Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

Maybe it is a result of what I do for a living, but I am continually fascinated by what can be done when information is aggregated and disseminated to the people that can do something with it. I was listening to NPR this morning on the way into work and there was a story about Houston cleaning up its air. There was smog that would form over the suburbs and there were only a handful of people that had any idea what could be happening to cause it, let alone what was happening. Well, it turns out that there was a massive release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that was occurring at irregular intervals and, until the releases were documented and made publicly available, no correlation between that release and the smog could be drawn. Information and content is everywhere. Every time I exhale I am physically changing the world around me. Now I am not saying that we need record of my respiration, but how much is happening in the world around me that could give me insight into this, that

But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid..." Genesis 50:19-21a I cannot tell you how much I love these verses. Tucked away at the tail end of Genesis is a gem that I hold onto in the most trying of circumstances. Even the ones that I bring upon myself...the ones I fully deserve. When my sin finds me out it does not have to destroy me. It can, but it doesn't have to. My just and faithful God (who is, himself, Justice and Faithfulness) will forgive me and command me to leave my life of sin thereby issuing me the means and the opportunity to grow. As a result of his forgiveness and command I have the opportunity to become more like Christ. Sin drags me far from him, and it also can show me the depth of his love for me. A depth that I would not have seen had I not sinned. I believe that there is no love in t

Not the previous Saturday but the Saturday before my sons were cleaning up the basement and they noticed that it was "wet" down there. Upon informing me of the issue I though that maybe some rainwater had gotten in the windows or up through the floor, but when I got down there to "take a look" I noticed that the source of the water was coming from somewhere on the first floor of the house. Eventually, when all of the guests left that morning, I found that it was the dishwasher that was leaking. We have a flexible hose that runs from the water supply line to the dishwasher and the water was coming from one of the joints in the hose itself. Obviously, the hose has two ends and getting at the first end was a snap. The second end...not so much. I had to remove the dishwasher and, recalling the installation that I had help with and the uttered lament of "I feel sorry for anyone who has to remove this thing", I had to get it out so that I could get at the other

Well, yesterday did not start out all that smoothly as there was rainwater leaking into our dining room window. We had someone come over to take a look and see where it may be coming from, but he did not see anything obvious. He cleaned out the gutter over the window (it was pretty packed) so we are hoping that was the issue. We'll see today and tomorrow I guess as we are expecting more rain. Last night we noticed that the washer was washing the clothes just fine, but the tub wasn't spinning. After turning the knob on the washer around and around and around (you get the picture) I decided to lift the lid up and down and up and down and.... Well, I noticed I wasn't hearing the little **click** that I normally hear when opening and closing the lid so I figured out that there was something wrong with the lid switch (the washer will not spin if the lid is open). I went to the web and saw a repair procedure for replacing the switch and it did not look too hard. But I didn't

Below are random bits of thoughts that I could not stretch into a longer blog post: If there are, actually, lasers in the jungle would we even know what to do with them? I would think that it would be enough of a challenge to find a use for them in our pre-fallen state, but now that we rebel against God (even the regenerate ones) more often than we should are we even in a position to begin to use knowledge like this for less than nefarious purposes? I think I may have written about this before, but I think that one of the key bits that drives the pure authenticity of my relationship with God through Christ is the fact that it I am called to do things and to believe things that is so far and away not how I want to operate.  The best mail notes start with "While I was off of my medication..." I need to explore the idea of not relying, exclusively, on my intellect in determining truth but factoring in my emotions as well. How I feel about an issue may be a semi-reliable determin

The past couple of days have given me a sight that I had never seen before. We have been so dry lately that nothing has been washed off in a while. Especially our driveway where the pollen is so thick that we literally leave tire tracks in it as we enter and leave it. Thankfully we are going to be getting some rain soon as our lawn has been slow to wake up this Spring. We have also had some amazing evenings to take in Drew's baseball games lately. Last night was a comeback win for the Angels and the boys were pretty excited. This team is a lot different than last year's in many ways and I am thankful for the coaches that are working with Drew. They are big on instruction and big on making sure that the boys have fun. That makes it fun for me as well.

As I reflect on yesterday in the HighPoint children's ministry that our church leadership has foolishly let me be a part of I realized that I may have butchered the role of Esau beyond comprehension to most rational (er...sane) individuals. Among the atrocities I perpetrated are the following: the entrance of Esau into the story as with the (improvised) line, "I'm big, I'm hairy, I'm red, I'm Esau!" Brilliant, eh? oh, and now Esau has a Southern drawl...at least that is what I couldn't help slipping into as I portrayed him referring to the children in the audience as goats and, hence, as easy pickings for a hunting expedition inadvertently scaring (and perhaps scarring) a pre-schooler returning from the bathroom by threatening him with a plastic spear. Good thing he was coming back FROM the bathroom. lamenting that there were only Special K chips in the fridge when looking for some food to eat and continually holding an empty bowl up to his face to see

This will be the last post about my wedding ring for a long time. I hope. My wife called the school where I lost my ring at a baseball practice to let them know that if anyone found it we would like to claim it. When she shared this news with whomever answered the phone there one of the first things that the person said was, "Boy you could get a lot of mileage out of this!" Of course my wife was not going to do that and, the reason she wasn't is her relationship with God through Christ. I understand that many husbands and wives share an adversarial relationship with each other. They like to complain about each other to their friends and look for ways to find deficiencies in the way one or the other person handles this or that situation or whether they place one thing or another above their relationship, but that's not how we operate. Not in the least. Believe me we fail at this because we are not perfect, but we actually believe that our marriage is something that God