Exiting the Snowglobe

I am now an amateur therapist to the misdirected and the miscreant. Bartender I have become. Were I to let it, this mediation between martini and souse could uproot the trappings of orthodoxy I am planted in and cast me onto the roadside of worldliness. There my conscience would be trampled by the bustling and carousing of a crowd unaware of the destination their wide road was leading them towards. They are too busy contemplating their feet to be bothered with where those feet are taking them.

But grounded I shall remain, unblown by the winds of instantaneous gratification, undrawn by the fragrant scent of temptation. It will not be easy. Worthy things rarely are. Yet, something will make it all possible for me. I believe in the grace God gives for sanctification. And I believe hard.

I spent my college years bubbled in a Christian university. Before that, I went to a private Christian school. For 13 years. I would not call myself sheltered, but would anyone call themselves that? The Christian education is by no means a bad thing, I am very grateful for it, but I have since learned that that environment is very resistant to certain sins (say, knocking over a 7-11) and very susceptible to other sins (like condescension, or envy). And when you exit that encapsulated world, you find that outside the Thomas Kinkade snowglobe, every temptation is rocketed at you like a Randy Johnson fastball. It is easy to give in slowly, to take a small step down, and then another, and another, until the miniature staircase of compromise has led you all the way down to hell.

Holiness is not easy. Sin is. Life, if lived well, is not always comfortable. The mind of the young man is wayward and easily swayed. My roots must run deeper than my enemy's determination. Bartender am I, pagan I will not be.

My Children Will Read A.A. Milne

Not Recommended For Actual Bowling.

I'm sick. I blame it on the rain. (If Milli Vanilli didn't just run through you're head, you are a robot; please do not take over the human race until after I die. From this sickness.) It's been raining nonstop for the past week here in Southern California, but the rain is just a clever delivery boy, meant to wreak pain and misery on my overtaxed immune system. Congratulations to whatever rainfall deity I have slighted, you have your revenge.

My nose feels like the Hoover Dam, constantly holding back a large amount of fluid while periodically releasing huge spurts. Kleenex, take all my money, just give me more of your fluffy softness to ease my Rudolph-an nose. My sneezes feel like someone threw a bowling ball covered in spikes at my chest...twice. However, this is not a blog meant as a forum for my personal grievances and ailments (see here). And while I cannot divorce application from anecdote, I can get to the point. And I intend to do so with all the brevity of Polonius.

I can't get over this rain. It strikes such a discordant note with man's world. Rain erodes roads, causes colds, leaks through roofs onto our restaurant tables, ruins the wash we just gave our car, floods our cherished houses, and generally musses up our slickly-moused plans. Rain is a jerk.

But, when it harmonizes with nature, rain nourishes, replenishes, hydrates, cleans, clears, grows, and nurtures much life. Rain is so integral to any ecosystem, that no life would survive without it. And that is where we may get our first clue that this place is not, in fact, man's world. That rain did not fall caring about our cars or haircuts, it came to feed the flowers. And there it's purpose is great.

No, this world is not man's. It belongs to Someone above nature, who governs it and directs it. It is His world, and He has decreed that there be such a thing as rain. Rain that can seem to cause harm on the superficial levels we cherish, but is rather an agent for growth and nourishment. He has another agent too. It is called suffering. For in suffering, the idols we uphold are shown to be tarnished and temporary. In suffering, our growth is guaranteed.

And so we come back to my sickness. It is most certainly not resisting the world to the point of shedding blood, but it is a reminder that I, like my idols, am broken. I, like the flower, need an agent of growth.

So thanks God. Thanks for the bowling ball to the chest.

Earth As Art

In case you haven't been stunned yet today.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/earth-as-art-gallery/?pid=595


Also, I find it unreal that this photo was taken on this planet.


Courtesy of http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap101130.html

Undisciplined Drive

A lot has happened. Time, that crafty wizard, slunk by me with torpedic speed. My girlfriend and I broke up, I became a bartender, Christmas is almost here, and the world spins as it ever did. Tumult upon tumult, the ever-changing sameness.

This blog was never meant to be overtly personal, but one cannot divorce lessons learned from life lived. So I tell you a tidbit about myself (a morsel here, a smidgen there), and maybe you'll piece together a picture of me. A picture of imperfection and process and arrogance and hope. Maybe your vision is better than mine, and you'll catch another essence, or another trait (please tell if you do). And hopefully, amidst it all, the lessons catch like wildfire, or at least a bad cold.

It's stormy outside, befitting my mood. I am either a weather god, or the seasons are doing as they're told, melting into one another and generating polite conversation. So, they're stormy because of the tilt of the earth and the decree of the divine, but why is my mood brooding and mopey? Well, discipline has rather gone the way of the dinosaur in my life, and that grieves me. There's the girlfriend thing, which doesn't help, and of course, I'm not reading as much.

I could really use Someone who cares right now. And whadya know? He's here.