Archive for November, 2004
Prague at Night
I found a city more beautiful than Budapest – Prauge. Amy and I got to spend two full days in the city, slept in a little hotel 30 steps from the Charles Bridge. (Heather – great advice!)
Amy and half of Val at the Central Cafe’ Shop in downtown Budapest. The coffee is good, their serving sizes are small. Guess that is why we are fat Americans! ha ha. With your coffee they bring you a cup of water to “clear your palette.” Minor Detail – it’s not normal water. It’s like mineral water – tastes like water from West Texas. Has a bitter bite to it. Valerie loves them – figures. 
Castle at Night, Budapest
If there is a more beautiful city at night – I don’t know what it is. We walked around downtown, had a latte machiato – I don’t know what it is, but it’s good.
Terror House Museum
Terror House Museum. A museum that chronicles the Nazi and Communist Occupation of Hungary. Chilling – extremely post-mod museum experience. This is the building that the AVO, Communist Secret Police was headquartered.
Exterior St. Stephens
This is the outside of St. Stephens Basilica. And yes we got our luggage. For those of you reading, pray for Caydo – she has HUGE snotty nose and congestion. Not exactly sick but not fun either. She’s a trooper, she will be fine!
Look Kids!
Our first full day in Budapest – what a cool city. It was overcast but the architecture was incredible. This is us at Buda Castle looking over the Danube River towards Parliament. We toured two churches – oh my gosh. Gorgeous. One down side – it gets dark at 4:30. More pics tomorrow!
Air Chance
Budapest -Day 1
Great flight – overall. Saw our luggage in Paris getting loaded on the
truck. Land in Budapest, nothing. Not one piece of luggage. Guess who
had the great idea of packing the coats in the luggage because we wouldn’t
need them until we got there?
Yep. It’s 32 degrees and snowing. Remember gang, it’s not Air France,
it’s Air Chance. Supposedly they will deliver our luggage sometime
tonight. How kind of them.
What exactly is the purpose of the French on the planet
anyway?….kissing, that’s right.
Budapest is. What a cool city. We sleep tonight – hit the coffee shops
and downtown tomorrow. Will upload pics tomorrow!
We are here, we are safe, we are tired, and we are ON VACATION!
Grant
Sell Out
Sell out. It has two meanings, you know. There is the “sell out�? – Ron Artest style. He is a basketball player for the Indiana Pacers. 5 games into the season this year he asks his coach for a month off because he is “tired.�? 5 GAMES!!
Seems he worked on a rap album (what is up with ball players thinking they have any kind of talent to do that?) this summer and he hasn’t quite recovered from that. That’s nice. I thought the point of being on a professional team was to win a championship, not produce an album. What was I thinking?
The Pacers hired him to play ball, bang on the boards, score some points. Not produce an album. By being divided in his focus he isn’t enjoying his album or his team all that much. Truth be told, they probably aren’t enjoying him either.
Then there is the sell-out – McKay style. You don’t know Mark McKay. He is a youth pastor. Stayed at the same, small town Kansas church for 16 years AT THE SAME SALARY. He didn’t have a computer in his house because the public library had one. He said it gave him an excuse to go talk to people.
I asked him once about how he makes a living making basically the same salary every year and he laughed at me. “Jesus has never let me down. I’ve got everything I need. Do you realized how lucky we are, Grant? Do you????�?
I thought he was going to start foaming at the mouth and start ripping off clothes.
“We get to introduce the most precious people on earth to the most precious person in the Galaxy! Can you believe that we get PAID at ALL!!!�?
Sold out. Most folks look at Mark and feel sorry for him and all the “stuff�? he doesn’t have. He looks at every one else and just smiles. He knows something that most of us don’t. While most of us struggle and fight for that “one thing�? more that will satisfy us, Mark is as happy as a clam in the hands of Jesus.
“But woe to those weak and timid souls who are divided between God and their world. They are torn by passion and remorse at the same time…Ah, if they had a little courage to despise empty talk, the cold mockings, and the rash criticism of others, what peace they would enjoy in the bosom of God!�?
Francois Fenelon, circa 1695
Department of Motor Victims, II
*****Read Oxymoron Reality first****
So I tell her I need a replacement title. She can’t release it to me because there is a lien on the truck.
No there isn’t but could you release a title to the lien holder?
“Well if you have a lien release document from the lien holder, I could issue you the title.”
I say, “Well, I don’t have that with me right now, I had this morning but I am in a time crunch and the lien holder is also my insurance company who needs the title to complete the totalling of my truck. So if you could just mail it to them – it would save me a step.”
“I will have to ask my supervisor.”
“You’ll have to ask her what?”
“If we can mail the title to the lien holder.”
“So we have a title that no one can get – not the car owner or the lien holder?”
“We can release the title to only the lien holder.”
“Great, I will pay for the replacement title, mail it to the lien holder.”
“I will have to ask my supervisor if I can do that.”
At this point I am in utter, stunned silence. So is she. In the silence I realize the real penalty of losing a government document is NOT in the replacement fee. The penalty is in dealing with the people who work there to get a replacement document. I would gladly pay 10 times the amount of the fee, just to get it done quickly, effeciently, and correctly.
She is still just sitting there.
For an eternity.
And sits there.
“So, go ask your supervisor.”
“Oh yeah.”
The supervisor comes back and says with great confidence – “We will only release the title to the lien holder.”
“Great. We’ve covered that. Will you mail it to the lien holder?”
“If you fill this out and get them to sign here and here and here.” Plop.
4 page document to get a half-sheet of paper. No wonder our government in so much in the hole.
“You have got to be kidding.”
I left. I call Amy about 200 degrees Kelvin. “I need the lien release.”
Amy said – I have it right here. And guess what — the title is stapled to it.
Smooth, Grant….real smooth.
Oxymoron Reality – State Worker
You know what would have made this day perfect? A trip to the dentist. I mean after spending 3 hours on the phone with the insurance company concerning my totaled truck and going to the Department of Motor Vehicles – IN ARKANSAS, no less – I can’t think of a better way to end the friggin’ day.
I get to the DMV and there is the red number dispensor of which 15 of us have worshipped at. Behind the counter are 5 women pounding away on computers. Only two of which are calling numbers. Number 3 helps someone and finds the task so exhausting that she needs a 13 minute break between “customers.”
Which reminds me – when you go to the DMV – you aren’t a customer. A customer has leverage. If Best Buy screws up, you can complain, get a manager or go to Circuit City. A customer has choices. At the DMV – you are a victim. The Department of Motor Victims. If the lady behind the counter wants 23 Diet Cokes and bathroom break with 47 people in line – she is going to take it.
So, a lady comes out to the lobby to “help” us. If we have all of our required documents, photo ID, credit card or debit card, only need to renew, don’t need a new tag, just need the sticker – you can come to the kiosk. A new “customer friendly feature” of the DMV. (Her words, not mine.)
Do you take cash or check there?
No.
What about handicap stickers?
No.
What about changing your address?
No.
Nobody in the lobby moved. One guy looked at her and said – “so the state has hired you to help nobody, huh?”
Up walks a new guy, grabs a ticket, goes right up to the counter and the lady behind the counter is starting to help him. All of us are grumbling. I say “hey – are you going to actually use the numbers you are making us take?”
She looked right at me and said…”I’m new here.”
“They haven’t taught you to count yet?”
“Well, I’m new here.”
“Obviously. Can you count?”
The lobby is laughing hysterically, the lady is red with anger, embarrassment and I feel awful. It just came out before I could stop it. So she starts calling numbers – seems that 4 or 5 people have left. Guess whose number was next? Yep.
To be continued….
Grant’s Gone Liberal!
I am learning all kinds of things about myself going through Galatians. I’m really learning what a tight-bum I can be with others & myself. This “freedom in Christ” lived out in the real world is at the very least challenging, at the most it’s scandalous. It feels like license to sin.
So what does it look like to walk in grace, with freedom in Christ? I have no clue. And I think any attempt to codify it has the danger of becoming yet another list of rules for us to be legalistic about. A classic Catch-22 situation, right? What constitutes sin? Stumbling block issues like movies, drinking, music get all the headlines but what about heart issues like pride, critical spirit, and cynicism? So it’s okay to be gay, then?
I wrestle with two equal and opposite (this-side-of-heaven-perspective) truths. I see Jesus speaking plainly and harshly against sin – pharisees, woman caught in adultery, woman at the well. I also see him love and heal scandalously – pharisees, woman caught in adultery, woman at the well. How in the world am I supposed to duplicate that correctly?
Who chooses who?
One of the cool things about being a youth pastor (besides having 15 people over to play Halo 2 every Saturday night) is that I get to have lunches and coffees with some of the coolest people on the planet. The lunches and the coffees are really just places to do discipleship. Life on life ministry can be fattening!
Which brings me to these two conclusions. Conclusion 1: The Great Commission is less about classroom, more about coffee shops. It is more about lifewalking with people, less about showing up and punching in on the “church time-clock.”
Conclusion 2: You seldom choose who you lifewalk with. They choose you or Divine Circumstance takes over. These two conclusions have changed how I view “interruptions” in my schedule.
I still catch myself complaining about not having enough time – as if I don’t get the same amount of time in a day as everyone else does. But I’m learning to view the “interruptions” differently.
Materialism at its best?
Did you ever notice that when most us say “we only need one thing,” what we really mean is that we need one MORE thing. “That’s the sound of inevitability, Mr. Anderson.” Materialism/greed is one of my favorite deadly sins. I don’t like what it does to me or my kids – we become absolute selfish beasts – but I love having the stuff…until I get bored with it. Then what I really need is one MORE thing.
I’m noticing all of this in the middle of coming to grips with the total loss of my beloved Tundra . It’s a truck, not a child so have some perspective, right?
Well the rub of the matter is this – most Christians will say “Jesus is all we need” but quite honestly we live nothing like it. And most of my profession does ministry the exact opposite of that. “Jesus and a great game, crowdbreaker, door prizes, lights, fog, smoke, mirrors, kickin’ band, and free pizza is all we need.”
I wonder what the path is out of this desert we have created?