Now Hiring

Clothes Buying Advice for the Fashion-Challenged

So I had to go clothes shopping the other day. On the scale of enjoyable things to do on a Saturday afternoon, for me going clothes shopping falls somewhere between being audited by the IRS and being interrogated by Jack Bauer. There’s not much worse.

Actually going clothes shopping with my wife or daughter is worse but that’s another story.

Upon entering the store, I told the sales lady I needed a pair of 32 waist 32 length jeans. What happened next can only be described as disturbing.

She took a deep breath and in a single sentence blurted, “Do you want regular fit, relaxed fit, stretch fit, trim fit, rigid fit, baggy fit, slim fit, classic fit, hip-huggers, cowboy cut, sailor cut, boot cut, carpenter cut, straight cut, bell bottoms, flare leg, stonewashed, pepperwashed, corduroy, distressed look, blue, black, brown, five-pocket, button-fly, zipper-fly, rivets, no rivets, Levis, Wranglers, Lees, Polo, Izod, Hilfiger, or Carhartt?”

I just starred at her. I looked down at the floor. I looked back up at her. I replayed her sentence in my mind. Then I turned and walked out. I am not equipped to deal with, well, with THAT.

When I was growing up one had a choice of straight leg blue jeans or straight leg blue jeans or straight leg blue jeans. When did buying a pair of jeans become more complicated than landing a man on the moon?

My wife reminded me the other day that I needed some new pants for Sunday morning. I’m not very fashion savvy. Most of my pants are the color, texture, and fit of cardboard. I concluded long ago that if you have five pairs of pants the same color and fabric and brand it makes getting dressed in the morning a whole lot easier.

Again, not one to frequent the clothes department, my wife brought home a new pair of pants for me to try.

“Try these on and see if they fit,” she said. The only thing worse than going clothes shopping is trying on clothes to see if they fit.

“What size are they?” I asked.

“32 waist 32 length,” she said.

“Do they look like cardboard?”  “Yes,” she replied.

“Do they feel like cardboard?”  “Yes,” she replied.

“Do they fit like cardboard?”  “We won’t know until you try them on, will we?” she sarcastically replied.

Half the time a 32 waist 32 length fit more like a 38 waist 28 length or a 30 waist 36 length but rarely do they fit like a 32 waist 32 length.  I’m convinced the size tags are randomly sewn in pants without any regard to the actual size.

This would explain why some guys wear jeans so large they can conceal an elephant inside while some girls wear pants so tight they have to be painted on.

I had to go clothes shopping the other day. There’s not much worse.

decisions

“When setting out on a journey,

do not seek advice from those who have never left home.”

Patty Griffin – Moon River

God has spoken – are you obeying?

While God does prompt through his Spirit, and does guide through the counsel of godly people, and does use our life’s circumstances to nudge us, he always talks to us and guides us in accordance with his written word, never in contradiction of it. The primary way God talks to his people today is through his already spoken word in the Bible.

• 97% of the world’s population has at least portions of the Bible in their native language.
• On average, Christian bookstores sell 35,000 Bibles every day.
• 168,000 Bibles are distributed in the United States every day.
• 92% of Americans own a Bible while 27% own at least five Bibles.
• 80% of Americans believe the Bible is the most influential book in world history.

Fortune 500 companies would kill for market penetration anywhere near the level of the Bible.

This collection of sixty-six books written over a period of 1,500 years by more than forty people from all walks of life contains history, law, poetry, prophecy, biography, narrative, and doctrine. It covers the entire span of history, from the creation of the heavens and the earth to their re-creation into the new heavens and earth.

Simultaneously written by God and real people about God and real people, containing actual events and reliable truth, the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. As such, it is God’s spoken and recorded word.  It’s what he has said to us.

Let me go out on a limb and suggest that if we’re not living in obedience to what God has already spoken in his Word, what makes us think he’s going to give us current guidance and direction? What makes us think he will guide us in his will by revealing what our next step should be if we’re not obeying what he’s already said to us?

John writes, “If someone claims, ‘I know him well!” but doesn’t keep his commandments, he’s obviously a liar. His life doesn’t match his words. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God has to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.”

Lost Things

Travel Directions

by Joan I. Siegel

There ought to be a word
for the way you know how to get some place
but don’t remember the names of streets
the number of turns and blinking yellow lights
so that if someone asked
you really couldn’t say
except you know the road starts out straight
and when it’s sunny the branches blink across
the windshield making you want to rub your eyes
then the road turns sharply uphill past a red barn
where a black dog jumps out to race you for a quarter mile
and finally recedes in the mirror like a disappointment
and you remember the road dips downhill
into the shadows of the morning
where you hear Bach’s unaccompanied ‘cello
and understand what a good fit the ‘cello makes
in the hollow of the body
where grief begins and for an indeterminate time
the road winds vaguely past
houses    people    road signs
while time hums in your ear and you remember
the dream you left behind that morning
which had nothing
to do with where
you are going

“Travel Directions” by Joan I. Siegel, from Hyacinth for the Soul. © Deerbrook Editions, 2009.

The Magic of Getting Underway on an Aircraft Carrier

A good friend wrote the following email to me last week:

“Drinking coffee with the Quartermaster Senior Chief,  30 stories up from the water.  Watching ocean tugboats, dwarfed to toy size by four and a half acres of flight deck, scurry about nudging the behemoth here and nudging it there to line it up in the main channel for its run to the open sea.  Passing other ships and always seeing the awe on their crews’ faces as they pass the largest of the fleet.  Over twenty years on these vessels and it still awes me.”

Nuts & Bolts – Series Begins Sunday

Instructions:

Step 1 – Be here for our next series, Nuts & Bolts

Step 2 – Deposit all whining in the trash receptacles before entering the auditorium

Step 3 – Ask God to open your eyes, ears, and heart

Step 4 – Receive crystal clarity on what it looks like to be New Community Church in 2010

Step 5 – Exit the building ready to love God, love people, and turn the world upside down

_____________

3/7     “You”

3/14   “Everybody Else”

___________

Books read so far in 2010

I’m slightly ahead of my goal of reading 52 books this year. 

Further Adventures	Jon Stephen Fink
Into Thin Air	Jon Krakauer
A Series of Unfortunate Events – A Bad Beginning	Lemony Snicket
Wicked	Gregory MaGuire
The Raw Shark Texts	Steven Hall
Your Heart Belongs to Me	Dean Koontz
Loving Frank	Nancy Horan
Truck: A Love Story	Michael Perry
Kissing in Manhattan	David Schickler
84, Charing Cross Road	Helene Hanff
On Chesil Beach	Ian McEwan
A Bit on the Side	William trevor
Never Check E-Mail in the Morning	Julie Morgenstern