So about 3 days ago I told my wife that I would take care of the dishes from now on. You can see how well this is working out…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: baseball, dreams, interpretation, recurring
So I keep having this recurring dream…and it’s driving me crazy.
About 3 or 4 months ago I had this dream and, although it was out of the ordinary, it didn’t worry me that much. I was in 8th grade and I was running to baseball practice after school, apparently a little late. I got to the dugout to drop off my bag, grab my glove, and head out to warm up, but I suddenly realized that I didn’t have my baseball socks on. I furiously scrambled to find my socks in my bag, each second passing very slowly as my anxiety grew until I was in a full-on panic. I finally found my socks, but I couldn’t get them on. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get them on. I could see all my teammates warming up, and I knew I would be in trouble for being late. In the middle of my panic, the dream ended and I woke up.
All the subsequent dreams are at the same field, in the same dugout, with the same team, and same coach. And they are vivid and accurate, down to every player on my real junior high baseball team. But each one is a little bit different. I’ve had about 10 of them over the last 4 months and there is always something preventing me from actually playing baseball. Either I can’t get my cleats on for practice, I’m on deck and can’t find my batting gloves, or i have lost my coaches fungo bat and replaced it with a guitar. It’s so frustrating because all I want to do is play baseball, and I never can.
On multiple not-so-reliable websites about dream interpretation I have learned that recurring dreams reveal some sort of anxiety in your past or present life. They also say my subconscious is trying to tell me something very important.
In the dream dictionary on dreammoods.com baseball appearing in a dream has a specific meaning, but none quite fit my dream. Dreaming of playing baseball means the dreamer has a desire to set and achieve goals.
So why am I having this dream over and over? Is something preventing me from being able to set and achieve goals? Or is this dream interpretation stuff just mumbo jumbo? I need help, because I hate having this dream over and over.
So, as you may know I am a youth pastor at a church that most would call an inner-city church. Even if they don’t call it that–maybe because business is booming across the street thanks to the richer white folk who frequent the restaurants–they would have to agree that the ministry we do here is urban. Now, like everything else in life, a ministry that isn’t profitable is largely ignored. A ministry that is profitable is one in which the amount of money that can be gleaned by offering goods and services is substantial enough for larger companies to focus on it as a consumer group. These ministries are almost always full of middle class suburban families. Take a look at the major distributors of christian literature. Group.com, (which has many worthwhile products) for example, has a vast array of products ranging from children to small groups to church management but is devoid of anything for urban ministry. Check this out:
The sad thing is that what Group is doing–essentially completely ignoring a whole section of church ministry–isn’t even the worst I’ve seen. Ever heard of Simply Youth Ministry? This is probably the biggest name out there right now for youth ministry resources. It was pioneered by Doug Fields after he began writing books like Purpose Driven Youth Ministry. Anyway, SYM is one of the most frustrating organizations I have ever encountered. They are like the elitists of the youth ministry world (more on this at a later date) and basically cater to churches with youth ministries with triple-figure attendance and five-figure budgets. Anway, they have something called Simply Urban Ministry, so I decided to check it out. Completely useless. There is not a single thing that SYM puts out for urban ministry, but when you click on the resources tab on the Simply Urban website, where does it take you? Directly to SYM’s products page! I can only assume that this attempt to reach out to urban ministries was half-hearted and mostly a marketing ploy to sell more products. I am very disappointed.
That being said, I’m not so sure we need 15 how-to books on urban ministry, because those are usually pretty useless. However, it would be nice to see some relevant material produced by the bigger organizations, even if it means not making any money off of it. Things like ministering to kids with backgrounds of abuse, or relevant ministry to kids in gang affiliated families, or even just changing the status quo in the minds of kids to set them up for success. These are the things I think about, but I am struggling to find any resources to help me develop my thoughts. If you’re in the same position as me, check out http://resources.uywiblog.com/. They’ve got some good stuff. And if you’re not in my position, let’s try to bring more attention to the urban scene so it doesn’t get forgotten by those seeking profit.
I want to move to the Yucatan Peninsula and live with this guy:
So I have a sinus infection and have stayed home from work the past couple days. It’s been a really long time since I watched daytime television, but since I recently bought a digital converter box for my analog TV, I have all sorts of new digital channels now! PBS broadcasts on three separate digital channels, but the best programming is on 18.2. Anyway, there are a bunch of good shows ranging from history to home improvement to travel, but the best of the best is a cooking show: Mexico–One Plate at a Time.
The basic premise of this show is that this guy, Rick Bayless–a chef from Chicago, cooks a bunch of Mexican food and then invites a bunch of people over to eat it. I’ve seen this show once before and he taught me how to make carnitas, which was awesome, but today he made this mango guacamole and some other guacamole with pumpkin seeds in it. I don’t think I have ever wanted guacamole so bad. Anyway, long story short, I want to move to the Yucatan where this guy lives now and I want to move in next door so he’ll have to invite me over to eat. Who’s with me?
NOTE: This post could have been written almost two weeks ago, but I needed some time to recover from the catastrophic events of Wednesday, October 15.
My entire life I have been living and dying with the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were my grandpa’s team, my dad’s team, and now they are my team. It took me until I was about six years old to really understand baseball and to grasp what it meant to root for a team. Fortunately for me, the Dodgers were a pretty good baseball team with a ton of young talent. Five years in a row I watched a Dodger become the National League rookie of the year. I idolized Mike Piazza, I howled out Raul Mondesi’s name when he came to bat, and I twisted like a tornado in my backyard pretending I could throw forkballs like Hideo Nomo. The Dodgers were everything I ever wished they could be. But then the playoffs came.
In 1995 the Dodgers won the NL West and went on to play the Cincinatti Reds in the Division Series. The Reds were good, but I knew the Dodgers would win. I watched helplessly as the Dodgers lost three straight games to lose the series–three straight games that really weren’t even close. Little did I know that this would come to be the underlying theme for my love of the Dodgers. I watched them get swept by the Braves in 1996, win one meaningless playoff game down 0-2 in 2004 against the Cardinals, and get swept again by the Mets in 2006. Let’s review: in my cognizant lifetime (excluding their 1988 championship season when I was a year old) the Dodgers had managed a record of 1-12 in the playoffs and had never even been ahead in a single series. Until this year….until this Man(ny) arrived…
Unimpressive as it may seem, the Dodgers went 30-24 after the improbable Manny Ramirez trade, and it was just enough for them to win a weak NL West. Suddenly my childhood was flashing before my eyes: young talent, good pitching, a playoff berth. I feared what was next…incompetance and failure. But the Dodgers did it! They won! They swept the Cubs against great odds and it wasn’t even close! Finally my dreams were coming true. Nobody could stop the Dodgers now. For the first time I was watching the Dodgers play winning October baseball–and it was incredible.
However, my excitement and hopes of a championship were soon crushed in Philadelphia. The Phillies dispatched the Dodgers rather quickly (and are doing the same to the Rays right now) and advanced with a 4-1 series win. It was over.
Twelve days later I look back at the season that was. The ups and downs, the injuries, the pleasant suprises, the horrible Andruw Jones, and the trade that revitalized Dodgers baseball and propelled the Dodgers to the NLCS. It was everything a fan could ask for in a season. Although it would have been nice to win it all, the Dodgers got to play 170 games this year, and hopefully next year they’ll play a few more.
I finally decided to make a blog. Actually, I made it almost 2 weeks ago and have been putting off writing my first post. This is strangely reminiscent of a Xanga I used to share with some friends back in high school. Anyway, I am again sharing this blog with my beautiful wife–actually she already tried to post on here but she accidentally made her own blog.
What you can expect from this blog is a window into our lives. You’ll see posts about our family, youth ministry, Jesus, funny videos we found on YouTube, and basically the events of our everyday lives. I hope you enjoy our blog, because if you don’t we’re coming after you…we’re the Lynch Mob!
-Andrew
