I/don't get/many things right the first time...
in fact/I am told/that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns/
the stumbles and falls/
brought me here...
And/where was I/before the day/
that I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it every day, and I know.
That I am...I am...I am the luckiest...
Next door/there's an old man/who lived to his nineties and
one day/passed away/in his sleep.
and his wife/she stayed for a couple of days/And passed away.
I'm sorry, I know that's a/strange way to tell you that I know/
we belong.
That I know...
That I am...I am...the luckiest.
--Ben Folds
16 December 2003
a little something to keep me motivated
and
a little something to inspire whatever final papers you're mired in at the moment.
and
a little something I found rather profound and inspiring.
and
a little something to inspire whatever final papers you're mired in at the moment.
and
a little something I found rather profound and inspiring.
14 December 2003
and....maybe it's a good thing that finals aren't some monster of fearsome aspect who one must confront in mortal combat, the result of which can only be the death of one or both...
maybe it's a good thing that life will go on after this week whether I conquer or am banished in disgraceful death from the battlefield...
but right now it just seems to rob the whole thing of drama and excitement. Besides, I think I could take Dr. Oakerson hand to hand...even if the tricky bugger has a mysteriously broken nose.
:)
maybe it's a good thing that life will go on after this week whether I conquer or am banished in disgraceful death from the battlefield...
but right now it just seems to rob the whole thing of drama and excitement. Besides, I think I could take Dr. Oakerson hand to hand...even if the tricky bugger has a mysteriously broken nose.
:)
12 December 2003
where i want to be
what I want to be on
a few days' worth of food, a swimsuit, a good book, and a twisty road...work odd jobs for gas money and meals and wash in the ocean. i don't want to be here and i don't want to be home and i don't want to be anywhere that tastes like frustration and emptiness. let me go somewhere miles away from yesterday.
what I want to be on
a few days' worth of food, a swimsuit, a good book, and a twisty road...work odd jobs for gas money and meals and wash in the ocean. i don't want to be here and i don't want to be home and i don't want to be anywhere that tastes like frustration and emptiness. let me go somewhere miles away from yesterday.
09 December 2003
08 December 2003
In The 13th Warrior, Antonia Banderas plays an Arabic diplomat who has fallen in with twelve Nordic warriors. They are thirteen, sworn to defend a small village, and an entire tribe of several hundred mounted, torch and spear-bearing men is charging their way. The proud Norse warriors, drenched in the falling rain, are preparing themselves for one last battle. Despite all their efforts, they have failed to strike at the heart of their enemy, and now their back are to a wall: they have no tricks left, and they will probably die.
The Nordic warriors stands stoically in the pouring rain; the makeshift defenses are as ready as they will ever me. They have sharpened their swords, tightened their belts and boots and bracers, and stripped themselves of every comfort and defense against the weather. They are ready for batter, and as they stand a watch their enemy approach, they join in the determined cadence of an ancestral battle hymn:
"Lo, I see my father.
Lo I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, do I see the line of my people, stretching back to the beginning.
They call to me; they bid me to take my place among them,
in Valhalla, where the brave may live...forever."
Their voices rise against the thunder of the approaching hoofbeats, crescendoing in the final silent pause, and the defiant shout of "FOREVER!"
This must be something like what the writer of Hebrews had in mind in reminding us of the legacy of pilgrims who have gone before us. "Seeing now that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and run with perseverance the race set before us." Let us earn the right to say with Paul and all those who went before us, "I have fought the good fight, I have run the race, I have kept the faith."
The Nordic warriors stands stoically in the pouring rain; the makeshift defenses are as ready as they will ever me. They have sharpened their swords, tightened their belts and boots and bracers, and stripped themselves of every comfort and defense against the weather. They are ready for batter, and as they stand a watch their enemy approach, they join in the determined cadence of an ancestral battle hymn:
"Lo, I see my father.
Lo I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, do I see the line of my people, stretching back to the beginning.
They call to me; they bid me to take my place among them,
in Valhalla, where the brave may live...forever."
Their voices rise against the thunder of the approaching hoofbeats, crescendoing in the final silent pause, and the defiant shout of "FOREVER!"
This must be something like what the writer of Hebrews had in mind in reminding us of the legacy of pilgrims who have gone before us. "Seeing now that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and run with perseverance the race set before us." Let us earn the right to say with Paul and all those who went before us, "I have fought the good fight, I have run the race, I have kept the faith."
07 December 2003
John 10:14-18
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me--just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."
"...the reason that the Father loves me is that I lay down my life..." this is a bit of a stumbling block for me; i'm used to the "Jesus loves me for me," "I don't have to do anything and can't do anything to make God love me more" sort of doctrine...this is a little troubling...exegesis, anyone?
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me--just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."
"...the reason that the Father loves me is that I lay down my life..." this is a bit of a stumbling block for me; i'm used to the "Jesus loves me for me," "I don't have to do anything and can't do anything to make God love me more" sort of doctrine...this is a little troubling...exegesis, anyone?
Both Moeller and I have blogs. We are the only guys I know who have blogs. Moeller wears button downs and khakis, plays the guitar when he is thoughtful, and expresses his emotions. I write poetry and obsess about the perfect colors for my blog and making sure my spelling is impeccable. Does this make us metrosexual? Even though I am very scraggley and refuse to where anything but blue jeans and battered courds?
06 December 2003
home...
it's christmastime, and everyone is talking about it: a place where you can eat awesome food, where intimacy and unselfconsciousness are natural, where friends and family unashamedly build their lives around each other because each one is important. where you could live heart and soul full-bore.
it's beautiful, and some have more memories of it and some have less, but either way it is transitory. it ages and changes and matures and declines and time, change, and distance take it away, leaving the emptiness of mortality and the restlessness of longing.
there it is, deep within, with the brisk chill and stillness of a rainy fall day in the mountains. frosty air plumes from our nostrils and mouths and we walk with purpose and memory. because it isn't a longing that pulls us backwards; it is a hope that calls us onward. the emptiness never was really full, but it was meant to be. faith tells us it will be.
so, like Abraham and Noah and Job we admit that we are strangers, wanderers here, looking for a city not built by human hands, and mothers and sisters and brothers and a Father not of human birth and earthbound fellowship, but of heavenly adoption and purposeful fellowship. and maybe we will not see it with our eyes, but we will not stop looking while we have them.
home...it is so far away.
"If I sing let me sing for the joy/that has bourn in me these songs/
and if I weep, let it be as a man/who is longing for his home."
-Rich Mullins
it's christmastime, and everyone is talking about it: a place where you can eat awesome food, where intimacy and unselfconsciousness are natural, where friends and family unashamedly build their lives around each other because each one is important. where you could live heart and soul full-bore.
it's beautiful, and some have more memories of it and some have less, but either way it is transitory. it ages and changes and matures and declines and time, change, and distance take it away, leaving the emptiness of mortality and the restlessness of longing.
there it is, deep within, with the brisk chill and stillness of a rainy fall day in the mountains. frosty air plumes from our nostrils and mouths and we walk with purpose and memory. because it isn't a longing that pulls us backwards; it is a hope that calls us onward. the emptiness never was really full, but it was meant to be. faith tells us it will be.
so, like Abraham and Noah and Job we admit that we are strangers, wanderers here, looking for a city not built by human hands, and mothers and sisters and brothers and a Father not of human birth and earthbound fellowship, but of heavenly adoption and purposeful fellowship. and maybe we will not see it with our eyes, but we will not stop looking while we have them.
home...it is so far away.
"If I sing let me sing for the joy/that has bourn in me these songs/
and if I weep, let it be as a man/who is longing for his home."
-Rich Mullins
05 December 2003
"When an important chief died, his contentment in the netherworld was ensured by slaughtering a retinue of servants, wives, and advisors. They were supposed to keep the chief company...for nearly all the Ashanti, ritual murder is now as repulsive a notion as witch burning is for the citizens of Massachusetts."
Blaine Harden, Dispatches From a Fragile Continent
one minute you're laughing at them, the silly people, the next minute you're laughing even harder at yourself. silly people abound...I love my major
Blaine Harden, Dispatches From a Fragile Continent
one minute you're laughing at them, the silly people, the next minute you're laughing even harder at yourself. silly people abound...I love my major
04 December 2003
02 December 2003
20 November 2003
Silent for so long;
A grey wanderer far below
grappling with ancient foe
wounded and wounding.
who can give account
of the dark things stalking
old and hell-bent and unseen
gnawing at the roots of the world?
who would trouble the idle laughter
of those untouched by darkness?
thank you John Ronald Reuel for the only imagery that fits
A grey wanderer far below
grappling with ancient foe
wounded and wounding.
who can give account
of the dark things stalking
old and hell-bent and unseen
gnawing at the roots of the world?
who would trouble the idle laughter
of those untouched by darkness?
thank you John Ronald Reuel for the only imagery that fits
04 November 2003
"What do I do, Dan? I can't do it all!" Characteristically, I gave her the wrong answer. I don't deal well verbally with surprises, or women, and her words threw me off. "Uhh...close your eyes and paddle hard. That's what I do when I'm kayaking and I realize I'm about to be in over my head." Grit your teeth and bear it, woman! What a wise and sensitive thought.
Friday I went kayaking for the first time since February; instead of sensibly boating the tame and familiar Letchworth, we hit a new route in Caneadea. The farther we dragged our kayaks upriver, the more I realized just how technical this day was going to be. The fact that this would be the last chance to kayak before Tanzania kept me going. Minutes later, and against my better judgment, the river was carrying me swiftly towards the crux of the creek: a little pourover, where the river stops, drops several feet, and rolls on. The last time I met one of these small waterfalls, I got tubed and tumbled, bailed out of my kayak, and injured my shoulder. One thought: I can't do this. I'm going to fail again and life will be cold, wet, miserable and not fun.
I stop. I close my eyes. My life has stopped and all that is is the river, the rapid in front of me, and the line that I must take in order to be safe. Worries, daydreams, that nagging desire for sleep--all gone. In kayaking, the only way out is through. You cannot go back or get out. Wishful thinking, panic, and distractions are dangerous hindrances. So I stop, breathe deep, and I remember: loose hips, no flips; keep your paddle in the water; hold your weight forward; take the time for a deep mental breath underwater.
And above all, I remember that failure is not important. I have a life jacket and helmet; I have survived tougher rivers; Tim and Charlie have scouted the river and are confident that I can take it; and most importantly, those amazing paddlers are waiting on the other side, ready to snatch my boat and I out of the water and put us back together again.
Life is overwhelming. Sometimes I think I am in over my head. Sometimes I am. Don't get lost in the busyness. Stop. Take a walk. Close your eyes. Remember He Who is essential, what is important, and what is not. Pull back, fight your emotions for the high ground of perspective, and choose what to let go. Figure out what you truly stand to lose if you do fail, and above all remember the one who scouted out every drop in the river that lies before you and waits for you on the other side of this difficulty. Then open your eyes and paddle hard.
Friday I went kayaking for the first time since February; instead of sensibly boating the tame and familiar Letchworth, we hit a new route in Caneadea. The farther we dragged our kayaks upriver, the more I realized just how technical this day was going to be. The fact that this would be the last chance to kayak before Tanzania kept me going. Minutes later, and against my better judgment, the river was carrying me swiftly towards the crux of the creek: a little pourover, where the river stops, drops several feet, and rolls on. The last time I met one of these small waterfalls, I got tubed and tumbled, bailed out of my kayak, and injured my shoulder. One thought: I can't do this. I'm going to fail again and life will be cold, wet, miserable and not fun.
I stop. I close my eyes. My life has stopped and all that is is the river, the rapid in front of me, and the line that I must take in order to be safe. Worries, daydreams, that nagging desire for sleep--all gone. In kayaking, the only way out is through. You cannot go back or get out. Wishful thinking, panic, and distractions are dangerous hindrances. So I stop, breathe deep, and I remember: loose hips, no flips; keep your paddle in the water; hold your weight forward; take the time for a deep mental breath underwater.
And above all, I remember that failure is not important. I have a life jacket and helmet; I have survived tougher rivers; Tim and Charlie have scouted the river and are confident that I can take it; and most importantly, those amazing paddlers are waiting on the other side, ready to snatch my boat and I out of the water and put us back together again.
Life is overwhelming. Sometimes I think I am in over my head. Sometimes I am. Don't get lost in the busyness. Stop. Take a walk. Close your eyes. Remember He Who is essential, what is important, and what is not. Pull back, fight your emotions for the high ground of perspective, and choose what to let go. Figure out what you truly stand to lose if you do fail, and above all remember the one who scouted out every drop in the river that lies before you and waits for you on the other side of this difficulty. Then open your eyes and paddle hard.
03 November 2003
"Often our spiritual quest becomes a search for the right technique, the proper method, the perfect program that can immediately deliver the desired results of spiritual maturity and wholeness. Or we try to create the atmosphere for the 'right' spiritual moment, that 'perfect' setting in which God can touch us into instantaneous wholeness. If only we can find the right trick, the right book or the right guru, go to the right retreat, hear the right sermon, instantly we will be transformed into a new person at a new level of spirituality and wholeness...'It is the quest for the short cut which brings insight.' "
"A few years ago, I had a little boy. Then, within a year, he became a man. He went through one of those adolescent growth spurts. He grew almost a foot in height, his voice dropped into a deep bass, he began to shave, his body filled out--he was a different person. The same thing happens in our spiritual life. For a while we may live on a plateu of life and relationship with God. Then one of those moments comes in which we experience a growth spurt and find ourselves on a new level of life and relationship with God. We experience God in a new and different way. We see ourselves and life in a new perspective. Old things pass away, and new things take their place. But if we mistake such a growth spurt for all there is in spirituality, then we are not prepared for the long haul toward spiritual wholeness. We will tend to languish as we wait for another spurt to come along. Or we will try to reproduce the setting in which the previous spurt took place, hoping to create another such experience." --M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., Invitation to a Journey
The dark night of the soul; the waiting and hoping and despairing through long, cold desert nights, doing nothing, is not the absense of life and growth. It is an essential leg of the journey. It is the mile upon mile of plodding in silence and watching the backpack in front of you that must proceed the ecstasy of climbing mountains.
"A few years ago, I had a little boy. Then, within a year, he became a man. He went through one of those adolescent growth spurts. He grew almost a foot in height, his voice dropped into a deep bass, he began to shave, his body filled out--he was a different person. The same thing happens in our spiritual life. For a while we may live on a plateu of life and relationship with God. Then one of those moments comes in which we experience a growth spurt and find ourselves on a new level of life and relationship with God. We experience God in a new and different way. We see ourselves and life in a new perspective. Old things pass away, and new things take their place. But if we mistake such a growth spurt for all there is in spirituality, then we are not prepared for the long haul toward spiritual wholeness. We will tend to languish as we wait for another spurt to come along. Or we will try to reproduce the setting in which the previous spurt took place, hoping to create another such experience." --M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., Invitation to a Journey
The dark night of the soul; the waiting and hoping and despairing through long, cold desert nights, doing nothing, is not the absense of life and growth. It is an essential leg of the journey. It is the mile upon mile of plodding in silence and watching the backpack in front of you that must proceed the ecstasy of climbing mountains.
30 October 2003
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