Christianity is Foolish

It really is.. It's like Alice in the Looking Glass:

"Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'lltell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there's the room you can see through the glass -- that's just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chair -- all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see THAT bit! I want so much to know whether they've a fire in the winter: you never CAN tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too -- but that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, because I've held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold up one in the other room. `How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they'd give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn't good to drink -- But oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a little PEEP of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the door of our drawing-room wide open: and it's very like our passage as far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty! How nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I'm sure it's got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through -- ' She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass WAS beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. `So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,' thought Alice: `warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and can't get at me!' Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was a different as possible... ...Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would happen next...."

It doesn't make any sense. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. The smartest people aren't the most righteous? The meek inherit the earth. The kingdom belongs to the persecuted, the poor in spirit, those who thirst and hunger.

Things really only make you happy when you share them or give them away.

And unless you come like a child. Like a child. Unless you trust like a child, you will not understand.

It's exactly backwards.

God...why did you set it up this way, why is your way so foreign to us? Why when I try to explain to someone who isn't a citizen of the kingdom they say something like "You can't stand in the way of a bull and expect him not to charge you just because you are a vegetarian?" Or something equally clever (thanks for that one Ziegler) that makes me think 'no... of course I can't argue with that.' I can't argue Jesus. I can't make belief of a baby in a manger and mere death on a cross of ONE man make sense. I don't understand how that distinguishes eternal life and eternal shame.

That is... apart from the fact that it's true.

I cannot make it make sense to you. But it makes sense to me.

I can, however tell you how many times I've doubted and had questions or struggled with something and a voice, a voice, a personal, unbelievably strong, loving voice answers and brings encouragement and wisdom. Sure maybe it's power of suggestion, maybe it's all in my head.

But it isn't.

17Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
20[Lindsey], guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you.

The kingdom of God makes no sense. But it is a better kingdom. I cannot prove it. But it's not my job to prove it. It's my job to live it. The best that I can. With help from God himself.

The most important button

That you ever push, is sometimes the one that turns your alarm clock ON.

Career suicide.

Bleck.

Thanks and Praises

This is my favorite painting of all time. I used to have it when I was in college, as just a poster carelessly tacked on the wall. I used to just stare at it all the time, but somewhere along the trail, I lost it. I haven't seen it anywhere in stores lately.
Thanks and praises to mister Bernard Hoyes. I like your roy-g-biv-ness.

Last Sunday was Deana's last at DR. It's weird to me. She was the reason I stuck around in the first place. I'd never met anyone who didn't care what you thought of her, she was going to tell you the truth no matter what it cost her. I'm glad that we got to try to honor her a little bit. I was very glad to be a part of a group of people who were honoring someone like her. In a day and age where I'm ashamed of people and our culture and myself a good deal of the time. I'm proud of her. Because more often than not she chooses to do the right thing versus the easy thing. Someone who dies to herself all the time. Someone who cares about the little guy because she was the little guy. Who instead of treating people the way she was treated, treats them the way she wishes she was treated. God showed me more of what he is like through her. Of course shes not perfect. But I'm better for knowing her. And that... is the gospel.

That's what we are supposed to be here.

God oh please, help me make people want to know you better. I admit. I stink at it.

International Big Deal..

Heh heh. He won in Jamaica, mon. He was there when I was in Europe and this is a list he sent me of the things HE learned while there:
1) Kingston is not a tourist town...old people...leave the reebok workout suits and cameras..the images there will burn memories in your retinas greater than any solar eclipse could do.

2) Dont lick the sidewalk no matter how good it looks

3) Dreadlocks thicker than firehoses do exist....

4)Jamaicans apparently like to blare american music..especially a nice rendition of "o'holy night" no matter what season it is

5) they use the word "mon" as a comma..mon

6) I know a great bathroom in the hilton where you can obtain a nice contact buzz

7) Americans are often referred to as the white devil

8) a 60 jamaican dollar tip will even piss the homeless off....apparently its like 12 cents american

9) Goats are like the american racoon or opossum

10) Jamaicans do not like David Hassselhoff

11) Apparently im like an international long drive champion...im kind of a big deal there

12) dont go there

Lists

Casey recently picked up this list that I left lying around my house. Even as I wrote it, I thought to myself, I better destroy this later, or atleast not leave it out, because this is an odd list of things to just leave lying around. He got a chuckle out of this:

-make-up
-Sunday School
-Beth W
-Bioeractors
-train stuff
-liz on Sunday.

I have to agree, it is rather random. I have to admit, I got only two of these accomplished.

That's why I don't make lists. The failure feeling is just too great. And for those of you wondering what a bioreactor is, I have posted a picture of one.


There you go, that's what I do. That's how I roll. Those are what I put on my lists of things to do...

I've been running around like crazy lately, not blogging. Company golf tournament, bunch of meetings and just returning to my normal self after jet lag has all precluded my terribly interesting website being updated. That and lack of terribly interesting things to write. I mean, how do you top Europe? I'll keep tryin...

Chronicles of Murl: Things I learned in Europe

1. Lufthansa is the European word for "Lost Luggage". Mine was lost twice. Had to buy skivvys in a little lingerie store in Vicenza, Italy. I'm putting them on my expense report.

2. Found out that I must be more German that I think. It's my love for the unifying beer drinking songs. "All Australians are born Illegitimate, born illegitimate, born illegitimate...."

3. All Italians know the words to "Country Road". They wear matching T-shirts and sit together in one big group at Oktoberfest. Yeah All of them.

4. Oktoberfest is not a thing for Germany. It's a thing for Bavaria. What does that mean? Bavaria=Texas. Lederhosen and the frilly dresses= Cowboy boots and hats. Ahh... It all makes sense now.

5. People hate Americans because of our Military presence. Not because we are there, but because when we are there we are egotistical, arrogant, ignorant, disrespectful jerks with guns and buzz cuts who carry vodka in a camel back while running. (Don't write letters, I just met two of them, but they tainted my view immensly, for all of you Europeans, we are all not like that).

6. Trains are awesome. Riding in cars with natives is not. I am normally not motion sick.

7. If you lose your luggage once, and you buy really expensive skivvys, you should pack at least one of them in your carry on from that point on... because lightning can strike twice.

8. Course number 5 or 6 of a good meal is heaven on wheels... the cheese cart. Heck yeah.

9. You would think that while you are sitting drinking wine in an outdoor cafe on a piazza at sunset, watching the people mill around casually and unhurriedly, dodging bicycles laden with loaves of bread, not a car in sight, not a building newer than a thousand years old, that you couldn't feel more removed from America. Then the music from the string quartet wafts over to your table. Rich cellos and violins echo off the walls of the buildings. It's "Memory" from CATS. You scan the grounds to see if you can throw yourself infront of a Vespa.

10. You know that you better have a map handy when you ask the train station ticket lady to repeat what she just said in English and she replies "That was English".

11. You probably just got screwed when the weinerschnitzel cart vendor says "That will be twenty" and you say "Euros?" and he pauses and says "Sure"

12. Adapters are not enough. You need the transformer. A fried cell phone charger means you call your parents from a strangers cell phone in line at the airport because you don't know anyones phone number by heart.

13. Jim Garner is a rock star. I didn't really learn that in Europe.

14. If you are shaving in a foreign country, put your razor completely back in it's case before shoving your hand into your bathroom kit.

15. Flights that have people on them who have heart attacks over the Atlantic turn around, fly an hour in the opposite direction and land in Iceland. They remove the patient, and then after refueling, have to remove the patients UNATTENDED LUGGAGE. Flights that have this happen on them tend to miss the connecting flight...and the next connecting flight...and the next one....

16. I cry much more easily at movies on airplanes. Sure Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, that just means I'm a cheeseball. But Monster-In-Law? I'm certifiable.

17. When changing your pants on a train infront of lederhosen-clad adolescents, you should probably put something over you.

18. Six million Germans agree. Oktoberfest Rocks. I know this because I asked them, they were all sitting at my table.

19. In Munich, there are Houston Astro fans. I knew wearing my Cardinals shirt to Oktoberfest was a great idea.

20. In Italy dinner lasts 4 hours. But that's only if you are with Amerian clients. If you are not...it lasts 6.

21. Swizterland is the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

22. The world is really big. My mind tends to be really small.

23. I love Coke with ice in it.

24. I like water without bubbles in it.

25. I like America. But I like the way the Europeans do some things too. Like 6 weeks of vacation, toilets that have different flushers for 1 and 2, escalators that don't move until you step on them, mass public transit, highways with no speed limits, and chocolate. I like that American doors open to the outside and that we don't eat lukewarm bologna for breakfast, and that we actually have church in our churches.

26. I love my job. The sex drug is coming along. I figured out that by increasing sex drive, prompting weight loss, and tanning, basically it turns you Italian.

27. OH YEAH... I almost forgot. Joaquin Phoenix is OUT of rehab. I mean once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, but he seems to be doing well... Or so said the magazine that was divinely left in the seat pocket infront of me with his black and white mug on the cover.....there is a God.

I'm off

Off like a prom dress to hop across the pond for some equipment audits. First time I'm going somewhere with clients by my lonesome. Should be interesting.
I'll start off in Verona, Italy, and take a train to eastern Switzerland, then will drive to Basel, Swizterland, fly to Frankfurt, fly to Hannover, and after work is done, I'll take a train from there back to Munich for Oktoberfest with our very own Jim Garner. Where I'll do God knows what, stay God knows where and hopefully actually find him in the midst of the worlds largest kegger, and hopefully get to an airport in time to come home. 7 planes, 2 trains in eight days. No internet for me for the week, leaving the lappy at home, so I'll pretty much be uncontact-able for the next week. Miss me! Ciao!

This could be bad....

Dear Friends,

I'm in a jam. Going to Europe on Sunday for a week, and my iPod, my sole source of peace while I travel seems to be broken. Anyone know of anywhere in St. Louis that fixes iPods FAST? A store? A guy somewhere in a basement with a hammer? Anyone want to loan me theirs for a week?

Sincerely,

Desparate in St. Louis

Cry a little

“If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression, and smile,’
I still dread all my sufferings,” (Job 9:27-28a).

Life isn’t without some divine decisions that our mortal minds simply cannot comprehend. At times, we cannot imagine why God couldn’t have just given us what we asked. Sometimes our frustration lies in the fact that we know He could have, that He certainly had the power, but in His divine wisdom, He chose not to. Hear this with your heart: God knows we can’t think like Him. His ways and His thoughts simply are not ours (Isa. 55:8-9). Sometimes the very essence of faith is trusting God in the midst of things He knows good and well we cannot comprehend. Not that we won’t, but at times we literally cannot.

~Beth Moore

Tasty of Tasties.

It's like a piece of my heart has returned to me.

My dear friend Angela is home from all over the eastern world, and her return has been balm for my soul. I have missed her, and I'm not good at the mushy stuff very often, but she is all that I love in a person. So funny, so real, so compassionate. And to a much lesser degree than most, will act like she doesn't know me when I almost pee my pants in the supermarket after I see a box of cereal called "Organic Gorilla Munch".

Will you stop here and just read that again.

ORGANIC GORILLA MUNCH !!

What in the free world is that? It was like a dream, I looked up and saw the box, with the giant gorilla nostrils and the face staring at me, and I almost lost it. Like just saw it and doubled over and had to like limp over to the box to point out what I was dying at. Gosh I'm sitting here writing this and I laugh out loud. Mark, Murph, Patrick, it's the closest I've been to wetting myself, so if you want to work that into your next attempts at bladder busting, that may be helpful.

Anywho. (Gosh just read it again. Organic. Gorilla. Munch. Wow. I really really need help, let me know if anyone else thinks that's pants wettingly funny... I'd say I'm just easily entertained, but that's just not the case.)

Tonite we did a 'get to know you' interview thingy with Mike and Beth the new DR people, and we had the audience write down questions on index cards, and I, talk-show style, censored and selected the anonymous questions and read them to Mike and Beth. Angelas question was "Do you like bacon?" Had Annie! been there I would have sworn it was her doing. But it was Ange, and yes Mike and Beth DO like bacon*. So after that that was settled, Angela and I got to talking about the increasing numbers of people who have "an unusual proclivity for bacon"** and how there should be a website and T-shirts. I agreed. I mentioned the bacon shaped air-freshener hanging from my rear view mirror, and then we went and made BLTs***.

God knew I needed her back here right now. Needed some fresh air, fresh perspective, and to laugh so hard. It's an amazing thing really, that a person can live in another hemishpere for a year and then come back and it feel like they never left.

Very very good, indeed.

*Wondering at this juncture if Mike and Beth also have an unusual proclivity for Kevin Bacon?
**Quote provided courtesy of Casey Finan's journal entry.
***And yes, we used Farmland thick-sliced bacon. It is the best, after all.

Faces in the crowd

Yeah Todd. This guy was nasty on Defense. Also note the three hottie hot hot fans sitting directly behind him.

And sorry, Liz, Sean Scott is in fact dating Rachel Wacholder.

AVP Y'all

Yes!!! I'm off to the AVP with a few of my nearest and dearest. Chi-town here I come.

Man I love this game. Happy Labor Dabor to me.

Deana, as usual, you are a rock star for organizing the weekend...

My recipe for happy includes yellow and white leather, a couple of people whose names I say with exclamation points at the end, and a minivan.

Heck yes it does.

One of my purest dreams was to play sand volleyball for the rest of my days, maybe even try out for one of these tournaments. But I fear I have waited too long. My body has become too old. A summer of mono, and an inflamed rotator cuff, bursitis-something-something and me losing my real leather volleyball have all sadly put a major damper on the sand borne festivities. Ah well. Will continue to live vicariously through Misty and Kerri.

HE DID IT!!!

My brother Schmustyface Ryan Merrill, after two years of trying, rocked his way into the Remax World Long Drive Competition this weekend by qualifying in Indianapolis with drives of 392, 388, and 385 yards. In some cases, 40 yards farther than any other balls in the round.

WOO HOO!!!! I'm so proud of him and excited* for him.

I'm always ridiculously proud of my bro, so this isn't news really, but he really can hit the little ball a LONG way. I'll definitely keep you posted on the event!!

Very exciting. He is one in 128 peeps worldwide who qualified for this event. He could be on ESPN!!!

*So excited that I may just try to qualify myself since we are going to be down there anyway (it's *much* easer to qualify in the womens division and there is a LOT let money at stake) so I'm going to give it a try... what the heck.

OMGOOGLE!!

Oh man. This is the coolest thing ever!! Google has rocked my world with it's new Google Earth. Go get this for free at earth.google.com and be amazed... 3D rendering of the Grand Canyon or anything else you want to see on the planet earth.

Liz...even You can find your way around with this!!

I Love the Bible...

Clean Garments for the High Priest
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?"
3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." Then he said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you."
5 Then I said, "Put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by.
6 The angel of the LORD gave this charge to Joshua: 7 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.
8 " 'Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch. 9 See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,' says the LORD Almighty, 'and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.
" 'In that day each of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and fig tree,' declares the LORD Almighty."

Open House Party

August 28th. 2pm - ??

You, dear readers, are invited.

(Provided you know where it is, and that you actually know who I am)

It's over...

Whew.. back to normal life again. The talk is over and went well, I felt. The mono is gone, I shot baskets in my driveway and am feelin like a champ.

I'm off to Detroit rock city on Tuesday for a couple of days to kick off a new project, one I am very pumped about. Should be good times.

God is good folks... all the time.

Murl out.

Ironic?

I've never really figured out an actual example of something that is truly "ironic" so no need to write letters, but for lack of a better term... It's ironic that I'm getting nervous about speaking at DR Sunday nite, and my topic is Fear...

I'll admit it...

I really want to see that penguin movie.

Heh...

Last post reminded me of my quote wall at work. Some of my favorites...

"I ordered an Italian sub on French bread... I got an Italian salad with French dressing"
Bill, who trusted Tim with his lunch order...

Ken: "They call it a kickoff meeting for a reason" (because it coincided with getting tickets to the KC Chiefs game"
Lindsey: "They should call it a 'sidekick'-off meeting" (as it was to be my debut at a time when I was dubbed "the sidekick")
Ken: "More like an on-side-kickoff meeting"

"What does NFG stand for? Not Fully Grown?" (Me, refering to a Newfoundland Gander airport code sticker on a door of a small of stature co-worker)


And every quote wall since the beginning of time has it.. the quote that launched a thousand quotes:

"What? Are we shooting from the seat of our pants here?" Ken on the speakerphone to J-Ro.. masterfully combining "Flying by the seat of our pants" and "Shooting from the hip"