What I am learning from my Dog

See I have never been a "dog person". In fact my exposure to friends getting dogs turned me off so bad I swore I would never get one.

But then I watched "The Dog Whisperer", and I realized it is possible to have a dog, and the dog not run your life. Eventually, the kids and my wife wore me down until we got one.

And now, he is teaching me a lot. Especially about being a father, which is interesting as he isnt a human. But he and I spend most of the day together. He will literally follow me around, and wherever I stop, he will stop and fall asleep. When I work, he comes over and sleeps under my chair, when I go eat, he sits on my feet and eventually falls asleep. PEriodically he makes me stop and play with him, because he is bored and needs attention. Other times he jsut simple jumps up on my lap and gathers as much affection as he can.

I have realized that eve3n though some ares of my parenting are good, I am woefully short on many things. I have been convicted lately that I doubt seriously my kids have a right perception of God as Abba based on my example.

Im far too impatient, far to absorbed in things, far too reactive. I dont seek to serve my kids at every turn, nor do I strive to make my affection known to them. Almost everything they ask of me has to be evaluated, and even though they persist, it is more because they want something than they believe I want to give them good things.

I choose to beleive all these things about God, but I dont act like them. This means I dont really believe them about God, because I dont "live by" them myself.

But Zebulun (his name means habitation or visitation interestingly enough) constantly comes to me expectantly. He WANTS to be with me where I am, and every need he has he makes it clear right away without reservation. He has tremndous "faith" if we can call it that. And that faith seems to provoke me. It seems to pull out things inside my heart, and I end up showering affection and protection on him.

I need to repent of the things in my heart that have kept me from doing that with my own children. I can explain why and how they arent there. There are reasons, and I wont ever be perfect, but if God is putting His finger on this, it must be because He wants to release something more in me. And I have a very short time to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Im excited.

The Idolatry of Revival

I am perceiving a dangerous, and age old dilemma...

Loving ANYTHING more than God is idolatry. This include the workings of God. We know this, but we do not realize how subtle this is. I am feeling scared and shocked at how simply and easily communities fall into this over and over again.

As I pray with a community, I hear them continually return to asking God to move in their area, do signs and wonders, change the hearts etc...

Yet these people exhibit very little maturity in fellowship with God. They are wonderful. They are the object of Gods affection. God is seeking htem out. It isnt a critique of judgement. But it is a problem. A big problem.

God has shown me a few times the underpinnings of this. The symbols are shocking. The results are grotesque. And the consequences are ugly.

God does NOT want us standing before His throne at the end, and account for misusing and misrepresenting Him. If He gave us anything close to what we ask, we run the very real danger of getting caught up into secondary, lesser loves. And we wouldnt know it or see it coming.

I dont want revival. I want to want Him. Revival without Him SUCKS. It is inferior. It isnt fruitful. The Body coming back to life and then going off somewhere other than right to His feet in fellowship witholds from Himt he fruit of His labor, and leads us into worse behavior than being dead.

Singularity Video

Had to post this. It is short, but fun.

Singularity Update

We just got back from Singularity/Dark Skies the regional BurningMan gathering for the California/Nevada area.

This is my first time at any event connected with BurningMan, even though my friend, my wife, and my other friends have gone. I remember hearing and seeing the pictures and the stories and falling in Love with the whole idea, and the people I saw.

I believe that I connect much easier to these folks than anyone else I know. While it is true that the events themselves create and artificial "bubble" of community, the reality is the creative expression, silly playfulness, and proclivity towards non traditional paradigm makes these people far more approachable than many of the people I am around regularly.

That being said, this event was a little disappointing. I think that Todd and I might have missed most of it by leaving on Saturday, but this event was more a desert party than anything else. For the most part, it was devoted to intoxication and exhibitionism rather than the radical self expression and art that is so central to the main event in Aug/Sept.

But I still met some wonderful and lovely people. One girl was so interesting to talk to. She is in her post graduate studies for modern anthropology, with a focus on the psychology. Talk about an amazing laboratory to work in! And the 2 gals that came over form the Pyro Pirate Porno dome were just so awesome.

I leanred that it is so much harder to drop all agendas, and simply LOVE and BE with people it is daunting. It rendered me down and exposed the gap between my immaturity and the Spirit of Loves intentionality.

Love loves because it is Love, not as a means to an end. Love itself is far more complex, sufficient, effective, and awesome than we know. It is the power of transformation, and yet it isnt trying to transform you. It is trying to give you the experience of itself. When we take Love, and try to use it for something, it becoems something else than Love, and then it fails. Love itself never fails, but when we twist it into any agenda, it stops being true, and fails.

I have loads of ideas now about who I am. The Spirit of Love came to me at 5 am Friday morning, and as I watched the sun come out, I heard this:

"When I formed you, I couldnt have done a better job. I did my best when I made you"...

For those of you who personally know the excellence of Love, you know how incredible this is. Despite all the experiences of failure I have, I am perfectly made. I may not be perfect in practice, but I am perfect in design.

There are many things more I experienced, but they dont seem to be something easily described in mere words. I look forward to going tot he main event with my wife, and doing something more personal, and directly loving. I know that I love to make people food and spoil them. I struggled with it this event, as I had no experience. Now I have some ideas and a better view. I want to feed people lots of little finger foods, gathering them around a communal table in the midst of the desert, and enjoy them, and the perfection of their intentional design.

Take off eh Part Deux!!!!

I had a great time up north. The people were friendly, and the town of Lethbridge was quite a quaint place.

I like this picture because it was May 9th, at 8:30 pm, and the sun was still quite high. This far north really changes things.





This is the casino that took all my fun money, plus my other money, plus some of my food money…. Well not really but close.








This is dedicated to Kerri, our short comedian friend who tells tall tales about stealing personal hygiene products from hotels The hotel I stayed in was so sophisticated, the products themselves actually told me what to do, and how to do it, like CLEANSE, SOFTEN, SCRUB. The main problem I have now is certain things are far softer than I anticipated, and my sense of taste and smell has been greatly impacted for the worse.








This pillows explain themselves, and have an odd parallel to my marriage. Ill let you guess who is who.

I wish I could claim that this picture had intentional prophetic implication, but it was purely by accident.






My kids might honestly force me to come back with them purely for the thrill of a hotel with a waterslide INSIDE it. For most of the country, this is not odd, for us in California, this is weird.


I had some more problems here…





As I was getting “interviewed” (I didn’t bring my birth certificate, and they wanted to make me feel sorry for it) an alarm went off. Literally, the man talking to me dropped what was in his hands, and turned and RAN to the edge of the building, along with every other law enforcement present. I don’t think I have ever seen people react so quickly en masse as that.

I had no clue what to do, and so I made sure to stand a still and quiet as possible. My mind was racing with the reality that someone was crashing the border, and the people who were my only hope of getting in the USA to catch my flight to go home were now on “high alert” ready to defend, protect and serve me. But all I really wanted was to get going.

It didn’t occur to me then, but does now that would have been the perfect time to pick up my key and drivers license, and quietly walk out, get into my car, and drive off!!!

Had things gone bad, and an “incident” occurred, I could have been stuck in the middle of a nightmare. I want you all to know I was ready to do my part and defend the town of Sweetgrass Montana, and the whole entire US of A from any and every threat, especially from (as it turns out) Canadians who follow directions, and dive just a few feet further than they were supposed to (like 10) for a vehicle inspection!!! Those darn Canadians almost declared war, and I was willing to “take one for the team”. I was seconds away form taking my Jaclyn Smith Charlies Angles pose and shoot at something.

Take off eh!!!!

So I was on my way to Lethbridge, Alberta Canada...

I flew into Great Falls, Montana. What a pretty place. I havent seen this much sky and space outside of being in the ocean. We flew in over the Grand Tetons, and then into this tremendous prarie. It was green and lush, and had these awesome mountains/bluffs in the distance. I was right on the Missouri River, which is odd, because I am so far West.

As I drove, I tried to take pictures, but they dont seem to do justice.

But an odd thing ahppenned when I got to the border. I guess not having a birth certificate is a bad thing. As dumb as that is, becuase it sure would be easy to forge one.

It seems Canada doesnt like the idea of people coming accross the border doing work for Canadian Companies. Despite NAFTA, it is a big no no to do work someone in Canada could be doing. However, I told the nice man in the bulletproof vest in a SECURE building, that as the owner of the company, I was confident I had not ever certified anyone in Canada to train or support my software, and would he please beleive me.

He did ask if there was anything else I was planning on doing in Canada, and after I informed him about my desire to paly poker and smoke cuban cigars (both TOTALLY legal here), he signed a yellow slip and let me in!!!!

The only problem will be getting out, or in esscense back in to the US.

Where is Randy Bohlender when someone needs him? He could blog so much about this whole adventure, especially because he grew up in a place that looks JUST LIKE this.....