Imperfect Pictures (Originally Written December 2009)

 In case you were wondering my new apartment is divine. :)

Granted, there are no shirtless military men running around outside for me to gawk at like when I lived in San Antonio (right off the air force base) but then again I couldn't stand on my balcony in a sweatshirt and take in the snowy surroundings by night while sipping hot cocoa when I lived there... I'm thinking, rippling pecs galore aside, it's been a definite trade up. :)

I'm finally getting settled in here too. It's happened all so much faster than when I made the move from Austin to San Antonio this time last year. I never did really feel at home there, come to think of it.

Salina is slow, sleepy, and Norman Rockwellesque. :) It's been kind to me as I've come down off the whirlwind of events that led me here (which began with an unexpected job offer from the regional hospital in town to come and work in their sleep disorders center).

Yep, things happen (across the board!) much slower in Kansas. :)

Case in point, no sooner had I had the Cox Communications people up to the apartment to install cable and internet then the lamp on the bigscreen went out. :(

I got in an episode of the Colbert Report and Tabitha's Salon Takeover and then... ka-put.

I promptly called the store in Texas I purchased the thing from and they assured it me it was still under warranty. They gave me the number to their local affiliate and I had to chuckle when the salesgirl there quoted me "five to ten business days" before they'd have the parts in to repair it!

With TV not at my disposal I have been making a lot of calls home. I'm newly back in state after a three year absence, I've got a nephew on the way, it's the holiday season - there's a lot to talk about with family right now!

My Mom is always up for a chat and the day the TV went out was no exception. She and I had recently just returned from DisneyWorld and were still having fun recalling the different aspects of our trip.

While we were there I auditioned for "The American Idol Experience" at Disney Studios. It's a show the park runs several times a day in which three of that day's park guests get to perform song snippets on a replica of the American Idol Stage for a chance to win an audition for the REAL show.

Mom was so proud I'd been picked. I sang "Drops Of Jupiter" by Train in front of about 500 people; didn't "win" but it was still one of the most memorable parts of the trip. :)

Before I took the stage I tried to give Mom a quick crash course on how to use my cell phone's camera to snap pictures (she was still fuming that TSA had confiscated the disposable WalGreen's cameras she'd bought out of her checked baggage - lol).

Mom tried but really only got a handful of pics of me performing my ditty that were of any real quality...

I sipped cocoa on the balcony and laughed as we recalled it together and suddenly my phone alerted me I had another call coming in.

This one was from the kid brother. I let Mom go and answered, eager to get an update on how soon I could expect to be an uncle.

"Hey," Neal said, "We just got out of the doctor's."

"So, what's the news?" I asked, stepping back indoors to retrieve some more marshmallows for my Swiss Miss.

I heard Alicia start laughing as Neal continued.

"What's she laughing at?" I asked, cracking a smile.

"She thinks it's so funny that for the last couple days we thought the baby was still breech and really he'd flipped around..."

I thought this over for a minute before admitting, "I don't get it. Explain, please."

I could almost see Neal's eyes rolling as he continued.

"A couple of nights ago I told Alicia I wanted to start singing the baby a lullaby before we went to bed. So for about a week I've been resting my head on her rib cage to sing so that it'd be by the baby's ears. Well, after the doctor told us the baby had flipped Alicia realized that..."

My sister in law suddenly came to life in the background and cut my brother off, "He's been singing to the baby's butt!"

Alicia and I laughed for about five minutes while Neal held the phone in silence. :) And then laughter broke out anew when Alicia relayed Neal had been going on and on about how after he'd sung his nightly lullabies to the kiddo he'd felt the area around Alicia's ribs and hypothesized the baby had a head just like his!

I hung up the phone, crashed on the couch, and laughed for about five more minutes before looking at the big screen in the corner again with disdain.

A little light blinked on the bottom of the unit. Underneath it read the word "Picture".

I still can't believe it's going to take so long for the repair people to get out here to fix said 'picture'.

But thinking about the conversations I've had with loved ones this holiday season I guess it's just in keeping with a theme.

A skewed picture, as a rule, generally takes a long time to address.

I don't know how long we waited for the pics from that Disney trip to be developed (only to realize that Disney World has to be EXPERIENCED because the pictures you take never do it justice!)....

...or how long my kid brother was singing to his baby's ass before a sonogram revealed it. lol.

...or how long I went looking at shirtless military men out my apartment window never realizing the sight of fresh snow weighing down the branches of every evergreen in sight was an infinitely more beautiful portrait.

When you look at a misrepresentation for a long time it can be embarrassing to admit it once you see things for how they really are.

But if you power through the shame you feel for having been looking at things the wrong way for so long you're always rewarded!

Seeing things the correct way for the first time is always just as exhilarating as it is humbling.

That's something I realized in the aftermath of another family conversation I had after my move to Salina.

I don't mean to paint my Dad as the one member of the family who is disagreeable. That's not the case. I can be plenty disagreeable too, believe me! :)

But he and I lock horns pretty regularly over the topic of the inerrancy of Scripture.

I've had a breakthrough this winter season in my new apartment sipping my cocoa. :)

Really, it's just been that for the first time I'm able to put words to something I've been on my way to believing all along.

And no one else has to agree with this - this is merely documentation of conclusions *I'm* drawing in my time alone with God.

For me, if we're talking about forcing oneself to believe that the Zondervan Bible my friend Kevin gifted me before I went to Bible College in 2002 is 'the inerrant word of God'... well, I'm done trying.

Because the truth is it's a copy of a copy of a copy that's undergone several language translations and maybe even in it's original form didn't include all the things it should've or could've.

There are gospels authored by Jesus' siblings and mother that I've no reason to believe are any less authentic or inspired & that didn't make it into 'the final draft'.

A Bible scholar friend even told me recently that Martin Luther (one of the founding fathers of the modern Christian faith!) even went on record as saying that the book of Revelation was included as Scriptural texts primarily because the council that drafted our modern day Bibles didn't fully understand it and were afraid to leave something with so much uninterpreted imagery out!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

Yet given all that - 2000 + years after the fact we're still trying to incorporate every jot and title that *was* passed down to us into our modern lives.

I think God is probably honored by those attempts but I also, as of late, have to stop and wonder if He questions why we insist on looking at THAT as our illustration of choice of His innerant Word.

See, I believe God's Word very much IS inerrant... but I don't believe it to exist between the front and back covers of my Zondervan anymore... at least not entirely because, well, in my opinion it never did.

I sip my cocoa and I suggest ever so boldly that the 'inerrant Word of God' as it exists in its entirety abides only in Christ.

The Gospel of John begins...

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Christ is the inerrant Word of God. It exists without error only in Him.

And for me, anything else is just a skewed picture... something I think I see as I should but really don't.

You know, I don't care if it *does* take five to ten business days for Aaron's to get over here and install the parts needed to revive my bigscreen...

The view off the balcony is a whole lot better...

And once you've seen the big, bright, snow covered 'bigger picture' everything else just looks like a cheap dimestore postcard anyway.

As we close out 2009 and get set to sail into 2010 let's all take some time to take in a view of the real world outside our windows...

...and remember, that Swiss Miss is going to need topped off with more marshmallows than what you think it needs. :)

Crosses & Window Seats (Easter & Birthday Blog 2022)

Sun, Apr 10 at 4:37 AM

I’ve been in Nebraska for a week….
 
This is what I do now. 
 
I travel to remote regions to run sleep studies (a business I’ve been in since 2006) as dispatched by a company who negotiates where and when my services are most needed across Kansas (with the occasional trip across state lines to Nebraska or EVENTUALLY Colorado). 
 
Some of the hospitals I’ve been dispatched to are itty bitty.
 
Some are HUGE!
 
As someone whose employment status is now -for tax purposes -categorized as a sole proprietor of my own business, I recently had to come up with a name for my new LLC.
 
If you’ve known me for any length of time whatsoever, lol, you are well aware of how much I love wordplay so this task was one I was prepared to relish. 
 
I am, after all, someone who likes to play on ALL the triple word score spaces in a game of Scrabble.  And you best believe that when I do?  I’m trying to play at least a six letter word on those bad boys with either a “Z”, “X” or “Q” tile. 

 
You also know that I adore a good metaphor.  Especially one that has Biblical ties.  And even moreso one that has an OBSCURE Biblical tie! 
 
Jesus is my Savior for many reasons and one of the things I adore about Him most is His articulate parables. 
 
I often fail to love people the way that He did… or minister to them like He did… or hold my tongue like He did.  Lol
 
But the Messiah and I find common ground in our love for rich symbolism. 
 
It is what I often find equates to oxygen for my soul to breathe.  J
 
Biblical literalism, in contrast, bores me and even aggravates me a little bit sometimes…  Like, a visit to the Ark Experience to see a recreation of Noah’s boat?  Um, ok, if you really want to… I’m game, I guess.

But wouldn’t it be a **thousand** times more stimulating to try to figure out the ways that that story could’ve happened exactly the way the Bible says it did BUT on a subatomic level?  With all the main characters representing various phases of an ongoing Creation process that had been in progress since the Adam and Eve story in the first chapter of Genesis??? 

 

Anyway, that’s all for another blog (where we can also talk about Ezekiel, time travel and UFO’s).  J 
 
But for NOW - the metaphor I intend to author today is one to mark this season of life I find myself in professionally. 
 
See, I knew what I wanted to call my new business after only a few hours of consideration!
 
It was a name that just kind of came to me and settled down in my spirit like a butterfly landing on your hand while you sit on a porch swing in spring. 
 

I didn’t question it when it came up.
 
I accepted it almost as quickly as it came home to roost in my weary, sleep disorders technician's brain. 
 
And I’ve been picking it apart ever since because – again – Nick loves when links to rich metaphors and the biblically obscure present themselves.
 
The name of my one man traveling sleep disorders laboratory service is… EutychusWindow.  J
 
Why, “EutychusWindow”?
 
Well… to be honest?  I’ve been asking myself the same thing! 
 
I know the story of Eutychus – it’s in Acts 20 if you want to check it out. 
 
And I think that initially it just seemed like kind of a nod to one of the few Bible stories that incorporates a potential sleep disorder plotline.
 
My internal monologue became one of, “Oh, that’d be cute!  I should name my sleep disorders business after a guy who was probably the New Testament’s token narcoleptic!”

 

But as I sat with it and meditated on it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to the name; a reason why God had kind of just dropped it into my subconscious all of a sudden… why He’d let it loudly clank and finally settle like quarters dropped unexpectedly into a piggy bank. 
 
Because it wasn’t just a reference to Eutychus that I’d settled on for a business name… it was specifically to the window where he’d perched up on the third floor of a meeting room to listen to the Apostle Paul (one of my least favorite Bible characters, btw) preach a sermon. 
 
There had to be something to that.  Something God wanted to remind me of.  Something God wanted to remind my patients of… and the doctors and colleagues I’d encounter along the way!  Something that he wanted them to be reminded of, too, now that this new business had taken shape. 
 
But what was it? 
 
How was the image of Eutychus falling asleep specifically in a window supposed to be informing me as I started to frame a business model and philosophy?
 
This was going to take some thinking!
 
Ugh, “thinking”.
 
I’m kind of over it, to be honest.  Lol.
 
I have a birthday coming up.

#41. 

 

I used to spend birthdays being very quiet and reflective and introspective… sometimes to the point of just walling myself off in a locked bedroom somewhere to pray and cry and (in all seriousness) worship God with my tears. 
 
To thank Him for giving my pathetic self another undeserved trip around the sun… to thank Him for loving me and the mess that follows in my wake everywhere that I go.  Lol
 
I know what you’re thinking – what a party animal! 
 
It bummed my hubs out hardcore the first time he ever watched me process a birthday.  Lol!
 
But see? Spiritual clarity used to WITHOUT FAIL be the result of those hours spent processing emotion in my youth.
 
It was on my 24^th birthday that I first authored a blog and outed myself as a gay Christian (online!) and that decision to do that???
 
It came after a very intense night of just me and God, alone on a futon in my dorm room at Bible college pulling an all night, Birthday Eve therapy sesh.  Lol

 

And after that?
 
Well, spiritual clarity became the thing at the top of my birthday wish list every year!
 
And for a solid decade or so I got my wish granted… from age 24 to approximately age 31, I blogged religiously on my birthday!  And ALWAYS following an intense time spent alone with my Creator; talking and praying.  J
 
My ability to focus was something I could harness and direct and dedicate myself to applying to that exercise every year.
 
But on the brink of Birthday #41???
 
Kids, listen. 
 
Lol.
 
It. Has. Become. Damned. Near. Impossible. To. Stay. Focused. On. Anything.

 

Whereas I used to crave the chance to take a deep, spiritual inventory on my birthday every year and wring every reflective thought out of the folds of my brain, I **NOW** find myself thinking that what I’d like most to do on my birthday this year is to go eat a steak and baked potato at Outback and then go see the new Bob’s Burgers movie (see trailer at end of blog - doesn't it look GREAT?).  LOL!
 
I’m not kidding!  That is what I have become!!
 
My mind wanders down approximately 4,398 different rabbit trails a day. 
 
I have never known the degree of cognitive dissonance, lol, that I know after having lived through ALL the things I’ve lived through this last decade.
 
The 2012 Mayan Calendar Prophecy.
 
The Take Over of GCN by self proclaimed(!) "queer", online progressive trolls.
 
Meeting the love of my life and marrying him – the one thing on this list that while, yes, may have contributed to my brain power being more difficult to utilize was THE BEST thing that ever happened to me.  I sometimes think that being “lovestruck” isn’t authentic unless it makes you more stupid.  Lol!  A part of my brain decided to permanently go on vacation when I met Zach.  I think it just decided that “…this is him.  He will be able to take over a sizable portion of your mental workload.  Let him do it!” And I did!  Lol.  And I liked it ß #insidejoke

...back to the list, lol...

 
Blood Moons.
 
Ebola.
 
The Trump presidency.
 
Covid.
 
Dr. Anthony Fauci and the global “social distance” experiment.
 
Joe Biden winning the DNC nomination – I still don’t understand.  I will never understand.  No part of it makes ANY sense!
 
And those are just some of the things from the highlight reel!
 

So feeling the old, familiar invitation to reflect and process things on my birthday and then write a big blog regurgitating it all for anybody actually bored enough to read about it???

Ugh.
 
But I just can’t shake it.
 
There’s something about Eutychus and his window that’s supposed to inform how I live the rest of my 40s.
 

And I think I started to unlock it all tonight while riding the elevator in this big hospital in Nebraska. 

As previously stated, lol, cognition and focus are declining for me as I inch ever further into my fifth decade of being alive.

Anything that takes even a TIDBIT of extra thought or energy to figure out beyond what I'm used to?

Yeah.  I instantaneously hate it and declare war on it within my soul.  LOL!

For instance, the cat litter brand I have always bought for Pipsqueak?  They recently changed the design of the bag so now there is a different mechanism in place to open it and access the litter.

I was so angry at this that I considered writing to the president of the company to gripe.  Lolololol... Seriously, though, when it's time to change the litter box, I do not want to first have to complete a Chinese concentration puzzle just so I can give my cat a fresh place to perform her number twos.  

It's just not something I desire to have on my agenda.  

If something has always been reliable and simple, I find that I need it to stay that way in order to preserve my sanity.  

And if it can't maintain it's user-friendliness, I'll just avoid using it!  👈 Remember that truth for later illustrative purposes - 😉

Now every now and then, I find there just isn't a work around and I am FORCED to use something that irritates me.

Cue the elevator bank in the Nebraska hospital I've been referencing. Lol

The addition of an extra set of doors to a standard elevator set up - it turns out - makes Nick's delicate and easily distracted brain go full on haywire.  Lol

As it turns out, I need my elevators to only have ONE set of doors.

I've discovered if I board an elevator and if INSTEAD of a back wall there is an additional set of double doors?  

I become Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.  

Where are we going?  Where have we been?  What dimension is this?  

On that elevator, as a new employee - I just simply do not know the answers to these questions.

All I know is that there are people entering to my left and my right all onboarding through different doors and exiting through different doors and I cannot stay focused enough to stay oriented.  

So when I arrive to the floor that I'm supposed to be on?  

I may forget to exit the elevator entirely!  Lol

Or, at the very least, forget which door I'm supposed to go out of.

Or, most likely, exit on the wrong side of the damned thing and then have to walk around to the correct side of the corridor once I've figured out where I am in relation to where I need to be!

And there isn't a work around that will permit me to avoid using the thing!

And even if there was?  I'm responsible for transporting people up to this third floor laboratory who are oftentimes older and wheel chair bound... meaning stairs are a no-go.  

I'm sure I'll get it eventually, lol.

But when you're also trying to devote brain power to remembering new email log in information, new phone extensions and who picks up on the receiving end of each and new coworkers and their names?

It's not exactly a welcome additional challenge to my life right now.  Lol!

And it was while contemplating this elevator scenario that I realized how Eutychus and his window are supposed to be informing and shaping my business model.  

When I'm in that elevator, I have no outside perspective to keep me oriented... no view of my surroundings to ground me and help me remember what I'm doing and the business that I am to be about.  

I lose sight of the outside and I lose sight of everything.  

The more that I mull that over, the more I think I understand what God is wanting me to take away from the object lesson He is presenting me with His guidance to consider Eutychus' window.

Maybe Eutychus had to sit in that window to keep his perspective.

Maybe the idea of the resurrected Jesus that the Apostle Paul was preaching about was too exciting to miss out on but after that first time attending his local church and listening to the long winded preacher?

Maybe Eutychus realized that while the idea of a resurrected Jesus had the potential to transform the outside world he lived in that this thing Paul was helping to build and establish?  

It was ok and all - but it didn't do much to keep him oriented and focused on the people OUTSIDE the confines of the sanctuary.

Maybe Eutychus felt like going into the confines of a sanctuary disoriented him and distracted him from his overall mission the same way I feel disoriented and distracted stepping into the elevator at the Nebraska hospital where I'm picking up shifts.  

I mean, Eutychus!  Pal, I get it.  

I haven't felt well oriented while in a church sanctuary in a long time either!

I walk into them and I feel like "These people and their strange combination of faith and politics are supposed to be my siblings in the faith?  We're supposed to be aligned in our mission to love one another?  I'm not sure we could even agree on a restaurant to have lunch in, let alone the best method for reaching the world with the message of Jesus..."

And it's discouraging.

And so maybe that's what Eutychus was feeling when he infamously started to choose sitting in a window over sitting in a pew.

Maybe he wanted his ears to be hearing Paul speak of Jesus while looking out at the world Jesus died to save.  

So as not to get distracted from the original excitement that brought him into the church in the first place... 

So as not to become like the closed off people he had been so disappointed to encounter and realize were the closest thing he had to "teammates".

Maybe that's the degree of **perspective** that I am supposed to be trying to incorporate into my professional life as I begin this new chapter.

"Keep yourself stationed somewhere, Nick, where you have eyes on the ground... don't ever turn inward and, in so doing, lose your ability to remain on task.  Keep your perspective and keep the outside in view!" says Eutychus from his window perch.  😊

Of course, I'm also likely supposed to be mindful of the occupational hazards involved with being a "window dweller" in the Church of Healthcare.  Lol

Eutychus didn't STAY in the window, after all.

Read Acts 20 again.

Boyfriend done fell **OUT** the window.  Lol!

And he died!!!

Luckily that pastor (Paul) who he perhaps didn't always feel like he shared the same vision as or worship the same Jesus as?

Yeah, turns out, he did.

And Paul was able to access shared faith in a shared Messiah and raise Eutychus from the dead to dwell in his window seat another day 👈 ...there's an entire additional blog to be written about the importance of not discrediting one's teammates or doubting the authenticity of each other's Christianity just because it looks different from one's own - but we only have so much time today.  Lol.

The lesson for today's purpose is that while you're keeping yourself busy staying focused on the people you've been inspired to practice servanthood towards, don't forget to take care of yourself.

Eutychus, in his zeal, may have worn himself out.

And as a result, he fell asleep while stationed in the place God had for him to occupy and it cost him his life.

I certainly don't want to repeat that mistake.

My nephews and niece recently lost a young uncle in a car wreck on their mom's side of the family.

I don't want to risk putting them through another loss like that anytime soon.

So as I begin another decade of staying up overnight and making my living watching other people sleep, lol, I have to remember to take the necessary time to rest myself also.

I have to remember to make the choice to eat healthy when and where I can - even when the easiest option may be to hit a drive through and even though opting for salads doesn't ever seem to get me to the ideal body weight I desire.  Lol.

I have to remember that in addition to new email addresses, passwords and coworker names I need to remember to take my blood pressure meds everyday... and stay conscious of when I'm getting stressed and am at high risk for a surprise panic attack so that the little pills I take on an as needed basis for anxiety can be properly utilized.

Avoid falling OUT the window, Nick!  Utilize the vantage point that it provides but DON'T fall out the damn thing and die.  Lol.

And if you do?

Well, Paul's not the ideal person that I'd have come to my rescue but any authentic brother in the faith should be able to help me get back up and back to it.  

So don't be afraid to let people come to your rescue when you need them to.  

When you need resurrected.

That's what the holiday we are celebrating today - Easter - is all about, after all.  

God kicking death to the curb.

God proclaiming once and for all that the end of life isn't the definitive end to everything.

Belief is available!

Belief in a man who somehow was MORE than a man... Who sat in His own window seat of sorts and looked out at all the lost and lonely people populating the world He created and had compassion on them like a Shepherd discovering a group of shepherdless sheep.  

Belief that His greatest accomplishment is available to be our accomplishment too...

Obedience.  

When we give ourselves to obedience the way that Jesus did... and let it take us all the way to its inevitable, ugly and violent end the way that it did for Him... 

That's where we find fulfillment.

That's where life's purpose lies.

Be it a cross or a window seat, obedience will provide you the worthwhile view you crave in your soul.  

And He will help you acquire the strength to be obedient if you ask Him to do so.

Because He's still alive today and He takes special requests from the people He loved enough to die for.  😊

I said that part of this new job was taking shifts running sleep studies in both big hospitals and small.

Well, one of the smaller hospitals I've found myself working in is in a little town - even smaller than Kingman, where I live! 

There are no big chain hotels there like the Hampton Inn I get to stay in when I work at the big hospital in Nebraska.

Instead, I found this old church building from the late 1800s (early 1900s?) that has been converted into an AirBnB.  

https://www.facebook.com/SanctuaryGuestHouseKS

It is such a peaceful respite for recovering from shifts spent counting the number of times people stop breathing in and hour and then devoting myself to fixing it in the hours leading up to dawn everyday.  

I find that even though it has two beautiful bedrooms to choose from that my favorite place to sleep while I'm there is in the big open room that was probably once the church's sanctuary.

Like I said earlier, I don't particularly always feel "at home" when I visit an active church sanctuary these days.

Remember what I said earlier about how I tend to transition away from things that aren't intrinsically "user friendly".

Well, that's something that right or wrong I've allowed to happen with church sanctuaries.  

As a rule, they stress me out and invite me to relive some spiritual trauma that I'm not the most at peace with.

But here?  In THIS "sanctuary"?  

I sprawl out on a couch where there probably used to be a church pew and I sleep the day away...I let my body recover from a 12 or 13 hour shift before I have to go back and do it all again the next evening.  

I even found a window there to pose in front of as I try to make a complete metamorphosis to Eutychus.  😊

I snapped this picture before I left this week so I could occasionally look at it and remember the new business model I'm trying to succeed at incorporating... and the vision to keep others and the world they live in as my 'true north'... and my promise to take care of this aging body even as I venture out and do new things and take on new challenges.  

Hopefully, it's a reminder to any of you who have been so kind as to read all the way to the end of this entry for YOU to stay focused on whatever God is taking YOU through right now in our crazy, distracted post pandemic world.

To find your window with a view of the people and things He's called you to keep atop your list of important priorities.

And to love with a love that's only accessible through a resurrected Jesus Who will empower you if you submit to Him and take care of yourself well enough to take care of others.

Because as I always say, "He's bigger than you... He's stronger than you... He's smarter than you... and if you ask Him to live in your heart, you can know He will be there forever."

Happy Easter from the window seat, everyone.  😉

**OH!  ...as promised, here's the Bob's Burgers movie trailer - 

"DON'T RUB MY SESAME SEEDS OFF!"  Lololololololol!!!!