Funkyjimmer's Blog

Saturday, July 31, 2004

BIG WORDS = BIG TROUBLE

Last March I developed an annoying condition in my right eye. It is called Posterior Vitreous Detachment. This occurs when the vitreous humor of the eye contracts or shrinks and eventually separates from the retina. It doesn’t usually manifest itself in people until they are in their 80’s or 90’s. However, it usually happens earlier in life to those who are near-sighted. And I have always been extremely near-sighted.

The symptoms are a lot of black “floaters” in front of the eye. A more serious indication of the problem is when you see brilliant flashes of light. I have had both of these symptoms in my right eye since last March. I have been to the eye doctor several times since then. It had gotten better and was bearable.

But Wednesday night while I was at church, the symptoms appeared in the left eye this time. They are worse than they were in the right eye. I used to only see the flashing light on the right side when it was completely dark and I turned my head just to the right sort of fast. But last Wednesday night I began seeing lots of black floaters in front of my left eye and I saw flashing lights with both eyes all around most of the time even though there was bright light in the church building. This condition has persisted for several days. I am getting more used to it but it still clouds the vision somewhat. And the black floaters are annoying. I can’t tell if there is dirt on my glasses or spots on my shirt or just what I am seeing.

I thought about going to the eye doctor. But I am pretty sure I know what is happening. I know that it will either get better or I’ll get more used to these symptoms. So I have decided to wait it out. The Ophthalmologist would just dilate my eyes and do a long examination. That is what he has done every time I have returned for a check-up on my right eye. Now he’ll have to do both eyes.

My main concern is that this condition doesn’t develop into a retinal tear or a hole. This could lead to retinal detachment. That would be much more serious. But since the symptoms are like they were with the right eye (although more severe and pronounced) I have decided to wait awhile. If the condition is just the Posterior Vitreous Detachment, the floaters will probably become less annoying in a few weeks or months. Hopefully the light flashes won’t continue to be so pronounced.

As long as there isn’t a hole or a retinal detachment there is very little risk of loss of vision. Hopefully my life can go on normally.

Jim

posted by jim 9:22 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

A GOOD VOTE

Recently my church pursued purchasing approximately 4 acres of ground adjoining our property so we could expand our building in the near future. It took a lot of negotiating and waiting but the owner agreed to sell us the property.

We are paying $10,000 an acre, or approximately $40,000. The proposal to the members is to pay $20,000 from our existing money and receive a special offering to (hopefully) raise the remaining $20,000. The leaders also requested permission to, if necessary, borrow up to $25,000 to finish paying for the land and cover closing costs.

We voted last Sunday. With 62 percent of those eligible to vote casting a vote, the vote was 100% -- unanimous – to accept the proposal. We are thankful to God.

We allowed space on the ballots for comments if anyone had anything to say. (Of course the ballots were unsigned.) A dozen or so chose to comment. All comments were positive, expressing appreciation for the job done by the people on the committee.

One comment was especially meaningful to me. It expressed great confidence in the leadership of our church. That was good to read. We DO have great leaders in our church. Wise, godly, visionary, people with a love for God and His people.

We are blessed. Thank you, Lord. Now the real vote comes when people are asked to vote with their money and give the remaining $20,000. We’ll see. It is easier to put an "X" on a ballot than to write a check and put in the offering!

Jim

posted by jim 3:29 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

ABOUT GIVING AND RECEIVING

Motives for giving money, goods and/or favors to a charitable organization, church or an individual, are often improper or even evil. But motives for giving these things may also be, and often are, proper and holy. But motives for giving are also often misinterpreted. It is this latter situation I want to address in this entry.

We must always be careful about receiving favors (whether monetary or otherwise) from anyone. We teach children (and rightfully so) not to take money, items or favors from strangers. The more discerning parent will also instruct the child to be careful about taking these things even from people they know.

This caution is necessary, given the fallen world in which we live. But it is so sad that it must be this way. I would admit that possibly many people who give to others probably do so with an ulterior motive. It might be to buy acceptance or privileges. It might be to buy friendship or sexual liberties with an individual. So it seems all acts of generous giving must be suspect – at least for a time.

It seems difficult (if not impossible) for most people to believe that there are those in this world capable of loving so deeply and guilelessly that they would give generously of time, money or possessions without any expectation of any kind of recognition, reward or reciprocation. We have learned by instruction and our own experience that there is no such thing as a "free lunch". We have been conditioned to think that there is no possibility that someone could so deeply love another person that they would want to given unselfishly to that person – even to the extent of giving their life for that person.

But it can happen. It does happen. (John 15:13; Romans 5:7). You may have been the recipient of the expressions of that kind of pure love. If so, how did you react? If you are like most you became suspicious of the person and their motives. You probably refused their expressions of love and tried to stop those expressions all together. (You can stop the expressions of love but you can’t stop the person from loving.)

And maybe you should have done so. Maybe the person’s motives weren’t pure. If that was the case, you were right to break off those expressions of what was purported to be love. But what if you misjudged the person’s motives?

Also, If you were the object of someone’s genuine love and you rejected their love by rejecting the tangible or intangible expressions of their love, something else may be involved.

Instead of being discerning and cautious you may just have been prideful. Pride manifests itself in a number of ways. Sinful pride says, "I can do this myself!" "I can provide for myself." "I don’t need your help." When you take that attitude toward someone who truly loves you and wants to express that love, you do several things.

First, you are guilty of the sin of pride. The Bible talks a lot about sinful pride. But that’s not the subject of this Post. Sinful pride can prevent us from being able to accept another’s love and thus rob us – and the other person – of a ton of blessings that could be enjoyed.

Also, by your prideful attitude in refusing to accept another person’s love and their expressions of their love, you cut off God’s channel of blessing to you. God has chosen to work through His people to bless us. When we refuse to let someone show his or her love, we may have cut off God’s blessing if God was choosing to bless us through that person. Then we not only hurt the person who loves us and wants to express that love, but we hurt God as well because we won’t let Him bless us as He desires because He loves us so much. And we hurt ourselves because we don’t receive the blessings that otherwise could be ours.

I know the scenario I just described rarely happens. But I also know it DOES happen. There are people capable of loving God or another person so deeply and with pure motives that they give out of the overflowing abundance of that love. And they usually get hurt, too.

Oh well! When you truly love you can’t help but give—to God and to one of God’s children whom you love deeply. And probably you are bound to get hurt. But you have to give anyway – God did and He got hurt, too!

I’m thinking that if we can’t accept someone’s genuine expressions of love, can we really fully accept God’s expressions of love – especially His greatest expression of love, the gift of His Son? I don’t know, but I wonder about that.

Jim

posted by jim 3:08 PM 0 comments

Monday, July 26, 2004

NOW I KNOW

At least now I know the subject of my next Post! I have thought about this for a really long time. Now I think I am ready to put those thoughts into words. A personal experience is behind this Post but I am not going to discuss the personal experience.

The subject is about Giving and Receiving and how people react. Watch for it in a day or two.

Jim

posted by jim 2:49 PM 0 comments

Thursday, July 15, 2004

THOUGHTS ON RELATIONSHIPS

For years I have heard the old expression, “Opposites attract.” And they cite the positive and negative poles of a magnet, the earth, etc. as examples. Just as the positive and negative poles are drawn to one another, they say that it is true in human relationships, too – especially the male and female relationships of husband-and-wife – opposites always marry one another. Whenever I have read or heard that statement it has always been made in a positive way, as though that’s a good thing. The reason that I have most often heard is that the two opposite people can balance one another.

I am questioning that premise. My years of experience talking with and observing engaged and married couples has taught me that when people marry who are extremely opposite in so many ways, there will be a lifetime of struggle, strife, disappointment and heartache for both parties.

It seems that when two people need things from one another that neither can provide for the other in enough significant areas, it seems good that the relationship not continue toward marriage. Rather than the opposites fitting together to make a happy, peaceful, complete and united relationship, it results in conflict, strife and unhappiness for both people and for others also.

That doesn’t mean that if people who are extreme opposites marry that they are doing wrong. And it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be unhappy together. Nor does it mean that it couldn’t/wouldn’t work. I recognize that no two people are exactly alike. So when a couple marries there will be differences. In fact, if two people were to be very nearly alike, they probably shouldn’t marry either. I think that would make a different set of significant problems. I don’t know what those problems might be because I have not been in that specific situation.

But I strongly believe two people shouldn’t marry if there are sharp differences in a lot of significant areas. What are some significant areas? Well, I could list several but that would just be from my own perspective due to my experience.

Rather, I’d say significant areas would be defined as those areas that each person considers important and the two people significantly differ and both feel very strongly and uncompromising about those areas of difference. Or it might be areas where two people have sharp personality and/or temperament differences. Or they might have contrasting needs that the other person can never meet. When two people need things from one another that they just can’t offer one another any long-term relationship will probably not be happy. It certainly won’t be peaceful and probably not productive. (I’m not speaking in the “reproductive” sense!)

There you have my thoughts on the subject. What do you think?

Jim

posted by jim 5:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

COMMENTS

Yep! I did it! I now have comments on my blog. Last night two very good friends, Jenn and Jeremy, came to our house for an evening of food and fun together. After Pizza and a fun game of Yahtzee (at which Jenn soundly beat Jeremy and me) we got to talking. The subject of web sites, blogs, and the like came up. I mentioned I had tried unsuccessfully to put comments on my blog. Jenn said, “Get Jeremy to help you. He’s a CS grad.” So I did and he did and now I have comments.

I’m not sure how I feel about it all. I have been ambivalent about it for a long time. At first I definitely didn’t want comments. My personality (as those who know me best will tell you) isn’t one that likes to “go out on a limb” very often. So I wasn’t sure that my psyche could handle comments.

But the more I wrote in my blog and the more I read other peoples’ blogs and journals, the more intrigued I became. But I hid behind the mistaken idea that my blog wouldn’t accommodate comments. That may have been true when Joel first set up my blog. But recently the blogging has been updated. I was surfing around the various windows and options the other day and something about “comments” caught my eye. I tried in vain to understand what they were instructing me in how to set my blog for comments. But I tried setting up anyway--to no avail. *Sigh*

So I resigned myself not to have comments – until last night. It took Jeremy only a few minutes and I was all set up. That’s one of the differences between a CS grad and me!

So I am grateful to Jenn for suggesting it and to Jeremy for setting me up. Now we’ll see how happy I will be to have comments. It may confirm what I always think – that no one reads the thing anyway. Or I may be devastated by some of the comments – or maybe not. I just don’t know.

I’m not even sure how it works. I think you click on the “comments” section beside my name and I guess go to the bottom of the Blog page, click on “Post Comments” or something like that, and put your comments. You who are even slightly computer savvy will figure it out I am sure.

I thought we set it up so you didn’t have to sign in to post. Apparently not. But if you post a comment under “anonymous” please put your name in the comment text if you want me to know who you are. (Or maybe you don’t want me to know!)

At least now my profile makes more sense: “Some place to think out loud and maybe someone will think back.” Now they can if they wish.

Karon and I go to her orthopedic surgeon this afternoon. We’re experiencing mixed emotions. On one hand, we’re anxious to learn if the bones are healing and if she can begin to put weight on the leg. On the other hand, we’re somewhat apprehensive because her leg has begun to swell a lot and we don’t know what that means. She continues to have a lot of over-all pain, also. Next week we go to the cancer doctor for his evaluation. We’ll let you all know.

Jim

posted by jim 9:55 AM 1 comments

Thursday, July 01, 2004

WAITING

Throughout the Bible we are told to “wait on the Lord”.

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14)

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 41:31)

There are a lot of Scriptures that say basically this same thing –wait on the Lord!

We are told to wait for Jesus’ Return. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

We Americans are always waiting. We wait in the Dentist or Doctor’s office.

Husbands wait for the wife to get ready to go somewhere. Wives wait for husbands to finally ask directions.

We wait in line for the traffic light to turn green. Or we wait for the traffic jam to clear so we can proceed. We wait our turn in line in the “cone zones” for the road construction traffic director to tell us it is our turn to go.

We wait in line at McDonalds’s, Wendys or Burger King. We wait in line at Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Department Store checkout lanes. We wait at the airport ticket counter.

We American don’t like to wait. So we resort to E-Bay or on-line shopping and the electronic airline ticket. But then we still have to wait for our order to be shipped to us. And there is no way to avoid the lines and the wait at the airport security checks.

We wait for the Lab or the medical test results to come back to determine the cause of our pain and other symptoms.

Students wait to learn if they have passed the test or the course or if they will graduate.

Then they wait after the interview process to learn if they got the hoped-for job.

Waiting is not something most of us do well. Yet God tells us to wait on Him.

Karon and I are in a “wait mode” right now. We are waiting to see if the broken bone is going to heal. We wait to see if the cancer treatment is putting the cancer into remission. We wait to see if the twice-daily home therapy and the twice-a-week outpatient therapy is having the desired effect.

We don’t like to wait. But it is often God’s Will that we wait. Why? There are a lot of reasons that would be interesting speculation. But the bottom line is that God has us wait. And while we wait we are to learn. We are expected to learn things God wants to teach us through the waiting process. We don’t always learn these things, but God would like us to learn. Then maybe we wouldn’t have to wait so much or so long!

Life on this earth is God’s Waiting Room. We are waiting to enter His Heaven. And while we wait He wants us to learn.

So Karon and I are waiting. Are we learning? Sheesh! I don’t know! It is like when I was in College. Did I learn? Often I didn’t think so at the time. A lot of the stuff I studied seemed like a big waste of my time and effort. But later, out in the “real world” what I had done in College had relevance! And I realized I HAD learned.

Maybe it will be like that regarding this current waiting period. I just don’t know.

Jim

posted by jim 1:01 PM 0 comments