for kicks, here's another i shot the same night as the one below.

a shot from the storm that passed through our area wednesday evening. to me, there is nothing better than nature. perhaps that has been or can be taken as cliche, but honestly i don't care. i'm changed inside when moments like this occur and i can witness them. here i am, standing in the middle of my wheat field, and the great creator has cleared out the storm from over my head and let it still rage all around. no, i don't think i'm the center of the universe; however, i am a fortunate soul. i am small. i am big. i am created. i can create. i can enjoy others' creativity. i can allow others to enjoy mine. i am a piece of this kingdom. this kingdom would be different without me here. all of this and so much more is true for every person in the world. i wish you confidence in your God-given abilities, humility in your talents, and shalom always.

sobering

due to netscape and my computer not agreeing with being open to each other, i just lost a long, intense blog about my grandmother. i wrote what i had because of hearing of my friend trevor's grandmother passing on into rumi's unknown, of which i am sorrowed to have heard.

i suppose what i wrote was good to get out and see in front of me until taken briskly away by the "close or ignore" choice that isn't really a choice my computer gives me every now and then. so the meaning i took away from that after the disbelief had passed is that life is just as fleeting and unexpected. wait, it can't be as cliche as that....

no, deeper than that, i wonder if what i wrote was just for me and that is enough. it was good to take the stroll and to realize all the wonderful, truly life-affecting, positive influences Mom & Poppy had on this young boy's life. i'm sorry for loss, but i am happy for the trip. my memories that i share with them and them alone are fine and solid where they do the most good. if you'd like to hear them, in person is the only choice. i'm freaking out at this thing closing again with every word i type.

shalom to all.

wh...wh...why bother?

so i didn't make time today, um, to blog. per say. i mean, here i am, blogging, but not with some grand thought or divine purpose. i was thinking about the ...... okay, i'm a little drunk at the moment, but the steak was really good ....... thinking about blogging. so all of a sudden i am supposed to feel like i have to blog. if i don't get some great idea out on the screen, i've missed a step or made an error about what it means to have a web-based journal. nope, not seein' it.

i like the idea of being able to comment even on the desire not to comment. i know, cliche as hell, but so is "don't pee into the wind" or "when it rains it pours." might as well "stick a fork in me - i'm done." all i really want to do is go to bed after a long day of pouring out my soul to humanity to struggle once more to make a difference in the lives of people who don't care whether i pour out my soul to make a difference to them. heh heh

alright, let's go as far as to say that this is kinda fun, but then again, i've had a day full of the wonders of life from several angles and others' points of view intermingling with my own. it's been real, enjoyable. love you, g'night.

how about you take a sec to go to some search engine and stick your name in to see what's on there about you, or who else out there has your name? gotta be better than reading a ..... an inebriated dude's blog on a tuesday night.

hey, diesel's tune "parachute" just popped on my player's shuffle. groovy man, i love his creativity. he's a great mind and great soul in a ...... great body. wow. gotta go.

dear simple days of childhood, or beginning of the search?

this is a notebook i drew on when i was in high school. i found it when i was cleaning some stuff out of my old bedroom at my parents' place. haven't drawn a whole lot since then, and even though this is mostly scribbling, i got a real kick out of finding lines and shapes that worked together to form something i didn't imagine straight out of the box. this as much as anything i have from that era serves as a reminder of how my imagination kept digging at me to be used. only now am i starting to tie those feelings into what i've come to realize thus far about what it means to "let it out" and use my talents. um, not saying this is talent so much, but it's an example of seeing what i can come up with. i really dig that these days; especially becoming more aware of others' abilities and encouraging them to put them to use. God's imagination shines through us - i think it's one of the ways our Creator can experience his creativity, when we use it to produce beautiful things, come up with great problem-solvers, or shed light on someone's spiritual pathway. i hope i can continue to get better at that, because the results are astounding. hmmm, wonder where the first stroke of the pen was on this notebook....

seeing oneself accurately from the outside - possible?

snapped this shot at lee's creek in devil's den state park, arkansas. i've always thought it was interesting to see myself in a mirror, when my right hand turns into my left and i can't figure out how to comb the back of my head. i wonder why i don't hear myself speaking in reverse, though. odd.
 
all in all, the symbolic nature of the mirror of self is a cool concept.  paul said, "i do what i don't want to do, and i don't do what i should do."  yeah, i can relate.  but more important to me than getting down on myself for missed opportunities (which are bummers for sure) is that i realize that i desire to do more, to improve, to provide more than demand.  way more.
 
so when they say don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ponder that in front of the mirror when they look like they've switched sides.  that's a real thinker.

to return to a thought....

i know i have a hard time staying on one subject for any length of time without getting sidetracked. obvious example - my previous post. so, why not continue with what i was starting to write when i caught myself and continued on the original path? okay then.

a friend of mine from India (code name Saikat) told me that what i'm about to relegate is true everywhere; this news bummed me out instead of making me feel better about the state of the world. yeah, love actually is all around, but there's a helluvalot of non-love happening, too. narcissism is trying to rule this land. everyone is told from youth to "watch out for number one", "climb the ladder", "succeed." it's crap. it's frustrating. it's reality t.v. in physical form. it's the reason factories belch out nasties all day and all night, and there are more cars than people in this country (hmmm, actually i'm not sure, but it's gotta be close). it's why psychiatrists exist and we have to have a church series about desensitization. it's why i can't stand to watch the "news" or check out political debates. can't we all just get along?

the worst thing about what i thought was an "american" problem is that the world is consumed by the notion that what's best for one will work for all. no frickin' way. if everyone would receive exactly what they wanted, which in most cases is a far cry from what they really need, there would be a convenience store on every corner and all the churches would be pool halls. or some absurd nonsensical detriment along those lines.

the point is there are two kingdoms, you see - we live in both simultaneously. the first is the universe; earth is the main set of the play, and all around are tons of props to keep us busy. plants, animals, bodies of water and piles of land all sorts of shapes, colours, textures, consistencies, and inhabitations. then the air, then no air, then a myriad of planets, stars, moons, galaxies, and the infinite question. inside all that is you. in your kingdom are hobbies, friends, relatives, jobs, likes and dislikes, vacations, friendly strangers, hair appointments, bubble gum, life. your life.

the connection is that for one part to work properly and for the two to co-exist, you gotta take care of the inner kingdom and the outer kingdom at the same time. this in no way inhibits good times. actually, it multiplies them. remember "pay it forward"? yeah, well that concept works. a great friend of mine (who i swear one day will be sainted) wrote once that one should ask "is this act i'm about to do beautiful?" wow. whenever i'm struggling with something, i go to that. i dunno, he might have gotten it from someone else, but i don't care. there's nothing new under the sun and i heard it from him, so there you have it.

personally, i stack things that are questionable up against God to see how they should fall. it's his place - i think i should check with him before screwing around with it. try it sometime. and then next time you have a chance to react to someone's seemingly moronic words or deeds, think of the 10,000 other ways you can react, too, and see if you're going for the best one.

know what? we can all get along (that includes momma nature) - but it's only gonna happen if we focus on what we can do for someone else instead of ourselves. yep, it's a great big blech of a struggle for me pretty much hourly. i love it.

man, i feel like wringing my hands and jumping up and down or something. i'm all worked up and it's time for bed.

foraging for wisdom

a couple weeks ago, i read one of my original poems in public for the first time. it happened to be at church during a series that challenged people to step out and step it up, to get involved in living out their dreams, being good to and for each other, and escaping the half-nelson society has on them by turning off the t.v. and turning on their minds. okay, so i'm already off-base, but it's a good series and a subject that needs to keep being brought up. thankfully i want to write on this every day, so i'll attack that later.

so the poem, titled "a walk in the woods with Merton", delved into the realm of being in touch with God through nature; specifically, how a walk under the trees, by the streams, through the valleys and across the tops of hills, along the edges of shadows all can affect a person so powerfully. the animals and plants are so amazing out/in there.

what intrigues me is that people see things differently, basically. i can sit in the same environment, look at the same things, and i am still amazed about that which Thomas Merton () wrote. he had a spiritual connection with the natural world and with its Creator that i long to have; a way of seeing things and explaining them that seem so deep and relevant that it makes me want to be out there more and more until i start to "get it". at any rate, that's the gist of the poem. if you want to check it out, it's posted below. this isn't bloody shakespeare. of course, i'm not a big fan of shakespeare....

a walk in the woods with Merton

sitting and waiting for understanding –
patiently longing to experience that moment
where God notices me yearning to know
what movements or sounds, what creatures,
what raindrops or reverberating thunderbolts,
what stirrings deep and mysterious,
what mixture of light and dark on forest floor
by peaceful rocky stream
awakened the sleeping truth
in the greatest and most meek of the Creator’s imagination;
how i search for under what rock lay the answer,
from inside which piece of wood arose the question,
how was this spot in the woods so powerful to one man
and if i desire it so much, need a response so badly,
why do i not feel that which i so long to touch,
to hold dear to me, then to let go and watch soar above
and then again to glide peacefully and slowly back to my soul?
more than respect of age, i long for wisdom;
more than awe of God, i search for form;
in place of the search, i seek contentment from experience;
instead of merely containing a soul, i need to be One with this place.

to have and to lose are one in the same;
on the warm, damp floor of these woods,
one day i placed my spirit in the hollow of a tree
and walked away.
today i am here to enter once again into the holiest of holies –
from whence i came, to where i was, now i long to go.

let me know the power of the trees,
the strength of a seed pushing up through the earth,
the echo of a bird’s call through the valleys,
the patient path of the turtles and slugs,
the unblinking attention of the fish,
the steady, sure footsteps of the mighty cat;
but most of all, allow me to realize
how one man could capture the essence of You
by being in this place where my only discovery
has been the beginning of the search.

it's hard, dangerous work to climb rocks, especially with no safety equipment; but certainly fun, for sure. too bad i'm not a rock-climber and this photo is actually me crawling on the ground. i could have had a great time on the side of a mountain....

unbegun

then there was the undeniable truth....i am not the only one. it's not about me. i'm not the center of the universe and if i try to be, i will fail miserably. i'm not the first. countless others have had their beginnings before me, and One has no beginning. who can compete with that?

my point? this is nothing new for the world, but it is new to me (read some Ecclesiastes - one of my all-time favorite perusals that opens up more each time i go through it).

the theory is that my creative drive, my desire to be more imaginative every day for ways to inspire and to live a great, full life is my opportunity for contribution to the kingdom. just like everybody else....

thus, this blog was born. i will let it be what it is and know that i do not hold the answers - i'm only on the search and hoping to find out and share as much as i can along the way.

thank you to friends for the inspiring thought (check out for example, plus all the friends' links at his place), and thank you to a Creator who has perfect ingenuity. man didn't simply invent the technology that allows me to post my thoughts; it as part of the perfect plan that man was allowed to imagine because the Highest imagined it first. there is so much more to the mystery - this can only be the beginning.

check this out: john 1:3 "through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made." believe, don't believe it, it matters to me, but it doesn't change what's true. this is groovy stuff for sure.