Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Pearls of Wisdom
Running never solves your problems, unless your problem is that you are fat, in which case running might be an advisable strategy.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Update
Here is the update to the stuff from my last post:
School - I passed that test. Everyone at the testing center heard *smack* *smack* *smack* They were like, "What is that noise?" I was like. "Oh, I'm sorry. That's just me spanking your test."
Work - Yeah, I got to start working on a way to stop doing that.
Kids - Ethan started walking. Now I need to start teaching him how to get me a Pepsi out of the fridge.
Hobbies - I've been lifting weights for two weeks straight now. I can now rip phone books in half. Well, at least the front covers.
TV- I finished the first season of Lost. I have to admit that I'm into it a little bit. I'll probably be starting the second season soon. Its good to have a show to replace Battlestar. That thing is getting worse every week.
Church - I preach at Clearview Fellowship at the end of next month. They will never be the same.
School - I passed that test. Everyone at the testing center heard *smack* *smack* *smack* They were like, "What is that noise?" I was like. "Oh, I'm sorry. That's just me spanking your test."
Work - Yeah, I got to start working on a way to stop doing that.
Kids - Ethan started walking. Now I need to start teaching him how to get me a Pepsi out of the fridge.
Hobbies - I've been lifting weights for two weeks straight now. I can now rip phone books in half. Well, at least the front covers.
TV- I finished the first season of Lost. I have to admit that I'm into it a little bit. I'll probably be starting the second season soon. Its good to have a show to replace Battlestar. That thing is getting worse every week.
Church - I preach at Clearview Fellowship at the end of next month. They will never be the same.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Consistency
Yeah, about that going to start blogging more thing...
A was a little busy with work, school, hiding the drugs, the kids, and weddings the last few weeks, but everything is slowing down a little now. So for all of those curious, here is a quick recap of what I'm doing lately.
School - I took a rather important test today. The phrase "fake it till you make it" sums everything up nicely. I'm going to have fun being a teacher.
Work - I sit in a cubical and make bad numbers go away for eight hours a day, for some reason I didn't get asked back this year as a career day speaker at the elementary school .
Kids - Ethan gave up the bottle but still won't walk, I'm thinking about taking up the bottle. Me and Hannah are both about a year from starting grade school.
Hobbies - Tyson and I bought a weight bench. I got Autumn a sewing kit because her husband's going to be ripped. Just kidding, she knows I already am.
TV - Battlestar is off for a week, Ghost Hunters for a month, Office is done for the year. I started Lost. I'm half way through season one and the fat guy hasn't lost any weight since he first crashed on the island and the dog hasn't been in the last two episodes. I'm just saying...
Church - I've decided I don't like a church having greeters. I had the same guy shake my hand and say "good morning" to me three times last Sunday. At the church I went to the week before I had to make through four different staff greeters to find a seat. I'm going to start wearing a greeter name badge as I check out churches. Maybe if they think I'm one of their own they'll let me pass by in peace.
A was a little busy with work, school, hiding the drugs, the kids, and weddings the last few weeks, but everything is slowing down a little now. So for all of those curious, here is a quick recap of what I'm doing lately.
School - I took a rather important test today. The phrase "fake it till you make it" sums everything up nicely. I'm going to have fun being a teacher.
Work - I sit in a cubical and make bad numbers go away for eight hours a day, for some reason I didn't get asked back this year as a career day speaker at the elementary school .
Kids - Ethan gave up the bottle but still won't walk, I'm thinking about taking up the bottle. Me and Hannah are both about a year from starting grade school.
Hobbies - Tyson and I bought a weight bench. I got Autumn a sewing kit because her husband's going to be ripped. Just kidding, she knows I already am.
TV - Battlestar is off for a week, Ghost Hunters for a month, Office is done for the year. I started Lost. I'm half way through season one and the fat guy hasn't lost any weight since he first crashed on the island and the dog hasn't been in the last two episodes. I'm just saying...
Church - I've decided I don't like a church having greeters. I had the same guy shake my hand and say "good morning" to me three times last Sunday. At the church I went to the week before I had to make through four different staff greeters to find a seat. I'm going to start wearing a greeter name badge as I check out churches. Maybe if they think I'm one of their own they'll let me pass by in peace.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Miracles?
So, as I said in my last post, Lily was born this last Monday. Autumn and I are no longer the only members of our group to have kids. This time instead of being the well-meaning yet almost useless support to my wife in the delivery room I was one of the anxious family and friends in the waiting room. Although I normally hate sitting around waiting for things, it was a welcome change.
The one problem about me waiting and not doing anything to keep my mind busy is that I begin to think and when I think my mind begins wondering down odd paths and back ways and before you know it I have something I want to get out of my head so I can sort it out. The problem was I found myself in a place where most of the people I usually ramble to were either MIA or busy tending to more important things at the moment. So, I decided I'd hold it in a little longer and maybe revisit the old blog for another round of rambling.
"The miracle of birth." I normally dismiss a statement like this as sentimental crap made up by people that feel the uncontrollable need to over dramatize everything in life to somehow give it more weight then it warrants. The more I think about it, however, the more I agree with this one. Oh, not because babies are cute (some are) or because life is precious (even though it is), but rather because of the process. If you've been privileged enough to have a front row seat to a pregnancy, labor, and birth either as an expectant father or probably better yet, as an expectant mother than you might have an idea of what I'm trying to say.
What makes it a miracle in my mind is that it doesn't seem much like one through the process. All of us enter this world through pain, discomfort, anxiety, blood, tears, sweat, and shear exhaustion just to start. Entering life is messy, traumatic, and a little dangerous. Before you were told, you never would have guessed the change that takes place and if you didn't know better you'd swear the way it works out in the end was impossible lie made up by those before you. Yet, in the end you find yourself holding something fragile and beautiful that wasn't here before the ordeal. I've seen a few real miracles in my life and read about one or two during my studies of the scriptures and the messy and dark situations they come out of bear some resemblance in my mind to this "miracle."
It struck me as I was sitting there that just eleven months earlier I was with Bekah at this very same hospital when they told her that she was losing the first baby. I remember the sadness and darkness that day. I remember the pain I felt for her, pain that was nothing compared to how she felt. I remember repeating the words that everything would turn out all right and I remembered how hollow those words sounded in my own ears. Most of all I remember the feeling of helplessness and the wondering of why it always seems that God cares a little less about us than He should. Yet here we are eleven months later and Lily has taken that all away. God has taken that all away.
The last few months you have read my ramblings as I struggled through the church plant and how I've wrestled with God over and over. I remember telling a friend once during that time that I felt like I still loved God, but I didn't think I could trust Him. Something has changed since then, I still don't think I can trust God in the way that we want to trust Him, not like a trusty old dog that does just what you expect. He is too great for that, too above us, too "other" for a lack of a better word. To paraphrase Lewis, God is dangerous, but He is good. No, now I trust God for the miracle after the pain, after the fear, after the unexpected. I trust no matter what is thrown at me the end will make the beginning strangely dim. I trust the God that will be there at the end of the day. "Though He slay me..."
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.”
-Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The one problem about me waiting and not doing anything to keep my mind busy is that I begin to think and when I think my mind begins wondering down odd paths and back ways and before you know it I have something I want to get out of my head so I can sort it out. The problem was I found myself in a place where most of the people I usually ramble to were either MIA or busy tending to more important things at the moment. So, I decided I'd hold it in a little longer and maybe revisit the old blog for another round of rambling.
"The miracle of birth." I normally dismiss a statement like this as sentimental crap made up by people that feel the uncontrollable need to over dramatize everything in life to somehow give it more weight then it warrants. The more I think about it, however, the more I agree with this one. Oh, not because babies are cute (some are) or because life is precious (even though it is), but rather because of the process. If you've been privileged enough to have a front row seat to a pregnancy, labor, and birth either as an expectant father or probably better yet, as an expectant mother than you might have an idea of what I'm trying to say.
What makes it a miracle in my mind is that it doesn't seem much like one through the process. All of us enter this world through pain, discomfort, anxiety, blood, tears, sweat, and shear exhaustion just to start. Entering life is messy, traumatic, and a little dangerous. Before you were told, you never would have guessed the change that takes place and if you didn't know better you'd swear the way it works out in the end was impossible lie made up by those before you. Yet, in the end you find yourself holding something fragile and beautiful that wasn't here before the ordeal. I've seen a few real miracles in my life and read about one or two during my studies of the scriptures and the messy and dark situations they come out of bear some resemblance in my mind to this "miracle."
It struck me as I was sitting there that just eleven months earlier I was with Bekah at this very same hospital when they told her that she was losing the first baby. I remember the sadness and darkness that day. I remember the pain I felt for her, pain that was nothing compared to how she felt. I remember repeating the words that everything would turn out all right and I remembered how hollow those words sounded in my own ears. Most of all I remember the feeling of helplessness and the wondering of why it always seems that God cares a little less about us than He should. Yet here we are eleven months later and Lily has taken that all away. God has taken that all away.
The last few months you have read my ramblings as I struggled through the church plant and how I've wrestled with God over and over. I remember telling a friend once during that time that I felt like I still loved God, but I didn't think I could trust Him. Something has changed since then, I still don't think I can trust God in the way that we want to trust Him, not like a trusty old dog that does just what you expect. He is too great for that, too above us, too "other" for a lack of a better word. To paraphrase Lewis, God is dangerous, but He is good. No, now I trust God for the miracle after the pain, after the fear, after the unexpected. I trust no matter what is thrown at me the end will make the beginning strangely dim. I trust the God that will be there at the end of the day. "Though He slay me..."
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.”
-Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Monday, April 21, 2008
Big news!
Bekah gave birth to Lily Russell today. She's healthy and beautiful. Bekah is in good shape even though I don't think she feels like it at the moment. I'm more tired than I've been in months and I didn't even do anything, so your going to have to wait till tomorrow or the next day before I share my thoughts on this.
Yeah, that's right. I'm going to actually write something again. I think my vacation from blogging is coming to an end. Back to infecting the internet with my ramblings. But for now, I sleep.
Yeah, that's right. I'm going to actually write something again. I think my vacation from blogging is coming to an end. Back to infecting the internet with my ramblings. But for now, I sleep.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Something I found
"July the 14th, 1861
Washington D.C.
My very dear Sarah:
- The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
- Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure—and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.
- But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows—when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children—is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?
- I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death—and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.
- I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
- Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.
- The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar—that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
- Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
- But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
- Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.
- As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
-
- Sullivan"
- -Major Sullivan Ballou Written one week before his death at the First Battle of Bull Run.
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