MySpace blog: Mallards--a duckumentary

Did anyone notice that in my blog with pinnochio in the title, I wrote about Jiminy Cricket? I was wondering if anyone would notice, but no one commented on it. So you must not be very big Children's story fans.

I drove home on friday around 4:30. I got off an hour early (3:30), so I got to leave. I like driving home, because I usually sing until my throat hurts and my face goes numb. Yeah, my face goes numb. Weird. I tell people that it falls asleep and they get scared and ask if I should be driving. Honestly, I don't know. It happens when I try to sing up high for awhile.

I can sing way higher than I used to be able to (6 months ago I was hitting D, and tonight I was hitting A#). So, my face doesn't go numb. Now my chest just hurts, because I know that to hit the high notes, you have to push more with your diaphragm. Here's what I sang along with on my trip:

The way down:
Sleeping at Last, Ghosts
Copeland, In Motion and Sony Connect Sessions EP
The Format, Interventions and Lullabies
Relient K, MmmHmm

The way up:
Tim Hughes, When Silence Falls
Passion, How Great Is Our God
A worship mix I made (4 songs)
David Crowder Band, Can You Hear Us?
Matt Redman, Facedown

I don't know if that was worth writing. So on the way down, I was listening to the Format on Highway 20. If you haven't heard them, they could be described as being on the country/folk side of emo/indie/alternative. Really good music for long trips. I saw some roadkill up ahead, and moved to the left side of the lane to avoid what looked like a dead raccoon (because of the color). Suddenly, a bird swooped down right on the yellow line, next to the dead animal. Assuming it was a vulture, I moved farther over, because vultures are big. Do you call them buzzards or vultures?

Upon further, closer inspection, I realized that this "scavanger" was actually a male mallard duck. His flamboyant green head gave it away. I was thinking, "stupid duck, you don't eat dead animals," as I passed it and it's large, deceased, tan meal. A semi truck was coming the other direction and there were a number of cars behind my speed-limit-almost-abiding self. That mallard was as dead as a duck. Umm, that's not a real saying but it could be.

I realized about a quarter mile later that that roadkill I had seen was Mrs. Mallard. The color was definitely girl mallard. Ducks pair up with one partner for an entire year. They have the same values as Western society--you can have many mates, but only one at a time (geese are the way it should be--one mate for life). Ducks don't eat big dead animals, so the male must have been at his wife's funeral. She must have been struck by an oncoming vehicle, and he flew on, then realized what happened and swooped to her side. He surely joined her in her fate just seconds later. This undying (maybe not the best choice of words) display of love (or whatever ducks have) moved me. It moved me to come up with a new idea for a video. A duckumentary. It's a nature show about ducks. I have plenty of subjects--the ducks at simpson. But, surely, this video will join the ranks of all the others. It will forever be an idea that i tell people about, but never actually make.

So, being home was good. I went to Stars' Music Liquidation Sale. I spent $119 on a cable, a tuner pedal and 6 picks that they didn't charge me for. I already have a tuner pedal, but now that I'm going to be leading worship some, I anticipate playing both electric and acoustic, so I need 2. And I needed the cable for my acoustic. Then, I went to Tim Schaefer's wedding. It was weird, because I don't think she cried at all, but he could not stop crying. That's backwards from normal.

Besides some good meals, talking with the family, and playing with my brother's new amp, not a lot else happened. On the way up, I sang along with only worship CDs. I drank a ton of water today, so that may be why I could hit those high notes. And I had coffee right before I left. (Is this necessary self-disclosure?) I had to stop to pee 3 times. Usually i don't stop at all besides to get gas. One of those times, I got 2 water bottles and a pepsi. I also stopped on an open, straight part of highway 20 to stargaze.

Since I drive too fast on that road, there was no one behind me for some time (I had passed them all long before). The stars were soooo bright. I had forgotten. That little star next to the big dipper handle's 3rd star was still there. That star, plus billions of others (i probably couldn't see billions, but I could see a lot). I was terrified, out there in the middle of nowhere. No human noise or light was present besides my own truck's ticking as it sat. It was cold and windy, but I only took my slippers (that's Hawaiian for flip-flops, all you americans) home with me, so that's all I had. I was walking back around my truck and my foot brushed up against a weed, and I thought some strange creature had bitten me. I was scared that a velociraptor was going to jump out of the grass and eat me too. (I think we were talking about Jurassic Park at Starbucks on Wed.) I don't know why I get these paranoid moments. Especially when I'm in one of my favorite states of worship--looking at the sky. You'd think I'd realize that the Creator of the universe was my Protector. But, at that moment, my fear of my circumstance and my view of the sky were teaching me something else. They were driving home the purpose of life.

In Ecclesiastes, the Teacher comes to the conclusion: "Fear God and keep His commandments--this is the whole of man." That's it. The purpose of life. (That's the Bible's purpose, not Rick Warren's--I haven't read his book). So my fear, which I shouldn't have (I'm supposed to have a spirit of courage and a sound mind according to the NT), was used to make me realize that I need to fear the God who made those huge stars. Not in a way that involves me running from Him. I should rejoice with trembling as Psalm 2 says. The last 5 months have taught me a lot about fearing God, and now I see that God as the Creator needs to be feared.

Overall, a good trip. No numb face, just a sore chest. Oh, I found $50 in my backpack while I was home. It was a check for selling some DirecTV stock I had been given. I already went to the bank 3 times this week for deposits, now it looks like I have one more. But, hey, as long as they're deposits, I'm willing to go there over and over.