Trading Geek Tricks for Poultry Tips

A hundred years ago every old west town had a gun slinger, a sheriff, a town drunk, and a bunch of town folk.  At least that’s the way it looked in several black and white western movies I’ve seen.

I’m turning out to be the town geek in Branson.  There’s one other guy in town that is the official tech guy for the online school.  He and I get together and talk geek once in a while just for fun.  I think it would be dangerous for he and I to go to a Best Buy together.  People send me their tech issues, which is cool with me.  I like the challenge, and I like helping people out.  I really love teaching people how to do the fun stuff for themselves, but there are those that just want me to fix it so they can move on with life and the things they really enjoy (which probably isn’t making nifty spreadsheets or web gadgets).  In the next several weeks, I’ll begin posting more articles on this blog about software and tech stuff that actual normal people can use to make their tech lives easier.

On the other side of the coin, I’m learning that I really like two activities that others in our little town know a lot more about than I do: vegetable gardening and raising chickens (yes, I’m a Doherty and I’m really liking this chicken thing).  There are several sweet older ladies in town that I pepper with veggie and poultry questions whenever I see them.  They are more than happy to indulge my rookie questions and hopefully I can avoid some pitfalls along the way.

In our town, it’s all about relationships more than the knowledge itself.  Sure, I can do a Google search and find out strategies for raising baby chicks… but that’s not nearly as fun as asking Miss Margaret, out town chicken expert.  And Miss Margaret always has cookies.  Hopefully Miss Margaret will see that I really care about spending time with her way more than I care about learning what she knows about chickens.

That’s what Jesus is constantly trying to show us.  It’s not about the facts.  It’s not’s about the head knowledge.  It’s about experiencing a genuine relationship with him and with other people as we journey through life.  You can Google lots of theological answers on the web, but it’s way more fun to find someone that’s been on the journey that you can learn from.  Who is that for you?