So how does one start to talk about something that is not there? It was, and then it was not. It took up a lot of space and time and emotional energy and then it was gone. Passion 3 has upped and gone to far away lands. Her chirpy, happy little presence now a memory and a loss to us.
Our little Lou has flown the coop and gone to lands new and Eastern. In fact, our little Lou has gone to do something new, so far out of view in the home of Samsung, the city, Daegu. I wonder now if our parents felt the same way as we left and flew far away to other lands. Perhaps I can better sympathize with them as they waved us goodbye, fleeing in to the unknown.
Yet, our situation is so different and our relationship so unlike. Communication across the globe is as natural as a call across the room and the wonders of Skype and kakao talk seem to make it no different at all...apart from the 15 hour difference that is.
Our parents had no real sense of why we were doing what we did, but we have been behind Lou all the way. This makes a great deal of difference.
But still her absence is felt.
So we groan and laugh in the darkness of our bedroom as an iPhone light fills the room at 3 am and the squeal of Kakao!!! erupts signaling Lou's presence. However, its so easy to forgive when our precious girl arrives and for a time, feels a little closer.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Perichoresis
Grace to go, grace to stay,
Grace to work and grace to play.
In every part of life in God
As we tread upon each hallowed sod
With feet unshod we approach the holy
Constrained by God our first, last, only.
Its good to know He is our all,
Our life, our breath our ultimate call.
As such we live as sacrifice
For He gave the words of eternal life.
In Covenant with the eternal
We find a Savior who is fraternal
The Spirit who births and broods maternal
And One, from whom all others define paternal.
To the three in One
To the Lord dancers
Grace to work and grace to play.
In every part of life in God
As we tread upon each hallowed sod
With feet unshod we approach the holy
Constrained by God our first, last, only.
Its good to know He is our all,
Our life, our breath our ultimate call.
As such we live as sacrifice
For He gave the words of eternal life.
In Covenant with the eternal
We find a Savior who is fraternal
The Spirit who births and broods maternal
And One, from whom all others define paternal.
To the three in One
To the Lord dancers
Monday, May 19, 2014
Taking your eyes off the Holy
I had taken my eyes off the Holy
And gazed upon the mundane
I had lost my view of transcendent
And had settled for life in the plain.
I had lost my feel for the sacred
I had touched too much of the world
I had sensed a loss of sensation
In my fingers so twisted and curled.
I had failed to hear what you're saying
I had listened to words without life
I had latched on to meaningless nonsense
I had fallen to discord and strife.
But I tasted today a new savor
As I listened my hunger returned
The aroma of Christ was so fragrant
I remembered so much I had learned.
Of the presence and power of Father
And the touch of His Spirit in love
Of a savior who poured out His life so pure
The wise incarnate from above.
I have sensed what enveloped can feel like
I've been silenced and quieted from talk.
I've been touched by the power of a shadow
As I hid in the cleft of the rock.
Be thou my vision, my view
Be thou my strength you renew,
Be though my longing always
My horizon till end of my days.
A Mother's day Poem
So enough of bearded ladies,
Enough of politics.
Desist with all this culture war
And poison rhetoric.
This is a day to honor those both special
And yet common
A group, a band a sisterhood
A special kind of woman.
Not all can call themselves this name
But all have benefitted from them.
I speak of course in rhyming verse,
Of one none other,
Than a mother.
All of us have got one, had one, been one
Or become one.
All of us would have to say, we love them, loved them
And respect them.
It's so much more than giving birth, to mother and to nurture,
It's way beyond some quick and easy short term little venture.
A mother, true to that dear name, gives all to those she bore,
Her busy days and caring ways are never seen as chore.
Whether babe in arms, teen up in arms, witness to their child holding their own baby in their arms, or as life fades, being held in another's arms, yet comforting those remaining,
A mother's role is unending.
This poem's however is not.
So I celebrate, appreciate and eulogize today,
the one who taught me sacrifice, and how to gently live a life that stirs a smile, and questions a style, and walks a loving side by side mile.
I honor and bless the one I love, one I helped become a mother,
How glad am I to this very day, it was me and It was no other
To my daughters this day, all grown up in their way, till the time when they are mums too,
May you cherish your mum, appreciate what she's done in the joy of her love for each of you.
Happy Mother's Day Jo.
Enough of politics.
Desist with all this culture war
And poison rhetoric.
This is a day to honor those both special
And yet common
A group, a band a sisterhood
A special kind of woman.
Not all can call themselves this name
But all have benefitted from them.
I speak of course in rhyming verse,
Of one none other,
Than a mother.
All of us have got one, had one, been one
Or become one.
All of us would have to say, we love them, loved them
And respect them.
It's so much more than giving birth, to mother and to nurture,
It's way beyond some quick and easy short term little venture.
A mother, true to that dear name, gives all to those she bore,
Her busy days and caring ways are never seen as chore.
Whether babe in arms, teen up in arms, witness to their child holding their own baby in their arms, or as life fades, being held in another's arms, yet comforting those remaining,
A mother's role is unending.
This poem's however is not.
So I celebrate, appreciate and eulogize today,
the one who taught me sacrifice, and how to gently live a life that stirs a smile, and questions a style, and walks a loving side by side mile.
I honor and bless the one I love, one I helped become a mother,
How glad am I to this very day, it was me and It was no other
To my daughters this day, all grown up in their way, till the time when they are mums too,
May you cherish your mum, appreciate what she's done in the joy of her love for each of you.
Happy Mother's Day Jo.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Kissing Cousins, or how a redcoat became a turncoat
Culture is a many splendored thing, an ever changing thing, a thing of rough serration.
Culture is accumulation or sublimation, affirmation and assimilation.
Replete with many influences, focuses and words
Our tragedies hard remembered, transforming or disfiguring by turns.
Cultures get names they are black, white or youth,
We name so we can shame, we separate and we segregate, and thus we sieve the truth
But trying by defining, or controlling by enrolling means we lose even that we thought we knew,
Cultures confound, confuse and astound and are never just ours, false, or true.
Culture is shared value, shared history, community and reality,
Some of it good some of it bad, some ugly and some pretty
Like our history the strong get to write and to say, where the line is drawn that makes us pure,
But less truth intrusion means an easier inclusion in the closed circle we call, "our" culture.
Can a leopard change spots, can a zebra turn white or a tiger be loosed from her stripes,
Are we trapped as we are, or loosed to the stars to be free of our roots and our stereotypes.
I'm a man born to be, stout, white, English and free I'm a rebel and always will be,
But in one week or so I will change in my flow, when America naturalizes me.
So much has been writ of our cousinly ties and our shared and yet broken connections
How two cultures so close, could be severed and torn and go in two different directions.
But of course I've run foul of my own simple mind when I fail to see all of the mix,
It's not two but two thousand cultures or more that make up this complex matrix.
So let me be clear what is going on here, so my readers won't howl, fuss or rasp,
I will not be Lakota, Chippewa, Cree, Dakota, just a common or garden old WASP.
Yes an oath will be sworn, and a hand will be raised, a new anthem may come from my lips,
But when all's said and done, as a new murican,' I will still love my old fish and chips!
Culture is accumulation or sublimation, affirmation and assimilation.
Replete with many influences, focuses and words
Our tragedies hard remembered, transforming or disfiguring by turns.
Cultures get names they are black, white or youth,
We name so we can shame, we separate and we segregate, and thus we sieve the truth
But trying by defining, or controlling by enrolling means we lose even that we thought we knew,
Cultures confound, confuse and astound and are never just ours, false, or true.
Culture is shared value, shared history, community and reality,
Some of it good some of it bad, some ugly and some pretty
Like our history the strong get to write and to say, where the line is drawn that makes us pure,
But less truth intrusion means an easier inclusion in the closed circle we call, "our" culture.
Can a leopard change spots, can a zebra turn white or a tiger be loosed from her stripes,
Are we trapped as we are, or loosed to the stars to be free of our roots and our stereotypes.
I'm a man born to be, stout, white, English and free I'm a rebel and always will be,
But in one week or so I will change in my flow, when America naturalizes me.
So much has been writ of our cousinly ties and our shared and yet broken connections
How two cultures so close, could be severed and torn and go in two different directions.
But of course I've run foul of my own simple mind when I fail to see all of the mix,
It's not two but two thousand cultures or more that make up this complex matrix.
So let me be clear what is going on here, so my readers won't howl, fuss or rasp,
I will not be Lakota, Chippewa, Cree, Dakota, just a common or garden old WASP.
Yes an oath will be sworn, and a hand will be raised, a new anthem may come from my lips,
But when all's said and done, as a new murican,' I will still love my old fish and chips!
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Clearing Out the Basement
It is a mildly bemusing thing for me to think that I have grown up to own a basement. My first home away from the family home was a shared room with a neurotic violinist and his candle and record collection. From there I progressed to a small room that had space for a bed, a heater and a small wardrobe. That pretty much summed up my abodes till the time I got married. I did have one notable straying from that pattern for a brief time in Hong Kong when I shared a room with four guys in an old refugee camp that was about the size of a pool table. Storage was neither an issue, or a discussion then.
Time passed marriage and children came and homes grew in size to accommodate the family. Two bedrooms, then three and finally four, plus of course the aforementioned basement. Of all the 35 homes my wife and I have shared over the years, I have never had a basement let alone one that is the size of a small apartment, that is until now. I happily confess that it happens to be one of my favorite rooms. Water heaters, furnaces, water softeners and lots of pipes and wires I do not understand. Basements are great repositories of memories and at times, if it be not too delicate a rhyme to note, suppositories of memory too. Could not resist that...
We have lived a few months shy of two years in this home, but till now have not managed to clear out and tidy what was beginning to look like a landfill site, a place of dross collection,where all the things we could not get round to placing or throwing away from years gone by ended up. Some were in piles of articles with no real theme or connection and others there were to be found in an all too clearly connected pile of things. The common bond of all however was that they had long since passed from the light of utility, into the shadowy vale of uselessness, but had never quite had anyone brave enough to give them their shipping orders.
It was all getting a little too much to bear so with the massive help of my firstborn, the basement was invaded, order was brought from chaos, the great desolation became inhabitable. Shelves were assembled, desks and workspaces were erected and a measure of calm was restored. Now the question was, what to do with the pile of things that emerged out of this civilizing process. The problem was that I found it hard to take things that worked and might be useful sometime, some place, even in unlikely if ever to be replicated circumstances and just get rid of them. I had kept them so long and shared so many fun times with them over the years it seemed strangely disloyal and bordering on mildly treacherous.
Though these old things were of little fiduciary value, they were containers of memories, and memories are particularly precious as one grows older. As age count rises you wonder if you yourself will be merely someone's fond memory all too soon. These old and not so old things spoke to me of many things learned and experienced and in some ways I felt spoke to me even as we passed them on to others.
The accrued debris of my life, the flotsam and jetsam of possessions floating in the basement as if from a ship long passed, were being dredged up, dried out, hauled up onto the shore to be handed on to others.
Old records, cassettes, CDs and videos, amplifiers, speakers and radios spoke of the message to be lived in our lives in the way we walk and communicate that which we know, value, feel and hold precious. Music, voice, images and instruments magically take what is waves and vibrations and make beauty, stir emotion and fire our hearts. Words spoken can draw us to the truth, make us smile and make us cry. The voice seeks an ear, an audience, a reply or a reception. Communication begins when a voice is received not just broadcast. When it is there is always the promise of revelation through relationship, a community from communication.
An old car DVD player reminded me of family trips, and journeys that were shared adventures of discovery and what it was to breathe a new type of air together. I recalled history re-visited, places of beauty admired and enjoyed as a family. Things only observed on small screens or on paper were walked on, viewed and touched by those who looked in to that little dvd screen as it travelled along the roads and highways.
A computer monitor spoke to me of connection and creating. What was typed, was processed and then seen on a screen like the one I am viewing now and the one being given away. Seeing is believing but it is also encapsulating and imagining both what is, and what can be, created with words, pictures and shapes on a screen. Monitors can be mirrors of our mind's inner creation, they are mirrors with x ray vision reflecting what is inside our heads as we see it written down.
Our minds and lives can become like cluttered, disorganized basements finding place for too long to the things we should have discarded. Not all memories are good ones, and reminding ourselves of them too often by the things we keep in view can be the last thing we need for us to grow and change. Not all things remain useful over time and though they may still function, their function has ceased to be relevant to us. They have become lost out of context and they fill what should be space, or where we should have fruitful things that will bring life and new direction to our ongoing life purposes. Clearing some shelf space in our lives for nothing but space where there can be reflection, renewal and rejuvenation is perhaps not a bad thing for any of us.
So happy new year to you all, happy cleared out basements, and happy fruitful lives for the coming year. If you need to clear out the basement, or the attic or the garage of your life there is probably no better time. I encourage you to say goodbye graciously and appreciatively to the things to be removed, but do say goodbye if you need to, and let the sweetness of the memory of past things, be just that.
Sweet and memories.
Time passed marriage and children came and homes grew in size to accommodate the family. Two bedrooms, then three and finally four, plus of course the aforementioned basement. Of all the 35 homes my wife and I have shared over the years, I have never had a basement let alone one that is the size of a small apartment, that is until now. I happily confess that it happens to be one of my favorite rooms. Water heaters, furnaces, water softeners and lots of pipes and wires I do not understand. Basements are great repositories of memories and at times, if it be not too delicate a rhyme to note, suppositories of memory too. Could not resist that...
We have lived a few months shy of two years in this home, but till now have not managed to clear out and tidy what was beginning to look like a landfill site, a place of dross collection,where all the things we could not get round to placing or throwing away from years gone by ended up. Some were in piles of articles with no real theme or connection and others there were to be found in an all too clearly connected pile of things. The common bond of all however was that they had long since passed from the light of utility, into the shadowy vale of uselessness, but had never quite had anyone brave enough to give them their shipping orders.
It was all getting a little too much to bear so with the massive help of my firstborn, the basement was invaded, order was brought from chaos, the great desolation became inhabitable. Shelves were assembled, desks and workspaces were erected and a measure of calm was restored. Now the question was, what to do with the pile of things that emerged out of this civilizing process. The problem was that I found it hard to take things that worked and might be useful sometime, some place, even in unlikely if ever to be replicated circumstances and just get rid of them. I had kept them so long and shared so many fun times with them over the years it seemed strangely disloyal and bordering on mildly treacherous.
Though these old things were of little fiduciary value, they were containers of memories, and memories are particularly precious as one grows older. As age count rises you wonder if you yourself will be merely someone's fond memory all too soon. These old and not so old things spoke to me of many things learned and experienced and in some ways I felt spoke to me even as we passed them on to others.
The accrued debris of my life, the flotsam and jetsam of possessions floating in the basement as if from a ship long passed, were being dredged up, dried out, hauled up onto the shore to be handed on to others.
Old records, cassettes, CDs and videos, amplifiers, speakers and radios spoke of the message to be lived in our lives in the way we walk and communicate that which we know, value, feel and hold precious. Music, voice, images and instruments magically take what is waves and vibrations and make beauty, stir emotion and fire our hearts. Words spoken can draw us to the truth, make us smile and make us cry. The voice seeks an ear, an audience, a reply or a reception. Communication begins when a voice is received not just broadcast. When it is there is always the promise of revelation through relationship, a community from communication.
An old car DVD player reminded me of family trips, and journeys that were shared adventures of discovery and what it was to breathe a new type of air together. I recalled history re-visited, places of beauty admired and enjoyed as a family. Things only observed on small screens or on paper were walked on, viewed and touched by those who looked in to that little dvd screen as it travelled along the roads and highways.
A computer monitor spoke to me of connection and creating. What was typed, was processed and then seen on a screen like the one I am viewing now and the one being given away. Seeing is believing but it is also encapsulating and imagining both what is, and what can be, created with words, pictures and shapes on a screen. Monitors can be mirrors of our mind's inner creation, they are mirrors with x ray vision reflecting what is inside our heads as we see it written down.
Our minds and lives can become like cluttered, disorganized basements finding place for too long to the things we should have discarded. Not all memories are good ones, and reminding ourselves of them too often by the things we keep in view can be the last thing we need for us to grow and change. Not all things remain useful over time and though they may still function, their function has ceased to be relevant to us. They have become lost out of context and they fill what should be space, or where we should have fruitful things that will bring life and new direction to our ongoing life purposes. Clearing some shelf space in our lives for nothing but space where there can be reflection, renewal and rejuvenation is perhaps not a bad thing for any of us.
So happy new year to you all, happy cleared out basements, and happy fruitful lives for the coming year. If you need to clear out the basement, or the attic or the garage of your life there is probably no better time. I encourage you to say goodbye graciously and appreciatively to the things to be removed, but do say goodbye if you need to, and let the sweetness of the memory of past things, be just that.
Sweet and memories.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
My Name Is Lulay
I was born on a farm but raised in a park
I am lovely and furry and so rarely bark.
I like eating the leaves when I'm out in the yard
And I find climbing stairs so terribly hard.
I am really a mutt, not a pure pedigree
Though some now say hybrid, it's more nice and PC,
I'm both Shi tzu and Bichon they call me teddy.
But give me some time and I maybe will be.
I like playing and jumping and chewing my rope,
I hate tiles and corridors, steel bowls and soap.
I'm a very good girl when it comes to the loo
And I rarely if ever make my folks say eeuuuwww.
My name is exotic it comes out of Asia
Though I've others like Lules, kebab kid and poopinator
You see Lulay's a name that's a really big deal,
If you eat out in Asia and order a meal.
You see daddy thought it was funny
To name me, his cute little honey
Even though she's a teddy not Lab
The name of his favorite kebab.
I suppose there are worse things to be
Than a kebab so nice and tasty
It's not fido or Rex so it does not me vex
I am Lulay the cute and tasty.
Well I've just had some lovely meat dinner,
So I have to go out on my spinner,
I can go just so far, but can't chase any car,
And my mom and dad think thats a winner.
Though I'm only six months old
I'm already used to the cold
Because here we have snow, gales and so
Coz it's Minnesota don'tcha know.
So if you like a tail that wags
And you like things pulled out of your bags
Just pay me a visit and I'll get right on it
Tearing your handkerchief to rags.
I am lovely and furry and so rarely bark.
I like eating the leaves when I'm out in the yard
And I find climbing stairs so terribly hard.
I am really a mutt, not a pure pedigree
Though some now say hybrid, it's more nice and PC,
I'm both Shi tzu and Bichon they call me teddy.
But give me some time and I maybe will be.
I like playing and jumping and chewing my rope,
I hate tiles and corridors, steel bowls and soap.
I'm a very good girl when it comes to the loo
And I rarely if ever make my folks say eeuuuwww.
My name is exotic it comes out of Asia
Though I've others like Lules, kebab kid and poopinator
You see Lulay's a name that's a really big deal,
If you eat out in Asia and order a meal.
You see daddy thought it was funny
To name me, his cute little honey
Even though she's a teddy not Lab
The name of his favorite kebab.
I suppose there are worse things to be
Than a kebab so nice and tasty
It's not fido or Rex so it does not me vex
I am Lulay the cute and tasty.
Well I've just had some lovely meat dinner,
So I have to go out on my spinner,
I can go just so far, but can't chase any car,
And my mom and dad think thats a winner.
Though I'm only six months old
I'm already used to the cold
Because here we have snow, gales and so
Coz it's Minnesota don'tcha know.
So if you like a tail that wags
And you like things pulled out of your bags
Just pay me a visit and I'll get right on it
Tearing your handkerchief to rags.
Real Time
This will be a poem in real time.
I mean now, right now.
Contemporaneous, simultaneous.
In older days it was current or present,
In days gone by it was recently or just now,
But now it's real time because anything else would be..
Well now that you ask, what would it be?
If it's not real time, is it false?
Is this false time though as soon as I say it..... because that was then?
It seems to me that once again we have found a way
To take a word and obfuscate
A way to blur and complicate
Real life, in real time sounds much more cool to me
Than living now authentically,
Not falsely then, quite recently.
We are keeping it real,
See it and hear it before you feel it
False time is so three nano seconds ago,
We often reject the past as false
Because only time right now is real
Because truth lapses. Apparently.
But does real time make sense when alone
What if real time only makes any sense
When it's together with its friends, past and future.
Time whether false or real is a line not a block
It came from somewhere and continued on
It's not just real because we believe it, notice it, or regard it.
Time will outlive us, precede us and humble us,
It's not real because we say so,
We are real because time made time for us.
Really....
I mean now, right now.
Contemporaneous, simultaneous.
In older days it was current or present,
In days gone by it was recently or just now,
But now it's real time because anything else would be..
Well now that you ask, what would it be?
If it's not real time, is it false?
Is this false time though as soon as I say it..... because that was then?
It seems to me that once again we have found a way
To take a word and obfuscate
A way to blur and complicate
Real life, in real time sounds much more cool to me
Than living now authentically,
Not falsely then, quite recently.
We are keeping it real,
See it and hear it before you feel it
False time is so three nano seconds ago,
We often reject the past as false
Because only time right now is real
Because truth lapses. Apparently.
But does real time make sense when alone
What if real time only makes any sense
When it's together with its friends, past and future.
Time whether false or real is a line not a block
It came from somewhere and continued on
It's not just real because we believe it, notice it, or regard it.
Time will outlive us, precede us and humble us,
It's not real because we say so,
We are real because time made time for us.
Really....
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Late fall in Minnesota
Snow, blowing across the swirling misty ground
Smooth curved and contoured like waves are the drifts
White tops are raised to a peak and then blown like dust or sea foam
This sea is powdery and the wind over the face of the Earth is dusted by it.
Blustery, biting and sharp is the wind that lifts
the last remnants of the crispy brown skeletal leaves.
I shield all the more intently my face from the wind
I am blinded by gusts of ice laden air.
The sounds of movement change in such days,
The crunching and squelching of this time is a distraction
I plod like a man through quicksand lifting and pulling my feet
Retrieving them from the all too welcoming snow, my face glowing
My legs and my arms, my face and my hands start to ache as the temperature drops
The cold freezing in my nose and the burning of my lungs
Take some fun out of this white wintery wonderland
Then I think of the months of this cold yet remaining and realize
Its not winter yet.
Smooth curved and contoured like waves are the drifts
White tops are raised to a peak and then blown like dust or sea foam
This sea is powdery and the wind over the face of the Earth is dusted by it.
Blustery, biting and sharp is the wind that lifts
the last remnants of the crispy brown skeletal leaves.
I shield all the more intently my face from the wind
I am blinded by gusts of ice laden air.
The sounds of movement change in such days,
The crunching and squelching of this time is a distraction
I plod like a man through quicksand lifting and pulling my feet
Retrieving them from the all too welcoming snow, my face glowing
My legs and my arms, my face and my hands start to ache as the temperature drops
The cold freezing in my nose and the burning of my lungs
Take some fun out of this white wintery wonderland
Then I think of the months of this cold yet remaining and realize
Its not winter yet.
A Christmas Thought
This is the time of year when by tradition we remember the incarnation. So many things have attached to the time we call Christmas with nothing to do with the meaning of the event so remembered world wide. At times it is easy to forget that this is about something as simple and commonplace as a birth. An event that will be replicated many thousands of times in the time it takes me to write this thought for you. For some this is a cause for celebration, for others a time of heart searching, but for all those giving and awaiting a birth it is a time that will not come without notice and every birth is in some ways an incarnation of that which was not at one time on Earth.
So what of this birth? Not a normal birth, a virgin birth. Not just a child, but a child of promise, a child prophesied and a child with a destiny of both joy, wonder and sadness. This was a life that would begin with cuddles, hope, straw and swaddling cloth, but would end in despair, rejection, thorns and nakedness. This incarnation was like no other though, for the one coming in flesh had been alive even before the world began, and His incarnation was merely a clothing of what had always been, in sinew, muscle, bone and skin. He laid aside incorruptible glory and took on corruptible flesh.
Angels would celebrate and proclaim this birth, the great and the small would take note of His arrival and come to kiss, or come to kill, but all would be mindful of this child. As a refugee or migrant He first grew in Egypt, escaping cruel persecution and genocide as the murderous spirit of Pharoah rose up again , and was played out in the actions of a Jewish king. Like Pharoah he murdered hebrew sons in the hope of keeping down the deliverer. He failed, and only served to prove that nobility is not always found in kings and that Rachel weeping for the loss of her children is a fearful painful thing.
So this Christmas remember this remarkable birth, who would grow up to be Savior and Lord. From His incarnation to His thorned coronation his power was not diminished at all. An obscure working class man from a small Roman province, who died young, with no money or power to his name in Earthly terms, no worldwide marketing machine, no internet viral presence. This man will be celebrated by billions of people in a few short days. For Christ the Second Adam, the Lord, the King, the Savior of the World still longs for those that still do not know His name or know the Gospel to come to Him, so that He can come once again.
For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. The life that would not stay in the tomb so cruelly sealed, the life that would not leave the people of the World helpless, the life that would make a way for us to be reconciled to God who were enemies and estranged, the life that is abundant and gives life to all who come to Him.
This is the best gift of all, the Christmas gift God gave to us all. Take it or leave it. Reject or believe it, but let every heart hear the truth of it this Christmas, and always.
So what of this birth? Not a normal birth, a virgin birth. Not just a child, but a child of promise, a child prophesied and a child with a destiny of both joy, wonder and sadness. This was a life that would begin with cuddles, hope, straw and swaddling cloth, but would end in despair, rejection, thorns and nakedness. This incarnation was like no other though, for the one coming in flesh had been alive even before the world began, and His incarnation was merely a clothing of what had always been, in sinew, muscle, bone and skin. He laid aside incorruptible glory and took on corruptible flesh.
Angels would celebrate and proclaim this birth, the great and the small would take note of His arrival and come to kiss, or come to kill, but all would be mindful of this child. As a refugee or migrant He first grew in Egypt, escaping cruel persecution and genocide as the murderous spirit of Pharoah rose up again , and was played out in the actions of a Jewish king. Like Pharoah he murdered hebrew sons in the hope of keeping down the deliverer. He failed, and only served to prove that nobility is not always found in kings and that Rachel weeping for the loss of her children is a fearful painful thing.
So this Christmas remember this remarkable birth, who would grow up to be Savior and Lord. From His incarnation to His thorned coronation his power was not diminished at all. An obscure working class man from a small Roman province, who died young, with no money or power to his name in Earthly terms, no worldwide marketing machine, no internet viral presence. This man will be celebrated by billions of people in a few short days. For Christ the Second Adam, the Lord, the King, the Savior of the World still longs for those that still do not know His name or know the Gospel to come to Him, so that He can come once again.
For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. The life that would not stay in the tomb so cruelly sealed, the life that would not leave the people of the World helpless, the life that would make a way for us to be reconciled to God who were enemies and estranged, the life that is abundant and gives life to all who come to Him.
This is the best gift of all, the Christmas gift God gave to us all. Take it or leave it. Reject or believe it, but let every heart hear the truth of it this Christmas, and always.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
A Cross Stick
Christ.
Christ the wonderful, the prince of peace, the dayspring from on high
The reason for the season, incarnation beyond reason
Holy child and God most high, desire of nations born to die
From the womb to tomb so soon, plucked from life while in full bloom
Jesus
Has
Has ever a life been so lived as this one, one of service from incept to end
From a small obscure town of no pride or renown, comes a life of One all could call friend
But no ordinary life was this One we speak of, no historical monument He
He lives even today, despite one little break in His life 's long eternity
Redeemed
Redeemed is a word that's not usually heard, since it speaks of repayment and debts
For most of us here those are words that we fear, filled with failure, some shame and regret
But these are no ordinary debts that we owe and no timely repayment will do
For these debts our whole life could not ever repay so He came, and He paid them, for you.
In
In time and in space, in eternity long, it's so hard to know how to explain
When spatial awareness doesn't come in nice squareness and a circle seems best, but again
This is not space time stuff it's more wondrous than that, beyond fourth dimension is this
In time's fulness He came, in a way prophesied, that made Heaven and Earth come to kiss
Suffering
Suffering comes in many forms but none of them are pleasant
Its reach is long and its power strong over president or peasant
It knows no boundary of time,neither language sea or mountain
And each of us all, whether large or small, will drink from this unpleasant fountain
Sin to us is the final word and the common bond between us
Its a thing that we think will serve us well but in the end demeans us
Its the why to the what, and the coz to the huh? our indictment for cosmic high treason
It knows no boundary of time,neither language sea or mountain
And each of us all, whether large or small, will drink from this unpleasant fountain
Torture
Torture speaks of twisting, cruel vengeance and torment
Where something is extracted by the human frame being bent.
To the guilty or deserving, to the innocent it can come
To Emmanuel, Man of Sorrows, to the Holy yet punctured One
My
My, me,mine and menim, ownership is nice if the property's not venom
But what of a poison for no one to own, that will kill everyone with possession
A thing in each tribe, every creed and each heart that has found an unknowing reception
Its a cancer inside that will kill us for sure, no reprieves, not get outs, no exceptions
Abominable
Abominable is a funny word its so long and so little if ever, heard
For Snowmen perhaps, Yeti, Sasquatch too and for other things we would consider absurd
But do not be lulled by its five syllables, or its strange peculiar meter
Cursed, and damned, Hell-bound, lost are all serious stuff, and they fall in its grim parameter
Sin
Its a thing that we think will serve us well but in the end demeans us
Its the why to the what, and the coz to the huh? our indictment for cosmic high treason
For when all has been done and the carols are sung, its our sin that's the reason for the season
So this Christmas time give a thought for the past and a thought for your future days too
Don't be fooled by the tinsel the glitter and all, there's a Savior and Father whose waiting for you.
May this time as you give all your presents and love, and you savor the joy of this season
Bring to mind A Cross Stick that it all led Christ to, and what He gave for the world and the reason.
For God so love the world that He gave.......
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
This is the first of what I hope will be many new posts. I have shed my old skin, sadly not enough of it, but come back not as 3xl, but as Apolit. See the profile for more details.
This will be a short intro to a new phase, but I hope it will give you enough of a taste of things to come. The word nostalgia, comes from old Greek, meaning "pain for home."
One man said it very well when he said that we spend half of our lives trying to get away from home, and half of it trying to get back. This blog will be best understood in that way, and like my dream will be full of warmth humor and emotion at surprisingly encountering old friends, dear ones and life meaning givers.
Home is antecedence, security, source, wellspring and foundation. Home is warmth and belonging, but it is also tension, a departure point and a place where we break the placenta and leave the womb, perhaps more than once, in setting forth and breaking out into the realization of our own created self and the consequences of walking into the light and dark of the world.
For Alex, father, grandfather, spiritual mentor and the man of my dream.
Apolit
This will be a short intro to a new phase, but I hope it will give you enough of a taste of things to come. The word nostalgia, comes from old Greek, meaning "pain for home."
One man said it very well when he said that we spend half of our lives trying to get away from home, and half of it trying to get back. This blog will be best understood in that way, and like my dream will be full of warmth humor and emotion at surprisingly encountering old friends, dear ones and life meaning givers.
Home is antecedence, security, source, wellspring and foundation. Home is warmth and belonging, but it is also tension, a departure point and a place where we break the placenta and leave the womb, perhaps more than once, in setting forth and breaking out into the realization of our own created self and the consequences of walking into the light and dark of the world.
For Alex, father, grandfather, spiritual mentor and the man of my dream.
Apolit
Friday, August 20, 2010
On Visiting
It has been a week since passion three and I started on the road for our graduation trip to merry old England. There have been a few memorable moments and many ooh aah times when we just enjoyed the road, each other's company and the incredible English countryside. It really is something. The lake district was as ever breathtaking, a train ride over the pennines provided several comedic cultural moments,not to mention blogger fodder but the interesting highlight to me is always the visiting.
In the Midwest we "visit" with people. We do not pay a visit,we just visit. We do not take people with us we "take people with." The truth is, that visiting can reveal and explain for us many of the things that we have "taken with" in life. Visiting is an invaluable and vital reality check to us all. In fact a good visit with friends can bring life and recalibration to many parts of our catalogued misconceptions that we thought were true. History is shared story after all.
This is what makes friendship and visiting one of life's great pleasures to me.
For passion three, being there creates the strange and unremitting realization(so necessary
for every teen)that they have a history that is shared and somewhat owned by others. Even at a young age she realizes that actually, she has forgotten much of what formed her and discovers that in finding out who you are, it is oft times best to see yourself through others' eyes.
The dearest friends are those who have shared your history, and can play it back to you with
footnotes, explanations and sometimes, corrections. It is all too easy to misframe our history or to lose our balance on the tight rope of memory. Our history comes with feelings, emotions and perceptions that are not facts, however strongly held to be so. A visit with those that have shared those memories can sometimes reverse the sinking of the good ship ego. Visiting is like nectar and ambrosia to the wearied heart. To hear from those who have known you, love you, and only desire your best is medicine and family, and not be missed for anything.
Live life to the full, memories included. Understand that its on the foundation laid in your past,that you will find the boundaries of your future yet to be. Tend and maintain those foundations as they provide your life's strength and context.
Remember your old friends, honor them,consult them, hear them, visit them.
In the Midwest we "visit" with people. We do not pay a visit,we just visit. We do not take people with us we "take people with." The truth is, that visiting can reveal and explain for us many of the things that we have "taken with" in life. Visiting is an invaluable and vital reality check to us all. In fact a good visit with friends can bring life and recalibration to many parts of our catalogued misconceptions that we thought were true. History is shared story after all.
This is what makes friendship and visiting one of life's great pleasures to me.
For passion three, being there creates the strange and unremitting realization(so necessary
for every teen)that they have a history that is shared and somewhat owned by others. Even at a young age she realizes that actually, she has forgotten much of what formed her and discovers that in finding out who you are, it is oft times best to see yourself through others' eyes.
The dearest friends are those who have shared your history, and can play it back to you with
footnotes, explanations and sometimes, corrections. It is all too easy to misframe our history or to lose our balance on the tight rope of memory. Our history comes with feelings, emotions and perceptions that are not facts, however strongly held to be so. A visit with those that have shared those memories can sometimes reverse the sinking of the good ship ego. Visiting is like nectar and ambrosia to the wearied heart. To hear from those who have known you, love you, and only desire your best is medicine and family, and not be missed for anything.
Live life to the full, memories included. Understand that its on the foundation laid in your past,that you will find the boundaries of your future yet to be. Tend and maintain those foundations as they provide your life's strength and context.
Remember your old friends, honor them,consult them, hear them, visit them.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Okay I know its been ages.
The Joy of a Mid western summer
When the winter is here you all wish for a change
But the summer's wet calling may catch you as strange.
In the depths of the winter its so dry like desert,
A white coated landscape, a starched linen shirt.
But the summer can catch you not ready or primed
When tornado and hailstorm are apt to remind.
Its damp, dank, and steamy, they blame the dog days,
Humidity, torpidity, to walk is a slog in multiple ways.
Smells, swells, quells any and every impulse or drive,
Rains, drains and siphons your will and melts your urge to survive.
Seattlites grumble about their dry rain,
In Phoenix the dry heat will itch and cause pain
but here in the midwest despite being so nice
Our precip is always too much or too ice.
Temperance is nice with weather too you know.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Heritage legacy and context
I had the pleasure recently of sifting through countless piles of old photographs. They are countless for two reasons. Firstly because there are a lot of them and secondly, because every time I try to count them someone keeps moving them somewhere else. Significant occasions writ in black and white, or in fading vivid colors you are sure your relatives never dressed in, are all part of the joy that it is, to work through a visual record of your genetic heritage.
Fading, shiny papers from exotic places, transport me back in time to distant places and ages that a strand of my DNA experienced in another life. Now, somehow, they are strangely connected to form part of the strands, that carry the information that form the building blocks of who I am physically, and in so many ways, spiritually also.
Weddings of long divorced people, mingle with baby christenings of people long buried, in one wonderful blurry mosaic, a picture of life, history, legacy and heritage of what it all means for us to be family. Strangely in the reverie of it all, we easily forget the irritating habits, we overlook annoying attitudes, and the demands and the cravings for attention, for we look back with a sense of acceptance and warmth towards our forebears, knowing forbearance will be necessary for us also.
It is with nostalgia and sentimental, reassuring comfort that we look into the eyes of young smiling faces belonging to those long since dead and passed on. Remembering again that a little part of them still roams about in us so many years later on. Truly, our family is our fountain and foundation, our heritage and if the lines of connection remain.long enough, our legacy.
Perhaps understandably, as I move closer to being a part of history myself, I have started to look backwards as much as forwards, for my life's meaning and purpose.
Fading, shiny papers from exotic places, transport me back in time to distant places and ages that a strand of my DNA experienced in another life. Now, somehow, they are strangely connected to form part of the strands, that carry the information that form the building blocks of who I am physically, and in so many ways, spiritually also.
Weddings of long divorced people, mingle with baby christenings of people long buried, in one wonderful blurry mosaic, a picture of life, history, legacy and heritage of what it all means for us to be family. Strangely in the reverie of it all, we easily forget the irritating habits, we overlook annoying attitudes, and the demands and the cravings for attention, for we look back with a sense of acceptance and warmth towards our forebears, knowing forbearance will be necessary for us also.
It is with nostalgia and sentimental, reassuring comfort that we look into the eyes of young smiling faces belonging to those long since dead and passed on. Remembering again that a little part of them still roams about in us so many years later on. Truly, our family is our fountain and foundation, our heritage and if the lines of connection remain.long enough, our legacy.
Perhaps understandably, as I move closer to being a part of history myself, I have started to look backwards as much as forwards, for my life's meaning and purpose.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Its not all about me, isn't it?
Today, a rather sweet and uncharacteristically subdued passion three came to me and said, "daddy, I've been reading that book you gave me and I realize that it is not all about me."
Now those who have the pleasure of knowing passion 3 will know her as a bubbly, vivacious,friendly and chatty person who fills any room she enters with fun, and it has to be admitted, a certain increase in the noise level.(Don't cross her though, just saying!) As one prone to entering the room with statements about what one of the multifarious celebrities she follows are doing this week, for breakfast or some such, this was a rather different tack or opening salvo. It was not however an unwelcome one and in fact gave me pause to think. Reflection, self effacing comments and humility are not the usual bill of fare when dining out at Lou's cafe, but it was sincerely delivered and despite my erstwhile joking, sincerely received by me.
I thought for two minutes on the wisdom and revelation expressed in those words. For some of us not a new revelation, but for the majority of us one that needs to be revisited through the span our our lives if we are to understand our place in the purposes of God and in the responsibilities we hold in our world, present or future. When the young express wisdom the old are still trying to learn, it strikes me sometimes and humbles me once again.
She is right of course. It is not all about us at all.
I had a a friend once who used to love to say a particular put down when some poor unsuspecting person asked him something. He would say, "Don't worry about it, your not important enough," then laugh at his gentle put down. Funnily enough though here we find a strange enigma, because in some ways he was right, I am not important enough. This becomes especially true when we look up from Earth, as God looks down from Heaven.
As I look up, I sense like Isaiah, the Lord, High and lifted up and I can not help but say to myself, it really is not all about me. However when God looks down upon us all, one by one, hair by hair and cell by cell, I perceive that the love He has for us, causes Him to say, "child of mine, this is all about you."
I guess it is one thing for God to say it, and quite another for me to take this for granted, and think and act as if it was true by any personal virtue of mine. So I find myself, like my passion 3, trying to live aware of the importance that is attached to me by God whilst realizing that when I look at my own needs, desires, plans and hopes, it really is not all about me after all.
I was bought with a price, redeemed at great cost and now, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
You see it really is not all about me, its about the One who lives in me. Isn't it?
Now those who have the pleasure of knowing passion 3 will know her as a bubbly, vivacious,friendly and chatty person who fills any room she enters with fun, and it has to be admitted, a certain increase in the noise level.(Don't cross her though, just saying!) As one prone to entering the room with statements about what one of the multifarious celebrities she follows are doing this week, for breakfast or some such, this was a rather different tack or opening salvo. It was not however an unwelcome one and in fact gave me pause to think. Reflection, self effacing comments and humility are not the usual bill of fare when dining out at Lou's cafe, but it was sincerely delivered and despite my erstwhile joking, sincerely received by me.
I thought for two minutes on the wisdom and revelation expressed in those words. For some of us not a new revelation, but for the majority of us one that needs to be revisited through the span our our lives if we are to understand our place in the purposes of God and in the responsibilities we hold in our world, present or future. When the young express wisdom the old are still trying to learn, it strikes me sometimes and humbles me once again.
She is right of course. It is not all about us at all.
I had a a friend once who used to love to say a particular put down when some poor unsuspecting person asked him something. He would say, "Don't worry about it, your not important enough," then laugh at his gentle put down. Funnily enough though here we find a strange enigma, because in some ways he was right, I am not important enough. This becomes especially true when we look up from Earth, as God looks down from Heaven.
As I look up, I sense like Isaiah, the Lord, High and lifted up and I can not help but say to myself, it really is not all about me. However when God looks down upon us all, one by one, hair by hair and cell by cell, I perceive that the love He has for us, causes Him to say, "child of mine, this is all about you."
I guess it is one thing for God to say it, and quite another for me to take this for granted, and think and act as if it was true by any personal virtue of mine. So I find myself, like my passion 3, trying to live aware of the importance that is attached to me by God whilst realizing that when I look at my own needs, desires, plans and hopes, it really is not all about me after all.
I was bought with a price, redeemed at great cost and now, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
You see it really is not all about me, its about the One who lives in me. Isn't it?
10 minutes and 43 action packed seconds.
Apolit has a confession to make to you all. I have an obsession that I find hard to control. It only occurs at certain times of the year so it is mercifully seasonal and not a year round problem to me.The other saving grace in this distraction of mine is that I am not alone. In fact on any given Sunday during certain months of the year many thousands and millions of men and regrettably some misguided women seem to lose all sense of proportion and decency and sacrifice their time, vast amounts of money and energy on this, my particular failing. I am referring of course to football of the American variety.
On first uninformed glance any newcomer to the game could be forgiven for thinking that this is nothing more than a gladiatorial melee of over "roided" men seeking to smash, mash and bash the poor chap on the other side of the defensive line. The names are strangely code like and they run plays as a noun rather than the verb form for the third person singular.
The player's positions have interesting names, such as quarter back, wide receiver and tight end (tee hee) but the plays are even more strange. You will hear commentators talking about the bootstrap, nickelback, dime, wildcat, blitz as common parlance on the field of play. When you listen to the quarter back calling his "plays" the words used are all code so as to confuse the other side and make them think you are going one way when you are going another. After all football is a game of speed as well as strength, where the average NFL play is 4 to 5 seconds and then it is done.The best quarterbacks can have the ball "snapped" and then passed on in 2 seconds and for good reason, to hold it longer usually results in the embarrassing and sometimes painful "sack" by three hundred pound men at speed.
Now I was one of those who could not quite fathom the point of such a game. I had been raised playing rugby and soccer and as part of the village cricket team I really enjoyed these sports. Football seemed so dumb frankly with little going on. However, over time as I began to understand the strategy and the planning and thinking that went in to the game, I became a firm fan, along with all the other devotees, glued to my set.
I did however ponder why it truly was American Football and why games like cricket had never caught on. Some commentators say soccer will not truly catch on until they can guarantee a higher score. Cricket and rugby however do have high scores but they are not storming the States.
Other commentators suggested that the manly nature of the sport could not be compared to anything from the old country, but try telling that to a rugby player who has speed, bulk, strength. Be prepared to have a getaway care standing by however. Some said it is the fact that sports like cricket go on for too long, and since the average test match can go on for anything from 3-5 days they do have a point, but they are missing the point of cricket as a great excuse for getting away with your mates for several days, with the game as a nice sideline to engage with every now and again. Its more like tailgating during the game. So after all the expert's contributions and comments I found myself personally still unconvinced that I understood why these sports had not caught on here.
Then just released studies brought this eye opening revelation.
The average time of actual play in an NFL game lasting three hours, is ten minutes and forty three seconds.
This is all the more amazing when you realize that before the game many people gather and "tailgate" for three or four hours. That is, they drink beer, barbecue meat in various manifestations and generally bad mouth the opposition whoever they are. For the pleasure of doing this many fans pay a fee of $65-100. Then they spend three hours in the game for which they pay another $50-250 and when all is said and done they get the pleasure of 643 seconds of play or for the whole day about 50 cents per second of play. Now I would like to be paid by the second, 30 bucks a minute, 180 bucks an hour, 900 bucks a day..... you get the point.
So I felt that I had identified at least one important component of the football experience that Americans and we American wannabees so love. Ridiculous expense and costs for sport.
I felt that there was something though still missing from my investigation, and then I struck upon what it was.
Concentration span.
I had missed the central wisdom of American Football and why it was truly our sport. American football consists of weeks and months of prep and hype, drama, and prolonged obsessing about vacuous, so called celebrities along with all their torrid lives' speculations and rumors. Just like real life.
When game day arrives we have multiple experts arguing about outcomes, sharing their oft lacking experience, and making predictions and unsubstantiated claims. Just like politics.
Then finally we get to the game and we are not asked to think too hard or long for anything to happen on the field. Just shy of 11 minutes concentration is required. The majority of the program is about talking about it not doing it, which is then followed by constant replays of the same few minutes of action played over and over. Just like our real life TV offerings.
I had struck on the deep wisdom of American football and its popularity. It was a microcosm of our own American Lives a much ado about nothing scenario where 11 minutes seems like three hours and the bait and switch, redirection of society away from what really matters is performed as sweetly as a Brett Favre touch down to Sidney Rice on the run to the end zone.
Has this shocking revelation changed me as a person, or caused me so to redirect my time for better more meaningful pursuits? Has this voyage of inner discovery, painted large on the great American landscape, provided any catharsis or release from the tyranny of my obsessive devotion to the great vacuity that is enshrined in those 643 seconds?
Ask me in three weeks after the Superbowl. Till then, Go Vikes !!
On first uninformed glance any newcomer to the game could be forgiven for thinking that this is nothing more than a gladiatorial melee of over "roided" men seeking to smash, mash and bash the poor chap on the other side of the defensive line. The names are strangely code like and they run plays as a noun rather than the verb form for the third person singular.
The player's positions have interesting names, such as quarter back, wide receiver and tight end (tee hee) but the plays are even more strange. You will hear commentators talking about the bootstrap, nickelback, dime, wildcat, blitz as common parlance on the field of play. When you listen to the quarter back calling his "plays" the words used are all code so as to confuse the other side and make them think you are going one way when you are going another. After all football is a game of speed as well as strength, where the average NFL play is 4 to 5 seconds and then it is done.The best quarterbacks can have the ball "snapped" and then passed on in 2 seconds and for good reason, to hold it longer usually results in the embarrassing and sometimes painful "sack" by three hundred pound men at speed.
Now I was one of those who could not quite fathom the point of such a game. I had been raised playing rugby and soccer and as part of the village cricket team I really enjoyed these sports. Football seemed so dumb frankly with little going on. However, over time as I began to understand the strategy and the planning and thinking that went in to the game, I became a firm fan, along with all the other devotees, glued to my set.
I did however ponder why it truly was American Football and why games like cricket had never caught on. Some commentators say soccer will not truly catch on until they can guarantee a higher score. Cricket and rugby however do have high scores but they are not storming the States.
Other commentators suggested that the manly nature of the sport could not be compared to anything from the old country, but try telling that to a rugby player who has speed, bulk, strength. Be prepared to have a getaway care standing by however. Some said it is the fact that sports like cricket go on for too long, and since the average test match can go on for anything from 3-5 days they do have a point, but they are missing the point of cricket as a great excuse for getting away with your mates for several days, with the game as a nice sideline to engage with every now and again. Its more like tailgating during the game. So after all the expert's contributions and comments I found myself personally still unconvinced that I understood why these sports had not caught on here.
Then just released studies brought this eye opening revelation.
The average time of actual play in an NFL game lasting three hours, is ten minutes and forty three seconds.
This is all the more amazing when you realize that before the game many people gather and "tailgate" for three or four hours. That is, they drink beer, barbecue meat in various manifestations and generally bad mouth the opposition whoever they are. For the pleasure of doing this many fans pay a fee of $65-100. Then they spend three hours in the game for which they pay another $50-250 and when all is said and done they get the pleasure of 643 seconds of play or for the whole day about 50 cents per second of play. Now I would like to be paid by the second, 30 bucks a minute, 180 bucks an hour, 900 bucks a day..... you get the point.
So I felt that I had identified at least one important component of the football experience that Americans and we American wannabees so love. Ridiculous expense and costs for sport.
I felt that there was something though still missing from my investigation, and then I struck upon what it was.
Concentration span.
I had missed the central wisdom of American Football and why it was truly our sport. American football consists of weeks and months of prep and hype, drama, and prolonged obsessing about vacuous, so called celebrities along with all their torrid lives' speculations and rumors. Just like real life.
When game day arrives we have multiple experts arguing about outcomes, sharing their oft lacking experience, and making predictions and unsubstantiated claims. Just like politics.
Then finally we get to the game and we are not asked to think too hard or long for anything to happen on the field. Just shy of 11 minutes concentration is required. The majority of the program is about talking about it not doing it, which is then followed by constant replays of the same few minutes of action played over and over. Just like our real life TV offerings.
I had struck on the deep wisdom of American football and its popularity. It was a microcosm of our own American Lives a much ado about nothing scenario where 11 minutes seems like three hours and the bait and switch, redirection of society away from what really matters is performed as sweetly as a Brett Favre touch down to Sidney Rice on the run to the end zone.
Has this shocking revelation changed me as a person, or caused me so to redirect my time for better more meaningful pursuits? Has this voyage of inner discovery, painted large on the great American landscape, provided any catharsis or release from the tyranny of my obsessive devotion to the great vacuity that is enshrined in those 643 seconds?
Ask me in three weeks after the Superbowl. Till then, Go Vikes !!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Interesting times
The first decade of the third millennium after Christ will soon come to an end and I do not know if it is due to my advancing years or that we just get bombarded with too much information but it seems like a lot has happened. If we were to step in to our Tardis (Dr Who fans unite) and go back ten years we would look on a very different time. Imagine a world without...Twitter, Facebook, Youtube even texting (let alone sexting). Now consider the time it takes to keep up with these new time tyrants and how they have entered the collective western subconscious in a way that we would not even consider ten years ago.
Go back to near the beginning of the decade when there was the event that has shaped much of what passed in public life since then, the 9/11 attacks. They were not the most deadly, or widespread attacks on a nation, consider Serbia and Iraq's treatment, yet in some strange way the surreality of the nature of the attacks almost makes them play like an outlandish unimaginable action film in our minds, at least those of us who were not there, or in some way forever hurt by the attacks. We now close the decade with the almost unimaginable exploding underwear on Nigerians scenario. Almost hilariously surreal because no one but the foolish young man was hurt but it could have been awful and I fly Northwest through Amsterdam all the time, so it is close to home in so many ways.
So now to the great African nation of Nigeria's list of things to work on, 411 scams, corruption as an art form, brutal shariah law in the North etc, we now have a true piece de resistance, young Nigerians wearing exploding underwear on airlines. Interesting times indeed. Thankfully though the decade that started with a bang mercifully did not end with a bang from two day old underwear on a Nigerian.
It is sad to think that it is the violently unimaginable that bookends the decade. Then again there is always Y2K to not think of and the countless generators, safe rooms, gun stores and can repositories that were assembled over that one. I am sure somewhere in this there is a message for all of us.
Maybe the decade actually started with a fizzle and ended with a sizzle....Hmmmm?
For 3xl the thought of hibernating for a few months or the next decade does seem mildly appealing. However when I woke up what would I find?
May you continue to live in interesting times friends.
Go back to near the beginning of the decade when there was the event that has shaped much of what passed in public life since then, the 9/11 attacks. They were not the most deadly, or widespread attacks on a nation, consider Serbia and Iraq's treatment, yet in some strange way the surreality of the nature of the attacks almost makes them play like an outlandish unimaginable action film in our minds, at least those of us who were not there, or in some way forever hurt by the attacks. We now close the decade with the almost unimaginable exploding underwear on Nigerians scenario. Almost hilariously surreal because no one but the foolish young man was hurt but it could have been awful and I fly Northwest through Amsterdam all the time, so it is close to home in so many ways.
So now to the great African nation of Nigeria's list of things to work on, 411 scams, corruption as an art form, brutal shariah law in the North etc, we now have a true piece de resistance, young Nigerians wearing exploding underwear on airlines. Interesting times indeed. Thankfully though the decade that started with a bang mercifully did not end with a bang from two day old underwear on a Nigerian.
It is sad to think that it is the violently unimaginable that bookends the decade. Then again there is always Y2K to not think of and the countless generators, safe rooms, gun stores and can repositories that were assembled over that one. I am sure somewhere in this there is a message for all of us.
Maybe the decade actually started with a fizzle and ended with a sizzle....Hmmmm?
For 3xl the thought of hibernating for a few months or the next decade does seem mildly appealing. However when I woke up what would I find?
May you continue to live in interesting times friends.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Next?
Greetings fellow turkey tasters, stuffing scoffers, cranberry consumers. Let us all bid a hurried farewell to 2009. Whether it ends with a bang or a whimper it ends nevertheless and we all look forward to the next decade. To say the year ended inauspiciously would be an understatement worthy of someone from my fair isles. Yes we are still in the dead zone between Christmas and New Year, Kwanzaa suspended and Hanukkah held looking to a decade we hope will be more Gator, and less Lemon-ade.
So what now? New ideas, better plans, less loans? The possibilities are nothing like endless, but with all of this frugality, fear and pink slip petrification comes a sense of that special magic that every new year brings, that it will be different.
In the regions around Azerbaijan and Iran the new year festival of Novruz comes in the spring time and in commemoration of that time children build fires and jump over them. They trust that the old bad things will be burned away as they leap over the tongal and a new year will begin with them free and clear. For many despite foreclosures and credit crunches there arises in the breast of man a sense that things can change and will be better, and why not!
So whatever 2009 did to you, take five minutes to linger in the luxury or melancholy of it and then turn your head to 2010 and shout out, Next!
So what now? New ideas, better plans, less loans? The possibilities are nothing like endless, but with all of this frugality, fear and pink slip petrification comes a sense of that special magic that every new year brings, that it will be different.
In the regions around Azerbaijan and Iran the new year festival of Novruz comes in the spring time and in commemoration of that time children build fires and jump over them. They trust that the old bad things will be burned away as they leap over the tongal and a new year will begin with them free and clear. For many despite foreclosures and credit crunches there arises in the breast of man a sense that things can change and will be better, and why not!
So whatever 2009 did to you, take five minutes to linger in the luxury or melancholy of it and then turn your head to 2010 and shout out, Next!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Tweelight or other semi dark things...
Greetings shape keepers, blood keeping, plasma avoidant types, and others who do not suck!!!
3xl has just been subjected to a gratuitously non gorey two hours of duskness courtesy of every swooning tweens fantasy...Vampires that are nice-ish humanitarians and werewolves that are really protective not predatory moon howlers.
Yes you know what I am talking about, the latest celluloid manifestation of the mormon who should know better's work of fiction, New Moon or in Taylor Lautner's case, New Swoon. As if it was not bad enough to have to put up with everyone and his lycanthrope's fawnings about his tremendous six pack, washboard or whatever else we want to call the dear lad's tummy, I then had to watch the blessed film with my 4 passions. Yes it was too long, too much teenie angst and not enough action for a 3xl movie and all that pining stuff, groan. Get on with it, bite her, we know you are gonna!!!
I found myself rather like the "Whatevertheairy" mafia vampires, who looked on Belle with blank uncomprehending stares, unable to pierce her mind, as I often found myself staring uncomprehending at why I was still there after two hours, maybe it was contagious. The counterpoint of the intense, conflicted, urbane and artsy vampire with the outdoorsy, earthy wolf man really worked. It was a kind of Romeo and Juliet with some competition thrown in courtesy of "team one or the other" and all makes for a young girl's romantic fancy.
I realize that this has been a runaway success and I pondered a little at it and its rather dark greeny beige vampires and all too angry wolf men. The book's name is rather telling after all. Meyer has created a world that is neither dark nor light. It is twilight, the realm between darkness and light neither fish nor fowl, neither really vampire nor lycan. The rash of similar things recently on tv and in the movies where we have some really honest to goodness nasty examples of bloodsuckers and shape shifters and then like the Twilight version, those that are in control or just misunderstood has been an interesting phenomenon.
They are the nice vampire looking for acceptance, seeking to control their habits and curse, or they are the wolf man that justifies his brutality and bloodlust by adopting the guise of a guardian, that is unless you are too close and make them angry and then watch out and mind the face, as one hapless girlfriend found out.
Was this not ever though the ploy of the deceptive? Create a PC monster that can not be held accountable if it gets a little angry, but generally is fine. Is this not not the sanitized, I can live with this kiddie friendly version of every schlocker, gusher hacker movie that parents would never watch themselves let alone let their kids go to? Ah yes you got to hand it to Stephanie she hit the nail really near the head. Here is a horror movie without horror, a blood fest without much blood and we can all feel fine about watching that ....
But remember that a sanitized, cleaned up, airplane version of a bad movie is still a bad movie even with the bad language, blood and bodies taken out. It is just that much more justifiable to ourselves and our kids, and after all, not being seen for what you really are, is all part of living in the darkening, dusky world of twilight, zone or otherwise.
I guess that is why the Lord told us to walk in the light, since we ourselves are the fruit of the light and have no fear of being seen for what we really are...unlike some non people...
So here's to all us middle aged, laid back, submerged six pack toting, call it what it is, dads out here who have been made to watch the latest installment of Meyer's horror lite books. Lets keep calling our kids back into the light rather than allow them to become the next blood sucking promoter's prey in the twilight.
Uncomprehendingly yours 3XL.
3xl has just been subjected to a gratuitously non gorey two hours of duskness courtesy of every swooning tweens fantasy...Vampires that are nice-ish humanitarians and werewolves that are really protective not predatory moon howlers.
Yes you know what I am talking about, the latest celluloid manifestation of the mormon who should know better's work of fiction, New Moon or in Taylor Lautner's case, New Swoon. As if it was not bad enough to have to put up with everyone and his lycanthrope's fawnings about his tremendous six pack, washboard or whatever else we want to call the dear lad's tummy, I then had to watch the blessed film with my 4 passions. Yes it was too long, too much teenie angst and not enough action for a 3xl movie and all that pining stuff, groan. Get on with it, bite her, we know you are gonna!!!
I found myself rather like the "Whatevertheairy" mafia vampires, who looked on Belle with blank uncomprehending stares, unable to pierce her mind, as I often found myself staring uncomprehending at why I was still there after two hours, maybe it was contagious. The counterpoint of the intense, conflicted, urbane and artsy vampire with the outdoorsy, earthy wolf man really worked. It was a kind of Romeo and Juliet with some competition thrown in courtesy of "team one or the other" and all makes for a young girl's romantic fancy.
I realize that this has been a runaway success and I pondered a little at it and its rather dark greeny beige vampires and all too angry wolf men. The book's name is rather telling after all. Meyer has created a world that is neither dark nor light. It is twilight, the realm between darkness and light neither fish nor fowl, neither really vampire nor lycan. The rash of similar things recently on tv and in the movies where we have some really honest to goodness nasty examples of bloodsuckers and shape shifters and then like the Twilight version, those that are in control or just misunderstood has been an interesting phenomenon.
They are the nice vampire looking for acceptance, seeking to control their habits and curse, or they are the wolf man that justifies his brutality and bloodlust by adopting the guise of a guardian, that is unless you are too close and make them angry and then watch out and mind the face, as one hapless girlfriend found out.
Was this not ever though the ploy of the deceptive? Create a PC monster that can not be held accountable if it gets a little angry, but generally is fine. Is this not not the sanitized, I can live with this kiddie friendly version of every schlocker, gusher hacker movie that parents would never watch themselves let alone let their kids go to? Ah yes you got to hand it to Stephanie she hit the nail really near the head. Here is a horror movie without horror, a blood fest without much blood and we can all feel fine about watching that ....
But remember that a sanitized, cleaned up, airplane version of a bad movie is still a bad movie even with the bad language, blood and bodies taken out. It is just that much more justifiable to ourselves and our kids, and after all, not being seen for what you really are, is all part of living in the darkening, dusky world of twilight, zone or otherwise.
I guess that is why the Lord told us to walk in the light, since we ourselves are the fruit of the light and have no fear of being seen for what we really are...unlike some non people...
So here's to all us middle aged, laid back, submerged six pack toting, call it what it is, dads out here who have been made to watch the latest installment of Meyer's horror lite books. Lets keep calling our kids back into the light rather than allow them to become the next blood sucking promoter's prey in the twilight.
Uncomprehendingly yours 3XL.
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