New Template

I rarely post here but maybe someday I will be inspired to post more often once again.

That being the case I updated my template since apparently my old one was not compatible with blogger.

The Road

How long have you been on the road?
I was always on the road.
How do you live?
I just keep going. I knew this was coming.
You knew it was coming?
Yeah. This or something like it. I always believed in it.
Did you try to get ready for it?
No what would you do?
I don’t know.
People are always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It didn’t even know they were there.

An old man answering a somewhat younger man’s questions about how he is surviving the post-apocalyptic world they find themselves in from Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road.

Scott Matthews

Good music ... check it out.

Scott Matthews Myspace Site

Dreams

I’ve been remembering my dreams more frequently lately. From what I understand, everyone dreams all of the time but some rarely recall their dreams. Like I said I wake up lately and I have vivid recollection of a dream from the night before.

My dreams have been strange and a few times disturbing. Nothing happens in my dreams that reflect normal life. Or maybe it does and those are the dreams I forget. Maybe normal life is not worth remembering kind of like the lunch you ate last Tuesday.

Some dreams I would love to forget and I am sure someday I will. Some dreams I would never tell anyone knowing they must reflect some part of me I do not like. Some dreams are too funny not to share.

Dreams make me wonder what is hidden in the shadowy corners of my mind.

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.
Genesis 37:5 (NIV)

Theologians

Theologians, they don’t know nothing about my soul. Oh they don’t know.

- Jeff Tweedy Wilco

The Learning Curve of Gratitude

I really enjoy listening to NPR. There are people in my conservative Christian past that would cringe that I would like “liberal media”.

“Liberal” or “conservative” … who the heck cares? NPR is thoughtful radio that tells stories rather than just reporting the news. I love a good story.

One of my favorite features on NPR is a segment called “This I Believe”. Varieties of people write short essays about their deepest held beliefs and then read them on the air. I do not agree with what everyone writes. Who would? But I am struck by what people hold dear at the core of their being.

Sunday’s addition was written and read by Mary Chapin Carpenter about what she has learned from a recent illness. It is called “The Learning Curve of Gratitude” I resonate with what she says:

What I want more than ever is to appreciate that I have this day, and tomorrow and hopefully days beyond that. I am experiencing the learning curve of gratitude.

Go listen here (and hurry it's good) --> link

Words from Ecclesia

Tonight Andrea and I went to Ecclesia. As the service progressed I wrote down words that spoke to the part of the journey I currently find myself on:

Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

Oh my God shine your light on us
That we might live

“ … their god is their stomach …”
– Philippians 3:19
(I think my god is in my stomach as I seek to satisfy my sensual desires. )

I hoard for myself thinking God’s well will run dry. (How stupid of me).

Ecclesia is such a sacred place for me. I always leave knowing I’ve brushed up against Divinity. What I do with what I experienced there is up to me and I have to admit that in that I sometimes fail to make the best of it.

Lightly or tightly?

Love will fly if held too lightly
Love will die if held too tightly
Lightly, tightly, how do I know
Whether I’m holding or letting love go?

- Oscar Wilde

Strengths Finder

I took a strengths finder test recently to determine my strengths. It is amazing to me that someone could devise a test that takes 20 minutes and describes my personality fairly well.

Am I that simple? I’m sure Andrea (my wife) would say “Most definitely!”

Anyway, without going into the five strengths they say I have, here are some words and phrases in the strengths descriptors used to describe me:

Think, mental activity that may be focused or lack focus, time alone, muse, reflect, introspective, my own best companion who loves own company, inquisitive, adding info to the archives, learner, journey from ignorance to competence, adult learning experiences, careful, vigilant, private, serious, reserved, anticipate what might go wrong, do not give too much praise or recognition ...

Some are most definitely true but others I wonder about. I may be on the earliest portions of the journey from ignorance to competence but I am enjoying the trip.

Three Celebrities and a Funeral from Out of Ur

Great post on the Out of Ur blog by Gordon Mac Donald ... just read it! --->here

Little Bit of Soul

Put a little soul in your pocket
Put a little soul in the street
Put a little soul in something
Put a little soul in me

Put a little soul in your music
Put a little soul in your groove
Put a little soul in something
Put a little soul in you

Put a little soul in your living
Put a little soul in your time
Put a little soul in your religion
Put a little soul in mine

Just a little bit
Just a little bit
A little bit of soul

- King’s X

There are those who live believing they should be focused mainly on the spiritual. They say the spiritual is what matters the most. Like the Gnostics, those same people would ignore the physical and sensual saying that it is evil. The problem is that the spiritual alone promises what it can never deliver apart from life in a physical world.

There are those who say, “there is no spiritual – science has proven that the physical is all there is. Satisfy the sensual because it is what brings pleasure and there is no moral law to prevent indulgence.” The product of that indulgence is vain, or fat, or without love and a slow death comes from the comfort and pleasure. The problem is that the physical and sensual alone leaves one feeling empty.

It seems to me that the answer is to live from the soul. I’ve heard a few definitions of what our soul is. Many are either too technical for my mind to grasp or so simplistic they seem absurd. For me the soul is who I am in a holistic sense. It is both physical and metaphysical. It is life lived from both the spiritual and the sensual.

I don’t know how King’s X is defining “soul” but I do know that whatever it is, my life is missing a little bit of soul. It is a fine line to walk and I wish I could find the balance.

I am saying that the human soul was made to be strong … For too long we have belittled theology in favor of passion, or belittled passion in favor of theology. We were created to know much about God, and we were created to feel much for God.

- John Piper