Notes from the Trail

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I’ve got a great friend from college, Andy Dean, who is a videographer in Memphis. He’s been involved in an extensive and exciting new project called City on a Hill Productions. He sent me an email this evening alerting me to it, and after just a few moments of watching COAH-TV, I was not only struck by its quality and cinemaphotography, but also by its significance in being able to be used as a tool to point others to the same water that I’ve found: living water.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. - Jesus Christ (John 7.38)

Thanks for the heads up, Andy.

I troll around for Wordpress themes that I like all the time and have opted to go with a minimalist look for a while. This theme is called Grid Focus and was created by Derek Punsalan, an all around nice guy and an incredible designer. He’s already responded to a question I posed to him today. Very cool.

One thing I’m having trouble with is in Firefox, Camino, and Flock, I see funny characters instead of apostrophes and quote marks. I’d be interested in knowing if any of you are having display problems?

Update: I was told that many of you could not leave a comment. I think I’ve fixed that as well… So de-lurk and comment away!

Punkisrael is back. David was one of the very first bloggers I began following two years ago, and he stopped for a while. I was disappointed. However, in the last several weeks, he’s been posting again, much to my delight, and he asks some provocative questions about the ABC show Extreme Makeover Home Edition in this entry. What think ye?

Still reading Phillip Yancey’s incredible book entitled simply and descriptively, Prayer. Part Three of the book has produced more reflection and insight than the first two parts (there are five total parts).

Yancey summarizes the Lord’s Prayer by saying that Jesus was essentially saying…

• Keep it simple.
• Keep it honest.
• Keep it up.

“Mainly, Jesus pressed home that we come as beloved children to a Father who loves us in advance and cares deeply about our lives. Ask young parents what is the correct way for their toddlers to approach them and you will probably get a puzzled look. Correct way? Being a parent means you do your best to remain available to your children and responsive to their needs. As Jesus said, if a human parent responds with compassion and not hostility, how much more will God.”

Hebrews 4.15 says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Indeed, one of the most charming and thankful reminders of Yancey’s book is not the correct way to pray but simply to pray.

I’m also intrigued in this chapter by how Yancey suggests that since we all have differing temperaments, that perhaps how we relate to God may be more specially shaped by how He uniquely created us than we have realized. We may struggle under a load or burden of an “ineffective” prayer life, all the while being guilty that our prayer lives are not like someone else’s.

Rather, we should seek to relate to God in the way that we most naturally relate to others. Prayer is not a trade to be learned but a relationship to embrace.

He advocates the use of the Psalms to jumpstart, direct and inform a prayer life. In fact, in one powerful story, he tells of Lutheran theology professor Martin Marty whose wife was undergoing chemotherapy for terminl cancer. He began a practice of reading the Psalms to her when they got up in the middle of the night for a medication dosage to relieve nausea. He would read the Psalms to her until they got sleepy again.

One night, she caught him skipping from Psalms 87 to Psalm 91. Martin had skimmed ahead and decided the language of the Psalms in between might be more disturbing than his wife needed at the moment. Verses like “…my life draws near the grave, I am counted among those who go down to the pit…” just didn’t seem encouraging or appropriate.

However, she caught him in his omission and asked, “Why did you skip those Psalms?” When Martin responded that he had neglected them due to their nature, she responded, “Go back. Read it. If I don’t deal with the darkness, the others won’t shine out.”

In prayer, our simple honesty should permeate our petitions. It is our relationship with God that is foundational, not our work in prayer. We talk to God and remember that He has invited us before His presence. We come with an invitation from the King to the Banquet of All Times.

I hope you’ll be encouraged to dive into prayer like into a swimming pool on a hot day. Relish it, enjoy Him. Pour out your heart. Listen. Reflect.

By the way, I’d highly recommend the book, even without finishing it yet.

The LERG in Monticello are preparing to begin an all-out onslaught on our common sense. The Advance released this week the first in an “installment” that seeks to account for the $15 million that the past 10 years of sales tax raised, but for me it raised more questions than it answered. I’m wondering if the Advance has been recruited as a promotional tool. So many of the businessmen that are backing this sales tax advertise with the Advance that they may not have a real choice.

There are no detailed plans for the expenditures of this proposed sales tax.

Unfortunately, at this point, I am growing more and more convinced that not only do we not need to extend the existing sales tax, but that the tactics that will soon be used by some of our city’s leaders are disconcerting.

In some recent minutes from a MEDC meeting, the following showed up as one of the topics:

Do not give the opposition time to prepare a defense.

Buttons have been ordered, and I suppose you’ll be able to recognize the LERG very soon by the shiny buttons they’ll be sporting all over town. Please remember that those buttons are saying, “We have no long-range plan for the city. We simply think the city will be unable to provide necessary services if the tax is not passed.” What services will not be provided is not answered. I have yet to understand from any conversations why so this minority of businessmen and members of the city council and mayor feel that the city cannot simply be run through normal revenues that every city brings in.

I’d encourage you to read the article in the Advance and then begin asking yourself, “Did we get our money’s worth?” Was it worth it? I’d also ask some strong “Why’s?” Was the $4.3 million that supposedly went to “economic development” well spent? Why does the city subsidize the MEDC and the Chamber of Commerce to the tune of $65,000 annually? The article says that $2.8 million was appropriated for the sports complex, but did all of that money get spent out there? On what? Here’s another thought: only $3 million of the total was spent on capital improvements. However, almost $1 million was spent by the MEDC building the SPEC building that still sits empty (and they’re still making payments on it). I’m sure that you can come up with your own questions, as well.

The plan to extend the tax another 15 years - with no definite plans attached to it is almost like saying, “Give the city a blank check for millions of dollars, and it will be spent it well.” After reading the first article, I’m not so sure. It’s also very interesting that just a short time before this special election, we are finally receiving details about how the money was spent. I’ve asked for that information for months for MonticelloLive, but never received it.

Please remember that we already have another one cent tax that goes to the county and another one cent tax that goes to the city. This sales tax extension is for the third cent that we’re already paying. In other words, we pay 6% for the state sales tax, 1% for county, 1% for city, and another 1% on this special sales tax. That brings our local rate to 9%.

Another thing that is VERY disturbing is the total lack of advance notice that the community is being given to participate in discussion about the sales tax. Yes, the LERG have fanned out across Monticello and spoken at the Rotary, Lions’ Club (next meeting), and other civic organizations and meetings, but it seems more of a sales job rather than a dialogue. However, the Advance that was printed last Wednesday (and most of us don’t get it until Thursday) announced two important and serious opportunities to discuss with the Community Design Center from Fayetteville. However, when were the meetings scheduled? For last Thursday at 6:00 p.m. and that Friday at 5:30 p.m! For most of us, it becomes nearly impossible to participate on such short notice. It’s almost like they want to be able to say, “Well, we did have meetings, but not many showed up.”

It just doesn’t sit right. Oh wait, I forgot… if the strategy is to “not give the opposition time to prepare a defense,” then it makes perfect sense.

Personally, I’d like to keep a little more of my money and ask the city to scale back, if need be. Until we see our county officials and our city officials begin to sit down and work together for the future of our community and region, I don’t think it’s time to pass another sales tax. Give us a break. No plan, no tax.