history

today i told someone my history. i think about it alot, but i don’t know that i really talk about it or live by it much. i know it has molded me and will continue to do so throughout my life, but its not like an opressive force. i think i can learn from it, and remain unscathed by it. there were many helpful things and many hurtful things. its life.

phillies won

the phils won the series and all is vindicated in the city. but why do we put so much stock into the sports entertainment industry? is it just a distraction from our real purposes in life? are we just being dragged into spending our time, money and emotions on sports? i love baseball, but i recognize its pull on my spiritual life, and i know how much more it can take. there are fans who are more obsessed than i. i suppose i need to keep things in perspective and balance.

tired contemplations

i just get tired of contemplating. i think all the time about things that i can’t affect. i have solutions to problems i have not been invited to solve. i can imagine things greater that i am able to accomplish. completing thought gives me no relief, only the dreaded anticipation of what next will fill my mind. i only wish i could fill my mind with the good stuff, the things of faith, God, and theology.

holocaust

it seems fitting that i spent the bus ride to and from washington d.c. today reading a book on the Blues. we went to tour the museum of the holocaust, to gain an understanding of the horrid things that took place to people not so different from me. in the pictures of their lives before they were condemned they looked just like normal decent people, and for no legitamate reason the Jews and other ‘fringe’ members of society were eradicated. i got the blues today, not from reading about its history among african americans, but from the visuals i will carry in my soul of those lost lives. the cost is overwhelming. there is no reason but Sin for the holocaust. there is every reason humanity should have done that, and yet every reason why we shouldn’t have. the Jews and Gypsies, the mentally ill, the “half-breeds”, the impure members of society are people like you and i know and work with, and we must ask ourselves, why wouldn’t we have done what the NAZI regime did? what makes us better? what would have kept me from inaction as a civilian smelling the odors of the cremated victoms of the death camps? i am as evil by nature and any body. praise Jesus that i am delivered from that, and yet i must remember that i am(was) capable of acts of pure intolerant evil.

i got the blues today

seeing those lives wiped away

i got the blues today

and i will never be the same

RRG

relax

tonight i relaxed. we had some guests to our home, some college students from the college i work at, to give them a break from campus and to invite them into our lives. sometimes things like this are a bit hectic, but tonight it was quite relaxing to just hang with them and to give them some peace. tis a beautiful thing.

obsession

obsession is one of those things the mind does to distract itself from the things it ought to be focusing on. it is detrimental in that it consumes your thoughts and your activities. it is quite dangerous, but there are some benefits such as new information, the possiblity of discovering a passion you didn’t know about. but it needs to be kept it check. the object of the obsession quickly becomes an idol replacing God in the center of life.

i want to ride

i want to ride my motorcycle for a long time, to clear my head and refocus my heart. i suppose i could do that by sitting on the porch with the Bible and quietly reflecting with God all that has transpired over the last year or so, but i can’t seem to sit still at home. there is always something drawing me in. i suppose i just desire solo retreat. i don’t think its selfish, but quite Jesus like. maybe someday that will happen.

wishing for sleep to come upon me

Every day i wake up seems like a race to go back to sleep. i know, there is more to life than that, but it seems that i am perpetually hungry for the peace that sleep affords. i suppose its the American business that i have succomb to, but that no excuse. if i were to find the things that my passions truly are involved in, i suppose i should be at peace all day. but i live aimlessly, not knowing how to get to the place where my passions will be truly given room to run. so until then, i dread, i will be constantly searching for rest.

words hurt

words hurt other people. i use words to wound. i use words to defend myself, to break down others points of view, to kill ideas that don’t line up with mine. i am a bastard. i am sorry for it, but don’t know how to fix it. only God can cure the mercilessness in me.