Dan Byl

(Exploring often helps in understanding)

I went to church this morning… (an unusual event) I even managed to sit thought the sermon,(this is about as frequent as a holly wood star remaining married) the sermon was actually really thought provoking. Let me share with you the thought, which was provoked. The way we see God has a direct affect on how we live our lives. We are more likely to believe that what happens in our lives affects the way we view God. This is because our lives are more real to us. So it would make sense that the more “real” would affect the less “real.”

One of the ways we view God is as a father figure, this is one of the more obvious views. One that is influenced greatly by our life’s experiences, we very seldom see God as the Father he is, as a result of our earthly father.

Last summer God helped me realize that I was transferring the view of my earthly father to God, as a result this was preventing me from hearing God. I had to deal with this, I don’t listen to my earthly father, and I readily disregard the things he says. I was putting that response into action when I talked to God. I needed to ask for, forgiveness, and the channels of communication opened up once again.

Through this experience I began to realize, “I don’t know what it means to see God as my father.”

I began to explore this concept… at the time my life was a little unstable, I was off work and self employed so no EI for me and I was having some serious issues with my health. I needed to trust God for my basic needs. “Something, that I am not very comfortable with.” This is because I have been taught (by my earthly father) that I need to look out for my self. I need to provide for my own need. This is a very different mentality then what God is asking us to have.

We are supposed to be God’s children.

What does that mean? I think that as we have grown up, we have become “responsible” we have decided that we need to provide for our selves. We get jobs, buy homes, and provide for our families. But God is asking us to be child like, what does this mean to us as ”responsible” adults?

Think back to when you were 6 or 7, what did life look like back then? We trusted mom and dad would take care of all our needs, shoes, clothes, a house, food, and look after us if we were hurt or sick. We were free to run and play and live our dreams. We were able to live life to its full potential. Why? Because we did not worry about where our next pay cheque was coming from. We didn’t feel responsible for everyone around us.

If we put God in the parent position and we live life with a child-like mentality, with child-like faith. We really have nothing to worry about because God will provide all the things that we need. The bible talks about this in,

Matthew 7:11
“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him.”

It was very easy to trust our parents as kids, at least for our basic physical needs, we didn’t even think about it. I know, I never questioned whether or not there was going to be dinner, I just showed up and there it was. I thanked my mom and then went back out to play.

How do we get back to that place in our minds where we let the “responsible” mind set go? The “responsible mindset” tells us to worry, to plan, to take matters into our own hands and work hard to make things happen. This is contradictory to what God is asking of us. This does not mean we don’t need to work hard. Let me give an example,

When I was about 6 years old, we had a house with a rather large back yard. My dad decided that we needed to learn some responsibility so he built 3 boxes, which were to be gardens. We were each given our very own garden. We went to the store, we picked out what ever we wanted to grow in the garden, we picked potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and a variety of other vegetables. We went back to the house and planted them, our father taught us how to tend the garden, weeding, trimming, how to put poles in the dirt for the tomato plants, he taught us all we needed to know, to tend to our garden. A lot of work was required, and it needed constant attention. In the end we had all the fresh vegetables we could eat.

Here is the parallel. God gives us things in our lives to work at and maintain, He provides the means for us to provide for our selves. But we need to remember, He provides it. This is key; my dad just like God has given us and taught us the skills we need to tend to our “garden” so to speak. We just need to trust that when we need something, he will open a door that we can walk threw. And on the other side will be a garden with all that we need in it, and he will teach us how to tend to it, so that it yields the most fruit. We need to understand that being responsible does not mean, provide for your self,

but rather take care of what God has give us.

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Telemarketers, Well I guess I am destroying my possible viewer list one group of people at a time. But you all know what I am talking about. I often wonder if they have group meetings to discuss how they are going to pronounce peoples last names at the beginning of the day. Think of some of your German friends, I still can’t pronounce some of their names and we have been friends for ages. I wouldn’t want to be the poor guy who gets handed that list of names in the morning.

But what really gets me is people who get my name in the morning, Mr Dan Byl its six letters that’s it from start to finish first and last name. My last name incase you don’t know is pronounced (bile) like the stuff in your stomach but it’s Dutch and is a word that means axe. (the thing that you chop wood with) So if someone calls me up and says hello mr “bill” I have a good laugh, I know they are trying and have really made an attempt, it also makes me think of this little clay guy who got killed in unimaginable ways in a some remote tv show skit. (saturdat night live)

But when I get a “hello mr Bly” I get enoyed, my first thought is how on earth did you get bly from byl. Did you fail great one, the year you learnt to sound things out. Words like ccccccaaaaatttt, cat. Or dddddooooogggg, dog. I am sure they didn’t sound them out cccccccttttaaaa, cta or ddddddggggoooo, dgo. That just doesn’t make any sense so why bly. They see my short 3 letter last name and then they sound it out, out of order.

But then… I get sad, I realize that this was the only job this poor person was able to get with such a severe case of dyslexia. And it makes me want to buy what they are selling just to make the poor guys day. But I don’t, not only do I not, I never do. Now this is not a diss to people with dyslexia because it is a serious thing, I do know a couple of people who suffer from it and it’s not a laughing matter.

But if you don’t suffer from dyslexia could you please try to sound my name out, at least in order. I get that it’s different and Y’s don’t often sound like I’s. but at least you proved you got through grade one. I wonder if people know that they come off like elementary school dropouts.

Do telemarketers ever get your last name wrong? How do you respond to the call of a telemarketer?

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So I reorganized my cell phone plan and got them to include Internet on my phone. Not sure if that was a good idea but I did it. Know the majority of my facebook updates come from some public bathroom stall. Hey what else am I supposed to do while I sit there. It’s not like a carry a book around with me in my back pocket.

I feel obligated to check my emails all the time, to check my facebook, twitter and now this new app Ping. It used to be you would go out and you were out, you got messages when you got home. There used to be a lot more alone time. Now when I go out for coffee I get emails text messages and my phone just never seems to stop vibrating about something.

I was having a really deep and heavy conversation with my wife the other day and buzz,buzz,buzz my phone started to go off, and without thinking, and very instinctively I reached over picked up my phone saw that it was someone I had tried to get a hold of earlier and told my wife to wait while I answered the phone and chatted for couple minutes with my buddy. And then hung up and went right back into the conversation.

I actually felt bad when I thought about it later. I just told my wife to wait on our important conversation so that I would have a pointless and menial conversation with a buddy. What does that say to my wife? What does that say about my priorities and who I think is more important?

It says that my wife is not that important, that she can wait, that I don’t value our time together. That I am more interested in my halo night with my buddies then our relationship and marriage. Oops.

I know and my wife knows that she is the most important person in the world to me, but if that is truly the case then I need to start treating her that way. I need to put away distractions when I am trying to have a heart to heart. It’s funny how we begin to feel respected if someone doesn’t answer his or her phone right in the middle of a conversation.

We feel respected when people ignore distractions that weren’t there 10 years ago. Are we really progressing or are we just creating ways to make it look like we have?

What was the most inappropriate moment that your phone has ever gone off during?

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Surrogates, the new Bruce Willis movie really got me thinking. But before I tell you what it got me thinking about I am going to give it a quick review, it was good. Ok there you have it the movie review from Dan.

It was Irobot redone with a slightly different twist and instead of The Fresh Prince of Bellaire it was some old white guy who thinks he can still do action flicks. (don’t tell him I said that cause he may be old but he could probably kick my ass with one hand tied behind his back, based on what I saw in the movie.)

What did this movie get me thinking about? Good question glad you asked. It got me thinking back to when I was a teen, and I used to hang out in msn chat rooms, talking to what I thought were cute girls. There is a scene in the Surrogates (don’t worry its right at the beginning so I wont really ruin anything for you if you haven’t seen it) where this good looking blond robot gets fried and you then find out that the owner/controller of the robot is this really fat and disgusting Man.

So in all that time spent on chat rooms talking to cute girls was I really talking to cute girls or fat old men that like little boys. Think back we all did it we all spent time talking to the ladies on line. Hotblond97, prettyinpink34 and sugarbabe3. They told us their asl, or Age, sex and location was 15/f/ohio, and we believed them. Maybe it was more like 59/m/nextdoor. Makes you wonder why that creepy old guy down the street never seemed to be able to not look at you.

I look at our society today and so much of it is spent on facebook, and other social online networks. We pretend to be something we aren’t we post pictures of all the great moments in our lives; we judge how many friends we have by how many people we talk to online. We have meaningless interaction. “DAN BYL is going to the U2 concert” and we feel like we have some idea about who our “friends” but its based on 6 words, you don’t know who they are…. You know what they are doing. There is a significant difference.

It feels like we have forgotten what it really takes to build friendship. We spend more time at home alone in front of our computer with facebook open, then with our actual friends. We feel like we have just hung out with 243 friends for a couple hours. Because we saw 53 status updates.

We need to get out there actually interact and be in a places where we have face to face interaction with people. And perhaps not spend hours chatting to someone that might just be the old guy down the street.

Did you ever find out someone wasn’t actually who they said they were online?

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What is it? Good question, and who came up with it? Even a better one.

Who came up with it? I really have no idea, my father was the one to taught it to me and I shall teach it to my children.

What it is? First let me say I am sorry to any Chinese out there that might be reading my blog I was not the one who named it, nor the founder. I am just trying to enlighten people about one of my favorite child hood games.

Now that you have read my disclaimer, it is an activity that requires you to dodge cars, have I got you interested yet.

What you need, a car so full of people it could burst,

And a red light,

The object of the game is to pull up to an intersection just as the light goes red, as soon as the car has safely come to a complete stop, and either in neutral with the parking break on or in park if you have an automatic, the driver yells at the top of his lungs Chinese fire drill.

Everyone in the car including the driver exits the vehicle and runs around it either a set number of times or until the light goes green.

As soon as you have completed either the set number of times around the vehicle or the light goes green everyone piles into the car any where they can, its so much more exciting if you put people in the trunk. And off you drive until you come to the next set of red lights.

This activity is great for carpools, road trips, and parties.

Do not do if you see a cop or are drunk.

It is really a lot of fun to see the expressions as people pile out of every part of the car even the trunk and start running in circles. Its even more fun if you run around screaming with your arms in the air just to add to the panic that you are creating in innocent bystanders hearts.

I do hope to see some random Chinese fire drills around town or tell me out about your experiences?

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This is probably one of my favorite dance routines ever. You take a step the buyer gives, the seller takes a step I want to think about it, and back and forth we go, all the while trying to create some sort of leverage for our position.

My wife and I (correct grammar, did you know that spell check picks up on that sort of thing.) are looking to buy a car, a semi new car. I don’t believe in buying brand new the second you drive off the lot your car is now worth any where from 1-10 thousand dollars less then you just paid for it. I like to buy a car that I can own for one or two years and sell for at least close what I paid for it. (My wife just calls it Dutch)

So I have been looking at two vehicles at two different dealerships, really just so that I can pit one against the other and get a better deal. As the joker would say, “he’s a schemer.” I love playing with sales people.

I have gone by to look at both cars several times and with our economy the way it is, these guys seem even more eager to sell something then ever. They come rushing out to see if they can help you, asking if you want coffee water, and they always seem so dejected if you decline. Then they take you on the test drive the best part. Cause everyone knows what you do on a test drive, you drive the car like you stole it. You push it to its very limits, passing other cars, slamming on the breaks and revving it till it sounds like it might explode, half the fun of the test drive is to watch the sales guys reaction as you pass someone on a back road at what seems like mach 3. Ok I am evil and you’ll probably never want to buy a car that I have test driven, but man is it fun.

The next step after the test drive is the waiting game, I let them know I am really interested and then I sit on it, I check to make sure the cars don’t go anywhere, and I wait and the longer you wait the better the deal will be in the end. It really comes down to delayed gratification.

What’s your craziest test drive story, did you live, were you able to ever take another car for a test drive again?

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