Just a few scattered but personal things (about me) that you might find humorous or mildly interesting:
I think I’ve seen Dark Knight five times now, but I’m also a sucker for a good romantic comedy. Yes, they are predictable and formulaic, but if they were easy to make, there would be a lot more good ones. The only thing is, the happy endings always turn me into mush.
While traveling home on leave (from Okinawa) in 1982, and already back in the States (but not yet in Texas), I got so drunk in an airport bar that I missed my flight to Dallas and woke up the next morning sitting in a stall in the women’s restroom, and with a huge black hole in my memory. My wallet (along with my money) was gone, but I still had one of those little airport locker keys in my pocket. When I opened the locker, my wallet (with money intact) was leaning against my carry-on bag. I believe either the waitress or the bartender (or both) must have been my angel(s) that night, but I have to assume it was the waitress who settled me into the women’s restroom. My duffel bag had arrived in Dallas without me.
By the way, I met my future wife just a few days after that embarrassing episode. Why is God so good to me?
Speaking of embarrassing episodes, never fall asleep in a college library, between classes, with an uncapped yellow Hi-Liter sitting in the lap of your blue jeans. (Yellow and blue makes green.) When I woke up and realized I was late for my next class, I somehow failed to notice the gigantic green stain that had been slowly spreading for 20 or 30 minutes. In an attempt to get to my class on time, I was moving quickly through a crowd when some very pretty girls stopped right in front of me and GASPED! When I followed the direction of their horrified stares, the ghastly green area below my belt was immediately eclipsed by the far brighter red area spreading across my face.
I love guns. I love the technology and the mechanisms. I like knowing I might not be caught helpless in an otherwise hopeless situation someday. But I also hate that the world is filled with guns, and if I thought there was a law that could immediately eliminate guns everywhere, for everyone, and forever, I would vote for it. And although I love guns and enjoy shooting, I’m also afraid of guns. I’m afraid of guns in the wrong hands, and I’m afraid of guns in the hands of good, experienced shooters who become even slightly careless or complacent for one moment. When holding a gun, I’m afraid of the possibility of my own momentary carelessness. As long as I’m around guns, I have every intention of maintaining these fears to the best of my ability.
I’m a meat eater, but I’ve never been hunting. Call me a hypocrite, but I have no desire whatsoever to hunt, or even to fish. I might take up fishing and hunting when society completely collapses (causing my local grocery stores and restaurants to close), but not before.
I still dream about riding motorcycles. I sold my last one (a Suzuki something-something-850) in 1984, so even though I’m still licensed to do so, I haven’t been riding in a quarter century. I like to bring up the subject of a motorcycle once in a while, and I get slightly irritated when my wife tells me it’s the last thing in the world I need. I secretly agree with her, but I can’t forget the feeling of riding, so I keep bringing it up.
From about the 6th grade through maybe the 10th (and a half) grade, I was painfully shy. Girls I worshiped from afar (for months or even years!) never even knew I existed. In hindsight, I realize this was primarily due to severe self-consciousness. Now that I’m almost 50, I still have a tendency to default to wallflower mode whenever the group around me ceases to be very small, but somehow I ended up married to the most beautiful girl I ever met. And after 24 years of marriage, she still likes me!
I almost never pray for God to intercede or to grant a request. It’s not that I don’t believe in the power of intercessory prayers and prayers of supplication, it’s just that I struggle with the idea of asking God for anything when he has already given me so much. And when someone I love is in pain or in need of something, I simply feel that he already knows this, that he already knows what I would ask, and more.
What I believe God does want to know from us, however, what he really needs to hear from us, is how much we love him. When I do pray, which is not nearly often enough, my prayers are all praise, worship, and thanksgiving. And there is no structure at all. Thanks to a simple but adequate understanding of his grace and mercy, I occasionally and finally find myself able to overcome the strong sense that I am unworthy to come into his presence, and when I finally do, we just spend time together. For an all too brief period of time, I simply melt into his arms.
