Equation for Risk

My friend Ken sort of brought this equation to my attention:

Risk = Consequence x Probability

This is a pretty intelligent equation. The 'Consequence' is how bad of an impact there is if something happens. "Probability" is how likely that something is to occur.

So, this has interesting implications. Technically the following:
a) The consequences of the thing happening are major, but the event is unlikely to happen, or
b) The consequences of the thing happening are minor, but the probability of it happening is extremely likely

Are technically worse than:
c) the consequences of the thing happening are moderate & the probability is moderate

This is shown (as an example) with the following values:
Risk = Consequence x Probability
example a) Consequence of 10, probability of 0.1 (10%); Risk = 10 * 0.1 = 1
example b) Consequence of 1, probability of 1 (100%); Risk = 1 * 1 = 1
example c) Consequence of 5, probability of 0.5 (50%); Risk = 5 * 0.5 = 2.5

So this factors into life decisions. For example, you could do something with huge consequences if you just minimize the likely hood of those consequences happening. Or you can do something that is guaranteed to happen, but minimize your consequences & you'll be fine....

Anyhow, just interesting.

More of Annie's Thoughts on Faith

I'm reading through Anne Lamott's "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith" on this trip. It's been taking me a while to get into the book - most of the early part of the book seemed like a long lament over George W. Bush's presidency. (The rest of the book has a lot of ranting about it, too, so maybe I've just gotten used to it.) But I'm definitely enjoying the book right now. It has lots more of Annie's signature storytelling & very beautiful & funny & poetic & rich & deep descriptiveness. It's just good to hear her honesty as she talks through life & faith & God & everything.

A couple of items caught my eye as profound/relatable tonight:

One was an insight from her friend, Father Tom, who says that "the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns." This I thought was hugely profound (and makes me wonder how these 'wise guys" come up with this stuff - do they just sit around pondering thoughts, faces squished up like they're all constipated, & then something blindingly brilliant falls out of the sky & bonks them on the head?)

But this thought (the faith/certainty one) explains so much to me. Too often we think that doubt is the opposite of faith & we berate ourselves for having doubts, for questioning things when really that's counterproductive. Faith requires the unknown (or partially unknown), it requires risk, taking chances, trusting in someone when you're not sure that they'll come through (or can prove they exist or prove their love). With certainty, with facts, there is no room for faith because faith isn't required. It's like in Romans 8 where Paul asks, "if you've seen what you're hoping for, then why would you still be hoping for something, when you already have what you're hoping for?".

I find this idea liberating. Too often Christians are trying to 'prove' faith, to make it make sense/be palatable to the world around us. Deep down we sort of know that we don't know, but we're trying to look legitimate; look like we're not a cult full of whackos.... but faith by nature, can't be proven, just as love can't be proven. Sure you can see evidence that the love or faith (or, more accurately, the individual that you are loving/loving you/trusting) is worth of that trust, worthy of that risk. But you can never prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Doubt somehow is part of faith. The questioning is part of the trusting.

My brain (& heart) will be able to chew on that thought for weeks. This makes me happy 'cause it helps occupy the spider monkey (see below).

The 2nd profound thought was that Annie described her brain, in the context of the random worries she has, as a spider monkey on acid. I laughed at this 'cause it's so true. Once I start thinking/worrying, it's totally like my brain turns into this spider monkey on acid, bouncing around, chattering away like mad, swinging back & forth at a frenetic pace.... It's a wonder I'm not crazy with the way my brain doesn't shut up....

King Sized Beds

When travelling with 'the company' (whichever company that might be), they have this tendancy to rent you rooms with King size beds. Why? I have no idea. Maybe they think it's ritzy. I think that's silly. One guy doesn't need a king size bed to himself. There's just too much space for one person (unless I decided to get bigger, which I'm trying to avoid). My queen bed at home is already too big for one person, but my laundry seems to occupy the space well in lieu of a person...

That & they give you like 5 pillows. Again, why? just to fill up the empty spaces in the bed? Maybe I should try forming creative pillow sculptures for the cleaning staff to find. I wonder if I could do a pillow Inukshuk in the middle of the bed?

Hotel rooms (& business trips in general) are lonely places for me. A long way from home & just a lot of things, like too big of beds, to remind you you're alone. Often I have the TV on a lot in the hotel room. Pretty much from waking up until shortly before falling asleep. I think the noise drowns out the aloneness you can feel in the overwhelming quiet....& the emptiness of the room made for more than just me.

...but the TV hasn't been on quite as much.... maybe that says something.

Powers of Observation

I've been driving the rental car for nearly a week now & just realized as of last night that it has a sunroof.

This makes me feel a little silly & brings back all kinds of thoughts/stories/memories of how non-observant I am. Sometimes I kick myself around for this, but I'm trying to be more gentle with me & so I'm not as concerned. I have to live with the fact that I don't observe a lot of things that I probably should notice.

Being aware of things is funny. My friend Ken has talked to me about how they've done studies about how your ear becomes attuned to certain sounds, phrases, etc. Your name for instance. You can be in a crowded room, tons of noise, but if someone says your name, even across the room, your ears still pick it up & your head jerks to see who is calling you/talking about you. I find that happens to me with other stuff. I can hear 'church', 'Jesus' or other christian-y terms halfway across the room even when I'm having a hard time hearing someone next to me. It's crazy, but it's all about what matters to you at the time, what your heart is focussed on. SInce my dad's time in the hospital, my head's added words like 'heart disease' and 'angiogram' to it's list of trigger phrases.....

I think your eyes are prone to this, too..... I'm now noticing Mustangs wherever I go, mostly 'cause the last rental car was a Mustang & I really liked driving it. So now I'm realizing that Ft.Wayne has an incredible number of Mustangs driving around, or it's just that I'm now 'attuned' to see Mustangs when they drive by. (Walking through the mall today I was thinking about how I'm attuned to notice pretty girls, or, well, women in general. It's an odd, semi-uncontrollable thing. I noticed it today while thinking about how beautiful one of my other gal friends is & a pretty girl walked by & I noticed this girl in a completely distracted state. I was thinking about another woman, not this girl in front of me & the girl in front of me really didn't register much else in my mind other than that she looked pretty, but that was about it. I was trying to think about how I'd explain this idea of noticing without noticing to a woman & the only thing I could come up with was seeing signs for a 'shoe sale' (& maybe this will get shoes thrown at me). Not all women would be affected by this (I know some that it wouldn't phase at all), but I know others that, even if they didn't want to buy anything, they'd still notice the signs even if they walked past & they never did anything about the thoughts.... but I digress).....

... somewhere amongst the pretty girls & mustangs, I went to the local chocolatier to indulge in one of their decadent deserts. It was this small chocolate cup. 2 inches in diameter and an inch deep, filled with caramel sauce, topped with whipped cream & 4-5 almonds. Around the cup were spaced slices of granny smith apples & almonds for dipping into the caramel... It was wonderful.... & the whole thing helped me become aware of the moment.

I started to think about how you couldn't come into a place like that & think about being healthy, or dieting or whatever. All of these thoughts would kill the experience, kill the moment. The only reason to go for desert in a place like that, with such decadent treats, was to spoil yourself, to indulge in the celebration of the moment. I thought about how that this was a moment of thankfulness, a place of worship, where I was thankful that I had tastebuds that responded to sweetness & tartness. Thanksful that there is such a thing as sugar & chocolate & caramel. I realized that these fresh, crisp, tart apples become a thing of wonder because of how perfectly they are made to offset the overwhelming sweetness of the caramel. Who discovered this richness? Who was the first to have the idea to turn cocao into chocolate, sugar to caramel, to dip apples into this sweetness? In the moment, each bite is savoured, making the moment last. I thought with gratitude of how good it is that I have a pancreas that still works (so far); that can produce enough insulin that my body doesn't go into shock after that much sugar.

I thought about the wonders of chocolate & if everyone in the world enjoyed choclate? I thought about the tension of how 'rich' I felt to be in a country where I could enjoy this sweetness & have enough money to afford these luxuries. I thought, too, about those who don't have such luxuries. Would they want them if they can get them? Do the children in Africa like chocolate? If they could have anything, is chocolate the first thing they'd pick? What about my friend Angie in Africa? Does she still have chocolate? If not, does she miss it?

And somewhere in the middle of this, I realized a 'presence' in the moment; realized that I was open to noticing, to observing, exactly what was going on inside me; the ebb & flo of thoughts, the river of consciousness, the tension between having & not having, between celebrating with thankfulness all that you have, while remembering those that do not have. And again, this 'tension', this being pulled between two seemingly opposite things, seemed right & good & made me feel very much 'alive'.....

I've lived a very 'me'-centric day today. I've been by myself & have done the things that I find restful. Shopping, eating, reading, thinking, sleeping.... Too often my life becomes a blur of activity & I forget to be aware of the moment, aware of me & how I'm feeling in the moments. When I'm out with someone I really care about, I am very much aware (maybe sometimes too much so) of how they are doing/feeling/reacting to the moment & I try to respond/adjust/contort, to try to ensure that they're enjoying the moment (which I've gotta stop doing & just let them experience the moment).... & for as screwed up as that sometimes is, there is, at the heart, a gentleness with that.... that I cherish the person & am just 'aware' of them.... it's nice to take a day to sort of 'cherish' me & be aware of who I am & not force myself to 'be' something other than me in the moments. It just feels good to be able to be 'aware' of the moment & to savour what is there - to have ears, eyes & heart open to experience the richness of the experience - of richness or lack, plenty or want - to drive around with the sunroof open, sunlight filtered & reflected through grey cloud lightening the sky above. wind & road noise teasing it's way into the car, reminding you to breathe, to slow down, to enjoy the awareness of the moment.....

Pictures of Home: "The Last Kiss"

Just back from watching the movie "The Last Kiss". I knew little to nothing about the movie going into it. All I knew is Zach Braff was in it. I haven't seen enough of Zach's stuff to form an opinion... Most of the people in my community raved about "Garden State" & I watched it, all excited to listen to the deep insights that were reportedly in the movie.... but yeah, maybe it was just that my expectations were too high from all the hype, but I walked away feeling like I didn't get it. Sure I saw the message about the choice to be medicated & 'happy' & safe from life vs. the real gift of being alive & feeling the whole range of human emotions.... but maybe the message just didn't hit me as hard as I'd expected.

But I have the sneaking suspicion that Mr. Braff takes on redemptive projects, i.e. projects that try to remind us of what is good, what is love, what is life to the full & so I went (half heartedly) to see if this movie had something to say.

And it did.... depending on how you were listening.... It's not a movie for the faint of heart in some ways. I saw a young couple with their grey haired mom get up & leave after the 2nd or 3rd (or maybe more) sex scene (not that it was really that bad, just not something I'd bring a grey haired mother, or my non-gray haired mother, to see). I'm not sure what others would think about it. I'd almost say all 20-30 something year olds should be forced to watch it as life training, but I sort of doubt that most would 'get it', unless they'd already lived it or were living it. (And, maybe as a guy you get a totally different message than if you're a woman, so I guess I'll have to just listen to other's thoughts on it all.)

It's a good post-modern story about love & life & self & others.... It paints a very honest, very real (painfully so) picture of what it feels like to be a north american on the edge of 30 & the pathos & tension that that includes... It's a very 'cold shower' view of things - I could say that you don't walk away happy, don't walk away feeling good about your life 'cause you're faced with this non-glamourous, non-happy view of your life.....

....the only problem with that would be is that I did walk away from this movie happy. Very happy. Full of whimsy & wonder & thankfulness &, like I wrote about in the last post, this sense of an emptiness waiting to be filled, of a life full of possibility & unknown.

The movie paints the picture of the tension we live in between security & adventure. Something is ingrained within us that we long for stability. Deep down we sort of want the white picket fence lifestyle - or, more accurately, we reach a point in life where we want relationships that will not leave. We want to establish something permenant on this planet, and that, primarily, is finding that 'love of our life', the one we want to spend the rest of our lives with & start a family that (optionally) involves having & raising kids.... This is the one side of our desires.

The other side longs to not 'settle down', to never grow up. We long for adventure, romance, freedom. We long for something new, something exciting, something to take our breath away, to make us feel really alive, something that pulls us all together into the moment, to enjoy the sweetness of whatever it is we're doing.

And it seems, that the two sides are opposites, mutually exclusive.... and so we, whether we realize it or not, hold the two in tension, sometimes dipping more to one side or the other, but always being pulled back & forth in our desires trying to do the impossible & have both at the same time.

And the movie basically allows the characters to ask the questions of the moment, to explore their longings for security & adventure, for safety & freedom. And with the questions come choices &, honestly, I was pleasantly surprised with the message of the movie. It didn't clearly tell you what to do with your life (thankfully), but it challenged the audience to choose.... to find what matters to them & to choose that over & over & over. To make mistakes, to try again, to do "whatever it takes" with the things that matter most to you.

It was raining when I left the theatre. I drove the car back to the hotel with only the noise of the wind & rain & road to accompany me. That & a full heart.

In our culture, we become 'adults' at 18, though I think that's almost a bit of a fib. It seems that at 18 we're confronted with a future where the questions don't have answers. Up until that point, our parents guided us & guarded us &, in some ways, guarded us from our choices. At 18, we reach another phase of self-assertiveness & self-awareness; we realize that we are not our parents.... Mostly we realize that we don't really know who we are apart from the family we've grown up with, but we realize that there are dreams & desires & personality in us that are both alike & seperate/different from our family. Eighteen really begins the quest to figure out what the questions are, to know what it means to be a 'grown-up'.

At 25 you realize that your life looks nothing like what you expected. Or if it does, you wonder if now that you have what you wanted, is this really what you wanted? And, as one of the characters says in the movie, "The world is moving so fast now that we start freaking long before our parents did because we don't ever stop to breathe anymore"

But at 30, you find you don't have any more answers, but you're starting to figure out what the questions are (maybe).... or maybe you just stop caring about the questions & are more interested in living. If you figured out what the questions were, you probably wouldn't like the answers 'cause they'd be too challenging, or wouldn't made sense until you lived them anyhow.

But all in all, in your 30's you start to realize that you have a new ally in the journey - you. After all the pathos of your 20's, after all the feelings of failure that you can't get this whole adult thing right, that you didn't do as good a job as your parent or others around you, after years of feeling like you suck & thousands of hours of hiding from each other to try to pretend that you're together, after all of this, you start to get the sneaking suspicion that everyone else is just as screwed up as you are & no one really knows what they're doing either..... and it's at that point that you receive grace - there is a moment of salvation, of redemption, where you stop trying to be everything & release yourself to simply recieve love & acceptance.... and this is where you learn to start treating yourself with grace, where you learn to befriend yourself & this is where the freedom of choice really starts to come into play 'cause you stop making choices based on what others want, or what you think others want & you live out of your center - out of the truth of you that "people may not want to hear", but they can deal with the truth......

....and this is why, in the middle of the rain & the melancholy & emptiness, there is joy. This is why life feels rich & good tonight. Because it is filled with choices & I have no idea what the future holds, but I'm learning to continue to choose, to do whatever it takes to stay with the things, the people, the passions & moments that matter most to me. And the real freedom is to know how much I'll fail in all of this & make the wrong choices. But each choice leads to another. God comes to us, as shown in an episode of "Joan of Arcadia", as the eternal, "What will you do now?", "What choice will you make in this moment?" and this is so much part of His love & grace to us, that He never gives up on us, but always offers us another second chance, again.... & again.....

There's an image at the end of the movie of Zach laying on his front porch, sprawled out like he should have a chalk outline around him & by the door is the welcome mat saying "HOME". This becomes for me a beautiful picture of home. In this context "Home" is more than the white picket fence dream; the place of 'security'. "Home" in this case means the things (and mostly the people) that you refuse to let go of; the relationships you choose to fight for (or to lose for). Home becomes something that is never fully 'secure', never fully 'safe', but is something in which you must constantly choose, amidst many mistakes, to prioritize it/them, value it/them & show your love through your actions as you choose to tenaciously hang on to what/who matters most.

Happiness for Melancholics Anonymous

"'It's just a rock.'

'No, it's not just a rock. It is 42 pounds of polished granite, a bevelled underbelly & a handle a human being can hold. And it may have no practical purpose in and of itself but it is a repository of human possibility and if it's handled just right it will exact a kind of poetry.

For ten years I've drilled for oil in 93 countries, 5 different continents and not once have I done anything to equal the grace of a well thrown rock sliding down a sheet.'"

- Amy Foley & Chris Cutter, "Men with Brooms"

Melanchonlics have their own brand of happiness. Sometimes it seems like some rare animal, shy, hidden, something that only comes out when you're not looking. Other times it's there in the open, maybe it's taken for granted, maybe people forget what it's like to be genuinely happy, genuinely joyful, or maybe they just see so much of it (whether it's the true happiness or the plastic pretend happiness), that they forget that it's a gift to be happy - just like it's a gift to be sad, a gift to be angry, a gift to simply be able to feel, to enjoy the full range of emotions & experiences that are given to us with our humanity.... emotions that are shared in many ways with the giver of all things.....

I'm happy tonight. I've been pretty happy most of the week. Sure there's been some unhappy outbursts, some whining, some moaning & wingeing, but for the most part I'm happy. I'm a long way from home, down in Ft.Wayne on business. I should be not so happy. I hate business travel. Ft.Wayne is not my favorite subcontractor to deal with, but yeah. I'm enjoying things.

It's nice to just not be working so hard. Nice to not spend every evening at the hotel trying to review documents & come up with results after a string of 14 hour days. Part of the happiness comes from what I'm not doing & how I'm not quite as tied to work. Part of the happiness is my internal secrets that I'm looking for an escape from some of the job stuff & I'm trying to come up with a clever plan to make it 'over the wall'.... just thinking about it all make me feel hopeful, millitant, rebellious, free... a lot of emotions i hadn't felt in the last little while trapped in the business of trying to meet some impossible deadlines....

Some of the happiness is just sneaking off to do introvert things. Make a run to the toy or comic store, watch some "Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." (such a good show), reading, heading to the hot tub at the hotel (well, it's more of a 'warm' tub so far).... just little things that I like to do. These things definitely help with the happiness.

Not sure all the reasons why - lack of stress, lack of worries, fun stuff, plans for a weekend by myself away from work & work people.... not sure, is happiness a default state that is there when there's nothing else to deal with? Or is it something where you have to place things in your life to help provide the happiness? Not sure. Not sure that it matters. Happiness, like all emotions is in a state of change, a state of flux....never constant, never always there... but part of the ebb & flo, like breathing in & out....

Anyhow, watched "Men with Brooms" tonight. Such a good movie. I sort of half way watched part of it on a plane once & have had it in my collection for a long time, but haven't watched it 'cause a friend sort of poo-poo'ed the movie 'cause he didn't like the scenes with the couple trying to get pregnant. I need to keep reminding myself not to listen to people's thoughts on movies & just watch what I want to watch. (I nearly missed watching "Love Actually" for similar reasons & also really enjoyed that movie)....

But yeah, finally watched the movie & loved it. It made me laugh...and cry & dream & think & all kinds of good stuff.... It's a melancholic movie (in some senses)... quirky, weird, you don't quite get it. One moment it's just silly, the next breathtakingly profound, if you let it, if you hear what is said just beyond the words. I really like the stuff that Paul Gross does. Due South had many moments that spoke to me, as does this film. I like the stories that he tells, they speak of something more.....

..and the soundtrack to the movie was great. Most movies I ignore the soundtrack, it tends to get in the way. This one had lots of great tunes by great Canadian bands, including Kathleen Edwards' "Hockey Skates" song. Kathleen was one of the artists at the folk fest this year. I heard some of her stuff, but wasn't paying attention for a lot of it. Her songs & the great little write-up about her in the promo bookelet intrigued me enough to pick up her album & it's been growing on me as one of the favorite (among many) albums I picked up from folk fest artists.

Likewise a great melancholic album. The songs aren't happy, they leave you full of this, something.... listening to her album "Failer" you hear stories of gunned down loves, broken hearts & relationships, hunted & haunted relationships, a world full of 'failers' - broken people living broken lives.... and, like with "Men with Brooms", there's an emptiness left in the center of your chest when your done.... it's not an emptiness of loss (though it maybe feels like loss), not of pain (though you're reminded of pain), not an emptiness of despair.... but an emptiness of expectancy.... Somewhere in the beauty of the emotions, beauty of the tragedy, longing, joy, pain, everything; in the middle of the poetry, you become open to realizing you were made for something more, something rich & ultimately good (though something very real & mixed with it's share of everything good & bad).... the emptiness leaves you open to looking for that more, to opening up yourself to possibilities, to the unknown, to the chance to dream, to hope, to look for something more.....

... maybe this is why you can't tell when melancholics are happy.... sometimes their tears flow more in joy than they do in sorrow.... there are moments that take your breath away & there are no words to describe it, in the same way that lovers eyes communicate more than what is spoken... and in the middle there are times where you feel your heart could crack with joy 'cause it just can't hold so much goodness & beauty, but you figure that'd be OK 'cause you're dying happy, but somewhere in there, the heart always expands, gets bigger & makes more room for joy, more room for love, more room for happiness, peace & hope.

& maybe all that carving out that pain & sorrow does is just to make room for all the joy & laughter that's waiting to fill the empty places....

The Question Pool

Love this song. It becomes more meaningful the older I get:

"The Question Pool" by Billy Crockett (off the Watermarks album)

" Where did I leave my plastic halo? why can't I speak to my good friend?
am I sleepwalking through the best years of my life? how long is too long to pretend?
What do I owe my parents' generation? what do I want and who would know?
can I live on answers that were handed down to me? do I just hold on or just let go?

I am drinking from/I am drinking from/ I am drinking from the water blue/ down at the question pool

What is lying over my horizon? what am I afraid of going through?
If whatever happens comes to push me past the edge, will all I believe in still be true?

I am drinking from/I am drinking from/ I am drinking from the water blue/ down at the question pool
I wonder what it all comes to/for me for you/I wonder waht it all comes to

Why am I moved by stories of Eden? what does its lovely sadness mean?
am I a traveller who cannot remember home? why do I cry sometimes in dreams?

I am drinking from/I am drinking from/ I am drinking from the water blue/ down at the question pool"

Thoughts on a sunday morning

I went to church today.... in the morning....

this has become a more rare event since church has been an evening thing for me for a number of years now. But the church I've been hanging out at is going through transistion again & has shuffled church to a Sunday AM meeting at someone's home. I figure it has the potential to be good - a chance to start fresh, to put us in close proximity. The hope (for me) is that it'll reduce/expand us from trying to do some official thing that looks like a normal Sunday morning church service and instead move us into a community where the collective voice (i.e. the voices of everyone in the room instead of just the 'clergy') can be heard... maybe that's just wishful thinking or naive, but hey, everyone's gotta dream sometimes.....

But it was a very thoughtful, contemplative morning & so here is a collection of thoughts in no specific order or structure:

- coming down the stairs of my house to leave for church I was thinking that what holds me back from church is this sense of needing to perform. I feel like it's unacceptable to be real, to be human, fragile, average at church. I have this feeling/fear that we have become so consumed with being 'right' at church for fear that we would stray into 'error' or 'heresy' that we've left no room for humanity. And this bothers me. I'm comfortable with Jesus 'cause he knows me intimately inside & out & is comfortable with my crap. My darkness is light to Him as David indicates in Psalms 139 - He knows the stuff that is not seen, knows the crooked & twisted places in me & He loves & embraces me in all the 'light' and 'dark' parts of who I am. In the new testament, we see that Jesus is comfortable with 'sinners' & embraces & welcomes them - and I just don't feel like church really does that. We don't really allow struggle, or questions, or failures, and I think that sucks 'cause the best parts of the story are the parts where the heroes & heroines fall on the road to victory & they have to have the courage to get up & try again....

- In the past I think I talked a lot about losing your life for Jesus & I basically tried to structure life into a place of losing things in the hopes that it was 'sacrificing' for God. Looking back, I'm not sure whether that was good & healthy or some nihilistic thing fueled by my self-loathing where I just didn't like me & hoped that if I gave up enough stuff it would somehow make me acceptable to God. So now I'm questioning again what that all means. I see in Jesus a heart that had everything - intimacy with His Father, the splendors of heaven & He gave this up to suffer & die for what? For a bride that would sometimes betray him, sometimes deny him, but mostly forsake him? But to Him, through the eyes of love, He sees a bride pure & spotless & this is what he gives His life for, the glad surrender of love - taking His fullness & laying it aside for what He deems (miraculously) greater & more worthy/desirable.... us. And I think again about the phrase that "freedom is another word for having nothing left to lose" and the idea that 'true' freedom is where you've lost everything & truly have nothing & I question that and wonder whether or not the true sacrifice is when you finally realize how good life really is, but you find something, someone so valueable to you that all that you thought you had looks like dust in comparison to how much you love that one.... and you're willing to give it all away in some love-drunk, joy-mad craze of giving.....

- spent some time staring at a table in these people's house to see how it was put together & how the extra leaves actually attach & was trying to analyze the forces involved in how it would actually hold up plates & elbows (for us less cultured folks who put elbows on the table). earlier in the day I was happy 'cause I put together a page in excel that would convert text to 6-bit code to 8-bit hex numbers & I was all proud of myself for using the INT & MOD functions in excel to do this. And I realize that while I may not like the engineering job stuff, engineering is still a part of me - or maybe it's just problem solving, or being a carpenter's son, or natural curiousity.... but from my training I value the creativy in constructing things (real or abstract), I love the questions & mystery of trying to understand how things are put together.

So much of life is finding out the things you love & then doing them. Some of the discussion at church today was around gifts vs. titles. You could be called a something; pastor, engineer, teacher, etc. but there is a total difference between title & actually having the gifts or loving the activities described by the title. We as humans really ought to be only doing the stuff that we love. Life's too short to try to get titles that only weigh us down with the weight of illusionary self-importance.

- Was reminded of a Mike Mason portion of the book "The Gospel According to Job" in how he proposes the question of who is the most important people in the church. After a number of speculations as to who is normally considered 'most important' in the church - pastors, elders, deacons, people who give money, volunteers, etc. - he reaches his conclusion that those who suffer are the most important members of the church. He justifies this through the analogy of the body that Paul uses to describe the church & describes how that if one part of our body is wounded, the rest of our body's focus will automatically go to working on healing that broken part of the body. We would have a ludicrously unhealthy, non-functioning body if we didn't.... but it is so often that the suffering are overlooked in our churches. They're really uncomfortable to be around, they're huge time sucks & you feel powerless to help 'cause you really can't solve any of their problems half the time (being someone who 'suffers' somewhat I can say these things 'cause I know), but yet this is the hallmarks of a healthy body - you take care of your own (and in the mystery of the church, 'our own' is really everyone on the planet - the church is never meant to be an exclusive club, but instead an ever widening circle of friends & family).

I remember I put a half-way, pseudo quote of this on the room of a prayer room wall once & I took a not-so-christian friend down there to see the room & this thought was something she thought was cool - she liked that idea - and it just makes me wonder. The church tries to present a front that we are all sane, together, rational people. We try to advertise God and market Jesus - make Him palatable & easy to swallow. We promise happiness & health & wealth, a safe life free of trouble if only you'll join up with our little organization. And I wonder sometimes what that means to the non-churched world around us. I often wonder that if they saw us really loving each other, really showing tenderness & compassion to those around us, if they saw true kindness would they not pay attention more? Would they not believe our messages of faith when they see us trusting God to provide as we become His hands & feet & heart?

- My friend Marty mentioned how he was praying about some things at a prayer conference & kept hearing the words "perfect fear casts out all love" which is a twisting of the passage in 1 John 4 that says "perfect love casts out all fear".... but a profound & terrifying statement. It is so true that fear has this way of kiling off our psuedo-love & leaving us only our suspicions & prejudices. We as the church are called to love & it's so dangerous the way we live in fear & spread so much fear around - and all of it just makes us more miserly with our love for others....

- I left 'church' about half way through the morning to go hang out with one of my bestest friends who's not a christian. I prioritize on spending time with that friend 'cause the times with them feel more like 'church' than a lot of church services I go to. We're good enough friends that I can be totally honest, completely myself & feel loved & accepted. This is what I want - the place where you can be without masks, totally childlike & able to just 'be' without fear.

Great conversations, too. The conversation flowed from microwaves to radiation to cancer to genetics & how there are parts of the DNA that control how many times your cells can replicate to genetic diseases to abortion & hard choices to being prepared for death & how you live your life now to passions & gifts to poker to the stuff of life& the everyday to church & what it could look like to loneliness & longing - just so many things in the flow of conversation. It is so good to enjoy depth & to walk in the honest & real places with others.

Likely more, but that's a snapshot of what ran through my head today. Makes me wonder if everyone has these thoughts of if it's just me. I doubt that it's just me, but I do start to wonder how other people contemplate things.