The Road To Emmaus

I was out with a friend today in up-town.  As we were waiting to cross the street, a young man comes up to us and says something like, “Hey, can you guys please, please, please! give me a dollar.  I only have 50 cents and I need to catch the bus to get to work.”  My friend introduces himself to this young man and asks him where his work is.  He replied with an answer, explaining it was down on a specific road, but didn’t seem to know exactly where and said “… I don’t know…” at the end.  Friend tries to clarify where on this road it was, giving landmarks, and the man said that yes it was right there.  “Well, I’m heading right that way, why don’t I give you a ride there.”

The man replies, “No, I gotta catch the bus to get there…”  “Why do you need to catch the bus if I’m able to give you ride there?” asked my friend.  “No thanks man…”, and the man walks away.

It sure is sad to see people deceiving you right to your face asking for something.  A personal ride is far greater than a dollar to catch the bus - you can save your 50 cents, and you don’t need to wait for the bus to come!  Well, he didn’t need the bus, and he had no job to get to.

That is similar to me asking someone for something, and that someone offers something greater than I asked for, yet I make them into a useless, unhelpful person instead of the over-gracious person they were trying to be.  Someone in their generosity towards what I was asking for offers something greater, and I totally snuff out the gracious man.  Not only does it make deceitful folks more deceptive, but it also makes gracious people less willing to be gracious.  It’s a double-negative.

I got a call this morning from David Olson asking if I was free this evening to play bass for him.  He sent me the chord charts and pointed me to youtube to listen to the songs.  I hadn’t even heard some of them before.  The gig was at Club 3 Degrees in Minneapolis.  I hadn’t even been in there before.  Pretty fun gig.  I think the sound guys were more numerous than other people listening to us.  David said that he hadn’t even told a single person about the gig though - so nobody really knew he was playing.  Kind of silly, but it was a blast, especially to see David and play with him again.  I think it went fairly well considering the amount of time, or lack thereof, that I was able to spend learning the tunes.  Thanks for the invite to play David!

My wife and I are house-sitting right now, and I am close enough to work that I can bike there and back.  It’s about a 7-mile trip one-way.  Yesterday was good.  The trip was harder on the way back because it was more uphill than the way to work, but overall it was refreshing and it felt great.

Different story today.  I woke up a little stiff in the legs.  A half-mile into the trip to work this morning I was heavily weighing the option of turning back and driving in.  My muscles just didn’t have any juice left.  I pressed on, knowing I should just taking it slower.

I made it to work just fine, but I know the trip back home will be tough.  It’s a good tough though.  I’d like to bike the trip all week if I can.  I’m hoping the soreness is gone tomorrow.  If it’s not, any suggestions on how to expidite the leg-rejuvenating process?

Inexpensive to start.  It’s only $20 or less to purchase a driver and a putter (and maybe a mid-range).  Once you have the discs, almost every course out there is free to play.  No tee-times necessary.  Loads of fun to learn, to get better, and to be with friends.

I was listening to Hue Hewitt on the radio this week, and he played an audio clip of Obama talking about abortion, using his own children as an example. Here’s what he said:

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old.  I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Yes, for those of us who are pro-life, Obama’s views on abortion are sickening.  So - no need to discuss that.  There are two main issues here that are worth discussing.

The first is a complete disregard for the consequences of your actions.  Sex is designed for reproduction.  If you have sex, you could produce a child.  If you don’t want a child, don’t have sex!  If you have sex, a child might just happen.  Are those not obvious statements?  Who, who enters into a sexual relationship with someone, doesn’t know that having sex could result in a pregnancy?  To say that someone shouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of their actions, when they know what could happen, is an outrage.  But that sure seems like where the american culture is veering, doesn’t it?  Someone spills their coffee (their fault), and it burns them (the result of their own mistake - and besides, who orders a coffee and doesn’t expect it to be hot?) - and that person sues the company that gave them the coffee and wins for $2.86 million.  If we turn into a culture where nobody is responsible for their own actions - we are going to run into serious, very serious issues - as is already happening today.

The other issue here is the fact that Obama considers pregnancy as a punishment.  The gift of children is becoming a punishment to people.  If I do an action that produces children, yet I don’t want a child, yet a pregnancy happens and I have that child - should I consider it a punishment?  Is that really fair to say?  Is that fair to the child?  Not only is that child looked at as a punishment, that child often has to grow up in an environment that is not at all well suited for a child.  The child is the one ending up getting punished, and for the selfishness of the parent.

It is very sad to me that a man of attitude is being so highly praised and so hoped for to be the future leader of this country, which was once built to be one nation, under God.  Our country is becoming “one nation, to do what ever the heck you want…  Oh, and don’t worry about consequences of what you choose to do because we’ve got all sorts of ways out of it, and even ways to get rich from the mistakes you make.”

I recently posted on an easy way to help your wife.  It was an article with 10 great reasons why men should sit down to take a leak.  Though the opposition didn’t decide to post, I did hear from a number of people.

I was a bit surpised at the reactions.  Everyone that I heard from seems to have a general idea of, “I’m a man, I stand to leak!”  Well, let me present this situation:

You have a desk at home.  Your wife starts eating meals at it, and always leaves crumbs.  You are the one always having to pick up the crumbs.  How long would it be before you tell her to stop eating at your desk, or to clean up the crumbs?  If you are honest with yourself, it wouldn’t take you long at all.

This is similar to what your wife has to do.  She doesn’t leave “crumbs” (splashes of urine) on the toilet and the area around the toilet.  You do - if you stand to take a leak.  She’s the one to clean it up all the time.

I’m not really sure why us men have adopted the concept of needing to stand when we take a leak.  It makes sense in a urinal - but not in a toilet.  Being a man is also wanting to do things right and logically, right?  Then I propose we change this, take our seats, and give a little extra respect to those who do the cleaning.

Now, who’s with me?

Isn’t there a standard that book publishers follow when making books? And no, that top book is not upside down.

I heard a commercial on the radio yesterday for a program that supplies kids with backpacks full of school supplies - primarily for families who cannot afford the costs of those things.  While I don’t see a huge problem with the program’s purpose, I do have a problem with the way they presented their commercial.

There was a dialog between a mother and her young son.  The kid was complaining to mom that he needed a new backpack because his was getting old, and mainly because other kids would make fun of him.

What a sad statement of our culture in america today - if your stuff isn’t nice enough, you’ll get made fun of.  Let’s teach our kids to always be content and satisfied with what they have.  If something “nicer” comes up along the way, great.  If not - use what you’ve got and be pleased with it.

As you can see - my blog has a new title. Please do not confuse this blog with the actual road to Emmaus, or with Luke 24. It’s just a title of a passage of the Bible that I love.

It took me a long time to finally realize that the Bible as a whole was truly amazing. The entirety of the Bible is a wise finger pointing to Jesus, the whole way through. It is meant to be understood that way.

One of the most clear proofs of that is Luke 24, where Jesus met the two men on their way to Emmaus. Luke says in verse 27: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” What a sweet truth - It is all for the glory of God, for the glory of Christ.

As a dude, I definitely would rather stand to take a leak.  If you pay attention at all though, you’ll easily notice that taking a leak in a regular toilet standing up creates quite a lot of splash.  That splash not only gets onto the toilet, it also splashes down onto the floor and the things around the toilet.  Sounds kind of gross - well, it is.  And someone’s got to clean it up*.

If you are a dude, you can help.  A very easy way to avoid all the splash mess is to just sit down.  Here are 10 great benefits:

1. No spash, no mess.
2. More relaxing.  No need to have your leg muscles holding you up.
3. No need to balance.
4. No need to have great aim.
5. If you need to sneeze or cough - no problem!
6. If the #2 sneaks up, you are ready to rock.
7. Less noisy.  The splash can be loud.
8. No need to lean way forward to ensure those final drips make it in.
9. You can go hands-free.  Bring a book, read a paragraph.
10. When you use a bathroom with a urinal, since you rarely stand to take a leak now, it makes it much more enjoyable of an experience.