And The Word Of The Day Is....

I'm back up in Fishkill, New York again this week for work. Normally when I come up here I go to work, go to the hotel, go for food, repeat as necessary. You know, I'm here to work. This time however, I have decided to take a few side trips and go see all this historic stuff that I happen to be surrounded by.

Today I took a thirty minute drive from my hotel to the town of Hyde Park, NY and visited the country mansion of the Vanderbilts. It was amazing. Hence, the word of the day is "opulence".

The mansion (preserved by the US National Park Service) is a part of probably one of the greatest estates preserved from the Gilded Age of America. I learned this from our tour guide. Some other things I learned:

- The term "Gilded Age" was actually a snub of wealthy society types by American author Mark Twain.

- The Vanderbilts only stayed in the house a couple of weeks each Spring and Fall. (They had a bunch of houses and yachts they also visited.)

- The Vanderbilts preferred the English Service System where men did all the serving and women did all the cooking and behind the scenes work. (As opposed to the French Service System where women do all the serving and men do the cooking and work behind the scenes.)

- Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt slept in separate rooms. Mrs. Vanderbilt's room was a copy of Marie Antoinette's bedroom at Versailles.

- All the beds in the house are very small.

- There was a very strict protocol around the turn of the century and a visitor's social status was considered always when it came to assigning bedrooms for them or even where they were to sit at dinner.

- Most of the exceptionally wealthy people during the Gilded Age in America gave away almost all of their fortune to charity. (They also paid a fortune in taxes.) The reason they didn't give it to their children was the belief of the time that their children had all the advantages of being raised with money and were expected to go out and make their own money.

In a word...Opulence....

Front of the Mansion

Rear of the Mansion

View of the Hudson River

101

How often do you resharpen your saw? Author Stephen Covey (the "7 Habits" guy) uses the term "Sharpen the Saw" to describe the process of self-renewal. It's true that we all become dulled from time to time and a quick resharpening is often just the thing to put thing in perspective and get us back on track.

Last Sunday, the small group that Daleen and I lead at our church provided the food for a church class entitled PCC 101. All of the small groups take turns to provide the food and child care for the class and this time was our turn. No one in the class brought children so Daleen and I just had to bring dinner. After everyone ate, we asked if it would be ok for us to sit in on the class since it had been several years since we went through it. I can honestly say that being reminded once again of the mission of our church has had quite an impact on us. It almost feels like we were growing a bit dull lately at our church and have now been resharpened.

For those of you who don't know, PCC 101 is a class that introduces people to Powhatan Community Church and basically tells them all the ins and outs of who we are and what we do. The class is led by our senior pastor and he spells out everything about our mission, how we are organized, what we do, what we don't do, and why we do it. It's actually a requirement for church membership and I think it's great. How often have you wished that before you signed up for something, a senior member of the organization sat down with you and told you absolutely everything so you could make a membership decision based on all the information?

The best part of the meeting was when we went around and folks explained how they found our church and what keeps them coming back. All the stories we heard were really interesting. We even got to tell our story which made for some fun reminiscing. All the people in this particular class, including us, had come from some previous church. But everyone in the room had come to PCC looking for something.... something they hadn't found until they came to us. Some people had positive experiences from their previous churches and some had very negative experiences. However, what struck me the most that night was the part of each person's stories where they talked about their initial experiences with coming to PCC. While there were differences in how people found our church, what they experienced walking in the door was all very similar. The folks we met at the 101 class all experienced some great things about PCC from the moment they first arrived. They all felt welcome and liked there wasn't any pressure. They loved the music and Brian's messages, and since their initial visits, it seemed most had been growing into our church community.

There is a saying among a lot of the people who make our church go. "It's not about you." I think it's a good reminder. However, last Sunday I got to see up close who "it is" about. These folks left the churches they were attending for a variety of reasons. They could have simply stopped attending church and fallen away from Christian community. Instead, PCC and the people who make it happen, worked together and were used by God to create the right environment where these people could come and be met right where they were. I think about the other people who show up every week who have never been to church, feel they are broken or lonely, and are looking find some purpose and experience God. They are all who "it is" about.

I was reminded once again that the first part of the mission of our church is to reach the unchurched people around us. When we first started attending PCC, I was excited about working on Sundays and seeing that part of our mission happen. Seeing God use me to carry out that part of His work was what really got me pumped. However, over the years of attending PCC, I felt my enthusiasm start to dull a little. I started to see the work I did with the church as simply "work". I think attending this 101 class has fixed that. Talking with people who have been affected positively because folks in our church put their spiritual wellbeing ahead of their own set me right back up again. I feel like I have had my saw resharpened.

You know, it really isn't about me. It's about God and the unchurched people and helping to get them connected up together. A spiritual matchmaker if you will.... with a boss that is willing to take anybody. I think my level of spiritual growth is beyond what just sitting in the seat on Sunday mornings alone can offer to me. I have been reminded that where I am personally going to get the most bang out of my Sunday mornings is to put the people and God, who it is all about, ahead of myself and do what I can to help the church with it's mission.

There are still a lot of people in our community that are looking for what we are offering and want to experience God, and I'm recommitting myself to working with our church to make that happen. My saw is resharpened and I am ready to get to work. What's happening with your saw?

John, I'll email you this week to give you all the dates I am going to be in town and available to serve.....

Hate to Paint

I was home from New York last week. It was great being back. As you can expect, I had missed Daleen, Colin, and the rest of my family and friends. My time at home was busy as well (didn’t have time to write a single blog posting). While at home I was driving back and forth to Manassas, VA where I have been doing a lot of work. In addition to travelling locally, we spent a lot of time working on the house. This time I installed some new lighting, did some drywall repairs and getting ready to do some interior painting.
We have a lot of small drywall cracks, nail pops, etc. My friend Josh is a structural engineer so of course I showed them all to him, expecting him to tell me my foundation was starting to come apart and the house was going to fall over at any moment. (I always expect the worse when it comes to my house.) But alas, Josh said everything looked fine and there was nothing a little spackle and mud couldn’t fix.
Personally, I hate doing drywall work almost as much as I hate painting. I think my drywall repair work isn’t as easy because I lack the proper tools. I watched a guy at work do it the other day and he used a really big, very clean, metal drywall knife to get his mud smoothed just right. He also did very thin coats of mud and in the end, didn’t need to do any sanding. I need to get the right tools for the job. Mmmm… new tools….
Then there was the electrical work. This is the part I actually do enjoy. The hallway by our front door has always been very dimly lit by one light that is too far away. We remedied this by installing two new recessed lights just inside the front door and replaced the old hallway fixture with a larger and brighter one. Unlike my drywall work, this job went very quickly and turned out perfectly. Unlike working with sheetrock, I have all the right electrical tools and the experience to actually use them.
Now it’s time to do some painting. I’m back in NY working this week and Daleen is going to try and do some of the painting on her own. I secretly wish she could just do all of it before I get back. I rate painting my house right up there with waterboarding as things I would rather not be subjected to. If you ever want information from me, no real torture is required. You could just threaten to force me to paint my entire house and I’d tell you whatever you wanted to know (even if I didn't know anything.)
We have a lot of work to do on our place this year. We’re going to need to buy some more paint and tools. That’s the cheap part. Our ancient heat pump and air handler is also probably going to die this year and that’s going to be the expensive part. There’s a lot of stuff in between that also needs to be done. We’re in no hurry though. We’re going to get it all done eventually and we’re going to do it right. By then a whole new list of things to do will come up. I just wish we didn’t have so much painting to do…..

The Last Hour

I’m looking at my watch and it’s 5:00AM. I’ve been at work since 4:00 yesterday afternoon. Everything is humming along as it should now and I can finally relax for the last hour before I can head out the door and go to my hotel for some much needed rest.

I’m in Fishkill, NY this week, working out of my company’s office at one of IBM’s semiconductor plants. Unfortunately, my work this week is all at night, usually between 6:00PM and 6:00AM. Needless to say, I’m very tired. There are a lot of folks here who have been working the night shift for years. I have no idea how they do it. I’m simply not made to work that kind of schedule.

Regardless of my difficulties with working at night this week, I am very thankful to be working. Many of you know the plant I was working out of in Richmond closed a few weeks ago. The consequences of that closing including the closing of our company’s office at that site and shipping all of our parts and equipment back to our factory. Since that time, I have been sort of an engineer-at-large, working on some projects from home and doing a lot of travelling to some of our other field offices.

In these recent economic times, many of my friends and coworkers have been let go and are having extreme difficulty finding work elsewhere. Seeing long-time employees of my company get laid off has been hard, and I see myself in a tough situation with no real place to call home right now. I’m not the only one in this situation either. Some other folks in my company have seen their sites close and are also floating around, waiting. For me, being in NY right now is a good thing. And I am being utilized which is a very good thing. However, these trips are only temporary. We are going to continue going around and around for a while like this, but nobody knows for how long. I am just hoping that when the music stops, I won’t be without a chair.

I’m still not all that worried about what the future holds. I firmly believe that whatever comes, it’s going to be great, one way or another. Life really is too short to go around making yourself sick over what might happen. We’ve chosen to be optimistic. We are still hoping to stay in Richmond and I’ve started to shake a couple of trees to see what might turn up to allow us to stay. However, we have also started to prepare for having to relocate with my work. So, you’ll get to hear all about our painting and remodeling projects to get our house ready to sell, just in case.

I’ll be sure to keep you informed as this all unfolds. However, I think I have blogged about this more than enough lately and haven’t really had anything new to say about it. Right now, we’re good. Really good. But man, am I tired…..