Duty, responsibility and greed

Qu, you are my hero! Thanks for getting this set up; as the self appointed Tuesday Night Rover I appreciate the ability to keep in touch and read what is going on with all of you and share in your triumphs and tragedies. That being said, I will take just a moment to vent and get you all up to speed on where I am right now...

As most of you know, I am in Norfolk, VA right now babysitting our ship as she blunders her way through a shipyard period. The whole operation has been a bit of a cluster-fuck from the beginning, but that is pretty much expected and not much to write home about. The question I have been struggling with, and which I would pose to the wisdom of the Tuesday Night sages, is this: is my continued presence here a result of my desire to follow through on my duties and responsibilities (basically being a good steward) or does it unveil a core of unadulterated greed driving my actions? As with most situations, it is probably not as much one or the other so much as a balance between the two motives, but I really hope I am driven more by something resembling integrity than by a baser, selfish impulse.

The truth of the matter is that I do feel a strong obligation to do what I can for this ship because it has been so instrumental in getting me started sailing. That is why I keep coming back early when they call me up and why I haven't looked for a job elsewhere when it looks like there might not be work when I expect to need it. And we are passing through a very tumultuous time in the ship's life due to shuffling around of management and a bunch of other things I can't really get into. As a result of all the upheaval, we (the crew) are holding tenaciously to our positions, trying to ride out all of the transitions and shuffling going on as people displaced from other ships are trying to edge in where they can. Which leads me to the greed argument...

Even before I came out for this trip in September, I already had enough time in 2007 to count as a "good year" and I did not really need to come back out, but I did because they called. Now that I am here, I could leave at the end of my 4 months and not look back; basically roll the dice and hope that when I am ready to come back to work there will be a job somewhere. But I like this job and as I said the crew is trying to stay more or less intact, so we are arranging a short relief where I pretty much just go home for January and come back out in February to relieve my friend, thereby essentially holding down the position and not allowing any evil outsiders to sneak into that spot. Think of it as an adult version of musical chairs; the people not on a ship when the decisions are made may or may not have a job anymore, the people who are on the ship most likely will be able to keep the job.

I don't know if any of that makes sense but that is what has been going on in my life the last few weeks. We are trying to make plans without the benefit of a definite timeline of the upcoming events and it is driving everyone a bit batty (just like me, right Curt?!). I am trying to do what I can to make sure that I will be employed for the near foreseeable future while I try not to be sucked into a mindset or pattern of behavior driven by greed. Sometimes it feels like I am tap dancing on a tightrope. Oh, and I just in case you didn't catch it in there, I will be coming home in early January, be around for a couple weeks and then leave again in February. So that will be a wham-bam-thank-you-mam kinda visit.

I hope all of you are doing well and I will look forward to reading all of your posts in the future. Take care and keep in touch!

The best friends I've ever had.

I believe that I still hold the newest position at Tuesday Night. I've been hanging out with my new found wonderful-wonderful, (I intentionally typed and hyphenated "Wonderful-Wonderful) friends for about a month now. And I love them all to death. These are the kind of people you can spill your guts to, and they sit and listen, and when all the messy parts are shared they say, "let me hug you. I love you, and I'm glad you're my friend."
Last Tuesday Night I shared my first Take Away story. Don't worry, I'll post it here soon. I was freaking out the entire day, hoping that I wasn't sharing too much too fast. It turns out I wasn't. They let me cry and cried with me and when it was all over they hugged me and life moved on. And then they thanked me for sharing my story.
For the first time, I feel like I'm really home. I hung out with a few of these dear friends on Saturday night, and it was awesome. These are the kind of people I wish I had around all the time. The kind of people you wish you had miniatures of and could keep in your pocket do you could tell them whatever you were thinking at any moment of the day. They are not only unique, they are also incredibly generous, loving, and caring people. They are also hilarious. They are also a community of acceptance.
If you, dear reader, don't have this kind of friendship, I hope you find those people for yourself soon. Until then, we'll be hanging around on Tuesday nights.

Oh, and Curt, its really true that I don't play video games. I know I haven't played one for the last five years. It was pure luck that I kicked your butt Saturday night. Believe what you will, but its true.

Welcome to the Tuesday Night Blog!

Welcome to our blog!

There is a group of people who meet on Tuesday Nights for the sake of fellowship and community, and we're starting our very own blog. I'm not even completely sure how many of us there are (7-8 ??), but be prepared to see blogs coming from lots of different directions, lots of different viewpoints, and lots of different writing styles. We all have the common bond of community, though. I'm hoping that soon we'll be reading all kinds of stories and thoughts - fun stuff, random thoughts, serious discussions, faith stuff, non-faith stuff... the works! Maybe even a few takeaway stories to boot =)

So, Tuesday Nighters, gear up and get ready to blog!

And for the rest of you out there, a word about Tuesday Nights:

They're a little bit hard to describe, but I'm going to do my best. Here is an excerpt from the book I'm working on that makes a bit of an effort at describing exactly what it is we do:

"Tuesday Night is a place to share what we’ve been thinking about, journaling about, and reading. It’s a place to share the art we’ve been working on and the art that’s touched us. Tuesday Night is a place where we mourn the things that are ugly about ourselves and start our journeys into change; a place where we celebrate what is beautiful in us and strive to keep those pieces of ourselves alive. It serves as a sort of spiritual refugee camp for those of us who’ve been hurt deeply by the modern church, yet strive to know God; a place of comfort for those of us who hurt; a place of discovery for those of us who seek. Tuesday Nights have become, not surprisingly, a significant part of each of our lives...

...Tuesday Night is very different from any sort of church group I have ever attended. As we don’t have a common church, or even a common faith, we’ve had to carve out our own definition of community. To us, a community isn’t a group of people who come together once a week to talk about a common book or passage of scripture and then go their separate ways. To us, a community is a group of people who live out their lives together. It is people who live together and eat together and struggle and cry and hurt together and learn about God together. It is people who help each other through the in-between times and the ambiguity and who question together and doubt together and reassure each other and rejoice together. You cannot do this by just meeting once a week for an hour with a specific agenda. You have to live your lives in tandem. You have to interact. You have to participate...

...Sometimes on a Tuesday Night someone will have something heavy on their heart that they must share with the group. Sometimes someone will be pondering a question that we try to help them answer, and support them in their own quest when we don’t have a clue. Sometimes we sit and tell stories. Sometimes we jump around the room to ridiculous dance music and sometimes we play games like the ever popular If I Was a Ghost I Would, in which we detail the mischief we would cause if we were ghosts, or we have whip cream whistling contests. It is a place where we can just be. There is no format or agenda. There is no telling what the tone of the night might be. We simply are, and it works for us."

I don't know if that was at all helpful, but just know Tuesday Nights are a beautiful work in progress of a community that is learning to love better, to live in interdependence, to challenge ourselves and each other, and to grow in every way and shape we can. Not a bad gig, if you ask me. Hopefully our blog will be a beautiful expression of the things that are coming out of this community.

I hope you enjoy the ride. It may be bumpy, but I think its going to be good.