Good Luck Surviving

I've harped on the whole "I'm a sinner, God forgives, God is awesome" theme alot lately, so I'm going to move on to another topic - elephant seals.

Why elephant seals are cool:
They are the largest members of the order Carnivora on earth. That's right, elephant seals > lions.
They eat squids, penguins (sad!), octopi, and sharks. Yes, I said sharks.
They don't have many teeth, so they eat rocks, which then help to grind food in their stomach. Imagine eating glass to help your digestion. Sound unpleasant? Then the elephant seal is tougher than you.
A mother's milk is 55% fat. Milk? More like syrup.
They can easily kill you in the water, but you probably could've guessed that.
What I bet you couldn't guess is that they can outrun you in sand dunes, meaning they could kill you on land too.
In case you missed it, I just said that an elephant seal can outrun you. And then sit on you, with all of their 2,000 pounds. That's a car.

Size relative to a 6 ft. man







Their only predators are really big sharks, and orca (which are also cool, since they have no predators).

God made these. God made these creatures so diverse, powerful, and capable to show His own creativity. With all the wonder in nature, isn't it encouraging to think of all the ways God can provide for us, all the ways He can display His glory to us?
I guess there are some themes I just can't get away from.

Unrelenting

My pencil is heavy with caged words. I have imprisoned them, locked by laziness, jail-keeper named Forgetfulness.

Writing is a release thing, and a honing thing. One person once told me I write well, another that I write terribly. Eye of the beholder I guess.

And now, so many things burden the mind, like so many snowflakes in an avalanche. Maybe writing will ease. I would compare writing to a drug, since it can be addicting, it can be a release, it can be devastating. But writing can't heal. Only God can heal. I don't pray to writing. I pray to the God who invented writing and communicated clearest through written word.

But I am weighed and measured tonight. One truth keeps pounding in my head; mental anguish mirrored by the damage I do to those around me. That truth, I cannot escape it.

You hurt worst the ones you care about most.

I think I am just on the edge of learning this. Like the climber before Everest, I have a rough journey ahead. May my reward be the summit and not the frostbitten death.

I suppose those with wives know this better than those with girlfriends only. Which is why I think I'm only just now seeing this truth. I only have a girlfriend right now, and already I injure her in ways I mourn deeply. She is better than I, and I pray that she doesn't figure out that she deserves someone far better.
And this, this damage inflicted on the dearest objects, it is a glimpse of what I do to God.

I run His name through the mud I writhe in. And He forgives. I praise with lips and curse with heart. And He forgives. I injure and attack and lie and cheat on Him again and again. And He forgives.

Because He, too, hurt worst the One He cared about most.

Have mercy on me, O God,
According to your unfailing love;
According to your great compassion
Blot out my transgression.
Create in me a clean heart, O God...

My Native American Name Would Be "Runs Up Sunbeams"

I took a walk today. A light joy cruise to a nearby bookstore to read. Read until my eyes blurred and my stomach stirred. But the walk, that's what made me think. (Funny huh? Like going to a concert and liking the radio on the drive home more than the live band.)
And I thought, why not walk everyday? I live in a place free from the grasp of the ice-tyrant Old Man Winter. The scenery is better than the unending flatness that is Kansas (where you can see the back of your head if you stand on your tiptoes). So why not walk? The bids chirp past, fluttering through trees and flirting with each other. The sun duets with the breeze to keep my skin perfectly content. The legs rejoice with the exercise. Why don't we all get up and go walking more often?

Sometimes, it seems we go galloping past real pleasures towards whatever goal we have convinced ourselves will make us happy. But you cannot manufacture happiness. It comes from a source outside yourself. Joy has been created and stuffed into the world. It is all around you while you listen to your iPod. It is the blur you speed by on your way to the mall. It is what used to be called magic. It is deep and obvious and ignored. But even that joy is a mud puddle compared to the source of that joy. After all, if joy was created and the world was stuffed, then who created...who stuffed? Whoever He is, He has real joy to give. And I know His name.

There is more happiness to be found in one ounce of God's nature than in ten tons of our materialism. And there is more joy in one day of fellowship with His Son than in 1,000 days of nature.

#21 Books in cozy corners
#22 Sunlight on typeprint
#23 Sunlight anywhere
#24 Birds all-a-tizzy with one another
#25 Wind grazing treetops and drifters
#26 The warmth of the Son