I Love Pajamas…

…as much as the next guy. They’re fiercely comfortable. I mean, they’re MADE for comfort, for corn’s sake.

However (and I mean this in all love and sincerity), college girls, there is NO occasion where it’s ok to walk around in pj’s and slippers (or Ugg boots, for that matter). It just isn’t ok. Ever.

In the dorm, no problem. When you leave the dorm, put on some jeans, please. Or a skirt. You’re a girl, and this is a viable option. It should be less effort to throw on a skirt rather than pj’s. A skirt is just one giant leg hole. Go with that. Then you can wear your Ugg boots and it’ll be just fine. You’re wearing your “College Name Here” sweatshirt, and that’s likely going to play with a well-chosen skirt. This is a much better idea than pj’s and Ugg boots.

Please don’t let it happen again.

Sincerely,
Murph Krajewski

Why Don’t I Write More Things In My Blog?

It’s a fair question. Anyone got an answer?

FANTASTIC Waste of Time

CAUTION:
Clicking the below link may cause you to waste an hour or so bouncing from related link to related link. Enjoy… if you dare!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDhz_mVcVCQ&feature=related

Edit:

A grand prize of $1 will be awarded to the commenter who comes up with a link to the most obscure TV theme link.  Whattaya got!?

Rush-hour Therapy

I just got in to work on the west side of Indianapolis.  My commute takes me north on I-65 with a brief stint on I-465, and I have to say that traffic was especially manic today.  There were far more aggressive drivers than usual, and several were to the point of recklessness.

No joke, dear reader(s), by surrendering that space I instantly felt better.

Having inherited a distaste of aggressive fellow motorists from my father, I found myself at times speeding up faster than I normally drive in order to reduce the space between me and the car in front of me.  My hope was to cut off any potential avenue for knuckleheads to come swerving in front of me at high speed.  I guarded that lack of space.  Claimed it for myself.  I was tense, wanting the drive to be over, and actually considered pulling off to the shoulder and just waiting until the traffic thinned out.  The tension was palpable.  Then I had a flash of recognition.

I heard my own voice giving advice to a friend of mine who was a bit wound-up recently.  “Relax,” I told him.  It all starts with a good deep breath.

The speedometer was at 65 (in a 55mph zone… and I was STILL getting passed by cops.  That’s another post for another day).  I usually hold firm to the “speed limit + 5″ standard, so I was clearly acting from my tension.  I eased back to my normal speed, which created some comfortable space  in front of me.  No joke, dear reader(s), by surrendering that space I instantly felt better.

It all starts with a good deep breath.

As I looked around, chaos still reigned on the road around me.  All I had done was take and deep breath and choose to not be a part of it.  Funny, that, because I couldn’t remember ever choosing to BE a part of it in the first place.

Several things jumped out at me from the 20-minute commute:

1. Chaos will happen around us in any place at any time, and our natural tendency is to jump right in and try to keep (or beat) its pace.
2. Choosing to disengage from chaos doesn’t bring order to the world, but it does bring order to you.
3. It all starts with a good deep breath.

My pattern is to take moments like this and draw deep, spiritual parallels to my life.  I have, but I won’t force them on you.  Feel free to take my experience and draw from it what you will.

Thank you, Mr. President

I’m still listening to the post-speech commentary on hulu.com, and I wanted to thank you for a few things.

First, thank you for communicating with America in a relevant way. I feel like you understand and are personally invested in modern technologies. I like the fact that you speak with both large words, and phrases like “no one messes with Joe.” I get the feeling that you are an educated man, and one who hasn’t forgotten that he is an American first. I sense that you have, wisely and refreshingly, done away with the archetypal president of the past. You’ve changed the game. Thank you.

Second, thank you for inspiring me. I know that televised speeches are meant to be rousing and positive. There’s a lot of talk about what you and the government are “going to do,” and I confess to you the fact that I’m jaded. I’m cynical of politicians and I don’t apologize for my feelings. I’ll also reserve my judgment to allow time for watching to see if these claims actually do come to pass. Those things being said, I found myself hoping that most Americans were watching. For what it’s worth, I’ve never felt that way before. Thank you.

Finally, thank you for your sentiments of personal responsibility on the parts of all Americans. Encouragements for people to get involved in their communities, statements that parental support is the cornerstone of education… these things echo what I believe.  Thank you for saying them.  I believe that you’ll continue to say them.  I hope the people who need to take the hint and adjust their lives accordingly.

Now I’m watching Bobby Jindal do some self-promotion (maybe some pre-campaigning?).

Mr. Obama, thank you for being an inspiration to me, my wife and my daughter.  I’m proud to be an American citizen during this point in history.

Diversions

Netflix is great.  I really dig it.  Our current flick is disc 1 in the BBC’s “Plant Earth” series.  These are some seriously cool nature films; and I’m a guy who NEVER thought I’d use the words “seriously cool” and “nature film” in the same sentence.  But I don’t really want to talk about that.

During a segment about the African wilderness, the subject matter turned to a herd of impalas.  Of course, for every herd of grass-eating creatures there’s a pack of grass-eater-eaters.  This time the pack was comprised of hyenas, and as it turns out, they’re pretty sophisticated hunters.  As the process began, the first look we got was a line of lithe, spotted dogs trotting easily through some sparse trees and scrub brush.  (Personally, the first thing I noticed is that they were like Stormtroopers… they traveled in single-file, to hide their numbers.)   At this easy pace, the pack approached the main herd of grazing impalas.  Predictably, the herd immediately retreated.  As the would-be victims saw their pursuers close in, panic ensued and the herd broke into chaos.  Once that happened, the hyenas would pick one young creature who happened to run off alone and take care of business.

Store that away for a few minutes.

Recently we’ve been talking about Revelation at church.  Last week we started talking about chapter  12.  In this particular chapter, we get a view of Satan as a big ‘ol dragon.  Not only is he big and ol’, but he’s mean and nasty.  Get this… first he tries to eat up a new born baby.  No luck.  The baby gets protection from Heaven.  This makes Satan angry, so he starts to raise a ruckus in Heaven.  Michael comes in, delivers a sound thrashing, and tosses Satan out of Heaven.  Satan gets huffy and tries to kill the baby mama… no luck.  She also gets some protection from Heaven, and is placed out of Satan’s reach.  Satan uses another tactic, and tries to get at her anyway.  This time the earth itself helps her out and thwarts Satan again.  By this time, Satan’s just about had his limit. He decides to take out his frustration on anyone who claims to follow Jesus.

Here’s what I get from that account: Satan has power, but he also has limits.  He has the ability to affect the physical world, but he can be stopped.  When he’s stopped at one avenue, he’ll try another.  Persistent little devil.  First he tried to strike at the baby (likely Jesus), then he tried the mother (possibly the people of God), then he tried some other tactics against the mother and was stopped again.  Finally, about 4 steps down the chain, he’s left the avenue of us (“us” being followers of Jesus).

Now let’s tie some things together.

We know, from Revelation 12, that “picking on humans” isn’t Satan’s first choice.  It isn’t even his second or third, which says to me that “we” are not the pivotal thing in his plan.  We’re simply the only wall where he can find a weakness.  So what does he do?  He charges at the pack in order to cause confusion, isolate us, and pick us off when we’re vulnerable.  I have a solid hunch that one of Satan’s primary tactics is lying.  We know that he’s good at it.  He’s a master of disguise, and he wields a silver tongue.  When he accuses us of not being “good” enough, or “pretty” enough, or whatever, he’s getting us to believe his line of crap for the simple purpose of isolation and distraction.  Once we’re distracted, we lose heart and fall away from following Christ.

We have power, though.  Believers have the power of Jesus on the cross.  We have the counsel of the Holy Spirit.  We have the unreasonable love of God the Father.  We have each other.  We CAN resist the diversions.  We CAN avoid the chaos.  We CAN frustrate the devil and resist his schemes.

I don’t know about you, but I think we should.

I’m an evolutionist

I decided today that I need to evolve.  Here’s the story behind the decision.

On January 25th, I’ll be leading a worship band in playing at my church.  The topic of the day is not necessarily a “feel good” one, so we’ve decided to jump in with both feet.  The music will be heavier and darker and full-on rock.

I play an acoustic guitar, exclusively.  It’s a Taylor 510, and I completely love it.  Lately, however, I’ve had this hunger deep in my gut to really rock.  I mean REALLY rock.  Not just play acoustic in a band with other guys who are really rockin’.  I need to make some noise.  Some grungy, distorted noise.

I don’t know where this hunger is coming from, and I don’t know where it’s going (kind of like James Taylor in the bridge of Country Road), but what I DO know is that today I picked up my hand-me-down electric guitar.  I tuned it up and hit Google to find some chords for a couple of songs that have been stuck in my head recently.

First on the list was Weezer’s Dope Nose.  The tone at the beginning of that song is the one I most want to acheive immediately.  I found that it was much easier to play that I thought.  I’m not ready to put it down on wax, or anything, but it’s discernable and pretty good.

Second was The Pretender by the Foo Fighters.  Also surprisingly easier to play than I had feared.  I have a lot of work to do on this one to really capture the changes in feel, but the progression is simple and MAN… this song friggin’ rocks.

Anyway.  I plan/hope to keep evolving in to a more well-rounded player.  I’m also encouraged as a writer to find that several of the songs I really dig are, in fact, very simple.  There’s no need for overly complex progressions.  Appealing music is well within my grasp.  I love the idea of being able to express myself with that newly found bit of info.

Next up… more work on the power stance.

What Would Jesus Say?

I wonder.  If he were to come back today (not for the rapture, but maybe just for a quick visit), what would Jesus say to a church full of believers?

Imagine, if you will, you’re sitting in your favorite congregation.  The worship band just finished a set of deep, poignant and inspirational rock worship with just the right hint of an emotional charge.  You feel a slight glisten of sweat from the exertion.  The anticipation of hearing from God’s word runs through you like a slight electric charge.  Not enough voltage to cause pain, but enough that you know something is different about your entire being.

Your pastor takes the front of the room.  (Perhaps just as ruggedly handsome, but lacking the ornamental adornment of the worship leader.)  He says, “We have a an old friend of the family with us today.  He didn’t want to distract what’s happening here, but I begged him to share some words with us from his experiences.”  Without another word of introduction, the pastor hugs the man who joins him in front, then takes a seat.

So here we are.  Sitting in church.  Jesus is standing in front of us.  No one breathes for fear that the noise would drown out whatever he’s about to say.

What would he say?

I want this to be an exercise where you, dear readers, comment back with the content.  But be warned… your answer will be more a revelation of yourself than a sermon to others.

Me?  I think he’d say something like, “Don’t blame me.  I voted for McCain.”  Ok, that’s a joke, but it’s my blog and I can be as politically incorrect as I want here.

I think he’d say to us that the first step of being a Christian is to relax.  Stop worrying so much.  Give yourself room to be “in transition.”  Give other people room to be “in transition.”  Give the world room to be “in transition.”  I think then we’d find that guilt would fade, forgiveness would be easier, and fewer people would get hurt in general.

Relax.

But that’s just me.  What do you think he’d say?

Enough, Already.

**Disclaimer** This post is the opinion of an average person.  One working man with a small family and a comfortable life.  NOT that of a pundit (whatever that is), a Poli-Sci major, professional journalist, or even someone who pays much attention to politics more than once every 4 years.

Look.  I’m all about democracy (unless you’re picking a band name… then it most definitely does NOT work), and I know that the democratic system is a process, but come on.  Can’t we just vote and move on?

It seems to me, the more that I watch Americans through the campaigning process, that our electoral process has become more of a circus than a serious event with real consequences.  Has anyone else noticed that the reactions of Americans to the campaigns of the two major candidates is roughly equivalent to the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup or NASCAR?  I’m finding that it’s rare for an average person to simply support a candidate.  They also have vehemently oppose the other candidate (and completely ignore the three that aren’t a member of the 2 major parties… but that’s another post).

I used to be a youth minister in the south.  Down there, NASCAR was a big deal.  And that’s a major understatement.  When I was in-office, there were kids who would support Dale Earnhardt (may he rest in peace).  However, one could hardly call themselves an Intimidator fan without hating (HATING) Jeff Gordon.  You couldn’t just wear a shirt or hat with an italic “3″ on it, you had to have a Calvin sticker peeing on a “24.”  Likewise, you couldn’t favor Ford cars without having some clever slur for the word “Chevy,” or vise versa.  It wasn’t enough to talk about what or who you liked, you had to spend more time & energy expressing how much you DIDN’T like the counter-part.

I’m no longer in paid ministry, but I still dig Jesus a whole lot.  Probably more than I used to, now that I’m free of so much of the baggage of the position.  I also grew up in the mainstream Evangelical church.  I’ve never been drunk (well, maybe once a couple weeks ago, but I’m not completely positive), I’ve never tried drugs, I’ve never been a habitual smoker, and I was a virgin when I got married (though, to be fair, I knew more about girls than I should have; and probably owe several of them apologies, if I haven’t contacted them already).  The point is, I’m a pretty clean-cut guy.  There is one common factor in all of the afore-mentioned areas that made them all possible.  Fear.  Not understanding.  Not desire for purity.  Fear.

…on November 5th, just under half of the people in this country are going to have to deal with the fact that their worst nightmares have just come true.

My experience was that the church instilled in me a huge desire to avoid Hell, pregnancy, disease, Hell, arrest, Hell, addictions and Hell.  I love my parents very much, and I owe them a huge debt of thanks for teaching me about Jesus.  The churches that we spent time in, however, seemed to think that negative reinforcement and/or scare tactics were the best way to achieve results.  In a sense, I guess they were right.  Their desired results were to keep me “out of trouble,” and for the most part that came true.  What I wish they’d have done, though, was spent that energy on teaching me more about the character of Jesus, instilling his values in me, and letting “trouble” naturally fall to the wayside.

In my adulthood, what I’ve discovered is that fear (though a powerful motivator) is extremely results-based, and brings very little understanding.  The long term effects of this are guilt, insecurity and ignorance.  Insecurity because there’s a huge need to “earn or avoid” based on actions; and ignorance because fear tactics are tailored so that the subject will run from a certain stimulus.

These feelings are somehow creeping into the realm of the election, you see.  I’ve seen way too many emails that are meant to strike fear in me (or the other 20 people that have been Cc’d), rather than to educate me about one candidate or the other.  “Why no Christian should vote for Obama.”  “Why we can’t afford McCain.”  Accusations that use fear-tactic buzzwords like “Socialism” and “Bush Doctrine.”  Come on.

There are several spin-off posts that I could write about this stuff, but here’s my point.  If you want my vote, show me why.  Teach me.  Give me understanding.  Don’t try to keep me ignorant and fearful, because on November 5th, just under half of the people in this country are going to have to deal with the fact that their worst nightmares have just come true.  It’s not the Apocalypse, people.  It’s just an election.

Side note to Christians: even if it IS the Apocalypse… read Revelation.  It turns out pretty well for those who believe in Jesus, and how you vote isn’t going to stop God’s plan.

See… the Jesus I know is all about togetherness.  Community.  Seeking out the lost, telling them the good news that they’re loved, and SHOWING (not emailing about or scaring us into) what a life lived with God can be.  He kept it pretty simple, and he actually spent his political energies telling The Man how off base he was.  I don’t think I ever read about Jesus holding (or even aspiring to hold) a public office.

I realize that this can sound pretty sarcastic or biting as I read it back, and I’m sorry about that.  My intention is to tear away the husks of guilt, fear and ignorance and get down to that tasty fruit of comfort, grace and peace.  People, God’s got it under control.  A lot of good folks died so that you could have a voice at the poll, so please vote.  However, if you don’t “win,” it’s not the end of the world.  And even if it is, well, we’ve covered that already.

Guess Who I Saw Tonight…

Amy Seyfreid

On a road trip, my daughter wanted to do some “shelling.”  Not the military munitions-dropping type, mind you, but rather the “roll up your pant legs, kick off your shoes and walk the beach at low tide” sort.  So we did.  We headed to the public beach access area, and as we turned the corner to park, we saw a sign that said “CREW,” and had a big red arrow on it.

We pulled up to our parking spot, and saw several semi trailers with their back doors open and people loading equipment.  A vacant lot, usually used for more parking, was instead playing host to several RV trailers.  We decided that there had to be a movie being filmed nearby.  Stepping out of the car, I walked over and took a quick look at the trailers.  I deduced that they were for the actors.  It was getting progressively darker, but I could make out two figures walking away from the trailers and around the parking lot’s fence.  They made their way up the sidewalk I was standing on, and up to a little hybrid car a couple of spots away.  As they opened the doors and started getting in, I asked…

“Do you happen to know what’s going on around here?” Both figures paused and looked at me.  Both were younger women, and the passenger (closest to me) answered, “A movie.”  She didn’t appear to be put off by my asking the first question, so I asked another…

“Oh?  What movie is it?”

“Dear John” she answered, and continued to look at me for a few seconds.

“Ok,” I said, and then awkwardly added…  “Well good luck with it!”

We walked away to the beach, where we found quite a haul of shells.  I did some quick investigation using my smartphone and imdb.com, and only then did I realize who it was I was just speaking with.

In my defense, I haven’t seen Mama Mia, nor had I actually ever heard of Miss Seyfreid.  Plus it was dark, so I likely wouldn’t have picked up on the fact that I was talking to the leading lady of the movie.