can pull up random songs, in my library or not, and play them on demand. Very cool. Come check in on me here.

Bought a huge wok this weekend. Might use it as early as this evening. Chicken, green onions, rice, sweet peas and some sort of sauce I’ve never heard of. We’ll see.

A week out of seminary and it feels an eternity ago. Wow.

Learned Was force fed some painful lessons about patience, grace, and foolishness the past few days in spending some $230 on getting my car towed from the Amos Lee show. Funny the utter hatred me being put out a few (hundred) bucks stirred. Ouch.

Catching up…

So I’m really a fan of my friend Ryan’s blog, as well as a few others. The main reason I enjoy Ryan’s so much is for the… how to put it… not-terribly-filtered nature of it. In it, he talks about life issues, whatever book he’s reading, theological stuff, you name it. I love it when an update comes through the Google Reader.

Perhaps, then, I’m going to take a cue from Ryan. I’ve tried more than once these past few years blogging to do as various folks like Ryan or los Geidls do. I’m realizing more and more of late that Facebook status updates, Twitter, and blogs function as a highly effective way to keep up with far flung friends.

So I’m gonna do better at this, as communication is a two way street.

Keep your eyes pointed here for more… me.

Don’t act so excited.