Pressing On
Hey there,
The Blazers made the playoffs. Amazingly, we beat the Phoenix Suns (ranked #7, we were #8) in a one-game playoff to see who would get the 8th seed. Incredibly, we came away with the win in their area.
That locked us into the #7 seed and a matchup with the Spurs.
We lost the first game.
The second game? It was on Tuesday. Normally, nothing too big, except we are now in a new small-group series on Tuesdays, which happens to be at the same time as the game.
While we were discussing, I was following along with the game. This is what I saw:
YES.
I really wanted to be watching the game, aside from being a fan, because the discussion I was in was… awkward, with no signs of improving. A group of people who seemingly don’t know much about anyone else (we joined someone’s lifegroup), but overall, the chemistry seemed lacking.
After the group ended, I went home and watched the rest of the game we had recorded. I didn’t tell the kids the ending, so they were loving how things turned out. The Blazers tied the series 1-1 in a best-of-7 and took home-court advantage.
That evening, one of the kids decided to drop two balls and a car into the toilet. These balls are just the right size to get clogged.
I spent most of the evening into the early hours working on the toilet. It was pretty nasty.
In the end, we were able to fix it up and get everything working again; we only had to buy a new water hose that connected to the toilet (as the old one was so old that it leaked when we reconnected it). It could have definitely been worse.
Speaking of toilets: the Blazers’ season also went down the drain, ending on the 28th. Very frustrating. We took game 2, but in games 3 and 4, we had a 20+ point lead (and this was at home) in the 3rd or going into the 4th quarter, and still ended up losing both. In the final game, we were down by nearly 30 points only to get within single digits in the last few minutes. I do believe the NBA wanted the Spurs to win to showcase Weby, the league’s future talent. He was also fortunate to have lots of calls go his way, especially at critical moments. This was a series we could’ve won; that’s the most frustrating part.
Oh, also, before one of our Tuesday night meetings, I joined an HOA meeting. I joined to ask how we could petition to disband the HOA entirely. I did bring it up, and others on the board mentioned they’d asked that before as well. Then they asked if I wanted to join the board as they had an opening. My wife insisted I join, so now I’m part of the HOA board.
Part of this role is that I can ride along for inspections. I did, so that I could see what they look for and also what they see across the entire neighborhood.
Finally, the blue image is some notes that I grabbed, rather than writing them down during a large Tuesday night group discussion. This was before we broke into our smaller groups.
Speaking of smaller groups, I find it interesting that during the bible study each week, we come back and everyone has a lot of questions about what was read. Sky and I generally try to take the initiative to answer the questions we have through further research and the resources available to us. If we still can’t discern what is meant, we might reach out to a friend or family member for their view, and if all else fails, we might bring it back for a group discussion.
I see the group discussion as less of a place or time to get answers to questions and more as a time to get other perspectives on verses and passages. I suppose it’s been surprising to us to see that most people don’t really take that approach. To the contrary, in our experience across multiple churches with vastly different viewpoints, people with questions generally will go to a pastor or a leader, ask the question, and accept the answer.
Not always though – we have seen where if someone doesn’t like the answer, they push until they get it. Sometimes, going so far as to try to remove the person from the church who told or even taught them otherwise.
I feel like Forrest Gump as I end, because as he says “and that’s all I have to say about that”
just Pray