Archive for April, 2004

The open-minded always lose

Posted by on Thursday, 29 April, 2004

It is really quite simple. If two people disagree on something, and one of them is willing to admit that they might be wrong, while the other is absolutely convinced that they are correct, then there can be only one possible resolution.

Getting Up

Posted by on Saturday, 24 April, 2004

The old web site was so flawed that I have decided to simply start over. For the curious, it is still available here. I may recycle some of the content, I may scrap it entirely. For awhile I resisted turning this site into a blog, because of the trendiness factor. I hate doing “trendy” things, but I finally had to admit that what I am doing fits naturally into blog format.

I have also been recently inspired by another blog, Real Live Preacher. Some Bibles subtitle Ecclesiasties, “Or ‘The Preacher.'” I am intrigued by the idea of a “preacher.” Not the kind who give sermons to the Saved on Sunday mornings, but someone who has walked the paths of life, who puts on the full armor of God and goes about bestowing knowledge and delivering a first-class rebuking where necessary. There is a comic book called “The Preacher,” I have never read it, but I would guess that it is not quite the same idea. RLP is not really that sort of preacher either. I am not even sure that I totally agree with his theology, but I did find his perspective refreshing. I particularly enjoyed his story entitled “John the Baptist.”

A friend of mine once proposed what he called the “Pendulum Theory.” According to his theory, in life, you run as far as you can in one direction, until you can go no further, and you will swing halfway back. Then you pick a new direction. This was the most accurate description of my life I had ever heard. Then about a year ago I asked myself, “What happens if you get back up and run in the same direction?” It occurred to me that if you keep taking two steps forward and one step backward, you will get there eventually. However, if you take two steps forward and one step to the side, you do make a lot more progress, but you end up somewhere else entirely. Although that is not necessarily a bad thing, when it comes to achieving specific goals, failure is more productive than distraction.

I lost focus for awhile. Both my job and a certain young lady from my church want a bigger piece of me than I am willing to give them. After four months in Australia, my roommates have returned, and they have been working their way through the first two seasons of “Queer as Folk,” which is not exactly the most God-honoring of TV shows. I hope there are not that many more seasons. There is a crow that has followed me to the mailbox on two separate occasions, and has flown very close to my head three times. I am not sure what to make of that. Whenever someone asks how I am, I like to say, “Good,” because I am not starving to death in a third world country.

I like the idea of “our daily bread.” There are no great miracles happening in my life, but I always seem to have enough to make it through the day. What can I say, I stumbled, I fell, but I’m getting up now, and We are going to keep walking.