Simply A Night Owl

 This one will keep me smiling for awhile. There’s a surprise ending!!

Caution:  Extreme Language Warning.  If you are offended by language, do not go any further!

I very very seldom post anything about my job as a police officer but something happened today to make me change my mind and vent a little bit. At the time of the incident, I was very happy to smile and be overly polite; that being with the intention of making this person fume in their own gaseous rage. As the day progressed and I was able to process this occurrence and go over it again in my mind, it really pissed me off. Let me explain.

Idaho Code 49-654 is the Idaho Law for basic speed rule and maximum speed limits and gives the maximum allowable speeds on Idaho roads. The exceptions to the maximum allowable speed limits include but are not limited to conditions, the right of a city government to reduce speeds within its jurisdiction under Idaho Code 49-207(2)(a and b), and finally if the speed limit is “otherwise posted”. This is what happened.

Today, I stopped a car for going 69 mph in a posted 45 mph zone. Yeah, you heard me right – 24 mph above the speed limit. After activating my overhead lights and then subsequently getting a grand tour of the area around the local Walmart store only to finally come to a stop where I wanted the person to go in the first place, I got to talk to the driver. My first words to him were, “Get back in your car!” and that was over the P.A. So we’re really off to a great start. I approach the car and talk to the driver about his speed. He first tells me that he just did a U-Turn but when I asked him where, he couldn’t tell me which is cool with me because he’s not from the area and it’s kind of a non issue anyway. I tell him that he was still in a 45 zone and then he tells me that the car is new and he’s not used to it and besides, “I’m a retired cop”.  Although I didn’t say it, my first thought was this

How many times did you, as a cop, get to listen to the bullshit you’re trying to feed me now?

So I ask for his driver’s license which he hands to me and then his registration and insurance. While his wife is frantically digging around the glove box for the registration and insurance, I look at the driver’s hands because he is fumbling around with his wallet. This guy has his retired I.D. about half out of the sleeve so the only thing showing is a red band with the word POLICE in big white bold letters and he was rubbing it with his thumb. I actually had to stifle a laugh because I was sitting there thinking to myself

Oh yeah, right there. Do it a little harder now. Yeah, that’s good…

Eventually, I got all of his information and went back to my car where I promptly wrote him a speeding ticket for 69 mph in a posted 45 mph zone. In Idaho, the fines are set by the State Legislature and there are only two fines for speeding. 1-15 mph above the speed limit is $75.00 and 16 or more above is $140.00. So I go back up to the car knowing full well what to expect and give him is stuff back and explain the citation to him. He asks me what the fine is and I tell him that it is $140.00. I never would have expected what came next.

This guy looks up from his window and tells me, “You’re a fucking asshole!”. Fortunately for me, in 12 years, I have grown a very thick skin and often times find these types of exchanges quite entertaining. This was no exception. My response to him was, “Yeah, so?” I think I caught him off guard because he didn’t say anything so I told him to “have a very nice day”, smiled and started walking back to my car. As I was walking away, he told me, “I was a fucking cop for 19 years and I can’t believe you’d write me a ticket”. I couldn’t resist. I returned to his car and asked him if during that time, he treated people the way he was treating me now? He told me to “fuck off” and I again got to tell him to have a nice day and even waved at him as he sped away.

I want to clarify that I am not upset about another cop treating me that way. I don’t really care because we are all human and as such have failings. What pissed me off, was the fact that he expected to get a break because he was a retired cop. Well that just doesn’t sit well with me. If you took the time to read the laws that I linked to, there is one really important thing that is not in them. They do not say anywhere that you may not exceed the posted speed limit, unless of course you’re a cop or a retired cop.

Ethics is a really important issue to me and this is the biggest thing that made me mad about this person. He EXPECTED that I would give him a break. Apparently ethics was not a huge issue back in the day; or at least not in his career - I don’t want to speak for everyone. Well it is for me and I for one, hold ethics pretty high on the ladder.  When it is all said and done, at the end of my career my integrity will be intact. In Idaho, we have a Law Enforcement Code of Ethics which is designed to guide the actions of our officers and it is a BIG DEAL. Officers have lost their jobs, careers and certifications over ethics violations.

I just absolutely hate it when another officer “badges” me as if that is going to make some kind of difference. I understand that in some places, it is department policy to identify yourself as an officer.  I guess that it is the policy of some fire departments as well because I’ve also even been badged by fire fighters.  Let me say this.  There are a lot more polite ways to identify yourself than shoving a piece of metal into someones face.  Even after doing so; well maybe especially after doing so, expect the unexpected.  As a rule, I don’t even identify myself as a police officer when stopped because I look at being stopped by the police realistically. If I get a ticket, I most likely deserve it…and…it also makes up for all the times that I didn’t get caught. I’m pretty sure that you don’t have to be a cop to understand that line of thinking.

Obeying the law from it’s simplest form to it’s most heinous is really just a matter of common sense. With respect to today and an infraction violation for speeding, this is definitely a common sense issue because since the dawn of time, we have learned in driver’s training to not exceed the posted speed limit. In some cases, (like me as a juvenile…ahem) remedial training is provided by people wearing uniforms, who drive fast cars with flashy lights.

Now a special note to the person who I stopped. “Man Up” and take responsibility for your actions. You’re lucky I’m not a vindictive bastard or I would post your name here too. Maybe you’ll think about that next time….

oh yeah….I’ll be watching!!

When I chose this title, it occurred to me that after reading it, someone might think that I was speaking figuratively in reference to something I didn’t understand completely.  I must have picked the right title then because here I sit days later, still scratching my head raw trying to figure out what it is that I read in the Pastor’s Corner of the local paper.   The emphasis was on the construction of a new church building but the writing and the examples were all over the map.  I know that there was a point somewhere, but I just could not find it. 

I wanted to just link to the article but it seems that is not possible as this particular “news source” (that’s in quotes for a reason if you know what I mean) which archives everything under the sun, appears to have an issue with publishing articles from the Faith and Values page on the internet and therefore archiving them.   I guess I’ll have to send them a bill for my time since I am going to recreate the article so that it is published.  I have duplicated the article into a document and if you are interested in reading the article, you can find a PDF file here.  

Moving right along, on June 20th, a local Catholic pastor wrote the two column Pastor’s Corner for the Faith and Values page.  The pastor said that a church building is a place which offers us the opportunity to gather together and remember; a place where we can realize and celebrate that we are a ”family of families”.  I am pretty sure that he is very excited about the construction of the new church building and I believe that he is trying to share that excitement.   Of course, I was wearing my cynical hat that day and immediately keyed in on the fact that his article started off with this:  

“In the life of a church family, one of the most significant milestones is the building of a new church building”

Some time ago, I might have agreed with this statement wholeheartedly.   As I have grown in my journey, I have grown away from the four walls of the church.  I am now thinking “outside of the box” if you will.  I have come to believe that in a lot of cases, there is way too much emphasis placed on “buildings” and not enough on “church”.   So, I was only one sentence into this piece and already my alarm bells were going off. 

Reading a little further tells us that the new building will seat 600 as built – with room for 850 some time in the future because “we ought to plan for the new one to serve us for the next 100 years.”  This pastor goes on to say:

“We’re putting a great deal of our energy and resources into the building.  Things that can be added later will be added later; things that can’t, we better do now.” 

So what is a “great deal”?   It is normally defined as a large amount and from what I have seen of Catholic Churches, it takes a large amount to build one; especially of the size and scope that they are talking about.  Another question that concerns me is that if a ”great deal” of energy and resources are being set aside and put into the building, I wonder how much energy and resources are being put into what church is supposed to be about; feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, inviting to strangers, visiting and seeing to the needs of the sick and imprisoned – you know, taking care of those in need.  I didn’t read anything about those.  It must be that they are slated to be added later. 

This pastor goes on to explain how the first Christians met in homes which eventually culminated in the house-church in which a member of the community bequeathed his house to the community.  From this, he makes the point that churches are intentionally incarnate and that they are meant to be meaningful.   He uses a reference to a book entitled, “The Geometry of Love, Space, Time, Mystery and Meaning in an Ordinary Church” by Margaret Visser as a means to establish a connection.  This book by Visser uses Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura, outside of Rome as an example that every little detail of the construction of a church has intrinsic meaning to it.  In doing so, he states that churches put us back in touch with the spiritual and the mystical because as Visser points out, “the building has been made to communicate with the people in it”. 

So far so good right?  If I were a fan of church buildings as a source of excitement, I would so be all over this.   Right smack dab in the middle of his article, he blows me away with this. ..

“As there’s a variety of Christians, so there’s a variety of ways Christians prefer to worship God – some in the cathedral of the forest, or in a basement or in a garage.  So why have a church at all?  After all, God is not confined to the Church, let alone to a church building.” 

What?!   This completely contrasts everything that he has been saying about his new church building.  Have we just discovered the very first Emerging Catholic Priest?  Not if what he said was simply rhetorical; which is what I thought he was doing until he piled some more confusion upon me by using this quote from Visser.

“Every Christian should remain deeply suspicious of churches – both as a building and as institutions; it is part of following Christ.” 

So as far as I can tell, he is very happy about his new church building and seems to equate that to happy church families as well.   I just don’t see how, or for that matter why, he attempted to tie the two points together using references that are in direct opposition to what he’s trying to communicate.  I’m sure that out of that entire book by Visser, there was likely something a lot more fitting to his points. The way that the two ideas were tied together reminded me of a word game - maybe you recognize it?

b u i l d i n g

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - -

f a m i l i e s

No matter how many times I tried, I could not change one into the other.  It’s just possible that because of where I am currently in my journey, I don’t see a bigger better church equating to more happiness in the family – at least not in the long run.   Even so, I still wish this church many blessings, much success and hold them up in my prayers.

You might remember when this accident happened 8 years ago this March. This Southwest Airlines flight from Vegas overshot the runway at Burbank. The plane smashed past the airport fence, careened across the street and ended up with a collapsed landing gear, right next to a gas station. But that’s not the amazing part!!!
 

I just went into my search terms and found that one of the top three searches which led people to my blog is “old guy”. 

Not sure what to think of that……

I’ll be off pouting if anyone is looking for me 

From June 13th through 15th, I was privileged to be able to participate as a counselor for a church camp outside of Spokane, Washington. This particular camp is considered to be a “primary” camp as the campers range in age from six to eight years old. My wife is the co-director for the camp and has been asking me for several years to attend and I have always found a way to sneak out of it. After all, what sensible adult male in his forties would not be scared of a sizeable group of what amounts to Energizer Bunnies? Well, this year I took the plunge and agreed to go – so it was with much trepidation that I packed up my camping gear, got into the car and headed to Spokane. After all, Paul did say to work out our salvation with fear and trembling!

The trip started with the car loaded with our camping gear, the camping gear for a young girl that we were taking to camp with us and half of the baby’s belongings. We drove an hour and a half from where we live to Spokane where the baby would be staying the weekend. We (meaning I) unloaded all of the baby’s stuff and then went into the house and set it all up. Then, I loaded our niece’s camping gear into the car plus an extra tent – just in case. We left North Spokane and drove thirty minutes to Spokane Valley where we met some people at the church in order to caravan to west Spokane (another 30 minutes) where we were going to camp. I think that this is a good place to let you know that our themes for camp this year were hope and joy; which is fitting since at this point, I was sincerely hoping that I would find joy somewhere in the middle of all of this chaos. At this point, I was saying to myself, “Self, what were you thinking?”

We finally arrived at Owl Moon Meadows. (Kind of fitting huh?) After arriving at camp, I also discovered that one of the boys at camp who was assigned to me had a severe case of ADD and I met him almost right away. Fortunately, his grandmother was also a counselor and there to help with him; even still, he was a handful. At the end of the first night, I was already drained. Somewhere during the night, I went outside and sat under the star light and just listened to nature for awhile to calm my mind and soul. As I listened to the owls start to sing their night time song, I silently prayed to God to give me the patience that it was going to require for me to get through this weekend. As it turns out, he gave me much more than that.

There was so much activity over the weekend. We took a nature hike, we did crafts and we ate really good food. We had campfires every night where we sang and told stories and prayed. We went to the Spokane YMCA and spent a few hours there swimming in the pool and going down the awesome water slide. While at the YMCA, I was able to help the young man mentioned above, who knew how to swim but was afraid of the deep water, begin to conquer his fear. I saw four or five children who were afraid of the water slide eventually going down by themselves. Then I ended up getting flat tuckered out by the children to small to go without an adult but wanted to go over and over and over. (SIDEBAR: Stairs are a really good exercise for glutes) It was either that or “stand under the buckets” or “let me ride on your back under the water”; come here, go there, help me with this. Man I was tired but it was totally worth it. It’s also a good thing I didn’t get stopped by the cops leaving the pool. With the amount of chlorine in the water, I’m sure that my eyes were probably glowing.

Saturday night ended with a marathon pillow fight. On Friday night, the boys had a pillow fight inside of their tent and trashed the place. So Saturday, the pillow fight to end all pillow fights was planned. The boys were taken outside and given borders. The fight was to last fifteen minutes straight and one of the rules was that anyone involved in the fight could not stop. At the end of fifteen minutes, these boys were using their entire bodies just to fling the pillow. Needless to say, when it was all over, they slept like rocks.  Well, they did after we told them that we were only kidding about the disappearances of the two brothers just down the road and the three-toed claw marks that were found by the detective right outside of their window the night they disappeared. 

This weekend, I got to renew some relationships and meet some new people including a fantastic young lady from Australia who was there to help with the campers. Chloe, if you’re reading this, thanks for making it a great weekend. I got to meet a group of energetic, excited campers who are like sponges. Just by them being themselves, I felt a sense of renewal and started being excited about little things again. I found out again that playing in a sandbox can be the highlight of the day, that swings really can only go so high before gravity takes over and that hunting for raptors in the woods is really exciting. The highlight of the weekend though was with the young man that I mentioned before. I was sitting in the hammock on Saturday afternoon relaxing and he came over and joined me in the hammock. I put my arm around him and we sat there and rocked and talked for close to forty five minutes. I was able to talk to him about God and about how Jesus Christ came to earth as a human; lived, died for our sin and rose again on the third day. I go to tell him what that meant to me. I got to tell him a little bit about what type of life I have lived and how God has forgiven me for all the bad stuff I have done. I explained to him that Jesus loves little children, especially like him. I told him that Jesus loves the way that children look at all of creation with wonder and excitement and that he sometimes wonders why grown-ups can’t do that as well. Then he told me a little bit about his life and his family. We sat there in the hammock and we prayed together. Earlier in the day while at the YMCA, he told me that he wished that I could be his dad so I asked him if he remembered saying that. I told him that I was very happy about that but he had the best Father that there ever was in God and all that he had to do was to love him and to trust him.

I asked God for patience and what did he give me? He sent me a fruit basket which contained love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.   I know that the Spirit of God was present at this camp for it is my testimony that this was the only time that I can ever remember having possessed all of the fruits of the Spirit at the very same time.

In the end, I found joy in the sharing of these young lives and hope for the future because of them.

I’ll be gone over the weekend and completely away from anything resembling an internet connection.  This weekend is a primary camp for children ages 5-8 and I will be one of the counselors this year.  Should prove to be exciting, interesting and a whole lot of fun.  I pray that the Lord will be there in abundance.

See y’all when I get back

As of 3:30 this afternoon, Morgan is now legally our child.   Praise God for rewarding our (ahem!) patience. 

Recently, I posted about a crisis that I had been going through and what I had been internalizing for some time.   This is a continuation of that thought process.

There is more to this walk than getting your face time in on Sunday morning. I want to be more like Jesus and while this entails attributes such as love, empathy and compassion (to name just a few); I want to focus on action.   Jesus was out every day among people who were considered by the “religious” to be outcasts and not worthy – and he formed relationships with them. He ate with them, he drank with them and he walked among them. I didn’t matter who you were – ladies, louses or lepers; if you were marginalized by those who were in the clique known as “religious”, Jesus had a message for you.  God’s kingdom is for everyone.

Since it’s my desire to be more like Jesus and to do what I discern to be his bidding, it is necessary for me to be following the leading of the Spirit anywhere and anytime; to be out forming relationships with the people that He puts in front of me. This is what I feel is part of the definition of worshiping in spirit and in truth.  There is no greater act of love for our Lord than to do what He wants of you and from where I sit in the back pews, it also has way more to do than with the two hours that we spend in a “church” building on Sunday morning. We need to be out and about doing mission – not just sitting around discussing it in a committee or brainstorming the next great program to bring people to church. Real church happens out in the world. 

 Jesus said,

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” (John 14:12) Emphasis Mine

That about sums it up

more to come…..