the.slow.down

i just thought i’d give a brief update of the state of affairs in our world of late.

first, we’re all feeling much better. the black death has passed. somehow i made it out unscathed, not real sure how that works, but i’m not complaining. so we’re all feeling a lot better. we’re working on both of the boys’ schedules so as to try and get a little more sleep at night and i feel like we’re making some headway there. Louis is going longer between feedings so that is good, but his passifier, wonderful and effective as it is, when removed in the middle of the night kind of peaves lou off. so we’re making too many of those runs for sure. hopefully we can have him weaned off that here soon.

i’ve been trying to do some much needed fundraising here of late. and that’s been going okay. it’s always hard to be able to give the time and energy, that’s necessary in the midst of other demands with work and life, but i’m fairly hopeful.

we’re in a good place in our community here at Ball State. working though some questions of vision and identity. what does it mean to be the church, for us to be the church here where we are, for us to care for, support, encourage and equip our people to be the reflection of Christ in their world’s wherever that might be. so that’s a good process to be involved with.

jayne is doing good. i have an ever growing respect for moms and all they endure in the day to day of raising kids and managing a home. she does a great job though and if we could get some good nights sleep things would seem a shade or two brighter!

well that’s it from the homefront for now

ok so mac released their new intel based laptop today.

not a fan of the name, macbook pro, but man is it hot.

here it is

well, the local black death, aka flu, seems to have settled in my home with me being the only one who hasn’t caught anything yet. i attribute it to my high coffee intake which is continually bolstering my immune system with it’s many positive chemical constituents.

so, anyways, i’ll probably be sick tommorrow.

pray for us. thanks!

well hopefully all the oddities of the holidays are over and my attachment to a steady schedule can be fulfilled. the holidays are just such an odd time, weird trips, schedules, sickness, different expectations. it’s no wonder they’re so hard for so many people, who knows what you’re gonna get?

anyways, i thought i’d throw up just a few of my new years resolutions for the year:

- exerecise more (i love to swim and plan on getting my ever enlarging backside back into the water)
- limit my pop (soda for some of you) intake to one serving a month (don’t worry my coffee addiction has it’s place in here too somewhere and i’m not willing to sacrifice it yet).
- no more than 40oz. of coffee a day, and only after 32oz. of water consumed prior to that.
- trying not to just “surf watch” the ole tv, ie, watch stuff i’ve planned on watching.
- read more
- get more extended escapes with the Lord

so there’s just some of my goals. lofty, but why not?

just thought i’d post our family christmas pic and note, in case we messed up and overlooked someone…

(full sized is here)

i wrote this a few weeks ago, forgot to post it…

Just finished a pretty gripping book called The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D Yalom. It’s fiction, which was fun to read, hadn’t read any fiction recently. Anyways, it was a quick read, but really profound and interesting at the same time. Here’s the brief (according to me): The book takes place through the “life” of a group of people in therapy with one another. Most of the group has been meeting for a number of years, working through their own stuff and it has developed into quite a tight group. Well in the course of the story a guy named Phillip with quite an interesting take on life and with quite an interesting past joins the group. He’s a philosopher, and in particular he’s a huge disciple of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer was a 19th century philosopher with quite a pessimistic take on life (as far as i’m concerned). His philosophy saw life as filled with agony and pain and that our primary way in coping with this world should be through detatching ourselves from anthing that could cause us pain. He would teach us that we need to find all of our suffeciency within ourselves, isolate ourselves from others relationally, and otherwise, and simply learn to clear our minds from distraction, thought, and passion. Anyways, the journey through the book is powerful as this group interacts with this guy. I won’t spoil the end for anyone interested in reading it. But a really great read.

So right now (Dec. 19) I’m sitting in O’Hare in Chicago at 11:57pm waiting on a flight back to Indy. I took a quick trip to see my grandparents down in Florida where my grampie has been having some significant health problems. It was wonderful to see him, despite his poor health, tiredness and the downward path he’s on healthwise. Grampie has always been an inspiration to me in my faith. He’s a simple guy who loves Jesus, is proud of it, and is excited to tell people about it. Anyways, he’s in good spirits and his faith is as strong as ever. He’s in a good place overall, secure in his future, not worried or anxious, but in a safe place.

So all this has caused me to think a lot about death. The book is primarily about death, the main character in the book, not Phillip, is facing a death sentence through cancer, my grampie is facing death as his body is simply aging and is wearing out. Death. It’s like such an evil word. At least that’s kind of how i associate it. I think death, I think bad. It’s what we spend all sorts of time, energy and money trying to avoid. And a lot of that is real appropriate, but I was remindeed and primarily through this book that death really is such a normal part of life. It’s really an amoral type of thing. You can’t make a moral judgement about the event of death, it just is. Certainly it can happen in a horrible way, etc., etc., and that can be “bad”, but not in the moral sense. Anyways, death as a part of life. So true. Isn’t it interesting how especially in the developed and enlightened world, we’ve worked so hard and continue to work so hard at attaining immortality? I mean most wouldn’t say it that way, but the question of, “what can we do to extend life and to extend the quality of life?” those are huge questions that we as civilization spend billions of dollars trying to figure out. and where are we in all of it? well, we sure are living longer than we were 100 years ago, and for the most part living better, but i think about those last years for so many. Really being old for so many even here in the golden US of A isn’t a joyous proposition.

I’m not trying to make any grand statements about what we should or shouldn’t do as it relates to these HUGE questions, but rather that they do give some food for thought as it relates to HOW we live and I’d say HOW we love.

Here are a couple of intersting quotes from the book:

“At the end of his life, no man, if he be sincere and in possession of his faculties, would ever wish to go through it again. Rather than this, he will much prefer to choose complete nonexistence.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer

“Was that life? Well then once again!”
- Zarathustra, in Zarathustra by Nietzche (of all people)

What is life? Is there a greater meaning to all this than, we live, we die, we’re eaten by worms? Of course I believe so and believe so with all my heart. And is there more? Is there a beyond? Again of course I believe so, and am counting on it.

One of the big ideas in the book is the chasm that exists between those in the religious camps who hold out for a hope beyond death and those in the athiestic or agnostic camps whose goal for a life well lived or a detached existence is simply that, a life well lived, lived well according to one’s take on reality.

Anyways, it’s a good book worth the read.