DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

I thought that I would break the $100 barrier to fill up my tank today but fell $5 short.

A quick review of gasoline prices past.

Today:

One year ago:

May 2004:

My memory is a bit foggy but I’m pretty sure we had a larger turn out tonight than last month. don’t go by the photo as it was taken early before it started and pardon the quality, that is the best I could do handholding at such a slow shutter.

Anyway what I found interesting other than Nick can be quite humorous is that I’m really in a different place in my walk ( at the moment anyway ) than it seems most of the other Christians at Sacred. Nick was speaking on how we tend to come to the Lord in prayer in a confessional way. Many times in an: I’m unworthy, or forgive me Lord for I don’t know how to speak to you properly or I’ll come to you once I clean up my act and so on. Nick received many confirmations from the group. I on the other hand don’t have those issues, maybe it’s because I’m a new believer or just the particular place I’m at at this time or maybe I already “get it”. I guess only time will tell on that point. Now that I think about it I do mock myself at times during prayer when I say something stupid, but that doesn’t hinder or stop me in anyway. Tonight’s “props” were a gold ring and a nail. Nick’s wish was that we would refrain from negative confession for a month – the nail and focus on the ring- positive confession. Confess the Truth of the glory of God. Not that I don’t have my sins but I’m not moved to dwell on them, this two I’m sure can change and there should be times and places that the nail should be the focus. For now the nail just isn’t on the radar so to speak. Like the last Sacred I didn’t have to ponder or pray for a second to know where I was at. This week with the nail/ring issue last month with what the sack cloth stood for.

Keri Schulz on guitar led worship with a woman on violin and a man on that percussion box. Nick even sang one song only because as he put it he was the only one he could find that knew it, he was a worship leader in days past he sounded nice after a false start with Carrie’s guitar. It has really been a treat to be privy to worship in such small groups in such a large church.

Woke up late again but managed to not get so sidetracked with other things that I ran late. Wouldn’t have been a problem as the crowd was light at least by RH standards being Memorial Day weekend. We had a guest speaker today Jared a fairly young man that apparently is a semi-irregular speaker. He covered the three wills of God. His sharing of his little quarks in seeking Gods council was both funny and identifiable.

Worship seemed abbreviated today only one song I knew the rest were totally new to me. This was the first Sunday that I didn’t go to two services so this was the first time I went up for prayer in the centre, during a regular service that is. And who was there but Pastor Pete. Actually a young woman was also there next to him. I said well I received from Pete last week, so I sort of left it up to them. She immediately deferred to Pete. Pete’s prayers are a little broader and more centered on my walk than most other people’s. Not that that is bad just an observation. He just seems to touch different receptors which I guess is actually good.

After the service I slowly made my way out scanning for a familiar face as I went. Since I’ve got chores to do before the BBQ Robbie is throwing this afternoon I didn’t hang around. I was almost to my truck when I spot a couple with two children walking toward the church from a remote lot. The woman looked like Catherine. Not know for sure I doubled back to the church so I could head her off before she got there. Well it was her as she recognized me before I could open my mouth. So I finally got to thank her for her prayers and for encouraging me to go to the first Catalyst.

Another task off my list. Now to just run into Brittney and Monica again. I’m beginning to think that they were actually angels sent down for me. I say that because of a little sermon snippet I heard while poking around the Fire Fighters for Christ download page. The speaker said something about never knowing exactly who or what is sitting next to you. (So you might want to always be on your best behaviour so to speak) Anyway that planted a little seed in my mind. I guess time will tell or not.

Okay that got your attention. Sorry I’m not going to give you any details. Just a kind of middle of the road weird dream that nevertheless woke me up a bit before 3AM. Being wide awake I decided to catch up on some movie reviews as my brain isn’t much good for anything else. Maybe I can catch up on some blogging as well once the head clears.

Can you believe it, light rain on Memorial day weekend. And I had my truck scheduled for mobile detailing today. Everything is out of my truck. I had this all planned a s I emptied it yesterday so I could move Mike’s cabinet to mom’s house and pick up some storage shelves and cabinet for my garage, so it was all working out nicely until the rain had to cancel my detailing. so that will happen hopefully next Friday. Other noteworthy rain events, I took my rain coat out of my truck last weekend as I thought well I’m not going to need this for a while and I turned off the pilot to my house heater two days ago as I figured again I’m not going to need that for a while. I hope this cold front doesn’t last long. It will chap my hide to have to relight the pilot.

I finally made good on my promise to move my brothers file cabinet from his room back to my mom’s garage. I picked up mom around 10:30 and we headed over there. It actually was almost cold out and I was thinking I’m going to need an undershirt tomorrow if this continues and I was all set in my mind for summer attire. Anyway we get there and Mike is in a strange mood, okay strange for him. He was pacing the hall surprise surprise and heading right toward us as we came in the hall. Mom told me to not say a thing. We just stopped in the middle of the hall and stood there. Mike stopped facing me, I also had an appliance dolly in front of me Mom was sort of behind him. He stood there a while as he was blocked from going forward. He tried to say something a few times while looking at me then asked “How is mom?”. I said she’d behind you. He might have turned a bit or mom had moved back, anyway he got past us and kept walking. We continued to his room.

Mom started to empty out the few things in the cabinet and then got a bit preoccupied with organizing and weeding out Mike’s stuff from his roommate’s stuff who had passed away a month ago. Mike would come into the room off and on but I don’t recall him speaking to mom at all. I was helping empty some of the stuff and the second drawer smelled something awful to say the least. Inside was a black sphere of unknown substance but from the aroma one could guess at the objects composition. Mom finally came over and cringed at the smell. I pointed out the “ball” and said I don’t know what that is but I’m not touching it. She disposed that love nugget and finished up with her housekeeping. I strapped up the cabinet and we were on our way. Again I don’t think Mike said anything.

I dropped off the cabinet at Mom’s and picked up my workmate bench and headed for home to unload the workmate and the dolly so that I could head over to Costco to buy a shelving unit and a storage cabinet for my garage. Well much to my chagrin they didn’t have any more of the cabinets I had wanted. Didn’t even have a spot on the shelf for them. I purchased the shelving unit and decided to go on a hunting mission. I went straight up Euclid to the Garden Grove Costco. They didn’t have any either. Not being too ambitious and that I might be on a wild goose chase not to mention it was after 3:30 at this point I foregoed driving to the Fullerton location and settled on taking the 22 to the two Tustin Costcos on my way home. Glory hallelujah the Tustin Marketplace location still had a bunch. So mission accomplished.

While there are a multitude of reasons Barack Hussein Obama is unfit to lead the greatest nation on earth. This clip is all you really need to hear. I haven’t quite figured out exactly what kind of “ist” he is (actually he seems more like a Manchurian candidate), but he certainly isn’t an American Capitalist and certainly will not hold up our constitutional right liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We need a leader that will stand up for Americans and not subjugate us to the will of any other nation. That is the American way, that is what got us here on the top of the heap and that is what will keep us here provided we keep within the intentions of our founding fathers. Name one action hero that asks his mommy for permission before he takes action? Why on earth would you defer to a lesser?

I hope America will come to its senses come November. McCain is most likely going to eat Obama’s lunch in the debates, I just hope Obama does send McCain into one of his fits of rage and then charges and pummels Obama to death with a microphone. Or maybe that would be a blessing depending on the VPs. Obama dead or at least in a coma for 6 months and McCain back in a familiar place where he will miss out on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

Yes, barring any acts of God, McCain is my man. I’m not happy with the choice but given these two evils the choice is easy. When push comes to shove I know McCain will stand and fight for the American way, Obama is already waving a white flag and he hasn’t even been elected. I can’t really think of an ideal candidate, but if I had make a snap choice I’d nominate Thomas Sowell. An intelligent man with common sense. A rare combination for a politician which might be why he isn’t a politician.

Hard to believe I’ve only been going to RH for eight weeks not that that is a bad thing just feels to be too much of my normal routine after such a short time. Time is really slowing down for me at least the weeks seem to be slowing down. The days seem to be flying by, does that make any sense?

Pastor Mike wrapped up the Sex, Love & God series today with a discussion of three types of love covered in the Song of Solomon. There was also a powerful testimony by Becky the wife of last weeks Pastor. We also took communal communion today which was a first for me.

At the 11 in the lab I saw Pastor Pete he was going to be leading the worship today. He spotted me and came over to briefly say hello. I said I was surprised that he remembered me. I really was surprised for in a church of over 7000 he remembered me after meeting me briefly just once two months ago. Just the basics today for worship. Pete on the guitar, a woman doing backup vocals and one man playing some sort of percussion box. It was good. I think I might have spotted Jason today but I’m not sure as he was at the other end of the room and you now how bad I am at recognizing people. Anyway when I saw that Pete was here I knew that I wanted to get prayer from him so I didn’t approach anyone today during the response period. As in the 9am we took communion today so I had better remember to eat two less Goldfish with lunch today.

After the service I approached Pete and filled him in on what has transpired these last two months, he then prayed for and encouraged me. It was a nice way to end things up here at the little lab service as this was the last one, at least until the fall when Chad is hoping they will begin again. So I guess I’ll have a couple extra hours to myself on Sundays unless of course I feel called to something else. I won’t be going to back to back “big” services at RH. Maybe I check out the service at the Shark Club sometime.

So I went to my second Catalyst tonight. I did have some apprehension given that now I knew exactly what I was in for but that was just a trifle compared to the hope of seeing Brittney and Monica again. They have been heavily in my prayers and in the wish to at least speak with them again to thank them and to get to know them a little better. Of course in my selfish center I was hoping for a repeat of last month but I knew I didn’t need it as I did last time. It would be nice though. I figured I’d see where we stood and what they needed/wanted if we did met up. Well to my disappointment they were not there. Nevertheless no running for the door for me.

The structure of the night went much like last time with the prayer subject being different of course. Having been giving rather than receiving this time I did go up front at the end for individual prayer. Jason a man that had been in one of my small groups earlier took me aside and prayed for me. He told me that he had forgotten about Catalyst tonight until just before and had one of those oh yah I forgot, he told his wife that he HAD to go to Catalyst, he would have preferred to just stay home as he had a tiring day and just wasn’t “into it” but he had promised his friend Doug (who leads the service) he would be there. Anyway when he met me he knew why he HAD to come tonight.

We spoke for maybe twenty minutes afterwords, he got my story and most of the details of my new walk at Rock Harbor. He has been active at Rock Harbor for many years. He encouraged me and advised me to just stick to it and to feel free to approach him anytime I see him.

He was impressed (not exactly the right word) that given my personality and the newness of my faith that I have been coming to Catalyst. He said look around, what 30-40 people of a church of 7000+. This is about as exposed as you can get here. I said short of giving a testimony during a regular service. He said yes but this actually could be more exposed personally as interacting with a few people they are going to remember you verses addressing a huge faceless crowd.

He shared some other insights on his walk and told me not to worry about not knowing the songs as that will take a long time. He said he might be “working” the 11am service in the lab in the future.

Well this morning’s service was a change of pace. First off I was a few minutes later than usual but the place was already packed and it was still before 9AM. I heard them say to close the doors just as I was getting out of earshot, so I just made it in time to be in the Centre. I grabbed a seat in the last row at the far end of the room. I figured the place was packed as more people came to the 9Am so they would have more time to deal with Mother’s Day. I’m sure some people did that but the main reason turned out to be that they had canceled the High School and Jr High services today so the kids could be with their mothers.

Apparently on Mother’s Day Rock Harbor gives away some “door prizes” to mothers. the first was to the mother that had traveled the farthest. They start out with all mothers that have traveled over 50 miles or something please stand. That got a pretty good amount of people then they kept increasing the mileage 100, 200. A woman in front of me kept kind of starting to sit and looking at her husband he kept pushing her to stay standing, I guess she didn’t now how far home was. Anyway they get to who traveled more than two states away and were down to 5 or 6 women. One was Colorado which was beaten by Kentucky. The next woman was Indiana. I was calculating in my head and was thinking gee I’d need a map for that combo, the man doing the annoucements was sort of wondering on that one as well until the next woman who was from Kenya or some other African country, sorry I wasn’t exactly taking notes. Anyway contest over. They then did newest mom which was 14 days, then most experienced mom at 65 years.

They did baptisms and child dedications today as well. Pastor Pete, whom I met my first day led worship today and I must say he was like an Aussie Rock Star.

The message today keeping with the Sex, Love & God series was presented my Pastor Roger the head of the Marriage Ministry. As part of his sermon he played a 5 minute clip from Everybody Loves Raymond. That is one of my mothers favorite shows, since I don’t watch TV she has loaned me the entire series on DVD which has helped keep my mood up these past months anyway I had just finished up the last season so the entire 9 years is very fresh in my mind as I’ve seen the all in the last 6 months or so. Yet another “coincidence”. Anyway it was the episode where Raymond sets fire to the kitchen. The scene they played was an earlier fight between Raymond and Debra. Basically it was meant to illustrate how not to speak to your spouse. There were plenty of roars of laughter, I was thinking how surreal it all was being in church and watching Raymond. Pastor Roger after the clip said now I’m sure none of you can identify with any of that as you are all good Christians, “wink wink”.

At some point Pastor Roger asked that all the married people stand so they could be prayed over. He said to those seated that if they felt comfortable to place a hand on those that were standing near them. I got a double dose of hands as I had two young women on either side of me. Now this wasn’t a Catalyst type encounter nevertheless the more the merrier. Then Roger switched us with the singles standing. He said now don’t worry were not going to pray for a spouse for all of you. The woman in front of me told her sons to “SIT DOWN you’re not old enough to get married”. One of her sons piped up “YES I AM!” I wonder if he has someone special in his civics class. Oh did I just date myself? I meant Intermediate Texting class or how about AP Ebonics. Anyway I put my hand on the woman’s shoulder to my right (another first for me) the woman on my left was out of reach as there was an empty seat between us, she must have really been stretching to have reached my arm earlier.

We ended with Pastor Pete rocking the house. I headed over to the 11am in the lab. Pastor Todd led the worship today so that was a bit of a treat having him play to a small room. So I got two good worship services today. During the receiving part I went up to Moya the woman that had prayed for me the week before. She said that she wanted to get a man to pray for me. She had told another member of the prayer team about me last week and he want to get the opportunity. Tim was there with his wife they both prayed for quite a long time and they both hit on some new and pertinent points.

The bottom line today was a set of services that had me at times crying, laughing and filled with the joy of God’s presence. In other words it was a fantastic day at church.

[First a quick background, last night my sister and mother did go to the Michael Buble concert and there was a bit of anxiety in the air as my mother suffers from panic attacks. I haven't spoken to anyone so I don't know how they made out.]

So the dream starts out with me accompanying my mom and sister Robbie to the Michael Buble concert at The Pond. I was only seeing them off a bit of moral support for my mom as I didn’t have a ticket. I got them to their seat. Getting to the seats couldn’t have been easier. We walked up a short set of entrance stairs, like you’d see out front of a county courthouse and entered into a large foyer, then you went past a short ticket check-in line. You then went through a set of glass doors along a glass wall running the length of the back wall of the foyer area, they let me go in with them. There was a step down or two and the first row of seats started.

There were only three rows total. The last row had a space of 8 or 10 missing seats in the center of the section. My moms seat was in the second row just off center a few seats so that Robbie’s seat that was to her left had a seat behind her but my mother’s seat was in front of the first open space from the third (last) row. There was a small open buffer zone in front of the first row and then the flat stage started. So it was a rather intimate space only three rows of seats no more than 90 seats in total.

I pondered how they managed to section off such a small section of the arena. It seemed that the stage area must be suspended over seating area and I had the vague feeling that other event(s) were being held at the same time, though I doubt a hockey game. [It's too bad my dream version of the venue wasn't reality. It would have really taken down the stress level for my mom][I've never been in The Pond or is the Honda Center now - whatever, so everything is purely fictional obviously, we seemed to enter at the very top like a movie theater and all the seats were tiered below] So with my mom and sister seated I thought this is a great seat for mom, clear view and open space behind her. They were seated and a friend of Robbie that had the third ticket arrived and sat to the left of Robbie.

Then music started to play, there were banquet tables lined up on the stage and there was a projection screen hanging in the background. Many people started to file out from off stage, they were all wearing suits. They started to announce something, They were doing some charity award ceremony first that Michael Buble was involved in first before the show. Having the ladies seated I said my good byes and left.

I get outside and see my sister Renee at the bottom of the stairs. I guess she came to see them off as well but was late. I had just started to fill her in on the details when my mom appears. She greets Renee and then Renee and I exasperatedly ask her what she is doing there. It was the same feeling as when you are walking with Mike and you take your eyes off him for a second and he has veered off in the wrong direction. My mom obviously got nervous and was trying to “chicken out” though she said well it hadn’t really started yet. Renee and I wasn’t having any of that.

I grab my moms arm and start walking her back to her seat. As we start to climb back up the outside stairs I see that it is completely congested with people for some other event. This direction is not going to work, no way am I going to get mom through that mob without her coming unglued. So I start off down the street to take her in the side way. It is a fairly good distance and I’m thinking she is missing the beginning of the show and am getting a bit peeved at her. As we near the area where we need to make a right turn to head along the side of the building I see that that courtyard/walkway area is filled with a group of rowdy men in their early twenties. I had a feeling that they were waiting for a wedding reception to start across the street but it had more of a feeling that they were having the bachelor party immediately after the wedding ceremony. Anyway the group of wedding crasher type guys are drinking and spouting off vulgarities at a loud and heavy pace. Now I’m thinking great my 80 year old mother has to her these neanderthals carrying on and I get even madder at mom cause it’s her fault – if she’d just stayed in her seat. So I get her in the side door and back to her seat and I once again am on my way.

I get to the bottom of the main stairs of the venue and turn left down this narrow street filled with gift-shops and cafe snack shop type stores. Kind of a poor-mans version of Disneyland’s Main Street but in a cannery row kind of flair. The sidewalk and street were littered with seashells and mussels, and squessy worm-like things. The debris which crunched and squished under foot was heavily concentrated under the power lines above. I look up expecting to see a scene out of Hitchcock’s The Birds, but at this moment in time there are hardly any birds sitting on the wires chowing down.

That short street opened up into a larger courtyard area with a fountain and some mining equipment, there is some sort of amusement park ride queuing up there like a log ride or something. (the scene now is definitely not a public street but I inside some unidentified theme park) I continue on barring left, I’m now in a more open area kind of like New Orleans square off the river in Disneyland. I’m walking along and hear a woman’s voice from behind me say, “I still say the second one is a different shade”. Somehow I knew she was speaking to me but had no idea what she was referring to. I stop walking and start to turn around I spot a large flatbed wagon of sorts off to my right in front of a barn which is on the banks of the river. The flatbed of the wagon is made up of 2×6 boards and appears to have been replaced recently. This sight triggers a memory [actually two memories, this dream sequence seems very familiar I believe I've dreamed it before but cannot recall any other details] as I finish my turn and see the woman. Yes, I had a discussion with this woman about these boards about a year ago when I had first met her and haven’t seen her since. She has a familiar way about her kind of like she is the sister of my real friend Yvonne, but this woman is definitely not Yvonne, just Yvonne-like in demeanor.

Anyway as my mind is ramping up to speed, as it actually does on occasion with the real Yvonne, I stall and say that she has some memory as we’d only met once and that was a year ago. We rehash our little “argument” over the shade of the boards which is especially moot at this point as all the boards have been restrained with a heavy solid oil stain. And poorly done if I might say so. I then spot the paint tray holding the stain and it looks like coagulated hardened chocolate pudding. No wonder the job looks so bad. I ponder to my self how they could have hired someone to do such a bad job.

…I wake up…

Okay I didn’t get around to blogging this service until 3 weeks later and I don’t have much of any notes or do I really recall the events of this day other than these verses that struck me from the service:

“God can restore what the locusts have destroyed”. Not an actual quote but the spirit of [ Joel 2:25 ]

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” [ Colossians 3:12 ]

At the 11am I received heartfelt prayer from a lovely woman named Moya.