God Bless the DMV?
June 15th, 2009That Felt Wrong
In an earlier post, I referred to a problem that made it impossible for me to drive to church, and I said there had to be a blessing in it. And I was right, so I’m going to blog it.
There was some kind of screwup with my insurance confirmation when I renewed my car tag this year. I didn’t find out about it until two months later. I couldn’t drive until I cleared it up.
I attacked the issue about nine different ways, faxing, calling, and emailing person who could conceivably help, in Tallahassee and also at the company that insures me. I was a bit crabby about it, although I did try to stifle it. You know how motor vehicle departments are. Draconian and perpetually wrong. And when they do wrong, sometimes you’re the one who gets punished.
Today a lady at the department called and said there was inaccurate information in my record. I’ve had a chronic problem with my car insurance failing to register in the records in Tallahassee, and judging from this lady’s remarks, the problem was worse than I knew. Even though I had cleared it up over and over, there were erroneous records of suspensions. This can affect the price you pay for insurance, and your ability to change companies. Knowing the incompetence of the credit bureaus, I would not be surprised if it can affect credit ratings.
I had my insurer fax the government approximately a ton of documents today, and soon this incredible nonsense will be off my record. I was inconvenienced for a couple of days, but something good came of it.
I should not have been grumpy with the government people. It serves no purpose, and in the end, they did much more for me than they had to. I always try to remember to be nice to low-level people who have to answer for problems they didn’t cause and/or can’t fix, but I fail sometimes, and it’s an ugly thing to do. Other people in my family have this habit, to a much worse degree than I do, and I am very aware of the pointless suffering it causes.
I was furious about this, but it looks like God’s hand was in it. So maybe I was angry at other human beings over something God put in motion to help me. That’s not good. That was stupid.
My life used to be under a curse. I don’t care how crazy I sound when I say that. It’s true. Things went wrong over and over, even when I did my best and deserved better. This insurance problem is a great example of the kind of thing that happened to me. I didn’t even know it had happened, and I had done everything right, and it should never have occurred. But there it was, waiting to jump out and bite me in the future.
These days I see the curses rising off my life. My existence is not like it used to be. It’s hard to get used to it–hard to trust it–because I’m so accustomed to being blindsided. I’ve done plenty of stupid things in my life, and I’ve caused problems for myself, but many, many things have gone wrong when the facts said they should go right. Not just little things. Important things.
According to what I have been taught, virtually anyone can receive salvation without a great deal of effort. But getting God to bless you in this life is another matter. You have to change what you do and what you think. Works and feelings are important. And you have to look back at your family and see the things your predecessors and contemporaries have done wrong, because in doing so, you will see that you do some of the same things, even if you don’t realize it. You have to repent. You have to ask to have curses removed. You can’t just sit in a pew once a week and expect things to be okay. That is my belief.
This is one reason Jesus told us to consider our own faults when rebuking others. It’s not that it’s wrong to point out other people’s failings. We’re required to do that sometimes. When we don’t tell people they’re doing wrong, and they continue, we share their guilt. The bigger point is that when you examine yourself, you find things you can repair, and if you do, you will be blessed. More and more, when I pray for other people to realize what they’re doing wrong and stop doing it, I find myself saying, “While you’re at it, please give me a dose of the same medicine.” I think that it you can’t ask God to give you what you ask him to give others, you are usually asking for the wrong thing.
This weekend I read about the story of Cornelius, in Acts 10. He was a Roman centurion. He worked for an empire that did a great deal of evil, including oppression, wholesale murder, and torture. He was a Gentile. But God noticed him because he prayed regularly and was generous to the Jewish poor. An angel came to him and told him as much. And he and members of his household became converts to Christianity without the usual Judaic background,and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. You can’t earn your place in God’s kingdom, but how you live and what you do still matters a great deal. You can attract curses and blessings. And if your ancestors attracted curses, you can expect some of them to befall you as well. People dispute this all the time, but the Bible is packed with examples, and so is my life, and I have seen it in the lives of others. They don’t just fall off the first time you enter a church. You have to put out an effort. When you do, the curses become gifts. The effort of working to undo them improves you and gives you power.
I am free to drive now. I might take the Harley out just because I can.
By the way, I started practicing the piano again. I quit because my memory was not adequate to allow me to remember the pieces I learned. That may have been caused by sleep deprivation, and now I sleep better. It may just be another example of something going wrong in spite of my own best efforts. It was exactly like many other failures I’ve experienced. Whatever the explanation is, my life is different now, so I’m giving it another shot. I’m going to practice sight-reading and nothing else. It’s supposed to be the best way to compensate for memory problems, and you can’t really understand music without it. We’ll see what happens.
Yesterday I bought a tin whistle, after listening to the Uillean pipes. I could not help myself.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:46 AM
I am glad you are getting back to the piano. It seemed to bring you much joy, and music is a gift you can give back to God.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:05 PM
I understand the ‘curses’ feeling. I’ve experienced some of that run too. It is getting better (and I am dealing better with hte remnants of it now).
I learned early on to be extra nice and cheerful with the low level, front line people at bureaucracies. I try to remember that I only have to endure the office for short periods every now & then – those por souls spend entire careers there. A modicum of being nice is often returned many fold over (and sometimes the low level grunt will give you that little sotto voice question like “is ‘x’ what you’re trying to do here?” And then tell me how to really do it, tell me the short cuts and the people to see, or even take care of what I really wanted instead of what I had bumblingly specifically asked for).
My aunt, the legal secretary, told me at the start of law school that the smartest thing I could do in my career is learn to be super nice to all the very lowest level people in the legal system. She was 100% correct. I was smart enough to see how that could be expanded to other areas of life.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Piano, hurray! I hope it brings some extra joy to you. Have you studied Theory much? I think you’d really enjoy it, and it adds a dimension to learning songs.
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I’d take issue with some of your doctrine, but we’d end up in the same place anyway so why bother? Just about every falling out among Christians can be boilled down to a toilet paper under the roll/over the roll dispute. (certain oldstyle roll holders only work with under.)
June 15th, 2009 at 1:09 PM
“You have to put out an effort. When you do, the curses become gifts. ”
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Nice.
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I know some people who have come from tough backgrounds. The street smarts that they share with me has really enriched my life.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:57 PM
My grandson is an extremely gentle, sweet person. He has had so many things blindside him I sometimes wonder why. I’ve never thought he was cursed but you may have a point. After being a patsy to several really “needy” women who used him, he is engaged to a person who is as kind and gentle as he is. The wedding is in September. Give a little prayer for him.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:57 PM
I am sort of curious if you are planning on learning the whistle with piping fingerings like most old time whistle players? That’s what would allow you to play the type of music you posted yesterday.
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If you are interested in copying that sound you would do well to find a beginners piping tutor with pictures so you can see how the fingers are held etc. to help develop the speed. Something like the College of Piping Highland Bagpipe Tutor would help tremendously.
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Of course, the fingering is different between the pipe chanter and the penny whistle, but the way the fingers attack the notes and the way the hand is held is similar and it’s from that where the speed is derived. Just a suggestion of course but I spent a good part of my life around folks who played.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:44 PM
Leo…
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No Bobcats?
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What about the PTO driving a bellows for the Pipes?
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Just a thought 🙂
June 15th, 2009 at 4:16 PM
The bank that loaned me money the last time I didn’t pay cash for a car was sold and sold and then went out of business.
I received a clear title for my 1995 suburban which I later lost in a house fire. When I moved from Georgia to Tennessee last spring I waited because I had just bought a new Georgia tag.
Now Tennessee won’t issue a tag without a title so when the tag ran out on my birthday last fall Georgia’s records for some reason still show the original lien and the company’s out of business so my Suburban has been stuck in my Garage for eight months in bureaucratic limbo.
Georgia wants a lein release from a company they admit doesn’t exist but the computer which allowed me to have a tag for 13 years now says I don’t own my old Truck I bought new.
And people want the government to handle their health care and retirement?
June 15th, 2009 at 6:40 PM
This is why I’m against the death penalty. The government is just too stupid to be trusted with a decision of that magnitude.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:49 PM
Playing a musical instrument is what you do after showering off all that dirt and diesel. It serves as a good incentive to keep your fingers out of the hydraulics so you don’t have to finally just switch to the harmonica.
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Not that there is anything wrong with a well played harmonica.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:13 PM
I think you could be right about the death penalty Steve (although I encourage law enforcement to allow morons who are obviously guilty to take their own life/death matters into their own stupid hands jut prior to or shortly after being taken into custody.)
At the same time, many if not most of the “government educated” citizens which might end up on a Jury and temper the Government’s investigative and prosecutorial ineptitude are incapable of making a rational decision based on boolean logic and something other than emotion and “team spirit” i.e. “my family’s always been Democrats…”
I just stay home most of the time, build things, clean my guns, and write and look at Blogs and stuff on Google and hope the Good Lord takes me before I have to enter an emergency room run by Washington after an auto accident in a tiny tin foil vehicle based on a golf cart or riding lawn mower which they forced me to buy from a company run by today’s politicians.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Saw you in my referrers, come to say ‘hi.’
June 16th, 2009 at 7:33 PM
About the piano and memory – could be you just had too much going on in your brain. Use it as a tribute to God who gave you the talent and I bet it will help you remember. Some people might call it meditation, I call it a type of prayer or praise.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:36 PM
Thanks, Ruth. Hi, Baldy.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:47 PM
If a gentleman is a man who uses the correct manners when no one is looking, then surely a Christian is a man who tries to see the face of God in others when they have no or little power over him.