Living Rarefied

I grew up playing golf at a club where there are many welcoming and friendly members. I was fortunate enough to have enough talent to start playing with the old guys at a young age and was recognizable by many of them.

This weekend my dad and I played in the Member-Member tournament. All during the tournament and at the party saturday night, people would come by to say hi to me and ask how I have been and how I played this week. I can remember about 30% of them. But 70% of them I vaguely remember them. I may have played with when I was 15, 10 years ago. I think it is difficult because in this case the minority is more easily remembered. I was the youngin, so I am more easily remembered.

How I wish to have the skills of Jesus who can walk up to a guy he had never met and say Zaccheus come down from that tree. To not feel like an ass when you don't remember somebody. Its not that I don't care, I just don't have the capacity to remember everybody I meet.

I hate that…

Ethan Surprise Me

A friend brought up an interesting point that I am wrestling with…

A financial planner was assisting them with where they need to be saving or investing. If they put away X dollars a month they will have Y dollars at the age of 65…

This is the track I have been on. I have had great advice from my dad and have started investing early in IRA's 401k's and other types of investments. I have lived a life of comfort and am accustomed to it. Almost too much I think…

When my friend asked the advisor, why would he put away that money for later when a friend in his neighborhood may need it for food to live! Or somebody needs some medical assistance but cannot afford it. Why not invest in them? That's where I am wrecked…

If I save all of this money… To use when I am 65, if I live to 65… What about all the missed opportunities to invest in people?

Why is it so hard to let go of the dream of financial freedom when there is no such thing?

I understand that I will need some money if and when I am 65 so that I can survive… But will the money I save today even be worth the missed opportunities to invest in people…

Why is it so hard to let go of the dream of financial freedom when there is no such thing?

Ethan Surprise Me

Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary of my departure to El Salvador…
Last night I was with a friend who I met that day one year ago… A friend who has touched my life in more ways than she will ever know…

But we were talking about the year and things we had done. One thing that was cool was we went to 6 concerts, (7 if you count seeing Los Lobos for 14 minutes at the state fair).
Metallica, Toby Keith, The Tragically Hip/Sam Roberts Band, Snow Patrol/Embrace, and 2 Steven Curtis Chapman shows…

But I started to look at the snapshot of yesterday VS
one year ago yesterday…

• Was in a job I couldn't stand / In a job I love
• Had 1 awesome roommate / Have 2 awesome roommates, and another one in between
• Nobody knew the real Ethan, not even myself / I know the real Ethan, and love him… A few others are beginning to "know" me as I reveal my life to them
• Questioning whether YL would last / Questioning why we have so many kids
• Only child living in Minnesota / 2 out of 3 children in Minnesota with Leah on her way…
• Drinking too much / Clean for 8 months
• Priorities backwards / Being put together in a more Jesus focused picture
• Surface leveled friendships / Deep relationships that
  sometimes scare me, but that is a good thing
• Hundreds of shallow friendships / Handfuls of meaningful friendships.
• Not blogging / blogging
• Spent too much money
  on alcohol / Spend too much money on Caribou… Although it is significantly less than the booze expenses, still too much..
• Worked a lot / Was unemployed at the same time as my
  best friend
• Dreams of remodeling my basement / Actually doing it
• Masked feelings, emotions to prevent fights with a great friend / Few domestics with that friend, which
  is a good thing in the long haul.
• Not playing golf at all / Playing once or twice a week
• Had 1 guy around me / Have a group of guys around me
• Single / Single
• Not sure of who my good friends were / I have a fairly good idea now
• Worked and worked and worked / Experienced early retirement (sept 04-dec 04)
• Never spent time with
  somebody to challenge my faith / Spent a whole lot of time with somebody who challenged my faith, not directly, but got me thinking about it more.
• Not sure who cared about me / Have
  seen people rise up and authentically query my current state of mind, heart…
• Rarely listened / Enjoy listening
• 24 / 25
• Rarely looked for Jesus, except when I needed
  him most / Look for Him daily and see Him daily
• Needed to be drunk to dance or sing karaoke / Done it sober many times and am probably more talented that way…
• Gave up my time
  to anybody who "wanted" it. / Am intentional and exlcusive with my time as I have realized what "wanted" means..
• Was a social planner of sorts, always setting up
  gatherings with bunches of people / Retired from social event planning, noticing that some people didn't care so much about me as they did the things I planned and the environments I
  created.
• Closed book / Open book
• Felt lost at work, unappreciated for the 7o hour weeks and weekends I put in for the company I worked at. / Over-appreciated for the 45-50
  hour weeks I put in at the new job. Which is a welcome change, to feel accepted and appreciated period is more than enough to recieve…
• Not a plumber nor an electrician / Put in a
  water softener, swaped out some light fixtures in the house and moved the electrical for the dryer.
• Not sure of the meaning content / Wrestling with the definition of content in my
  own life… Achieving contentness bit by bit.
• Happy on the outside, unhappy on the inside / Happy on the outside, happy on the inside

The list can go on forever
I think.. Needless to say, it has been a good year, one to remember and things are only getting better.

Ironically, as I was typing this, a song from Don Henly came up on my iPod… "Everything is Different Now"…
Not sure why I put that song on there a few years ago.. Maybe it was for this moment and this moment only…

Ethan testing

Here’s a profile of the my readers… I suggest we pump up that Firefox statistic. I also would suggest staying up to date with the latest version 1.0.6 and its updates. I have been browsing with Firefox for about 5 months now and have found it cleaner, more stable, less junk filled than Microsoft Internet Explorer (Internet Exploder as we called it when I was a developer) and Netscape (Netscrape was a nickname also)…

Get it here…

For those browsing with MS Internet Explorer, I would suggest upgrading to version 6.0. FOr your own privacy it would be a wise play to upgrade as there have been major problems with Internet Explorer and security loopholes.

Get it here…

For those browsing with Lynx, LibWWW, and Netscape 4.5: I would prefer if you didn’t come to my site… I am only kidding, but I would find a new way of browsing the internet and join us by embracing the new technology available.

browsehappy.com

Ethan Daily

Another thought on community…

My roommate Kevin and I have started to work on my basement this week. It has been a piece by piece project.

We started with an egress window in early June (finished, update, I had a pro plumber Steve come and fix all the old galvanized steel pipes.

This week we have been framing in the walls. And in the next few weeks I will be having a pro electrician come in and redo things. It is all original electrical and it is a mess in terms of the electrical panel and most of the upstairs outlets are not grounded.

Once that is done, onto sheetrocking and mudding and taping the walls. And then the doors, then the carpeting and the painting…

But the coolest thing about the prject is getting to spend time with Kevin in his world of construction, very different than my world of computers. Also having buddies come over and selflessly offer their time and energy into helping me out. My friend Robbie came and helped us out last night. We ended the night hanging at DQ and relaxing a little after the work session. I think there is something special about guys and construction, it seems like no matter who you talk to, every guy has a certain interest level and can discuss projects with each other.. My boss and I will go on for ever talking about where we are at in our home improvements. He was excited for my projects that he gave up over 2 hours of his day and truck last week to help us haul 150 2×4's to my house from Home Depot..

I think there should be some form of small groups formed around construction projects… I think it would be a great way to build friendships and community with each other…

I learned an interesting math equation last sunday in a conversation with Shane Claiborne…

He said, if a truck of donations comes to their house, it may take him 6 hours to empty and sort it…
Now if 6 people help out, you may think it would only take 1 hour. But he said in doing things communally, there is an invisible multiplier that makes it seem as if you have more people working on the task and the time is less than 1 hour.

Why wouldn't we take advantage of this multiplier? Whether it is basement work, yard work, painting, or any type of project where multiple people can work on it.. Why not help each other out? With the multiplier, it helps free up time to be with people… Like @ DQ last night…

Ethan Daily

"Hate the sin love the sinner"

Why isn't it just "Love the sinner"???

Sin is a condition we are left with since the events in the Garden of Eden. It is a part of us so I think hating sin is in turn hating ourselves…

Ethan testing

Small steps towards better budgeting…

2 things I parted ways with today. It was difficult, and perhaps there is a better time down the road for me to experience them…

HBO, see ya… Nice programming, but I am not around enough in the summer months to enjoy it. My roommates like it, but I pay the bill… Maybe a treat to myself when I have HD…

Mobile Internet from T-Mobile… Awesome when I am in a jam and need to find a chipotle and I can use Google's WAP pages… But I am really only about 5 minutes from the internet either at home or at work…Maybe start it again if I ever have the opportunity to expense the mobile bill.

Ethan testing

How do you build it?

I always thought.. "With a plan, with action…"

Until a few nights ago, that was my vision. I heard somebody say the following.

"Those who are in love with the vision of community, kill it. Those who are in love with each other, build it."

It is a reverse thought, but I am surprised I never saw it coming since I had been living it out in practice for a few years…

I am part of a Young Life group here in Minneapolis and we've been around for almost 4 years. Our previous staffer had the vision of planning events and planning gatherings for the leaders, (since we knew no students). SO this whole plan was in place and events were happening, leadership weekends, bowling, dinners… But the ministry wasn't growing… Our new "community" was at a stand-still if not receding. We were focused on building a structure in place for tons of kids to just show up and be a part of. The problem was, we weren't out there with the idea to love kids. So without kids, leaders would come and go. They would show up with the hope of kids showing up soon and when it didn't happen, they drifted away to the places they arrived from.

I don't believe I have it all figured out, but I have started to see a change. There has been a change in the structure of our group and being the in-charge guy for over 2 years now, I cannot stand doing administrative work. So i have sort of boycotted it. That has freed up time to love kids, to try and hang with them more, instead of planning an awesome talk, I would use an old one, but use the extra time to talk to kids online, or call them up. I wasn't really able to hang out with them more, it is up to them how much we get to hang out. I do not want to force them to hang out.

The relationships and community being formed has not grown by leaps and bounds, but has grown enough to scare me into a position of not knowing whether I can handle it alone anymore, which is a good thing in many respects.

It just leads me to believe what I heard and know that anything you want can be built out of love, but you need to have that as your focus, not the process or what the community will look like.

I will try to carry this through my thoughts about my own community in my neighborhood, instead of thinking of ways to create it, thinking about ways to love…

Ethan Daily

I learned a lesson yesterday from a few of God's buzzing creations…

I was playing some frisbee golf with Chuck and we were on the 18th hole, walking down the hill and a guy who joined up with us threw a couple discs and one landed near mine so he asked Chuck and I to grab it for him. We couldn't find it so we kept trudging up and down the hill looking for it.

No luck, we couldn't find it but as I started to walk to my disc, a few creatures found me and were upset with me for some reason. So simultaneously I got stung by 2 bees, one got me in the back and one got me twice on the outside of my left ankle.

It had probably been 8 years since I had been stung last, so I forgot the intense pain it brings. I also forgot how stupid it makes you look if you are watching from a distance. All of the sudden a guy freaks out and starts yelling..

But as it continued to hurt through the day (conveniently in the crease of where the skin bunches when you take a step) I started to wonder how something so small and visually un-noticable can cause so much pain…

My new thought is this, does a swear word here or there, or a lie to a friend or stranger, or having a negative tone with somebody , or looking at somebody in a stereotypical/judging way, or drink alcohol like its water or any of the hundreds or thousands of "little sins" or little bad things we do each day, do these items kill us? DO they inflict the pain on our souls that a little bee can?

In the context of an earlier post I think they dull your soul. I think it brings you death. How long does the good feeling of judging somebody and coming to the conclusion you are better last? Is it worth the long term effect that you are putting your self worth in somebody else who you may or may not know? How much time does a little lie buy you? Is that time worth the loss in trust you will experience with somebody when the truth is found out? How long are the pleasures of getting hammered going to last? Are they worth saying something unloving to a friend because you can't control your mouth after 10 beers? Or even 3 beers? Are they worth even becomming somebody you aren't for a few hours while you let go of reality and issues probably brought to the surface from the "little bees" in your daily life but only to be shoved deeper by the alcohol?

These are all examples of things I do or have done, not just once. But was and is a part of daily life for me. We are here to bring life to the body of Christ. I heard somebody say it very well last night.. It's not just a saying that we are the "Body of Christ" That we are all his beloloved children and thats where it ends. We are actually the hands, the feet, the mouths, the lungs, the heart, the eyes and every part of Christ, we are here to be and live as we actually are part of the body of Christ.

Why do I do the little things that kill me, my soul and in turn the Body of Christ….

Ethan testing