The following dialogue occurs between myself and my Maker on a fairly regular basis on my awaking first thing in the morning at the beginning of the working week.
ME: Jesus.
JESUS: Yes?
ME: Jesus. It's Monday.
JESUS: I know.
ME: You know what?
JESUS: I know that it's Monday. I have known it was Monday since the foundation of the world.
ME: And you couldn't have warned me?!?
Thus endeth the lesson.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Walking to Jerusalem
Given our cultural obsession with fitness, I think it important to note that this is not a conversation that one will read in the New Testament:
"And the Lord and his disciples did set off from Bethlehem at a gentle pace until they felt they had warmed up. Then Jesus did say unto his disciples, 'We shall now increase our pace until we have all reached our Target Heart Rate', and, so saying, He did set off at such a rate that the Twelve were hard pressed to maintain it, all except John, whom Jesus loved and would go running with early in the mornings.
Peter especially felt sore pressed, and did cry out unto the Lord, saying 'Lord, the Greeks have invented a wonderful system of movement which is called Pilates. We should go forth and try it.' Jesus replied unto him, saying, 'Verily, core strength is a good and necessary thing, but without cardio training, mankind will never rid himself of his excesses.' Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, pointed out to Jesus that they were all wearing robes that were pretty much one-size-fits-all, so perhaps a little excess was not all that bad.
"And the Lord and his disciples did set off from Bethlehem at a gentle pace until they felt they had warmed up. Then Jesus did say unto his disciples, 'We shall now increase our pace until we have all reached our Target Heart Rate', and, so saying, He did set off at such a rate that the Twelve were hard pressed to maintain it, all except John, whom Jesus loved and would go running with early in the mornings.
Peter especially felt sore pressed, and did cry out unto the Lord, saying 'Lord, the Greeks have invented a wonderful system of movement which is called Pilates. We should go forth and try it.' Jesus replied unto him, saying, 'Verily, core strength is a good and necessary thing, but without cardio training, mankind will never rid himself of his excesses.' Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, pointed out to Jesus that they were all wearing robes that were pretty much one-size-fits-all, so perhaps a little excess was not all that bad.
Jesus did not reply, but an angel of the Lord smote Judas on the back of his knee for this saying, bringing unto him shin splints, and athlete's foot for good measure."
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Thnks
It's been so long and so many thinks since I've updated this blog that I have no earthly idea what I might write or say.
I'm too tired to be profound - I've been helping a co-worker paint her condo, and then just now getting home. The picture below is how I spent my summer vacation - refinishing my first bass, a Peavey Foundation. It was a black lacquer finish with a lot of wear. Now it's a warm wood and has a gorgeous, bright tone.
I'll have more thinks later on. Right now, I need dinner.
I'm too tired to be profound - I've been helping a co-worker paint her condo, and then just now getting home. The picture below is how I spent my summer vacation - refinishing my first bass, a Peavey Foundation. It was a black lacquer finish with a lot of wear. Now it's a warm wood and has a gorgeous, bright tone.
I'll have more thinks later on. Right now, I need dinner.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Resvolutions and Socks
It's January, the first month in an entirely new year, and while perusing the Facebook feeds of several of my family and friends, I've noticed that they've begun using the more upbeat-sounding "revolutions" in place of "resolutions" to describe their goals for 2014. The two words are basically meant to say the same thing: "I'm going to be doing it differently this year", so I decided to make one word out of them: resvolutions, as in: "I resolve to revolutionize my behavior for the upcoming year."
I understand the importance of having resvolutions- I stayed home from a New Year's Eve party because the conversation about what was I going to do with this empty slate of 365 days was a necessary one to have with myself. I even took the week off from work so I could have the uncluttered free time to do that. I did get some writing done, and I have an idea of what I'm looking for in 2014, and I've also put off the making of resvolutions so that I could clean the apartment, do laundry, tidy up papers, play my bass, wander aimlessly about the internet, and do some post-Christmas shopping.
Of course, a resvolution involving gratitude is near the top of my list, as it is everyone's. So - I'm grateful for a certain amount of serendipity in 2014. Twice now, I have gone to the laundromat near where I live only to discover after I've gotten home that I've left clothes in the dryers. I don't realize this immediately - this awareness comes on me slowly, over the course of a few days. It will leave gentle hints in my mind while I'm working, or arranging things in my dresser: "Didn't you have more socks than this?"
One day, I was doing laundry at the same laundromat and I passed right by the dryer where I'd left those self-same socks, and my brain tried to get my attention: "Those socks. Do they look familiar to you? At all? Hmm?" I walked off, muttering a bit, and then started doing some other things. At work a few days later, my brain finally gave up, stopped hinting, and just came right out and said it: "Hey. YOU..." and then I began mourning and trying to budget for replacement clothes while wondering if I should be enrolling in my employer's Long Term Care Coverage for the Aspiring Senior.
As soon as I reasonably could, I went scuttling back to the laundromat and was thrilled to discover on both occasions that I'd chosen the one laundromat in Seattle that was almost completely unwatched, because my stuff was exactly where I'd left it. Unwatched is a good thing - this laundromat is owned by someone that I've rarely ever seen. He shows up in the morning to open the doors, turn on the lights and collect the money, and then he leaves. Beyond that, he's only a disembodied voice on a cell phone that you call if you need the code to the restroom door, or if you have a problem with a piece of equipment. If the owner were any more attentive, my lost clothes would have been sucked up into the huge bags of left clothing threatening to take over his office, never to be seen again. The clientele range from hipster to homeless but they all seem to share a hands-off attitude about laundry, which is how I've managed to reclaim my socks and shirts.
Now that I think about it, both of the loads that I left, I left in the same dryer. That's eerie. It's like discovering that I've got a blind spot in my peripheral vision that I didn't know about before. The only other time I've been that discomfited by laundry machines was one day last year, when I put the soap and coins in the empty washer next to mine because I was thinking about a kiss that I'd received from a good looking woman on the evening before and I was therefore not of a clear mind.
Now that I have all of the socks and shirts that I had before the New Year, the only other resvolution that seems to matter now is finding a way to live the life that I wanted before I got married. Today is the 20th anniversary of the day that I first kissed the woman who I eventually married, and I went to the place where it happened yesterday to say my last goodbyes to the marriage, to the problems that it had, to the joys that it promised but couldn't fulfill, and to put it all to rest because 20 years seemed like a serendipitous number, a good round number, and it felt like the right thing to do.
As I walked to the spot where it happened, I was wondering what kind of a speech should I make, or if a speech was even necessary, and the only thing I could say was, "This is the last time I will come here for this purpose." I may go back to that park, either for a picnic, or a celebration, or a concert - I don't know. I only know that I will no longer carry the baggage of a ruined marriage with me. That's by choice as well as a function of circumstance. My resvolution this year: to get back to myself and then to get on with it.
I understand the importance of having resvolutions- I stayed home from a New Year's Eve party because the conversation about what was I going to do with this empty slate of 365 days was a necessary one to have with myself. I even took the week off from work so I could have the uncluttered free time to do that. I did get some writing done, and I have an idea of what I'm looking for in 2014, and I've also put off the making of resvolutions so that I could clean the apartment, do laundry, tidy up papers, play my bass, wander aimlessly about the internet, and do some post-Christmas shopping.
Of course, a resvolution involving gratitude is near the top of my list, as it is everyone's. So - I'm grateful for a certain amount of serendipity in 2014. Twice now, I have gone to the laundromat near where I live only to discover after I've gotten home that I've left clothes in the dryers. I don't realize this immediately - this awareness comes on me slowly, over the course of a few days. It will leave gentle hints in my mind while I'm working, or arranging things in my dresser: "Didn't you have more socks than this?"
One day, I was doing laundry at the same laundromat and I passed right by the dryer where I'd left those self-same socks, and my brain tried to get my attention: "Those socks. Do they look familiar to you? At all? Hmm?" I walked off, muttering a bit, and then started doing some other things. At work a few days later, my brain finally gave up, stopped hinting, and just came right out and said it: "Hey. YOU..." and then I began mourning and trying to budget for replacement clothes while wondering if I should be enrolling in my employer's Long Term Care Coverage for the Aspiring Senior.
As soon as I reasonably could, I went scuttling back to the laundromat and was thrilled to discover on both occasions that I'd chosen the one laundromat in Seattle that was almost completely unwatched, because my stuff was exactly where I'd left it. Unwatched is a good thing - this laundromat is owned by someone that I've rarely ever seen. He shows up in the morning to open the doors, turn on the lights and collect the money, and then he leaves. Beyond that, he's only a disembodied voice on a cell phone that you call if you need the code to the restroom door, or if you have a problem with a piece of equipment. If the owner were any more attentive, my lost clothes would have been sucked up into the huge bags of left clothing threatening to take over his office, never to be seen again. The clientele range from hipster to homeless but they all seem to share a hands-off attitude about laundry, which is how I've managed to reclaim my socks and shirts.
Now that I think about it, both of the loads that I left, I left in the same dryer. That's eerie. It's like discovering that I've got a blind spot in my peripheral vision that I didn't know about before. The only other time I've been that discomfited by laundry machines was one day last year, when I put the soap and coins in the empty washer next to mine because I was thinking about a kiss that I'd received from a good looking woman on the evening before and I was therefore not of a clear mind.
Now that I have all of the socks and shirts that I had before the New Year, the only other resvolution that seems to matter now is finding a way to live the life that I wanted before I got married. Today is the 20th anniversary of the day that I first kissed the woman who I eventually married, and I went to the place where it happened yesterday to say my last goodbyes to the marriage, to the problems that it had, to the joys that it promised but couldn't fulfill, and to put it all to rest because 20 years seemed like a serendipitous number, a good round number, and it felt like the right thing to do.
As I walked to the spot where it happened, I was wondering what kind of a speech should I make, or if a speech was even necessary, and the only thing I could say was, "This is the last time I will come here for this purpose." I may go back to that park, either for a picnic, or a celebration, or a concert - I don't know. I only know that I will no longer carry the baggage of a ruined marriage with me. That's by choice as well as a function of circumstance. My resvolution this year: to get back to myself and then to get on with it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)