A Lesson For Ingratitude

I am so guilty of taking my life for granted. I live and work in a Christian community that's within a gunshot of the beach; my commute to work lasts all of 90 seconds, and consists of driving down a hill from which I can see miles and miles to the horizon overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And like the rest of the world, I often wake up tired, grumble my way through the day, complain about petty politics and inconveniences, and try to wall off a private, isolated cosmos where I am in control. My life is the epitome of ingratitude on such days - and often, God smacks me into the reality of His life with the views all around me.

Yesterday was one of those days, when I found my pathetic world stopped cold in the sheer wonder of what God had made. A sea of clouds, just barely floating on the ocean's surface, crept inland with a majestic, eerie calm. At first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, so I decided to drive to one of the highest points on campus, grabbing my camera along the way. If I could have been present for the Spirit of God hovering over the waters in Genesis, surely it looked like this. I don't need to wax poetic to do the scene justice. The God we serve made this, and in the worship it evoked from me, I realized how often I can miss what He is creating and doing right in front of me...

Whether it is watching your kid play, or having dinner with your spouse, catching a sunset, or simply realizing who He has revealed himself to be in Christ... here's to all of us being stopped in a moment of thankful wonder this week.

(click to enlarge photo)

(tech geek info: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, Canon 50mm f/1.8, TV:1/125, AV: 7.1, ISO 100, polarizing filter, levels adjusted with Photoshop)



(tech geek info: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, Sigma 70-300mm [@92mm] f/4.5, TV:1/500, AV: 9.0, ISO 100, levels adjusted with Photoshop)

I Can Explain Everything

These past few weeks I've been flooded with e-mails from people who have been losing sleep with worry over where I've been. I want to thank you all for your heartfelt concern; all the fasting, intercession and prayer walks have really paid off, and at last I'm back among the blogging. It's been the longest break I've had from blogging since launching RFL, but with very good reason. Many of you probably won't belive the story I am about to tell you, but then again most people don't believe me when I tell them that I invented the internet either. Trust me: Al Gore was full of crap. It was me I tell you. Me.

It was about two weeks ago that I had a vision of St. Louis. St. Louis, who is one of the lesser-known Catholic saints (along with St. Frank, St. Bob, and St. Moe), was cannonized after performing the miracle of turning his urine into cheap, tasteless beer. [side note: There is a large Budweiser manufacturing plant still in St. Louis to this day, where the monks still devote themselves to sacred vows of urination, which they carbonate, water-down, and bottle at the plant.] In this vision, St. Louis told me to visit his city (who knows why). While I was there, I decided to stop by and visit with my Dad and his family, which was a great time. Obviously, when I am totally removed from my computer for an entire weekend, my blogging time suffers immensely.

No sooner did I return from St. Louis' wild goose chase did I find myself in the throes of a large group project for my final MBA class (If you ever want to learn a ton of senseless information using Porter's 5 Force Industry & Competetior Analysis to study Major League Baseball, read no further). As you may know, group projects were invented in communist Russia. "Labor camps" were just fancy terminology for lazy proletariats making other people do their work. Isn't it ironic that in a business school we're participating in socialist propaganda? And here's a hot tip to anyone in business school, or who is in business at all really: it's all about proper use of "business lingo." Business lingo (also called Bingo) can flower up even the dullest of activities. When you come into the boardroom for that big presentation, instead of saying, "I just had a satisfying poop in the office planter," you can really wow the board with "I'm thrilled to announce I just dropped a high-load resource from my asset that will result in upward growth trends and lighter carrying costs!" That got me a raise just last week - and all I did was poop in a planter!

Finally, last weekend I took a trip to the desert to visit an old friend, "Obi-Wan Brumme." Obi-Wan Brumme is kind of a hermit that lives by himself in Palm Desert. He and I are definitely into the Force and it was good to catch up on life, laughs, light-sabers and his never-ending search for the right "Padme." Obi-Wan has been very involved in promoting the relase of the "Chronicles of Narnia" amongst churches; I even got to see 10 minutes of special sneak-peek footage, and let me tell you: they did a great job look making the Ewoks look real. This again took up a whole weekend, and kept me from blogging.

And ever since, I've been busy with more work, more stuff for school, taking needed down-time with my beautiful wife, and the exploration and conquest of the world. The good news is that I'm back in the game for at least a week before we leave for Hong Kong/ mainland China for Thanksgiving. That may be another dry blogging spell... but there should be some meaty content to keep things tasty this week.