Friday Blog
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- By: Jon Turk
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A few months ago the key fob that I carry to unlock the doors to our Buick Enclave started acting up. The buttons would stick down causing the lift gate to open or the alarm to go off spontaneously. After several attempts to clean the fob it became evident that I was going to need to replace it. After researching my options I discovered the key fobs for my model and year were NOT end user programmable. While I could buy the fob on Amazon I would need to take it to a locksmith (or worse, a dealer) to have it programmed. I consider myself a resourceful individual so I figured since the control board inside was fine it was just the button covers that were sticking, and it is the same shape and size as the original, I could purchase a new fob and just swap out the board. Little did I know that inside the battery contact setup was different - the new fob had a clip on the board to hold the battery but in the old fob the battery was secured in the case - making it difficult to swap out the boards. I did it anyway and tried to tape the battery in place with very limited success - the fob would open the doors one or two times before the battery would slip, losing contact so the fob stopped working. For the past two months I have been opening the doors with the key which triggers the alarm until the car is started. This has been very frustrating and I was coming to the conclusion I would have to give in and pay a locksmith to reprogram the fob.
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on them!
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This past week has been an interesting and thought provoking week for me. Last Friday I received a phone call from Stephanie Sheehan, Dean of the School of Business at Southern Adventist University, continuing a conversation that began about three months ago. We had been dialoging about an open faculty position in the School of Business at Southern that had taken several intriguing twists and turns over the course of the months long conversation. The simple summary of the phone call on Friday was "with everything that has transpired, are you still interested in teaching at Southern." On Wednesday of this week I received an official invitation from the Academic VP's office to join the School of Business faculty. Throughout the past three months both Lisa and I have felt like every time the door seems to be closing on this opportunity God has pushed the door open again (the post from March 13 is a response to incidents that happened as part of the ongoing dialogue!) Due to the vast array of evidence that seems to point to God's direction in this matter on Wednesday evening I accepted the position.
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When I was younger my brothers and I would often camp beside the pond at the top of Tumbledown Mountain in Weld, Maine (unfortunately camping is now prohibited on the mountain.) Most of the time we would be the only campers on the mountain providing a peaceful solitude away from the busyness of life. We would start at the drive-in base camp located on a long dirt road off the main highway leading into Weld and hike the nearly 3 miles along the Parker Ridge trail to the top. From this bare summit we could look down on Tumbledown pond or we could look to the south and east toward Webb lake and Mt. Blue. One of the defining features of this hike was the climb through the woods to a steep ascent that lead over three succeeding rock ledges before finally ascending Parker Ridge. As you came out of the woods all you could see was the crest of the first ledge. For a first time hiker it appears you are about to reach the summit, only to be disappointed when you finally get there and discover there is another ridge. That experience was repeated two more times as you crested ledges two and three before finally reaching the (almost) summit (if you continue on the loop trail that goes around the lake you will ascend to a higher summit before descending back down through the "chimney" and "fat man's misery" - it is far better to come UP that trail rather than try to go down!)
Fresh Articles
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A Different Perspective
A number of years ago as I was attempting to understand God's methodology and His timing I came to the realization that from my perspective God is always a day late and a dollar short, but from His perspective He is right on time with just enough. My challenge is to stop seeing it from my perspective and start seeing it from His! These past few weeks as Lisa and I have been preparing for and implementing our move from Texas to Tennessee it has been essential for us to NOT view this move from our perspective but from God's.
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Bask in the Presence of God
50 years ago this evening I was impatiently waiting for the new day to arrive. I had spent several weeks visiting my grandparents in Loma Linda, California and on July 4 we were going to Disneyland! It wasn't actually my grandparents who were taking me (although they went along) it was my uncle Ken and Aunt Ruthie and it was a reward for helping Aunt Ruthie with her daycare (it was called baby sitting back then!) while she took her children, Heidi Ranalla and Adam Turk to swimming lessons. I still don't know what possessed us to think that it was a good idea but on July 4, 1976 we went to Disneyland!Now Would be a Good Time
In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Chekov and Uhura have beamed into the reactor room on the aircraft carrier Enterprise to harvest radiation from the nuclear reactors. Due to failing power on the Klingon starship Scotty must beam them back one at a time. At 1:14:27 into the movie as the guards on the Enterprise are closing in Chekov makes an effort to contact Scotty to be beamed out of the reactor room making a desperate plea "Scotty, now would be a good time!" How often when things aren't going the way we think they should do we ask God to resolve the issue in the way that we think would be best. Like Chekov we declare "Now would be a good time!" for God to solve our problems.
At Your Age You Shouldn't Do That
"For someone your age you really should stop doing ..." Not the words you want to hear from anyone but those were precisely the words the Emergency Room doctor used to begin the conversation with me last Sunday evening. To set the full context for the conversation I had been working on replacing some rotted out fascia boards on my house that included the "bird box" on the gable end. Since this house is built on a pier and beam foundation with a 3 foot crawl space the roof line is about 10 feet off the ground. I had set up an adjustable step ladder and was standing on the second from the top wrung piecing the bird box together. The ground was a little bit uneven and the piece I was replacing was about 5 feet long so it required stretching a little bit to reach the ends if I didn't want to reposition the ladder. As I was stretching to the uphill side the ladder decided it no longer wanted to stand upright and deposited me on my back on the ground below. In my mind my ego was far more damaged than my body but my wife and daughter insisted I get medically checked out.
Who Am I?
Last week on Thursday and Friday two candidates for President of Southwestern Adventist University were on campus and met with faculty and staff. Both candidates were asked to describe their plan for engaging faculty and staff with the vision and mission of the university. One of them, Nelu Nedelea, presented a very interesting concept - "I like to ask three questions, Who am I?, What is the context?, and What is my role." He went on to explain that generally the core of who we are doesn't change, we may grow and expand our sphere but our core beliefs and values do not change. The context and our role influence how we apply who we are to any given situation, but in the end who we are ultimately determines how we act.
Irreplaceable?
This morning I had several people stop by the Innovation Studio to inquire about completing various projects. Most had become aware that with the school year wrapping up I would be working on tying up loose ends in preparation for our move to Tennessee. A couple of them commented to me "what is the University going to do when you are not here to run this place and do these projects?" Since I have been very intimately involved in the development and implementation of the Innovation Studio over the past three years that question, in one form or another, has been lingering in the back of my mind. I have a passion for this place and the possibility of it closing weighed heavily on my mind when I made the decision to move back to the Collegedale, Tennessee area a few weeks ago.
