Lines from The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation by Paulo Coelho

She looked once more at the mountains, now covered in darkness. She saw the first star come out and thought that she had had a good life; she had been born and would die in a place she loved, even though it seemed that her love was unrequited, but what did that matter? Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time.

It was all a matter of control. And choice.
Nothing more nothing less.

One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty; life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it.

Lectionary Reading for Ash Wednesday

It is apropos on the day that lent begins and I feel smug about my celebration of it – when most in my religious tradition do not – that I would read these verses from the gospel section of the lectionary reading for Ash Wednesday.

"Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding. "When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure—'playactors' I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

Matthew 6:1-6 (The Message)

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

Outside Magazine - Happiness with Karnazes and Thoreau

I was reading the January 2007 issue of Outside Magazine today. I dig Outside. It makes me want to take an adventure to a far away place with incredible landscapes and rich cultures. This issue was no exception. While reading I thought quite a bit about a trip Jakeb and I are planning. This spring we are going backpacking for a couple of days, probably on the Ouachita National Recreational Trail.

A group of featured articles in Outside this month are about happiness. In one of the articles the writer interviews Dean Karnazes during his successful 50 marathons in 50 days. He talks about how getting fit and eating right have improved his attitude and ultimately made him a happier person.

Another article talks about how simplicity makes a person happy and it quoted Henry David Thoreau. I think Thoreau and I would have gotten along just fine. I bet he was a very low maintenance kind of friend - assuming he had any friends.

Look at the following quotes from Thoreau:

"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw at it still."

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."

"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

"Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only."

Some other quotes from the magazine I found interesting:

"Marry the wild ones: You can tame the wild ones but you cannot make the tame ones wild." - Eric Hansen's 94 year old grandmother

I know some who would disagree. I just thought it was funny that a 94 year old woman said it.

"I think Western culture has things backwards. We equate comfort with happiness, and now we are so comfortable, we're miserable." - Dean Karnazes

"The bold don't live forever, but the timid don't live at all." Unknown (from Karnazes' blog)

Something for you to think about on your next backpacking adventure.

A quote ...

We are not made strong enough to stand up against endless grief. And yet pain is the constant drone of life. So if we are to have any happiness at all, it is only in the passing instant. … Surely it is a sin to reject the few gifts we are given. Be happy in the flash of time granted us or hurt forever. Those are the harsh and contradictory rules Creation has laid down for the game we’re forced to play.

- Charles Frazier Thirteen Moons

Running on "E"

I drove Tori to school when she was in 7th and 8th grade. It was good to hang out with my daughter and have random conversations. We fought over what we should listen to on the radio. I wanted to listen to NPR in the morning and I love The Engines of Our Ingenuity. She hated it and wanted to listen to the corny DJ’s on KSBJ – the local Christian Radio Station.

I think the thing that probably drove Tori crazy more than anything else is that I would let the fuel in my Explorer go all the way down to empty on the gas gauge before I put more gas in it.

I would say, “Tori I hope we make it to school today. If the truck dies be ready to get out and push it to the side of the road and then we can walk the rest of the way.”

“Dad!” she would scream, “Get some gas before you have to drive me to school. Why do you always let your truck get so close to empty?”

I think her fear had more to do with being seen by her friends on the side of the road with her dad who was not smart enough to add more gas when the gauge read “E”.

I don’t know why I let my truck get to the point of running on fumes before I would go to the gas pump. It was completely unnecessary. I had money to put more gas in. I guess it was inconvenient, but how much more inconvenient would it have been to be sitting on the side of the road with a truck that would not run due to a lack of fuel.

The gas gauge on my truck is not the only place I run on empty. Some mornings I wake up feeling drained, just because I wanted to stay up and watch one more play of Monday Night Football when it was obvious the Patriots were going to beat the Vikings – and who cares which of those teams win anyway.

I push myself and fill my day up with the unnecessary causing myself to have no room for error and being empty on extra time.

I let the spiritual slide, when I know it is the most important thing I can do and my soul is empty of what it needs to be filled with the most.

How long can I run on that red line close to “E”?

Me or the thought of me

I am almost embarrassed to say that I have seen the movie Failure to Launch - twice. Once on a plane to Nepal and once, at my suggestion, Andrea and I rented it and watched it at home. It wasn't a horrible movie but it was not great either; just a diversion.

There is a part of the movie where the main character, Tripp who is a boat salesman, is talking to his "nephew" as they sit next to a boat. The kid says something to the effect of "I love this boat." To which Tripp replies "You don't love this boat. You are just in love with the idea of a boat."

Profound dialog I think. I go through life loving the idea of many things but never really in love with the things themselves. Just like people love the idea of a boat but would never spend the time, work or money required to actually enjoy the thing, I love the idea of stuff but I am never going to spend the time, money or effort to actually experience those same things at the highest levels.

I would love to lift weights and have big muscles and be stronger. But truthfully I don't love to lift weights because it is not convenient.

I would love to save money. But I am only in love with the idea of making good investments for my future because really I love to spend money NOW.

I would love to practice the faith I say I believe. But when it comes down to it I love laziness rather than discipline and actually acting on the things I say I believe doesn't fit my self-centeredness. My faith is sometimes only a good idea rather than a reality.

I was running last week and listening to John Mayer. On his new CD Continuum he has this song called "I Don't Trust Myself" where he asks this girl "Who do you love - me or the thought of me?"

I am in love with the thought of being in love, but sometimes love takes a lot of work. To lay down my life for another person and to look after her interests rather than my own is beyond what I am sometimes willing to do. Will I go beyond the mere idea of being in love and do the hard work love requires?

I hope so. She is worth it.

Too personal to post ...

I have a blog post in my head (actually I have typed it out a couple of times) but it is way too personal to actually publish. I can’t get past it to write anything else so I have posted nothing. I’ll try later.

Love is a disease ...

Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured.

- Anonymous Persian Sage

There is much that could be said about that statement but anything I would try to add would seem shallow and I think it is best to let it sit there and do its work.

In Between

I do not like being between places but that is where I find myself, in the "in between".

Who will listen to me here when next week I will be somewhere else? While I am in the "in between" no one there will listen to me either even though they say they are glad I am coming.

Why do I even feel like I need to be heard? Because there are things that are happening in both places I care about. Since I am "in between" I should just be quiet. I’m sure if I made noise no one would listen.

Even though I like change (to the point where I have been called schizo) it is strange to be in between.