Well, this week I’m staying in dorms 20 minutes from my front door at PT Loma with our high school group and several others from around the country for a program called OGN or operation good news. It’s basically training in prayer, fasting, evangelism, and apologetics for a week each morning and then the students go out onto the local beaches and talk with people about Jesus. There will be 1.4 million people on the beach in the next 4 days, 750,000 alone on the 4th of July. It’s quite an experience. If I saw one case of beer yesterday, I think I saw 150- usually being pushed by someone on a skateboard, in tow on a wagon, or in the arm of a bike rider- all headed to the beach to sit in the sun, drink, play bocce ball, swim, and get a mad game of horse shoes going. Part of me really wanted to just be there to enjoy it. Part of me was really praying God would give me some good conversations with people there.

Here’s one conversation I had yesterday that reminded me that I’m not “normal” or that was is “normal for hundreds of thousands of people” is pretty foreign to me. Made me feel a little irrelevant too. Something I’m stewing on today. But here’s a recap of a conversation that is typical of ones I’ll have over the next few days:

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TWO TWENTY SOMETHING GUYS WHO GO TO SDSU. (they were working part time that day, driving mini’s that had been modified to look like Margarita’s on the rocks complete with straw and lime and sugar and stuff. Their bikini clad counter parts are walking around bars in downtown PB passing out free samples. They get paid $25 an hour to drive around and advertise.

ME: “are you going to be here on the 4th?”
THEM: “_______ (insert your own explitive) yeah.”

“what will you do?
“get laid”

“How do you intend to do this? Does it usually work for you?”
“Every year. There’s gonna be 750,000 people on the beach. 300,000+ will be women. 100,000 of those will be my age and hot. If you can’t get laid on the 4th you should probably just jump off a cliff.”

“So, you just take them back to your place?”
“Yeah, or their hotel. I usually come up with a pick up line the night before and use it over and over again until it works”.

“Really, like what’s your line?”
“I don’t know, it will come to me in a dream man. I think it will probably be something like, ‘Hey baby, can I pour beer all over you and drink it up?”

“Really, and that works.”
“Yep, like 2 or 3 times every year”.

“You ever talk to them again?”
“_______ No. You just get their cell phone number and type it into your phone one digit wrong. Then if you run into them again, you just tell them they gave you the wrong number.”

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Like I said, made me realize that my “normal” walking shoes are pretty far from a “normal” life or motivations for hundreds of thousands of people in our world- even when I was 23. Made me feel like I’ve got some work to do to better understand the motivations of the culture I live in and the people I’m trying to be used by God to reach. It was stretching. Today I’m going back to pray God shows me people to who need an encouraging word and people who God can use to shape me and my heart to be more like his. I’m praying for increased understanding of the human condition and how to be used to mold it more and more into his image. That’s a big task… starting with my own reflection.

I’m teaching at a conference this next week and I was searching the web at one of my favorite random news sites and oh boy did I find a gold mine. What youth ministry couldn’t use this book? I’m gonna order mine today and watch my gut expand and my teeth rot and oh I think I’ll submit some recipes of my own.

if a pictures’ worth a thousand words…. I’ll shut up and let these 3 speak for themselves.

The wife and I celebrated 12 years of marriage with dinner under the sunset at Ocean Beach last Sunday.

Grandma and Grandpa bought the boys 5000 gallons of water and big bucket for the backyard. It’s been 100+ here the last few days… a big puddle is nice to jump in.

Tyler- age 6 lost his first tooth. Magically he made a buck fifty too.

I have officially sold my first craigs list item. 4 old patio chairs no longer in my side yard. $15. BOING!

Based on my new rating system yesterday, the United States gets a SPLAT for soccer. Mostly because of lack of enthusiasm stateside. I think the players played hard and well for the most part. We got beat badly in game 1. That was embarassing. We did very well against Italy playing a man down most of the second half. We didn’t have what it takes to beat Ghana today- though it really should have been a tie- the penalty kick foul was laughable, ridiculous, and lame. But so what.

Ghana gets a BOING. Mostly because of their countries pride. In honor of soccer, their entire country took a half day off to view it on TV.

I got to thinking, I wonder what it’s like to live in a country with a national passion. We don’t have one in the US that I could think of. I can’t imagine the entire country taking a day off or supporting the president’s decision to shut down the country for any reason other than a tragedy. We simply don’t have a national hobby, love, or even focus minus something threatening the name of freedom. I was in Israel several years ago when Yasser Arafat’s chief aid died of a heart attack and almost instantly, the entire Palestinian quarter shut down and people closed up shot for 3 days of mourning.

I’d like to be in a country when the streets get flooded with people headed home to watch soccer. That’s awesome. I wish I was in Ghana to see it and watch it with a small family in their house in the outskirts somewhere with a dirt floor and a television and cheer with them. That sounds like fun. Instead, I cheered and jeered in my home this am with a bowl of cereal and some java.

I was supposed to do a devotion in our staff today at 9am. But the game went till 9:05am. So I called in and postponed my devotion 15 minutes. Which seemed really lame when Ghana took off a half day. Made me wonder what passion I have in my life that I would take a day off for just because I could that wasn’t surrounding a day of tragedy or need. I took some time off this week to help my injured bride- but that doesn’t seem the same.

I thought maybe I’d do it for soccer, a chance to go to a baseball game with sweet seats, a great concert, some event for my kids… but maybe I need to do more. Maybe I need to be ready to drop my day to play more often. Maybe I’d get less done. Maybe in 10 years in wouldn’t matter. Maybe my play time would. Maybe that would make a day a BOING for sure.