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Facing the depravity of man…

I had my second to last session with Citizen’s Police Academy tonight, and honestly, if nothing else I feel like I’m steeped in the depravity of humans more than I really ever wanted to be. The criminal mind isn’t a pretty picture, and the people who have to deal with it on a regular basis are truly a special breed.

I think it finally hit me somewhere between the Westside Interagency Narcotics presentation and the Elder safe presentation that we, as human beings, are a really screwed up species. What causes a person to become so consumed with producing meth that they neglect their kids and expose them to those dangerous fumes? Why are some social groups normal people hanging out, and others vicious gangs? What would make a person take their father out to a racetrack in Idaho, drop him with fake personal information, and then go home to live off his pension and social security checks?

It’s great to see the agencies combating these things, but at the same time, they aren’t a total solution to the problem. The problem is bigger than law enforcement can take on alone, and we live in a time where the average citizen is either too ill informed to know how to help, or they don’t care. That’s a sad commentary on life as it is.

I really enjoyed the citizen’s police academy, but to a small extent, I think I’ve come away a little jaded by it…

  

Why scream when you can sing?

Friday night, Marcus and Lynette took us college and career class members to the scream at the beach, a series of four “haunted” (see: possessed by minimum-wage earning teenagers) in Jantzen Beach. Four ten dollars, you could scream all you want at the impish miscreants running around whose sole purpose is to elicit a reaction from you.

But where’s the fun in that?

No sir, I would not have had any fun screaming like a thirteen year old girl at an Aaron Carter concert, so instead, I made it my sole purpose in life to annoy the living daylights out of the poor fools trying to scare me. And, for the most part, I succeeded (Now, the only problem was, I annoyed my own group so much they made me walk home… Just kidding. =)

We started in the Pirate haunted house, where the demon buccaneers were waiting to steal our souls, or some such nonsense. I started out by getting yelled at for turning on a flashlight (It was dark, I couldn’t see, how was I supposed to know that was the point?). We wound up in Davy Jones waiting room, where I thanked God for not being claustrophobic because there was a wall that closed in on us. It stopped a safe distance away, then moved back to reveal a wall. With mock surprise, I cried out “Look guys, it’s a hall!”

The hall disappeared.

“…and it’s gone.”

The hall reappeared.

“…and it’s back.”

The hall disappeared again.

“Oh, COME ON! It’s either OPEN or CLOSED, MAKE UP YOUR MIND!” (And yes, I’m probably the only person you know who would get into a shouting match with a wall).

A little ways down the line, I had a midget approach me and say, “You look tasty.” I eyeballed him, then said “Thanks, you look like you could use a little Tabasco sauce yourself.”

Then there was “the wall”. I think he must’ve been practicing to be a soccer goalie, and he might be really good at it, too, but soccer balls aren’t threatening (or a foot taller than he is), so after trying to step around him for the third time, I said, “Look, I get it, I can’t get around you, but if you don’t move, I’m going to put you through a wall.” Strangely enough, he listened and moved. I also managed to sing a few rounds of rousing pirate anthems, like “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum” and “a pirates life for me”. I considered running around claiming to be Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate, but odds are I would’ve been the only person who knew what I was talking about.

Then it was on to the voodoo lady. When I wasn’t singing Christmas carols, I was telling the zombies to get a breath mint or asking, “Hey, didn’t I kill you in resident evil 4?” And one of the ladies took to doing whatever they did to her right back at them, which was amusing to see a zombie jump out and go “RAAAAAAAAAARRGH!” and have her just go “RAAAAAAAAAARGH!” back. If you’re ever trapped in some kind of zombie apocalypse, I think that’s just the right kind of crazy that’ll get you out alive. Or eaten alive. I always get the two mixed up…

Next was the Carn-Evil. It was like a Carnival, only evil.

Hey! It’s like a play on words! Carn. Evil. Kind of like carnival, only evil. I just got it!

Okay, not really, I’m not THAT slow (I figured that one out an hour ago…=D). During that, I sang selections from “The Sound of Music”. Oddly enough, while singing “How do you solve a problem like Maria”, I got to the line about finding a word that means Maria right around the time a psycho-clown popped out (How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!
).

Anyway, our final destination was the something-or-another spooky sounding Assylum for the Criminally Insane. At the door, I asked the lady letting us in, “Is the Joker in here, or did Batman have to go catch him again?”. During this one, I decided to opt for selections from the Wizard of Oz (C’mon, crazy movie with Munchkins, crazy house, it all ties together, right?). So halfway through some little demented peon asks “Why are you singing?”

“Cuz, it’s FUN!” I said enthusiastically.

“Well, you’re in my house now, and I don’t allow singing, so stop it.”

“Well, seeing as you can’t touch me, I’d like to see you stop me!” I then resumed into the chorus of “Somewere Over the Rainbow”, although Judy Garland I am not.

About halfway through, a group of us started singing “Follow the Yellowbrick Road”, at which point a scary looking woman said, “I don’t think you’re in Kansas anymore!” That led into my Wicked Witch of the West impression, which I admit that I scare me when I do it…

Soo, in conclusion…

Andrew: 132 (give or take), Underpaid High Schoolers: 0 (the psychopath jumping on the bed ALMOST got me, but since I didn’t knock his lights out, it doesn’t count).

  

Coming soon to a pulpit near you…

“And the Bible says in John 11:35, “Jesus Wept”. Now nowhere in this verse does it say why Jesus was crying, but surely it was because of something that Buddy did.”
~Me, telling Dave my idea for my first sermon for preaching class. (Buddy is his son)

  

Preparing to preach…

So after the first preaching class, I felt I should start preparing my first sermonette for the next class, which is next month. Now, it might seem odd to write a five minute sermon over the course of a month, but to quote my pastor, “You ought to try it sometime.”

It’s not that I don’t have the material, after praying about it I’ve decided to preach out of the book of Jonah. It’s not that there’s nothing to learn there, Jonah’s only a four chapter book in the bible. The problem, it seems, is that there’s too much material.

In 2nd Timothy 3:16, the Bible says that, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Essentially, someone can preach from just about any verse of the bible (Even “Jesus Wept”. Might be a short sermon, though. “And the Bible says, “Jesus Wept.” It does not say why in this verse, but it was probably something YOU did…”)

So take a whole book out of the Bible, and it multiplies the potential messages exponentially.

With Jonah, for example, we could talk about how Jonah is representative of a lot of modern Christians, when God tells them to do one thing they turn and run the exact opposite direction (a subject that would be ironic for me to preach on, since that’s the first thing I did when I felt called to preach). We can talk about how Jonah alludes to Christ coming to save both Jew and Gentile by Jonah’s preaching to the Ninevites (a Gentile city), or how his being in the belly of the whale three days and three nights is representative of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. There’s so much material to draw on.

So… A month until next class… I think it’ll be a long month. (But good all the same… =)

  

Another quote of the day… And it’s not from me!

“I told your grandmother that you were helping out Marcus with the teen boys’ activity, and she said “Next thing you know, he’ll be lining up to preach!” I didn’t tell her where you were this morning.”
~My mother, after I got out of preaching class Saturday morning.

  

Quote of the day!

Pastor Lindsey: …be thankful we live today, and not in Ancient Rome. Would you be very popular with your neighbors in Rome?
Me: (whispering to mom) Well, if your neighbor was a lion…

  

New addition to deviantart…


Create by ~Lainey2k1 on deviantART

Spent some time on that this evening.

  

Well, isn’t this interesting…

Okay, so at church I’m signed up for the preaching class starting this Saturday. I’m excited about it, and we even had a meeting today after the service about it.

Class Starts Saturday, right?

Right.

I have homework due Thursday.

Funny how that works. =)

  

Just a quick note…

I love my job. I haven’t even started the actual work, and I already love my job. I wish they would throw me on the floor and give me the grouchiest agent known to man, just so I could prove how much I love my job. I. LOVE. MY. JOB.

Also, please, please, PLEASE, if anyone knows anyone looking to buy an Akai X-360D Reel-to-Reel tape recorder (or two) for a ridiculous sum of money (at least 250 apiece), let me know. I just got two from my sister’s in-laws and I’m looking to sell them. :P

  

Citizen’s Police Academy quote of the day…

“People ask me, ‘Chaplain, why do you carry a gun?’, and I tell them, ‘Because there’s a lot of people out there, and some of them aren’t going to heaven.’”