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Update your feeds and check out the new site. It’ll be worth the trouble. Thanks for your time.

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There are still a few kinks to work out, but if you let me know of them I’ll fix them.

And thank you for reading!

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Many people, myself included, have what I call Pretentious Initials after their names. For the most part these initials are hard to come by, though I’ve found that some of the longest, most obscure ones are not. For my part the Pretentious Initials I use are PE and MSCE, in that order. Wonderful thing about pretension, you can prioritize which pretentious title is more pretentious.

The second set of letters is much less used, and its use is more subjective. It indicates that I have a Master’s of Science in Civil Engineering. A good number of engineers get a graduate degree in business or an easier non-technical field, I however chose to go the technical route and earn my Master’s studying traffic and transportation including a thesis that I am proud of.

I am a Professional Engineer, which requires licensing by the State (or several States). If you use those pretentious initials without receiving a license by the State you can be fined, censured or any number of other matters by the State. Licensure in one State does not necessarily mean you can go to the next State and say you’re an engineer or else you face the same penalties there. In order to get that license you must have a degree, four years of experience and have passed 2 eight-hour exams. It is not easy, I have known many great engineers who failed one or both tests four or five times. It is not an exclusive club, but there are only a small number of people in the group when compared to the population at large. Someone once described being a PE to me as a glass football. Very much similar to the BS Championship Trophy that the NCAA gives away to a team each year. On occasion the team earns it, but that’s a different matter. Everyone strives for that glass football, working tirelessly, sweating profusely, training, working, until that day that they are able to hold it aloft and claim it as their own. At that time, you realize you are holding a glass football. You don’t want anyone to take your glass football, and if you drop it, you’ll be holding a pile of glass. So you protect the glass football, not allowing anyone to touch it or to misuse it, or you holding it.

I fondly recall that day over four years ago that I found out I had passed the exam. My wife came to work and gave me the letter from the State. I read it and my feet no longer touched the ground. For three straight days I was on a high. Then, on day four it hit me. I was now licensed by the State to sign and seal a set of engineered plans that would/could be built and used by the public at large. If anything were wrong in the plans it would be my fault. Engineers are like doctors in that what they do can affect people and sometimes they can even kill them. But unlike doctors, engineers can kill people by the hundreds or thousands at one time. So that glass football I had strived so hard to achieve finally in my grasp now surrounds me. Rather than keep it safe by hiding it, I move carefully to protect it as it contains me.

That feeling of panic passes, but what remains is the sense of grace. I have been graced by the State to make the decisions that can affect the outcome of whatever the projects I work on can touch. I have the education, the experience, the background to make the right calls, to do the right thing, but in the end it still takes me doing the right things, making the right calls to maintain that license.

This is no less than what we are given by God. He grants us grace, we do not deserve it, we do not earn it. We get all the right education and experience to pass it on and make disciples, but at the heart of it all remains the grace of God. He gives us what we cannot earn, giving us what we cannot merit, it is a matter of grace.

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Yesterday I mentioned Robert’s Rules of Order. It is a wonderful book if you want to be precise. If you want to be happy and not bent out of shape when you attend organizational meetings, and especially City Council Meetings (does not matter at all which city), you do not want to read any of it as the people running the meetings have not. Even the person known as the Parliamentarian rarely ever reads it.

In trying to make things run uniformly Robert created the rules and eventually not only were they published, but they were accepted as The Standard of parliamentary procedure. Robert was an engineer, and engineers tend to be precise. Often that is their problem. We tend to think of things in precise terms and want to have them compartmentalized so that they can be handled, or controlled. There is a motion for correcting actions that are not done properly, which can only accurately be used by one who knows the rules. Invoking this can make the person seem condescending or controlling, or sometimes just annoying and abrasive.

Engineers tend to be abrasive, not only because they try to be precise and correct, but because they boil things down to he base and point out inconsistencies. For my part, I have been known as being abrasive to other engineers. I don’t mention this because I’m proud, but because I recognize my own annoying characteristics particularly that of trying to correct what is wrong.

After reading Robert’s Rules of Order, I began to realize how few people knew how things were really supposed to run and took it as my job to correct and inform them. It did not take long before I realized the complete futility of this. Nowadays I try really hard to screw on my filter and not “fix” the problem. This in turn has helped in a few other areas as well, but sometimes it can go too far.

A few weeks ago in Sunday School, my teacher made a statement that I absolutely disagreed with, but I kept my mouth shut. When he mentioned that I was particularly quiet, it opened the discussion back on the point and completely changed the direction the class had been heading. As we walked out I went on disregarding the matter, thinking nothing more of it. The next week, everyone else had been studying and reviewing the matter, so we spent another week talking on the point.

Ignoring and accepting can be a great way to not get bent out of shape on the minor points of life, but when we extend it we run the risk of missing out on something much bigger and more important. Don’t compromise correctness merely for the sake of getting along

Related articles

• What Decision Will You Make(Jason Fountain)
• Robert’s Unread Rules (byrdmouse.wordpress.com)
• Specks and Beams (byrdmouse.wordpress.com)

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 Despite the fact that most people claim to use Robert’s Rules of Order for parliamentarian procedure, few do so. Even fewer realize it, and still fewer have actually read the book. Being one of the very few sometimes gets to be a pain, at least if you want things to go by the book.

Some common examples of procedures that are not according to Robert but done are to call for a vote for a motion followed with saying, “Those opposed by the same sign.” If the vote is by the same sign, it is a vote for the motion and not against. One of the matters that bugs me the most is when something is “Laid on the Table.” The proper motion is to postpone for a set (indefinite is acceptable) time. The Lay on the Table motion is to set something aside to handle an urgent, pressing matter, which is then followed by resuming the first motion. Oftentimes, the Lay on the Table motion is used to kill a matter that no one wants to vote on.  At a recent City Council meeting I witnessed the Council repeatedly vote to suspend the rules. It was the correct motion, (since they wanted to avoid a vote on Unanimous Consent and consider something for immediate adoption rather than wait for another meeting) but the point here is that it is a regular occurrence to suspend the rules. Why have the rules if you’re going to simply suspend (or ignore) them?

Organizations and governmental bodies do things the same way. They believe they are right, but the reality is they are just as wrong as the last person they saw doing it. Copying the last group has become the norm. Everyone expects things to run by the same procedure as before.

As Christians we are often similarly comfortable. We want our church services to be the same, the preacher to finish on time, the prayers to last as long, etc. Many times we want to deal with people in a certain way and for a set period of time or when nothing is bothering us. When we are annoyed we act differently. As C.S. Lewis put it in the Problem of Pain, “Everyone feels benevolent when nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.”

Just like the complacency in parliamentarian procedure, we get complacent in our Christianity copying those that came before us. Every now and then we need someone to come along and remind us to read the Book.

Image by isafmedia via Flickr

More on Lance Corporal Jeffrey Knight:

Jeffrey is doing well considering where he is and what he’s going through. He has finally had his legs closed and is anxious to get his prosthetic legs. He still has not seen his left hand yet. He got into a wheelchair a few days ago and the next day got an electric one so he could move himself around. He still has surgery nearly every day but they have figured out which drug was causing him hallucinations and other problems.

When the incident occurred, he was clearing a knoll of IEDs and just didn’t feel right. He went back for some C4 to just blow the hill, and had it in his left hand. When he got to the spot he wanted, his metal detector went off and he knew he had stepped on the device. It threw him back and he landed on his back. When he went to stand, he couldn’t and knew he had lost his legs. They train Marines nowadays that if they get caught like this they will probably lose their legs, but they have tourniquet kits on the side. They have one and a half minutes to get it on before they bleed out. Jeffrey reached for his, and it had been blown away by the blast. It took his comrades three minutes to get his tourniquets on.

As I initially suspected, Jeffrey was relieved to know that he was the only one who got injured in his squad and that no one died. He is very excited about his recovery. It’s a long road yet, but all things considered, it could be tougher.

Many people would look at this situation and say why. They would question how a loving God could allow something so tragic to happen. What I know about it is that Jeffrey has been receiving a good  number of prayers, and they are working. He may never have his legs back, but he is right where God wants him to be.

Oftentimes we think of our children and say that we would do anything for them, especially if they were in a life threatening situation. Think about God, though. He not only would do anything for his children, He CAN do anything for His children. There is nothing that can stop Him from saving anyone he wants. And yet He allowed His son, Jesus, to die. The only being capable of stopping it, and yet He did not. He did not stop the crucifixion of Jesus and allowed him to die because that is what it took for us to be able to live.

Related articles

• Blast from Afar (byrdmouse.wordpress.com)
• Shrapnel Lands at Home (byrdmouse.wordpress.com)

This morning I am grappling with a major life choice that needs an answer soon (even if that answer is to wait). My mini-epiphany this morning was to cut the grass. For the uninitiated, we can solve the problems of the world while doing yard work, though the solutions disappear once we turn off the equipment. Thinking I might find the answer I went out into the yard. 

The answer was elusive. A nest of yellow jackets proved to be much less elusive. 

I have been stung before and I know that more than 2 had to have gotten me (the second was when I snuck up on the nest an plunked a wooden stake in it to mark it for later). However, two stings are swollen and smarting still an hour later. One is in my knee, the other my right, ring finger making it hard to hold things or to type o, l, or a period. Had this happened to the pinky finger, I would finally have an excuse for not using the semicolon and continuing my long-standing practice of coma splices.