Charlie Wear’s Notes

I need time management. No, you didn’t read this incorrectly. I didn’t say I need a time management "system." I have had about elebenty-seven of those over the years.What I need to develop is the ability to say no to all of the good things that others expect me to say yes to. And then I need to learn to say yes to all of the best things that will allow me to be happy and effective in my endeavors.

I need to learn to explore the beauty of procrastination. Huh? Yes, I need to learn to put off until tomorrow those urgent and violently important things that I really don’t need to do. If I can become a better procrastinator I won’t have to redouble my efforts when it appears that I am not living up the the expectations of those around me. I fear that implosion is just around the corner unless I can develop this skill.

When the pile gets too big, I simply start to shut down. I begin to fill my time with fun stuff: reaching out by email to old friends, making long phone calls, scheduling appointments that can easily wait for another time, going to the movies, playing hearts or solitaire, you get the idea. Anything but the important stuff that is at hand. I get so bogged down that malaise can easily set in. So here’s my plan today, I am going to be a better procrastinator and put off everything that is keeping me from accomplishing the vitally important tasks that only I can do.

Wouldn’t it be great to be an all-powerful wizard? Someone like the Wizard of Oz? I think it is amazing how we want to believe that our leaders (read pastors, bosses, professors, governors or candidates) are somehow superhuman. [Of course, Californians do have the Terminator as governor, unfortunately he hasn’t been able to prevent the estimated $16 billion dollar budget deficit caused by the housing crunch. Apparently even the Governator is only human.]

I have spent some time in my life working and serving in the "institutional church." You know what I mean. I have seen denominational leadership and mega-church leadership up close. I have been on staff in a large church, and I have been part of the overseeing group in a church network. Here is the good news and the bad news. The good news? All of these leaders are "just ordinary people like you and me." The bad news? All of these leaders are "just ordinary people like you and me."

We want so much more from our leaders. We want their approval and we want them to recognize our contributions to the enterprise. We want them to be kind and calm. We want them to make good decisions and to know what is best for the organization. We want them to place our needs above their own. Unfortunately, like Dorothy, we end up noticing that there is a man behind the curtain pulling the levers that create the image of the larger than life Wizard. And that man behind the curtain usually looks all too much like a run of the mill, life-size human being. He has faults. He has flaws. He is self-centered, and flies off the handle. He misuses his influence and power. He walks all over us, and he doesn’t even know it. He hardly ever encourages us to be all that we can be.

To all of those people who have thought of me as a leader and eventually discovered that I was just a man behind the curtain, I apologize. A leader I admired used to say something like, "I’m just a fat man trying to get to heaven." That seems like a self-deprecating and humble statement. Well I am a lot like that leader, I am just a guy trying to fake it until I can make it like the rest of us, a man behind the curtain.

For the perseverant among my readers, here is the third and final installment of the story of the skate ranch.

Today some more states have an election to choose the nominees for the Presidency. Political junkies are familiar with the film, "Wag the Dog," in which a ‘war’ is staged to avoid scandal in a presidential election. I love the part of the film where a politician announces that the fake war is over, thus ruining the efforts of the political operatives.

It is a shame, at least for the sake of the media, that the polls were wrong in New Hampshire and that Mrs. Clinton won that election. With a commanding lead of about 60 delegates, Mr. Obama will continue his march into inevitability. Soon the media will declare that the nomination process is over. Of course, it wasn’t long ago that Mrs. Clinton was the inevitable nominee.

On the Republican side Mike Huckabee marches on while all of the media talk is about McCain mobilizing the base of the party. The media has already started picking the Vice Presidential candidate.

It will be a shame if the American voting public mess up the prognosticator’s and the pundit’s predictions.

For over a week now I have been under the weather. Nothing serious, just some kind of congestion with a dry cough and some loss of voice. Unfortunately it makes it very hard to work and ply my trade. I can go to work, but I just don’t feel like doing anything. Unfortunately my daily tasks don’t know the difference and they just begin to pile up. Anyone have a gift of healing for colds with post-nasal drip?

"I think if you get down to basics, whatever the problem is, it’s usually to do with love. So I think ‘All You Need is Love’ is a true statement. I’m not saying, ‘All you have to do is…’ because ‘All You Need’ came out in the Flower Power Generation time. It doesn’t mean that all you have to do is put on a phoney smile or wear a flower dress and it’s gonna be alright. Love is not just something that you stick on posters or stick on the back of your car, or on the back of your jacket or on a badge. I’m talking about real love, so I still believe that. Love is appreciation of other people and allowing them to be. Love is allowing somebody to be themselves and that’s what we do need." — John Lennon, 1971

Navin: Well I’m gonna to go then. And I don’t need any of this. I don’t need this stuff, and I don’t need you. I don’t need anything except this. (picks up an ashtray)
Navin: And that’s it and that’s the only thing I need, is this. I don’t need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that’s all I need. And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.
Navin: And I don’t need one other thing, except my dog…I don’t need my dog.
– Steve Martin as the Jerk, 1979

"There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love"– Lennon/McCartney

I find it especially hard when stuff is happening to kids. I stumbled across this post by my friend Stephen Shields about the upcoming surgery for his daughter Skye and her ongoing kidney issues. I know that I was totally freaked out when my son Benjamin was scheduled for an outpatient hernia repair. I am not sure even how to pray when I hear about situations like Skye’s. Maybe it is simple enough just to say, "O God, be with them, heal her."

I heard about a friend who was rushed to the hospital by ambulance last Friday. It was two days after the fact and she was home and recovering. These are the lives of folks that are living in the already and the not yet of the kingdom of God, where we are redeemed and yet still subject to disease and trials. Somehow, however, our faith helps us cope with these trials, and that has to be a good thing.

On January 4 I made three political predictions. Yesterday, when Gov. Mitt Romney dropped out of the Republican race, one of those predictions came true. The next president will not be a Mormon. There has been plenty of analysis on one very important point, Christians did not support Romney. You can call it anti-Mormon bigotry, but it could be there were other factors.

It still remains to be seen whether or not Senator Obama can become the Democratic nominee. Apparently the Democratic party rules make it difficult for a candidate to get a clear plurality in a close race. My money is still on Senator Clinton to be the Democratic nominee.

I am posting part 2 of three videos of me telling the story of the skate ranch. I wrote about this in November 2003 in an article on Next-Wave entitled, "I was part of a missional community and didn’t know it."

Some of my faithful readers know that when I closed the church I had been pastoring in Moreno Valley, California in 1998 that I became involved in a ministry to skateboarders at a place we began to call the "Ranch." You can read about that in these articles from the archives of  Next-Wave entitled "If you build it they will come" by Charlie Wear, and "If you build it they will come, when they come you build it bigger, when you build it bigger more will come, The skater’s were God’s idea, not ours" by Tom Chapman. This video is part 1 of our story (two more to come…)