Good Tonic

Ever since she was born, my niece, Zara, almost 3 years old, has been on the background of my computer desktop.  The picture has changed every so often, but she’s always there.  Smiling.

My niece lives several hours away from me.  And while the trip can be done in a weekend, it doesn’t seem like I really get free enough to head that way to see my brother, sister-in-law, Zara.  I’m not sure I could ever see enough of that girl, but I certainly don’t see enough of her now.  No offense to Wayne or Teresa.  I would love to see them too.  But, Zara, well, there’s something different about her.

When I was kid, we raised a litter of pure chocolate lab. puppies.  At the time, I was physically sick a lot…and my mother would bring in one of those puppies, put it on my bed.  The miracle cure.  There was just something about them that made you feel good.

That’s how Zara is.

My best friend Sally has a niece that is 6 months younger than Zara.  They live about 20 minutes away from each other.  Needless to say, Sally sees her niece a little more than I see mine.  “Good Tonic” is what Sally says when she refers to her niece.  There is just something about her that makes you feel better.

 

My desktop background hasn’t changed since Christmas.  I needed some new pictures, so I sent my brother an email, asking for a few more.

 

 

 

 

 

Just look at that grin!!!

She truly is “Good Tonic”. 

I feel better already.

 

 

(Not So) Wise Old Owl

I was watching something about birds today. 

The show I was watching talked about one type of bird that preyed on eggs of other animals.  The bird however, would have had difficulty breaking eggshells open, so the species has learned to pick up rocks and use them as tools to break open an egg shell.  The show stated that because of this idea, it made this species (And for the life of me I can’t remember what it was called) one of the most intelligent species of birds around.

It then immediately moved to the owl.  It said that, despite common belief, owls are not very intelligent creatures at all.  They just have VERY adapted senses.  They can hear for miles, they can see in the dark.  It even said that when an owl sees it’s prey, it swoops down to catch it, but just before it reaches it’s prey…IT CLOSES IT’S EYES!  and relies on it’s highly sensitive talons to search out the prey and make the catch.

It really made me think. 

I sometimes think I can analyze.  Fix problems by using my brain. 

Sometimes though, life doesn’t work that way.  Especially when the Spirit comes in to play.  It can’t be reasoned.  It can’t be explained.

But it doesn’t need to be.

Sometimes, we just need to close our eyes, say a prayer, and trust that God will work in us, and through us, and keep our own minds out of the way so He can do His work.

May we all learn to be a bit more like the Owl.  May we learn to cast aside the reasonings of our minds, and follow our hearts.  For it is to our heart, that God speaks.  God does not wish to be reasoned, God wishes to be sought. 

We can learn from the Owl.  Even if it isn’t very “wise”.

Peace.

Cleaning Out (Ripping)

When I got my MP3 player, I did 2 things.  First, I ripped my favorite CD’s.  About 20 of the 200 I have.  Then I got a subscription to Napster, which, if you pay a monthly fee ($14.95) you can essentially RENT, not own, your music.  But, as long as you pay, you can get as many songs for as long as you like.

So, now I have over 18 gigs of music and other random things…And, I’ve realized that 1) I don’t really want to pay the monthly fee for Napster anymore, and 2) I really want to OWN my music anyway.  I mean, ITunes doesn’t even let you OWN the music…you are still very limited with what you can do with it.

In order to reconcile these thoughts a little bit, I’ve decided to go through ALL my CD’s and rip them.  When I’m done, I will go through and delete my Napster songs and cancel my subscription (sigh).  I’m just at the point where I feel like I want ownership of my music.  And I also think I’m listening to alot more Indie music now anyway, and, quite honestly, I think they get gipped sometimes because people only buy their singles, not their CD’s.  But that’s a whole other soap box.

All that being said, I’m now ripping all my CD’s and I’m thinking to myself… “What the hell was I thinking buying that CD.”  I haven’t even seen these albums in over 3 years.  Let alone listened to them.  My CD Case just kind of got pushed aside when the MP3 player rolled on scene.  Things like, Eminem, Kid Rock, DMX…things I used to listen to all the time…and now I can’t imagine ever really enjoying them again.  As I give each CD a brief run through, I realize that there are still a few songs I might listen to again.  And I’ve spent a ton of money on CD’s (over 200 X 10 bucks a CD = $2000 ; and most CD’s were more than 10).  I just have a hard time throwing them out, or giving them away.  So here I am, just ripping them onto my computer. 

I remember how I felt when I was listening to that stuff.  I remember what was going on in my life when I bought them.  I remember how angry I was.  How unhappy I was. 

Most of all, I remember how that music just seemed to fuel it.  It made me more angry.  Made me want to go get in a fight.  Or drive at ludicrous (oh…Ludichris, that’s another CD I have) speed…not on the interstate, but on swervy back roads.  When I think about it, it’s amazing how angry I was.  I felt like the guy on Grand Theft Auto…just pissed off at the world and ready to blow someone’s head off.

Not good. 

I think someday I will want to listen to some of this again.  But that’s a bit scary.  There was a time in my life when people spewing bad language used to really make me uncomfortable.  Then I started listening to this stuff…and it just desensitized it.  Made it normal to talk like that.  Made punching people ok.  I’m now to the point where it makes me uncomfortable again.

I guess, out of discipline…or maybe just temptation, I’m keeping these albums.  Maybe someday I’ll listen to them again, and not be so caught up in what they are saying.  Maybe someday I won’t let it affect me as much.

But, if media is going to be that way, affect me that way, I’d much rather put words of Praise on my lips rather than words of hate. 

I just got a phone call from a friend of mine, and as I explain this to her, she says, I think it’s good you aren’t throwing them out.  Someday you may throw them out, but today, you just need to own the fact that you were angry.

So, as I clean out the closet here, I guess that’s where I’m at.  Owning being angry, not denying that I was, but accepting it.  And knowing that life is better when I’m not.

Incidently, if Michael (my brother) ever reads this, he’ll probably laugh.  Aabout 10 years ago I did throw out a bunch of CD’s.  All these CD’s that I thought weren’t “Christian”.  Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, Disney…all those things were gone.  When all was said and done I had about 3 CD’s.  I think my brother  saved most of them for me though, knowing that at some point I would realize that there was good, decent, music that wasn’t labelled as “Christian”.  Somehow, I can’t really remember how, they did end up back in my CD case.  Again, I think my brother rescued them. 

Nice to have someone looking out for your tunes.

Peace.

The Fall…

I was in counseling today….it’s funny to me how that kind of spurs a post…when I haven’t posted in a long time.

I suppose that’s a good thing though.  Writing in itself, is good.  I’ll spare you an apology for not writing in so long, just know that when I can, and when it’s appropriate, I will.

I was discussing with my counselor how hard life is sometimes…which is probably why I’m in counseling in the first place, but that’s another post for another time.  We were discussing authenticity.  And how important it is for me to become authentic to who I am, and who God has called me to be.

He mentioned the movie “The Matrix”.  Which, when it first came out, I saw about a dozen times it seems…but haven’t seen it in years.  As soon as he said the movie I knew what he was going to refer to.  That moment when Neo is presented with the red pill or the blue pill.  One pill lets him go home, wake up, and not remember anything that has happened…and the other opens his eyes.

I knew that’s the moment my counselor was going to refer to.  So I jumped the gun.  Cut him off…and I was pretty excited, because I love to talk movies with my counselor…so I immediately jump in. 

“Oh yeah, I said…that moment with the pills.  We use images like that all the time with the youth group.  You take the pill and suddenly you realize that there is more to life than what it seems.  Your eyes are open!”  And then I started to ramble a bit…my counselor, what a patient man…just let me go on…”I mean, it happens in Harry Potter…when he suddenly realizes he’s a wizard, and there is so much more to life; And with Frodo in the Lord of the Rings; and with the children in Peter Pan as they realize that the second star to the right is not just a star, but a whole new land!”

He smiled, clearly loving my excitement.

I went on, “What great images to use to show that God is a part of this world.  That he is present, and we just have to open our eyes to see him!  How awesome is it to recognize how great life can be when we open our eyes to that fact!”

He interrupted me then.  “Yeah David, amazing images.  Very cool.  But Neo’s was a bit different.  When he took the pill, and his eyes were open…the world was dark, and dreary, and desolate.  It seemed like the perfect embodiment of “The Fall” to me.”

 Wow.  I had totally forgotten it.  The big difference.  Frodo, Harry Potter, and the rest all seem to enter a much more full and enriching life.

But Neo…Neo entered our life.  Our life is dark.  Our life is dreary.  Our life is desolate.

We are broken.  We are fallen.  And that scene reminds us all of that.

Dark.  Dreary.  Desolate.

And it sucks.

In the movie, they go on to discuss how the “agents” of the matrix are very powerful, but they are limited.

 The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”
      Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

                                                                 -JOB 1:12 (NIV)

Thank you God…for having mercy…for limiting the power of evil over us…

And even though this world is dark, dreary, and desolate,

And even though we are fallen,

Thank you Lord, for being a part of this world with us.

Peace.

The One Who Loves You the Most

“See, when you forgive your imperfections
And you’ve auctioned all your clothes
And look to see your true reflection
You will be the one who loves you the most”

                           - Brett Dennen, The One Who Loves You the Most

Brett Dennen is my new favorite singer.  Great musical ability, totally unique voice, incredible lyricist.  He really speaks to me.  And in this song specifically, he speaks how through everything, all the pain of life, he says, “I will be the one who loves you the most.”

And then, in his last verse (see above) he changes it.  YOU will be the one who loves you the most.

I desperately want to be the one who loves me the most.

Coward

I was in counseling today…we were talking about my reactions to people and events.  How I respond to conflict.  It’s pretty well known that people either do two things with conflict.  That whole fight or flight response.  My counselor said, “David, you can either fight, or you can run away.  Now…someone who fights is…what?”

“Someone with Courage,” I said without hesitation.

“And someone who runs away?”

And honestly, for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with the word.  We sat in silence while I squirmed in my seat for 5 minutes trying to come up with the word.  Eventually he said, without telling me the word, “I find it very interesting that the word is escaping you at this moment.”

But it just didn’t come.  It was on the tip of my tongue, and I just couldn’t say it.  I literally could not form the word.

Finally, he said the word.  And then he said,

“You are one.”

Pain Management

A friend of mine who is a nurse tells me that pain is much easier to manage if you get ahead of the game with it, and take the medications as directed, predictably, whether it hurts or not.

 It just seems that sometimes, we have to stop taking the medicine…just to make sure it still hurts.

Sometimes, if you’ve taken the medicine long enough, you decide to skip a dose, and the pain isn’t that bad.  You start to ween yourself off the meds…and the pain never really returns.  Your body has healed.  The pain has stopped.

 And then, sometimes, you take the medicine for  a while, and you decide to skip a dose, and the pain comes rushing back.  Unfortunately, when that happens, it’s sometimes even harder to get the pain back under control again.

For some reason I still have to do it.  I still have to test.  I still have to know if the pain is gone.  I have to know if I’ve healed.

Nope.  I haven’t.  It still hurts…guess I’ll take a few more doses.

Obladee, Obladah

I’m separated from my wife.  I’m about to be divorced.

Most of you who know me, also know that about me….but if you don’t, it’s true.  And quite honestly, it’s not that big of a deal.  There are much more dire situations occuring in the world these days.  Starvation, Wildfires, Floods, Hurricanes, Disasters, Cancer, Aids, other diseases…  These things are life and death situations.  The fact that my wife and I are terminating our marriage…not life or death.  Yes, it hurts, but it is not the end of the world.

Sometimes it feels like it though.

I think I keep expecting things to change.  Sometimes I wake up and I am furious because the sun is shining.

No….I think….Today is a gray day.

Everyday should be gray and hazy.

I expect everyone to know what has happened, and why it happened.  I’m going through all this…why should I have to explain it.  You should already know about it.

I expect time to stand still.   I think, it can’t be 3PM in the afternoon.  I didn’t sleep last night.  I tossed and turned…all night.  How on earth could time go on???

A friend of mine says that after he published his first book, he would see it on the shelves in bookstores, and think, “Well, there’s that.”  The world didn’t stop because he published his book.

Just like the world won’t stop because of this.

No matter how hard I dig my heels into the dirt, I can’t stop the world from spinning on it’s axis.  And so time passes.  A day.  Another day.  A week.  A month.  Time passes.  And each day, I curse the sun…I curse the sun for shining on my dark, dreary, gray day.

How Dare He.

Obladee, Obladah…Life goes on.

Damn you, Sun.  Damn you.

Excuse me…what’s my Inspiration???

So…I haven’t blogged a lot.

 I usually don’t, to be perfectly honest.

I like the “idea” of blogging.  I like to do it.  I like to write.  I like to think through my thoughts.  And I actually kind of like having my thoughts out there for the whole world to see.  But, for some reason, when it comes down to writing…I just don’t do it.

I wish I did.

I have a friend who is a writer, and I remember reading a blog of his a few months back.  It essentially said that a lot of people want to be writers (which is true, I think everyone wants to be at some level, which may be why blogging is so popular).  Anyway…A lot of people want to be writer’s…and he said that really…the only thing to writing…was to WRITE.

 Go figure, right?

It’s not going to get written without you (or me, in my case) writing it.

I’m reminded of a commercial for some product, I can’t remember.  And I don’t really remember the premise of the commercial either.  I think I remember, but I may be way off.  Essentially, as I recall, it was a few no-name actors that were trying this product.  They were trying to act like Shakespearian actors, and really ham it up…and finally one of them looks to the camera and says, “Excuse me….what’s my motivation?”  It was actually pretty funny in the commercial…but I realize that here, maybe not so much.

What motivates us to write?   What inspires us to write???  I say us there, because I’m hoping that you, as Joe Blogreader, are somewhat in this with me…or can at least relate.

I know the answers to those questions are different for everybody.  I mean, for me, at this moment, my lack of inspiration is what is inspiring me to write.

I guess what it all boils down to is that I need motivation, but for me, writing is not motivation in itself. 

What is kind of ironic to me is that my life is literally filled with inspiration…I just have to pay attention.

Input / Output Error

I remember back in the day when I was a Computer Science major (it didn’t last long, Calculus 2 put a quick end to it).  I was pretty good at programming…thinking logically really is all it involves.  If you want the computer to do this, you just have to tell it step by step exactly what to do in a way that it understands. 

All that being said, the dreaded thing that would come up when I programmed was the old, “input / output” error.  Essentially what this means is that the computer recieves something, has to process it, and then spits out something else.  I mean, look at a calculator.  The user says 2 + 2, which the computer in the calculator recieves, and then outputs a 4.

Unless something goes wrong.  Sometimes, the computer expects a number, so that it can spit back out a different number.  And Input / Output error would occur when the computer expects a number, and the user types a letter instead.  Now…for the most part, these issues are dealt with…the computer just asks for the same thing again, until it recieves the correct information so that it can output correctly…but if the programmer didn’t tell the computer what to do with that wrong information, then the program would display the error and quit running.  A good programmer knows what the computer will do when the wrong information is given, and will tell the computer how to handle it.

But input / output errors are a pain in the butt for a novice programmer.

I was thinking about how my counseling sessions have been going.  The things that I’ve been finding out.

I think alot of my life has been an input output error.

People who are important to me will tell me something.  Give me input.  This input would then be processed. And would generally cause some sort of output in response.

Somewhere in the flow of that…usually along the processing part…I get mixed up.  It’s a lot of why this rebirth is happening in me.  That whole processing thing…It gets messed up, and I’ve been programmed to give a different response than what is normal.

My counselor put it this way…

Say my mother were to call me and say, “Hey David, we haven’t seen you in a while.  When will we see you?”

Somewhere along the line, after recieving that input, my mind says, “David…you’re a terrible son for not going to see your mother.”

Now…that processing, that’s not right.  Because I am a great son, and deep down I know that.  But I process wrong…so, instead of saying, “I’ll see you three weeks from tomorrow,” I panic, and start apologizing, and try to drop everything to go see my mother.

This is how my brain works.  It’s this input /output error rearing it’s ugly head. 

Here’s the good part…ya know how I said a good programmer knows how to tell the computer how to deal with the bad input or output???

 God is an awesome programmer.  He’s the best I’d say. 

Give it some time, and my programs will be error free.