Kids...

 

Kids just blow me away. They're so honest, and innocent, and seem to naturally care about others. Maybe that's why Jesus suggested we should all be more like kids. 

I didn't make it to church Sunday night. I was wiped out, to put it mildly. But Brian came home carrying this little "Belle" bank with a look on his face that told me it wasn't just any "Belle" bank. One of the little girls in our church collected her money in this bank and then gave it to use to help the kids on the reservation. Its not the first time this little one has done this.

And I'm touched. But I'm not surprised. This little girl has a mommy and daddy that have lived out the principal of being generous and caring about other people in front of her every day of her life. To her, I'm sure it's just "what people do". Simple. Not easy, giving rarely is, but its what you do when you care.

Her mommy knows something about that. Her mommy is from another country and grew up in poverty. Someone in America sponsored her so she could get an education. Now she's in America, married with kids and she's teaching her three to reach out to those in need.

When the Music Stops

I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. I love it because all my work is over.

And I hate it because its all over.

True, my work is done. No more need for long days and sleepless nights.

True, I can rest and do some things I enjoy.

 But there is also the feeling that everyone has left the room and the music has stopped and its just me left with an empty room. There's a bit of sadness because I've met new people that I like and wonder if I'll see them again. And there is time. Time to do ... what??

Boredom is not a good thing for me. I don't deal with it well. At all. It may not be healthy to "keep drinking that coffee and keep going" like my friend says I do, but its a lot healthier for me than dealing with boredom.

This time last year I crashed. Hard.  So, I've taken some steps this year to deal with boredom.

I have things to do.  Of course, I'm still not completely done with REZonate.  There are still thank you notes to be written and "gift in kind" forms to fill out and file, and there is still that pile of junk about my house that I need to move to storage.

Next weekend I head to Chicago and in October I'll be skydiving!  And at some point I have bathroom wallpaper that needs to be stripped off.  Whoever thought that gluing paper to a wall was a good idea??  So, I do have things to do ... I guess I just don't like goodbyes.

You Can Learn A Lot By Reading A Gate

Gate

Sometimes what you need is a good gate. 

The text on the is very famous gate reads:

Everything You Know is Wrong

In the service of God one can learn three things from a child and seven from a thief. 

From a child one can learn 

1. always be happy 
2. never to sit idle 
3. and cry for everything one wants. 

From a thief you should learn 

1.  to work at night 
2.  if one cannot gain it in one night to try again the next night
3. to love one's co-workers just as thieves love each other 
4.  to be willing to risk one's life even for a little thing
5.  not to attach too much value to things even though you've risked your life for them just as a thief will resell a stolen article for a fraction of its worth 
6. to withstand all kinds of beatings and tortures but to remain what you are and 
7. to believe that your work is worthwhile and not be willing to change it.

Anybody want to guess who's gate this is??? 

Sometimes Sandbaggers Win

In a Demolition Derby, sandbagging is avoiding contact with other cars and refusing to be aggressive. They may pretend to have mechanical problems until the last two or three cars are running then their car will start running just fine and they become more aggressive.

 A sandbagger is the low-life of the derby. Nobody likes a sandbagger because they don't really play fair. If you have good officials and judges, they will be disqualified (get their stick broken) but if not, sometimes the sandbagger wins. Its disturbing when that happens because somewhere deep inside all of us, we want things to be fair. 

Life itself isn't very fair so maybe that's why we want our games to be. Maybe that's why we scream and shout and loose our voices when the officials fail to keep things on the up and up.

You guessed it, we went to the demolition derby at the county fair last night. It wasn't the best derby I've seen but it was fun to hang with the family doing a typical redneck thing for a while. Besides, the lemonade was fantastic. The lemonade and the horses are always worth the trip to the fair for me.

Maybe there is something to that... when sandbaggers win and life isn't fair, look for the small pleasures because those are really the moments that matter.

Trying To Get My Groove Back

Warning: This is a vent and a very negative post. I'll get my groove back ... eventually and will be back to posting all the excitement and such but for now, I'm going to grouch.

I'll admit it, I'm in a funk. It has rained and rained, and then rained some more. And its downright chilly for July. It's definitely a pj's and grubby robe kind of night. 

But its not the weather that is bugging me. Frankly, I'm not sure what's bugging me, but whatever it is, its getting the better of me. At a time when I should feel fulfilled and blessed and happy, I'm disgruntled, discontent and depressed. At a time when I should be busy getting ready for a day of music and Harley's, I'd much prefer to crawl onto the couch with a big cozy quilt and watch garbage TV.

Part of this attitude is due to people. People are difficult to work with. People tend to put themselves first regardless of whether its all about them or not. People don't return calls. People assume the worst about you without bothering to check it out. People are rude. People are, well, people.

Part of it is just "stuff" too. Stuff that wears me out. I came home from the Rez to find my house trashed by a dog that went into a full blown doggie panic attack, and a son that enlisted in the Army . 

We've had 3 bands drop out of Rezonate. The guy in charge of getting food vendors for REZonate tells me that we only have 2 - none of the others are returning phone calls. Thank God for Papa Johns Pizza who is not only on board, but have paid their fees and are even putting fliers on all their pizza boxes for us. Makes me want to order a pizza just to support them. 

Oh, and the contact person at the venue we are having Rezonate at is on leave with no return date.

So I'm trying to book some bands. And I've got to tell ya, I'm really tired of people who think they are God's gift to the world because they have a guitar and can sing. I run into that a lot. Way too much really. There can't be that many "stars" out there that I've never even heard of. 

So much for bands. Today I'm trying to buy some school supplies today ... and its not working out so well. My Jeep is not running which slows things down big time. While its being fixed I thought I shop online to see if I can find any good deals. And I ran into a snag there too. Seems that a big name office supply store wants me to fax them a tax ID certificate before they'll take off the tax. My tax ID number isn't good enough all by itself. Nope, they want me to fax them what amounts to a blank form that I write my tax ID number on. Make sense? Not to me. Just more red tape. Just more aggravation. Just more for me to fiddle with because I'm not willing to pay $25 tax. That would buy a lot of folders or notebooks. Nope, I'll jump through the hoops and maybe I'll even find a better deal somewhere else in the meantime.

All of that is do-able. Its really just par for the course. Things like that happen anytime you attempt to do anything. I'm not really worried about it because I've been around long enough to know it'll all work out. Its just that I'm tired and I really don't want to do any of it.

OK, I should probably end this on a better note because reading over it I make myself sick. So on a good note, I'm enjoying learning some photography. I'm not good at it, but I'm having fun learning and it was kinda cool yesterday when I went in to pick up some prints I ordered, gave them my name and they said, "OH, the really pretty pictures! We were all talking about them this morning." OK, that was nice.

Sometimes the Light Breaks Through

Today my friends Michelle  and Sherri hosted a shower for Melda, an elderly lady on the Rez that we are building a new kitchen for.   I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I can tell you that I was not expecting what happened. 

I knew there would be lots of gifts for Melda. That's a given. The people at our church love to do stuff like that. Show 'em a need and tell 'em how they can love somebody and they're all over it. But what happened today was something beyond just the gifts.

The women who showed up seemed genuinely interested in hearing about Melda. Today I went to the shower not expecting to say a whole lot. Sometimes I feel like everyone is tired of hearing me talk about Pine Ridge. Sometimes I get tired of talking about it. And sometimes, usually this time of year when I'm overly tired and overly stressed, I get all out of sorts and wonder if anyone cares. I even wonder if I care on really bad days. But today from the moment I walked in, these ladies had question after question. They seemed to really want to know about Melda and what life is like on the Reservation.

I guess I've never really had a chance to talk about it a lot at church. When we get home from the trip we do a short presentation, but that is mostly sharing about our trip and what happened during that time. I don't believe I've ever just addressed "Life on the Rez". I feel like I talk about stats and the like all the time but not ever at church. I have wished for time ... sometime... to share about some of the really cool stories I have. Stories about how God has moved at a given time. But there never seems to be time. Maybe one day....

So anyway, today while I was feeling all stressed out and exhausted and not really caring a whole heck of a lot, I was surprised to find that people cared. They even watched a couple of videos I've put together about the Rez and talked about the injustice and laughed at the fun stuff. Amazing. And at some point in the middle of all of that, I felt it ... the joy of knowing that in 12 days I'll be on the Rez again ... the joy of knowing that what we do does in fact make a difference ... and knowing that it also makes a difference in the lives of those here at home.

Sometimes the light breaks through. I took the pic above last week at my son's softball game. It pretty much says how I feel about today. 

Its Not Fair!

I've said many times that I've learned that any time you attempt to "do something" that will have a positive impact on the lives of other people, that some people will bless you and some will curse you. I've also said that I try not to pay too much attention to either but just try to keep moving along doing what I believe I'm supposed to be doing. As I've attempted Pine Ridge trips and REZonate this year, I've received both blessing and cursing from people. This was without a doubt the worst year for me personally for the Pine Ridge trips. I won't say more than that, but believe me it was not an experience I would wish on anybody. I don't mean the trip itself but rather the ... well, enough said.

Then REZonate came along and, well ... it just isn't fair. I get the front page of 2 local newspapers. I get to be on the radio. I get the bands attention and the applause and the credit and the glory. Meanwhile, there is a whole crew of people who are knocking themselves out to make the event happen and they never get a single mention. No one is aware of what they do or the sacrifices they make.

After a long week of working to put it all together, Dennis then turned around and worked until 2 am after the event was over to get the sound put back together at church. 

Jess got a call that her husband was being moved to ICU and left the event to go be with him - and then came back to work the rest of the event.

 Brody took time off work during a very busy time to make sure equipment was there when it was needed. 

Jeff and Scot put in hours of work to make the bike ride happen and they did an excellent job! Organizing a bike ride is no small task - its at least as complicated as doing the concert itself. 

Paula put in countless hours sending out press releases and contacting media.

Whitlock had a rather aggravating job of finding food vendors and getting them to commit. Then he worked sound a good part of the day as well. Brian puts hours of work in keeping records and lets a big portion of his house be taken over with "Pine Ridge stuff" all year. 

Tim made contacts and acted as the on site electronics wizard and photographer. 

The Hopewell Church of God allowed us to use tables and chairs and tents and then sent us a crew of volunteers to work most of the day. 

Ericka, Bailey, Logan, Josh, Brian, and probably some I'm missing were there from 7am - after it was all torn down that night. 

One man who wants to be anonymous dug deep to put in $2000 of his own money toward the stage rental and then came and worked all day. 

Brenda and Pam worked all day making sure the band members and bikers were well fed and had all the water they needed. 

Cathy and Charles worked all day manning the booth and doing security. 

And that's just the beginning. There are more ... many more. Not a bit of this would happen without those volunteers and all the others who came and gave all they could with no recognition at all. 

I know they don't do it for recognition. None of us do. Just wish I didn't get any either. It's not fair. It's really not