I participated in 2 school safety audits today so I will have an idea as to how our new software will be used.  I had a blast.  It was very informative.  There are so many things that regular folks do not know about safety and they are pretty easy to see with a little coaching.  The first one was kind of rough because most of the teachers took anything we found as a personal attack them.  That is understandable because they didn’t know that having scissors on their desk is dangerous.  Who would except someone that does safety audits for a living?  The issue is that a child that is freaking out over just about anything that is in a rage could grab them and they would become a lethal weapon.  All they have to do is keep them in a drawer out of sight.

Their reaction to our coaching made me remember the model for learning that I use.  The first phase being the unconscious incompetent stage where people don’t know what they don’t know.  The second is conscious incompetence, third conscious competence and finally unconscious competence.  The problem occurs when people are embarrassed when they find out that there is something that they didn’t know and move into the conscious incompetent stage.  Most people have this reaction and often they will focus on the fact that they didn’t know something and get mad, depressed, anxious, etc…  The best reaction to discovering something that you don’t know is to embrace the next phase and learn what they need to learn.  It is much easier to move into the third phase when you are focusing on what you need to know to eliminate any incompetencies that are pointed out.  I for one am unconscious of many incompetencies in my life and look forward to enlightenment which will lead to growth.

We received disappointing news last night that the commercial version of our software may not be ready for a few more weeks.  This is not good since I have been putting my income eggs in this basket for months.

I will be moving to plan B this week to generate some income until the software is marketable.  Plan B could end up being fun since it involves honing some skills that I haven’t used in almost 20 years.

Meanwhile I am getting excited about the idea of being a grandpa.  I can remember how having our first J changed things in ways I could not have imagined.  It seems that this next phase will involve a similar radical paradigm shift.

It has been 6 months since my gig at The Planet ended.  I have been working diligently to get the next work gig up and running and everything is slowly working toward fulfillment.  Our School Safety Audit software is in the final stage of development and we are poised to clinch the contract with the State entity that will be managing this monumental task of collecting the data from over 1500 school districts.  My prayer for this is that we are able to be the clear choice for the data collection solution.  If and when this happens, all of the time invested will pay off in a big way.

That being what it is, Cyndie and I are now somewhat empty nesters.  Our last J is now attending college with the middle J and both of them are enjoying their classes.  They have both been back home each weekend to wash clothes and bless us with their presence.

The icing on the cake is that we are now going to be Grandparents.  The oldest J and his lovely wife in Florida are expecting their first child.  They started letting nature do it’s work a few months ago and from the Dr. reports, everything is looking good.  We have been praying for their children for over 3 years now and it will be cool to get to see the first one we have to touch sometime in May of 2008.

Our church family is as healthy as it has been in 2 years and we are within months of moving into our new building.  I toured the new building yesterday and it is everything we could have hoped for.  The actual date of move in is still contingent on many factors so we are still doing the work we are called to in the at the high school campus.  The transformation of our congregation into a place where the hurt and lost can find  God has been bumpy because we are shackled with many old views of what a church should be but we are being faithful and God has been faithful to do what He says He will if we seek His face.  The emphasis on prayer that has grasped our attention is paying off.  There is a wave of momentum that is building as our members are experiencing the promise of answered prayer.

One of the recent sermons on payer  opened my eyes to something that has made a substantial impact on my own prayer life.  In the writings of Jesus found in Luke 11 verse 8.  The word boldness is from the Hebrew word Chutzpah and is the only time it is used in the New Testament.  Chutzpah takes the term persistence to the raw edge of our understanding.  The definition in Wikpedia is:

In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behavior with no shame. But in Yiddish and English, chutzpah has developed ambivalent and even positive connotations. Chutzpah can be used to express admiration for non-conformist but gutsy audacity. One common English adaptation of “chutzpah” is “hoodspa,” which has a mostly positive connotation. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts,’ presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to.” In this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and a grudging admiration.

One example given of the ultimate of chutzpah is: “A boy, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begs the judge for leniency because he is an orphan.”^[1]

This gave me a new appreciation for the personality of the Jewish people.  They really get Chutzpah and use it in many aspects of their life.  For some reason we as Christians have given this trait a negative connotation when asking for results in prayer as well as our requests to others.

Chutzpah is now a word that I am incorporating into my prayer life as well as my interaction with others.