Walking Alone at Eve

Went on a walk tonight by myself. Athens is suprisingly quiet at 10:30 on Thursday in 5 points. You can hear the jingle of a belled cat, the crack of falling acorns, and the din of motors on the main roads. I take these walks because I'm blessed with a predisposition to melancholy and reflection. I choose to blame genetics all the way back to County Antrium in Ireland.

Walking at night is funny. Walk away from a streetlight and your shadow stretches and grows into a giant before softly fading away. Only to repeat itself again under the next light. I once heard someone complain about when he asked someone what was wrong, the reply was "Life." Life. His discontent was centered on how ambiguous and off-putting the answer was. Yet, if I had replied the same thing the next question would have concerned school. Why? Because my life was school and if something was wrong in my life causing a state, the obvious next direction is life. The shadows of our lives stretch and grow and soon eclipse the beauty that is the world. All the sudden life is the problem. The oppressive feeling where we maintain functionality just above completely shutting down. Where every step feels like its through wet concrete, slushy snow, or chocolate pudding.

Life. So often I give the short answer because the long one requires too much digging into places I have covered over. The scraping of unhealed scabs.

"How are you?"

"Fine, yourself?"

"Fine."

I'm walking out the door and "Fine" can faintly catch up to my ear. I shouldn't ask how people are doing if I don't want the truth, or if I can't slow down to care. Perhaps I should be honest more. Frankly, I'm often not fine. My life isn't in crisis, but there are always challenges. Heck, I'm getting married in a few months. I have a job no one (including myself) understands. I experience things no one else.

"Not fine."

My life reels back and forth and I don't want to take the time to explain it all. People probably wouldn't understand it anyway. Maybe it's hubris or bravado. Maybe I don't understand myself like I should. Whatever it is, I'm going to only ask "How are you?" when I have the time to listen.

namaste

DIOS le bendiga

Cold Air, Hot Shower

It's finally here.

In the name of efficiency and environmentalism (yeah right, I'm a cheapskate), we don't have any climate control in our apartment. We just open the windows. This morning the apartment was chilly. As I went to take my shower, I turned the water up to hot and prepared myself for what would happen next. That painful feeling of hot water meeting cold skin. All my nerve endings shrieked as they violently adjusted to this new sensation. Though painful my brain does not shirk away from the steaming stream, but forces me into this little spinning dance to quickly warm my body with the water so that it adjust to the new-found warmth.

As I've written before in my "Spiritual Dump" post, I feel the bathroom is the best place to think. (As does Daron) It's been a tough row to how the last month or so. Most of it self-inflicted. (By the way, I'm sorry I haven't posted since July. There have been so many post that I've let slip through my fingers like the proverbial sand.) I don't want to call it depression, though it did have the symptoms, because I feel those with depression deserve to call it their own and don't need whiny brats like me to claim their condition when it's really just me not doing what I'm here to do. Back to the shower. This morning my mind began to warm up with my body.

I've missed blogging, more specifically writing. Writing is a very intelligent thing, especially this free-flowing kind that is recently coming back into favor with the advent of blogs, yet being destroyed by the frenetic twitter. It's also cliche because I want to sit in Jittery Joe's typing, just so people know I'm writing (very conceited and snobbish, I know).

So here it is on the eve of the eve of All Hallow's Eve, I want to recommit to this offbeat blog. (Get it because, its beats 2 and 4 ... haha... groan) But, I don't want to recommit without support. So get out the vote. Comment away. Let me know what you think. Invite other people to read. Yeah, there might be stuff you don't agree with. There's stuff on this blog I'm not proud of. I will not delete it because I want you to see my mistakes and flawed logic. The controversy creates conversation. There's no guarantee it will be daily, or should it? Help me make this a blog people want to read. Do you want pissed-off ramblings? Journal entries? Daily devotional thoughts? All the above? Let me know.

namaste

DIOS le bendiga

Is that Bill Shakespeare!?

Ok, so this is me thinking through some of Donald Miller's book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In the first line of chapter 12 Don writes, "If the point of life is the is the same as the point of story, the point of life is character transformation."

Now you can break down stories into two big categories: tragedies and comedies. Earlier in the book, Don says the easiest way to tell the difference in Shakespeare is; tragedies end in a funeral whereas comedies end with a wedding. I also think there is another way to define the difference, character development.

My two favorite Shakespearian plays are "Hamlet" and "The Taming of the Shrew," a tragedy and a comedy. I think in tragedies such as "Hamlet" and "East of Eden," the character development is almost bell shaped. As Hamlet and Cal progress through their stories, they change until an event brings them plummeting back to where they began. In essence an unchanged being. Katherina, however, is much more amiable at the end of play and marries Petruchio (or if you've seen 10 Things I Hate About You, July Stiles dates Heath Ledger). The character changes, and change promotes a positive moving story.

Also from film, in "Stranger Than Fiction," Will Ferrell's character is instructed to look for clues to if his story is a tragedy or a comedy. Dismally, he realizes the tragedy of his story.

Whether you accept it or not, we are all living a story. Yours may be a history (dry, dull, boring), a tragedy (exciting, but woeful), or a comedy (strife, change, reward). Whatever it is, you can change it. Comedies are hard because of the change part. But at the end of all comedies is a wedding or a date with Heath Ledger (RIP) or Maggie Gyllenhall.

"One of the things that gives me hope is that, even with all the tragedy that happens in the world, the Bible says when we all get to Heaven, there will be a wedding and there will be drinking and there will be dancing.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

What do you think?

Think on this: "How you treat the creation, reflects how you view the creator."

3:14

Exodus 3:14 "GOD said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' Or rather, "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." This rather simplistic description of GOD Himself has confused me for most of my life. After all I am who I am, right? I don't think so.

As you look at the world, look at all the things vying to influence and change our opinions. I think at first most people will accuse politics and the press for being bigoted and unbalanced. While this may or may not be a fair assessment, these scapegoats are whipped too often and blamed for much of our intolerance. Rather, I think back to my days in elementary and middle school (painful as it were). I attended an elementary school where trend and fashion were closely observed. For a while it was pogs, another was surplus military berets, as well as Airwalks. I was never able to quite follow on these fashions quick enough. The only surplus store was in Brainerd and I couldn't justify a new pair of sneakers when my old ones still fit and had a full sole. But hey that's the point right. You're not cool unless you buy this product. I really don't have a problem with people purchasing products for their life and ensuring they look good. But, here's what happens, we create teams, us verses them. The OG's beating back the poseurs. Alienation for thinking differently or not adhering to collective thought. Heck, even thinking the same can be thrown in your face as a bad thing. Progressives being pissed that conservatives don't walk fast enough, conservatives irritated that the progressives move so fast. It all the same.

Here's the kicker, we revel in this steaming pile of crap. We celebrate it. We love it when two people bicker back and forth over something. Pretty much every network runs of this thought, from MSNBC to Fox News, MTV to ABC, any reality show, any comedian, any sport. It's all about bullying the other guy to see your point. You may say, "That's the way its always been, and always will be." If so, I challenge your faith in GOD and redemption. Case in point. If anyone calls me a "ginger" or tells me I "have no soul," I cannot be held responsible for what happens next. South Park has staked its success on telling people they are not ok. Christians, Muslims, interestingly not so much Jews (too many of them are lawyers), homosexuals, metrosexuals, and of course... redheads. Seriously!? I realize some people choose to believe certain things and others are trapped by tradition. I know there's a debate about whether or not homosexuality is a choice or genetic. But, people don't choose to be redhead, or blonde, or brunette, or white, or black, or Asian, Indian, Hispanic.

They are born this way.

They are who they are.

God telling us He is Who He is shows us how we should be comfortable and productive in the restraints of our bodies He created. I like to think I've been a free spirit most of my life, but I see the scars that it brings. I've been bullied and ridiculed, my self-esteem pulled from under me like a rug for others entertainment.

I once commented to a friend, "I wish I were normal." She asked why anyone would want that. I looked at her. She was pretty, popular, and quirky in that way that attracted both guys and girls to her, and I realized how she didn't understand the statement. I was uncomfortable with the me that was. The me that couldn't be taken off like a dated garment.

As we are asked to be like God by God, He says to us, live out of your heart not your closet.

And, "Be you who you are as 'I am who I am.'"

namaste

Vaya con DIOS

Keep Your Front Wheel

There are many maxims in mountain biking:

"Brakes make you faster"

"The faster you are downhill, the faster you'll be uphill"

"Momentum is your friend"

But the two that have taught me the most are: "Don't watch a tree," and "Keep your front wheel."

Both are about direction. Your bike follows your vision. Wherever you look thats where you will steer. If you don't want to run into tree, DON'T LOOK AT THE DANG TREE! A lot of it has to do with fear. Sometimes we look at the things we're afraid of most and wind up steering ourselves right towards destruction. When we take our eyes of the trail how can we expect to stay on it and ride clean and safe.

Keeping your front wheel is important. Your front wheel is what your front brake acts on. It is 70% of your stopping power. Oh, and your front wheel does the steering. Ok, I know I just said your eyes steer the bike, but your eyes tell the front wheel where to go. Now if you try to apply more than 70% brake to the front wheel you risk locking up the front wheel. Remember back in high school physics when we talked about friction, and how ABS is better than standard brakes because rolling tires are better than sliding tires. Alright, now when you lock up the front wheel on a bike, you lose the ability to control how fast you're slowing down, and where you're going.

Tonight, for kicks, I tried to lock up my front wheel. I don't have a rear brake currently because my rear tire is goofed. When your, front wheel locks up, imagine the direction you want to go in, and you will go in any other direction. The front wheel washes, and you go high-side, low-side (if you're lucky), or over the bars. But there is another choice: let go. Let go of the brake. Ignore the instinct to hold onto the lever for dear life. Loosen your grip and let blood flow back into your knuckles. The wheel will roll again and you will have control. You may be going faster than you want, but keep you eyes on the trail. The faster you go downhill, the faster you will go uphill.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

Life is Plagiarism

A few weeks ago (when I meant to post this) I attended a Saturday morning Bible study. Well, Bible study isn't the best term. The idea of the group is to allow the college guys to interact with men from Campus View and learn what it looks like to be men of faith. The advantages of this model are superb. Rather than a book espousing loose ideologies of what it means to be man, there is direct, rubber meets the road interaction of what happens when you are a working father, husband, spiritual leader, friend, brother.

Eric Johnson spoke with us, and didn't do the most of speaking. First, he wanted to know where we were in life, where we came from, where we were going. The second thing I noticed about Eric was his notes. Instead of the standard (for me) lists with subjects and bullet points, Eric had a map, a diagram. I still don't understand how he works from that because I think in orders, alphabetically, numerically. There was the standard guy talk stuff, find a woman you love and loves you, find a job you love and makes you feel like you've done something whether you make money or not, find God and hold to Him dearly. It's not that this time was boring or bad, but it pales in comparison to what happened next. In order to understand what this group was about, Eric asked the origins of the group's name, "Band of Brothers." He then recited from memory the quote from Henry V. Then, he told us each man should have a personal bible. A list of quotes that inspire you, or describe you station in life. That which makes you feel human, divine, sorrowful, joyful, passionate, triumphant.

I thought about this, and realized that all life is plagiarism. My life is based of the lives of those that have gone before me. The writer of Ecclesiastes lamented, and maybe rejoiced, there is nothing new under the sun. Everything I think has been thought, everything I do has been done. There is no originality. The Ph.D's of world add the volume of thought and inventors produce new products, but they stand on the shoulders of giants.

I like how the author of the latest book I'm reading treats this idea. Stephen Chalke writes in his introduction that he has given credit where credit is due for any idea not his own. He then wrote that any story or idea not credited, did not mean it was his, but he is only presenting it.

In my life, I hope people know that my ideas are not my own. I may claim them but any idea I have has been shaped, watered, and grown by those things I read, hear, experience. Even this blog.

namaste

vaya con DIOS