Reflections on my First Day of Blogging

1) I delight in dialogue and crave communication, so blogging seems a tailor-made venue for expressing and logging my thoughts as well as connecting with readers in meaningful ways.

2) I suppose I've always been a blogger of sorts, but only in the biosphere that is my mind instead of the blogosphere of the web. One is private and temporal, the other public and a bit more lasting: i.e. this blog might remain for a while after I have shuffled off this yet-to-be-tamed 186 lb coil.

3) This little exercise in self expression might serve as a mini workshop in which I can develop some skill in writing. It seems far less daunting than beginning a book or anything of that sort.

4) Lord, please use this little blog to somehow, and in some way, touch the lives of those who come here and read these thoughts. I pray you will speak from between these lines to any lonely, hungry and hurting souls who might pass this way. Help me Lord Jesus to write in such a way as to ultimately bring you glory, support your deep Truth and reflect your great love. Please help me avoid being needlessly divisive, cynical or flippant. Keep me from being contentious, proud or pompous as I express my opinions. Help me O Lord to be content to sit at your feet and learn the lowly path my soul so often would avoid. May you my Father bless all who pass this way.

Begging, Addiction and Humiliation

My homeless friends have taught me so very much. I thank God for leading me to meet them in the classroom of life called Ladle Fellowship. One of the things I have learned about is the power and perniciousness of drug and alcohol addiction. A man I know, and consider a friend, has told me about what it takes to feed the habit which drives his life like some seemingly imposed and inescapable script. He told me that he hates nothing more that begging. He despises it for it humiliates him and drives his self esteem to the depths. Yet he is driven to beg in order to feed his habit. And he must get high just to force himself to beg. After begging he uses the drugs to bury his humiliation. What a vicious cycle. Thank God there is hope through the power of Christ!

Twilight Enchantment

It is evening time on May 18th 2009--about 7:45p.m. This is my very favorite time of day. I find something strangely enchanting and soulfully delightful about the transition from evening to night. I'm not really sure just what it is that puts me in such a mellow musing mood. I know that George MacDonald could--probably somewhere has--expressed it much better than I ever could. This day will seem completely different an hour from now. It seemed very different just a couple of hours ago. The dark of night is not bad, just different. Twilight, when it is neither day nor night and is seems as if time stops, or hesitates for a bit. It is a magical (I balk at using the word) time of in-between--of transition. Perhaps the Jews had something in counting the days from sunset to sunset.

The Protestant Rest Ethic

I have tried for some years now to build a day of real rest into my life. Doing so, I am finding, is not nearly as simple as I once imagined. How can a fundamentally lazy person (such as I seem to myself to be) find Not Doing Stuff so daw-gone difficult? It's not that I can't take a day off or go on vacation, it's just that, through the mortar of my walled-off day, there seems to seep the nagging notion that I haven't yet accomplished anything to speak of and I'd better quit putzing around (I love to putz!) and get at least something done. As my Sabbath progresses, I'm watching the clock and calculating the few hours left before sunset, the time by which I should have put to bed some worthy daytime project. How can I deserve a relaxing evening tonight if I haven't done diddly all day? Wait, lemmie think for a moment... I did write two posts today. Hmmm perhaps they'd qualify as at least some kind of diddly? Perhaps I can neutralize that pesky accomplishment nag by blogging it away. That's it--I'll pop that sucker right in the kisser with a big ol' fat blog! That'll show him! It's late in the day; I'd better pour myself a glass of wine and give this some serious thought. A cigar might be summoned to the battle as well. Tell you what: I'll send you some dispatches from the front lines as I'm able. If I get around to it. Someday.

The Miracle Diet No One is Talking about

When you loose 50 pounds--at least when you loose it quickly--everyone with your "before" image still fresh in their mind wants to know, "What diet are you on?" I guess it's time I reveal The Secret--the diet that's brought me such miraculous results. I only wish it could bring me the kind of royalties The Secret brought its author! But, sadly, I'm afraid no one is going to fork over $26.95 for the hardback copy of the E.L.E.M. Diet: The Two Secrets to Amazing Weight Loss. The vast diet-buying public will not be breaking down Boarders doors, or Amazon's e-doors to get their copy because it has but one chapter and it's titled, Eat Less, Exercise More. In fact, that chapter consists of but one lonely sentence on one nearly blank page--and that sentence is identical to the chapter title. That's why E.L.E.M. is the miracle diet no one is talking about.

Perhaps I'll write s'more about how I've come to ELEM, but really, I don't think it would be all that interesting. No ancient Chinese formulas or herbal teas, no real tricks of any kind to speak of. The only "trick"--if you can call it that--is that I ELEM only 6 days a week. On my "free" day I EAEN. If I think of something helpful or interesting beyond that, I'll let you know.