Hey everybody. Just thought I'd fill with the latest. Things are good even though I'm still a little bit behind on my home responsibilities. I'm leaving town next week for two weeks though. The company is sending me to Cookville to work at Tennessee Tech. We have a huge system to install and I'm sort of looking forward to it and sort of not. I haven't been out of Nashville in several months, so it would be a nice change of pace, and I've always liked hotels. I don't think I'll enjoy having to be away from Lindsay for that long, but it might turn out to be good for us, who knows.
I haven't been to the Y at all this week because I get drained after work. I'll probably go either tomorrow or Friday, but it will take some motivation.
I'm really excited about a lot of different stuff right now. I can't really express it much, but that's how I feel.
Peace and love.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Targeting Myself
Work was kind of difficult today. I just got home and already I'm writing. That in itself should be an indicator. I was driving the van today and when I left the office, all was right in the world. I felt like I had my head sewed on pretty tightly. I thought that until I got to the job site and hour away and realized that after having loaded in the supplies for the job, I had completely forgotten about my tools. I was so ashamed, and I sank into a dark shroud of guilt and worthlessness. My co-worker soon arrived and I told him about it and he didn't get as discouraged as I would have imagined. He said he had enough tools for the both of us, but in all honesty, that mistakes was the outlet my frustration was looking for. My frustration's favorite target is myself. For me there is less guilt in being frustrated with myself than being frustrated with other people. The reason being is that I know what I'm thinking all the time, and so there is no confusion or misconception when I come to a final judgment. When I get frustrated with other people and it comes to the surface, it's pretty easy for them to convince me that I'm wrong and that I should be frustrated with myself instead of them. It's a cycle, but that's just the way I am.
I don't usually wear it on my sleeve though. I can keep my cool and forge ahead, while inside a huge battle commences. It's my "I've got things together" face, and I wear it well. I think I'm finding the source of things right now as I sit at home alone in the quiet. I think the source of it is all of the crap piling up behind me in my home life while I work. I need to take the night off just to get caught up. I'll probably still go swimming if I can get things done in time, but I'm going to be working hard at sorting out my mind today.
Maybe I'll talk more later.
I don't usually wear it on my sleeve though. I can keep my cool and forge ahead, while inside a huge battle commences. It's my "I've got things together" face, and I wear it well. I think I'm finding the source of things right now as I sit at home alone in the quiet. I think the source of it is all of the crap piling up behind me in my home life while I work. I need to take the night off just to get caught up. I'll probably still go swimming if I can get things done in time, but I'm going to be working hard at sorting out my mind today.
Maybe I'll talk more later.
Hufff
Well... I slept on it, and I'm still really aggravated this morning. I'm going to work either way. Maybe I can leave this baggage at home.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Aggravated
I'm not in the greatest of moods today. I'm not quite sure what the root of it all is, but I know what it's lashing out towards. I need a vacation, not just a day off to do other stuff, I mean a full blown vacation. I wanna take off on my bike somewhere, maybe like a day-trip to Asheville. That would be awesome. I just need some time to recharge, time that won't be coming for a good while. My weekends usually have one obligation or another that keeps me in town. I think I need to clear up my schedule for some R&R.
I get paid Friday. That's a good thing. For anyone who thought it would be a good idea to pay all of your bills at once... It isn't. Pay in lumps because you never know what extra expenses you will have along the way. I know for a lot of people that might be common sense, but you have to remember, I just started this game.
I didn't go swimming today. I needed to take a break. Besides, work was hard enough, me being in an attic again. This attic was built in 1935 and sits over the sanctuary of a Methodist Church. It was full of insulation, maybe asbestos, rat droppings, and brown recluse. Let's not forget the plus hundred degree temperatures. I know I know, it's a lot like my old home. I know, I should have felt at ease up there, but I think I've been living with AC now just long enough to be used to it. I took one look at it and drove to Walmart to buy a headlamp and face masks. I started making some dumb mistakes too. I hate that. I also hate how I don't seem to work quite as fast as the other guys, but I've gotta remember that I'm still fairly new.
I'm tired of typing. I'm done typing for now.
Peace and love
I get paid Friday. That's a good thing. For anyone who thought it would be a good idea to pay all of your bills at once... It isn't. Pay in lumps because you never know what extra expenses you will have along the way. I know for a lot of people that might be common sense, but you have to remember, I just started this game.
I didn't go swimming today. I needed to take a break. Besides, work was hard enough, me being in an attic again. This attic was built in 1935 and sits over the sanctuary of a Methodist Church. It was full of insulation, maybe asbestos, rat droppings, and brown recluse. Let's not forget the plus hundred degree temperatures. I know I know, it's a lot like my old home. I know, I should have felt at ease up there, but I think I've been living with AC now just long enough to be used to it. I took one look at it and drove to Walmart to buy a headlamp and face masks. I started making some dumb mistakes too. I hate that. I also hate how I don't seem to work quite as fast as the other guys, but I've gotta remember that I'm still fairly new.
I'm tired of typing. I'm done typing for now.
Peace and love
Monday, September 17, 2007
Lap Lanes
Firefox isn't working very well for me right now. It does that every once-in-a-while. It'll work just fine for a long time, and then it tends to just seize up. I smell a new update. Perhaps I'll just use Safari until they put one out.
Work was okay today. I mean there wasn't really much to it. I was installing small speakers into ceiling tile to serve as a masking system for a business office off of Harding. I spent most of my day on a ladder and it's getting to where I don't really care for ceiling tile all that much anymore. I say that as I look up and see the ceiling tile in my room. I just want to install speakers into them for some reason. Is that wrong? My landlord probably wouldn't be too happy if I just cut up his ceiling tile. Perhaps I won't.
After I got home, I decided to go to the Y and swim even thought I was already beat. I just want to keep it regular, and I'm starting to feel good again from it. When I got there... ya know... let me just say this. Don't ever go anywhere in Nashville between the hours of 5 and 7. Know that and you will save yourself a lot of frustration. So after a very short bout of swimming in a double lane pretty much full of people who could swim just about as fast as I tread water, I got out and hit the showers. I had road rage. It was like I was sitting in my car on a stereotypical Nashville road. Everybody drives slower than the speed limit and they get really pissed off if you drive normally. I will stick to my later night time slot. That seems to work out well for me.
Anyways, I'm out. Peace and love.
Work was okay today. I mean there wasn't really much to it. I was installing small speakers into ceiling tile to serve as a masking system for a business office off of Harding. I spent most of my day on a ladder and it's getting to where I don't really care for ceiling tile all that much anymore. I say that as I look up and see the ceiling tile in my room. I just want to install speakers into them for some reason. Is that wrong? My landlord probably wouldn't be too happy if I just cut up his ceiling tile. Perhaps I won't.
After I got home, I decided to go to the Y and swim even thought I was already beat. I just want to keep it regular, and I'm starting to feel good again from it. When I got there... ya know... let me just say this. Don't ever go anywhere in Nashville between the hours of 5 and 7. Know that and you will save yourself a lot of frustration. So after a very short bout of swimming in a double lane pretty much full of people who could swim just about as fast as I tread water, I got out and hit the showers. I had road rage. It was like I was sitting in my car on a stereotypical Nashville road. Everybody drives slower than the speed limit and they get really pissed off if you drive normally. I will stick to my later night time slot. That seems to work out well for me.
Anyways, I'm out. Peace and love.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
We Can't Fix it All
Having a role model isn't a practice that I'm familiar with. I think of when I was a kid, I maybe had one or two people on a list so that if I were asked, I wouldn't sound weird. I think Michael Jordan was one at some point, maybe my Tae Kwon Do instructor, Mr. Lamp, was a real role model for me. It's difficult to say. I've never felt like I needed one, though I did shape my actions around certain people who were close to me in order to please them, but that's not what a role model is in my opinion.
I have a role model now, oddly enough. I'm 23 years old and I picked up a role model. My pastor is a great role model to me because he just seems to have an incredible understanding of things to me. He thinks in a way that is approachable to me, and he's excited about it all the time. I want to be like that. I want to make sense to other people like that.
It's hard to remember that our role models are human sometimes though, and that they will undoubtedly fail us. Today was a rough day for me. I was in charge of front of house audio at church. That's a pretty big responsibility where we're from because we have to do a complete set up from scratch every Sunday in the amount of time that most churches do their sound check. I'm getting pretty crafty and knowledgeable in the ways of that room, but I'm no perfect. I don't think any audio guy is perfect. It's a rough job title though. It's the kind of job that no one gives a damn who you are unless you screw up. The only recognition you will get is negative. I knew that going in, but part of me still expects people to be relatively understanding. Ah, but that's a laugh. People look at a sound guy and they all think, "Hey, I could do that. Just put me behind the board and I'll know exactly what to do." Right. I thought that way once too. The truth is, there's so much to know it's almost impossible find your baring, but you do the best you can with the circumstances you are given. It's all about solving problems in a chain of possibilities as fast as you can. Then, you might just figure out that it's out of your control, much like today.
The senior staff at church wanted to get rid of us volunteers. There's so many glitches on Sundays that they thought it would just be a better investment to hire a staff engineer. That way if anything goes wrong, they can just blame the guy they pay. We like doing it though, so we came up with an alternative answer. We would start communicating better, get tighter in our performance and function more fluidly. Two of us, myself included, actually did spend the past four years studying the arts of Audio Engineering in depth at a university. We're not incompetent or without experience. So that's what we've been doing for the past two weeks or so. The senior staff has very short patience, evidently. There is no room for error, as there shouldn't be, but some things we just can't help.
Today we got everything set up in sort of a tizzy. One of the guys just completely forgot that he was supposed to be there, so he didn't show up, and I ended up calling Matt to come in and help. So Matt gets there and Dax shows up for an hour to help, and we do the best we can. We get things running, I get a house mix, and I set up the recorder and get the proper levels. Things turn out well. The service starts and the pastor gets up to speak. His mic works, but the EQ sounds a little thin, so I asked Eric to come and help me out with it because my ears just felt burned out. His would be fresh and he would be able to tweak the EQ a little more efficiently than I. He did, and again, things were going well. That is until the prayer in between worship songs. The pastor stands up to pray and we note this, so his fader goes up right before he speaks, but... nothing. No signal. What's wrong? A dead battery? Did he turn his mic on? He fidgets with it for a moment on stage, but still nothing. It's nothing on our end, so I run up to check with him once the band starts back up and he sits down. When I got there, I asked him if his battery level was fine and he looked up at me. I'll never forget that face. So much anger forced behind a shroud of disappointment that I had embarrassed him in front of everyone. So when he gets up for the sermon, he told the entire congregation that he was suppressing anger over the failing audio, and he used it as an illustration to talk about God's grace. That's great. I have nothing wrong with an illustration of God's grace. I do have a problem with an illustration of God's grace at the expense of me and the entire tech team. That was not our fault. It was the mic not being turned on when it should have been, but it was turned on on our end. I'm not pointing fingers, but I am. That was not our fault.
The sermon goes on, and the audio sounds pretty good. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. The band plays again, and I'm pretty happy with the mix as well as the recording. So then the sermon ends. I go to finalize the disc that we recorded on, and the burner won't recognize it. I open it up and look at the disc, and sure enough, the sermon is printed on it, but it still fails to recognize. At this point, I'm crushed. This is my fault to, or will be. I thought back to the power surge that we received when someone in the back flipped a circuit earlier in the day. I just thought the power faded, but then I saw my computer and it was shut down, which meant that all the equipment completely lost power too, but most of it will restart itself, unlike my computer. This means that when the disc was put into the burner, it set up the disc properly, but then the power faded and it interrupted the disc. Because of that, I have a feeling that once it had burned everything, it could no longer recognize a continuity in the disc and so it would not finalize. That is just a theory. Perhaps it was just a bad disk, but it was my fault none-the-less.
It's hard to face sometimes, the fact that our role models are human. I was crushed by the look he gave me, and I still can't get it out of my head. Maybe he didn't even realize it at the time. But it causes me to shift my trust a bit. Maybe having a role model is foolish. I should just continue down this road of figuring out how to be my own man. Maybe I'm just to chicken-shit scared to bring it to him. I'm going to wait a few days to ponder on it, and then I might say something, if not for me, then for the rest of the tech team.
Peace and love
I have a role model now, oddly enough. I'm 23 years old and I picked up a role model. My pastor is a great role model to me because he just seems to have an incredible understanding of things to me. He thinks in a way that is approachable to me, and he's excited about it all the time. I want to be like that. I want to make sense to other people like that.
It's hard to remember that our role models are human sometimes though, and that they will undoubtedly fail us. Today was a rough day for me. I was in charge of front of house audio at church. That's a pretty big responsibility where we're from because we have to do a complete set up from scratch every Sunday in the amount of time that most churches do their sound check. I'm getting pretty crafty and knowledgeable in the ways of that room, but I'm no perfect. I don't think any audio guy is perfect. It's a rough job title though. It's the kind of job that no one gives a damn who you are unless you screw up. The only recognition you will get is negative. I knew that going in, but part of me still expects people to be relatively understanding. Ah, but that's a laugh. People look at a sound guy and they all think, "Hey, I could do that. Just put me behind the board and I'll know exactly what to do." Right. I thought that way once too. The truth is, there's so much to know it's almost impossible find your baring, but you do the best you can with the circumstances you are given. It's all about solving problems in a chain of possibilities as fast as you can. Then, you might just figure out that it's out of your control, much like today.
The senior staff at church wanted to get rid of us volunteers. There's so many glitches on Sundays that they thought it would just be a better investment to hire a staff engineer. That way if anything goes wrong, they can just blame the guy they pay. We like doing it though, so we came up with an alternative answer. We would start communicating better, get tighter in our performance and function more fluidly. Two of us, myself included, actually did spend the past four years studying the arts of Audio Engineering in depth at a university. We're not incompetent or without experience. So that's what we've been doing for the past two weeks or so. The senior staff has very short patience, evidently. There is no room for error, as there shouldn't be, but some things we just can't help.
Today we got everything set up in sort of a tizzy. One of the guys just completely forgot that he was supposed to be there, so he didn't show up, and I ended up calling Matt to come in and help. So Matt gets there and Dax shows up for an hour to help, and we do the best we can. We get things running, I get a house mix, and I set up the recorder and get the proper levels. Things turn out well. The service starts and the pastor gets up to speak. His mic works, but the EQ sounds a little thin, so I asked Eric to come and help me out with it because my ears just felt burned out. His would be fresh and he would be able to tweak the EQ a little more efficiently than I. He did, and again, things were going well. That is until the prayer in between worship songs. The pastor stands up to pray and we note this, so his fader goes up right before he speaks, but... nothing. No signal. What's wrong? A dead battery? Did he turn his mic on? He fidgets with it for a moment on stage, but still nothing. It's nothing on our end, so I run up to check with him once the band starts back up and he sits down. When I got there, I asked him if his battery level was fine and he looked up at me. I'll never forget that face. So much anger forced behind a shroud of disappointment that I had embarrassed him in front of everyone. So when he gets up for the sermon, he told the entire congregation that he was suppressing anger over the failing audio, and he used it as an illustration to talk about God's grace. That's great. I have nothing wrong with an illustration of God's grace. I do have a problem with an illustration of God's grace at the expense of me and the entire tech team. That was not our fault. It was the mic not being turned on when it should have been, but it was turned on on our end. I'm not pointing fingers, but I am. That was not our fault.
The sermon goes on, and the audio sounds pretty good. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. The band plays again, and I'm pretty happy with the mix as well as the recording. So then the sermon ends. I go to finalize the disc that we recorded on, and the burner won't recognize it. I open it up and look at the disc, and sure enough, the sermon is printed on it, but it still fails to recognize. At this point, I'm crushed. This is my fault to, or will be. I thought back to the power surge that we received when someone in the back flipped a circuit earlier in the day. I just thought the power faded, but then I saw my computer and it was shut down, which meant that all the equipment completely lost power too, but most of it will restart itself, unlike my computer. This means that when the disc was put into the burner, it set up the disc properly, but then the power faded and it interrupted the disc. Because of that, I have a feeling that once it had burned everything, it could no longer recognize a continuity in the disc and so it would not finalize. That is just a theory. Perhaps it was just a bad disk, but it was my fault none-the-less.
It's hard to face sometimes, the fact that our role models are human. I was crushed by the look he gave me, and I still can't get it out of my head. Maybe he didn't even realize it at the time. But it causes me to shift my trust a bit. Maybe having a role model is foolish. I should just continue down this road of figuring out how to be my own man. Maybe I'm just to chicken-shit scared to bring it to him. I'm going to wait a few days to ponder on it, and then I might say something, if not for me, then for the rest of the tech team.
Peace and love
Spinning Wheels
Getting started in life can be rough sometimes. There's so much to learn just in the place you live. I currently live in the moderately sized city of Nashville. I've known the streets for about four years now, so getting around isn't as much of a problem, but making myself official in this place has been a bit of a task. Dealing with government bureaucracy has been a bit taxing. I had to take a full day off Friday just to get my car title switched over and new tags. I knew it was going to take at least that much time because dealing with government agencies has always been a long drawn out process. You would think that with the amount of taxes we pay, things could be engineered to be a bit more concise. But I had to go around town from one place to another to find out what kind of paper work I would need and where I should go to get them. I finally got it all done at about three o'clock Friday afternoon. Just in time for the weekend I guess.
The weather has cooled down well these past few days. We had good rain for three days and then the skies opened and the heat was gone... for now. It's been nice to ride my motorcycle in the mornings. I had to put my jacket lining in this morning because it was so cool outside. The thing you have to remember when you ride your bike is that temperatures that feel pleasantly cool on your skin while you stand still, can bite through your cotton shirt at fifty miles per hour. I learned this the hard way. I also learned that gloves are not just fun optional wear when it's cooler outside. I just drove home from Linzy's on the other side of town and my hands are working on thawing out. Another note to self. Don't accelerate the bike when making sharper turns. When you're pitched at an angle like that, the bike less traction on the far sides of the tires and acceleration will throw the back tire out from under you if you're not careful. Hehe, I had a little run-in with that today too. I just turned the bars and threw a bit more acceleration into it and fishtailed out of what could have been a spill. I'm learning, that's for sure. The good thing is that I'm rarely in high traffic areas, so these little slip ups aren't as threatening as they could be.
My hair is getting really long. I'm not sure how long I'm going to wait before I cut it, but it's getting to be the longest I've ever had it.
Tomorrow I rise early because I'm running front of house sound at church. I'm kinda wishing I could sleep in now, but I will want to do it once I'm there. Volunteer work isn't always filled with passion and excitement, just most of the time. Either way, I'm probably going to be taking a nap tomorrow. Peace and love.
The weather has cooled down well these past few days. We had good rain for three days and then the skies opened and the heat was gone... for now. It's been nice to ride my motorcycle in the mornings. I had to put my jacket lining in this morning because it was so cool outside. The thing you have to remember when you ride your bike is that temperatures that feel pleasantly cool on your skin while you stand still, can bite through your cotton shirt at fifty miles per hour. I learned this the hard way. I also learned that gloves are not just fun optional wear when it's cooler outside. I just drove home from Linzy's on the other side of town and my hands are working on thawing out. Another note to self. Don't accelerate the bike when making sharper turns. When you're pitched at an angle like that, the bike less traction on the far sides of the tires and acceleration will throw the back tire out from under you if you're not careful. Hehe, I had a little run-in with that today too. I just turned the bars and threw a bit more acceleration into it and fishtailed out of what could have been a spill. I'm learning, that's for sure. The good thing is that I'm rarely in high traffic areas, so these little slip ups aren't as threatening as they could be.
My hair is getting really long. I'm not sure how long I'm going to wait before I cut it, but it's getting to be the longest I've ever had it.
Tomorrow I rise early because I'm running front of house sound at church. I'm kinda wishing I could sleep in now, but I will want to do it once I'm there. Volunteer work isn't always filled with passion and excitement, just most of the time. Either way, I'm probably going to be taking a nap tomorrow. Peace and love.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
How to Pick Sides
People are so fickle, and by people, I of course include myself. We never know what we really want, do we? I don't know, I was just watching Letters from Iwo Jima and I realized that we base our loyalty on the side we relate to the most, which tends to fluctuate quite often. I'm not saying that firm people don't exist, I'm just saying that we make fun of them if we find out who they are. They are the narrow minded ones, while we tend to bounce around from place to place, never really landing on anything solid. I just got to thinkin because the movie is from the Japanese perspective on the battle of Iwo Jima. I didn't finish it due to it getting a little late for me to still be up, but what I realized is that I've seen movies on that battle and ones like it before. I've always seen the American perspective, and they had my remorse. But in this movie, I found my remorse handed to the Japanese.
So I'm displaying a class act example of loyalty based upon emotion, I am the fair weather fan. It's definitely a product of the post modern idea, just weighing the emotions of one side, usually the lesser thought of. I can see benefits of that kind of thinking, but when we fail to compare both sides, and when we fail to include logic with our emotions, I feel that it is a disservice, and any decision yielded from that train of thought is potentially just as destructive as its counterpart.
I also found myself in envy of other languages. Japanese, in particular, seems to be a language that by cultural standards has not lost the power behind the words spoken. Coming from a poetic history, it seems, at least to an outsider, that Japanese words are chosen very carefully. I say this because whenever I watch anything Japanese, the conversations seem to be so immense. I remember while being in Ghana, Godwin was showing his thanks to us and he said that there were no words in English that could frame exactly what he wanted to express, so he said it in one of the several Ghanaian languages. Now I think English can be a beautiful language if spoken with precision, but I find no tolerance of that in the microwave internet society we Americans call home. As a result of this, I find that most businesses will admit that their biggest problem is communication. We're losing the ability to communicate to each other clearly.
Anyways, I joined the YMCA today and I swam a 500. It wore me out pretty good and then I sat in the steam room. I wanted to throw up when I was done, but I withheld. Now I'm good and worn out. I think I'll sleep deep tonight.
Linzy and I are doing great! She's a great girl and we have a lot going for us. The best thing is that we can talk to each other about pretty much anything (again, communication) and I'm really glad about that. We've seen each other pretty much every day since she got back last Sunday night, but we've really wanted to. She says that this is the honeymoon phase, and I know she's right. It's going to take more work soon, but we both know it and it doesn't intimidate us at all. So for those of you who haven't met her, it looks like she'll be coming back to High Point with me over Thanksgiving, so you'll all get your chance.
I'm going to bed now. Hope I'm not too sore in the morning. Peace and love.
So I'm displaying a class act example of loyalty based upon emotion, I am the fair weather fan. It's definitely a product of the post modern idea, just weighing the emotions of one side, usually the lesser thought of. I can see benefits of that kind of thinking, but when we fail to compare both sides, and when we fail to include logic with our emotions, I feel that it is a disservice, and any decision yielded from that train of thought is potentially just as destructive as its counterpart.
I also found myself in envy of other languages. Japanese, in particular, seems to be a language that by cultural standards has not lost the power behind the words spoken. Coming from a poetic history, it seems, at least to an outsider, that Japanese words are chosen very carefully. I say this because whenever I watch anything Japanese, the conversations seem to be so immense. I remember while being in Ghana, Godwin was showing his thanks to us and he said that there were no words in English that could frame exactly what he wanted to express, so he said it in one of the several Ghanaian languages. Now I think English can be a beautiful language if spoken with precision, but I find no tolerance of that in the microwave internet society we Americans call home. As a result of this, I find that most businesses will admit that their biggest problem is communication. We're losing the ability to communicate to each other clearly.
Anyways, I joined the YMCA today and I swam a 500. It wore me out pretty good and then I sat in the steam room. I wanted to throw up when I was done, but I withheld. Now I'm good and worn out. I think I'll sleep deep tonight.
Linzy and I are doing great! She's a great girl and we have a lot going for us. The best thing is that we can talk to each other about pretty much anything (again, communication) and I'm really glad about that. We've seen each other pretty much every day since she got back last Sunday night, but we've really wanted to. She says that this is the honeymoon phase, and I know she's right. It's going to take more work soon, but we both know it and it doesn't intimidate us at all. So for those of you who haven't met her, it looks like she'll be coming back to High Point with me over Thanksgiving, so you'll all get your chance.
I'm going to bed now. Hope I'm not too sore in the morning. Peace and love.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Divine Guilt
I don't know how I feel right now... Confused? Scared? Excited? I don't know. Stuff is goin on that's moving me in all different directions emotionally, physically, spiritually. It's really freaking me out. I think I realize how much of life I have taken for granted. Struggles have brought me into the understanding that life is serious and we do have a great many decisions that we can make either wisely or poorly and we will have to live with those decisions after they have been made. The kind of decisions I make now determine the kind of person I will become. It's not all just fun and games. Will I become the kind of person I desire to be? Honorable, wise, kind, loving, strong, decisive, a good listener, charitable... It's so hard to see that far. I now know the heart of Paul when he wrote (I think it was in Romans) that he knows what he should do, but he just can't seem to do it. He always fails.
And there is an incredibly strong duality within my being as of this moment. It has happened several times before where I will be driving along comfortably and then I am hit with something very real, very revealing, and very much a determinant as to where I go in life. My soul and my spirit are in the middle of a huge battle and it's beginning to spill over to my body. God has still maintained His presence and control through all of this, though I still can't quite get the thought out of my head. "How much will He allow me to screw this up?"
As far as lovers are concerned, I am a neglecting lover of the Lord. Sometimes it's hard for me to consider myself a Christian because of what the word means. "Christ-like"? Do I really think that I am "Christ-like"? I know Jesus and I know myself, and it's so hard to see the similarities most of the time. I just fail so much. I know I hurt Him, but yet He still fights for me. That's the divine aspect of it all. If I loved a woman like I loved Him, she would undoubtedly leave me in a very short period of time.
There are two types of guilt. There is the kind of guilt you feel out of the fear of knowing you have done wrong, and that is a guilt that I have no room for in my life. It causes fear to grow, it dashes your confidence, and it rapes you of your knowledge of love. This is the most common form of guilt because it is most commonly taught and distributed by man. But unknown to me until recently in my life, there is a second kind of guilt. It is the kind of guilt that you receive when you have violated the bonds of love. It does not attack the heart in the same manner as fear-driven guilt. It nudges the heart and whispers softly. It does not make you want to run. It makes you want to swallow your pride and come back. It is the tight hug after a fight in which you knew you were wrong but you persisted in fighting anyways. This is divine guilt, messiah, God is with us.
Peace and love.
And there is an incredibly strong duality within my being as of this moment. It has happened several times before where I will be driving along comfortably and then I am hit with something very real, very revealing, and very much a determinant as to where I go in life. My soul and my spirit are in the middle of a huge battle and it's beginning to spill over to my body. God has still maintained His presence and control through all of this, though I still can't quite get the thought out of my head. "How much will He allow me to screw this up?"
As far as lovers are concerned, I am a neglecting lover of the Lord. Sometimes it's hard for me to consider myself a Christian because of what the word means. "Christ-like"? Do I really think that I am "Christ-like"? I know Jesus and I know myself, and it's so hard to see the similarities most of the time. I just fail so much. I know I hurt Him, but yet He still fights for me. That's the divine aspect of it all. If I loved a woman like I loved Him, she would undoubtedly leave me in a very short period of time.
There are two types of guilt. There is the kind of guilt you feel out of the fear of knowing you have done wrong, and that is a guilt that I have no room for in my life. It causes fear to grow, it dashes your confidence, and it rapes you of your knowledge of love. This is the most common form of guilt because it is most commonly taught and distributed by man. But unknown to me until recently in my life, there is a second kind of guilt. It is the kind of guilt that you receive when you have violated the bonds of love. It does not attack the heart in the same manner as fear-driven guilt. It nudges the heart and whispers softly. It does not make you want to run. It makes you want to swallow your pride and come back. It is the tight hug after a fight in which you knew you were wrong but you persisted in fighting anyways. This is divine guilt, messiah, God is with us.
Peace and love.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Don't Be a Bitchy Brooder
Just got done with work for the day. I'm pretty tired and there was a lot to be done. It's good learning new things though. I've been able to pick up more and more each day. Sometimes I even feel a little overwhelmed, but I'll survive. I can't wait for the day where I become completely self sufficient at that job. We'll see how soon that happens.
It's raining right now off and on. I'm so glad. We really needed it here. All of the grass is dead and brown and it's just so dusty and dry.
I was in a bad mood this morning when I woke up. I have a lot on my mind right now and I'm not really getting quite as much sleep as I should be, but most of the crap is just stuff that I'm going to have to deal with internally.
When it comes down to it, I'm pretty selfish. It's one of my traits that I notice more and more each day and I really hate it. I'll do stupid stuff on my own to prove something to myself while simultaneously completely forgetting that there are other people around me that care about me and that depend on my wellbeing. I also get really bitchy sometimes, only I don't bring the issue to the people I feel bitchy about nor do I let it show that I'm feeling bitchy until it's way beyond my control. Instead of dealing with it properly, I sit and brood and my emotions and logic go to war.
So yeah, I could probably stand to address that issue. Anyways, I'm going to get out of these work cloths and take it easy tonight. Peace and love.
It's raining right now off and on. I'm so glad. We really needed it here. All of the grass is dead and brown and it's just so dusty and dry.
I was in a bad mood this morning when I woke up. I have a lot on my mind right now and I'm not really getting quite as much sleep as I should be, but most of the crap is just stuff that I'm going to have to deal with internally.
When it comes down to it, I'm pretty selfish. It's one of my traits that I notice more and more each day and I really hate it. I'll do stupid stuff on my own to prove something to myself while simultaneously completely forgetting that there are other people around me that care about me and that depend on my wellbeing. I also get really bitchy sometimes, only I don't bring the issue to the people I feel bitchy about nor do I let it show that I'm feeling bitchy until it's way beyond my control. Instead of dealing with it properly, I sit and brood and my emotions and logic go to war.
So yeah, I could probably stand to address that issue. Anyways, I'm going to get out of these work cloths and take it easy tonight. Peace and love.
The First
And it starts. This is the new journal I shall keep as a testament to my struggles and celebrations until I should stumble upon some new and clear cut chapter of life. The College Years were great and I lost, gained, and learned a great deal, but I'm ready for this. I'm ready to face what it is life has to offer.
It's still so dry outside. There have been so many fires around town, big fires. I pray for rain, sure. I want it to rain real bad, but I know there are people out there who want it to rain even more than I do.
I just finished sewing some of my Halloween costume tonight. I'm going to be Link from the Nintendo series. It's hard to sew and I lack the patience, but I'll get there. I do have the determination.
Work is going well, but sometimes I do wonder if this is where I need to be. I long for distant places, but I stay seated in my given situation. I'll go where I need to go when those doors are opened. What I do know is that this company will take care of me, and if I were to get married, they would take care of my family too. That is comforting.
Well, I need to sleep. I'll try and elaborate more on the present some other time.
Peace and love.
It's still so dry outside. There have been so many fires around town, big fires. I pray for rain, sure. I want it to rain real bad, but I know there are people out there who want it to rain even more than I do.
I just finished sewing some of my Halloween costume tonight. I'm going to be Link from the Nintendo series. It's hard to sew and I lack the patience, but I'll get there. I do have the determination.
Work is going well, but sometimes I do wonder if this is where I need to be. I long for distant places, but I stay seated in my given situation. I'll go where I need to go when those doors are opened. What I do know is that this company will take care of me, and if I were to get married, they would take care of my family too. That is comforting.
Well, I need to sleep. I'll try and elaborate more on the present some other time.
Peace and love.
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