There is more that goes on here than just summer...

After a nice day long storm.

Staff Selection...

Every year from right after Christmas to the last week in February I am concerned about one thing... trying to put together a staff for the summer. I drove over 1200 miles by car, spent 24 hours in airports and airplanes, 65 hours sitting in uncomfortable chairs interviewing great people (who made the chairs seem comfortable). And then try to keep all of that information in my head and heart and locate the notebooks where I have my notes and thoughts.

This week, the coordinators gathered up at Calvin Crest on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and looked at the applications of about 95 people to try to see the hearts through the typed words. Nellie and I and others give input as to the conversation we had with each of them on the phone, in the Starbucks or Tully's, in a church or at a school to add to the flesh. We try to listen to the Spirit to direct us as to who God is sending us for His work during those 10 weeks.

Now I would like to stop right there before continuing on to the rest of the story. "...who God is sending us" is a tough set of words. We get many people who come telling us that "God is calling them to Calvin Crest" or they feel led to apply and they do and some get hired and some do not. This perplexes me. How do we know who God is hiring and for whom He has other plans. (I use the masculine here because it is convenient, not because of plumbing.) We do try to listen for direction, overriding some experiences that were not positive with the person or we become so enamored by the person that they have to be on staff but end up not hired. Some we hire, knowing it was God, only to find out in the middle of summer that they end up leaving. Was that really God if it didn't work out perfectly.

I trust the hearts of the coordinators to seek first what The Voice is telling them. I trust they are not just putting people on their teams who they like and think they are so qualified. We trust that they will faithfully do that which God is telling them to do. We will help train them to listen for The Voice and to try to discern between lunch and Truth, and then to be faithfully obedient to The Will and Instructions and do the Kingdom doing.

We did select some good people. We also did not select some good people. We are trusting God that there is something else and right for them this summer. We know and have heard countless testimonies of those who were first disappointed by not being on staff but then God showed them the place they were suppose to be. China, SF, LA, working in the churches and neighborhoods where they grew up. We chose some people who did not put that position down on their application but felt there leadership would be used inspite of the name of the position. Some times leadership does not come with a title.

I am convinced that we tried to hear The Voice and placed those into positions within The Will...

Just so you don't forget...

I am a grandfather you know...

Back...

One night is never enough time to get away and rest. However, we had a marvelous time. The weather was absolutely beautiful Monday when we arrived with some clouds coming in and Tuesday morning was a little cloudy but still, Monterey Bay is mostly a bit cloudy and still beautiful. It adds to the ambiance of the place.

We ate a bowl of pan roasted seafood bisque and some salmon ravioli for lunch at our favorite restaurant, Vivolo's Chowder House, and Tom Kha Kai (a Thai coconut chicken soup) for dinner at The Thai Bistro 2. Rachel Ray would have been proud of us.

We visited our friend, Phil, who is rebuilding a 52 foot sail boat that was built in the early part of last century. Our dear friend, Andrew O is helping him out. This is a lot of work but the process is good for Phil's soul. It is evident in his conversation. He is not in a hurry because he knows it isn't about the having the boat but the journey of working on it with friends and watching it get repaired and become ready for the water.

Christel and I also went to see the Monarchs, who have decided to move from the sanctuary to Geo. Washington Park. Can they do that?

Pacific Grove is a second home with some wonderful friends. And some great food. Someday...

A couple of days away...

Christel and I are in Pacific Grove for a few days before we choose summer staff.

We love to stay at our friend's, Jerry and Dianne McKneeley, Bed & Breakfast, The Old St. Angela Inn.

What the...

A friend came up to me and asked me about this last post. Told me to quit whining. I tried to tell him about irony. He said he lets his wife iron his shirts and doesn't want to know how. I told him that is not what I mean but now I understand why he doesn't understand me. I thought I would tell him a bit about hyperbole. To which he replied he had to quit drinking coffee to lower his as well.

As I have said in the past, sometimes I just like to hear myself type...

Wow, that was close...

I was almost killed today. It was just a matter of inches.

I was stopped at a major intersection in Fresno, California, when a truck came speeding into the intersection at 35 miles per freakin' hours and missed the front of my car by 36 inches. It was so close that if I was sticking over the line by half a car length he would have hit me. Or if I would have done what the voice inside my head was telling me, "just run the light and get to Starbucks before someone else," I would have been smashed to smithereens. Then as I took off when the light changed another truck would have destroyed my car if it didn't stop at the intersection because the light conveniently changed on her side to red, at the same time the light on my side changed to green. What a coincidence. God was watching out for me.

As I was driving down the street, which will remain nameless to protect those who drive on the same street, another car drove within a foot of my car driving 50 miles per hour in the same direction. The only thing separating us was some paint that came out of some truck that got sprayed on the road. How fortunate that the paint was there. Some guy must have done that. This is amazing, all of this happening within minutes of each other. I could go on and on about the parking lot and everyone doing some amazing driving and parking in a formation that those in synchronize swimming and marching band would have loved. How did that happen?

I was thinking about how hard my life is these days. Having to take out the garbage, every stinking Thursday, all the way out to the street so that a truck can come by and dispose of it 25 miles from my house. Then I have to take the garbage cans all the way back to my house. Hello?

The night before Valentines Day, I made this incredible steak dinner with artichokes and a thai pasta salad and a glass of very nice wine from the Paso Robles area vineyards. But then I had to clean up the dishes, glasses, forks and knives, pots and pans, cooking utensils, and put the cork back in the wine bottle. That was a lot of work. What a rotten life I have that I have to work so hard.

I am panicking a bit because daylight savings begins soon and then I have to turn back all of the clocks and make sure the batteries get replaced in my smoke detectors and thermostat. This is tough and very demanding.

I had to wait in a drive-up window line for 10 minutes to get a triple, grande, half-caf, breve, low foam, extra hot, upside down, sweetened with sweet n low, carmel macchiato in a "drink here" cup with room for extra cream and a double chocolate cupcake. Then I had to show my driver's licence to prove that I was who my credit card said I was who I was. Whatever happened to the days when they trusted us and a cup of coffee costed two bits? People these days really stress me out!

This afternoon, I am going to have an interview with a young woman in Australia via iChat. I will have to go back to Starbucks and use their internet to talk to her. I wish someone would make it easier. I feel like I am living during the depression or something...

Act your age...

I was meeting the other day with an area director of a major international coffee establishment, who I have known for some time now. But this time there was something different about him. I couldn't put my finger on it until near the end of the conversation when I realized he had dyed his hair. He dyed his eyebrows, mustache, beard, and his head of hair. He dyed it a dark brown. He was always a brown-haired guy with a little gray, but this was different. The color seem to absorb the light as a black hole or should I say a brunette hole. (Are guys called brunette?) I didn't say a word. I looked into his eyes and stayed there. I wondered if those were the true color of his eyes or did he have on contacts.

It caused me to contemplate, should I have said something to him, was he waiting for me to speak out that I noticed, should I have said anything or just pretended that I didn't notice. I don't care if he dyed his hair or not. It is none of my business. But when my wife and I are out and she sees a friend, who dyed her hair, she always comments to her about the new color or whatever. I check out of the conversation and begin wondering where we are going to eat. Should I be doing the same to my friends, who are turning gray and deciding to cover it?

I then look in the mirror and see a lot more gray in my hair and beard and even some on my chest. Are people expecting me to cover it? I don't think I ever will because I don't have much hair in the first place and I don't mind the color. It is a matter of nature, isn't it. I don't want to change the course of nature. Besides if I did dye it I wouldn't know which color to dye it to.

I had a fourth grade teacher back in 1964 who dyed her hair purple. (I would not let her on staff if she did that today - we have policies against that kind of behavior) My friend, Hannah's mom dyed her hair the color henna, which confused me because I thought she was saying Hannah. My dad never colored his hair, he just started "biccing it". We called it the Yul Brenner look back then. (Yul Brenner was an actor, was the king in The King and I. I heard they are going to remake that movie with Justin Timberlake as the king.)

In the older days, aristocracy wore powdered wigs, I wonder if that will ever come back into style? I have a friend who tried to wear a toupee once but no one could keep from snickering when we saw him. He put it away and never wore it again.

I overheard a conversation once between two women and one of them said she was praying about what color to dye her hair...

On the road...

I am in Seattle, doing some interviews, seeing some friends, good conversations, beautiful weather.

Orthopraxy...

In the past week, I have come across this word more than a few times. Key places... a conversation with Jonathan C-H, an article regarding Clarence Jordan, a conversation with a man on the airplane, and in a fortune cookie. (I made up the last one, but what would happen if it really did happen? Dude!)

I love that word, mainly because it is what I think I think it is what I am thinking about more these days than Orthodoxy. Many stop at orthodoxy and never get to orthopraxy. Not that there is anything wrong with orthodoxy, but shouldn't we know one's orthodoxy by one's orthopraxy?

I just bought a mattress that was orthopedic.