White Utopia project: day one

So far, so good. Everything appears to be going well and has the potential to stay that way. I feel like I am getting closer to taking on the jedi trials and thus advancing past that of a padawan. At record speed.

But today, the local social scene bloomed. In one day I: 1) met the local gossip who shared some dirt on recent residents of our house. 2) was whistled or whooped at by some local redneck chicks in a pickup (or maybe that was meant for Chuckie) and 3) been given more than enough Texas-style approving head-nods by locals driving by.

Welcome to White Utopia. Not bad for one day. And we weren't even trying to meet anyone.

And oh yea...gossip neighbor mentioned she has church friends who are wanting to move to White Utopia from the fair mother city. Not a bad thing to hear in our position.

UPDATE: No one made mention of my misspelling of "project" in the earlier version of this report. See...small town brilliance is influencing me.

things are going to start happening to me now

As of Friday, I am officially an owner of property in White Utopia: a small and slightly uppity bedroom community of the fair mother city where it’s legal to marry your sister.

Yeah. I need to quit it with the small-town jokes. I mean hey, I could make money here.

After thorough inspection with the jedi master, the property seems to be better than we expected. Central heat & air work fine. No apparent or major plumbing problems. And the two car garage/shop is an actual shop: a mechanics dream complete with engine hoist and two storage rooms with shelves.

Cha-CHING.

There is no indication that our budget would be off. It is now a matter of doing it and hoping it sells within a reasonable amount of time. I credit the CEO’s guidance in every step thus far. Thank you CEO.

The absolute weirdness in all of this is my agent calling and assignment in the fair mother city...

Agent Wife and I are convinced we are in the beginnings of a major change. We are putting in a request to the CEO for an assignment change to a different location. The location is yet to be made public and probably won’t be for some time. So endure my vagueness please.

It is difficult to explain our feelings and assumptions at this time. As of this date I have spent over half my life in the fair mother city. I have fallen in love with a side of this city few know. It’s poverty culture saddens me greatly, especially due to it’s close proximity to it’s religious culture.

And Agent Wife and I are huge believers in being missionaries in a single location for the long haul. So why would we up and leave someday?

Possibly because our time is due. And/or this was a mere training season. All of this makes sense to us as we step back and view the big picture of our lives and desires as well as reviews of our dream notebooks, etc.

About a year ago Agent Wife and I contemplated why we still lived here as we had no job or family ties to Abilene. We narrowed our answer down to relationships. And we narrowed those relationships down to two: Obi-Wan and AW’s little sister Princess.

The relationship with Princess ended earlier this year. So that leaves the aging Obi-Wan. As of now, I have no plans to move as long as he is alive and living across the street or here in town. But I have long felt that I’d be released into something should he ever pass on while I’m around.

This move is not a pipe dream. There appears to be an actual opportunity opening up for us elsewhere.

And my heart is slipping away from this city daily. I no longer want to invest here anymore, time-wise, spiritually, and even financially in some areas.

But for some reason, the jedi padawan gig of house-flipping seems to be moving great. So I’ll ride that wave and give it all I got.

I just don’t have it for the fair mother city. Anymore.

non report

This report about nothing is just a simple ‘checking in’.

Life is still going well for the agent household. The jedi padawan gig is still at large, yet dragging. A bathroom remodel job for some desperate housewife has drug out beyond ridiculousness. We are now in the fine toothed detail comb stage and it will hopefully end in a day or two. Meanwhile, the house that I myself am financing for our next flip job is taking forever to close on, thanks to the bank that owns it and other human incompetencies somewhere. But all should fumble together this week somehow.

Some days, I wonder if I’m still an undercover agent at all. I mean, I work full days and rarely hang with the poverty culture as much as I used to. And also...this “agent b” veil is getting thinner. So it goes.

But in the local neighborhood (the undisclosed location we call home), things are moving I suppose.

Obi-Wan and I see each other throughout the week, but Sundays are usually certain. We drink instant coffee, he preaches, I run and pick up his groceries, etc. Health-wise, he seems to be going strong.

Meanwhile, the Sanfords next door seem to be harboring terrorists. Their house has become more of a gangster hangout.

The Tiger and The Bulldog (who really need to move the hell out and grow up) have been running with rougher and rougher crowds. Some days they work jobs. But most days they just hang around and take drives in The Bulldog’s new ride: and early 90’s suburban.

I’ve always wondered why the CEO of the universe put my family and theirs in such close proximity and friendship. We really come from different planets I think.

mission accomplished (I think)

Today I took the day off to attend to business involving the house we’re flipping in White Utopia. We close on it next week.

So in between running errands, I took the two bags of tracts and went to the office of the mega church that the tract-passing crew (TPC) operates from. I didn’t know what to expect, but my plan was to meet someone from their operation face-to-face and make a polite plea for them to begin their own Evang-e-droppings cleanup operation.

Instead, I learned that the TPC does not have an office at this church (which happens to be the same mega church mentioned two posts earlier). But the secretary regularly contacts them and so forth. So I quickly scribbled out a note making my friendly plea, explaining that I was a mere background helper to their ministry, and left it with the two bags of tracts, showing that I did indeed collect these over the past year and I’m not making this up. In the end I signed it agent b, as opposed to my real name.

I don’t know if signing my alias was improper. Had I met them face-to-face I would have used my real name...out of necessity. The TPC’s leader and I have a brief history together. And I wanted to come clean and not hide behind veils, so it seems.

I have no idea if anything will come of this. But I feel that there’s closure. And I needed that.

evang-e-droppings: coda

It’s official. Today I decided to quit the Evang-e-dropping eradication operation due to lack of time.

As mentioned earlier, my actual human relationships are suffering due to my increased work schedule. So, in the place of tract collecting I will be hanging out with Obi-Wan or whoever drops into my life on Sunday mornings.

I don’t really have anything poetic to wax about this one year plus of tract collecting and trash clean up that hasn’t already been written in previous reports. I think the CEO of the universe has shown me much during this season. And now it’s over. So it goes.

I do wish someone would continue it. And I believe that someone should be a member of the actual crew that passes these tracts out in the first place. Every Saturday night this crew preys on patrons at the door of a local nightclub. Maybe they could come back in the daylight and collect them from the parking lots.

For over a year, I have saved the tracts I’ve collected. Two bags full. I am thinking the time is now to meet my opponents in the faith face-to-face.

Opponents in the faith. That sounds terrible. Anyway, I’m not one to chicken out and mail a load of tracts to their office with some cute note or something. I should meet them face to face and tell them what I was doing: picking up their trash.

I’ll be pleasant about it. And I won’t go into my feelings of tracts in general. I suck at debates. I’ll just say hey, I think it would be a good testimony to not leave behind any trash. Could you please pick up where I’m leaving off?

But then I’d have to find time during the week to actually try to meet up with them. We’ll see.

The operation: it was fun while it lasted. Maybe the kids and I will go out again once in a while.

under the sun

There is nothing new in the fair mother city. The same 'ole same 'ole.

What has been will be again.

Reports of the largest megachurch in town doubling the size of their facility with a $9 million bank loan isn't surprising. So it goes.

If George Barna's predictions of 70% of all believers living a faith outside the sunday morning social club by 2025 is true, I wonder what buildings like these will be used for by mid century?

All is meaningless.

tales from the zen #001

This is a new series of possible reports that come to you from The Zen.

The Zen is a place I fall into when I am doing some repetitive task, usually involving loud tools or power equipment while wearing goggles and ear muffs. And it’s like I forget where I’m at because being behind goggles and having loud noise near you yet muffled launches you to another planet. Or The Zen. The CEO sometimes communicates to me in The Zen.

But most of the time I just think up weird stuff.

Recently while working for the jedi master cutting tile, thus under the influence of the wet saw and angle grinder, I thought about the possibility of a future assignment change.

Yes. Me. The guy who has spent half his life in the fair mother city ponders a potential assignment change from headquarters. I’m leaving it that vague. This move may never happen. Or if it does, I’m guessing it will be a few years or so.

A few years back, when we peacefully parted ways with the izzy group ministry, Agent Wife and I pondered why we were still in the fair mother city. We had no jobs or family here. Despite a myriad of friendships, our reason for being here seem to revolve around two vital relationships: Princess and Obi-Wan.

Princess was Agent Wife’s little sister with the big sisters program. They have been friends since 1999. But that relationship recently closed one way or another.

So we strongly feel that we are still here for our friendship with Obi-Wan.

I find it odd that I’d even consider leaving the fair mother city since I admire missionaries who stay within their outreach culture for the long haul. ie: forever.

But recently I’ve been looking at our time in the FMC as a possible training period as opposed to a life-time call. Maybe I’m right about this. Maybe not.

Either way, my plea to the CEO is that I don’t want to die here. God, help me.

twenty four minutes in the fringes

Being wrapped up in my current life of a house-flipping jedi padawan has blurred my past. Or at least I’ve begun to forget how the deep trenches of the poverty culture is where I had once camped daily.

I’ve recently been reminded twice of my past with the izzy group ministry* some five to eight years ago.

1) Recently in the obituaries I learned of Jim Diddy’s passing. Jim was one of the hanger-ons in the Willy & Patches crowd. He was a notorious drunk and engager of escapism and the mole lifestyle like his buddies. I last saw Jim at either Willy’s or Patches’ funeral. I can’t remember which.

Amazingly enough, the obit mentioned his years of alcohol abuse. It also mentioned that in recent years Jim gave his life to Christ and battled his demons one by one until they were no more. He went on mission trips to mexico with his church as recently as last summer.

Thank you CEO for Jim’s change in life. And thanks for showing me the rest of the story.

2) After work today I drove by a slum house where I often have seen Georgia Rusty sitting in the yard with a 40 ouncer. Rusty was there along with Double O. I did a u-turn and pulled over to sit with these old friends and their watered-down brews.

Man. I was in another world. I almost forgot what life was like on the extreme fringes. While I was catching up with Rusty & Double O and Maria (Rusty’s longtime girlfriend and legendary local schizo), some legless guy in a wheelchair kept yelling to Rusty to buy some of his weed. The wheelchair guy had a leg missing below the knee. And I swear I saw a partial bone sticking out, like maybe the doctors didn’t fold the skin over all the way.

And some other elderly lady walked by then sat down in the grass with a beer and stared off away from the street. I assume she had mental problems (or demons, take your pick).

I watched a cop drive by slowly and gaze at us, like maybe this was a house that was always patrolled.

Double O, a notorious drunk himself, filled me in on the details of his grandkids who have been born since we last hung out. Rusty openly shared of his addictions. Just alcohol and pot. But he quit all that “other stuff”. Needle doing and so forth. Both guys kept fantasizing about some government check that might pop into their lives soon.

I just told them about my children they have never met and how I’m remodeling houses now.

The culture didn’t shock me and I adjusted pretty quick. But I’m very rusty within the far fringes. And it was weird that I was looked upon as the "church guy" with their apologetic behavior and so forth. I've always hated getting the church guy treatment.

I may need to go hang out there more. They invited me to.


*izzy group – nickname for the ministry I was once director and associate pastor of. It was a hands-on ministry to the local poverty culture with various apparatuses.

photo - Gary Kazanjian / AP file

jedi padawan #002

As stated recently, my master plan is advancing forward at light speed.

Currently, I am an official full-time employee of the jedi master. And that is a very good thing because I am learning much and enjoying the work tremendously.

I am getting less awkward with tools and at least looking like I know what I’m doing more and more daily.

Just a year ago, I pondered my existence through the desert wastelands of the bible-belt. Now, I drive a truck and wear a tool belt. I am a bad-ass. And that is my existence.

And my big announcement:

As of today I am now under contract with a realtor to buy our next house flip. Yes – I, the young padawan in home remodeling and trades work is now an equal partner on the next project as financier...or something.

And the CEO of the universe employs his ironic humor as this property is located in White Utopia.

Yes. White Utopia: the fair mother city’s eastward bedroom community that I love to loathe and make fun of - a mere microcosm of the fair mother city with heavy magnification on wealth, religion, Caucasian seclusion, and haves vs. have-nots. Or maybe I’m too critical.

Good one CEO. I’m still shocked that my first would be there.

Oh well. Viva la Whitey it is!

Thank you CEO.

obi-wan sermon files

Due to my busy and quasi-excrutiating work weeks of late, the evang-e-dropping eradication operation has been put on the backburner. I have not planned to quit collecting christian tracts from nightclub parking lots just yet.

But since I have so little time and energy to maintain actual human relationships during the week, I have shifted my Sunday morning time to being with either my family, Obi-Wan, or whoever else shows up.

This morning it was time with Obi-Wan. And I forgot how he can preach, albeit unintentional. I believe accidental preaching is the best kind of preaching.

The sermon topic this morning was almost straight from the Uncle George handbook: the CEO provides.

My friend, elderly neighbor, and Redd Fox stunt double Obi-Wan went on for almost an hour about how in recent years he asks the CEO for everything. And one way or another it shows up, be it some piddly little odd job needing attention performed by me or Mr. Mackey, or not having the energy to cook and suddenly someone is bringing a plate of food through his door, or whatever.

It’s easy and overly tempting to rely on ourselves when we’re young and able-bodied. But my elderly mentor Obi-Wan has taught me a faith level I have only imagined.