randalevan's blog

Comparison: another obstacle to joy

The preacher pissed me off at church yesterday. It wasn't her fault. She did a fine job. In fact, I encourage you to listen to what Susan had to say. (Go to: http://www.vcfp.org/sermons.html, then select the sermon for May 22nd entitled, "Greed is Good".)

The reason I became angry was because the topic - money - is a sensitive one for me & Jacquie right now. Our whole world (*that, I recognize, is a bit of an exageration!) has been turned upside down. I spent the last 20+ years devoting my life to my calling: pastoral ministry. While I still feel called to be a pastor, I am currently choosing to not be paid for it. (*For more on this, please check-out my April 27th post: Overcoming Conflict (More on "A Million Miles...".)

So, when the sermon began and the preacher started talking about money, I began to celebrate my own little pitty party. Boy, am I glad no one else was invited!

Swimming in the Ocean, facing my fear.

In mid-April (*April 16th, 2011 post) I wrote a post about dealing with fear. Specifically, the fear of swimming in the ocean and finding that I was not alone...
Well, my wetsuit arrived last Friday, and so Jacquie & I decided that Sunday - Mother's Day - would be the day to head to Aquatic Park in San Francisco.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Windy, but still almost-perfect. We immediately found a parking space right across the street from Aquatic Park...a small, but significant gift from God, as anyone who lives in a city knows.

We got out of the car, I liberally applied my "anti-shark" balm

(aka "Glide", to avoid my wetsuit rubbing my skin off!), and then donned my new wetsuit

Overcoming conflict (More on "A Million Miles...")

Donald Miller is a master story teller. He can make you laugh (check out the story about the girl he notices and wants to impress so he tells her he is going to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu - Kindle location 1276), and, he can make you cry (for example, the story about his friend Jim who lost his wife of twenty-seven years to cancer - 2382.) In each, Miller hits home the definition of a story worth telling: "A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it." (670.)

I can relate to overcoming conflict. For the past five or six years, I have been asking myself, my friends, family, and God Himself for wisdom about how to live the only life I have to live. I have this sense that I am going to continue to be a pastor, but, that it will look very different than it has looked over the past twenty some-odd years. But what will it look like? That's where my conflict comes in.

Is there more to life than owning a Volvo?

Jacquie & I have some of the greatest kids on the planet. Last year for my birthday, our son Nathan & his wife Meredith (aka: tmbdilitw), sent me an amazon.com gift card so I could purchase Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life for my Kindle. They knew that I had been thinking a lot about my life and how best to live it and thought this book might help. Well, in two words: It did.

I am not sure how many posts I will do, nor how long it will take me, but I have a few ideas from the book that I would like to share with you. Maybe they will help you. Maybe you will start asking yourself some questions. Maybe it will provide some answers for your questions. I hope so.

Dealing with Fear

 

 Man, it´s been a long time since my last post! Life has been wonderfully busy...career change, triathlon training, fulfilling prerequisites for a bilingual teaching credential program, life coach training, continuing my seminary education, starting a new business...hmmm, did I leave anything out?!

Anyway, let me get to something I have been working on...before it does its work on me! That "something" is fear.

One of the things that will always be true of life - at least this side of heaven - is we have to choose how we are going to respond to the things that scare us. Will we fight, or will we run for the hills? While sometimes it is wise to run as fast as our fat little feet will carry us, there are other occassions when we need to recognize our fears...and then do what we really want to do anyway. While I could write about many areas of my life right now where I am having to face a multitude of fears, let me focus on triathlon training today.

snowy new england - part II

Well, I said that I would finish my previous post with a few more details from my trip to New Haven. After the burger bash on Sunday we had two days of meetings with Vineyard pastors from New England. We work together to help create and establish communities in Spain. Some of us have been partnering together for almost 20 years. What a great group of women & men!

One of the things we are planning is a conference/retreat with Andy Park. This will take place in Barcelona on April 1st & 2nd. More details are forthcoming. I would guess we will have something up on our web page by the end of February.  (www.partnersforspain.org.)

One evening we all went out for pizza. In case you were unaware, New Haven pizza is some of the best on the planet!

And of all the pizza parlor's in New Haven, Zuppardi's is among the best. (*At least that is what Bill thinks...and who am I to argue with him?!)

snowy new england still holds a warm place in my heart

I left our Mountain View, CA home in the wee hours of a Thursday morning in January. It was the beginning of a typical, mid-winter day in the Golden State: lo's in the hi 40's, with a hi that would reach the mid 60's. Jacquie was bringing me to the San Francisco Airport, where I would hop on a flight for Hartford, CT.

I knew the weather would be slightly different (HA!) in New England. I even knew that a blizzard had just dumped two feet of snow. But somehow, temperatures in the 20's just felt colder than they used to when we lived in Framingham, MA...a town about 20 minutes west of Boston.

"tri" means "three"

For those of you who read my blog, you know that at the beginning of 2011 - which was SO long ago! - I decided to do a triathlon.

Well, I had already been cycling, so that wasn't hard.

I started jogging again, sore knees and all, and that has been getting better.

But, I had not started swimming yet. THAT has all changed as of yesterday.

Earlier in the week, I became a member of 24-Hour Fitness, because I heard they had a lap pool.
Then, I went to purchase a swim cap and goggles in Los Gatos...and, since we were already in town, Jacquie, Gloria, & I went to lunch (Andalé on North Santa Cruz Blvd...yum!)

Because I was afraid I might grow weak and faint in the pool, we went for coffee and dessert after lunch.
We then went home, where I put both cap and goggles on
And in case you're wondering, my goggles fit very snuggly. I had NO  doubt that any water whatsoever would get into my eyes.

In case you have not donned a swim cap or goggles for awhile, let me assure you that they are both uncomfortable. My cap fits snuggly on my melon-sized head. I was certain when I pulled it off that all my hair would come off with it. But my primary concern was the amount of suction the goggles created. It felt as if any moment both my eyeballs would be sucked right out of their sockets!

Well, given the fact that I no longer had any excuses to keep me from starting my swim training, I then hopped in the car, drove to my new gym, and jumped in the pool.
Just in case you were concerned about my eyeballs, neither of them were pulled from their sockets. Well, one of them was slightly pulled-out and I was able to push it back in...  ; )

Ah, and one other important piece of information: I swam a total of 4 laps. (*25 meters/lap.) I felt fine Lap #1. Ditto Lap #2. Lap #3 I began to notice I needed to KEEP BREATHING while I swam. Lap #4, I was glad there was not going to be a Lap #5 today!

Oh, and one other very small, and yet significant detail: the triathlon's swim length is 1.5K...or, in "lap terms", 60 laps. I have some training to do! But hey, ya gotta start somewhere, right?

Christmas all year round?

Do you know what "Epiphany" means? I had some idea, but decided to look up the definition on dictionary.com. Here is part of what I found:

e·piph·a·ny

/ɪˈpɪfəni/ Show Spelled[ih-pif-uh-nee]

1. (initial capital letter) a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi;

2. an appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity.

So, Epiphany the holiday happens today. (*And if you have never lived in Spain or any other country that celebrates El Día de los Reyes, you don't know what you are missing. In our kid's experience, living in Spain meant you received gifts on December 25th AND January 6th!)

But epiphany the manifestation of a deity (*in this case, Jesus) can happen any day. Jesus can breakthrough and come to life in the midst of the thick and thin of daily living. But..., how can that be?

Gloria's First* Day on the Job

Gloria started her first "real" job this week at Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco (www.bakerstadvertising.com)

Hannah had an old high school friend from Framingham visiting so we all drove her into work on Tuesday.
After getting her a coffee, we brought her to her new job...
(*If you look closely, the look on her face is..."DAD, TAKE THE PICTURE BEFORE ANYONE SEES YOU!" I was very impressed by the fact that she let me do it!)

While Gloria worked, Hannah & Lindsey explored and I studied. After lunch, we picked-up a flower to decorate her new office...
Needless to say, Jacquie & I are very proud of our little girl!

P.S. The "First*" in the title of this post refers to the fact that these photos were actually taken on Gloria's Second day of work...but it was the first time we visited her!