shhh!

How is this for a Quote?
"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. the purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits when the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. the purpose of the word is to convey ideas. when the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. where can i find a man who has forgotten words? he is the one i would like to talk to."

Nar·cis·sism

1.excessive self-admiration and self-centeredness
2.in psychiatry, a personality disorder characterized by the patient’s overestimation of his or her own appearance and abilities and an excessive need for admiration.

In Greek mythology Narcissus was a youth who was punished for repulsing Echo’s love by being made to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool

Twitter/FaceBook:
social networking services that allows its users to post pictures, updates and thoughts about themselves for the world to see.

Trying Twitter

so i am trying twitter and apparently twitter can sink with blogger...? so... i am going to give blogging another shot as well. supposedly there is community and conversation to be found online and i am curious to see what it is all about. 

What the artist gets.

After a night observing art that was of a more abstract nature, I reflected on what I saw and experienced and decided that one of the most interesting aspects of the night was listening to the conversations taking place. You have probably seen the paintings similar to the ones I was viewing and heard someone remark with a statement similar to "I think I could do that, it looks like splatter painting..." which I did hear, but I also heard other, more interesting conversations. Some of the people were walking around telling each other what they saw, others were describing an emotion, others were talking about how much they were worth or which one they would like in their home. Still some just sat and let the paintings sink in. some people knew the history of the artist and what made him important while others had never heard of him. All were there experiencing the art for different reasons and from different starting points.
Art is a funny thing it seems to me that it is often misunderstood and sometimes overly valued to a point of worship. But some where in the middle we see that artist gets things that we need to understand. C.S. Lewis when talking about his journey toward finding and understanding God uses the word Joy as describing a longing or a wonderment that draws us to something more, he describes the first time that he experienced this joy when looking at something his older brother had created. This longing or “Joy” is often captured by artists in different ways, using paint and canvas an artist has the ability to make observations of the world and push the viewer to rethink, to dream, or just to enjoy in a new way. The artist gets in some way what Lewis described as Joy.

Half Full ?

My day started well, though I did leave the house without eating anything. I know for some that this is a normal event, but I'm of the type that has to has to eat breakfast. so on my way out I am debating on whether or not to stop at McDonnell's or the bagel shop, or to risk it, and see if I can find anything at work. I decide to go for it, hoping to find a bagel and cream cheese or something. so as I am half regretting half at peace with my decision I hit awesome traffic leaving my community. sweet! good enough excuse to swing in and get something delicious from the bagel shop. I get my delicious western breakfast bagel sandwich and return to the slow going road, but much content with a good cup of coffee and great breakfast. I arrive at work parking a little bit of a drag no worries I have a new sweet bag. I get to my desk set up my laptop... sit down to start in grab a sip of my coffee, but it was cold.? then I realize that it was last weeks half full cup of coffee on my desk, in my mouth.. spit and return to my hot coffee to wash out my mouth. I still quiver thinking about it, yuck!  

Kings

It is harder to let God be lord of my life than it would seem. 

I think that it is easier to obey a king of a country or a "worldly king" (to use christian speak) than it is to make God king of my life. A worldly king only has say over the temporal and shallow realities of our lives where a king that is also God and creator wants to be king over more than that. God is king over the internal and deep parts of my life,, and that is scary! Scary because it is much harder to trust a king with these areas then it is with the rest. Most people it seems only half trust politicians and leaders anyway, and we are only trusting these "kings" with things that matter only so much and history has taught us how to over-through them if it gets too bad anyway. God on the other hand is much more powerful so if I give God a little control over some things that might be OK because then I still have not lost all, but if I give total control that is it, there is no overthrowing and what if God cannot be trusted, instead I will give control of my life to lesser kings and gods that I can through away or get rid of if they fail me. And I remain "in control."

  

(partial reflection on psalm 98)

Making Friends

Everyone on some level understands the feeling associated with the experience of the first day at a new school, you probably did not know anyone, and you wondered what people would think. then after the initial day you realized you have to begin to make new friends, which is not easy. 

perhaps some of us are better at this then others, for me making friends has not been a supper natural ability, which may be due in part to my lack of moving around, I have pretty much resided in one area my whole life and even when I did move to a new school I had someone I knew there that knew everyone, and I am typically Ok with not having a ton of friends as long as I have a few close ones.  I also am not an extrovert or a naturally outgoing type of person. 

That aside we still all go through different periods of our lives that we have to make new Friends whether it be because we switch schools or moved into a new stage in our life or maybe it is something more dramatic like you moved to a new state or country

So after pondering my lack of ability to make new friends and how hard relationships can be to start and maintain I checked my facebook page and realized I am not so bad at making friends after all. According to my profile I have doubled the amount of friend I had in one months time. (yea!) So with out doing much I have made like fifty brand new friends in 30 days. Turns out i'm grate at making new Friends. If only they had facebook when I was younger.