Thanksgiving 2012

Everyone says I have not failed, but I know I have. I need to be used to things not going according to plan, Thesis aside, I failed to track with the Lord. I fell into sin when I was most stressed and/or frustrated. At the end of the day, it is confirmed (again) I am at my worst when things are tough. Today I want to wallow in it.
Lord, save me from myself.

Ghosts

I have 'loved' four women in my life.  One I married, another I broke, the other woke up too late and the first, well she 'died'.  She is the only one who does not haunt me.  Is it because I was a kid; it was ages ago?  When we saw each other after we were done we were just two people meeting.  Just thinking of the other two ruins my heart!I have had many 'friends' over the years. Some superficial, others I have been through so much with they were family.

Yes, there is that whole first love thing I talked about years ago, but why do they come up when they do.  It seems very random that I think, "I wonder how she is doing?"  WHY DO I CARE?  Seriously, why?  I say I want to be a heartless fiend and that is mostly true, because of such situations - people come and people go, and it takes so much to get close and hurts so much when they go.  Forgive the pity party, but when it comes to 'friendly call backs' I have terrible numbers.  I find that I chase most of my 'friends' except for maybe four, one I live with, another I am related to, the other lives in the neighborhood and the other is, well more friendless than I - we are the bottom of the barrel.

My question is, since they all chose not to call or write, why do I care?  Why do they pop up, why do I sit down for dinner with all these ghosts?  Why do I even feel like making contact?  Sometimes they answer, and I am told 'we were just talking about you'  and 'we are ever so glad to hear from you, we should talk some more soon, I will give you a call' and that is the end of it.  Who is the dummy here? Fine lines separate a lost friend from a bother and a straight stalker.

Why do I care? This makes me mad!

Anger reset

I have been increasingly unhappy and frustrated lately.  So I asked someone more well adjusted that I what they did to reset after they are frustrated or angered.  We all have to do it, because you cannot take grumpy to work, our spouses and friends do not like grumpy either.  No one likes grumpy!  So when grumpy comes out, you have to reset the system, send him back to sleep.

My well adjusted role model plays it just like me (shocker!) - I find things to get engrossed in.  Things to distract me until I forget grumpy is out and grumpy forgets why he even came out.  I usually ran, or worked out some other way, rode my bicycle, took an angry hike - all things I am unable to do because of my hip surgery.

Life is tasteless man!  Nothing is good, and that is frustrating me more. I am circling a drain to I guess a higher level of grumpy-pants than I have attained.  It makes me lose grip on things; my anger makes it easier to sin.  I do admit I have not done this one thing - read the Bible. Maybe I should do that instead of everything else.  All I want is to feed it so that it explodes and it goes away.  I think when I pack it or distract it keeps a record and maybe one day I will go nuclear.

I think stogies helped, I am not sure.  I'll read the Bible, see what happens.

Tired and bored

I finally picked a thesis topic; really have not made much progress I think.  I am stuck.
I finally fell prey to that sin again. I saw it unfold and did nothing to stop it, I just let it happen.
I am finally caught up at work, but you know work.  There will be another pile there on Monday.


Tired 
of barren strife
Once
activity alone
was enough.
I am Old
now
I desire
Progress.

Tongue twisters

http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/tongue-twisters/ 


I thought a thought, but the thought I thought I thought was not the thought I thought I thought. If the thought I thought I thought was the thought I thought I thought, I wouldn't have thought so much.

The stuff birds say

"Said the robin to the sparrow, 'I should really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and worry so.? Said the sparrow to the robin, 'Friend, I think that it must be that they have no Heavenly Father such as cares for you and me.'"

Faithful as a rainbow

I have been off sick for about a month and a half, working part-time for the half.  The 'joy' of a desk job is that everyone has a place to put all your work when you are away.  I am also a student who has found out vicodin is not conducive to mental productivity.  As I get back into full-time life I am trying not to be overwhelmed but I am so far behind it's tough not to freak out. I know I will get it all done in the nick of time, it's getting there that is daunting. 

I had a moment with a rainbow yesterday, it got me thinking about how every single rainbow is a testament of God's faithfulness to a promise he made eons ago. He said He would put it up whenever He covered the sky with clouds to remind Himself.  I think the reminder is for us. 

I have not made it here of my own doing; I was brought, carried and at times dragged.  So as I freak out about these things and others I also think of His faithfulness to do what He says and what He wills, and that when we see what He has done we will gape at it like little children seeing a rainbow for the first time and offer up pure praise.

Why not settle?

Why not?  Here's why you should:

Joy is the state of being pleased with life no matter the circumstance.  Christian though I am, I suffer from joy-deficiency syndrome.  So for those like me, the joy-deficient, all we have is happy; the state of pleasure based on happenstance - circumstance dependent smiling.
We continue, keep up...If all you have is happy, your pleasure rests on either things going exactly your way (or obviously better) or you will smile for whatever pops over the horizon.  In other words, you either have your way or you settle.  Those are the paths to happiness!
Now things do not go how I like for good reasons:  'beneficial-to-my-well-being-and-survival' reasons.  This implies, all that is left for me in my pursuit however lacksidaisical a pursuit it may be is to settle; to be okay with whatever comes through the door.  How then is settling a bad thing?  It is a sure way to happiness because until you die, you are guaranteed something will come through the door.  If it is too big you will go out to the road to meet it - and being a 'settler' you will smile, greet it like an old friend resurrected and enjoy its company for as long as it stays.  You may even miss it after it leaves.

Am I right?

Looking forward to talking

I received a tepid message from a friend I have not heard from in a long long time.  I know it was prepared just for me, and that is wonderful!  I remember discussing the substance and realism of human relations with this particular individual.  Like all the examples we shared she went her way and after two years was never to be heard from again.  I do not remember what exactly I thought of that, it was akin to irony.  More like, "you who teaches against stealing, do you steal?"

Anyway, she wrote.  And said , "Talk soon."  My response, "looking forward to talking."  

I love it when friends come back, especially the special ones.  I tend to pick things right back up with them when they return.  There is no reservation or staleness.  But they still tend to go away again and again, each excursion longer than the last until I hope I neither care nor notice.  But, if I do not, are we still friends?  I think one of the characteristics of friends is noticing their absence.  At times with soreness, tears and pining even.

Why do they vanish in the first place?  

Life gets in the way of living.  

At least they come back and we can "talk soon."

Maze-men

I grew up being told what to do and how to do it.  For so long I worked to the pleasure of the people around me and those in authority over me.  Somewhere along the way I lost a firm sense of what I actually like. Rarely do I know what I want.  I refrain from having an opinion about things.  If I have answers they are so deeply repressed in me I cannot unearth them.

I know I love my wife. I know Jesus is the Christ. I know science is my end. I know I love motorcycles. Nothing on the 'significant' stuff whatever that is.

I have 'trained' to be a maze-man. I go where the path leads. When its blocked I turn around and redo the section until I make it out.  One of my favorite verses is Psalm 95:5, "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."  My comprehension of this text, in conjunction with Acts 17:26, the Lord determined where I would be born, when and where I would live in every stage of my life.  The verse in Psalms says to me in addition to determining my bounds the Lord directs which way I go.  You know the adage, "When God closes a door, He opens a window"?  That is exactly how maze-men live, we go along the corridor path and look out for exits.

The goods on maze-men is we learn to trust and hopefully settle in that trust.  The bad is we have no idea how to deal with more than one exit.  And when someone asks for an opinion, we have none.  Maybe it's just me.

Is it acceptable?  I am not sure.  Maybe for a season, not thirty odd years; it's ridiculous at that stage!  Isn't it?  How does one fix it? Is it even something that needs to be fixed?

Father was right

My error was not trying to prove him wrong, instead I settled for proving him right.  I have done it!

He always said I was lazy.  Never could do well enough to meet his standards.  So like the 'good' son, I decided, "Who am I to make him a liar?  I will show him he is right."  All the work I have done for him was out of obedience, maybe part of me wanted him to take those words back. 

All the work I did since him was work I did  for me, I was going to be the lazy success.  When I think I overwork something (it happens!) I wonder if I am trying to disprove him. 

At the end of the day, I am convinced I am lazy.  He won, but I do not behave like a lazy person, I work hard, and get a lot done.  My leisure is riddled with guilt; I am never sure if it is beneficial guilt or painful scars.  He explained, it was to inspire me.  I responded, it broke me.  He replied it inspired others.  I repeated it broke me.  We circled that drain until I shrugged, oh well.  I think I wanted an apology but knew I would never get it.

You do not hold on to hurts, or else they keep hurting.  But at times we have held onto them so close they are all we have.  It is so sad when you befriend pain, but Christ comes in and He will take that away too.  Then He gives you the gall to forgive, the bravery to love in return and embrace the source of your pain.  It's slow going, but all things that last are.  Trees remain after the bushfire, the old trees, while grass, flowers and saplings die.

You did your best, I respect that and I will love you for it, for you and for Him.  Father was right.

The Elusive Ment-gasm

I got close today; yes that is how I will start.

My twisted friend defined the mentgasm simply as a mental orgasm, a euphoria secondary to intellectual stimulation.  Mentgasms occur in conversations and epiphanies, solo or aided.  I have found this a rare gift.  Unfortunately for me, most things are not stimulating.  This is the reason I so long for school and more school - mental stimulation.  It is rarely at work, at home, at church; it is rarely anywhere I am.

Now, granted, I have a tendency to return conversations to the 'shallow end' by wise-cracking.  Depth is intriguing but tends to foster a form of intimacy I do not always want to allow.  In a manner of speaking, I think some mentgasms occur in the sharing of guarded information.  I guard very well, and for a friendless fellow guard too closely the contents of my uninterested life.  Hence the elusive mentgasm.  It is like my sense on procreation, I want it to happen even though I do everything to impede it.

I spent the evening with the international graduate student group from school.  A group of strangers (Kenya, Zimbabwe, S.Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Afghanistan) met in a (perfect place-) local International house of pancakes (oh the non-irony!) and discussed individual and national histories.  We discussed geopolitics and culture differences.  Nationalism and the lack thereof.  There were books mentioned, we compared towns, cities, backgrounds, events.  It was great.  It was new, but it was old and familiar.  I felt like I belonged away from here again.

There is still one mentgasm I seek, one so close yet so far.