32


"you get me slapped with a fine, you argue with the customers and i have to patch everything up, you get us thrown out of a funeral by violating the corpse, and then to top it off, you ruin my relationship. i mean, what's your encore? do you, like, anally rape my mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank?" - dante, clerks (1994)

that clerks is 14 years old (two weeks ago) makes me feel old. that kevin o'kelley is 32 makes me feel really freaking old. 32. it's the first number that i've reached where i thought to myself, "jesus. you are that guy now. you are old." and i get it. i know that there are people out there older than me. there will always be people out there that are older than me. i am not looking for sympathy. you certainly have my permission to roll your eyes at me and tell me that i am ridiculous, but this is my birthday. and i will celebrate it the way i wish. by being miserable.

so, what are your plans for today, the day you begin your 33rd year?

my plans? ok. here's what i have on my agenda. i am currently washing clothes. i am going to cut the grass. i have an errand to run. and i'll exercise at some point. that's it. that's pretty much the list. but again, don't feel sorry for me. i don't want that. that's the day that i've chosen for myself. sarah has already given me permission to be a lazy slob and not do anything productive with my off day, and i do appreciate it. but these are things that i have to do, right?

it's my birthday, but it's just like any off day. and even on my off days, i have to feel productive. it's like i am trying to convince some higher power that my worth here on this earth has not dried up.

look down there. yes. that's kevin o'kelley washing and folding those two loads of clothes. he is quite domesticated and determined.

and look, there. his grass stopped growing two weeks ago, and yet he marches outside with long pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt on to manicure his yard. impressive.

there he goes again. he still has the ability to drive a car. what a human!

unbelievable! he is doing way too many push-ups for a man of his age. i suppose we will let him live. at least one more year. keep an eye on his body-mass index, though. if he slips past "fat", give him the heart attack that he's been dreading for ten years.

i do appreciate the powers-that-be for giving me another birthday. as dramatic and loathsome as i am being, i am a lucky guy. for, in spite of all my ignorance and stupidity, i have a family that loves me very much. i have a precious almost-five year-old that took time out of her morning routine to draw me a picture.

i have more family that has already bought me many bottles of beer (thanks, mom-in-law. i will begin drowning my sorrow before noon, surely. ;) ). others that have sent cards filled with money that can be conditionally spent however i choose (roll tide, bill). i have friends that have gone out of their way to say "happy birthday" to me already. more that will later on this day.

i don't deserve such charity. i can be quite horrible to be around when i am self-loathing. maybe they see something i don't. maybe that higher power is just that good.

whatever the case may be, i love you all, those of you that choose to make me feel special. i don't deserve your attention, and i don't deserve your time.

i do hope that before the heart attack happens, i can return the favor. i hope i can make you feel just as special in some small way. i will try. i promise.

time to put the clothes in the dryer.

microcosmic
(return from oz)


after posting on october 10, i looked for feedback in a lot of different places. the "comments" section, itself, served as a magnificently vivid portrait of everything that had led up to that stand-alone post, so i chose not to add anything further myself in that particular forum. before sitting down to write that morning (and i've shared this with a couple of people), i had made the intentional decision that one respective chapter of the blog would be closing. in no way did that mean i would no longer share my point of view on all things my church, but the perspective was getting ready to change. if this whole lay leader thing was something that i didn't want to walk away from out of respect to those that thought it was a bad idea to begin with, then, beginning in a couple months, i would no longer be "on the outside".

in a way, for close to three years with the humc-tinged posts on this site, i was acting out a role of my own, an unsolicited ombudsman of sorts. i wasn't reporting to a body or a board, necessarily. i was only reporting to the central focus of HACAM and those casual to vested observers i was accruing along the way. the interest or lack thereof of said observers never directly influenced what was posted and what was not, but it was interesting (sometimes fascinating) to me to see other people react in their own way to my personal reactions and reflections.

the culmination of that role came on october 10, and, boy, did quite the celebration ensue. the following monday, just hours after the "celebration" reached it's zenith, i was no longer on the outside looking in. i had been nominated as a throw-in to the group that was appointed at the "meeting to end all meetings" to serve humc as a church task force. the task force's role was, and in some ways still is, undefined prior to our first meeting, but the group was assigned to address important (and sensitive) issues the congregation (and not just this stupid blog) had raised. we would inventory the "concerns", point ourself in some direction, have constructive conversation, prayerfully consider productive action, make suggestions to the greater church, corporate, and hopefully show ourselves as a symbol of hope that our dear church has been lacking for quite some time.

two weeks and two meetings in, there is already turnover. two weeks and two meetings in, there has already been turmoil. some of it unexpected. some of it predictable. two weeks and two meetings in, we are beginning to understand just how much needs to be "fixed". two weeks and two meetings in, i feel pretty good about the process.

what??? what about the turmoil? the turnover?

great questions, both. but beside the point. to answer these is to get lost behind the gorilla that has so easily distracted us for so long. the gorilla has been so big and so scary. that's how gorillas are. so, we hid.

and let me say, hiding isn't always the worst option. sometimes, gorillas get bored in one room and decide to move on to another, thus removing our own accountability from the equation. we can move right along as if nothing has happened. we can smile and pretend that everything is ok. and in those instances, we should consider ourselves lucky.

our gorilla, though, outgrew our doors. and he was stuck. and so we are stuck with him. removing the king of the mountain with diplomacy and bananas will no longer work.

so, we must fight.

with words. with rolling eyes. with things that should have been said out loud months, if not years, ago. with hugs. with love. with compassion. with empathy (because lord knows, we are all in this together). with barbs. with sarcasm. with hurtful and well-intended honesty. with one goal. and one mind. and one united purpose.

we must fight for our church. because the gorilla is not going away.

through two weeks and two meetings, it is now a certainty to the group now officially known as the humc task force that we can not beat the beast down on our own. we will need a congregation to win this back. our purpose, that is. one purpose that will be our rallying cry. a unified mission. a unified vision. a unified goal. something that we can cling to. something that when the going gets tough, the hurt feelings can hold onto and understand that there is reason and method to this madness.

whether i deserve it or not is up for debate. but the fact remains i am no longer merely commenting here on the "idea" of huffman umc that i believe in. i am no longer theorizing or speculating or second-guessing. i am now moving in a different direction, one that dictates we all begin a new chapter.

what is it that you feel?

what is it that got you fired up?

why do you feel differently about your church, our church, now versus then?

what are you going to do about it?

who are you mad at? why?

what brought you (us) here?

if you care about our church, i hope you can ask yourself these questions and not just acknowledge that they've presented themselves on your mind.

through two weeks and two meetings, the task force has identified problems on top of problems. and by problems, i mean discussions worth having. and it is no longer acceptable, in my mind, to let the problems define our future.

it is the discussions, the "why do we feel this way"s and the "what are we going to to about it"s that will now steer us.

problems turn into dead weight and big, scary gorillas. discussions turn into answers.

it's time to talk.

just so you know
(i still plan to rain on your parade)
((hannah and caroline and me, part nineteen))


i am about to tell you something that is going to either sound completely weird or completely understood. you can let me know where you stand.

one of my favorite smells in the whole wide world is...

drumroll please...

the smell of hannah sweating as she is taking a nap on the couch. does that make me gross? or does it just make me a parent? i am ok either way. it is unmistakable. and in the last almost five years, it has jumped into my top three of all smells. the other two? marie's dressing (surely no surprise there for those that know me) and the smell of my own mom's chili. and i will say, the smell of my own mother's chili only grows more and more romantic and wonderful in my mind and senses every passing day considering it's probably been ten-plus years since i've tasted it. there is no way the actual smell could live up to the smell in my head if i came home to it today. it's not just the smell of the chili. it's the smell of her chili after i mix up so much shredded cheese and soup crackers with it that it has the most perfect paste feel to it. like i could spackle with it (not that i would ever spackle anything.). but mom's chili is one of those things that i have built up to such a degree in my head that i may as well never have it again. it would completely ruin it. and i am ok with that. i think she would be happy to know that it left such an impact. oh well. i digress.

back to hannah sweat. hannah and i had our first daddy/daughter day in quite some time tuesday. i accompanied her class to the hargis pumpkin patch. from what i could tell, all the kids, minus maybe cameron, had a grand 'ole time. hannah was no exception. she was an absolute trooper from the word "go". i am sure it helped that she was carrying along the only daddy in the group.

i intentionally wore a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to look the part of a "dad". i still had my blue tennis shoes on, so i wasn't quite "outdoorsman dad", but it was just a pumpkin patch, right? had we been going camping, those moms and those teachers and those kids would have been screwed.

when we arrived at the camp, we listened to our instructions and then hit the beaten path. i had my girl, other girls and one boy using me as mr. swing the entire way, which i was fine with. even though i was breaking a sweat in the quite cool weather, i told myself i needed the exercise and sucked it up. it tickled the kids, so it tickled me. we did the hay ride. i played the role of "dad" again and roasted most of the hot dogs and marshmallows. just to illustrate how foreign this should seem, our children's place director placed a call to ms. ellen in the kitchen back at the church and they had a wonderful laugh at my expense. "kevin's cooking the hot dogs??? bwabwabwa!!!" laugh it up, ladies. laugh it up. it's fine. i deserve it. we learned about the life-cycle of pumpkins. we petted a goat and very small horses (kind of random, i know). we marched through a living, breathing pumpkin patch. we listened to a story in an "indian tent". we picked out our pumpkins. and that was the day. a full day, indeed. and a fun one at that.

by the time we got back to our cars/bus, the kids were spent, but hannah held it together. we recounted our day on the way back to town and finally made it home after a stop at sonic for a slush. hannah lives a very hard life, don't you know? when we got to the house hannah had a difficult time completely winding down from the day, but as i kicked it into high gear with my rocky training montage exercise routine, she fell asleep.

and about thirty minutes later, there it was. that beautiful smell. fast asleep. body temperature naturally rising to keep her cozy and peaceful, the aroma, to her daddy, is nothing short of what heaven should smell like. every time i inhale, it reminds me that i have a beautiful baby girl close to me dreaming of princesses and barbie dolls and wizards of waverly place. it reminds me of how lucky she is that she is unaware of the world that has been swirling around her daddy for the last month. it reminds me that when she is old enough to be aware, i won't give a crap about it any more other than the story that i can tell her about that one time when "we" all thought the church was going to explode except that it never really was because humc was and is always going to be bigger than "we".

the smell of hannah's sweat will one day be a lot like that smell of mom's chili. i won't get it anymore. and i will romanticize it. and i will dream about it. and i will tell stories about it. and it will become much better than the real sweat ever was. and it will transform into a metaphor the way all things eventually do.

life can get pretty effed up if and when we don't take the time to smell our children's sweat (or the roses. to each their own.) for almost five years, i've had a precious little girl to remind me of that from time to time. now, i even have two!!! i should never slip into "life sucks. i wanna punch somebody!" mode. but i do.

because i am stupid.

aren't we all.

why?
(this will likely ruin alabama's season)
((welcome back to oz))


it was cute, sure. had i been in the stadium and witnessed firsthand the mountain of a man that is terrence cody boom, boom, booming onto the field for an offensive snap, i would have gone nuts with the rest of the crowd. there is no doubt in my mind. what makes this situation worse is that it worked. the novelty that is. the novelty of bringing in your potential first team all-sec (and american) nosetackle to plow the way for mark ingram resulted in a touchdown. roll tide. go bama. dear christ.

why the glum, son?

because i am a firm believer of karma on the football field and what went around saturday afternoon will eventually come around to this charmed and different tuscaloosa football team. it may already have.

alabama has two "difference makers". players that other teams have no answer for. julio will be one, but he is serving his role of stretching the field and decoy quite nicely this season. check back on him again as a sophomore and he's going to be unstoppable. this year, though? this year, alabama has two. on offense? andre smith. you know on big plays alabama is going to go left. i know it. opposing coaches know it. it doesn't matter. 90 percent of the time, if alabama needs one or two big yards, running behind their future first round left-tackle works. it's just a fact. on defense? it's cody. he's big and nimble and not just nimble for a big man. but a true athlete packaged in 365 pounds of fat on top of muscle that makes him the most dominant defensive lineman (sorry, glenn dorsey) that the sec has seen since richard seymour went to the pats.

he's the sun when on the field. two, sometimes three offensive lineman are forced to orbit around him in the hopes that they can distract him long enough for the other team's running back to find his way to the positive side of the line of scrimmage.

so, what does bama choose to do with this treasure? they tugged on superman's cape. they spit into the wind. they put him in on offense. and in the moment, it worked.

in god's time? well, terrence, meet field-cart. see you in the locker room. as of sunday afternoon, everyone is grinning with their teeth clenched. cody, himself, says he'll be fine. saban says that he might miss a game or two, but he won't need surgery. he better not, because if he does, saban, the architect of this beautiful season to this point, will have paid his due to the football gods with the blood of every bama fan that has spent the last two months telling themselves that their team is the second best in the country.

me? i am not sold yet. the second best team in the country doesn't not score a point in the second half against a middling to decent 3-3 (at the time) team. the second best team doesn't struggle with kentucky. the second best team does beat the crap out of then number one georgia at georgia, but we haven't seen that team in a few weeks. where did they go?

well, maybe they got too cute in practice and spent valuable prep. time putting in plays for a nosetackle to play fullback. maybe they think they are the second best team in the country when, really, they are only the second ranked team. HUGE difference.

second best teams don't need gimmicks. second best teams just play. here's hoping that alabama can learn this lesson with cody on the field in a couple of weeks and not with him in street clothes. if the latter finds it's way to be true, "we" only have ourselves to blame.

hey. where have i heard that before?

"ode to the north american snake oil distributor"


on this the day of my purchasing the just-released yesterday album from my favorite active (again) band, i am choosing to let HACAM breathe for just a little bit longer.

we (and by "we", i mean i) are all going to take a step away from what has become our (and by "our", i mean my) daily obsession with checking this site to see what person has flailed themself into our world.

i am going to take a few days and evaluate in what direction HACAM will now stroll. i am going to dust off the keypad sometime over the weekend and see where my fingers take me. hopefully to oz and not to huffman.

it wasn't fair to her. no, it wasn't. she's been manipulated. violated. truncated. and suffocated. but she breathes still. her heart knows her way. she just can't stand the thought of being alone.

once we come back into the open, the new and improved version of her will be as feisty as ever. pointed as always. and cautious of no human thing. she is a snake that waits in the grass, wanting... no, needing to strike at a moments notice.

but she loves.

and she loves music. dillinger four she will have as her date tonight. d4 will dress her up nicely. wine. dine. who knows what may happen when the door closes.

here's looking at you, "kid". the one in the corner with the paintbrush and the funny look on your face. here's looking at you, indeed. just go ahead and step this way. the paint's feelings won't be hurt. the footprints will add to your story.

i see your quotation marks. i raise you a comma and an exclamation point.

let's look at the facts, jack. you too, queen. the king is waiting.

play me a merry-go-round, mister.

if you were johnny-five, wouldn't your feelings be hurt too? of course they would.

check it out, dude. daddy's lost his mind.

no, he hasn't.

are you sure?

yes, he thinks he's clever, but he's really just stupid.

what do you mean?

he's blowing smoke. it's a cloud. a diversion. something to take away your attention from the 500 lb. gorilla behind you.

there's a gorilla behind me?

yep.

well, hopefully he's nice.

word.

19-14
(how the west was won)
((and why i wished that brian was in town))


there is a vindictive side of me that's been waiting to get out. waiting to strike since the blog hit the fan two weeks ago. and that vindictive side still waits on her orders, for i am not letting her out today. not just yet.

i've thought about today's post since monday night. what did i want to say? how did i want to say it? who do i want to hear it? and my thoughts have evolved, especially after wednesday night came and went without incident. it also came without repair, but that is for another day. when i left the house monday night, i figured that today's post would be a chronicled (as far as i know) detailing of every shenanigan that led to and past the events of sunday morning (oct. 5). secret meetings. passed out copies of who-knows-which-posts from HACAM to members of sprc and others in our church. a senior pastor that publicly campaigned against my being recommended for a position of leadership at humc. two members pitted against each other in an active election just two hours prior to us all "coming together" in the sanctuary for a world communion sunday service. as of this morning, i've decided that "the devil" is in the details. and you can take that statement and run with it in any direction you would like.

here's the short version for my not-in-the-thick-of-this-crap readers. we have a committee on lay leadership at our church. they are a consensus-building group and their responsibility is fairly simple but also very powerful. sit down with each other, figuratively throw playing cards with the names of members of the church on them on the table and, if not otherwise committed, nominate those names/persons for roles within the church that the committee feels as if they have the gifts and talents to bring something substantial to the role. as an example, if joe or jane q. public shows a talent for working with children and lay leadership agrees that it would be a good idea, they may be nominated for a role on the children, youth and families committee. it is then up to that person nominated to accept or decline the nomination. that's it. that's what they do. they meet for several weeks until they finish their process or until they are up against a deadline and they have to finish whether they are ready or not. during this process, there is obviously room for debate and disagreement on the merits of certain persons being nominated for certain roles. again, this a consensus-building group. many times in any walk of life, consensus may not be reached without a healthy debate. as it affected me personally, i was told by a member of this committee that i had been nominated for the role of lay leader of our church. who knows what sort of debate, if any, went on when my name was brought up. considering everything i know now, i wouldn't want to know. long story short, i told this representative of lay leadership that i would be honored to take on the role. as far as i knew, that was that. decision was made. consensus reached.

'til the blog hit the fan. (cue rending of garments and teeth-gnashing)

without falling prey to "the devil", i'll fast forward to the relevant part. sometime between lay leadership adjourning it's final session and this past sunday morning, select members of that committee along with the senior pastor (who, you may remember, found us at least two weeks ago) of my church stumbled upon my blog and decided that my "bad" words and oppositional stances towards the leadership of our church deemed me unfit to carry forth the torch of lay leader at humc. during the called disciples council meeting sunday morning (at which most of the council/board was there to formalize and approve lay leadership's recommendations), a new name was nominated to replace mine as lay leader. a vote was taken and, in spite of the back-alley efforts of certain members of humc and it's senior pastor, the integrity of lay-leadership's process was ultimately upheld. i won the vote 19-14 (unofficial tally). hooray for me, right???

right?

anyone?

yeah, me either. if just those couple of paragraphs make you sick at your stomach, well, join the crowd. you don't know the half of it. you don't really need to. "the devil" would just make your heart race faster than it already is. since "the devil" reared its head to me, though, i have wanted nothing more than to withdraw into the arms of those that i knew cared for me. accepted me for who i am. understood the context and meaning behind every humc-tinged post in the last three years and "got it". i've been called "inappropriate" in different ways. i've had my priorities questioned. i've been pointed at. i've been whispered about. and that's just the tip of a pretty skeevy iceberg. but all of that is cool.

what's led me to this morning is something sarah said as we left the church. i don't think that i knew i was feeling it, but her saying it out loud made me sure that i did. i have looked for support. not support in the way of finding people that think like me or are "on my side" or hope for the same things out of humc that i do. but maybe just a pat on the back. someone to come around and say, "you're gonna be alright." and i have found that in my sunday school class (and, of course, sarah and my friends that are "in the know.") that probably didn't know what they were getting into when they extended a warm and welcoming hand to me and sarah a couple years ago. and i have told them in emails and in person, but i will tell them here too. i can't express how much you guys mean to me. i just can't.

but i've also been pining for, of all people, my brother to be around. it probably seems off the subject and i can't really put my finger on why he keeps popping into my head. i think it goes back to something that has made his last couple of visits so special. since we've both reached a place in our adult lives that we are comfortable in our own skin, we have spent a grand total of about two weeks together. in spite of that lack of time, though, in something like what we've been going through the last couple weeks, he would be the ultimate ally in every sense of the word. he'd have my back. he'd make threatening gestures. he knock people's lunchroom trays out of their hands. he'd talk to me. make me feel less like an anti-hero and more like someone that's on the right side of a wrong fight. at least, that's what i tell myself he'd do, because that's what i do for him. because i love him. and that's all that really matters, right?

silly church. don't "you" get it? i say what i say and i do what i do because i love you!!! do you really want to keep going down the path that we've been on? really? you want to just fade away into the future remembering what the "good 'ole days" were like and resting on those laurels? that's what you want? you don't want me to question "you" (and me for god's sake!) in the most open forum possible? why the hell not? what are you afraid of? why are you afraid? if this is what "you" want, you don't have to try and freaking vote me down. all you have to do is ask. because i don't want to do that. i don't want to pretend like everything is ok when it's not. that's not how life and church is to be led. in my opinion and in my motivation, i don't get the message out of "your" bible that god intended it to be that way either!!! jesus christ! remember him??? i don't bring him up much here. i'd rather Him be an understood. but if that's the way you want things to be, why don't "you" scripture-rip me a passage that shows me that jesus was cool with resting on the laurels of the good 'ole days. i'll be in the corner holding my breath.

if that's the way "you" want it, just ask me and i'll go. if you want what's best for humc, though, you want me on your team, because you are not going to find someone that wants what's best for her any more than i do. i don't always have to be a lay leader. i'll be happy locking up the church and turning your microphone on, but you want me on your team. whether you like my methods or not, that is just your opinion.

what went down in response to this blog last week and leading up to it makes me sick. sick at "you" and sick with "you". but i love you anyway.

i'll be waiting for "your" comment, your email, your phone call and i'll damn sure wait for you face to face. based on what i've "heard" the last couple of weeks, i should open my door to a long line of folks dying for that opportunity. you want me to leave? i'll leave. just ask.

i am waiting.

let me introduce to you the town fool
(hannah and caroline and me, part eighteen)


wait just a darn second. did someone just jump this blog's shark for me?

we're not quite to this site's third blog-iversary, but we're close. what started off as a (public) note to my daughter has now evolved into something much more devious. much more maligned. much more...oh, who am i kidding? it's only evolved into a note to my daughters. it feels the same today, because it is the same.

hello, dear reader. welcome, and welcome back. to those of you that have been around for the context, you are the (un)lucky ones. to those of you that have found us in the last week or through copies handed out to you, well, here you are!

it's less than exciting, isn't it? it's just a blog. what's a blog? some pictures. some words. some subjective moan-ings and groan-ings of someone no more or less important than yourself.

i heard he says "bad" words.

you heard right.

i heard he says things about his church that aren't always friendly, sometimes pointed, sometimes even downright mean.

you heard right.

i heard he's sarcastic.

as hell.

i heard that one time he called a baptist preacher a dick.

what, you didn't get a copy of that one? oh well, you heard right. search hopewell baptist. it's around here somewhere.

i heard that he and his dad don't get along.

correct. well, we're working on it.

i heard that he says "bad" words.

we've covered that.

i've heard that he hates people in his church.

uh-oh.

i've heard that his mission of all missions is to get his senior pastor to leave.

did you hear that from him?

i've heard that one time he punched one of his youth in the face.

he sounds like a bastard.

i've heard worse.

here we go again.

i've heard that what he's doing with that blog of his is harmful to his church.

well, at least that one is worth talking about.

i've heard that he hates the bible.

dear christ.

i think if we let "this" happen, he'll tear the church apart.

i am taking names. will you help?

welcome (back) to this waste of time that you may or may not have been told is important for you to know (it's not.) welcome (back) to what will prove to be an ever-disappointing look into the mind of someone you may or may not care to know. good-bye to those that know what's good for them.

welcome (back) in. in this world of hannah and caroline and me, we love huffman united methodist church. you can post-rip just like "you" can scripture-rip. you can badmouth. you can accuse. and you can lie. but you cannot search "humc" at the top of this site and tell me that you are not involved in the ravings of someone passionately in love with a church that has found her way astray. you can try. i'll prove you wrong.

next time we'll take a look at back-alley politics, church style.

hope to see you soon.

p.s. - why does this remind me so much of grey's anatomy.

because you are in the middle of a soap-opera. a diversion. a cloud. something meant to distract you from the gorilla right behind you.

there's a gorilla behind me?

figuratively speaking.

crap.

"say it ain't so, joe."


ugh.

this cute little quip came from sarah palin last night towards the end of the vice-presidential debate. the comment preceded her taking joe biden to task for the second or third time about "looking backwards" instead of to the future and the change that he and his principle were campaigning on. the comment and the sentiment struck me a couple different ways.

the first way was, "she has been sitting on that all night. good for you, finding a way to use it. now, how about answering a question directly for a change instead of asking your own questions and redirecting the conversation to the talking points you are comfortable with." the debate sucked anyway. both candidates were guilty of skirting "difficult" questions from the moderator and refocusing them on what they were there to say. that's how most debates of this type play out, so i won't hold that against either. but the fact that palin took the senator to task for looking back on the failures of the last eight years more than once alarmed me.

look, i am no political expert. far from it. i don't feel comfortable even throwing my hat in the ring to be a pundit. but i do know this. how in the world are you supposed to offer change of any sort if you are hell-bent on refusing to acknowledge what you are changing from? that being said, the most palin would offer were that there were obvious missteps with the bush administration just as there are with any administration. yeah, great. thanks for that bit of wisdom. oh, and also thanks for saying "doggone it." several times too. call me stupid, but i am in line with jon stewart when he's claimed several times, and i am paraphrasing, "i don't want a president that reminds me of me. i don't want a vice-president that says, "doggone it." i want a president that is intelligent and uses words that i don't understand and makes me feel like he is capable of making big decisions because he understands the best way to use that intelligence is to let those around him challenge it." and i don't think you can challenge yourself for a better tomorrow if you are unwilling to take into account what happened yesterday.

i, then, of course, thought about my church. some notes (out of context, admittedly) from the meeting monday night.

"it's time we come together."
"it thrills me...to feel like we are on the same page again."
"we have committed to love one another...to realize this means more than about us."
"i'm hispanic." (is this necessary?)

sorry, dude. i had mexican last night. that does not make me hispanic. my last name is o'kelley. that doesn't make me irish. that just gives me a pretty rockin' last name. i don't understand the plight of being irish. i know where the last name came from. i know my heritage. but i am still not irish. i digress.

as a congregation, it feels like we are being urged forward without taking into account what has brought us to where we are today. without holding accountable the poor decisions that have been made by leaders in our church that are still attempting to lead today. and, in my opinion, doing so feels dangerous.

please know this. i get it. i want our church to get better and move forward and be healthy and relevant and vital and exciting and fun and all of those good things. but i can't imagine any of those things happening without us first acknowledging, as a group, that we are the ones that screwed it up in the first place.

and maybe that's beginning to happen. i hope for it. at some point of the corporate meeting monday night, a task force was nominated to help the congregation define ( or redefine) itself again. there are names included that would have never even been considered back in may of 2007. in may of 2007, sprc drafted a joke of "leadership characteristics" to give to our incoming senior pastor that, even in it's absolute vagueness, forgot to mention children (AT ALL) or the children's place, the only ministry now and then that has any sort of roots placed in the non-spanish speaking part of our local community. now that is forward thinking! not that i should bring that up. that's all in the past, right?

maybe it is. maybe it's not. i don't know. i am conflicted. there's a definite part of sarah palin in me that wants to ignore the crud of the last few years and march blindly toward wherever it is that our church is headed in the next few. but there's a bigger part that feels that, for us to know who we want to be, we need to own the part of our history that suggests who we don't want to be.