the taqwacores

there was an interesting article in the ny times yesterday about the current muslim punk rock movement here in america, spawned by a book entitled the taqwacores.  i could summarize the article for you here, but it's really not that long, so i'll just let you click the link and read it for yourself.  

sit down, sit down, you're rockin' the boat

in pretty much every aspect of life, we're all concerned with people who disturb life as we know it, people who mess things up, people who "rock the boat."  we'd much rather have life be stable, still, predictable.  we want to feel like everything is under control.  

it occurred to me the other day that when you're in a boat that's moving through the water, you can feel the waves splashing against the hull.  by its very nature, a boat that's moving is a boat that's rocking.  

if it's moving, if it's bouncing through waves, if it's rocking, then that means it's moving. this is good news.  

gabriele and i were just talking last night about how life has been tumultuous lately, how it feels like we've been tossed around like a ship in a storm, and how we're ready for life to be calm and peaceful.  

i've never been in a boat that was going anywhere that didn't toss and bounce and dance at least a little along the way.  the only still boats i've been in were ones that weren't going anywhere, ones that were either tied up to the shore or floating without purpose or direction.  so it's comforting to me to think that maybe our boat has been rocking because we're on the way to somewhere, maybe on the way to somewhere nice where we can tie up our boat, get out, and enjoy the destination.  

until then, i guess we'll keep hanging on, and try to enjoy the scenery along the way.

and now for your nightly news...

my post yesterday about rogerian person-centered therapy gave rise to a couple of thoughts that i wanted to follow-up on.  in that post i said:

"sometimes i wonder what the world would look like if i heard as many sermons about loving my neighbor as i have about the sinful nature of tattoos, rock music, and sex."

i refer to this type of behavior as the "evening news phenomenon."  for decades, news programming has presented the public with information about what is going in the world, typically with a substantial slant toward topics of concern - war, economic crises, natural disasters, disease, famine, celebrity gossip, etc.  certainly important information, but when it is the only information presented as being newsworthy, something within us begins to change.  when bad news is the only news that we hear,  then bad news becomes the only news we share.  like ellen degeneres says regarding the news headline ticker that crawls across the bottom of the television screen, we really only need one crawl going around that simply says "things are getting worse."

i often see the evening news phenomenon at work when i am counseling couples and families  parents come home from work and gripe about their day, they get onto the kids for being rowdy, and everyone nags each other about whatever comes to mind.  days and weeks go by with nary a compliment or positive comment exchanged in the home.  each person starts to feel like they can't do anything right  

i also see the evening news phenomenon occurring in our churches, though admittedly it seems be happening less frequently now than it did 5 or 10 years ago.  too often we've focused more on what people are doing wrong than on what they are doing right.  while we are quick to point out faults and misdeeds, we are also slow to show grace and to forgive.  

my apologies, i realize i'm getting too preachy.  i do want to acknowledge that i have been one that was quick to judge, quick to label, quick to insult, and slow, slow, slow to show grace.  i desperately want to be an agent of love, and thank god that his grace is never slow or insufficient.

rogerian theology

i have a great deal of respect for carl rogers, the american psychologist credited with developing the person-centered approach to psychotherapy. rogers was raised in a devout christian family and he began college with at least some intent of entering the ministry. along the way, though, something in rogers' experience caused him to shift his career path away from the ministry and toward psychology.

therapists-in-training love rogerian therapy because they believe that it's a technique that's not a technique. while rogers did outline specific techniques in his description of the person-centered approach to therapy, the true benefit of his theory is its broad applicability to all therapeutic approaches. as a colleague of mine once said, "all good therapy is person-centered."

one of the best known aspects of rogers' person-centered theory is the idea and practice of "unconditional positive regard," often simply referred to as "UPR." through his research, rogers discovered that the relationship between a client and therapist has more of an impact on the client's healing than any particular therapeutic technique.

i'm convinced that rogers' theory has application beyond the field of counseling. the core tenets of his theory - empathy, unconditional positive regard, the power of relationship, genuineness -are all terms and ideas i have often heard in the church. heard, but rarely seen or felt or experienced. why is that?

i'm curious what a church would look like that actually embraced values like acceptance, empathy, and "unconditional positive regard" in their approach to ministry. they'd have to give up some things, though, like judgment and comfort. they'd have to get used to being in a boat that rocks rather than one that just quietly floats. once word got out that a church was like that, no doubt it would attract an interesting crowd. there's a lot of people who feel that the church has a closed-mind and closed-door stance regarding their decisions and/or lifestyle, and so they don't feel welcome. it's terribly sad.

i know that there are some churches that are trying to more fully embrace the practice of acceptance and empathy and unconditional positive regard, and that's wonderful. it's the fact that more churches aren't doing it that concerns me. i can't remember the last time i heard the word "persecuted" and it wasn't referring to the church.

sometimes i wonder what the world would look like if i heard as many sermons about loving my neighbor as i have about the sinful nature of tattoos, rock music, and sex. are we really more concerned with punishment than we are with helping those in need?

lottery jesus

my morning commute takes me past a billboard that displays the estimated powerball jackpot for the upcoming drawing. the sign is in a prime viewing location; it sits on top of a slight topographical rise just off the highway, and there aren’t any buildings around the billboard to distract from the view. i’ve often wondered how much the oklahoma lottery commission has to pay for such a premium advertising spot. it’s probably worth it when compared to the amount of revenue generated by the billboard. it’s a very noticeable billboard.

most days i take note of the sign and the jackpot amount. today it was $57 million, which is $7 million more than wednesday, so it appears that no one won the jackpot this week. every time i see the billboard i start to daydream about what it would be like to win. not just what i would do with the money, but what it would actually feel like to win. i imagine a warm feeling would come over my body, my breathing quicken, my hand holding the ticket would start to quiver, my cheeks would begin to burn from holding up the enormous smile on my face. it would be a glorious moment of revelation as i embraced the freedom that i assume such money would permit.

it's interesting to observe those who play the lottery. for instance, my dad only buys a ticket if the jackpot gets really big, like $150 million, as if the prospect of winning that amount somehow justifies spending a dollar for a ticket, whereas playing to win only $50 million would be a waste of money. on the other end of the spectrum, i once knew a woman who would call in to the local convience store to order her weekly lottery purchase, typically totalling around $250. many more people opt for consistently playing one or two dollars each week, rationalizing that if they buy a ticket for each drawing, then sooner or later they're bound to win, right?

i think that many people view prayer like they're playing the lottery. some only pray for really big things or when they feel like they "really need it." others may pray everyday, perhaps even because they have become habitual about "praying without ceasing," but their motivation isn't because they truly believe that their prayers will be answered; they may just believe that if the pray enough, eventually one of those prayers will be heard and be answered.

despite my agnostic leanings, every now and then i whisper a few words up to God/gods/universe/Flying Spaghetti Monster/whatever. it usually feels like i'm just throwing a hail mary (pun intended) and hoping that it gets answered. sometimes i wonder what else i should do to boost my prayer to the top of god's list - as if i could do some kind of rain dance and make god hear me. i'm afraid of being one of those people who is completely convinced that god will hear their prayers and heal their sick child, only to have the child die. there are millions of devout and holy people out there who have prayed incessantly for years without receiving the answer they were looking for.

the problem is obvious, of course: we're all looking for a particular answer from god. we want to have god wrapped around our little finger, like we're alladin and he's our genie. we want to be able to pray a certain way and have god "give in" to our big puppy dog eyes and pouty lip and give us all the desires of our heart.

the end is here

if you haven't already heard about this story, here's the link.  

basically, the crowd awaiting the black friday sales outside a walmart store in new york let their greed and impatience get the best of them.  they busted in the front doors and rushed the store, trampling a 34 year-old seasonal employee to death.  then people were mad that the police asked them to leave the store.  

seriously, folks.  things have gotten out of hand.

zap!

i first met god in the walmart parking lot in athens, texas. i was five or six years old, and was spending a few weeks visiting my grandparents. while in the store, my grandmother had offered to buy me a toy. not wanting to squander the offer on just any toy, i was taking my time looking over everything and weighing my options. characteristically patient, my grandmother eventually grew weary of my selective shopping and told me we were leaving - without a toy.

this made me cry, of course, and i began to create quite the scene. frustrated and embarrassed, my grandmother issued a quick swat to my hind quarters. i tried to hold back my tears as we exited the store, my feelings of shame prompting me to mumble "i wish i could just die." my grandmother wheeled around, caught me by the arm and said with striking conviction "don't you ever wish that, andy. god might strike you down right here in this parking lot with a bolt of lightning."

i'm probably not the only person that has spent their lives in fear of what god might do to them. growing up in the church i was practially raised on the old testament stories of god's wrath falling upon the sinful: getting kicked out of the garden of eden, the tower of babel, sodom and gomorrah, lot's wife, the flood, being exiled in egypt, spending forty years wandering in the desert - and that's just in the first two books! it's easy to teach these stories to children; the characters are easily divided between good and evil, and the plots are thick with drama. love, death, guilt. they translate directly to how we want our chlidren to conduct themselves, and usually the story even adds a little incentive. do this, don't do that...or else!

but when the story really gets good, when the climax is reached, our ability to teach seems to vanish. i mean, we're good about painting jesus as the "good guy" of the story. that part is easy; we know the end of the story, and everyone likes a winner. really, it's message that jesus brings that seems to be the difficult part. forgiveness for all, love thy neighbor, acceptance, the last shall be first - these themes are more difficult to illustrate with a flannelgraph than animals walking two-by-two.

i wonder how many of us have grown up embracing justice and vengence rather than forgiveness and mercy? how often do we find reasons to reject others instead of accepting them? how motivated are we to help, and how motivated are we to hurt? and even worse, how often have we perpetuated this faulty teaching to our own children, our own friends, our own world?

starving artist

i have placed a link in the sidebar to my new page on imagekind.com where you can purchase prints of some of gabriele's and my art.  imagekind is wonderful- you can choose what size print you want, and they have hundreds of options for the type of print surface, as well as thousands of framing and matting options.  

if you or someone you know is interested in any original work, please contact me here.  

[edit:  i'm also working on updating some of the older electronic media stuff i've done so that they look better in larger sizes.  i'll post again both here and on JOINTogether when i get that done.]

various versions of me

i've often attempted to be a hipster, though without much long-term success. i nearly always fail at being a hipster, though. it's not because at my core i'm not a hipster, but more likely because i am lazy, and achieving the hipster's effortless look is such hard work, and i never seem to know about any unknown bands worth bragging about.

in these moments of post-hipster failure weakness, i usually settle for simply being a "professional," which i suppose is appropriate seeing as i have a graduate degree and usually work in an office. in my heart, though, i feel that i am "just" being a "professional," and that i am not "being true" to "who i really am," and other phrases that necessitate the use of excessive punctuation to set them apart as important lables of distinction, even when they're not.

countering this drab exterior of being a professional usually takes the form of jeans, t-shirts, and flip-flops (or, occasionally, cowboy boots) whenever i have the chance, or more typically, whenever i can rationalize that the [closet] post-moderns in the oklahoma city are open and accepting of casual dress for nearly all occasions. i then try to pair my appearance with appropriate theme music, which could be anything from red dirt to pearl jam to frank sinatra.

today, however, i wore a suit. early this morning i sat alone in my car in the parking lot of a salvation army thrift store, sipping a starbucks house brew and listening to a staccato-voiced NPR reporter (markedly distant from any of the aforementioned theme music), my mind awash in economic and political news and dreaming of who i wanted to be when i grew up. as if i still hadn't decided on embracing the hipster, the professional, or the weekender persona, but believing that at some point i would have to choose just one, and that whatever i chose would then be "me" forever.

of course, the reality is that i am always "me," no matter how i dress or speak or act. we choose to express and portray ourselves in different ways in an effort to represent all the different facets of our personality. this behavior is fascinating, and it is one of the primary reasons i chose to study psychology rather than finance.

yearbookyourself.com

that last one is freakishly realistic.  thanks to casey and justin for doing this first.  

good golly

my apologies for being so absent lately; it's been busy around these parts! most notably, we're moving back to oklahoma city!  brenham has been lovely, and we'll miss many aspects of our small town life down here.  however, we're greatly looking forward to finding out all that God has in store for us next!

in other, not-about-me-at-all news, tomorrow is election day!  i hope everyone will take time to vote.  gabs and i did some early voting last week, and are anxious to watch the results tomorrow night.  [okay, i am...gabs isn't really a politics aficionado.]  obviously healthcare is a huge issue in our household, so if you don't personally feel like you have something to get behind, you can consider picking that one. ;)

two good bits of news: 

1. free starbucks tomorrow if you tell them you voted.  [thanks mike.] hooray! 
2. really cool photo set of the london tattoo convention courtesy of joe plommer.  [thanks marisa!]  the album contains a lot of profile shots that show off the people as well as the art. 

speaking of art, stay tuned for more news about my own art in a few days.  i have some uploading to do...

a walk and a march

apparently i've had a bit of post-hurricane downage in the blogging department.  my apologies.  but seriously, you all read more stuff on jointogether anyway.

anyhoo, two exciting things coming up, both involving bipedal movement:

1.  arthritis walk in bryan/college station this coming saturday.  we have a tremendous team of friends and family walking with us.  should be very exciting.

2.  got an email today confirming that there will indeed be a 2nd annual march of 1000 flaming skeletons.  (for posts on the first one, look here.)  needless to say, i am very excited.

HURRICANE IKE - Saturday

well, that was fun.  

gabs and i arrived at work at 7pm last night, thankful to find all the individuals pretty calm and ready for bed.  one of the other psychologists decided to stay the night at work, so the three of us made rounds, joined a supervisor for a joy ride on a golf cart, watched balls of fury, and just generally sat around doing nothing.  the servers were closed down at 4pm, so we couldn't really get any work done, other than just conversing about various behavior plans and bemoaning our difficulty in trying to get our plans carried out with any consistency.  

so, the storm blew in, folks napped a bit, and i read several articles in the winter 2007 edition of the journal of applied behavior analysis.  yes, i'm a nerd.  

it rained, it blew, and we were very happy to leave at 7am this morning and come home for some much-deserved sleep.  gabs' mom has been cooking all weekend, which today included some pasta, salad, fruit, and gumbo.  we lost power around 6am (the state school has generators for all the buildings), and then our power at home went out as we turned the corner onto our street.  it came back on about 4 hours later, and our cable finally came back on around 7pm tonight.  

since then, we've been busy looking for news about the marina where gab's mom & stepdad live on their boat.  i happened upon this blog that gave info and a picture of their marina, which calmed our fears.  

now we're headed to bed.  you know you've been watching too much weather coverage when you say things like "hey, that storm looks like a kitty cat."  yikes.

HURRICANE IKE - Friday

ahoy!  still nothing really going on here in brenham - it's overcast with only brief moments of sunshine.  the wind has definitely picked up, though it's still in the 10-15 mph range.  gab and i slept in this morning and just took a 2 hour nap, as we try to load up on sleep before pulling a 12-hour shift tonight.  buddy (her mom's cat) is holed up underneath our bed.  

down at the coast, now, things are a different story.  all the houston news stations are showing hurricane coverage 24/7, so naturally all their reporters have donned brightly-colored wind breakers and ill-fitting hats for broadcasting from the various mandatory-evacuation sites.  haven't seen any of them blow over yet, though i just heard that one lady had to move because she got hit in the head with an airborne 2x4.  niiice.

seriously though, it appears that ike has an unusually large storm surge, which basically means that the water level at the coast (and espeically in the bay) has been steadily rising since last night.  in fact, it's already close to the top of the galveston sea wall, which, is around 15 to 18 feet above sea level.  and the storm's still 150 miles away.  i'm willing to bet that most - and possibly all - of galveston island will be under water by tomorrow morning.

here's a pic for you visual learners:

HURRICANE IKE - Thursday

okay, so it looks like i'm going to have to put the god talk on hold, as we have a hurricane headed our way. some info from today:

• it's still really hot and mostly sunny, and the wind has been picking up throughout the day. it's still a pretty light breeze, but getting more steady every hour.


• richmond state school evacuated here, so we're trying to cram 900 people into a 400 person facility. plus staff, who have to bunk in our gym and training buildings. we've got folks in hallways, offices, classrooms, etc.


• since we have all these extra people, all of our staff have to work 12-hour shifts. gab & i are on 'til 7pm tonight, then will be back friday and saturday nights from 7pm to 7am.


• we went to walmart at lunchtime today...that was a hoot. mind you, walmart is on the corner of hwy 36 & hwy 290, and both of those roads are primary evacuation routes. lots and lots of 5th wheel travel trailers. people at walmart were buying all kinds of stuff...mainly lots of bread, water and booze. and candy. sugar up the kids, self-medicate the parents.


• on a related note, this was overheard at the "stop-n-bye" convenience store: "if i'm going to be stuck in the house with my wife and kids all weekend, i'm gonna need 2 cases of beer."


• gab's mom & step-dad are evacuating to our place. they live on a sailboat near kemah, tx, which isn't exactly where you want to stay and ride out a hurricane with a larger-than-usual storm surge and wind pattern.

and so that i can compare myself, here's the most recent predicted path:

here is a link to the National Weather Service webpage (aka NOAA...aka my "weather nerd webpage") for the houston area. to save you the time, here's the link to the info on ike, and for bathroom reading, the actual discussion of what's going on. no promises on those exact links being updated.

stay dry!

quick & off-topic

this has no relation to the current discussion, but i wanted to share a fun fact - my dad is now a blogger! stop by and give him warm blogger welcome! hi dad!

is there anybody out there?

while some of my friends are having a comment-aquisition war, i'm over here blogging for peanuts with nary a comment to be found. no worries...like so many before me, my greatness will likely be unappreciated until years after my death.

i wanted to follow up on my last post regarding the future of the church and its ability to remain relevant in our culture, but i'm not exactly sure where to begin. i suppose my original intent was to enter into a pseudo-intellectual discourse about goal and purpose again, but after giving it some thought, i'm not sure that's the direction i want to go.

instead, i want to be a bit more transparent and acknowledge that i'm developing a blister in my spiritual life, caused by the constant friction i feel between church doctrine and the essential nature of christ's teachings. to prune that down, i'll define the "essential nature of christ's teachings" in his own words: to love god with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself. "church doctrine" is simply all the other stuff that the church holds dear, for one reason or another. if you've been around the church for much time at all, i'm sure you can likely identify several issues that fit into the latter category.

there are rules, and there is The Rule, and i'm tired of the the rules being held as prerequisites to the kingdom. membership to the church no longer hinges on a belief in christ, but rather rests on our willingness to adhere to a set of doctrinal views. the idea that "we are all brothers and sisters in christ" does not extend as well from demonination to denomination as we like to believe. we make rules to define ourselves as a group, to create a sense of belonging to those inside...and too often forget that we may also be creating a sense of exclusion to those outside.

i grew up in the church of the nazarene, attended a baptist church with my grandparents when visiting them, and spent several years in a state where nearly all of my friends were lutheran or catholic. my wife was raised presbyterian, and we're currently attending a nondenominational-ish church with baptisty leanings. it would be impossible to follow all of the doctrinal rules for the different churches - issues like alcohol, tobacco, gender roles in the church, and sexual relationships vary widely enough, and if you add in more "religious" issues such as the nature of our relationship with christ, grace, and sanctification, things get more tortuous than my stomach can handle.

i've had religious leaders tell me directly: that the church is more forgiving of someone driving drunk than they are of two unmarried people living together, that alcohol is okay but tobacco is not, that female clergy are sinners, that god could strike a child dead for acting up in public, that without the church you cannot have a relationship with god, that you don't need the church to know god, that once you're forgiven you're always forgiven, that you can never be totally forgiven, and that if you are a good enough christian, you can reach a point where you never need to be forgiven because you no longer sin.

it's no wonder more people say they believe in god than believe in the church. only one of them can be infallible, and it ain't the church.

so what's a person to do? there's three options: (1) attend a church (2) don't attend a church, or (3) start your own church. they all have respective drawbacks: (1) limitations on your involvement and risk of being socially isolated, (2) loss of opportunities for fellowship with other believers and coporate worship, (3) being labeled a cultist and risk of recreating the same problems, among others. you lose regardless of your choice, but thus far i've opted for #1, as it seems to have the least number of drawbacks...or at least its drawbacks are the most comfortably familiar. it's shameful that we are comfortable and familiar with the church having shortcomings.

i don't really have any answers, just more questions. i am, however, thoroughly convinced that striving to embody love to others each day is not only the best way to live, it's the way of life that christ modeled for us. i'm less and less concerned with doctrine and more and more concerned with love. so, take all your rules, write them down, hang them on the wall, and try your hardest to follow them. i'm going to try my hardest to follow christ.

brint and bell

i just added a link to a blog by a former professor of mine, brint montgomery. he's a super bright philosopher with a sharp wit, and it comes across well in his writings. hope you'll take a few minutes to peruse his most recent post regarding "the real problem in afganistan."

also, i recently started reading rob bell's first book velvet elvis. i'm curious who else out there has already read it - i know it's been on my list for a couple of years and i'm just now getting around to it. like most of rob's stuff, it manages to strike a strong balance of challenging, compelling, and amazingly sensical.

the thing i like about rob bell is that he seems very...i don't know, real, or normal, or something. he asks questions, he expresses doubts, he takes a pretty open approach to the faith. and sure, maybe he's not - maybe it's just a fancy front he puts up to attract people to what he's doing so that they'll buy his stuff and he can get rich.

the thing is, and i think we're all aware of this, is that this type of behavior - being transparent, being open & honest, being willing to say that we don't have all the answers - that is attractive to others. i appreciate rob that maintains an appreciation for the mysticism that our judeo-christian heritage promotes while also acknowledging that throughout history, the church has gotten things really wrong many times.

for example: in 1633, galileo was excommunicated from the church for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun. think that's silly? the catholic church didn't formally apologize and admit that galileo was correct until 1992.

i have no doubt that the church will continue to flex and stretch with culture. if it doesn't, it will surely die, and if there's one thing the church wants to do more than anything else, it's live.

which raises another thought: i'm making a distinction between the goal of the church and the purpose of the church. the purpose of the church has forever been to spread the good news of christ by teaching his prescribed way of life - the goal of the church has pretty much been to not die, which is done primarily by getting more people to agree with what they're saying. ideally, fulfilling the purpose ensures the goal will be achieved, but there are so many occasions where the church's direction strays from the original purpose and instead treats the goal as the purpose.

i have some thoughts on what the church needs to do in order to stay alive in our culture, but i'll wait to get some comments on this post before i post that. until then, here's a ridiculous anti-obama video that is definitively not the right approach to things:

Tag..I'm it

ahh, the age-old game of blog tag. its like a passive chain letter, or like those dumb bulletins on myspace. thanks, steph, for the tag, and for the overt challenge (have at thee!) to be amazingly random. no promises on the "interesting" component, though.

so, here are the obligatory rules:

1. Post the rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4. If you're tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag

and now for Amazing Answers About Andy:

1. i have really big feet. all this hub-bub about michael phelps and flipper feet - ha! in 7th grade i wore a size 12, but out grew them so quickly that i was able to hand them down to my dad. i was up to a size 14 when in 10th grade, and have since upgraded to size 15. let me tell you, son, it's a pain in the keister to find shoes, unless you want to wear ginormous solid red high tops and look like ronald mcdonald. and i don't. but, thanks to online shopping and build-to-order services, even a yetti like me can have appropriate footwear.

2. i collect[ed] pez dispensers. i have over 100 of the hinged-head candy caddies. i added the [brackets] because it's not really an active collection; due to frequent moves and lack of space to display them, i have held off on purchasing any for the last several years. in case you don't know, ebay was started by a guy whose wife collected pez dispensers, and it was originally designed as a portal for pez lovers to connect and buy/sell/trade online.

3. i'm a huge computer nerd. casey claimed that he's a comp nerd, too, but i think i have him beat. when i was kid (like, 7 years old), my dad would give me circuitboards to play with in the garage. there's been a computer in my house since i was tiny. i played king's quest I (which was just called king's quest back then). i used the internet before al gore invented it. i've hand-built every pc i've ever owned. i went to computer camp in the summer. i took computer programming and calculus classes for fun. i hacked TI-85 calculators. i've had 13 email addresses (down to just 3 now). during undergrad i worked with a friend to infuse an entire computer lab (and several of our friend's personal computers) with a trojan horse program that would allow us to control the computers from our dorm rooms, even doing things like opening and closing the CD-ROM. i've never paid for any microsoft software

4. classic rock runs in my blood. as a child, it wasn't christmas for me until i heard bruce springsteen's santa claus is coming to town. and still to this day, the perfect saturday must include lots of sunshine, open windows, and a radio blaring a playlist consisting of led zepplin, aerosmith, the beatles, clapton, skynrd, the black crowes, the rolling stones, ac/dc, and the like. (i sang several songs by the doors in the shower yesterday, in fact.) over the years other genres have crept in, but its hard to compare with what the '60s and '70s gave us: the the guitar solos from stairway and freebird, the moving melodies of let it be and american pie, or the anti-establishment lyrics of ohio and revolution. man, where is m ipod when i need it...

5. my eyes are different colors. if you haven't noticed this yet, you will now, i'm sure. somewhere around seventh or eighth grade (presumably when puberty really started kicking in) my eyes went from dark brown to...something else. like most people, their difference varies slighty based on what i'm wearing, but on the average day one is brown and one is green. makes me think of wayne's world 2.

6. i have a tendency to talk to much. of course, if you've been reading this post, you've probably figured that out already. and so, i'll something that is random for me, and just stop here.

i now have a dilemma: everyone i know with a blog has already been tagged, except for one person: joe. so, my friend, whenever you happen to read this, you're tagged.

you know you want it

we saw this on the side of a trailer in the wal-mart parking lot here in brenham. "beef - it's what's for dessert."

 

childhood seduction

here's a video of my neice, layla, trying to flirt with gabriele's godson, harrison.

Layla at Andy's Wedding


apparently harry bear was so entranced he didn't know how to respond.

i'm a nazbeen

for any of you who may not already know, i was raised in the church of the nazarene (CotN) for most of my life, and in fact, a look into my lineage reveals a long-standing heritage with the CotN for several generations. and, being the good little nazarene that i was, i began my college career by majoring in religion & theology at southern nazarene university. of course, i graduated with a degree in psychology, and have long joked that "once i found god, i became a psych major." i suppose there is a great amount of truth in that joke...

anyway, in facebook world i am a faithful member of a group called "Nazbeens." to quote the group page, it's "a group for facebook members who grew up in the Nazarene faith and have since left it (often due to ignorance or lack of gravitas in the church)." there's all kinds church- and denomination-related dry humor there, as well as interesting stories of how we all became nazbeens. we have 61 members, including several faculty members (past & present) and multiple individuals who are currently in the mission field.

as i was deciding what to post here, i came across a blog post by a good friend of mine, Dr. T. Scott Daniels. in one way or another, scott has had a significant impact on the development of my conceptualization of christ and the church. and in his post, i think he is quite accurate in his view of what we nazbeens have experienced. for simplicity, i have quoted his post here, in SNU crimson storm technicolor:

The Naz-beens: Funny and Depressing

A former student of mine sent me the following link today - http://www.cafepress.com/nazbeens

It is a link for the "Coterie of the Nazbeens" - translated as an organization for "those who grew up in the Nazarene faith and have since left it (often due to ignorance or a lack of gravitas in the church)." The site offers a line of apparel, housewares, and buttons for all Nazbeens (I assume it is pronounced like Has-Beens).

I cracked up at the marvelous creativity it takes to come up with this stuff. At the same time I continue to weep over the drain of intelligence, commitment, and passion for transformation that is taking place as we lose a generation or more.

I believe we are losing them because we have given them a non-fundamentalist heritage of intelligent wrestling with the questions of faith and a passion to see the poor and broken transformed by the universal grace of God - but we have stopped living out that heritage ourselves. So although many of our young people have left the church to pursue secularism or sensualism, I believe many more have left as a faithful response to the gospel we have given them.

Although this may sound strange, I am proud of those who have left as a response to Christian faithfulness. I wish all of you were still here in the denomination fighting it out and helping her to re-tradition herself, but I understand why the desire to pursue God's call would lead you elsewhere. Keep the passionate faith of Christ embodied in Wesley and Bresee alive. As soon as the rest of us quit majoring in the minors we'll come and join you.

canadian gambling

i'm not a big gambler (well, except for poker...and the occasional lottery ticket...and march madness brackets), but i am diligent in following through with the surveys listed on receipts at places like walgreens, walmart, target, chili's, taco bell, etc. i figure, hey, if i'm gonna give them my money, i might as well try to win some of it back, ya know?

anyway, i just filled one out for chili's, and upon reading the sweepstakes rules, i came across the following line:

If a potential winner is a Canadian resident, such person must correctly answer a mathematical skill-testing question prior to awarding of prize.

weird, huh? those crazy canucks make their citizens pony up some math skills before they can win money. here's the link if you want to read the rest.

marriage manifesto [repost]

i thought it appropriate to repost something i wrote over a year ago, before i started dating my wife.

In a word, reciprocal. I want a marriage that is an equal yoking of two individuals, each who give 100% effort and contribution to the relationship. I want to be able to talk to the other person on the same level about things that are important to each of us. I want to use language that is fluid and fluent to each of us, that we can both say exactly what we feel and mean and can convey that to the other person with minimal distortion. I want a relationship built on the cornerstone of empathy, on giving the other person the benefit of the doubt before passing judgment on their motives or their action. Where both people strive to understand the other person and not simply press to be understood. I want to listen to my spouse's concerns and hopes and dreams - and for her to listen to mine as well. To really hear what I'm saying, picking up on and understanding the underlying emotions that fuel my fire in life. I want equality in purpose and drive. I want to not feel like we are competing for justice or love or time. I want openness and honesty and trust from both sides, so that each person feels completely, 100% able to say what they feel about a situation - to express their deepest fears w/o ridicule, to be transparent and vulnerable without fearing the other person will fail to acknowledge (or worse, trample upon) their heart. I want passion in the relationship, in making daily efforts to understand the other person and what goes in to making them who they are. A passionate, deep-seated current of love that runs through the relationship, saturating it at every level. A passion that joins both people together at the heart, filling them each so that they feel they cannot contain the emotion in their own body, and that it flows out through the way they interact with one another - and with the world. That the fierce love and appreciation of one another as individuals and as members of humanity so impacts them that they cannot help but respond to one another - and to the world - with reciprocal love. I want a love that is truly the opposite and total abdication of power and control. A love where neither person feels the need to have control in the relationship, that there's no need to hold back. A love that is not perceived to be constantly at stake, a love that does not have to be earned through actions. A love that permeates and persists despite the ups and downs we each have internally. A love that exists in the relationship because it exists in each individual. I want freedom - not freedom from the relationship, but freedom within the relationship. Freedom for both people to express who they are without judgment, freedom to embrace time apart with the same fervor as time together, for it is in the presence of each that the other has value. I want to feel cherished, to feel that I have value as an individual, as a person, as a member of the community of humanity. I want to feel like my desires and dreams in life, however far-flung or ludicrous or ill-formed at the moment, are valuable and worthwhile. I want to laugh and have fun in life with my spouse, to easily see and dwell on how funny life is, even in the tiniest of moments. I want to laugh at the differences between people - not simply at humorous things, but a sort of heh-oh-wow-look-at-that-how-interesting-I-can't-help-but-be-wonderfully-amazed-at-the-world-and-it-makes-me-so-happy kind of laugh, where my face smiles at the subtle differences because my heart is smiling on the inside. I want a marriage where both people strive everyday to be happy and to make the other person happy. I want a marriage where both people find fuel and vigor for life everywhere, where pain and suffering and happiness and joy and angst and confusion are all ingredients that we need to survive, and each are tasty in their own way. I want a marriage where both people strive to reduce chaos in the world. Where our shared values for what is good and right in the world directly translates to what is good and right for us at home. Where messes and annoyances are understood to be part of life, but are viewed as temporary things that each person seeks to remedy as soon as they are able; not where messes and annoyances are just tangible manifestations of the emotional condition of both people. I want peace - emotionally, physically, spiritually. I want a marriage where neither person cares about being right, where right and wrong don't really even matter, but where it is the discussion of everything that is the enjoyment. Where both people are able to look at every side of something and find truth there. Where "your way" and "my way" are truly, truly able to melt together and become "our way." A marriage where everything is reciprocal, that each gives all they can without fear or guilt or shame, and where even if they do feel those things, that its safe to talk about it, without judgment or criticism. Where excuses and defenses aren't needed, and thus aren't used. Reciprocity. Partners. Benefit of the doubt. Love. Freedom. Abdication of power. No control. Love. Laughter. Fun. Dreams. Concerns. Peace. Life.

summer in a small town

as promised, here are two photos from local businesses near our home:

Amazing Space (above)

(below) is self-explanatory...

additionally, here are some pictures from our the 4th of july parade we attended yesterday in round top, texas:



it seems my mind has been dwelling on content similar to that of some of my friends.

more than a wall post

a friend of mine recently spoke to me about her hardship after being laid off from work. i wrote her a reply - absurdly lengthy, admittedly - and thought it worthy to post here as well:

thought i should write a bit more than what a simple wall post should contain, so you get a full message this time. :) i apologize for the length in advance. you've got free time, though, right?

job hunting sucks, no doubt about it. back in november, i was in the same spot - working two jobs, as a therapist at a low-income clinic and also as an adjunct prof at my alma mater. my two jobs, combined with gabriele working at two different clinics, was barely making ends meet. so, i started looking for a job, even one i didn't necessarily want. i figured, hey, i'm marketable, and something will pan out here pretty soon.

as christmas approached, several things happened: some clients resolved their problems, some stopped coming due to their own financial considerations, and both gabriele's car and my truck bit the dust in quick succession. she and i pray together every night, and it seemed like our prayers kept becoming "Dear God, please help us out. Send us some money, a job, or at least some sort of hope that things will get better."

Naturally, they didn't. several weeks later, after borrowing money from our families (even my little sister, which was humbling) and hundreds of anxiety-filled, sleepless nights and tearful prayers of lament, we drove down to this small town in south-central Texas for a job interview. more prayers, and we decided to accept. that led to borrowing more money, being apart for two weeks, a host of other bizarre and unexpected problems, and our eventual arrival here in brenham. i've since received three paychecks, and we have yet to be able to pay all our bills on time. i've sold a ton of stuff on ebay to make ends meet, and we continue to be amazed at the generosity of our friends and family.

and i think that has been the point. i have always been the one in my group of friends who always had it together - i always was able to lend money, to pick up the tab, to buy the first round of drinks. the one who people came to when they needed help, advice, a place to crash, or help working on their car. in the last six months, i have been placed entirely out of my element time and time again, left feeling completely incapable of "fixing" anything in my life - and nearly everything was broken (except my relationships with God and Gabriele, of course).

in two weeks, we will get our first "joint paycheck"...and that will go to pay for our wedding. but then, on august 1st...well, that paycheck will go to pay for our car tags (which are currently 8 months overdue...so we still have our paper tags on). THEN, on september 1st, we can start paying people back. except, i know that no matter how much money i make, i will never be able to pay these people back, because what i have received from them is so much more than money. there's no price for love.

i guess i said all that to say this: things will get better. maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow - though both of those days will undoubtedly have wonderful things within them - but things WILL get better.

in the meantime, i'd also suggest moving to a small town - the people are nicer, the pace of life slower, and when you feel like you don't have anything, you can just look out the window at the beautiful flowers and landscape and realize that in fact, you have much more than you could ever afford.

life in the big city

i have been meaning to post this for several weeks now, though it's a little lacking without pics. i promise to post those as soon as we get a camera that works.

near where we live there are the following stores:

Continental Hairlines
Amazing Space Mini-storage
Blast-n-Cast Taxidermy

fantastic. keep 'em coming, brenhamites.

movie disclaimers

saw this article on wired.com today; it's funny, witty, and generally pretty accurate. i, for one, support giant warning labels in movies, provided they are like these. mpaa, take note.

an ebay story

sooo....money's a little tight around our house lately, and like many good americans, we turned to ebay in our time of need. i sold several computer parts a few weeks ago (hard drives, optical drives, keyboard/mouse combo, etc.), and then today i listed my old laptop on there. actually, i listed it at 5:56pm today...and someone used "buy it now" to buy it at 6:50pm! less than an hour and it's done.

...and the heavens rejoiced!

herd theory: the mane event?

i ran out of hair "product" this morning...well, i actually ran out of my preferred product about a month ago, and have been using something that gab had since then, but i scraped the bottom of that can today, so i am totally out now. (stop your chuckling, i know i don't have blond hair, but it works.)

anyway, with finances being a little tight 'til payday, i began to entertain ideas for how to cope with the situation, and voiced the option of shaving my head. while shooting that idea down, gabriele made an interesting point - that when men my age decide to shave their head, it seems to be a point-of-no-return decision; once its shaved, they rarely grow it back. she cited a friend and one of her brothers as examples, and it got me thinking...

my friend joe and i have discussed, at length, what i affectionately call "herd theory," and the many possible implications/examples of it in modern day society. aside from the broader sociological implications, we wondered how herd theory might translate into individual decisions. a good example of such decisions that would seem to have some root in evolutionary psychology is physical appearance - in particular, we're talking hair. (not hair.)

fur, manes, hair - they all essentially have the same purposes: temperature control and protection. joe suggested a parallel between a male lion's mane and his own efforts (earlier in life) to form his hair into some sort of protuberance (e.g., the faux-hawk). mane-like parallels could also be drawn with men sporting long locks and even afros. all of these hairstyles - and really, any hairstyle - has plentiful examples of certifiably attractive males (not pictured) to support the theory of pretty hair being the modern-day equivilant of a nice lion mane.

but what if you're bald? bruce willis, tiki barber, michael jordan, patrick stewart, even natalie portman - all are attractive bald people.

i have to go to a meeting now, but please, let me know your thoughts. my entire theory may be in danger here.

[update] just realized this is the 100th post on my blog! congrats, me!

deferring customer service

Just called my student loan lender to see about getting my loans deferred for another year, and once again realized how helpful they are with customer service. So helpful, in fact, that I not only emailed the following transcript to a friend, I also decided to post it here:


OSLA: Good morning, OSLA.
Me: Hi, how are you?
OSLA: Good, what can I do for you?
Me: I need to speak with someone about my account.
OSLA: Sure, what's your social security number?
Me:
OSLA: Okay, Andrew, how can I help?
Me: I need to see about getting it deferred for another year.
OSLA: Okay, are you still at [old address]?
Me: No, I recently moved. My new address is [new address]
OSLA: Okay, you will be getting a letter in the mail confirming the address change. Anything else I can do for you?
Me: Umm...is there anything else I need to do about getting it deferred?
OSLA: Nope, that's it.
Me: You guys are so awesome. Thanks!
OSLA: No problem. Have a great day Mr. Moore.


Seriously, you don't get that good of service at a gentlemen's club.

blogger resurgence

15 minutes til i start my weekend...guess i'll spend it blogging. :P

recently i have experienced a resurgence in my blogging, the strongest since i first began this blog several years ago. at that time, many of my friends had blogs (most of them on xanga), and it was not uncommon to have a post stimulate 30 to 50 comments and essentially becoming a bulletin board of sorts. but then our blogging began to wane...

myspace took over, and facebook to some extent. everyone was on there, always commenting, messaging, posting bulletin surveys, browsing profiles for hours, etc. and then we all withdrew into ourselves, just checking our profiles to see if someone else had messaged, but rarely sending a message ourselves. again a quietness ensued...

and then i moved to brenham, and gab and i decided to start a blog dedicated to track her/our experience with rheumatoid arthritis. in doing so, i realized i should update my profile on blogger to reflect our present location. little did i realize that that action would stimulate a flutter of activity and surprise meetings of other BOBs (born-out-of-brenham, as opposed to those who are born-in-brenham) and the entry into a new group of friends and even a church. tremendous!

along with the active blogging, i have again taken to facebook, increased my instant messaging, and even started twittering. it has been rewarding, and i feel that it has again enabled me to draw closer to many people, whether they live in brenham, okc, or even minnesota or wisconsin.
ah, the power of the interwebs. thank you, al gore.

sweet, only 2 minutes left. another useful aspect of blogging makes itself known.

twitter

i decided today to give twitter a try. admittedly, when i first read about it a couple of years ago, i thought the idea was batty. but then myspace and facebook rolled out their "status update" spots, and i enjoy reading what my friends are doing/feeling/whatever in those little spots. since twitter serves a similar purpose, just more frequent and easier to do (i.e. from IM, email, SMS, etc.), i'm going to give it a try. and it appears i will be an early adopter amongst my friends.

so, thanks casey, for the subtle invitation. my uber-connected soul thanks/curses/taunts you.

and for the rest of you, you can read my twitter feed in the sidebar, and even follow me, if you'd like.

the end is near!

umm...wow. okay, i'm not usually one to be interested in end-of-the-world theories, particuarly those involving some sort or religious overtones, but i have to admit that this news report is a bit too close for comfort:

background. the asteroid 99942 Apophis, discovered just recently in 2004, is expected to pass by earth at a distance no closer than 18,300 miles - that is significantly less than the orbits of most geosynchronous satellites. oh, and this is predicted to occur on Friday, April 13th, 2027. yes, you read that right: Friday the 13th.

bad luck. so, this asteroid is going to pass by earth on friday the 13th, but what's the big deal? you said it wouldn't be any closer than that, right? yes, that's correct, for that particular date. however, 7 years later Apophis will again pass by earth. the tricky part is that should Apophis strike any of the hundreds of satellites we have up there, its path will be altered enough that it may hit earth directly. oh, and this is predicted to occur on Sunday, April 13th, 2036 - Easter Sunday. i'm serious.

so, in summary, if we have the most unlucky friday the 13th ever and Apophis hits a satellite, we may all meet our maker on easter sunday seven years later.

but andy, what are the chances of this even happening? well, NASA's Near-Earth Object Program said there's a 1 in 45,000 chance that it could happen. better than the lottery, but still a crap shoot. but wait - while doing his research project, a 13 year old german kid calculated the risk to actually be a 1 in 450 chance. still very small, but waaay too close for comfort.

what are we going to do?! well, NASA is looking at several different plans, and from reading this article, it sounds very much like the discussion in the movie armageddon. they haven't decided to send up a crew of oil field workers, but they have talked about trying to cover the rock in some sort of reflective coating and pray that the solar rays push it away from earth. which is like someone throwing a baseball past you, and while it's going past, you try to throw a water balloon up in the air in front of it. i don't know about you, but my money would be on the oil field guys at that point.

there are a ton of other factors to be considered in this. the asteroid is too close to the sun right now, so we can't even get a good look at it until 2011, and won't be able to get a radar measurement until 2013.

magic brush

can someone explain to me how these mr. clean "magic eraser" sponge things work? they are truly amazing. makes me want find caked-on spills just so i can clean them up.



\not really, but they are really cool and effective.

new blog!

hey all, gabriele and i are starting a new blog centering on rheumatoid arthritis, both in general and the specific experiences we have with the disease. check it out here:

jointogether4ra.blogspot.com

(i'll still post mindless stuff here, don't worry. don't want to clutter up that blog w/ my weird stuff.)

south bound and down, loaded up and truckin'

well, looks like i'm moving after all! finally found a place to live in texas, and plan to be headin' on down there this weekend will all my schtuff and officially move in. btw, check out the events of the past week:

tuesday. no available apartments in brenham. also, a water pipe busted at matt & tasha's, so we had to shower uber-quick before turning off the water to the house. for the night...and most of the next day.
wednesday. plumbers finally arrive after 5pm, so we had water again. still no place to live in brenham.
thursday. still no available housing. argh. also, my mom's car broke down in the pouring rain while i was at work. had a coworker drop me off at walmart, where i wandered for a couple of hours, then walked (in the rain) to starbucks, where i sat reading for until they kicked me out at 11pm, then walked back to walmart until my dad arrived at 12:20am.
friday. had car towed to dealership, and they were able to fix it! (yay!) cost $1200. (boo!) oh, and still nothing available for rent. gabs arrived in town. (yay!)
saturday. still nothing available, but we did call about a skeezy looking rent house. went to dinner with gabs' family.
sunday. upon arriving at chipotle in college station, gabs & i discover that apparently someone failed to stop properly in their parking spot last night at the restaurant, thus smashing our trunk in. still nothing available, but we looked anyway...busted trunk and all.
monday. lady called us about an available apartment! i put down deposit on said apartment! the heavens rejoice!

now, just have to figure out how to afford the U-Haul necessary to get us from okc to brenham. any suggestions?

the eyes of texas

my life has been through some significant changes last year, and so far 2008 seems to be equally eventful. for a variety of reasons (and several different offers), gabriele and i have made the decision to move to texas. i have accepted a job as an associate psychologist with the brenham state school (BSS) in brenham, tx, and began work there yesterday. it's a nice facility on a beautiful campus, and from all indications both the location and the job itself will be considerably better than my previous experiences with mental health agencies.

so, aside from sitting on my tush in training classes for 8 hours a day, i am desperately trying to find a place to live in brenham, so if you happen to know anyone with connections here, let me know.

also, on an unrelated note, i was pleased to discover that brenham sells dr. pepper bottled in dublin, tx, which is one of the few locations that still uses imperial pure cane sugar in their recipe. they only deliver within a certain radius of the plant, and it's tasty stuff, so i'm pumped. my dad has already requested i bring him some.

and now, some pics of my drive from bryan/college station to brenham:

prayer | meditation | request

i need a money and/or a job, pronto.

humor

recently i've been struck with how funny our day-to-day lives are, usually without even trying. often it is the random, individual comments that stand out to me, and i believe they are worth collecting (a la overheardinnewyork.com). and so, here are a few from my life recently:

gab: "i have to brush my teeth...they feel gross, and it's interfering with my ability to hold a conversation."
____________________

gab: "hey, that cox has a wreath on it!" (referring to a cox communications van)
____________________

gab: "oops, i sat on the bread."
____________________

andy: "i have to go doody."
gab: "'DOODY?!' baby, that's worse than 'boom-boom!'"
____________________

gab: "women shouldn't have sideburns."

more to come...