If I could, I suppose I wouldn't be opposed to spending a summer living in a bookstore.  Preferably one of those large and air-conditioned ones like Borders or Barnes and Noble.  The ones with the snooty coffee shops in them.  Not because I like to drink coffee, but because it's nice to have them there.  It would also be nice if there was a limit to how many other people could be there so there would be couches free, and some movement to stimulate thinking.  Maybe it could be like an amusement park with an admission fee...

I'm hunting for a good book to read.  As usual, I have something very specific in mind, but I don't know what these specifications are.  I do know, however, that I will know it when I see it.  I know what I want and I know what I don't want.  I've already been introduced to a number of books which have sadly fallen short.  (My sister took offense at the last book I rejected.  I still can't say exactly why I didn't like it.)  The last good book I've read was perfect...  challenging, funny, engaging, and eye-opening.  Is that too much to ask?  So I imagine myself with the entire bookstore as my boon, reading books at random, devouring entire sections at a time, picking through pages like a child skipping through a field of wildflowers...  (speed reading isn't turning out to be spectacular...  it turns out I actually like to read at my current pace.  I'm trying to apply it only to required reading now.) 

I've been hanging out with some other mommies as I've accompanied my sister and nephew to various meetups.  I suppose if you don't have a social network, you create one.  There's this one little girl who is the most adorable thing.  She's only two, and a sliver of a thing, and yet there is a twinkle in her eye which cracked me up as soon as I met her.  She waves at planes, and when one few noisily overhead, she pointed, saying, "Look!  Airplane!"  I noted that it was a little noisy.  I could almost hear the neurons crackling in her head as she considers my observation.  She smiles.  "Yeah.  It's a noisy airplane."  Apparently one day, her and another mom was looking through a book.  "Look, it's a whale," the mom said, pointing to a picture.  "It's a hump-back whale, Miss. Christine," the child corrected. 

Cracks me up!  For some reason I absolutely love being around kids who think.  It completely and totally tickles me.  I try my best to encourage this kind of curiosity and real-time application.  One time, one of my students was sitting in my office with me, and I noticed him observing my bamboo plant, which is in a glass vase that has pebbles on the bottom.  The light was shining through the window into the glass, and he asked me to turn the plant.  I like the angle at which the plant is, but I suspected he was in some thought process so I obliged.  He muttered something about the angle of refraction not being right, and even though I suspected he was doing it just to please me, I nearly threw my arms around him.  If there was an award for Oh-So-Awesome, I would've given it to him right then and there.  But instead I just grinned and told him, "that was awesome!" 

And so I love reading about people who think.  In my personal opinion, I believe this is one of the foundations of education: teaching kids to be thinkers.  Teaching them to be curious.  To be aware of the application of what is in a book to what is in the world.  Instilling curiosity and wonder.  If I can't teach anything else, I'd be happy if I just instilled that.  Wonder.  If I had the option of helping a kid learn algebra or having the kid say, "coool," after learning something new, I'd take the latter.  No matter what it is.  It's a bazillion times better when you can elicit that response in reference to spiritual things.  But teaching a kid to wonder is like teaching a man to fish...  years and years of toasted, grilled, or marinated ideas to come.  (Do you toast fish?) 

Einstein once said (I'm going to read a biography about him soon) "Imagination is more important than knowledge.  For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

Another quote that is fast becoming endearing is this: "curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly."

Nobly!  Cracks me up.  I hereby knight thee, Sir Cat... 

My other favorite quote was introduced to me by a teacher I once had who made me renew my interest in research (I almost became a researcher after graduating college.)  I think he was being inducted into this honor society as a doctorate, and he opened his address with a quote by Asimov: "The most important moment of research, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but 'Hmmm. That's interesting...'"  I wrote this down because it tickled me.  Yes, this is true!  What's more important to research isn't the completion of a project, but the potential for new ones.  It's exciting, isn't it?  It's what I loved about research...  all those potential papers branching out from one single statement... 

It is my belief that God instilled this wonder in us.  This ability to think.  This challenge to discover new things and learn great truths.  It's sad when it's reduced to theorems and question-answer sessions where students merely churn out answers without understanding how cool it can be.  With curiosity comes joy and wonder, and with joy and wonder comes appreciation. love and increased knowledge. 

I've finally finished 1 John.  I actually finished early because I suspected that I was losing the devotional, wonderful part, and dwelling on the analytical part.  Not that there's something wrong with doing some hearty theological exegesis.  This in itself is quite stimulating.  But I didn't start this with that purpose in mind...  I want to delve into some high-quality wonder.  I want to understand applications and crack even deeper than what's already been done and exegesized.  (Is that a word?) 

When was the last time you let yourself wonder?  Ask questions?  Discover how little you actually know?  Let yourself thirst for more?  This is Christ's invitation.  Thirst!  Let yourself hunger for it.  This is why Christ is the everlasting spring of water and not just a one-time-cure-for-thirst.  He offers us a well, not just a cup.  He offers repeated refreshment, not a magic wand.  He wants us to continue to come to Him and be filled and refreshed.  He is capable of it, it's just a question of whether or not we will utilize this treasure. 

Ask, and keep asking, and you will keep receiving.  Seek, and keep seeking, and you will keep finding.  Drink deeply, and keep wanting more...  and you will get more.  Exceedingly abundantly. 

Onward!

I am losing my mind. 

I am needful of some kind of mental stimulation.  What I have is turning out to be not enough: I have to read this absurd book to prepare for a challenge exam I signed up to take as part of my certification requirements.  OK, so the book itself is not absurd.  The questions I have to answer (to prepare for the exam), however are absurd.  Immensely so. 

When I come across education poorly done, I have little patience for it.  This may be that I have little interest in memorizing precise dates and names of people that are neither essential or carry little promise of future use.  I despise digging through books for nit-picky questions that some crotchety old professor decided to make up to ensure that students pored through a book.  This is not how I do education and it is not how I want education to be done to me.  So I rant and rave as I toss through the book.  I've already decided to skip a few (ok, a few pages worth of) questions that I have deemed useless.  I'll take the chance that they'll show up on the exam. 

I shake my fist at conforming to the massive, faceless, brainless entities that be that have pushed me into this corner.  I shake my fist!  And you know what, not only that, I refuse to answer your absurd questions!  So there!  

End rant.  I realize that I am stubborn this way.  If I find value and respect in something, I am willing to suffer through it.  But mindless, senseless, cruel labor that amounts to nothing?  I chalk it right there next to torture.  I blogged about this a while ago, I remember.  About how POWs were subject to various forms of torture that to the naked eye would seem pretty tolerable.  There was one where a person was made to dig a hole approximately 5 feet deep, only to be made to fill it up again, walk a few paces, and repeat the procedure.  I don't know about you, but I would go bananas.  Completely bonkers.  They'd quickly find me in some mental institution counting beans and spilling all the government secrets while paddling around in bunny slippers.   

These things John has written unto them that believe on the Son of God, so that they may know that they have eternal life.  (1 John 5:13)

The crazy thing about life is humanity's thirst for meaning.  So much so that a mundane task that would seem harmless becomes a form of torture if stripped of meaning.  There are no people lost or saved or impacted in any way with holes being dug and filled right back up again.  There is no furthering of enemy projects or humiliation to brace oneself against.  It is just an entire life's effort devoid of evidence of any labor whatsoever.  Now, thanks to Postmodernism, everyone has access to their own custom-made meanings.  This is not proving to be effective in the long term, however. 

Spiritually, too, I see so many people getting discouraged because of work, or the lack of evidence of its fruition.  Looking to actions, whether it be their own, or others' or lack of fruition in themselves or in those they are reaching out for.  Where is the escape from this madness? 

Faith, John says, is the victory that overcomes the world.  It is the arm that reaches up past the uncertainties of life and grabs hold of what is not yet.  It is the feet that propel us towards that goal, believing in the tangibility of the intangible...  it is the meaning beyond the meaningless, the assurance beyond the confusion, the...  yeah.  You get it. 

And what is this faith?  It seems that faith is larger than we give it credit for.  Faith is not a ticket I unwrapped off a chocolate bar that gives me access to eternal life as long as I keep it in my pocket.  It is not a declaration or a decree that mandates the divine to open up those pearly gates for my entry.  

Perhaps John wouldn't argue if I said, "Herein is faith, not that we had faith in God, but that God has encompassed us, and we live according to Him."  In the first chapter, John writes that God is light.  In his gospel, John writes that this is the condemnation: not that we did not believe in this light, but that we knew of it and loved darkness rather than the light.

This matter is above mere choosing.  It is beyond thinking and feeling and understanding.  It's scope is beyond this blue planet, and certainly beyond human imaginations.  It is more than what I think, or what you think, or what various centuries of philosophers have determined.  And yet it's impact lies squarely on these same shoulders.  It is completely not human-centric, and yet it us who have to realize it. 

This isn't an easy work.  Like the old hymn says, "the old rugged cross, so despised by the world..."  It's not an easy choice.  It is a despisable one.  It is prickly, thorny, full of splinters and hard edges.  There are things one must give up.  Sometimes these sacrifices come easy.  Sometimes they come with a struggle.  They always come with a reward. 

Do you believe...?

For some reason, the Beatles song, A Little Help from My Friends, is rolling around in my head.  That, and Old McDonald, but I'm choosing to focus on the former rather than the latter, which I'm sure is there mainly due to me trying to teach my nephew to sing along with me at "E-I-E-I-O!"  (He tries, but it just sounds like he's mocking me...  which I suspect he might be doing, even if he's only 13 months old.) 

Really, the significance goes as far as me seeing the song (the Beatles one) in one of those individual jukeboxes they have at the old-fashioned diners.  It left me asking my nephew what he would do if I sang out of tune...  the great thing about babies is that they really don't care.  And no, I do not get high with a little help from my friends.  

I found out today that the word for justice and the word for righteousness is the same, as they refer to conformity to the law (in this case, God's law.)  This is a really cool thing to let my mind wrap itself around.  I'm going to let it simmer for a little bit as I hit it against righteousness by faith, being a just person, and being justified by faith. 

In cases like these, I miss my Young's Concordance, which due to its weight had to be left at home, but Strong's has come in and has proven to be a great help (maybe even a better help in this case.)  The Hebrew word, tsedeq, does indeed mean righteousness (in government, in cause, in the case of ethics, and in regards to vindication.)  It also means justice...  and vindication...

For you who aren't sure what vindication means, it means "the act of vindicating or defending against criticism or censure."  God is a defender...  a justifier...  a protector and help in time of need.   A God who David appealed (multiple times) to "judge me, O Lord, according to thy righteousness..."  and in some cases, "judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness..."  Perhaps he knew that God's righteousness and his are needful of being one and the same...

I am also thinking today about faith...  but I will save that for another day...

I looked up the words for the Beatles song so I can comfort myself that it's not a completely inane tune, and as it turns out, it is.  To me, anyway.  Would you believe in a love at first sight?  It asks.  Can [you love] anybody?  The response: I just want somebody to love... 

Do you love just for the sake of loving?  I don't know if I'd even want to be with someone who would.  But hey.  I'm not thinking too deeply about this right now, and I don't anticipate that I will.  I'm also pretty sure that they didn't have a deep discussion over the lyrics before they handed them over to Ringo Starr to sing. 

So neither will I. 

As for me and my house, I'd rather think about justice and righteousness and our place in this wide world...  it is stormy outside...  dark, like twilight, almost.  Rumbling thunder in the distance...  it's time to eat something yummy. 

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.  -Kurt Vonnegut

This quote resounds well with me.  At the end of the day, I prefer to find myself laughing at myself than puffy-eyed and wallowing in a self-initiated pity party.  I suppose I make it sound easier than it is, but I find that my falling-apart moments are extremely inefficient, inconvenient, and ultimately not worth it...  in essence, it not only takes more muscles to frown, but it's all-around taxing.   

So there.  No more cleaning up.  When I was younger, I used to imagine myself as a sea otter, and whenever I got the urge to get upset, I'd think of it as rolling off my back like a drop of oil on an otter's wet skin.  Sometimes I even did a little shrug. 

I'm telling you, it works.

I'm learning to be content, anyway.  Or at least I have chosen to.  I am a staunch advocate of making choices.  It puts you in control of situations, illusory or not, which from a psychological standpoint, shields you from a lot of potential co-pays for therapy sessions.  It may not be lemonade, but it's not a compost heap. 

(btw: I hate the phrase, "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade."  If life threw me lemons, I'd trample them, maybe stomp on them (with both feet), mash 'em, and then just deal with it.  I'm not a huge fan of lemonade.  And sometimes cleaning up after a tirade on lemons isn't quite so bad. 

If life threw me rhubarb, I would probably do the same, even though I know plenty of people who like rhubarb pie.  However, if life threw me brownies, I would definitely think about eating them.  Yum.  Even if they fell on the floor.  Especially if they had chocolate chips in them.) 

I am rambling.  It's late and I am not tired.  I have some delicious key-lime pie floating around in my happy stomach. 

So I will say this: Herein is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  (1 John 4:10) 

For me, this verse stands head and shoulders above the rest, contending in favor even with John 3:16.  In the turmoil of life, it springs me back much like a typewriter needs to be slapped back into place after it's been pounding away.  (I learned to type as a kid on those manual typewriters.  Slapping it back was always my favorite part of the exercise.) 

After all John says in his epistle...  about obedience, being watchful, and loving others, he pauses to remind us what love is.  Not just in the "God is love" form, but in the "this isn't about you" form.  He reminds us that love cannot be degraded to something we are in control of.  It is not about us. 

It isn't about how well I am doing, or what dessert I choose to make depending on my lot in life. 

This kind of love is not human-centered.  We do not achieve it by putting an "I" in front of the word we choose for love in action, whether it be "I love, I care, I help, I believe, I preach..."  Herein is the difference between "well done, my good and faithful..." and "I do not know you... depart from me..."

Ultimately, God is not an element to be placed neatly into a worldview.  Rather, we are a part of something much grander, much larger, much too complicated to be packaged and written out and outlined in some meager pages of a doctoral thesis. 

This is love: that God loved us. 

How He manifested this kind of love is the grounds for why we even exist to talk about these things.  It is an eternal mystery, and perhaps ever will be.  And God is this love.  Thus, this kind of knowledge is as inaccessible as understanding God in His entirety.  It is this love that draws us.   (v. 19:) we love because He first loved us. 

We are perpetually a recipient.  Subordinate.  A reactor.  And we must be to Him. 

This is the first work: understanding God's love for us. 

Just stick in your name in the place of "we" in the verse.  If that's awkward, try putting in "me/I":

"Herein is love: not that I loved God, but that God loved me, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for my sins." 

All other cases leave a lot of things to clean up after.  Me?  I hope I will choose not to have to clean up, even though getting through my messes are when I learn the best.  I hope to choose to put Him first.  Including the knowledge of the fact that no matter what, whether I wanted it or solicited it or not, God so loved me.  First.

Staying with my sister for a little bit.  Resting.  Trying to convince myself I really don't want to go back to school.  Thinking about it makes me excited to go back though, so progress is slow in that area.  Hearing about pregnancies, babies, books about Birdies, toes, mariposas and bees (abeja! bzzz...) and watching a child go from infant to toddler has been taking up most of my time. 

I tried last night to complete a personality profile which I'm becoming more and more impatient with.  The thing has over 70 questions (now maybe double that), some of which makes me want to throw my hands up in the air:  am I aware of how my environment is impacting me?  Sure.  Wait.  Am I?  Would I know if I wasn't?  How does someone who would choose "oh yes, this is definitely me" feel like?  How am I supposed to know how someone else feels like?  Is my awareness of my environment average or above average?  What's the standard of awareness?  Is even asking these kinds of questions reflective of my personality?  Do I care?  No, not really. 

And then I think of the disciple John.  Been reading his epistles (they're considered epistles rather than letters, since epistles tend to be open to public reading whereas letters are generally more tailored for an individual) and noticed his stress on knowing God and in turn being like Him.  To John, this is the purpose of the Christian life.  And the primary (although not singular) characteristic of God is love. 

As I read through Jude and 1-3 John (it's been taking me more than 2 weeks and I've got at least 1 more week to go)  I'm more and more convinced as to why John is so obsessed with love and why it's so critical to love... 

Back to the standard...  how would someone know what love is, or what faith is, or what good news is, if they haven't experienced it, or seen it, themselves?  (Echo: how would I know what 'awareness of the environment's impact on me is if I haven't experienced awareness of it's impact?)  It is only when we see it that we truly understand. 

Thus, Romans 10 (v. 14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?)  We are called to be these standard bearers.  As my professor repeated ad nauseam: the best way to write is to 'show, don't tell.'  What are we showing?

I am tempted to go on, but I'll stop here before this epistle turns into a saga.    

I am encouraged that although the world of xanga is quiet, there is a silent readership out there... 

Otherwise, I am fine.  Plagued often by children's songs in my sleep.  (Heads, shoulders, not your toes! : I am beginning to appreciate Elmo's creativity, if not his obnoxious laughter.) 

Not quite the white throne some of you would expect me to be discussing.

My parents remodeled their bathroom and we have a nice new toilet.  My brother's only description of it before we saw it was the inadequate: "It's big."  I expected a huge thing that was so big our knees would hit against the wall when we sat down. 

It turns out, though, that it's one of those fancy Korean-made toilets that talk to you when you sit on it and have the "flush Mianus with warm water when I'm done" (hahahaha...  yeah, the previous post's joke apparently didn't get old yet.)  and the "I'd like the warm air to dry Mianus please" option. 

The weird thing is that every time someone plops down on it, there's a sound like a telephone ringing.  I'm not sure why.  If your toilet called you one day, what would it say? 

Ring ring...
Hello?
Yeah, this is your toilet...  you might want to lose some weight...  you're crushing me here... 
Uh... 

In other news, I had a teachermare last night.  I'm hoping it's residual from me just ending school, and not a 2-month stint until school starts again.  For those of you unfamiliar with this term, teachermares are nightmares teachers have about the first days of school.  I hope this doesn't continue for all the years I teach.  Does it?  It's not that bad...  my teachermares always end with, "It's alright.  This is handle-able..." 

Maybe it's just because I miss my students.  I saw a guy today which looked like one of my students and I spent the ride home goofily grinning at the memories it dredged up.

This summer I am trying to teach myself speed reading (to see if it's worth it, and worth teaching to my students), refine my juggling skills, fill up my new devotional book in record time, and catching up on a lot of reading.  I'm going to see if I can find a decent schedule for me to go for walks and find some time to clear my head....

OK, OK, so maybe the vacation is starting to rot my brain, but hey.  What else are they good for?

Driving down from MA to NY, we pass an exit in Connecticut (exit 5: CT has the highest gas prices, btw: that's where I found my $4.48 a gallon on Sunday) for a city called Mianus.  For some reason I had to fight spasms of chuckles the whole rest of the way down...   I kept staging these imaginary conversations people in the area would have:

Person A: "Hey, I can't find my cow.  Have you seen 'er?"
Person B: "Nope.  Have you looked in Mianus?"
Ahahahahaha....

Person A: "I'm bored, dude."
Person B: "Why don't we go catch a movie in Mianus?"

Person A: "I"m lost.  How do I get to Mianus?"

Person A: "Hey, I heard the best place to see Uranus was from Mianus!"

Puhahahaha....  ok.  So maybe tomorrow I won't find it as amusing (doubtful.)  And who says I can't appreciate low-brow humor (ok, besides me?)  I do believe that Uranus would be a much funnier name for a town, but since it's taken by a planet, I suppose not much can be done. 

At my own defense, apparently Johnny Knoxville beat me to the punch.  (If you don't know who he is...  good.)  He took his crew into the town and went around asking the locals questions and making some keen observations:

"Hey, there's a Jack Russell terrier in Mianus!"

Don't remember much more.  This is probably a good thing.

Anyway.  I promise I'll sober up soon.  I've actually been having some astounding devotions...  it helped that I got me a new notebook to fill (Moleskine ROCKS), and a nice new Bible to use (purely for reference; my other Bible's too marked up and I want to be able to see new things.)  But until then...  just having some fun.

Sometimes we get so caught up in life that we forget about Life.  Often I catch myself wondering if there was more than just this.  And with a jolt I remember: yeah.  Yeah, there is. 

I'm so glad this world is not my home. 

Looks like a close game for the Lakers/Celtics duel.  Too bad I can't catch it in full...  (looks like there will be a game 4.)  I'm watching the thunderstorm that's preventing me from getting a decent Direct TV signal.  It's pretty neat.  There's nothing more humbling than being in the midst of the splendor of nature.  Puts you right back in your place.

You know, when I was little, I never thought to experience life like it would be someone else's history.  Life was just life.  As well it should be.  But now, when I think of my "when I was in High School, no one had cell phones," and I get gasps, I realize times change.  And maybe it's just me, but it seems that time are changing faster than before.  The leap from technology to technology is dizzying.

Anyway.  Some interesting news items I stumbled across.

Be careful for tomatoes.  Major restaurants are pulling them.  Perhaps more out of fear of being sued than because of a real threat of salmonella.  Tomato farmers are struggling.  Here's the link.

A woman gets pregnant on the pill.  She tries to get an abortion (late term).  The baby survives.  It also survives a failed kidney (genetic condition.)  Here's the link. Sometimes life is not so easily quenched.

Apparently, losing presidential campaigns is a recipe for depression.  What's next for Hillary?  Here's the link.

Gas prices!  What's a post on the news without a mention of gas.  On my way up here, I pulled up at a gas station and paid $4.45 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.  It was insanity.  I was running on empty since I bypassed a gas station which had 10 pumps (5 islands with 2 on each side.)  I didn't want to wait behind the masses: there were about 7 cars waiting in line at each pump.  Americans are apparently more afraid of gas rationing than gas prices.  This is what happened in the 70's  during an energy crisis.  Here's that link.

You've no doubt complained about the technology of various institutions...  but if you've gone to the University of Florida.... they posted students' names, SSN, address, etc...  all in full view on the web....  since 2003!  Link.    

That's all for now folks.  Keep pressing onward, stay informed, and stay curious...

...another man's nightmare.  OK, well in this case, MY nightmare. 

I figured I'd throw in a lighter post to honor the First Day of (Official) Freedom from Work.  Even though I got two work-related phone calls today, I am still officially out of sight, out of mind. 

As I planned my drive up from the borderline south to the welcoming coasts of New England, I figured that I'd skip my normal route (which bypasses NYC and her hellion drivers) and try taking the bridges up.  It was a Sunday, after all, and the normal work crowd won't be on the roads at roughly 5pm when I'd be there.  Right?

Well, right.

But that didn't prevent me from sitting in traffic for an hour.  Turns out that there is an annual Puerto Rican Day Parade that takes place annually this time of year, and just as I got to the bridges, they were headed home.  All 2 million of them.  Or so it seemed. 

They say ignorance is bliss.  But I don't think being ignorant of the fact that PRs have the most national pride of anyone I know would've helped any.  (Koreans don't count since the culture forces us to be so humble about it that it doesn't show...  except at soccer games where all humilty rules are thrown onto the field to be trampled underfoot by the Reds.  Whoo hoo!) 

So as I shared the road with all these crazy PRs, flying their flags out their window and lining the interstate like a funeral procession, I tried to be happy for them.  It didn't last long.  But I tried.  I even let a nice lady cut in front of me because she asked.  Even though she had a PR flag hanging out of her window. 

And so the traffic continued until halfway through New England. 

So here I am.  A vegetarian living with a couple...  one of which thinks PETA stands for "People who Eat Tasty Animals."  Sigh. 

In any case.  I'm out.

One of the best feelings I've had this week is to be able to sit in my apartment, crank my a/c and indulge in some ice cream.  Yum, that was good!!  I don't usually crank the a/c, but I figure since I'm not going to be using much electricity for the next few weeks (I'll be out and about), I can afford to be cool (really cool) this week.  And even though my ice cream was a few months old (I don't eat it that often) it was still just fine (all 3 different flavors!)

What's nicer, though, was welcoming the Sabbath...  I missed having people over my house...  we had a good time singing and sharing our devotions...  it was like my soul was drinking from the cool streams of that river of life... 

We talked about a lot of things tonight.  One thing in particular, however, was living in view of the last days.  I'm not just talking about the 'trial and tribulation' last days (and depending on what theology your subscribe to, you might not talk about that anyway.) 

I'm talking about looking up into the distance, the world doing whatever it will be doing around you, weary, fearful, or lonely though you may be, and seeing the bright sky in all its glorious expanse...  and then you see a small, dark cloud, the size of a man's hand descending from Heaven...  and your heart leaps in your chest because you know...  you know...  it's Him. 

Even now my heart skips a little.  I long for that day.  It doesn't matter if I'll be sleeping in the earth, or if I'm alive and alert.  It doesn't matter.  I long for that day.  And yet with this longing comes another skip of the heart: all the people I want there, people who I want to be as happy as I am...  their names and faces pop up and I know they're not ready and suddenly I want to say, "No, but wait!!  WAIT!!" 

And here I am.  In this semi-dark apartment.  The skies have closed and realities of life are settling in once again.  The temptations that I have faced this week.  The choices I have made.  The people I have dealt with in ways I know I could've done differently.  The character I know is in me.  The reality that perhaps the cry for 'wait!' may not only be for the others I love, but for myself as well... 

Finished the book of Jude this week.  Jude reminds us ("though you already know this..") that even the angels, who were in the very presence of God, were not exempt from their ability to choose another way.  The Israelites who were once saved from Egypt, and passed over the sea of baptism, were not all saved in the end.  The message is clear: we are not safe.  Often it is the winding road that leads us step by step into a place we never expected (or wanted) to be...  and yet we like to think that we're ok... "God knows my heart."  Yes.  Yes, He does.

But I know...  I know...  if I could keep my eyes on that cloud...  if I could keep my heart skipping to the beat of the trumpet of those angels...  (I can almost hear it...) if I could remember what is in my mind when I picture the culmination of all my faith descending from Heaven with a shout...  if I could remember what a personal God He is (how he seeks us by name, and is acquainted with our individual circumstances and pain)...  if I could remember how He, the my heart's utmost desire, appears as He comes down saying my name.... 

I know that in these measurable moments, I can do anything through Him. 

Anything.  Come what may. 

And yet here I am still.  This dark apartment.  Sometimes that cloud is so hard to see.  Sometimes it's obstructed by the other clouds that tend to hang over me...  sometimes I'm distracted by the allurements of sin, by instant gratifications, by the expectations of the world, by wanting to be a problem-solver...  by forgetting the pleasures of obedience and wallowing in the pleasures of this world... 

Ezekiel 22:30 still gets me: "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it, but I found none." 

That verse broke me when I first read it.  I pictured myself standing in a multitude of people as God searched our faces...  looking for someone He could depend on to help His people...  looking for someone...  anyone...  and His face passes mine and He says, "There is no one here..."

It brings me to my knees.  I don't want to be passed by on this.  I don't want to be a disappointment to Him.  I don't want to be one of those who would not, could not, should not, be depended on to stand in the gap...

We sung 'The Old Rugged Cross' today.  One of the verses starts, 'O that Old Rugged Cross, so despised by the world...  has a wondrous attraction for me..."  It struck me that I am often so discouraged that the Cross is rejected, despised, and mocked by those close to me.  It also struck me that it is indeed an amazing attraction for me.  I don't want to be ashamed.  I don't want to not be who I am.  Yeah.  The cross is despised.  Christianity is despised.  Obedience is despised.  It's ok.  I love it. 

I want to stand in the gap.  I want to make up the hedge.  I want to repair the breach and restore the paths...

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation... (2 Tim 1:8)

Soon and very soon...  we are going to see the King...

..do you believe...?