O LORD, you have searched me and you know me… For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.Psalm 139
The idea that I exist for a reason is controversial at best. The reason it’s controversial is that it requires the belief in something greater than me. Even if you subscribe to the purely mechanical explanation that we are here to pass on the strongest genes in our stable, it indicates that that there is a process or driving force above me, greater than I am, and which I cannot control.
I do not subscribe to the natural selection theory of purpose. I believe that it developed from a need to explain that inherent sense of purpose that beats in the heart of mankind. We can believe a great many things, but we cannot believe nothing.
The great thing about natural selection, as it were, is that there aren’t all those pesky moral implications. We can understand that we exist for a reason, and still live lives basically fulfilling our own desires and doing our own thing… so long as we procreate.
There’s still something wholly unsatisfying about the thought that we exist simply to pass on our double-helix strands genetic code to merge, mutate, and evolve. That doesn’t explain why some strive for greatness. It doesn’t explain why some seek and find significance in the silent shadows away from public scrutiny. It doesn’t explain why we all inherently understand what a wasted life looks like and why we consider it wasted.
I believe that thing in us that understands and strives for more than we are is a glimpse of eternity that’s been hidden in the hearts of men. We rage against death because we weren’t created to expire. We rage against insignificance because we were created in the imagine of the One who is significant. We pity the life spent poorly because we recognize that life is beautiful and full of potential. Even the harshest difficulties imaginable produce brilliant tales of humanity at its very best. That’s why importance, power, and success aren’t the same as significance. Those in the know don’t esteem the wealthy for the wake of wounded people left behind, while the ordinary woman on the corner who invests her time in helping the people she encounters be better people makes an impact far beyond her success or station.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We were knit together for the purpose of reflecting the wonder of a God who is always near to us, who knows us intimately, and who created us on purpose in love. That is our identity, and when we pursue it, life makes sense.
I get to speak at church tomorrow, and these are the thoughts I’ve been thinking. I hope you come. I hope you bring a friend who wonders what it’s all about. I hope you’re reminded too.
We’ve come into this Age without being aware that it was happening, or realizing its consequences. Leo Babauta
No one decides which age they are a part of, they are simply born into it. Being an adult at the very dawn of the 21st century isn’t a choice I made, but it is a reality I’m privileged to enjoy. I can have real time conversations with people around the globe, and instant access to the news and information that will be tomorrows history.
I can also sit behind a desk and appear busy for hours on end and accomplish little more than answering an email, reading a blog (or writing one), or checking my facebook/twitter/IM while in the background my phone is ringing on my desk, my (very excellent most wonderful) cell phone buzzes with a new text message, or appointment reminder.
From the moment I wake up to well past the time I click off my bedside lamp later than I should, my mind is constantly whirring and spinning with details and nuggets and morsels of bits searching for a place to land. So I toss and turn in bed at night, lying awake and piling fatigue upon busy until I wake up to a steaming pot of coffee and manage exhaustion with caffeine. Anxiety, frustration, attention deficit, and an every growing spare tire are just a few of the more noticeable side effects of the distracted life.
I didn’t choose to be a part of Generation:Distracted, and I am acutely aware that my kids will wrestle with the reality of over-connectedness more than I ever have or probably will (the first time I did Internet research was my sophomore year… in college).
The most dangerous aspect of my penchant for distraction is the lack of self-examination and introspection.
I find myself responding to situations in ways that I neither like or expect, and I never slow down to discover why…
I sit down to pray and meditate on the scripture and end up neck deep in an anger fantasy or a “To-Do list” rehash…
My wife and children fall asleep again with little (if any) time spent talking about things that are significant…
I leave the office at the end of the day, frazzled and frenzied, but not 100% certain what I accomplished, and therefore not able to take joy in the work I feel called by God to participate in with Him…
My mind races long after the sounds of the day have ceased, and I have operated that way for so long that I have accumulated a focus deficit that I will be paying on well into the days and weeks to come.
Unless I make the choice to stop.
The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
I cannot, and would not, totally unplug from life. Again, the opportunities provided by technology and connectedness are nearly limitless. I must, however, take responsibility to manage my life in such away that I am fully available for whatever task I am engaged in at the moment.
The simple life clears away distraction, removes the clutter (physical, mental, and emotional), and protects the space that allows me to be here, now… where ever that may be at the moment.
Exit Question: What is your greatest distraction, and why is that so compelling to you?
One of the great recurring themes , one of the great hot-and-then-cold pursuits in my life is simplicity.
The opposite of simplicity is complexity. Complexity indicates that a thing is composed of many or various parts. It’s busy, cluttered, full.
Without question, when I run into problems in my life, be they health issues, a flagging spirituality, interpersonal conflicts, or ineffectiveness at work, I can trace the genesis of my issue back to an increased complexity in that area. (That sentence has 39 words in it, to make my point).
The problem with complexity is that each moving part is a potential breakdown. Each additional piece of machinery or equipment is an additional step of maintenance and upkeep, and eventually will need to be replaced. Each additional word I write is another chance to lose a reader or improperly explain or convey and idea. Simple machines are no less effective than complex ones. The lever’s fulcrum is just a single part, yet it’s capable of moving great heaps of mass. Huge weights can be hoisted and moved by the simple wheels of a pulley.
“Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones.” Ernest Hemingway
The difficulty of simplicity is that it requires constant diligence to maintain. Clutter seems to accumulate easily and without thought. My counters tend to get cluttered, not clear.
Simplicity requires intentionality, priority, and focus. Simplifying my speech requires having a clear idea of what it is that I want to say, and how best to say it. That takes time, thought, deliberation. My general course of action is to start speaking and keep at it until it seems that a complete thought has been made.
But this isn’t just about the way I talk. It’s about the way I live. I eat too much and exercise too little, because my mind is complex. While I eat, rather than simply focusing on the experience of eating, I think about where I am going or where I have been. I stop eating when the plate is empty, rather than when my belly is full. Where I have been isn’t nearly as important as where I am, when it comes right down to it.
I don’t even truly know what my life would be like if it were simple. I am, at my core, a great rolling ball of complexity. I am not simple in my motives, nor am I pure in my devotions. But I’m working on it, and I’ll keep wrestling with a life given fully to important things. Some things I will necessarily have to stop doing, and others I will begin doing, or doing more of?
What are those few important things that you need to be doing, or doing more of? What unimportant things do you need to stop doing?
Memorial Day is an occasion of special importance to all Americans, because it is a day sacred to the memory of all those Americans who made the supreme sacrifice for the liberties we enjoy. We will never forget or fail to honor these heroes to whom we owe so much. We honor them best when we resolve to cherish and defend the liberties for which they gave their lives. Let us resolve to do all in our power to assure the survival and the success of liberty so that our children and their children for generations to come can live in an America in which freedom’s light continues to shine.
The Congress, in establishing Memorial Day, called for it to be a day of tribute to America’s fallen, and also a day of national prayer for lasting peace. This Nation has always sought true peace. We seek it still. Our goal is peace in which the highest aspirations of our people, and people everywhere, are secure: peace with freedom, with justice, and with opportunity for human development. This is the permanent peace for which we pray, not only for ourselves but for all generations.
The defense of peace, like the defense of liberty, requires more than lip service. It requires vigilance, military strength, and the willingness to take risks and to make sacrifices. The surest guarantor of both peace and liberty is our unflinching resolve to defend that which has been purchased for us by our fallen heroes.
On Memorial Day, let us pray for peace — not only for ourselves, but for all those who seek freedom and justice.
More than 43,000,000 Americans have given their lives for the cause of Freedom and to defend the liberties that I often take for granted. I’ve always been a history buff (I was two classes short of having a History degree instead of a History minor) and recently I’ve been fascinated by the characters and history of the American Revolution. 217,000 men died in the cause of establishing a free people on this continent. The cost of freedom was, and continues to be, the highest imaginable.
Today, I’m grateful to celebrate with my family. I’m grateful to celebrate with friends that I worship freely with. I am grateful to live in a country where I may freely speak disapproval of the decisions of my leaders. I am grateful to live in a country where the power to change what I dislike rests in my vote, my voice, my resolve.
Today I am grateful for those men and women who continue to make those freedoms possible, and I was also reminded this morning that for many, Memorial Day is not a celebration.
Things change. The more they change, the more they are likely to change.
The key to change… is to let go of fear.” Roseanne Cash
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”Mahatma Gandhi
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Reinhold Niebuhr
“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.” Robert C. Gallagher
“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” Arnold Bennett
I’m not sure whether I really like change or not. In this whole journey of spiritual formation and discover that I’ve been on for 37 (of 61) days now, I’ve realized how routine much of my life is. I’ve also realized how undiscipline becomes a routine. Habitual undisciplined living is the key to a rapidly expanding waistline and an ever lengthening list of moments I spent instead of investing.
I spoke of my sleep discipline and how even though it seemed like not much has changed, even the awareness that it NEEDS to change is a step in the right direction. Another area that I’ve felt compelled to address is my general health (which sleep is a big part of, to be sure).
This is going to require a great deal of change, and the breaking of a great many titanic habits. It will require the change from driving through to staying home. It will require the change from sitting down to walking around. It will require the change from being stuffed to being satisfied with full.
The discipline part comes because summer is nearly upon us, and I hate summer in Texas. I mean I really hate it. I freaking despise the unique brand to grey-matter melting heat that only San Antonio in July can muster. And yet, who I am can not be who I will be. Change is inevitable. Today I get to decide whether the Me I am becoming is a better man, or a worse one.
The spiritually formative part of this is to believe that God cares about all of me, not just the inner, or the unseen part. I have to believe that if I feel better, I will be better, less tired, more in tune with God, what He’s saying, and what He’s doing. It’ s a step of faith, and without faith, it is impossible to please God.
If you’re relatively new to realityunwound, you missed my year-long foray into political musing.
I don’t think I was cut out to be a pundit… I’m a lover, not a fighter.
But I saw something today that rekindled the old fire. The Republicans, recently, have been not-so-lovingly deemed “The Party of No” by Democrats from the statehouses to the White House. The idea is that the Republican minority has blindly and maliciously dug in their heels on Democratic legislation without offering any real solutions. With the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, they control the bully pulpit, and can therefore repeat that message ad nauseum until it is widely assumed to be true, regardless of whether it has any basis in reality.
Republican’s on the House Budget Committee and ranking Republican Paul Ryan (R-WI) today put out a short, two-page document outlining the Republican’s plan to save $1.3 Trillion over the next 10 years and took a chunk out of the negative label.
You’ll notice the italicized portions at the end of each measure. Those indicate legislation that has already been proposed by Congressional Republicans, and either ignored or dismissed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats. Basically, they’ve said no to these Republican ideas.
As I was pondering, I stumbled onto another blog post (somewhat longer, dedicated to economics) that talked about a piece of Democratic legislation that is probably going to come up this week called… are you ready… The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010. That’s right. Mr. Hennessy points out that the impending bill does two amazing things simultaneously… it both raises taxes AND increases the deficit by $134 Billion dollars over the next 11 years.
So the Democrats (the Party of Yes) are saying yes to a $134 B deficit increase AND a $1.3 Trillion dollar deficit cut.
So it’s not really that Republicans are saying NO, they’re just saying NO to higher taxes, higher levels of spending, and higher deficits while the Democrats are saying yes to all those things.
If you’d like to write to Speaker Pelosi and ask her to say Yes to the Republican ideas that will save the American economy, you can reach her here.
If you’d like to find out how your members of Congress are voting and let them know how you’d like them to vote, visit govtrack.us
It’s 10:30, Sunday evening, and I’ll bet you’re wondering precisely what things might be traipsing through the tangled mass of misfiring synapses right now. I’m glad you asked. I think I’ll tell you.
LOST just ended forever. 490,000 people will be born today. One of those numbers will impact the entirety of civilization forever. Millions of people world wide will pay attention to the other.
Everything rises and falls on leadership. Leaders are always and only shaped by the crucible of pressure over time. In a wide open pasture of infinite safety and abundance, leadership is neither necessary nor welcomed. Only in times of doubt, fear, and uncertainty are people willing to be led.
The difference between a truly refreshing drink of water and a purely functional one is 7 degrees farenheit. Maybe less.
Crepe Myrtle trees drop their dead branches, which means I don’t have to spend nearly as much time trimming them.
Crepe Myrtle trees drop their dead branches, which means that I have to spend a great deal of time raking them into piles and picking them up.
I always want to be smarter than I am. This is the one goal in my life that I never have to force myself to pursue.
I wish I wanted to be like Jesus as much as I wanted to be smart.
My wife is unlike any other human I have ever encountered in every conceivable way. I think I love that about her best.
The silhouette of the brown chair in my living room resembles an old man slouched over a chess table waiting for the right move to make itself known.
I have never actually seen an old man hunched over a chess table.
Going to sleep is glorious. Going to bed is dreadful.
