Of The Red Lights

Tonight I went to a benefit dinner and auction. It was for a group called the Genesis Project. Take a few moments to read about them.
I was invited to this dinner by my Dad, a coworker of the guy who started the organization. Most of the attendees were a few digits above my pay grade and the setting itself was suitable to them, not me. There was a three course dinner served, a silent auction, a live auction with a true auctioneer speaking at 90 wpm, and a live painter whose piece was auctioned for nearly $800 at the end of the event. In all, over $62,000 was raised for the organization on this 4 hour night. It was so much of an encouragement to see men raising their hand, soberly pledging $5000 to the cause to help those  in true need just around the block on Pac Hwy.
Half-way through the program an unplanned detour was taken. One of the girls that was at the tail end of the GP program got up to speak. She brought nearly every living heart to tears with her gratitude and tale of "getting out". I cannot even attempt to reproduce what she said. Her mother got up just after her, and for a second time thanked the crowd and the staff of GP for "saving my daughter".  Human-trafficking, porn, and sex-offenders all have found a new place of hatred in my heart. I mean the sin of course. Sometimes I forget stuff like this happens. I forget that man really is just that vile, perverted, twisted, and all the other maleficent adjectives a language can yield. It's saddening and yet makes me praise a God who has restrained me from that state of existence and from his wrath.
The event generated so many questions in my mind. How do we use our taxes? Can't we just use them all on organizations like this? Small and local beneficial ones? How does a society put up with stuff like this? How do we so easily turn that blind eye? Why did I spend all that money on needless things? How can I help? Can I quit my job and just help these people full time?
Sadly, most of those questions are not answered over dinner. But I did realize that there is a lot more I could do with my skills. Right now I work in a company the supplies most of the world with air-transportation. This is good and all, but in most cases this simply 1) makes peoples lives more comfortable and 2) gives my upper mgmt belt a hefty income. I will have utterly wasted my life if that's the full benefit of my work. Yes, I need to just make the doe. Yes, I have to support my family, church, and can be a testimony where I am and all that. But all our skills can go far beyond common jobs for common people to do temporal tasks. I can be a software engineer at a thousand companies. Why not choose one that is doing spiritual gain? Or why not use my skills for eternal benefit in nonprofit ways on the side? I don't think I know a single nonprofit org that would turn down a pair of willing hands. (Ah, but that's trick isn't it, being willing). Do you write? Do you build houses? Do you test thermometers? Do you bake, repair wires, or sell insurance? I believe that all of these jobs can be used in more ways that we give them credit at times, and if you've ever really helped a person you know just how rewarding and fulfilling it can be. I don't think I'll ever be fully satisfied in engineering until my job somehow relates to helping people in deeper than temporal ways. I plainly mean spiritual ways. Even if just build tech stuff for people like GP. There is just nothing more enriching. Besides, I think I can magnify him best that way.

Rhetorica ad Herennium

Perhaps I don't believe in Evolution as an origin of life, but like a chicken is unrecognizable in his egg, we change from simple, yellow ducks into complicated working, clucking, and at times seemingly mindless... what are we anyway? Machines? Taxidermic consciences? I guess the answer is as explanatory as "body and soul". That's helpful.

What I'm getting at, is that I've grown unexpectedly. And what's a blog's entity but for chatting up the page with your own thoughts, externalizing a little piece or moment of who you are. Or were.

Even looking back a little over a year ago, did I know I'd be neck deep in technologies like Groovy, Maven, or Perl? Or that I'd have a mean back spin in Table Tennis? Or that I'd have a fetish for remembering techniques? (If my mother could see my now.) I think I irritate my wife sometimes when I get to talking and work my way onto an esoteric island of DSL's (domain specific languages) that I've found. On the other hand I think she's established a healthy wisdom of knowing at exactly what point to smile and nod.

I use to think Love ruled the world. I still do. But it looks a little different. It's like when you watch so many hollywood movies that you get these ideas that her eyes will always sparkle and sunshine will poor through the window reflecting off even the light absorbing paint on the walls and tint everything with a feeling. You think even after years of marriage that same feeling invoked by the silver screen should be ever existant. Like the soft hum of an engine.

The other day we laid on the floor of our living room after a simple dinner and played cards. Afterward, she put her head in my lap and I used the cards to make up a story. "Once, there was a... (King of Spades) Secret Agent Man, who had.... (3 of Clubs) 3 children!" And on it went getting more and more ridiculous. In the moment, it somewhat felt... normal. There wasn't feelings welling up inside, except when she laughed, and I don't think I heard any Quelqu'un M'a Dit notes in the background. But as soon as it was over, I looked outside and saw the sun just setting, and it hit me. Those Hollywood moments happen all the time, and sometimes we're just too organized and task oriented to realize it. I'm going to do better at creating those scenes and most importantly recognizing them. It's amazing what you can savor when you pause and focus.

A year ago I also dreaded working the "office job". Pushing paper, reading hours of emails until your eyes fall out of their sockets and your taken up with the more important task of not losing your mind as well. What I found and what was probably told me a hundred times was that when you're an "engineer" it means the guy that walks up to a mountain and says, "I challenge you!" I've become obsessed with finding harder and harder problems, and peering into an ever growing toolbox seeking solutions. While most of my problems are conflicts of 0's and 1's, or better put, a sandbox of 0's and 1's that need to be shaped into a castle, the most complicated is the problem of people. Of course, in the end of the day, the vastly more complicated people problems are the only one's worth solving.

I use to think Love ruled the world. I still do. But it looks a little different. I used to think "all you need is love", except somewhere along the way I misinterpreted that little simple triple. I thought Love was a solution to problems- in that, "We need to scale that hill" - "Ok, here's a rope." But now my definition has evolved a little. It's more like, "We need to scale that hill" - "Ok, but it's ok if we can't". Love is no longer a solution to external problems but internal ones. There will always be antagonists, and men of contradictory actions, and people who will hurt you, and people who will get hurt, and people with scar tissue that does what any good scar tissue would do and over compensate for the offending abrasion. Over those external circumstances, we are powerless and love is useless. But Love allows us to forgive others, forget ourselves, and live in this tumultuous life with peace. And truthfully we all need a whole lot of that Love. Too bad I didn't know that a few years ago.

Thanks be to God I'm learning some of these lessons. In a few years, I'll learn some more while I'm miles deep in a career, up to ears in little tawpies, and perhaps my memory tricks will help me retain those lessons for as long as I need them.