Post #13

I’m feeling reflective today. Not sure why. It’s quarantine day which normally I spend as far away from the hotel as possible. This week’s work site is the first of the season where it’s too cold to go fly so aside from trying to dial in my little indoor drone I’m sort of out of options.

This week’s site is so very spiritually heavy. It’s palpable. I don’t know why any one would allow themselves to be subjected to this kind of…well, fear, darkness, oppression. The hotel has everything blocked off, so the limited number of people staying here are on top of each other. The hotel is also not offering any kind of food service. So the limited number of people staying here, who are all on top of each other, then have to try and find restaurants, most of which are not open, where more people are on top of each other while waiting in the take out line.

At some point I should probably get gas for the rental car. I barely made it all the way here on one tank. I think I’ll just leave for work early tomorrow. I don’t feel like driving around this city looking for a gas station.

Maybe I’lll go for a walk.

I’m hesitant talking about next week, Christmas, not because I have it off, but because it’s getting close to the end of this work season. After this season is over there is no more work scheduled. The past couple of years we’d know about West Coast stuff. We’d know about basketball, Tournament bookings, The Masters. PGA Champs wouldn’t be far behind. This year? Nope.

The thing Covid has done more than anything is expose the weak points in my faith. Going freelance as our full time work brought a level of awareness of our dependency on the Lord which, for a lack of a better description, was new to me. We depended on Him before, but there’s something about having a full-time job that, even when you have to work on the side to make ends meet, gives you a sense of security. Full-time freelance torpedoed sense. Okay, fast forward a year or two, especially past that first summer, and we had a good idea of when we’d hear about work for the next season. Cool. Fast forward another couple years and we made the move to Ohio for a host of reasons, one of which being that I wasn’t working locally anymore. Why stay in an expensive locale if I’m not working locally?

Fox Golf came in the picture. It looked like the Lord was expanding our client base. Cool.

But then Covid hit.

I was sent home at the beginning of the Tournament run.

The Masters then went away.

All golf after the Masters went away.

PGA Champs was paused.

Fox gave away their golf package NBC.

Then there was enough work to get us through the rest of the summer.

Then the NFL started and has not stopped.

And here I am almost one year later in a spiritually dark city on a normal day in the middle of a political pandemic with no end in site having watched the Lord allow what He brought into our lives be stolen by the enemy while two weeks from now I’m back to where I was over the summer; work will again have dried up and I’ll be wondering if the work the Lord has provided in the past be what He sends in the future.

I really don’t want to be labeled as a “doubting Thomas”. I want to be Peter getting out of the boat but not Peter sinking in the water. I want to be the son the Lord wants me to be. Yet I am constantly reminded of John 16:33b, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world”; Psalm 37:25, “I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his [a]descendants begging for bread.”;  2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

As I am reminded by my better half, no amount of my “door knocking” has ever, really, resulted in any door opening. The “ask, seek, knock” passage in Matthew, for me, may as well only be “ask” for the amount of success I’ve ever had in seeking and knocking, emailing potential clients, calling potential clients. It’s always been the Lord opening these opportunities. But I’ve never really come to the place where I’ve been exhausted of trying, truly tired of being pushed down, brushed off and aside. Covid has brought me to my knees. The sheer volume of external forces making it impossible for a child of God, husband, father, to be a child of God, husband, father, I mean how are men supposed to fight this? There have been times in life where I’ve said, “It’s a crawl right now”. Not that it wasn’t true then, but…oh, I don’t know, what it really the case? Because if there was ever going to be a time when the desire to follow the Lord ever felt more hindered by the enemy, it would be now.

So, dear Lord, I will stand on the promises found in Your Word. And I pray that, as Your Word says, Your Word does not fall to the ground. I pray that I and my family will be found in the land of of the living and that we will continue to see Your faithfulness as the light of day and that the light of day would never cease. For, as the Psalmist says, “I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his [a]descendants begging for bread.” As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” And as Your Son said when He walked the earth, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world”. I honestly don’t care what I face so long as I’m following You, facing it with You. Please, Lord, let me be ever more devoted to You.

 Post #12

There’s the cliff all you Lemmings, Sheople, Covidiots. Go ahead and jump off. I did my part, I tried to help. I tried to tell you the fear was real but that fear was all “it” was. I’m sorry the truth doesn’t make you feel better, I truly am, because, lets face it, what you are putting your faith in is, quite frankly, the most unsound, circumstantial, unfounded, non-grounded set of arbitrary opinions beyond imagination.

Do you think the mask is magic? You must.

Do you think the vaccine will save you? You must.

Do you think the degree of a stranger’s adherence to a government appointee’s arbitrary ruleset meant to make that appointee look good is going to keep you more healthy? You must.

So I say to you, there’s the cliff. Go jump. I’m praying for you. I hope you wake up on the way down in time to call out to the One I’ve been pointing to all along. Only He can save you.

 Post #10

Maybe it’s God working in me a level of grace that I haven’t been able to operate in before but, I have to say, traveling around the country for work is making me realize the different levels to which people are willing to stoop to feel safe.

This week I’m in North Carolina. You know, The South. God, guns and NASCAR. Pickup trucks, dogs and women. Charlotte, the for-some-reason ever expanding city, just enacted a 10p-5a curfew. Why? A spike in Covid cases that only exists on paper.

But I’m not allowed to say that.

I’m also not allowed to remark on how the company I’m contracting with has placed me in a venue that is taking their Covid protocols so over the top that it boarders on Schizophrenia. Some people are not allowed to even park their cars in the same lot as key staff because they might spread Covid, which they can’t, because we’re constantly being tested and coming up negative. And, by the way, if we’re supposed to be paying so much attention to our health these days, then why is anyone worried about anyone else showing up to a work site, or anywhere else for that matter, if they’re not feeling well? Why are we continuing to create a ruleset that made sense for anytime before 2020?

But I’m not allowed to raise those kinds of questions either.

My client assigned me a site that is taking their Covid protocols to a new level. Most sites I go to ask the normal questions anyone should be asked if you’re trying to fend off, say, the flu. “Do you feel sick,” is the gist of most of the questions. Personally, my favorite questions are the ones that inquire if you’ve been to any “hot spot” states in the past two weeks. Uh, yeah. Like, most of them. But I digress.

This week’s site, assigned to me by one of my clients, is taking it upon them to bring their Covid protocols to a new level. The site wants my email…and my phone number. They’ve never asked for it before. But there’s a new phrase in town that everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to stay away from. Contact Tracing. Should I become ill while on site, or at any point in the next two week, my presence will be trackable at the venue. They will know the areas I’ve been and, theoretically, who I’ve been around. The site has no business collecting this information. They didn’t even check the contents of my bag this morning, no metal detector, no x-ray, nothing.

You see, what I’m learning through experience, reinforced by coworkers who’ve been around for much longer than I, is that security environments and protocols tend to revolve around whatever the largest threat used to be. Following 9-11 the bomb sniffing dogs came out. You couldn’t bring anything in to a venue without it first getting checked by security. That lasted for almost 20 years. Now the thing that is the greatest threat to a venue is your health, and it’s being monitored by a list of questions that is on-your-honor to answer correctly, and given the appearance of being checked by someone who has no medical background whatsoever. Doesn’t that make you feel better.

Best of all, there is precedent being set for forcing you to give up your privacy and freedom of movement to simply work in some locales across the country. Added to that, the lack of propriety on someone else’s part may impact you because, through contact tracing, may be flagged as “infected”. You might fit the current formula some government health official came up with and your employer can make you stay home from work.

But that is also something we’re not allowed to pontificate on anymore. Freedom of speech is gone. Our right to privacy and freedom from illegal search and seizure is almost gone. Freedom of movement is being rapidly eroded.

God help us, save our country. Save this world. Have mercy, O Lord. Have mercy.

 Post #9

It’s Week 13 of the NFL. This week my crew is assigned Miami. I won’t go into that except to say Cincinnati is the opponent. Should be a great race to the bottom.

With our crew being in the count of those “drawing the short straw”, meaning our production team is not on site, we’ve had the good fortune of being booked at much nicer hotels than usual. I’m making the effort to not get used to it. The JW Turnberry is much nicer than the Renaissance Cruise Port. But let’s be honest. Next year, if we get to be normal human beings again, technical will probably end up back in our normal hotels plagued by the normal complaints. The properties tend to be tired, desperately needing maintenance in every room (or have just been visited by BathFitters which is worse), or make an over-the-top attempt to seem classy which comes off as cheesy and incredibly cliche (like the Indianapolis Omni which noone likes except wedding parties and cheerleading competitions *blech*). But I digress.

The JW Turnberry is a fine hotel. Rooms are nice. Showers are very nice. There is one problem though, and it surrounds food. Room service closes at 9p, the sundry/gift shop before that, leaving no option when one is hungry except the very expensive on-property and over-rated restaurant. Twice, now, our crew has been to Miami (well, three actually but one of those was when I was at The Masters so it doesn’t count). Both times I arrived just in time for the room service to close leaving me with no option except go hungry until morning, which I did the first time, or walk to Walgreens before they close for chips and salsa (which I did this time). Tonight I am desiring a soda. My only option is a small, overpriced glass at the restaurant. 

Now, you might be thinking, "A vending machine would be the perfect solution". Normally I would agree with you. In fact I do agree with you. It would indeed be the perfect solution. There's only one problem, the hotel has none.

 Post #8

https://www.parksidechurch.com/learn/resources/media-center/sermon/remember/?c=sermon

I can look back and remember how the Lord worked before. I can remember when He moved and His goodness was apparent. The hard part about “remember the works of the Lord” is then applying that memory to what is to come. The Lord is very clear throughout His Word. He did not leave them alone before, and won’t leave them alone in the future. He did not leave me high and dry in times passed, and will not leave me high and dry in times to come.

The problem with “remembering the works of the Lord” is that, at least for me, the stakes become higher every time I reach a situation where “He must move or I die”. From my point of view the game is more important. The ramifications more dire.

Esther is not necessarily written in a personal way where some father somewhere is going through the emotions of, “Holy crap, the family is going to be slaughtered unless God does something”. Yet it must have been that the average Joe-Dad felt that. And what a relief it must have been to have the King’s edict come down where Joe-Dad was given the authority to defend himself and his family against the coming of the authorities who would have put the entire Jewish population to death. To finally have some backing from the physical world mirroring what he already knew in the Spiritual, what a feeling. Where the physical finally lines up with the spiritual. Where reality finally lines up with the promises and the Word of God.

I have many times found myself in a place where the Lord “must move or we die/fail”, the we being me and YB and the kids, but all of those times have been of our own choosing. We made the decision to follow the Lord and the Lord to that place. Never, until March, was there a time where we had come to that place without it being of our choosing where someone else made that decision for us. It is only now that I find myself in “Persian Jewish Joe-Dad’s” shoes whereby no fault of my own my life and that of my family is now in peril and I’m waiting on the Lord to make circumstance line up with His Word and promises. The difference between times prior and now being solely that I am subjected, forced, to walk through a time which I would have avoided given the choice.

Remembering the works of Lord in current circumstances is easy when there is something to remember that is directly applicable. The ease vanishes when the Lord allows circumstances which are, one, not of our own doing, and two, seem to exist in direct conflict with His Word and Authority.

Lord, let the Haamans of this world, his sons, everyone associated with them and their cause be as Haaman. Let them hang and die in full view of all being seen for what they are. Frauds. Deceivers. Liars. Evil.