It's All in the Attitude

A couple of months ago Ben from work was settling in the cubicle next to mine to begin his day.  I wasn't on a call so I rolled back my chair and said "Good morning."  "Ready for another shitty day?" Ben replied.  I answered  "I don't know how you can expect anything else with that kind of an attitude."

I've been thinking about that exchange and asking myself what kind of attitude I have going in to situations ever since.  And then I was talking with my mom as we were planning Christmas dinner.  "Well if you're making all of these plans I sure hope you won't be grumpy like you sometimes are when have a big get-together."

OUCH!  Talk about a reality check.

But I thought a lot about it.  Instead of approaching the time wondering what I could get out of the situation I went with the attitude of creating a way to make great memories for the people with whom I would be spending time.  And when the first thing my mom said was "Cheryl, did you pick up a bum on the side of the road on the way here?" in reference to my long scruffy beard and torn jeans with flannel pajama pants underneath I exclaimed "Oh it's so good to be home to receive such positive reinforcement and unconditional love!" and threw my arms around her to give a warm embrace.  She had no choice but to laugh and pretty much melt.  In retrospect, had my response been a smart-mouthed comeback/put-down I could have messed up the whole week.

Later in the week there was another instance where someone tried to stir up some trouble with someone and Cheryl and I put a quick stop to that.  I said "It's Christmas so I'm not thinking about anything less than tidings of comfort and joy" and that put an end to it.

So that's what I learned over Christmas vacation, to worry less about being blessed and more about being a blessing.

I'd love to read about your Christmas in the comment section!

You never forget your first

Well here I am.
I figured a snow day was a great time to start my blog.
I thought I'd start by answering a couple of questions.  So fasten your seat belts kiddies, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

First: Why am I blogging?
As of January 2012 I will officially be an associate pastor at my church, The Journey.  I feel that as a pastor I should be doing some more pastoral things and taking a bit more mature approach to life.  I don't want to alienate people that I'm friends with on Facebook by being too "in your face."  Most of them know me and where I stand on God and stuff.  By creating, and linking to Facebook, people can choose if they want to visit this side of my life or not.  Hopefully that makes some sense.  I typed it and I'm not even sure I understand.

Next: Why the name "Seriously Jimmy?"  And why the question mark at the end?
A while back I was really frustrated.  I felt like kind of like people just thought of me as the big dork that was loud but didn't really bring much to the table as far as spiritual stuff.  And I didn't understand why, in my mind, I wasn't succeeding as a leader in the church.  I wasn't even certain others looked at me as the leader I had been called to be.  I prayed about it a lot.  And then one day I heard they answer.  Call it God or some great revelation that was brought to my brain, but I heard this: You want to be respected and taken seriously   When are you going to start taking yourself seriously Jimmy?"  
Sounds like a great name for a blog to me!
As for the question mark- I kind of look at it 2 ways:
1, The way I "heard" the answer was with a question mark so why change?
2, There are some people (including myself at times) that may find it shocking that there is this serious side to me so a question mark seems fitting.

So that's it for my first blog.
Hopefully it didn't bore you to tears.
I welcome comments but am hopeful that you'll be nice.
Peace,
Jimmy!  (Oddly enough I've been signing my name with an exclamation point for a couple years.  I guess I like punctuation.