Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

I am sure there are a lot of people that are concerned about my reliance on the Bible to discern right from wrong, to confirm the existence and true nature of God, or for a myriad of other things that I need to have operating in my life for successful living and an abundant life. I can understand their concern because I had those concerns about people as well. I always hung around God and the Bible but never really made a stand on it or anything that it proclaimed. I guess when I finally came to and realized that the Bible is exactly what it purports to be I realized that I shifted my reliance on my reason and perspective to the Bible. After realizing that it scared me that I had not done it sooner. I may be delving into places that I have no business venturing into, but I just may share same concern that people have about me and my reliance on the Bible to them and their reliance on their reason. Both are unbridled and unapologetic and both our reason and the Bible have their genesis ...

Will has had a friend over yesterday so that they could play, go to Awana, and sleep over into today. Well, we have had a lot of snow lately and the boys got a hankering to go outside and play in it. They had just started when I arrived home from work. After we got some things around for dinner my wife decided to watch my two sons and Will's friend playing in the front yard. She was concerned at the scene. There they were diving on each other, hitting each other with the sleds, pummeling each other with snow, and laughing their fool heads off while they were doing it. By her own admission my wife has said that she grew up with a sister and was not well-versed in the ways boys play. I, on the other hand, growing up with three brothers know the ins and outs of the boy brain that thinks: "Here is someone hurtling down the hill on a sled. I can either get out of the way, jump on him, or chuck the sled that is in my hands at him." Two out of the three alternatives would be att...

I am singing a new "song of the month" with Northridge Church on Sunday mornings and it is hard for me to get through without being overwhelmed with emotion. I am not sure if any of the other former Catholics in the congregation have the same feelings that I have when I sing the refrain: Christ has died Christ has risen Christ will come again I have a hard time not weeping. I would like to think that it is because of the beauty and simplicity of this "mystery of our Faith" but I think it has more to do with how thankful I am that God pursued me. He caused me to be born into a family with parents that loved Him dearly. They kicked my butt out the door on Sunday to gather with the church and worship Him. The sacrificed mightily so that I could learn about Him from kindergarten straight through 12th grade. They made sure I got to vacation Bible school...even when the only alternative was the Lutheran church down the road or the backyard Bible club on Florence Avenue. T...

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10 I am not a still sleeper. I am always flipping this way and that and have to contort my body in all manner of various positions so as not to overly disturb my wife while doing said calisthenics. I fear that when I am the most still is when I am buried six feet deep in the pine box that I may be graced with on the way down there. In other words, when I am dead. And that's the issue. I would much rather Psalm 46:10 say "Breathe deep and know..." or "Fold your hands across your chest and know..." for that would be much more comfortable for me. I do like the restoration that sleep brings and would like to do that more often. I would also rather the Psalmist to have written "Once you're dead and gone you'll know..." but the command is for the here and now isn't it? Crud. Crud. Crud. I don't like to die. Not that I wouldn't mind exiting this world and being with God, but this whole dying to mys...

The men's room in the building I work with is fraught with danger. There is an unwritten rule in the relationship that exists between men that you always put one urinal between you and the person next to you when using the facilities...if it is at all possible. Well, our men's room has three urinals on each side of the entrance to the "toilet area" so you would think that this would not be an issue. It is. You see, when we enter the "toilet area" in our restroom one needs to turn to the right or left and these turns are blind. If one were to turn to the right, for example, and there was already someone using the middle urinal, you're stuck. You need to honor the commitment you made to the right side of the aforementioned toilet area and suck it up...it will be a long relief session. Usually turning to the right is the best option because the only "hands-free-flush" urinal is to the left. Right in the middle. This by far is the most popular urin...

I have been in the habit of reading through the Bible in a year for the the past five or six years and it has been great. There is nothing like digesting the book of Obadiah and having all of the preceding books impacting my understanding of it. Looking at God from the different perspectives that the men and women that inhabit the whole of Scripture is an amazing thing. I think that I have been changed by it as well. I have been a little more deliberate, this go-round, with making sure I do not skip a day in my reading. There have been times when I go to bed at midnight and have had a sense of urgency with doing my daily reading in the Bible. I was a bit too lax last year and found myself 7, 10, or even 14 days behind in my reading. I am determined not to let that happen again and, so far, it has worked out all right. Granted I just finished Matthew and have only read through Chapter 30 of Exodus along with 28 Psalms, but there is just a different attitude that I have now in comparison...

I will be the first (and not the last) to admit that I do not have a scientific mind. No matter what my experience is and no matter how many times people say the opposite I still think that when I jump in the air while in a moving airplane I should be slamming into the back wall of said plane. Not only does this make sense to me in my mind, but it would be colossal fun. Maybe that's why I want it to be true.

Evaluations are hard for me. Very hard. But they are such a gift. They are a gift I don't want. But they are a gift that I need. See how I am? The problem with me and evaluations is that I have a picture in my head of who I am and how good I am at a certain thing. I am happy with that picture. Most of the time. One of the great things about that picture it that it is one that I can draw and re-draw as much as I like. I can even select a nice comment over here and a nice comment over there to provide a different perspective of that drawing. Maybe I could even use those nice comments to color my picture in a specific way. If there is a negative comment or two...as long as there are less than two (or three) I can ignore them and continue happily painting my picture of how awesome I am at something. I like my picture. But, then there is the specter of the evaluation and the possibility that the picture I have in my head is not shared by those that observe me. In fact, the evaluation ca...

Hey restless! Can you sleep tonight? Something's going wrong, got to make it right. Wake up now! Before you sleep the night away. - Restless, David and the Giants I am not sure if you have had this experience before, but this morning I was restless. I couldn't quite understand the feeling - there was a dread that was hanging over me that I could not shake. I even exercised this morning and had a great cup of coffee which I thought would brighten my mood somewhat, but the feeling persisted. I wondered what it was all about and talked to God a bit about it. Well, I was in the middle of a conference call when my wife called. I couldn't take her call but, listening to her brief message to call her back I knew something big just went down. I prayed and participated in the call the best I could. She called again and I jumped off the call to talk with her. She, indeed, shared some very bad news with me. We spoke very briefly about it and made some quick plans and I hopped back on...

OK, so the browser statistics for my blog are as follows: Type of browser used to visit my blog (all versions): Firefox - 67% IE - 10% Chrome - 9% Opera - 3% Safari - 2% Others - 9% I am happy that there are so many quality web browsers to choose from. I like using all of them (except IE 6) and they all have their strengths independent of the other. It also goes to show that my blog is a bit on the geeky side of things. In fact, the most popoular post on the blog continues to be my resolution of a tightvnc key mapping issue and one person has even reported that it has helped them. It is nice to have a blog that people actually visit. Even if it is heavily concentrated in one post.

What a comforting word "waited" is. Even if that what is waited for is an unpleasant event the fact that it is hear and that I am either going through it or have gotten through it is something that, at the very least, reduces ambiguity. I hate waiting. We were at a party last night where my boys had to wait until they got to do one of the very things that we attended the party to do. They didn't have to wait long, but I could tell that they were ready to jump out of their skin in anticipation. But, then, they waited...it was all in the past and their wait was swallowed up in the now. It was over. And the night was everything they could have hoped for. At least that is what they reported to us. The trick for them, and me most of the time, is to revel in the waiting. I waste so much time looking forward to this, that, or the other thing. I can't always be looking forward to something. My vision has to be much more limited than that. On another note I made some coffee to...