Life is smiles and cries...

Training Day is a good movie. I know there is a lot of violence and bad language, but the good guy stays good, and the bad guy is ultimately punished for his wrongdoing. I can't argue with a movie that works out that way in the end. I appreciate a story with a strong morality message embedded in it.

Another interesting movie I recently watched is The Book of Eli. It also had some strong violence in it, but since the preservation of the gospel message is the goal of the protagonist... I sort of think that's pretty cool. The action in the movie is more Samson than Savior, but what can you expect in a post-civilization world devoid of Scripture?

I'm really craving oatmeal cookies with raisins. Weird. I never want those. Nevertheless, I want them right now. I can't see a way that I can achieve this monumental task of procuring said cookies....and this is troubling to me on two levels. level 1 says that I am going to keep wanting them. Level two says that I am going to begin obsessing over an inferior cookie until I end up with some in my belly. Oh My Word.


I'm writing this blog during an online french class from which I have checked out mentally a long time ago. I haven't been involved in this class for at least 2 hours. I should get back. *sigh*

French.

I am several weeks into an online French for Reading course. This course is designed to help the learner pass the research languages competency exams given during the admissions process in most PHD programs. Yes, advanced degree programs require secondary language skills. It's annoying, but true. I intend to qualify in French, German and Latin. These are the three primary Theological research languages of historical note. I've already taken several years of Greek and one very long year of Hebrew. In short, I know more than I think I do, and that is still apparently not as much as it could be. Ach! my brains need a vacation from scholastics.

the next few days will be fun though. I'm headed north to my hometown to visit with family over Independence Day weekend. BBQ, swimming pool, family and fireworks. It oughta be fun.

I couldn't stand in there...

I got hit in the face with a baseball when I was a child. It was a fast pitch game. It was the first pitch of the game from a player that had seemingly entered puberty three years before any other player in the league. He wound up, and struck me squarely below my right eye (I'm a lefty). After that historical baseball moment, I developed an abnormal fear of taking another baseball to the face. I played out the season, but each time I was pitched to...I took a step backward out of the box. I went the season with a whopping zero hits, four walks and a weekly encouragement from the coach about being less timid in the box. Whatever! The guy is throwing a big, white rock at my head. The smart thing to do is to get out of the way of the rock! This is simply logical. Needless to say, my baseball playing career lasted one season.

As an adult, I look back and see the shortcoming of those adults around me that allowed me to end the season without facing this fear. I needed to hit a ball. I needed to be hit by the ball again and feel how it didn't really hurt that bad. I needed to face the pitcher and the pitch and swing away...choked up...eyes on the ball...hips turning...and POP! There is a valuable life lesson in facing the wild pitches of prepubescent, gangly pitchers with no control...
Those pitchers turn into business men, doctors, construction workers, policemen, supervisors and IT specialists (well...maybe not IT specialists). Those wild pitches keep coming at a man's head all through life. The one thing that is not possible is to continuously "back out of the batter's box." Life is too hard, and too short to constantly fear being hit by the ball. A man has to toughen up and stand in there.

A man has to stand in there even when he knows he's about to get clobbered by a wild pitch.


alright. I'm done. You may go now.

Presence

I've been thinking a lot lately about presence; being in a particular location....being in one place, but not just any place, but being in the same place as your body. So often, I find myself drifting away from the place I am. I mentally just move onward and away from the spot my body finds itself. To be more honest, I mentally move away from the place I've chosen to locate my body. My mind drifts. My thoughts move across a landscape of ideas fashioned out of desires, fears, petty conceits and utopian dreams. I find myself no longer present. This is probably an acceptable thing to do. Most humans find themselves "in their own headspace" more often than they realize. My problem is not that I mentally drift; my problem is that I do it frequently when I am with others.

I want to be a better man (thank you Jack Nicholson). I want to be the guy that can make someone feel like they are the only one in the room. That intense and interested focus that makes a person feel special, alive and worthy is a gift that I would love to be given. I don't want to fake presence, I actually want to be present. What I don't want anymore is to find myself realizing that I began thinking about puppets, which leads to thinking about puppies, which leads to thinking about frisbee golf and the fact that I've never used my frisbee golf set I was given for Christmas two years ago.

That's what I'm thinking about today. Being present. It's quite a ministry.