upon moving into the neighborhood
recently (as in the past year or so) posts have been scarce upon this blog — but very recently (as in the past few weeks or s0) i have not written much of anything that i would be able to share with the invisible world that may never read these posts.
suffice it to say, as of late, the content in my life has been heavier than that which i have ever dealt with before. i have been forced to walk down roads of self discovery that i never knew existed, and to come face to face with a God that i must admit i had forgotten how to love with my whole heart. meeting with God has proven to be quite a transformative process and i would like to share some of my findings with you.
i am discovering more and more how important monuments are — that oftentimes, the only thing i can speak of in relation to God is my experience of God and in the ways i have felt God work in my life and the lives of others around me. it is important to take note of these, whether mentally, or with pen and paper, to later remember the great things God has done. how easy it is to forget that we love and serve a God who is active in the world around us!
i am discovering the importance of deep roots — that meeting with God on a daily basis at regular times helps me to foster a relationship. because God has proven to be close, rather than being somewhere far away, this God is imminent; always at hand, and it is always necessary to maintain a connection in order to enjoy God’s presence.
there are myriads of ways in which God has been growing and stretching me lately, but these are two of the highlights i wish to share here. it’s not easy, but God is here.
every time every time
the rules are simple. pictionary.
i’d say the tree looks anemic, but we couldn’t do much better here — it would dominate the space.
ok. it’s not going to hold very many ornaments. we don’t have a lot of ornaments. we have boatloads. i know, he’s still gloating.
or bloating.
sarcasm of course.
Wisdom Teeth
For the past three years, I have been putting off getting my wisdom teeth taken out, and for good reason: Pain! Now, don’t get me wrong – there are several surgeries which I would rather not tolerate than wisdom teeth removal, but this surgery seems oh so unnecessary, and has seemed unnecessary for the longest time; until I went in for a consultation.
First off – evolution has been telling us for quite some time that we no longer need wisdom teeth; that the kind of diet we have is not conducive to keeping them. When people used to eat all sorts of fiber-rich food that needed to be masticated fully before swallowing, they needed their wisdom teeth, and thus through natural selection, would choose mates that would produce offspring that should be able to survive a world of chewing on twigs and bark. Because of this, I always assumed I would need my wisdom teeth later in life, especially since I am a vegetarian. Our diets are rich in fibrous foods that are difficult to chew without those tertiary molars.
When I went into my consultation for the dreaded surgery I had been avoiding for three years, I sat in the waiting room for a bit, filled out some insurance paperwork, and then went into the doctor’s office where there sat waiting for me a thirteen inch CRT television hooked up to a DVD player. The assistant showed me a video that contained a plethora of information about both the harms of keeping my wisdom teeth (nerve damage, sinus damage, cysts, damage to other teeth, etc.) and harms for removing them (the same; including death as a potential side effect to the anesthesia.) Now, since I am here right now typing, the assumption is that I have not died; while this is true, I still wonder if I made the correct choice. These bad boys hurt!
words for today
psalm 139:14-17
i praise you because i am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful i know that full well. my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in the secret place when i was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. how precious to me are your thoughts, God! how vast is the sum of them!
jeremiah 18:3-6
so i went down to the potter’s house, and i saw him working at the wheel. but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. then the word of the LORD came to me. he said, “can i not do with you, house of israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “like clay in the hand of a potter, so you are in my hand house of israel.
philippians 3:12-14
not that i have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but i press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. brothers and sisters, i do not consider myself o have yet taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, i press on toward the goal to win the prize for which god has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
The Monster Sloth and its Contemporaries
In the year 1788 the remains of an animal of gigantic proportions were found in a bed of clay on the banks of the Luxor, about twelve miles W.S.W. of Buenos Ayres, Paraguay. They were evidently the bones of some extinct animal, for there was no creature living with such massive limbs. Its thigh-bone was twice the thickness of the thigh-bone of the largest elephant ; it had a foot at least a yard long ; yet, singular to say, its head was a comparatively small one. The bones were brought to Madrid, and set up in the Royal Cabinet of Natural History there. The accompanying illustration is a representation of the skeleton, which, it will be observed, is not quite complete, as the inner portions of the pelvis, or haunch-bones, are wanting ; also the tail, portions of the ribs, and other parts.
-World of Wonders, 1883
A Remarkable Journey
There have been some speculations for my elongated absence from the blogosphere. One such explanation was made in 1883 from The World of Wonders:
An extraordinary tricycle journey was accomplished by the VicePresident of the Lyons Bicycle Club, accompanied by his wife, on a two-seated ” machine,” in May of 1882. The travellers went from Lyons, through Nice, Genoa, and Rome, to Naples, returning via Florence and Turin, the whole journey, representing a distance of some 2,300 miles, being accomplished at an average of about fifty to sixty miles for each day on the road.
kanye west or humanity?
If you haven’t seen or heard of Kanye West’s faux pas at the MTV VMAs, you might have a hard time finding it on YouTube because of copyright issues. Basically, Swift goes up to receive her award and in the middle of thanking her fans, West struts up on stage, grabs the microphone, says he’s proud of her- but ultimately tells the audience that Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time. Most would take some time here to talk about how big of a douche bag West is; the truth is -
He’s BRILLIANT.
Why?
Because this was memorable. While I never would have heard about Swift’s award, there are definitely some who may have talked about it the day after the ceremony. But that would be it. Only a day. Only some.
Right now, the US and most of the world is going through one of the largest financial recessions in world history.
There are billions of people in the world living on less than $2 a day.
But, we in America are giving a massive middle finger, not to the terrors of the world, but to one man who pissed some of us off last night. West is acting as a distraction from the pain present in the world we live in.
And isn’t this allegorical to something else? In many ways, this encounter with West represents America as viewed by a good portion of the world. America is a nation that says, “We’re the best there is. We are the best there ever was. Everyone else should be like us. We are legendary.”
If West wasn’t brilliant, we would just ignore him. Maybe we’d actually try to play a part in solving some of the world’s problems and eradicating certain systems of injustice. Maybe more of us would actually take a stab at fixing the world. Perhaps.
There always could be some form of mind numbing nonsense that distracts us from what actually matters. I wonder if that is the brilliance of it all.
garbage can or face?
As an answer to the previous inquiry;
smirking of course
he smashed the Coke bottle
deeper
into
the mouth
already spilling over with shards.
happy birthday ;)
steve sent me this in an email titled “happy birthday.”
steve makes a lot of cupcakes.
and steve sent me this in an email titled “happy birthday.”
it was very nice of him.
oh!
by the way… if i forgot to mention it:
i probably won’t be posting on this blog for the summer. i’ll be using my summer blog.
thanks for visiting!
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