Vulner-almost

I am one of those volcanic bloggers, the kind that lets the pressure build until I have no other choice but to spew out a steady stream of the burning within me. Hopefully, one day, the stream will flow freely, but for now I am what I am.

In the last few months, I have become involved with co-organizing a christian young adults "gathering" in my town, the purpose of which was to discuss the paradoxical issues that christians face today. The catch phrase of the group is something to the effect of "living the unexpected." This last Sunday evening, we met, and the discussion centered around freedom, the freedom proclaimed by Jesus. We discussed what freedom looked like, freedom to be ourselves, freedom from sin, freedom from fear, freedom from keeping up "good Christian" appearances, and freedom that comes from the revelation of the Truth of God.

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing

When I was a kid, I had a Commodore 64 computer...state of the art, let me tell you. Despite the fact that it was revolutionary in bringing the PC into the American home, for my family, it was the revolution in video gaming, totally left our Atari in the dust. I still get nostalgic about playing The Last Ninja, Kung-Fu Master, Wizard...but there was one game that stands out. My brother had a game called "In Search of the Most Amazing Thing." Honestly, when I think about the game, I don't remember playing it much, mainly because my engineer uncle messed up the programming trying to understand how the computer game worked, but it was a little beyond my level of understanding at the time.

Life is going to be the death of me...

Thought: Rhythm is everywhere. The bee hummingbird beats its wings 80 times per second, the sun chases down the western horizon once a day, my dog has to pee every ten minutes. It is an inescapable reality.

I suppose any new blog merits something of an introduction for those who stumble across its pixels and codes. As for this blog, although I have an intentioned focus, never will I pretend to limit the topic or claim to be an expert on what I write. My intent is merely to record thoughts, observations, musings, and hopefully to entertain and provoke myself and anyone who decides to read this.

I am thirty, I have a house, a truck, a dog, several successes and failures under my belt including a pending divorce: in other words, I am living the typical American life, or at least a typical country and western song. But, to be blunt, I am highly dissatisfied with life. Highly dissatisfied.

Finding satisfaction is not necessarily my goal. My dissatisfaction comes from knowing without a doubt that the westernized cultural life is NOT what life is about. Life is not about getting a job, amassing wealth and spending it on material things in order to tickle our psyches into believing we are happy because we are enjoying the moment. Nor is life about accomplishing anything substantial to leave a history behind us when we are gone.

So why am I here? I ask myself that question a lot, on several levels. I ask myself that question when I am in line at the grocery store, when I am at work, when I lay down to sleep, and especially when I get up in the morning. The only answer I have found is simple, but really hard to swallow.

I am a christian. I mean I really am a christian, not one of those typical Western "I am a christian because my parents went to church on easter" christians. I have really come to know God, His son Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. I haven't been convinced to profess Christianity, nobody washed my brain when I was young, I was given the choice to believe or not believe. I asked Him if He was really real, and He is constantly responding with resounding affirmation. I can't help but believe.

So back to my question, why am I here. I can only answer that question from a perspective of knowing the Creator God, and He says that I am here to be His friend. He put everything into motion, with you, me and your mom in mind, just because He needed to love us, and because He needed us to love Him back. That's it. No more, no less.

So with the knowledge that I am here for friendship with the one and only God of the Universe and everything in it, life as most people on Earth know it has lost its flavor to me. The modern world is settled into a rhythm of waking and sleeping, working and playing, buying and selling, gaining and losing, living and dying. There is a drum beat played by a collective cultural and societal influence, marking the rhythm by which man can pace his life, and that beat is a funeral march, and I don't feel like going to a funeral, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

I want to to walk to the beat kept by God's heart, that heart from which all life flows, that heart that is so saturated with love, that His slightest whisper creates a miraculously beautiful universe, and brings life into dust.

It seems impossible, but I believe in the impossible. I want to live an impossible life, a life in which creating universes is more certain than death and taxes. I refuse to resign myself to just biding my time with tasteless pursuits and lackluster accomplishments until my body fails. I may not have a choice in the matter, but I am not going down without a fight.

A river runs through me...

(This blog is rough, so just giving you fair warning beforehand)

I just got back from my third annual Edisto River canoe trip organized by a couple friends from church, the local mama and papa of Hartsville. It was fairly successful as far as canoe trips a re concerned, I actually didn't share a canoe, but as usual I floated solo in a kayak down the river, bringing up the rear to make sure that nobody got left behind or stranded with an up-side-down canoe.

I am now in the market for a kayak, because I now have a place to keep one, and a place to go close by to use it. There are a couple friends in town that want to do this as well, so maybe it will be a good investment and a pleasant hobby. Now I just have to train my wiener (that's my dachsund) to be able to handle the black water swamps around here. He would most likely be prime alligator bait.

Leafy Purgatory

Have you ever seen a leaf floating in a pond or a small lake? It stirs around some with the breezes that blow, but unless a stiff wind comes up and blows hard, the leaf just floats in no particular way or direction, until it finally either saturates with water and sinks slowly or it haphazardly washes to shore and decays on the bank. Granted, the leaf was doomed to begin with. But there is something annoying about the stillness of a pond for a leaf in his or her final moments.

I gather from all the evidence that nature has afforded me that rivers and streams seem to offer at least a minimal amount of excitement for a fallen leaf. I can imagine a leaf falling into the water and wondering whether his or her stream meets with a larger flowing river, or if it flows into an unfortunate dammed lake. At least the leaf is kept guessing in this case. At least there is a hope of maybe having fallen into a river that ends in the glorious ocean, with a few rapids on the way for thrills.

Ponds do not offer hope. They are still and stagnant waters that offer a slow demise and a hopeless finish for any leaf unlucky enough to find itself floating across the surface.

What in the heck am I talking about?