Catching Up

The Plain at Suzaki by Utagawa Hiroshige

I apologize for not posting on a more frequent basis. We've been without the internet for the past 6 months and so it has been difficult to get around to posting. We're tossing around the idea of going back online next year so hopefully I'll be able to resume a more regular posting schedule. In the meantime, I've enjoyed not having the internet cause I read a lot more books, but do miss it for all the little conveniences. I've been on a bit of a Middle East binge lately, here are some recomendations:

Books:

From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. Kind of a memoir of the time he spent as a journalist in the Middle East. Eye opening and pretty fair for a guy from the enemy paper.

Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden. Super interesting read about the Iranian hostage crisis from 79-81. I absolutely love the way this guy writes. Super thorough, never dry, covers all the angles. Stayed up way too late, way too many night in a row reading this one.

Vengeance by George Jonas. This thriller is the true story that Steven Spielberg based his movie Munich on. The movie was horrible, the book is incredible. When I got done reading it I wished I wished I had never read it just so that I could read it all over again for the first time. Disturbing, makes your pulse race.

Movies:

The Color of Paradise. This Iranian film is about a blind boy whose widowed father is ashamed of him. Beautiful, a real treat for sensates, moves slowly enough to let you feel it. Also gives you a heart for the Iranian people and their land (which was surprisingly scenic).

The Kite Runner. A heavy but ultimately redemptive film about two boys from Afghanistan. Again, will give you a love for the people and the parts of their culture not corrupted by the Taliban. These two movies are both sad and heavy, but I can't stand nor would I recommend a movie without redemption. Redemption doesn't have to come wrapped neatly with a bow on top at the end of the movie, but it must be there for me to enjoy a movie.

Charlie Wilson's War. Gentlemen, you'll have to avert your eyes during the first 3-4 minutes of this one, but it's clean after that. Interesting. The end will make you whistle and mutter sadly, "well, we really blew that one didn't we?"

Taming the Beast Within

I ran across this opinion piece by David Brooks over the summer. I cut it out of the paper and keep going back to read it from time to time. I figure if I am still enjoying it 5 months later, than it is probably worth sharing.

The Meaning of Maturity

Clean Slate

The Friday before the election while working in Houston, I turned on the radio to try and find some music to help keep my pace up. The alt country station I had been listening to back home (92.1) had become a gospel station. The music was energetic enough so I let it play on. This particular station was doing a remote broadcast from an early voting site and was interviewing local pastors as well as various people who were exiting the polls. Two things were immediately clear, everyone I was hearing was black, and everyone was voting for Obama. After nine months of listening to talk radio and reading my favorite conservative columnists, this was exactly what I needed – a different perspective.

The joy in their voices began to affect me and I found myself growing quite attached to these people on the radio. “Come Tuesday,” I told myself, “I will find myself thinking about these guys. If their candidate loses, my elation will be tempered by their sorrow; and if their candidate wins, my disappointment will be nearly washed away by their joy.” These folks were my brothers and sisters in Christ and that is a bond that trumps all political belief, regardless of how deeply held those beliefs are. Quick aside: I am a small government economic conservative in the tradition of Adam Smith first and foremost, and I believe that this view of government is key to raising the greatest number of people (of any color) out of poverty and bondage. So even though I feel that their vote was counterproductive economically, the point is practically moot as McCain was no economic conservative himself.

No matter what your politics, you would have to have a heart of stone to not be moved by the excitement running through the black community this past week. So it was Tuesday night that although the guy I voted for took a beating, I found myself happily caught up in the emotion of the night (made all the easier by the exceptionally uninspiring McCain). My brother, Josh, and I got to talking and decided we would wipe the slate clean, at least give him a chance. After watching the shameful ways the left has treated Bush the past eight years, we are faced with a choice: give it right back to’em or treat the left with the grace neither they nor we deserve. Choose grace, it feels fantastic. Sitting there in front of the tube on Tuesday, I could feel all the anger, distrust, and pessimism wash away. I feel at peace, happy, and full of optimism and all this without budging an ideological inch. Hopefully, the Republican Party will purify itself over the next four years and actually bring something inspiring to the table in 2012. In the meantime, I’ll at least give Obama a fighting chance and give him the opportunity the left never gave Bush. So, off to the honeymoon, it might be a short one, but by golly, I’m going anyways.

Big Bend

Spotlights sweep over a thousand shades of green

Contemplating a swim on the border


View from an abandoned mine

< "...under a black belly of cloud in the rain, she brings me white golden pearls, stolen from the sea, she is raging, she is raging, a storm blows up in her eyes..." -U2

Mas! Mas!

White Sands, N.M.

Solzhenitsyn Quotes

The following quotes were found last week in The Wall Street Journal.

From Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Literature Prize lecture in 1970:
The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of bare faced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people-and there are many in today's world-elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so not as to step over the threshold of hardship today-and tomorrow, you'll see it will be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice today will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.) Ouch! - JW

From a speech at Harvard, 1978:
However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation's courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?

My Favorite Stretch

Don't pay the ransom, I escaped! Thank you for coming back after such a long break.

"Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise." - Rich Mullins

The Peaceful Valley

"Lord take me home
To the peaceful valley
Down the winding river
To your city of souls
I've grown so tired
And my hearts too heavy
To walk any longer
To your cities of gold

All my life I've longed for forgiveness
But I can't ever seem to get enough
All my life I've been rocked into the darkness...

Trying to find a peaceful song
Trying to find a peaceful song
To sing when everything goes wrong
Till the peaceful valley calls me home"

-Ryan Adams

There is a cemetery just south of our house where the kids and I like to walk and ride bikes. When I walk out my front door in the morning and head to the left I can see the military portion of the cemetery; the tombstones of soldiers from the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II and the Korean conflict lined up in procession, cresting and dissapearing over a gentle rise. Seeing those tombstones every morning is a handsome and needed reminder of the grim sacrifices made on a daily basis for our nation.

One thing that surprised me over a decade ago when I left home to strike out on my own was how hard life is. I don't know why this surprised me like it did, but it was a shock. I think the thing that surprised me, as it probably does most people was just how much work life is. As a youngster I guess I just assumed that once you got old you reached some point where you leveled off and then it was pretty much auto pilot from then on, till the landing. But at some point in my twenties, it dawned on me that everything is in a steady state of decline (home,car,body, holiness, relationships) and requires constant upkeep. So much work! As a young boy, I had always looked forward to Heaven, but once I realized how much work was between me and the grave, I was ready to throw in the towel. I'm sure you've probably felt the same thing from time to time so you understand me when I say this is not suicidal, but rather a weary mental submission to the inevitable. "Same sh*t, different day" and "no rest for the weary," that sort of thing. So I spent plenty of time daydreaming about Heaven, looking forward to the great escape. As I matured (slowly), my need for mental escapes grew fewer and fewer, but my basic frame of mind was still basically, "just grin and bear it, this too will soon pass, and then...ohhh! how glorious it will be!" As I walked through the graveyard last fall I still had a tinge of envy for those resting souls, the song by Ryan Adams excerpted above always running through my head.

Slowly over the last year my thinking has been transformed on the subject of Heaven. I read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell which kickstarted the process, and then recently read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis which completed my mental one-eighty. I can now say that I look forward to and even desire a long life, regardless of how hard, painful, or full of toil it may be. Jesus has invited us to join him in a grand adventure. And it is! He has shown me to view every hardship and pain as opportunity, and toil as a gift.

Here's Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis: (silencio John!)

"When we choose God's vision of who we are, we are living as God made us to live. We are living in the flow of how we are going to live forever. This is the life of heaven, here and now. And as we live this life, in harmony with God's intentions for us, the life of heaven becomes more and more present in our lives. Heaven comes to earth. This is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There is this place, this realm, heaven, where things are as God desires them to be. As we live this way, heaven comes here...

The question wasn't, how do I get in there? But how do I get there here?"

Finally, here is C.S. Lewis as found in the absolute masterpiece, The Great Divorce:

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened."

So now, as I walk through that same cemetery where the trees are beginning to blossom, my prayer has changed from, "how long, oh Lord, how long?" to "God, I'm in. I want to fight down here, with these people, for as long as you'll let me, I'll take as much as I can get."

Everything has changed.

Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee,
Op’ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!


All Thy works with joy surround Thee,
Earth and heav’n reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,
Singing bird and flowing fountain
Call us to rejoice in Thee.


Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Wellspring of the joy of living,
Ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother,
All who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.


Mortals, join the happy chorus,
Which the morning stars began;
Father love is reigning o’er us,
Brother love binds man to man.
Ever singing, march we onward,
Victors in the midst of strife,
Joyful music leads us Sunward
In the triumph song of life.

-Henry J. van Dyke, 1907
Paintings by Albert Bierstadt

These words are life giving sustenance and should be savored slowly. Like a smooth stone in the hand, my mind runs over them time and time again drawing strength from the power they convey. The lyrics to this song captured me as a young boy sitting in the pew. I remember taking a hymnal home and reading this song over and over. I couldn't get enough of it and eventually memorized it so that I would always have it with me.

The Greatest Song of All Time

The fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is, in my opinion, the greatest song of all time. Much like the theme song to Chariots of Fire, it has been used in commercials, movies, and as the background music in various video montages, and yet its repetitive use has stolen none of its power. Clocking in at 25 minutes, it has time for two heart pounding climaxes, one at the midpoint and then the grand finale, either of which is powerful enough to induce cardiac arrest. Here is a small portion of the song with an eloquent intro from the conductor. Roughly 9 minutes long, this video is worth every second,(the singers enter at about the 5:25 mark).



An excerpt from An die Freude by Friedrich Schiller, 1785

"Joyously, as his suns speed
Through Heaven's glorious order,
Hasten, Brothers, on your way,
Exulting as a knight in victory.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.

Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell. "

Thomas Sowell (an excerpt)

I ran across a book over Christmas break entitled, Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell. It was eye opening and started me on a Thomas Sowell reading frenzy. In the last couple of months I've also read and would recommend The Quest for Cosmic Justice as well as Ethnic America: A History. I have learned so much about politics, human nature, and economics from Mr. Sowell that my head is spinning from it all, it's almost been too much information to absorb in that short amount of time.

So while I sort my thoughts the following is an excerpt from his essay The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution:

"A quarter of a century before he delivered the Gettysburg address, Abraham Lincoln gave another speech, much less celebrated but all too relevant to our theme and times. In an 1838 address in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln asked where future dangers to the freedom and security of the American people might be found. It was not from foreign enemies, he said, but from internal threats. If and when the fundamental principles and structure of American government should fall under attack, "men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity" and "strike the blow against free government."

What is particularly significant about Lincoln's warning is that it was based on a vision of what human beings are like, and especially what talented and ambitious leaders are like. To Lincoln, the historic achievement of American society in establishing a new form of government was in jeopardy from later elites precisely because that achievement was already history:

The field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot.

While the ambitions of some might be satisfied with "a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair," Lincoln said, "such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle." He added:

What! Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napolean? - Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. - It sees not distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memories of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen.

That some leader dangerous to the basic institutions of American society would arise, Lincoln thought inevitable. Safeguarding those institutions would require a public sufficiently united, sufficiently attached to freedom, and sufficiently wise, "to succesfully frustrate his designs." Today it would also require a public sufficiently resistant to incessant criticisms and condemnations of their society for failing to achieve cosmic justice. Moreover, if the dangers in our own times were limited to those of "towering genius," there would be much less danger than there is. However, all that is needed are towering presumptions, which are increasingly mass-produced in our schools and colleges by the educational vogue of encouraging immature and inexperienced students to sit in emotional judgement on the complex evolution of whole ages and of vast civilizations.

Political leaders are not the only ones with a vested interest in opposing the existing framework of American society, precisely because it is the existing framework, so that supporting it offers no path to the kinds of glory that they seek. The intelligentsia have exactly the same incentives as Napoleonic politicians, even if the glory they seek is not necessarily direct political power in their own hands, but only the triumph of their doctrines, the reordering of other peoples lives in accordance with their own visions, a display of their own intellectual virtousity, or simply a posture of daring in the role of a verbal dandy. The easiest way to achieve all of these goals is to disdain the beaten path, as Lincoln put it, and to attack or undermine the fundamental structure of the American political system and society."

Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice (New York: Free Press, 1999) pp. 147-149

Viva Tommy! Sheds a little light on things doesn't it? This is not only a bipartisan criticism, it also serves as a warning to look into your own heart to see the areas where you disdain the beaten or the ancient paths as my buddy John likes to call them.

"This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'" - Jeremiah

Good Times for Curious Cheapskates

As a notorious cheapskate I am always on the lookout for free entertainment, well free anything really, and as a guy trying to figure out how this thing called life works, I am always on the search for clues. People watching and eavesdropping are great for both.

Now by eavesdropping I do not mean listening to entire conversations but rather little audio snapshots picked up here and there. There is no better place to do this than walking through a busy airport or crowded restaurant. I love hearing little snippets that give me insight into the human experience and fuel my imagination with their brevity. Some highlights from the last year:

"I sold seven units today!" From a man arriving late (I assumed) to a multi-generational table already halfway through their meal at a nice restaurant in Texas.

"So where are we at?" Attractive and mournful young gal in Starbucks to a guy whose appearance made me wonder why she even cared.

"They don't count calories in Singapore, they're called kilograms." Hmmm...not so sure about that one. Overheard in the Memphis airport.

"Of all of my medical conditions, it..." My personal favorite. This one I also overheard in Memphis on a seperate trip, it came from a very healthy looking young lady revealing her hypocondria to a mildly disinterested young man. I nearly laughed out loud. All? How many medical conditions do you have? I was power walking down the moving sidewalk so that was all I heard.

"I drank the whole bottle last night and I'm still feeling it this morning" Guy wearing a christian t-shirt walking in front of me. Brilliant advertising, dude.

Cell phone conversations are one notable exemption from enjoyable eavesdropping, especially on a plane or in line at the store. If there is one thing that puts me in a near homicidal rage it is when the knucklehead, er, gentleman sitting in the row behind me calls the office to check in the second the plane touches down. I sit there silently fuming looking like that guy in Edvard Munch's painting The Scream. There is NO NEED TO TALK SO LOUD THE BAGGAGE HANDLERS UNLOADING THE PLANE CAN HEAR YOU! Aaarrgghhh! &$#@! I'm getting upset just writing about it.

It's funny, sometimes when we are out in public, Jen and I will be talking and I can hear little snippets of conversation from all around us. She says my eyes bug out, which is true, because I am straining so hard to block out all the conversation around us and concentrate on what she is saying. Jen is not an eavesdropper so she is constantly saying things that would be great fodder for anyone within earshot. For example, while watching one of Cal's soccer games in a crowded bleacher she turned to me and said in a normal speaking voice, "doesn't that kid in the number four jersey look like he'll grow up to be a serial killer?" Hilarious.

Also fun, and especially at the airport is people watching. People watching is best done in pairs so that you can conduct your own What Not to Wear clinic. I enjoy watching people deplane from Vegas and anywhere tropical. The Vegas people always look slightly depressed and I am always curious when I see pale men in business wear mixed in with the tan honeymooners getting off the flight from Cancun. What, you couldn't spare half an hour to go to the beach?

It is always tempting to ogle attractive women while people watching but as a married man I try my best not to do this. In my attempts to avoid becoming a dirty old man I have developed the practice of immediately scanning the periphery when an attractive woman walks by. I do not mean to betray my gender; but you have got to try this - it is so funny. I have seen guys from 7 to 97 turn their heads on a swivel when a pretty lady walks by. Men holding babies, men walking arm in arm with their wives or girlfriends, men trailing oxygen tanks - you name it. It is so universal, so automatic you can go out and witness it today wherever you happen to be. The worst/funniest is seeing some guy trip over himself to hold the door open for an attractive woman and then nearly slam it shut in the face of a far less attractive woman. I'm sure I've been guilty of similarly transparent behavior, but the practice of people watching is hopefully teaching me some behaviors to avoid, and yes, slowly but surely I am learning what not to wear.

Taxes

From the Nov/Dec issue of The American, by Stephen Moore.

"6. What is the economic logic behind these lower tax rates?
As legend has it, the famous “Laffer Curve” was first drawn by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974 on a cocktail napkin at a small dinner meeting attended by the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and such high-powered policymakers as Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Laffer showed how two different rates—one high and one low—could produce the same revenues, since the higher rate would discourage work and investment. The Laffer Curve helped launch Reaganomics here at home and ignited a frenzy of tax cutting around the globe that continues to this day. It’s also one of the simplest concepts in economics: lowering the tax rate on production, work, investment, and risk-taking will spur more of these activities and will often produce more tax revenue rather than less. Since the Reagan tax cuts, the United States has created some 40 million new jobs—more than all of Europe and Japan combined."

- Stephen Moore

I would like to add that this issue really frosts my chaps. The budget deficit is caused by overspending not undertaxing. Of course the rich are going to benefit the most from tax cuts since they are the ones actually paying the taxes!

When you punish success it affects everyone negatively. Reward success and everyone has a fair shot at getting ahead. It won't be easy (Pursuit of Happyness) but it will be possible.

Here is a prominent Senator speaking on taxes in 2004, "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." How is that anything other than legalized covetousness?

But what about the poor, you say? Well, Americans have always been among the most generous people on earth. Private citizens efforts on behalf of the poor are always more effective, compassionate and cost efficient than anything the government could dream up.

Thomas Sowell has a great analogy in his book, The Quest for Cosmic Justice. He is speaking about government efforts to make life more fair and he uses the following illustration to make his point. I'm paraphrasing here- "If a ship with 300 people on board is sinking and there is only room for 200 people on board, the fair thing is that all 300 people should drown. It is not fair to the 100 to let them drown while the 200 live." Obviously no sane person would recommend that we let all 300 drown just to make it fair, even knowing as Sowell points out that the most selfish scoundrels among the lot would probably end up in the life boat. And yet this policy of fairness, or "cosmic justice" as Sowell calls it is the guiding principle of so many in government today. Damn the whole lot for the sake of the few, rather than to let the horses run free and wild, knowing that some will get left behind. Let them fall behind I say, statistics prove that there will always be plenty of us who will turn around to help them on their way.

Light and Life

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." - John, the apostle

I don't know that the world is getting any darker but it sure feels that way. Humans are pretty good at coping though and so it becomes pretty easy to live in a self induced state of denial about how bad things are (and have been for oh, the last six thou or so). We learn to tolerate, adapt to, and even participate in darkness and the celebration of. For example, I remember briefly being disturbed by the fact that I was rooting for a gang of thieves while watching the movie Ocean's Eleven, but apparently not disturbed enough to refrain from watching its sequels; Ocean's Twelve and Thirteen. That has been me in a nutshell up to this point in my life - mildly or even blatantly amused by sin, willfully ignorant of convenient injustices, and in general deaf to most of the din and roar beyond whatever walls my mind could create. A line from my friend John's blog sums it up well,

St. Cyprian wrote to his friend in North Africa in the third century admitting from his “fair garden under the shadow of these vines” that the world looked cheerful. Yet he also knew that if he were to step away from the shade of his comfort, he would see that “It is really a bad world Donatus, an incredibly bad world”

At some point in the past year I feel as though I have been shaken from the comfort of my mental "Shire" and have started to become aware of the prescence of the Valley of the Shadow. It hasn't been tragedy or hardship that has jolted me awake but rather the overwhelming prescence of beauty. Patty Griffin's voice, Mark Helprin's writing, Brahms, Thomas Sowell's mind, the boundless delight found in my wife Jennifer's face, the subdued pastels and heartbreaking silence of twilight, the Guadalupe on my skin, the grace in my daughter's smile, the smell of warm bread and it's ability to satisfy so deeply. All of these and more have shattered me. I am ruined for anything less. These gifts have driven me straight into the arms of the one I call, "The Great Other." Father, Spirit, Son. Jesus, Yahweh, The Great "I Am." And all of this feels like about the twentieth of what will surely be hundreds of salvations. Saved from myself, saved from death, saved from illusions, saved to life, and on and on it goes.

Like many believers I have dutifully attempted at times in my life to steer clear of sin, with some modest successes, and too many failures to count. My primary method for doing this was to attempt to build a series of floodgates to keep the darkness out. Not only did it not work, but in my fixation to keep the darkness out, I was ignorant of the light. My primary focus was in keeping darkness out rather than letting light in.

And then in spite of myself; morning broke, and I was awakened to the glorious light, and in that light I found life.

To my left and to my right is a darkness blacker than death, I am more aware of it now than ever before, but in front of me is Light and Life and with a face set like flint on what I desire, I choose Light and I choose Life. I exult in its radiant joy. I can see it (hear it, taste it, touch it, smell it) now.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." - Jesus, (The Light and The Life)

Clouds

Of all the simple pleasures, few can match the faithful and overwhelmingly majestic beauty of the cloud.

Sublime – adjective
1.
elevated or lofty in thought, language, etc.
2.
impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or power; inspiring awe, veneration, etc.: ex. sublime skies over Wisconsin field.

Winter Sky over Wisconsin.

Deadly storm boils up over North Texas.

This one washed over us in giant undulating swells. The view from the ocean floor.

Art show above the Mountains.

Cropduster against a perfectly cloudy summer sky.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” - Psalm 19

A Poem by John Frederick Nims

Love Poem

My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apopleptic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily in love's unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.

Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.

-John Frederick Nims (1913-1999)

The Song of the Lark - Jules Breton

This & That

Does anybody else out there love the freecreditreport.com songs as much as me? I give a slight edge to the "F-R-E-E that spells free" version over the seafood restaurant one, but both never fail to put a smile on my face and a little extra bounce in my step.

Election Results

I love watching the primary results roll in. I have wasted many an hour sitting there staring at the percentages change as the results roll in night after night. I was first sucked into this back when Iowa held their caucuses in early January. I remember them calling the race with something like 40% of the votes tabulated. I couldn't believe that with only 40% counted that they already knew who was going to win, so I sat there for another 2 or 3 hours convinced that the results would change as more votes came in, but they didn't. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? I am going to go mad trying to figure it out. I have watched every primary since, obssessed with those little numbers at the bottom of the screen.

For those who haven't seen what I'm talking about here is a hypothetical example: let's say the Rhode Island primary is going on and after 1% of the votes come in Romney leads with 37% of the votes (278), McCain is in second with 31% (233), Ron Paul is in third with 22% (165), and Huckabee is in fourth with 10% of the votes (75). Based on what I've witnessed so far you could almost call the race right there as I've rarely seen anyone move more than 4 percentage points. How is such a small sampling of independent thinking people so predicitive of the state as a whole? I sit there night after night willing the numbers to change dramatically and of course they never do. However if say with 55% of the votes counted, Romney has dropped to 35% and McCain has jumped to 32% then we are talking about some serious drama. Good times for the geeks! One note for the networks; you could make it much more riveting by adding a decimal point so that we could track movement within a percentage point easier.

The fact that a representative sampling of the votes is such an accurate predictor of the final results is apparently common knowledge as guys routinely give concession or victory speeches with less than 50% of the results in. I still don't get it; we come from an incalculable number of backgrounds and perspectives, are known for our freedom of thought and expression, surprise all the pollsters and pundits with how we end up voting and yet are so predictable that a small sample of our actual votes is enough to forecast the eventual outcome. How is this possible? Why aren't there wild fluctuations all night long? Somebody help me with this one.

Once

There are so few truly good movies out there that I feel obligated to let everybody know when I come across a great one. My buddy Eddie got me into a movie called Once. It's about a street singer and a girl he meets. Great plot, good dialogue, great background (Ireland), phenomenal music...it's a winner any way you look at it. One warning: they do say the F word a lot (but it's with an Irish accent so it sounds more like a cough). The movie is worth watching just for the scene in the music store. This movie has got soul. It also introduced me to the music of Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and The Frames, all worth looking into.

Thanks.

I have had so many great conversations this week with people about the subject of my last blog. Thanks to all for helping me get some clarity. If you did read my last post, check out John's comment for a great rebuttal to the example I gave.

Here is a quote from a friend's blog that I found helpful, "Perhaps we’ve become too hyper-critical of ourselves to reach out to our own community. Too many times we compare ourselves with those who are receiving national or international acclaim or recognition for their achievements. The celebrity-style spotlight often leaves us feeling inadequate or inefficient in our own efforts to serve God. Instead, we should funnel the inspiration that comes from that attention into our own hearts and what God is doing through us to change the world around us." - Sam Gualtieri in Relevant magazine

The Story - Brandi Carlile

Jen introduced me to this gal and we cannot get enough of her music. Jen still gets goosebumps everytime she listens to this song. One of the first albums we've bought in a while. Definetely worth the cash.

"All of these lines that cross my face
tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
and how I got to where I am."

-Phil Hanseroth

The Economics of Interaction

Several years ago while delivering Christmas presents I learned a hard lesson in what I like to call “the economics of interaction.” The lesson learned was that it is possible to give to others even with the best of intentions and yet in the process end up taking more than you give.

We were delivering presents on behalf of a prison inmate to his children through Chuck Colson’s Angel Tree program. My wife and I along with several teenagers in our youth group pulled up to a rundown house in a shady section of KC with an armload of presents for three children who lived with their grandmother. Their mother was in jail and the father, who knows…

I have never quite learned how to exist comfortably as a rich guy, (relatively speaking, both globally and historically I am filthy rich regardless of how high up the American ladder I am) on the one hand I can’t get Jesus words out of my head and on the other hand I am too distracted by the pleasures of wealth to give a hoot. So I sit in this uncomfortably passive state satiated for the moment by cake and American Idol. So on this night I was very excited to be finally doing something. I was going to make a difference! Perhaps in doing good I could somehow assuage the guilt I felt for my wealth.

We met the kids and delivered their presents to the grandmother, a saintly woman who had lost most of her foot to diabetes and if I remember right, whose vision wasn’t far behind. We chit chatted for a few minutes and then I asked if we could pray for her, she agreed, I prayed a blessing over her and the kids and we left. As we drove home I kept replaying the night in my head, something was bothering me but I couldn’t put my finger on it, and then it hit me – the wrong person prayed. Rather than praying for her, I should have fallen on my knees and begged her to pray for me. Here was a woman missing half a foot, in ill health, raising three children – this woman knew more about love and life than what I didn’t know about life and love. I realized then and there that by coming in to this woman’s house as someone with something “to give” that I had actually exalted myself over her and that by “giving” without recognizing that she was actually the one with something to give, that I had actually “taken” some small part of her dignity. Now then whether or not she actually felt I had taken her dignity, I'll never know, but I certainly felt as though I had, and resolved to never to let it happen again. Actually, in an effort to ensure that it doesn't, I have just sworn off helping anyone, ever.

Well not really, but the realization that night has heavily influenced my thinking since, I have never forgotten that lady. I don’t want that night to prevent me from reaching out, but when I do reach out; I want to do it with humility. I want to receive and in the process give dignity. I have come in part to the following conclusions. Conclusions that become more and more relevant every day:

a)Results matter more than intentions

b)The ends do not justify the means

c)It is possible to give and yet take in the process

d)Jesus’ instructions to us regarding those in need are as much for our benefit as they are for the benefit of those in need. Recognizing this is crucial to understand as we go into giving situations. When we give we should also receive in a way that gives dignity to the recipient by acknowledging that they too as a child of God have something to give us.

e)Doing the right thing sometimes makes you feel terrible and so I’ve got to ask myself, “am I doing this because it is the right thing to do or because it makes me feel good about myself?”

For example, consider the following verse from the New Testament “if a man will not work, he shall not eat.” This rule if followed absolutely serves to protect society from leeches but it wasn’t until recently that I realized that this rule is just as much about the protection of the man who does not work as it is for the society in which he lives. It is a brilliant recognition of human nature. Everybody has some area in their life in which they will repeatedly slack if not challenged. For some people this area happens to be work. Without loving people to challenge us (spouse, parent, friend) in these areas we will slide into our personal lowest common denominator and live in perpetual underachievement. So when presented with an underachieving loved one or a lazy man the choice becomes, do I do what makes me feel good or do I do what in the short term will make us both feel miserable but in the long run create a great good?

f)Just as there are things that look good that actually produce negative results, there are things that appear harsh that actually produce good results.
Althought they sound alike, this is more of a political revelation while the previous point was more of a personal one. The hard way is the right way. I think about this nearly daily as I watch those who would be king do their best to make us forget it.

These are not groundbreaking revelations I know, but bear with me, I am a slow learner, and their freshness to me means they are still exciting. I am still trying to figure it all out, and would appreciate your thoughts on the topic.

“When social service is performed out of a sense of guilt, the inevitable result is chaos.”
- The Reverend Jimmy Carter

Violent Beauty

There is a spot on State Highway 101 northwest of Fort Worth where the road runs like a spine between two quarries. I love driving along that road between the deep pits, a place where late at night you can almost smell the sweat of a thousand men. The history of the place is palpable, it's almost as if Dallas and Fort Worth were pulled whole out of the ground and plopped down 30 miles to the south and east.

A rock quarry is a violent place, the rock is blown to pieces which are then crushed in a large rotating drum, run along a belt according to size, dumped in a pile and then scooped up and dropped in a dump truck for delivery to a construction site somewhere. All of this activity creates a lot of noise, dust, and movement; non-stop movement. Dump trucks the size of houses run in perpetual motion, the belts never stop spitting out rock, and the front end loaders dance and spin (smash into the pile, reverse half circle, forward, dump, reverse, half circle forward, grab your partner do-si-do) to the chorus and hum of hungry lines of trucks and trains waiting to be filled.

But a rock quarry is also an incredibly beautiful place full of color and impressive geometry. The clean lines of the white limestone walls, the veins running at angles through the rock, the shapes of the piles, the deep blues and greens of the water in flooded pits. Then there are the deer, cattle, wild boar, goats, vultures, snakes, herons and various other crittters that make their home in hidden and long forgotten corners of the property. And all of this as sun and shadow paint their constantly evolving work across the towering rock faces. Finally, there is something timelessly beautiful about rock and when I grab a handful of it and run my thumb over the smooth surfaces I am reminded of the line from St. Patrick's Breastplate:

"I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock."

Here are some pictures that will give you a glimpse into this wonderful and violent world that we get to watch unfold through the eyepiece of our lasers. Notice the deep veins running through the rock in photo #3. Photo #4 taken by Bobby Forehand.

Glenn Beck on Huckabee

This guy cracks me up. He reminds me of my brother Josh. Here are his thoughts last night on Huckabee. (Background: He had surgery last week and is still recovering which is why he keeps refering to pain medication)

I really don't want to become a political blog so don't worry this won't last much longer.

The Iowa Caucuses

The street in front of our house was jammed with cars and people tonight as I headed out towards my caucus site. There were two caucus sites between my house and the school where I ended up casting my vote and my excitement grew as I passed group after group of people walking with the cartoonish urgency that can only come on a cold night. I was so excited to live in a country where I was free to participate in an election process without fear of violence or doctored results.

The Republicans in my district gathered in a local middle school cafeteria. I sat down at a table after arriving roughly 20 minutes early and studied the crowd of nearly 90 people. There were only two people under the age of 30, which I took as a good sign, I mean honestly, when I was 18 I liked Bill Clinton solely because his theme song was Fleetwood Macs' Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. There were a few people in their forties, quite a few of us in our thirties and fifties, while the majority of the crowd was over sixty. Male female broke down to roughly 60 % male, 40 % female. Most of the crowd looked like they were very hard working, moving with the purposeful economy of motion common to those who need to save their energy for a long day coming. There were more than a few Carharts in the crowd, the instantly recognizable winter wear of the working man.

Most people spent the extra time trying to talk their seatmates into or out of various candidates. I was seated with two other gentlemen who knew they would be voting in the minority. All three of us shared a negative view of the eventual winner, Mike Huckabee.

After we all recited the pledge of allegiance, the emcee asked for a representative of each candidate to speak for roughly 3-4 minutes on why we should vote for his or her candidate. A friend of Fred Thompson’s spoke on his behalf, a woman from the crowd (small business owner) spoke brilliantly on behalf of Ron Paul, a young man spoke for Mike Huckabee, and three people from the crowd spoke on John McCain’s behalf. One of the people speaking for John McCain was an elderly woman whose husband had also been a prisoner of war. After each speech the crowd applauded, no one spoke on behalf of Romney, Guliani, or Duncan Hunter. Then paper ballots were passed out and we voted. The ballots were collected and a supporter from each candidate was called up to supervise the vote tally. As a man read aloud from each ballot, the emcee put a mark next to the name of the candidate receiving the vote on a large white tablet. The word Huckabee, repeated in a monotonous drone, bounced off my forehead 34 times like some audio version of Chinese water torture, by the end I had to resist the urge to stand up and scream, “You idiots! You lemmings!” Coming in second was Fred Thompson with 18 votes, tied for third with 12 each were Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, John McCain had 11 votes and Guliani although ahead of Hunter walked away with only one vote.

My choice came down to voting against Huckabee by voting for Romney, voting against the Government by voting for Ron Paul, or voting for conservative principals by voting for Fred Thompson. I wrestled with this for days, but eventually decided that for once in my life I would like to vote for something instead of the usual vote against the worse of the two candidates. So I voted for Thompson, a guy who doesn’t really act like he wants to be President, but who is for a limited government. And as long as I’m keeping things on the optimistic side, I would like to say I’m positive that Mike Huckabee would be a horrible candidate for President.