I was cleaning out some old notebooks (trying to find some I could use to hold my music) when I ran across a piece of paper.

It wasn’t just any old piece of paper – I don’t think I could come up with a post based on any old piece of paper, although that sounds like a good challenge – this piece of paper came from a very special person.

You see, a Long, Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away, I used to belong to a group of people. Not just any group – but The Valley Cathedral PowerFull Praise Choir and Orchestra. It was a group of about 125 voices that had a very wide range of songs, under the leadership of Dwayne McLuhan. I ended up being the administrator for the Worship and Arts Department for a while. There was a lady who was part of the group by the name of Pat Fischer. Actually, I am convinced that she was an angel here on a special undercover mission. No matter what day or time you ran into her, no matter what kind of news she had just gotten from her oncologists, she always turned the conversation to you. How are you doing? Can we pray about anything for you? How is your family? She was designated as the “Warm and Fuzzy Coordinator” since she was warm and fuzzy for all of us anyway.

Yes, oncologists. Pat had cancer. She lived with it for many years. Lots of people say they fight cancer – Pat lived with it. She lived with it because God gave it to her, and as with any gift from God, Pat cherished it. Not because it was cancer and it would eventually take her away from us for a time, but because it allowed her to refine her walk by helping her to focus on the important things in life – God, service in Jesus’ name, and those around her.

I still have the last e-mail I got from her (not the piece of paper I am talking about) where she actually said something about herself: “Dear Cary, I have some not-so-good news. My doctors say there is nothing more they can do for my cancer. It’s OK, though, because it means that I get to go to sleep and when I wake up, I’ll get to see Jesus!” What a heart for God.

Anyway, here it is – I thought of Pat, and my sister LeaAnn, and all the people who have been dealing with cancer, and how this piece sure takes the sting away and puts it in perspective:

TENTMAKER

It was nice living in this tent when it was strong and secure and the sun was shining and the air was warm but Mr. Tentmaker, it’s scary now. My tent is acting like it’s not going to hold together. The poles seem weak and they shift with the wind. A couple of the stakes have wiggled loose from the sand. Worst of all the canvas has a rip. It no longer protects me from beating rain or stinging flies. It’s scary in here Mr. Tentmaker. Last week I was sent to the repair shop and some repairmen tried to patch the rip in my canvas. It didn’t help much though because the patch pulled away from the edges and not the tear is worse. What troubled me most, Mr. Tentmaker, is that the repairmen didn’t even seem to notice that I was still in the tent. They just worked on the canvas while I shivered inside. I cried out once but no one heard me. I guess my first real question is, Why did you give me such a flimsy tent? I can see by looking around the campground that some of the tents are much stronger and more stable than mine. Why, Mr. Tentmaker, did you pick a tent of such poor quality for me, and even more important what do you intend to do about it?

“O little tent dweller, as the creator and provider of tents, I know all about you and your tent, and I love you both. I made a tent for myself once, and lived in it on your campground. My tent was vulnerable too, and some vicious attackers ripped it to pieces while I was still in it. It was a terrible experience, but you’ll be glad to know, they couldn’t hurt me. In fact, the whole occurrence was a tremendous advance because it is this very victory over my enemy that frees me to be a present help to you. O little tent dweller, I am now prepared to come and live in your tent with you if you’ll invite me. You’ll learn, as we dwell together, that real security comes from my being in your tent with you. When the storms come, you can huddle in my arms and I’ll hold you. When the canvas rips, we’ll go to the repair shop together. Some day, little tent dweller, some day your tent’s going to collapse. You see I’ve only designed it for temporary use. But when it does, you and I are going to leave together. I promise not to leave before you do. And then, free of all that would hinder or restrict, we’ll move to our permanent home and together forever we’ll rejoice and be glad.”

I’ll just be sitting here missing Pat and LeaAnn and a few others for a while…

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

WASHINGTON – Rep. John Murtha, a retired Marine Corps officer who became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday. He was 77.
SOURCE

Why the “EX” in the title? Marines have a saying – “Once a Marine, always a Marine. There are only formerly active Marines.” There has been one exception since 1961 (Oswald, although his training showed – long range shot, down hill, at a moving target…) and Murtha has been added to the short list of EX Marines.

Now, I’m gonna start taking the advice of Momma and stop talking, since I have nothing nice to say about the man.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

So, Friday I posted about how I didn’t have enough time for everything. Two people posited that I should cut out the FarmVille portion of my life, since it was a) a timesuck and 2) not constructive. One of them, Tom, mentioned that I should pay more attention to my bass guitar. Of course, since he has a wonderful series of on-line lessons for the bass guitar, I kinda knew where he would stand…

The other one, Greybeard, is like an older brother to me, and I value his opinions greatly. (You can hear him on the 2/5/10 episode of The “O” Word from BlogTalkRadio (on the player in the margin)). He seemed to think that Farmville was, in fact, one of the worst ways to spend my time.

Oddly enough, none of the people who are my neighbors on FarmVille had an opinion – I think it’s because they were busy taking care of their farms.

Being an addictive type person (I pick up and obsess over some things – which is why I am a recovering alcoholic, a former three-pack-a-day smoker, and a freed-from-caffeine CocaCola fiend) means that I don’t always see the signs of addiction. An old friend of mine in Oregon mentioned that his wife was afflicted with Farmville – and I joked that he had misspelled addicted. He pointed out that I should know him better than that; he meant what he said.

I have spent some time since I posted that list yesterday thinking about and praying about my fascination with FarmVille. In fact, with all things Facebook-related. While I will stay on Facebook, I won’t be on the Farm much longer. I will be bringing in my current crop, selling off my livestock, and leaving the field plowed so neighbors who visit can get credit for fertilizing the fields. If you don’t know diddly about FarmVille, then that last part won’t make any sense to you – just know that by helping your neighbors, you gain experience points and earn FarmVille coins.

Since I am currently at level 50, and not knowing how far this game goes, I’m going to be leaving it at my peak but probably not the peak of the game itself. I just had to complete a horse barn this morning – that was the final straw. I know I have to stop. I can’t even believe that I’m pouring this out here on my blog. How else would all my “neighbors” know what I was doing?

With the setting aside of this addiction/affliction, comes the need to ask forgiveness. First, and foremost, to my friends that I have lured in to this timesuck – I am very sorry. Please forgive me for dragging you into this. Second, to the ones who are deeply tied into this cyber-reality, and who might be using me as a metric for how well they are doing compared to me, please stop. Don’t compare your farm to mine. I was so obsessed with earning the achievements that I was devastated when they took away the ribbons for the pictures. My entire farm was planted with the eye toward maximizing the profit from every square. I have a spreadsheet – an actual Excel spreadsheet – dedicated to the most profitable animals, trees, and crops. It breaks each item down to how much it will earn me per day – and my farm shows it. Once I earned certain ribbons, I stopped working with whatever I needed to earn those ribbons. Knock On Wood Blue Ribbon? Poof! Sell off all but the most profitable trees (olive trees, in case you are wondering. the pomegranate trees are pretty good too, so I kept them as well). When the Starfruit trees first came out, they were taking four days and generating 100 coins. For some reason, they dropped to 65 coins. I sold them off. When the calves and the bulls started becoming available, I was in hog heaven (so to speak) – they were each worth 80 coins every day – and not even a lot of crops do that well! I was very upset with the latest redesign of Facebook itself – not because of the way it looks now, but because I had grouped everyone into neat little lists, in order to avoid the Live Feed/News Feed issue from the last redesign, and I had a list for FarmVille that I could click on and make sure I wasn’t missing out on any free animals, or eggs, or lost bulls, or found referee cows (again, you have to be there to understand that one…).

So, I’m out. I quit. I’m really going to have a hard time explaining to my wife why HER farm is no longer being taken care of – because I couldn’t get enough of a fix by running my own farm, I had to run hers, also – just so I could spend more time with FarmVille.

Pray for me, will ya? The next few weeks are going to be tough while I wean myself from this cyber-crack.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Three year old daughter.

Laptop that needs upgraded to Win7.

FarmVille.

Blogging.

Facebook.

The “O” Word Friday nights 2200 MST.

Two part time jobs plus the occasional wood working job.

TMBWitW.

Real Life.

Feeding the homeless.

Still learning the bass guitar (scales are slippery!).

Singing.

My Blogroll.

Church.

Family, other than immediate.

Big question: Which of these should I be cutting back on, so I am not neglecting any one of the rest? Answer in the comments below, or on the show tonight.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!