I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
As those who know me, I am an avid music listener. You can see some of my current favorites in my profile. One band that is not on that list is the band FM Static. It is the brain child of two of the guys in Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK). One of their songs has become one of my more favorite songs as of late. Just to give you an idea of the band, most of the songs, lyrically, talk about teenage problems, but I have been finding adult things in the disc as well. The song that has been on my mind as of late is the song “Something to Believe In.” The song is about how churches sometimes make kids feel like it’s “teenage hunting season” during the school year. It is an easy thing to do if your motivations to spread the Gospel is off the mark. However, the part of the song that I have been drawn to is this section:
And if you don’t know what im talking about,
It’s probably better cause im working out,
Don’t wanna spend my lifetime figurin out,
That i coulda just said one prayerAnd if you know what i’m talking about,
Then together were both working it out,
Don’t wanna spend my lifetime figuring out
I missed the point now it’s over
I’ve felt that I’ve come through one of those times where I have worked it out. I was on my way home earlier and I am feeling that my upcoming birthday is going to be another mark in the life of change. Let me explain…When I was 18-19 years old, the change in my life was going into adulthood. When I was 28-29, I changed the direction in my life by dumping all of the relationships and garbage of the previous 10 years (well not all of my friendships, just the harmful ones). That also happened to correspond to my time in Antarctica, Which, by the way 10 years ago today, I landed at McMurdo Station on Ross Island to start my year at the South Pole. Very therapeutic. Now, as I look back over the last 10 years, I now have a better handle on the Wesley theology term of sanctifying grace, as I have seen some miraculous changes and some very subtle changes in my life. It would take to long to type all of it here, but suffice it to say that I am at more peace with my life now than I have ever been. It just took the last 20 years to appreciate the rough spots. Most of which, I caused from making bad decisions. So as far as I am concerned, I feel that I can rewrite the last part of that song by saying that while I am still working it out, I haven’t missed the point and it is far from over.
Now it is time to do dishes and get my lunch ready for work. Mids can be such a drag sometimes…
And by the way TFK rulz!!!!
The thing about working on midnights, which I’m doing now, is that you wake up in the evening. It seems kind of a shame in the summer as the sun begins to set as you are waking up. In the case of the late fall and winter, it stays dark all of the time while I am awake.
There are those who may be reading this particular entry and asking themselves, “does he mean me?” The answer is no. What I’m referring to here is what questions are appropriate for me to ask at times. This all stems from those little portions of my formerly anxious self that still haven’t fully been excorcised. In a way this is my way of trying to get past those things that hold me back without causing some people uncomfortable with my wanting to get to know them. You know it is easy to have a relationship with God. You can ask Him anything and He won’t feel uncomfortable with you. People are another matter.
Part of this worrying goes back many years ago, when I was dating a woman in Grand Rapids. She claimed that I didn’t ask enough questions of her for us to be communicating. I didn’t think so. Though I was usually paralyzed in my fear as to what was an appropriate question. I’m not so much paralyzed by such things in most cases now, but it can happen.
I look at my experiences with the youth group and I run into the same thing there. I want to show that I care about their lives and activities (and I don’t think that kids get enough of this in our culture now), but I must balance the fact that I’m not their parent and that I don’t need to know everything nor am I supposed to. However, its hard to have a friendship with anyone without talking, discussing and truly learning about the other.
However, I like to talk and if I meet someone that I like to hang with, that can mean trouble. Well maybe not trouble, but after while I begin to feel like I’m hanging around too much and asking too many questions and that I would be monopolizing their time at the expense of others.
So I’m wondering, when is it being too nosy?
(I’m beginning to think that no matter how old you are you still suffer from the same insecurities that you did when you were a teenager. Just look what I just wrote!)
I found this blog a couple of weeks ago. It looks to be of an Iraqi doctor that lives in Bagdad. I kind of use this as just another source of what is going on. He has brought up some interesting points in the past and today’s article on the clerics accepting democracy looks hopeful if anything.
Enviropundit: Green Building Blog: Case for War
An interesting site that I found about the case for war in Iraq. I haven’t had time to look through the entire thing.
After long introspective thoughts and probably making people mad at my political views I thought that I would write about nothing in particular. So the weather is the next thing to talk about. Hopefully, I won’t go on some rant about that as well.
As I have been in the weather business for 15 years now(not including college) and the more things change the more they stay the same. Forecasting in an of itself hasn’t much changed. Just the tools we use. The computers, computer modeling, radar and other remote sensing devices, just add in to the tools, but we still forecast the same way, pattern recognition. Even when we find something that brings better understanding to why something happens, the next thing we do is try to see the patterns that cause it so that we can forecast the event. It is a slow imperfect process, since as similar as events may look, I have yet to see the same event twice. Considering that chaos theory (discovered by a meteorologist) would dictate the same thing, it’s a miracle that we get anywhere in the science. Okay, it’s not that bad. Similar events usually bring about similar results. However, the people on the edge of a storm who didn’t get the amount of snow we forecast, because the storm moved 10 miles farther away from them than we thought, think we blew the forecast. When in essence we actually did a pretty good job considering what we know.
…not much in general, but I did want to try my hand at the ability of this thing to allow me to type an email and it publish it to my blog. However, since I am here I think I will pontificate…
I’ve been thinking (I know a dangerous thing where nothing good can come out of) recently about how each generation kind of stops listening to the generations that precede it for a time before they realize that the previous generations might have some information that might help them. I came on the realization over time, but examples of this have been popping up as of late. More than likely it has to do with my involvement with the youth groups. The latest case was from someone who has been going through a rough time in college. I wonder why they don’t try to contact one of us adult types that they used to seem to trust and confide in while in high school. The impression is that they forget that many of us adults have gone through similar situations or have the impression that we have always had it “all together.”
A case in point, over the summer I asked one former student if they would like to have a Bible study and if they would consider helping me run it. They said that they felt that they would bring shame to His name if they would help lead it. Replied to them basically, with where I had been during college. My vices and actions then would probably, by some peoples standards even preclude me from serving now. But god doesn’t care as much for the past, if you have given up the sin that separated you from Him in the first place. In the case of the former student, that if you are earnestly seeking God and trying to quit doing what you are ashamed of (i.e. repent), then he will forgive the sin. I still have things that I struggle with which some would be surprised about and I have found peace in God and know that as I keep trying (the song “Pressing On” by Reliant K comes to mind) that he will bless me, though the blessing is probably being limited to a certain extent by the fact that I still give into the sin that I am trying to stop doing (Don’t read into this too much, everybody has something that they struggle with spiritually). The apostle Paul’s thorn in the flesh analogy is a good example of what I am trying to say.
Now let’s see what got all of this started again? Oh yeah, the fact that we are all kind of self centered and it isn’t until later in life that we realize that there are more of us out there with similar struggles that we can draw strength from to help us find out what God wants us to do. Enough for now.
I’ve been messing with this thing for the past hour or so and have been figuring out how to tweak it. So now maybe I should type something else.
For the most part I am over most of the anxiety problems. The only lingering fears are when I want to share my point of view on a controversial subject or my faith. Not sure where in my childhood this was learned or acquired, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to conquer it by heading into a subject. Maybe by this, I’ll conquer the last remaining angst things and be able to express myself more fully.
So the topic is my political beliefs…Typically, I am a conservative independent. What does that mean? I will vote Republican more often than not, unless the Democratic canidate meets a couple of criteria.
Pro-Life – as a scientist (a meteorologist) I am amazed by the technological advances that have been made in the way that we can image an unborn baby and make out distinct features of the face and such during the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy. Not to mention that it seems that we are able to save premature babies earlier and earlier in a pregnancy. So when does a life begin? To me at conception, since from a science standpoint, there is consciousness within the first trimester as was talked about in a study a couple of months back. And from a theological stand point, as it says in the Bible that God new us even before we were formed in the womb. So if a canidate doesn’t meet this criteria then I probably won’t vote for them.
I can easily vote for someone like Bart Stupak (who happens to represent my district here in Michigan) because, he fits the social conservative things that I believe in. Of course, the Dems have some other things that I could vote for like helping the poor, though they need to rein in their typical tax and spend attitude to a certain extent.
There was another point that is important to me, but I don’t remember it right now. Probably because I’m too tired from staying up all night.
I’ll proabaly vote for W as well for this reason (maybe this is what my other point was?) The supreme court. I believe that while the Constitution has some leeway for interpretation and minorities should be protected, I believe that the courts have begun to overreach their intended jurisdiction and that the legislative and executive branches of the government need to put their checks and balances into play with the current court and I pray that conservative judge get appointed during the next presidential term. I’m not necessarily looking for a reversal of some court cases that I feel were the wrong decision (though that would be a good outcome), but just stem the tide of what seems to be the pushing out of the Christian values that from an historical perspective is what the founding fathers of the country started everything.
So that is my take on some of this stuff. I probably should go to bed now so that I can get up by noon and do a presentation with a fellow ham on ham radio at the Vanderbilt middle school.
This is my first try at a blog. I’ve wanted to try one since I found my brother-in-law’s, a couple of years ago. So this is my first try. I’d like to keep posting consistantly. I have a tendency to try things for a while and then drop them. I don’t want to do that here. This will probably parallel my personal journal to a certain extent, although more than likely this will be an heavily edited version. Not to mention as in the title of this blog, I will probably talk about youth ministry and I’ll probably leave out the names and situations that one can run into with teens, so as to not betray their trust. Kids need love from caring adults as they are trying to become adults. This I have learned over the past 4 years of teaching Sunday school and working with both youth groups (junior and senior high) for the last 3 years.
Of course, the other half of this blog is dedicated to meteorology, which I have been doing since I took a chalk markable weather map home in the second grade. here I am 30 years later and I’m still drawing weather maps and presenting forecasts. It’s just that now I get paid for it.
There are always related subjects that will appear in here as well. Church related items. Ham radio related items. Just about anything.
So how’s that for my first try?
