today was interview day.

i like my job, but some friends of mine have been pushing me to interview with amazon, so i sent in my resume. two nice folks interviewed me, and it was going well, except for the fact that i sucked.

i mean, i honestly wanted to fire myself right then and there. the questions they were asking were softballs, easy questions that i should have been able to bang out the answer to in a matter of minutes. they were the sort of questions i’d ask a potential employee. for whatever reason though, i completely failed to get them. programming languages, data structures – even projects i had distinctly worked on – it was all coming out as gibberish.

i think i used to be a better programmer, i used to have a more solid grasp of my field and understand it with a clarity i can no longer fathom. today though was almost humiliating, i found myself apologizing to these guys for taking an hour out of their days to interview me. seriously, how could i mess up such simple code, the sort that even i expect myself to know?

i had been hoping the interview would be a bit of an ego boost, it was in fact exactly the opposite. it’s hard recognizing that you don’t have particular skill in the areas you thought you did. i know alot of folks tie up their self-worth in different things, and i think for me it’s always been my knowledgebase, my ability to know, learn, explain. when that fails me i feel like there’s not alot of me left.

there are other places in my life where i’ve felt disconnected from that, places where i step in with no experience and no context and have to survive without my intellectualism, but this is the first time i’ve seriously faced that in computing. it’s causing me to rethink myself a bit, and i’m not sure what the outcome is going to be.

i handed a dream over to God this weekend.

it wasn’t a big dream – just something that i had been pondering for the last few months. i’ve been thinking about getting a car for a while, but when i seriously looked at the reasons i wanted particular vehicles and process in my heart i knew that i was going about it the wrong way. so i handed it over to God, saying i want You to be what my life is about. not impressing other people or giving off a certain image with the things that i own, but having my choices reflect the actual things in my heart.

tied up with that decision though are all the goals and dreams and visions i have held onto in my life. where are they now? i often feel like i don’t have anything to reach for, to advance towards. i seem to have plateaued in many respects, sitting on a level place and not quite being sure how to continue my way upwards.

it’s not that i am doing nothing, of course i’m rather active. i give willingly of my time and wealth to ministries in my church, i have been making an effort at reaching out and sharing Christ with people around me, and trying to be intentional in the communities i am in. i’m not fooled, i know that the point is not doing, but to some extent i don’t know what else to do or where else to go.

i am reminded of the israelites during the bablyonian captivity. they find themselves in babylon and know that eventually God will return them home. with that in mind they keep up their practices, their separation, and an existence focused around returning home. the word to them is simple: you’re going to be here for a few generations. buy houses, marry, and plant crops. pray for the shalom of the city in which you find yourself.

is that a dream to have?

sometimes i think being in the liminal place between not being completely over my last relationship and not being ready for my next one gives me a different perspective on relationships in general.

i look at the relationship patterns of the people around me and i wonder how i fit into them. the couples who fought through thick and thin and, now that they are married will respect that commitment. the friends who date socially, sometimes with poor judgement in mates and never quite finding a relationship that clicks. the friends that are in relationships that i wonder about – particularly dating nonchristians that concern me. the couples that are together now but the tension between them is often palpable. the folks who’ve given up on relationships completely.

i occasionally worry that i am becoming one of the latter. that a wellspring of bitterness and fear is building up that will convince me to avoid intimacy in the future. other times i talk to my friends who seem to be dating in response to a fear that they will be alone – not a camp i want to be in either. i want my relationships to be authentic, to be meaningful and not simply responses to my own fears and possibilities.

it’s hard to not want to “eat the sheep” as they say around here, to be active in meeting folks and spreading the gospel without seeking out those of the opposite sex for relationships in that place. i can still remember the cheesy radio ads for the christian dating service – equally yoked – that as lame as it is correctly reflected the truth that christian relationships ought to have christ at the center. of course, the church should not be a ‘meat market’ either. so how do people meet each other and develop successful relationships?

sometimes when you look at at thing from the outside for too long it becomes opaque and mysterious.