Leo Must Die!

I swear I really am going to kill that bird.

Last night I was up until 2am working on an article for a client. I got up early to put the finishing touches on it before I head off to work at the Apple Store. So I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep here. The absolute last thing I need to deal with in the morning is a shrieking, impertinent feathered fiend who won't shut up even when you go up to the bars of his cage and yell in his face. (Er, not that I do that or anything.)

But then again, I could be just really cranky because I'm tired. I can be a real snarly-cat when I don't get the right amount of sleep. I'm not sure what the right amount is, but in general I'd say it would have to be more than I've been getting. So right now I'm feeling sorry for the customers I'll be dealing with later today, especially the ones that call on the phone and ask for the billionth-trillionth time whether or not we have iPod Shuffles in stock. I'm actually quite worried for those poor souls, since even on a good day I hate answering the phone almost as much as I hate Leo the screaming cockatiel.

On a more positive note, at least I finished my article on time to meet my deadline.

Sanctuary

I am behind on a writing deadline, so I don't have much time to blog today. I'm not feeling particularly creative this morning anyway. Which is not to say I'm in a bad mood, because I'm not. How could I be, when it is springtime in January? God, I love the sun. And blue skies. And flowers. And the color green.

Last week I took the cowgirl's dog for a walk at a nearby park. There is a dam out there, and a little lake. We strolled along the trail that meandered beside the water, and then left it behind and came to a meadow, full of those tiny yellow flowers that are probably weeds, but I love them anyway because they are so bright and cheery. The trees were barren, except for the robins and other songbirds flitting between their branches. The sky was blue and only barely brushed with clouds here and there. The freeway was only a hundred yards or so away, but somehow everything seemed quiet in this oasis, this sanctuary of peace. It was the sort of place where you couldn't help but think that if you just sat under one of the trees for awhile, God was bound to turn up and plop Himself down beside you to enjoy your company and some time in the sun. The sort of place that you could imagine Him walking through, "in the cool of the day" as it says in Genesis, when it describes God coming to take his evening stroll through the Garden of Eden with His kids, Adam and Eve.

I'm really glad God makes places like this. And like Shell Ridge near Mt Diablo in northern California. And Padre's Trail here in my town. And just about everywhere in New Zealand.

Sanctuaries of peace. Where are yours?

Just For Fun

http://www.queryletters.blogspot.com

Since I've been back in LA, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon. Lots of people I talk to seem to be writers. And everytime someone says they are a writer, and I ask what they write, they say, "I'm a screenwriter" or "I write for TV." (In the Bay Area, everyone wrote short stories, magazine articles, or novels. An intriguing dichotomy indeed, and yet more proof that California really IS two different states masquerading as one.)

Of course, with so much competition in "the industry", it's tough to make it big as a writer here in the land of the silver screen. This fact is doubly proven by the blog site posted above, which I highly recommend to anyone who is need of a good laugh. It features actual query letter pitches by aspiring screenwriters. I laughed out loud when I read the three most recent posts.

Enjoy, and have a happy Friday!

A Backdoor For Atheism?

In this week's Time magazine, the following quote apears in an article about the push for intelligent design (ID) being taught in schools alongside evolution:

"Teaching evidence against evolution is a backdoor way of teaching creationism," says Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education.

I suppose, then, the case could be made that teaching evolution as the only explanation for existence is really a backdoor way of teaching atheism, no? Besides which, Scott's statement seems outrageously defensive: if there is evidence against evolution, why shouldn't that be taught as well? What, truly, is the harm? If evolution is true, it will stand. If not, I would think Scott, and anyone else, would want people to discover the truth. I mean, isn't that what science is all about, at the end of the day?

I am not advocating that public schools start teaching from Genesis 1. All I'm saying is, why should anyone be afraid of raising questions about evolution in the classroom? Don't we want to inspire kids to actually, well, think?

Maybe people are worried that kids will start to believe in God. Why, though? I mean, what makes believing in God worse than believing in nothing at all? I am genuinely, honestly curious about this.

Thoughts, anyone?

A Mugger I Have Known

One of the things I miss about the Bay Area is the adrenaline rush of never knowing when you might get mugged by a guy with a fake gun.

This actually happened to me once, in Berkeley. (Just about anything can happen in Berkeley, and a lot usually does. It's that kind of place.)

I was out with a few friends, two guys and a girl. We went to a bar called the Albatross, which was located in a not-so-great area, but then again that accounts for vast tracts of Berkeley at night, I'd say. Anyway, the Albatross was pretty cool. They have games you can play, like Taboo. Taboo is especially fun if you play with someone who is drunk, I discovered. We paired off for teams, and I got stuck with the guy who'd been drinking. Oddly enough, we won.

Around 1am we'd had our fill of Taboo and drinks, so we headed out to the car, which we'd parked on the street behind the bar. As we walked to it, a guy literally came out of the shadows and demanded our money, just like in the movies. Well, the bad movies anyway.

At that point everything became surreal. He was waving a gun, and shouting. However, I think he was kind of new to the mugging game, because he actually let us take the money out of our wallets, rather than just snatching everything and running. That seemed a little amateurish to me, but I for one wasn't going to say anything.

I also wasn't going to say anything about the fact that the gun looked a little strange. For example, it seemed to have masking tape on it. When discussing the whole episode later, the others were agreed that it was probably a cap gun. But it wasn't the sort of thing we were going to bring up for clarification. "Excuse me, Mr Robber Man, but is that a real gun or a fake one? We'd just like to know for sure before we cooperate with your demands. Oh, you shot one of us! I guess it's real then. Here's my $25."

My friend Jen was the last one to get her money out, because she had one of those giant purses that you can fit a whole house in, and was having a little trouble locating her wallet. The guy waved the gun around and started cussing at her and yelling to her to hurry up. She looked him in the eye and said in her teacher's voice (the sort she reserved for her misbehaving first graders, I've no doubt), "Alright, I'm getting it." I had to hand it to her. Not everyone can pull off the cool and snotty attitude when a gun is being pointed at their head. Even if it's a fake gun, which we were still not entirely sure about at that point.

Finally he had all our money, and then came my favorite part. He told us to go running away, down the street away from him. Riiiight...we were going to go running down another dark street, to meet up with another potential robber in the shadows? Nice try. Instead, we sort of ambled away, or perhaps it was more like sauntering. Whatever the case, I wondered later if that made him mad, that we didn't run. Probably ruined the dramatic story he would tell to his fellow hoodlums later. "Yeah, and then I told them to run, and they just calmly walked off." Don't think that would earn him brownie points among the lords of the underworld, really.

Then the police got annoyed with us because we didn't call them right away. Oh, I'm sorry, officer...how could I have been so silly as to want to get away from the scene of the crime and back to the safety of my home as quickly as possible! Really thoughtless of me; if I had only known how much harder that would have made your job, I doubtless would have stuck around, waiting for Mugger #2 to come along, maybe with a real gun this time.

But in spite of the mugging, I think Berkeley is a great place. And I'd probably go back to the Albatross. I'll just take along some bigger, meaner guys next time.

Memories of A Road Trip Past

Last night, on the spur of the moment, I drove out to Calabasas to meet up with my brother and a few of his friends, one of whom was a fellow adventurer on a road trip to the Grand Canyon that my brother and I took about five or six years ago. Nearly every time I see him, I am irresistibly reminded of that fateful journey...

It all started in a hot tub. Ok, relax, that's not what it sounds like! My brother and I, his friend Brent, another friend Tim, and a girl from New Zealand who was staying with us named Alice were all hanging out in the jacuzzi one night, and someone asked Alice what one thing she would really like to see in the States before she had to go back to New Zealand. She thought a moment, then said, "The Grand Canyon." It occurred to both me and my brother that we hadn't ever seen the Grand Canyon either. We decided we should go, and Brent decided he should come too. Two days later, the four of us piled into our trusty Supercar (a well-traveled Toyota Previa) and headed east.

I don't remember much about the drive, except for one point where we were all really bored and started imitating those weird plastic flowers that moved to music that some deluded manufacturer actually MADE for SALE. I don't know what prompted us to do this, probably just the thought of how passing motorists would view our strange, jerky dance movements in the car. (Actually that's making me laugh right now.)

We eventually got to our motel, which was called something like "El Conquistador" even though there was a large Union Jack flying above it. The manager was a jolly Englishman. Go figure.

The next day, we drove out to the Canyon. It was beautiful. It was sunny. It was warm. We hiked a little way down, laughing at the sign with a large skull and crossbones that said hiking in the canyon could lead to injury or death. Little did we know...

Half an hour or so later, as we were hiking back out of the canyon, a storm came up. At first it was just a few drops of rain. Then we heard thunder. "How cool," I thought. "A thunderstorm in the Grand Canyon!" We got on a tram that took us to the next point around the rim, and got off in the midst of an absolute downpour. We still thought this was great fun, however, and ran merrily to the lookout point, laughing at how wet we were getting and what a jolly time we were all having.

Then the lightning started. Oh, and the rain started coming down harder. Sideways, because the wind had picked up considerably. We stopped laughing.

But we still weren't too worried, because we knew another tram was due to come, any minute. Aaaaany minute, yeah. Well, any minute passed. In fact, quite a few minutes passed, and I for one started getting nervous. Brent and Alice and I huddled between a tree and a garbage can for shelter and a bit of warmth. My brother stood in the center of a small clearing not far away and almost got hit by lightning.

Thankfully right about then the tram arrived, because I had just decided that we were all going to walk back to the parking lot, even if it was a million miles away (which of course it wasn't, but it would have seemed like it in that horrible weather, trust me).

One of the first things I noticed when I got on the tram was the fact that other people were all wearing rain ponchos and waterproof clothes. As opposed to us, who just had our cotton t-shirts, shorts, etc., and looked like a bunch of drowned cats. Then I saw a sign on the tram that said September was monsoon season in the Canyon and to be prepared for changeable weather. Information that could have come in just slightly useful for us before we embarked on our little adventure. Finally, we all got a big kick out of a sign that showed a stick figure deer stomping on a stick figure man's head, as an illustration of why we shouldn't feed the wildlife. I guess the wildlife is not particularly grateful in the Canyon.

Our adventure did end on a good note, however, as the storm stopped and we were able to see a huge rainbow before we finally left the Grand Canyon behind.

On the way home in the car, we had a heated discussion about whether or not ants could live in space. We also tried to get the Supercar to catch air off of some crazy hills right by Lake Havasu. I think we succeeded.

Ah, those were the days...

Better

Ah, feeling much better today. At least I was until I went downstairs and was serenaded once again by Leo's awful shrieking. How I manage to keep from strangling that bird is beyond me. It's nothing short of miraculous, in fact, which must mean *gasp* there IS a God! Wow. Strange that He would care about an annoying creature like Leo though.

Then again, He puts up with me. (Poor God. I feel sorry for Him sometimes. He's got a bit of a job on His hands where I'm concerned, but He hasn't given up yet! Thankfully.)

Recently I read a fantastic book called The Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill. Since I don't really have anything else to write about today, I'm going to share a quote I liked:

For the God who calls Avraham [Abraham] to the Mountain Experience must no longer be seen merely as the "mountain god"...He is the God beyond the mountain, the unknowable God, whose purposes are hidden from human intelligence, who cannot be manipulated...

The God who called [Avraham] out into the wilderness and made impossible promises has begun to bring those promises to fulfillment. But this must not mean that, through this God, I can see the future and control what has not yet come to be. I control nothing. My task is to be as open to God as I am to my own child; to both I must say, "Here I am!"

"Be not afraid," counsels God to Avraham. Be not afraid of His presence in your life. But, paradoxically, be afraid of God's inexplicable omnipotence. For fear of this God, as the Psalmist will one day sing, "is the beginning of wisdom." And this unnamed mountain in the land of seeing is for Avraham the beginning of fear.

The "mountain experience" referred to in this quote is the call of God to Abraham to take his son Isaac up onto a mountain and sacrifice him there. It's one of the difficult, crazy, terrible, and wonderful stories in the Bible. Difficult because we don't understand how a loving God could ask a man to kill his son. Crazy because it seems, well, insane. Terrible because Abraham actually sets out to do it, and we think, how could he?? Wonderful because in the end God provides a substitute sacrifice. But still we cringe at the thought that God could demand something so extreme from a mere man.

But Cahill hits the nail on the head with his insightful remarks, and I hardly think I need to elaborate. I think the truth is there. God is not a genie to be manipulated. I never know WHAT He is up to, and sometimes that makes me more than a little nervous, I admit. Actually, it totally freaks me out. And yet somehow I am comforted in knowing that He is with me. Not that He promises that my life's journey will be easy and trouble-free, but that He walks with me in the troubled times. I can't make Him do what I want, but I know at some rock-bottom place in my soul that He loves me, and for that reason every sacrifice that He asks of me He will turn back into blessings that I couldn't have imagined beforehand. I hope someday I can truly get to that place where that understanding of His love is really all I care about. Then let the storm rage around me, but I will be at rest in the still point of a crazily turning world.

I had a thought the other day, that all of us think of ourselves as the center of our own universes, so it is no wonder that bad collisions happen when we are all concentrating on our own particular little orbits. Imagine if we all came into harmonious orbit around One Center of the universe--God. I think things would run a lot smoother, don't you?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.--Proverbs 3:5