And so what we have learned applies to our lives today...

I have a church job now. I'm the part-time music minister at a smallish church about 30 minutes from home. I'm happy with it.

The church's vote went down Sunday evening, and already I have a lengthy to-do list. My pending tasks are mostly of my own initiative, because I was well-trained by Dr. Hicks and company, and I understand the importance of my part-time music minister position. Don't worry... I won't bore you by listing them. Instead, I will tell you what I've learned during my first two days of being a music minister:

1) Planning two traditional worship services a week means I perpetually have hymns stuck in my head. Even hymns I didn't know I knew. Currently in my mind's jukebox is All the Way My Savior Leads Me. Any of you youngin's know that one?

2) Because of my need to always make noise, my wife will learn many new hymns.

3) I went to the church today to poke around and get a few things done. By exploring the entire building I learned that there are 10 pianos (3 in good shape), about 15 children's classrooms (2 are used currently), and 5000 storage closets. I firmly believe that there are more things stored in a church than are used.

4) Behind one closet-looking door I found creepy stairs that led to a very creepy basement under the sanctuary. Dark, gray, musty, and scary. I think I will have nightmares about this basement, even though I didn't dare enter it.

5) We all know that taxes are confusing. Minister's taxes are confusing times 1000. My first task as a minister was to decide between a W-4 and a 1099. Wife and I did research and talked to about 5 people, and still don't know which to do.

6) Some pastors love to talk. Actually I learned this is during the interview process.

7) This one is no surprise. Secretaries at small churches are the most helpful people I know. They can answer any question, and find anything. Our secretary found me a blank legal pad, because I had no paper at the church.

8) Music libraries are often cleverly hidden. I have no idea where mine is.

9) When a church has been without a paid music minister for a while, everything music-related (and some things not music-related) ends up in the music minister's office. Choir robes, music books, hymnals, magazines, desks, chairs, shelves, filing cabinets, crayons, anything the youth minister doesn't want, car tires, small mammals, leftover orange drink... okay, I made up those last three.

I'm gonna love this gig.

Real Irishmen keep their phones in their pockets.

True story...

This afternoon wife and I walked to the grocery store that is two blocks from our apartment. On our way back, I spotted a phone in a phone case (the kind that clips to a belt) lying on the ground. I picked it up and confirmed that it was indeed a phone and it seemed to work fine. I decided to find out who the phone belonged to, so I took it back to the apartment and investigated its address book.

I called the number labeled "home" and a woman answered. I explained that I had found the phone on the ground and was trying to figure out where I should take it. She was happy that I called because her grandson, the phone's owner, had lost it last night. She said that he was in town until tomorrow, and when she heard from him, she'd have him call me. A few minutes later, though, she called back and told me to look in the phone for Tommy, lost-phone-man's boss who was in Waco with him.

I called Tommy and left him a message explaining all and asking that he call back. He did, and told me the phone's owner (whose name is also Tommy) was staying at the Econolodge in room 128. Econolodge is about a block from the apartment, so I drove over there to room 128. I was greeted just before I got to the door by a man with Subway sandwich.

"Hey, is that my phone?" asked the man.

"I dunno. Are you Tommy?" I replied.

He was. "Yeah. Great! Where'd you find it?"

I told him I found it a couple blocks up the street on the sidewalk.

He seemed to understand. "In front of Scruffy's?"

"Scruffy's" to which Tommy referred is Scruffy Murphy's, which you will know from a previous blog post is an abandoned-looking-but-apparently-open-for-business Irish pub halfway between the grocery store and our apartment.

"Yeah that's right," I told him.

"Oh yeah," Tommy explained, "we were so drunk last night. I figured I dropped my phone, so I looked all over their parking lot but couldn't find it. Thanks for bringing it back." He suddenly looked around to see what he had readily available. "You want half a sandwich?"

Well, having a wife who never lets me go hungry (hence the original trip to the grocery store), I declined Tommy's half-a-sandwich, wished him a good day, and made my way home.

Moral of the story: If you're going to have a few too many at an Irish pub in Texas on a Wednesday night, make sure to secure your phone in a better place than a belt clip.

The Fly

by William Blake (1757-1827)

Little fly,

Thy summer's play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength and breath,

And the want

Of thought is death,

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live,

Or if I die.

Walls, Responsibility, Faith, and Waiting

I feel as if I am surrounded by a wall, an impossible list of things keeping me from where I would like to be. There are dozens of bricks in this wall, each of them conquerable, but together they are insurmountable. I hold my breath because at any moment the bricks may give way, and the wall will crumble. I try to wait patiently, but the anticipation is constant and unending. For the most part, I am hopeful and excited about this wall falling around me, but deep down I am terrified that I am waiting for something that will not happen. I feel helpless because time and again I have tried to demolish the barrier, but I don’t have the strength. So I hold my breath and wait. And I wait, and wait some more.

Bills. Car repairs. Groceries. Student loans. Driver’s licenses. Credit card payments.

Heather hasn’t been able to find a full-time job. I love her so much, and I want her to find a job that she will enjoy. I don’t want her to be unhappy, especially for my sake. Am I selfish for bringing her here? Am I irresponsible?

How do I know we’re supposed to be here? Someone pointed out to me (very sensitively) that perhaps our trouble with jobs and finances indicates that we shouldn’t have come to Waco. Maybe we made our own plan instead of following God’s. How do I know?

I don’t. I have no way of knowing for certain that this is where we should be right now. As I think back, I cannot remember an explicit directive from God to move to Waco after marrying Heather. I can’t remember an instruction to go anywhere else either, or to stay where we were. We moved here because, of all the places we could have gone, Waco had the most purpose. The seminary I feel led to attend is here, and that’s it. We had no holier reason than that.

I know that I’ve made mistakes, choosing selfishness over glorifying God, and I know that I haven’t pursued him as diligently as I could have. But I also know that despite my mistakes, for which I receive forgiveness, I am still God’s son whom he loves. He is an intricate God with an intricate plan, and my calling within that plan is not to a place or time, but to faithfulness in my pursuit of Christ.

“I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

He is not a God of, “Let’s dwell on what you could have done differently,” but a God of, “Let’s move on from here." It is not by confidence in my past that I face the future, but by faith that my future is in and through him. I’m still afraid, still uncertain about all these bricks around me, but “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

“My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Nighttime Adventures

Don't be scared by the title, it's not what you think.

Those who are diligent in their blog-following will remember my post awhile back about going to Walmart at night. You will also recall my wife's post from yesterday about getting old. I will lend a hand to the not-so-diligent bloggers, and tell them that both these posts emphasized that Wife and I don't go out late (as in after 7 pm) anymore.

Well, tonight we did. And what an adventure it was!

Without further ado, things I learned upon venturing out at nighttime...

1) First thing I learned is that I cannot see in the dark anymore. Yes, I had my headlights on. Yes, I was wearing my glasses. I even had carrots for dinner! I suppose I'm inheriting my mother's night-blindness. Anyway, it made our adventure even more, well, adventuresome.

2) Texas road crews perform repairs on the interstate at night. This means all the traffic on I-35 South is jammed into one lane, and is backed up for a few miles.

3) A driver should always bring Garmin along, even when going to Walmart. Sure, Garmin reduces the adventure-factor, but she does inspire navigational confidence.

4) Waco has several bridges over the Brazos River, most of which a traveler on I-35 cannot see. A traveler trying to avoid a nighttime traffic jam, however, gets to drive on these bridges. And one bridge has neat-o nighttime lights!

5) Waco also has many one-way streets, making navigation a guessing game. A traveler unfamiliar with the downtown streets, who doesn't know where he's going, and cannot see in the dark may very well drive the wrong way down a one-way street. That is, until his wife shouts nonsense and points at all the "Wrong Way" signs.

6) One block north of our apartment, there is a building that appears to have housed, at one time, an Irish Pub called Scruffy Murphy's. By all outward appearances, Scruffy Murphy's is closed now, which means they no longer host weekly karaoke. By all inward appearances, though, (meaning cars in the parking lot at night and lights on inside) Scruffy Murphy's is not closed, whether legally or otherwise. Upon Wife pointing all this out, my stomach entered into "fish and chips and possibly corned beef" mode. Mmmmm. Here's hoping.

I'd like to know... What sort of adventures bring new discoveries to your life?

Exploring

Far from home

On barren terrain

Unprotected, alone

No one closer

Than death's hand

The brave scout ant

(Written by me!)

Cowden's Confessions... #1

Once, when I lived with Justin in Bolivar, we left some food in containers in the fridge for a looooong time. We forgot about them for a couple weeks. After that we decided it would be too icky to clean them out. I think they stayed in the fridge for two or three months.

One day Justin and I were both in serious cleaning moods and decided it was time. We set a trash bag outside on the porch, filled the sink with hot water and a little bleach, and performed the cleaning relay-style. He handed me a container. I ran outside, popped the lid off, and spooned the contents into the trash bag. Then I ran back inside and Justin threw the container into the sink. We did this with everything in the fridge (about eight items, I believe).

It's not something I'm proud of, and I think I've learned my lesson. Also, I have a wife to make sure this never happens again.

Grrrrr Texas

Today I discovered two things Texans don't do well: 1) Design highways, and 2) Drive on their poorly designed highways.

These shortcomings made for a scary trip to DFW Airport to see Wife's mom. I've never made such an amazing evasive maneuver as I did today. Afterward, as I gasped for oxygen and tried to loosen my death grip on the steering wheel, Wife told me I did a great job and she was proud of me.

I think we can all learn a lesson from Texas drivers:

Drive the speed limit (or less), don't tailgate, and don't slam on the brakes on the interstate.

By the way, Texas legislature passed a law last month that drivers ages 18-24 must complete a driver education course to apply for a license. We're checking to see whether this affects us, since we're already licensed in other states. Bleh.

New things

Here in Texas, the television shows this really annoying commercial for Jack-In-The-Box. The company's creeping-looking spokesman talks about how he likes trying new things. Then he bungee-jumps off a bridge and falls to the pavement below, ending up with his pointy hat sticking into the ground. "New things," he says less-than-enthusiastically.

This commercial weirds me out every time. First, the spokesman guy/thing looks scary to me. Second, if he's going to bungee-jump, he shouldn't do it over concrete, and he ought to make sure his setup man is reputable. Third, even if he somehow manages to survive the death jump, he should think about quitting this "new things" way of life.

Pingpong ball head, ice cream cone hat, no pupils, big red smile... Creepy, no?

All this is intended as an opener for tonight's remarks about a couple new things Wife and I have experienced recently...

1) We bought a new vacuum. We have been waiting for months (I know, it's gross) for the finances to buy one, and today was the day. Wife used it immediately when we got home. Our next big purchase: a fan to blow the air around the apartment.

2) For the first time ever, I beat Wife in the game of Battleship today. In fact, she only sank one of my boats, and didn't hit any others. (We had a controversy after the game over one of the spaces, which was marked differently on her board than on mine.) The important thing, though, is that I won. Finally.

3) Wife and I, along with our friends, have begun writing a new musical about the hardships of graduating college without a job. We're all in the same boat, so we're teaming up to spread the... er... joy.

Well, that's about all. Hope you weren't expecting anything monumental. What's new with you?

Bahhhhhhh!

Question: What is the easiest song to get stuck in Stephen's head?

Answer: Benny and the Jets.

Buh buh buh Benny and the Jetsssssssss... BENNY! BENNY! BENNY BENNY BENNY BENNY and the Jeeeeetsssssss...

Over and over and over and over since yesterday! Darn you James Marsden and Katherine Heigl!

What song has been stuck in your head lately?

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I did nothing creative today. I have to say it is a rare day when I don't do something creative. Sometimes it's music, sometimes I make an artistic project (I include coloring maps in this category), occasionally I'll read a poem or some fiction. I don't normally engage in a BIG creative endeavor, but I usually do something artistic or imaginative during the day.

We are created in the image of God, who is THE Creator. The ability to create, and appreciate creation, is a big part of what sets us apart from the rest of nature. It's very important that we nurture that aspect of ourselves. Our society has made it WAY too easy to stay in a logic-filled, down-to-earth, here-and-now bubble, staying indoors with our computers and televisions.

Remember nature? Trees in bloom, hot sun, cool clouds, how rain can feel good instead of being a nuisance? Remember books? Those collections of other people's ideas and stories, printed with ink that you can smell on pages you can feel? Have you ever really listened to music that is new to you? If you begin to explore (especially in other cultures), you will find that the world of sound is endless. Have you ever perused an art gallery, or even flipped through an art book, and stopped to notice the details of a particular painting?

We need to continue finding new ways to stimulate our creative side (yes, we all have one). It's a crucial way to connect with our Lord, and to grow personally. I'm gonna do better tomorrow.

Come, let us with our Lord arise!

Come, let us with our Lord arise,

our Lord who made both earth and skies,

who died to save the world he made

and rose triumphant from the dead;

he rose, the prince of life and peace,

and stamped the day forever his.

Happy Easter everybody!

Wife and I visited our prospective church this morning for their service. I played a violin solo during the offering, and we *gasp* sang in the choir! There was no choir special or anything, we just stood with the choir at the front during to singing. Yeah, we rocked the hymns.

After church we came home and made ourselves a delicious Easter meal! Check it out: ham, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and rolls. MmmmmMmmm! Then we took an Easter lunch-induced nap. This evening we went to Columbus Avenue Baptist (a big church in town that we frequent) for the Mwangaza Children's Choir, an incredibly cute choir of kids from Uganda. We got there a little late (I'm pretty sure they changed the time and didn't tell us), but it was a fantastic concert. I learned that during foreign children's choir concerts, Wife sits on the edge of the pew, eyes wide, with a big grin on her face. Don't worry... we didn't steal any kiddos.

We came home, and had a delightful Sara Lee strawberry cheesecake and coffee while we watched Get Over It, an Easter classic (haha) with Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster, and Martin Short. Funny flick.

We missed family, but got to talk with them on the phone. It was a good Easter.

What did you do?

The Power of the Cross

My new favorite song is The Power of the Cross by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. Incredible lyrics, so powerful...

Oh, to see the dawn

Of the darkest day:

Christ on the road to Calvary.

Tried by sinful men,

Torn and beaten, then

Nailed to a cross of wood

This, the power of the cross:

Christ became sin for us;

Took the blame, bore the wrath-

We stand forgiven at the cross

Oh, to see the pain

Written on Your face,

Bearing the awesome weight of sin.

Every bitter thought,

Every evil deed

Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;

Now the ground beneath

Quakes as its Maker bows His head.

Curtain torn in two,

Dead are raised to life;

"Finished!" the victory cry.

Oh, to see my name

Written in the wounds,

For through Your suffering I am free.

Death is crushed to death;

Life is mine to live,

Won through Your selfless love.

This, the power of the cross:

Son of God- slain for us.

What a love! What a cost!

We stand forgiven at the cross.

HoSWWMP

True story: About an hour ago my wonderful wife and I finished watching the movie version of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. She is still speaking with a British accent, calling me darling, and apparently thinks my name is Earnest. (I convinced all this was precipitated by that strawberry Oreo milkshake.) I considered writing a blog about a few of my love's quirks, but she shared some a few days ago.

So instead, I present to you, in honor of this week's warmer weather........

Highlights of Stephen's Warmer Weather Music Playlist (HoSWWMP)*

Jack Johnson has the most songs of all the artists on the playlist (14 of 73 songs), because his music was just made for warmer weather listening.

John Mayer comes in second. While John's songs aren't quite as adept to hot weather as Jack's, they are excellent for the spring warmup.

The HoSWWMP contains a decent number of what I call "Classic Rock" artists, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jon Bon Jovi, Queen, and U2.

I've even included a few country songs, a category dominated by Rascal Flatts.

Of course, there are the quintessential summer-type tunes: Girls Don't Like Boys (Good Charlotte), Summer Girls (LFO), Story of a Girl (Nine Days), a couple of Smash Mouth songs, and Drops of Jupiter (Train).

Everytime We Touch by Casada tops the dance portion of the list. I get the groove each time it starts up. If you haven't seen my video, you've missed out.

And the #1 warmer weather song is... Pinch Me by Barenaked Ladies.

So there you have it folks. I'm interested... how is your playlist different? Do we have any similarities here?

*Please note that Stephen's Warmer Weather Music Playlist includes, but is not identical to, Stephen's Summer Jams or Stephen's Summer Evenings Playlist. He is completely free to blog about those and still avoid redundancy.