Salvation Economist’s Blog

I was driving down the road the other day and caught myself having a conversation with a person (a real person I know) who wasn’t in my car.  It was all in my head.  As I thought about it more and more I realized I do this all the time.  I started wondering if other people do the same thing.  Do you have a conversation with someone you know even though they aren’t there?

To be clear it’s typically not so much a conversation as it is a diatribe.  It’s me talking about something and assembling comments meant to be provocative, funny, or maybe absolutely outlandish about something.  I suppose when you get right down to it, it’s a lot like a blog, but you don’t type the brain traffic, you only run it through this imaginary conversation.

So is this out of the norm?  Am I dysfunctionally coping with the tension between needing social interaction and my introverted tendencies by having contrived conversations in solitude?  I do often like being alone.  When I drive, I rarely play music when I am in the car and don’t listen to the music when it’s playing.  I’ll listen to people talking on the radio but typically get turned off by whoever is speaking before too long and then lapse in my version of a conversation.

Is this unhealthy?  My imaginary friends and family don’t seem to mind.  At least they don’t argue with me when they are hypothetically conversing with me.  Maybe I should try to make the conversations real and use some of the cell phone minutes that go wasted in any given month.  The problem with this is my contributions to any given dialogue are typically so uninteresting, I am fairly certain that before long, no one with caller ID would answer my calls.

Anyway, all you people out there that I am giving an imaginary speech to, let me know if you think I am going off the deep-end.  Or I guess maybe arrange some sort of intervention with a qualified mental health care provider.  If you don’t think it’s a problem – well I’ll just talk to you later – at least in my mind I will anyway.

I had a visitor to my office yesterday.  The person was obviously a chain-smoker who had to interface with the public and so employed various scent masking agents to cover the smoke smell.  We had an “interesting” meeting and not a pleasant meeting and the problem with this scenario is that the persons scent seemed to linger all day.

I should add in the interest of full disclosure that I have almost no sense of smell.  I had it at one time and not sure what happened to it.  My theories are that it shut down during the summer I worked de-beaking chickens.  What would your smell cells do if they worked in a very hot chicken barn/outhouse burning the beaks of chickens flat all day long day after day?  The chicken poop was absolutely horrible but only marginally worse then the burnt beak smoke.  The second theory is the cells went on leave during my job as a dishwasher.  There’s something about breathing in scalding hot steam for hours on end that my nose didn’t like.  My fingers and most of the rest of my body didn’t like this job either but that’s a blog for another day.

So I got this guy in my office and the scent doesn’t go away.  I started thinking about it more and more and then left my office for awhile and came back and I still had the same scent in my nose.  So I thought to myself, ‘Wow that scent was so strong it must have stuck to the inside of my nose.’  Then I thought about it some more and this seemed less and less likely.  I finally concluded the scent got stuck in my brain.  It was like a song you hear that just keeps playing in your head and won’t go away.  Think about it – your ears hear a song, you stop hearing the song, the song keeps playing in your head.  Why can’t the same thing happen with smells?

I don’t know why or how the scent seemed to last forever but by the end of the day, I was anxious to move on to any other scent.  The smell reminded me of the meeting and so I kept thinking of this meeting all day.  I finally escaped the scent by going to workout.  I am not sure if all the breathing cleansed the scent from my nose or the exercise cleared my brain of the thought of the scent.

So the next time you get a smell that sticks with you, see if you can figure out whether it’s a mental of physical manifestation.  Then again, maybe this doesn’t happen to you or anyone else in which case I am probably some sort of idiot (savant) or mentally ill.

I have been hearing a lot of sirens lately (the police car variety, not the Odysseus type…although now that I think about I hear my share of those too).  I don’t know what the deal is whether people are more accident prone all of a sudden or maybe I never didn’t pay attention as much before.

I do tend to listen to the sirens closely though.  It’s an occupational hazard when you live across the street from where you work.  I always hope, the sirens don’t stop at the church.  I have really, really hoping they wouldn’t stop because we have been in a prolonged process to install an automated external defibrillator (AED).  The AED is a devise that pretty much anyone can use to save someone who is having a heart attack.  So I have been worried that someone would have a heart attack before we got the unit and their demise would be because it took so long to get the AED.

Fortunately, we have the AED now and so if there is a heart attack at the parish, we can assist the victim until help arrives.  I don’t know that it will cure my desire for sirens to go past the church, but at least we got the heart covered.

I started disliking sirens intensely after I started dwelling on what the reason might be for their speedy trip.  They don’t go to happy places.  There is someone in a rough spot most of the time.  It’s not something pleasant to think about the accident or illness or misfortune that exists at the destination.  I have, however, recently found a tonic for the bad feeling I get when I think about where a siren is going.  I say a prayer for whoever they are going to help. 

I’d invite you to give it a try – it’s free – so if you hear a siren – say a prayer.

Do you suppose flies or insects in general have a notion of family?  Probably not.  It was just a thought.  I mean ants and bees have their communities but I can’t see flies and mosquitoes having communities. 

I was thinking about this fly that was trapped in my car the other day.  He/she finally got out miles from where we started and I wondered if when he got out, wondered where the heck he was.  “I know I laid some eggs in the road kill in the street by the park, but nothing here looks at all familiar.  I sure hope those eggs turn into healthy maggots and grow up to make me a proud fly parent.”  I doubt anything like that goes through a fly brain.  Although you wonder if someone like Saint Francis of Assisi would squash bugs and mosquitoes as he seemed to have a very exceptional appreciation of all of life and creation.   

I was thinking if flies and mosquitoes had a sense of community they would have far greater regard for their lives.  A fly with a family would have the wherewithal to get out of Dodge after someone shoos him away and goes for the fly swatter.  Mosquitoes living in community would probably concentrate their blood seeking attacks on animals without the ability to squash them. 

I’m glad crows have a posse they run with.  Imagine if crows behaved like mosquitoes. All we need so some sort of Hitchcock like situation where crows give up on road kill and start ganging up on live things because they got nothing to lose.  If they didn’t have their buds or family, they’d probably pluck out our eyeballs first and then chow down on some fresh flesh when we are defenseless.  

I am not sure what the point of any of these observations is but I guess I wonder if our biggest failures as humanity reflect our inability to understand and see one another in community and in family.  Do murder, war, assault reflect behavior more fly like than human?  Perhaps what we need to do is emphasize the fact that we belong to a very large community comprised of numerous smaller connected communities.  

I grew up in Austin, Minnesota.  With a few exceptions, I wouldn’t have traded much in this environment.  There were plenty of kids in my neighborhood and we did many things in groups including a lot of sports.  No leagues – just got together and played basketball, baseball, football, and hockey.  However, Austin, as nearly every city, was somewhat economic segregated.  The families who were well to do tended to live in the same areas.

I lived on the East side.  The East side was, for the most part, the older section of town, with smaller houses and more hourly workers.  Our home was relatively big and newer than many of the homes but collectively, the east side of town had a reputation for being ‘the wrong side of town.’  In fact, a kid I went to school with, Martin Zellar (Marty Zellar, back then), wrote a song about the, “East Side Boys.”  To give you a better idea of the area town, read through the lyrics:

They grew up on the side of town
Where the Christmas lights hung all year ’round
And the sidewalks went unshoveled
And the dogs barked all night long

They were skinny and they were mean
Had parents that were never seen
Their hair was always longer
Their shirts were always tight

And we knew we’d never get to know ‘em
And we knew we’d never try
Those East Side Boys seemed further from us
Than any star that hung up in the sky

Those East Side Boys never seemed to eat
They just smoked cigarettes across the street
Stared down at the sidewalks
Came to classes late
http://www.free-lyrics.org

On conference days it was always the same
Those east side parents never came
Never read their stories
Saw their artwork on the walls

Once we’d hit the high school
Around grade nine or ten
One by one they’d disappear
And we’d never see those East Side boys again

They grew up on the side of town
Where the Christmas lights hung all year ’round
And the sidewalks went unshoveled
And the dogs barked all night long

No one seemed to know their names
They didn’t go to prom or football games
Just wandered through the hallways like inmates doin’ time

And we knew we’d never get to know ‘em
And we knew we’d never try
Those East Side Boys seemed further from us
Than any star that hung up in the sky

East Side Boys… (5X)

Now that I am living in the best place to live in the nation (Plymouth, MN), I sometimes feel like I don’t necessarily belong.  I feel like I left the East side maybe it never left me.  For what it’s worth, I don’t have a dog and am reasonably good about getting my Christmas lights down around the first of the year, but still, there’s a lingering feeling like Plymouth and I are mismatched.  There’s a little bit of metaphorical mud on that’s always on my shoes representing an incongruity in the environment where I grew up and my current environment. 

There, glad I got that out in the open.  For those of you who actually witness my behavior, I am sure all this explains a lot.  For those who don’t, just imagine a rube disguised as Johnny-on-the-spot, bean-counter, and you’ll get the idea.

In this business…

I heard someone recently use the phrase, “in this business,” and it got me thinking.  The phrase is part of a family of clichés wherein the author tries to explain why something he or she is an expert on is different than other realms of business or life.

The most frequent occurrence seems to be with people in the movies and TV.  “In this business, you either give the people something they like and will pay for or you end up in the gutter.”  Dang – thanks for pointing that out.  I guess I never knew that’s the way Hollywood works and it’s way different than the rest of the commercial world. 

One the most annoying examples I recall was when Joe Sensor was doing color commentary for the Vikings.  Listening to the Vikings on radio is tough to begin with but when he would preface nearly every comment he uttered with, “In this league…” and follow it with something like, “you either execute or you don’t get things done.” Wow – brilliant – never would have guessed that in the NFL you have to execute.

I suppose there is an appropriate use of phrases of this sort but it’s difficult to use it without sounding condescending.   I was trying to imagine an appropriate use of the phrase that would be appropriate, relatively insightful, and in my business.

Some potential phrases might include:

In this business, you really need to focus on mission, vision, and identity – Not sure this is distinctly different than selling pancakes or Cheerios but it might be).

In the church racket, you either got to build relationships or forget about it.  -Again probably applies to many other service organizations but does distinguish us to some extent.

If you want to survive doing God’s business, you really need to focus on improving the morality of everyone’s behavior or you’re wasting their time and money. -Too harsh?  -Accurate?

I tell you what, in my numerous years in the faith building game, one thing you must really focus is on adding value with contributed resources, or those contributions will disappear.  -Probably too much left unsaid but accurate nevertheless.

Listen, my friend, if you only focus on one thing in this gig, don’t be a hypocrite. – Definitely not distinguishing but probably valuable.

Anyway, how about it – can you come up with a statement from your perspective that would differentiate the church ‘business’ from others?
 

It’s been awhile.  I’ve been busy and then gone and then busier.  I have not doubt it’s the same with you. 

I am sure by this time your appetite for something even semi-profound from me is overwhelming.  There is a subject I have been meaning to write on but have continued to put off in the hope that things might change.

Yes, boys and girls, it’s time to talk about comments.  You may have noticed there are not a lot of comments.  This isn’t a big deal.  I read some blogs of people that can write well and actually have insights and they don’t get many comments either.  And to truly honest with you, I get a ton of comments.  I have the account set up to email the comments to me and I have to approve them before they are posted.

Now before you go calling me some big anti-free speech Nazi, I thought I would give you a sample of the nearly ten potential comments I receive nearly every day.  Yes you got that right, I get roughly ten comments to be evaluated every day.  I have posted none of them.  Why, you ask?  Here’s a sampling from the last couple of days:

Comment 1
homesite fast misset planlessly tricaudate leviticus readdress rod http://www.intertune.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Intertune  http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/

Comment 2

prestigiously antiscians warlikely unopenable querier cyclopedical upstick kanara http://www.glensplace.com/files/Breakfast/Huevos_Revueltas_con_Cebollas.htm” rel=”nofollow”>Huevos Revueltas con Cebollas, Pimientas, y Tomates  http://primetimecrime.com

As you can no doubt deduce, the authors are clearly articulate but I have refused to post their comments below my entries because deep down I am a bigot who can’t stand anyone who doesn’t see the world the same way I do.  Reread the comments – it’s it clear to you that they wish to undermine the nirvana I am trying to cultivate.

Given the substantial quantity of these sorts of comments, I often wonder if they are generated by some robot combing blogs and posting and posting and posting.  The other option is there is some poor sap exploiting some free bandwidth somewhere, mindlessly posting to random sites and collecting a few pennies when a comment somehow gets posted, and someone happens to click on the link, and then decides to buy something.  I doubt this is the case but if you were poor and had little to no money and had access to some internet café in a third world country, how would you try to earn money? 

Option A is that you could post meaning comments (to nearly meaningless blog entries) or you could spend the time sending millions of emails claiming you are a queen or a barrister or the widow of the late Sir Francis Hillary, ESQ and need some help getting your fortune out of a repressive African country, which would you chose?

The emails for all these comments were driving me crazy and so I set up a rule to put them automatically in my deleted email box (it saved the problem of deleting them manually).  Unfortunately, I see there’s a comment about copyright laws and some material in another post and so while I sort that out, feel free to comment.

It’s springtime in Minnesota the days are growing longer and longer and you can open up those windows and let that cool evening air refresh your house.  The sun rises earlier and earlier every morning and the birds are singing.  In fact the birds are singing their asses off when you get right down to it.

I don’t sleep well and wake at next to no noise and/or a little bit of light. 

I find it difficult to impossible to fall back asleep after I am awake. 

I also have a clock that flashes the time and temperature on the ceiling above my bed.

Add all these factors together and the bottom line is I have come to view the birds singing as something for the birds.  I have regularly been tracking when I wake up and here the first bird chirping.  I can tell you this much, if someone tells you they get up with the birds or the early bird gets the worm, I would ask them exactly when they think this occurs.

My three week observation would say somewhere between 3:50 and 4:10 AM.  It was 4:10 this morning approximately and I began to ask myself just what the hell are these birds trying to prove.  Are the birds like people where their bird protestant work ethic drives them to get up way too early and make sure everyone else is aware of this fact? 

What about the other birds, do they sleep through the chattering of these birds that get up first or do they burry their head in their wing and try to get hour of sleep?  Do they get mad at the birds that get up first and start yakking away?  What do early bird, early birds do at 4:10 in the dark? 

Why are they blabbing like there’s no tomorrow at such an ungodly hour?  What exactly are they saying anyway – I can’t make sense of it – I like to think I have a little Doctor Doolittle in me and even still it’s gibberish.  In fact, I think these first chirpers are making noise just to be a pain to everyone else.  They are like people talking on their cell phones at a volume that makes the phone unnecessary (assuming the other party is in the State of Minnesota).

I got some advice for these birds and anyone who talks too loud on their cell phone – I’m sick and oh so tired and I ain’t going stand for your crap any more.  Shut up or watch out.
 

Minnesota recently celebrated its 150th birthday.  Didn’t seem to be much fanfare about the event – maybe there’s more on the way, though.  Seems to me Iowa changed their license plates for the occasion and seemed to work it into their marketing identity for quite awhile.   So why does Iowa play up their anniversary and for Minnesota (at least to this point) it seems like a relatively minor event.

I am not sure what the true value of marking milestones in the life or an organization or individual are.  I once calculated the number of days I lived on earth thinking that your 15,000 or 20,000 day is a lot cooler than your 52nd birthday.  I put an important date on my calendar but no longer remember the day or even my job at the time and so I doubt it’s still there.

As the administrator of a very old parish (which is part of a very, very old Church), I wonder what is appropriate and also exactly when do you start counting.  I can verify Holy Name of Jesus was incorporated in the state of Minnesota on 7/11/1878 – twenty years and two months after Minnesota was founded.  However, the written history of the parish identifies priests celebrating mass in the area in 1856.  So when does our history start?  Whatever date you choose, how should a parish celebrate a milestone like 125 or 150 years?

It seems like every organization places a little different importance on milestones.  I suspect that the milestones probably mean more to organizations where there is greater longevity in the membership and a greater sense of history and its importance.  It might also have something to do with the speed of change.  If we are in a constant change of flux, the past would become seemingly less important more quickly (if that makes any sense).

At any rate, we don’t seem to do much here to honor the past and it wouldn’t appear anyone is too concerned with marking milestones.  I am not sure what the consequences of this sort of behavior will be but it seems to convey a transient approach rather than a long-term (or even eternal) which is probably what you would want in a parish.

Have you ever wondered what part you are ideally suited to play?  I mean you are watching a TV show or movie and you ask yourself, if I were in this episode which role would I be capable of playing. 

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m strange, it wouldn’t be the first time.  But I think about it.  It’s not like I have every liked the theater or acting or even people getting all dramatical.  So for me I aspire to playing a very minor part but playing it in the very best possible way.  I guess the real question I confront is, since I can’t act, what character behaves in ways I see myself acting.

One of my girls wasn’t feeling well the other day and so was on the couch watching non-stop reruns of, “American Gladiators.” I think I could do better than Hulk Hogan, who is a co-host to the show,  but it’s largely because he relies entirely on clichés (as do the people interviews).  Anyway, I thought the best role for me in this show was the referee (back in my day I would have been a contestant – let me tell you).  All he says before every segment of the competition is, “Is the contest ready? Is the gladiator ready?” and then blows his whistle.

The reality is though I feel I would be best suited for a person in the crowd.  Maybe a notable person in the crowd that gets one line or yells.  I could also be either a soldier or cowboy that gets shot.  I wonder if all those soldiers or cowboys tell their grandkids about how the got blown up on the beach scene in, “Saving Private Ryan.” 

I question whether I could pull off the role of a henchman.  Not the big bad guy but one of his cronies.  Maybe like the guys Batman and Robin continually beat the crap out of.  I could do that but if I was asked to shoot someone because I was mad would the audience buy a guy looking like me behaving so evilly?

I am not totally sure what the point in all this is but I think there is probably some real life evaluation of character and role that would be far more useful.  What is the ideal role God has created for me?  Am I living it now or is there something better suited for my gifts?  How do you know?  I could be playing the role of McCloud when I really should be playing Jim Rockford or who knows maybe Fred Sanford.  Am I called to be a lead or a spear-chucker?  What role do you see yourself playing?