Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

A while ago my wife bought a big box of crunchy granola bars. I have been eating them in my lunch and, even though there are three different varieties in the box, I have taken a liking to the peanut butter ones. Well, I noticed yesterday morning that she extracted the remaining 4 or 5 from the box and put them back into the pantry removing the box to the recycling bin in the garage. Due to the marked difference between our personalities I found this act a tad strange as, if I were in charge of the dispensing of the granola bars, the box would only have been removed when the last package was removed. I resisted the urge to say anything yesterday and carried on with my day. This morning, in the course of assembling (not making mind you...that is just too much work) my lunch I went back into the pantry in search of the granola bars that were extricated from the box and fully expected to find them thrown into a pile at or around the same place where the box had been. They weren't there...

My mind has either been too full lately (cue laughter) or just plain empty (cue knowing nods). I have been catching up on some podcasts on my way into and from work and there has been so many thoughts that have been triggered from different perspectives on familiar themes that it is hard to articulate them all. Here is one, albeit underdeveloped, of them: My body is a vessel. It happens to be the tool by which my self affects the world around me. It has also been both given into service to God and is fit for the service that God has given to me. I was thinking about the breaking down of the body, I am 40 after all, and likening it to a bucket that is becoming increasingly rusty and showing more and more holes. Obviously I could carry water in a hole-ridden bucket, but it would be sub-optimal for this task. It would frustrate the one who has pressed it into service to carry water. I would have to think that once it is unfit to carry water, or to hold anything in particular, it would be ...

To further my slide into a pretentious geek wonk I am officially dumping the Firefox web browser for my new favorite: Google's Chrome. I have been lamenting the steady rise in the size of Firefox over the past year or so and have been looking for a sleeker alternative (thankfully my wife has not been on this quest with me) and I think that Chrome will fit the bill quite nicely. I even like the way ScribeFire is implemented in Chrome over the way it is developed for Firefox. There was a twinge of sadness in my heart when I moved the Firefox shortcut from my desktop to the Recycle Bin, but I think it is for the better. I am very happy that there are quality browsers out there that we can choose from and that, if the need warrants, we can punt and use another one. I am not un-installing Firefox just yet. I may have use for it in the future, but my new daily browser is Chrome. I bet you're glad you know that.

Feeding and breeding and pumping gas, Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, do it again. - What We Do, Devo You do not have a soul. You have a body. - C.S. Lewis I know, I am twisted enough to put a Devo lyric in the same post as an insight by Lewis, but it was too great a contrast to pass up. There is an age-old struggle within the heart of man between what is "down here" and what is "up there". To put it another way, as much as I love cheeseburgers, is that it? Is the end of my cheeseburger consumption found in the consuming of it? Or is there something else? Is there a reason that I am breathing or pumping gas? Is there a purpose to my doing it all again? Looking at everything that is made, whether it be organic or not, there is a purpose for its existence. There is nothing that exists that does not fulfill some type of purpose. From the smallest sub-atomic particle to the star-killer black holes it is all infused with activity and participates in a well-choreographed d...

The two of you that have read my blog before (thanks Mom and Dad) know that I have a real admiration for Phil Vischer. In the past this was largely born out of the impact that he has had on my sons' lives as the brains behind Big Idea and VeggieTales, but I have a new appreciation for him since he has left the daily operations of the company he found. I was reading an interview with him recently where he let loose with this gem of wisdom: "What I’ve learned to do is to remember very specifically what God has called me to do. It’s very easy for us to put other things onto that and the calling gets very specific over time; ‘He called me to tell stories, he called me to tell computer animated stories … with my own animation studio … in a really nice building’ and so it goes on. ...‘he called me to serve the church ... in this neighborhood … in this store … to those people … with this shelving and store layout’. But what...

A lot of times I don't like to write about or to defend the faith that I have because, well, I could be wrong about how I am defending it. I recall reading about a particular experience that C.S. Lewis had that gave him great pause about believing that he was any sort of philosopher and caused him to soften the language in his books ( Miracles in particular) quite a bit. Apart from the fact that I am under no illusion that I am any type of philosopher or deep thinker I can understand the pain that he had and share it at times. However, in thinking about the dialectical approach and the progression and, hopefully, strengthening of thought from one person to the next, it seems like my fears are either more or less made up, or they rest somewhere else. I would like to think that if someone had a problem with what I would say or a particular vein of argument that I took supporting or criticizing someone or something that they would approach their objections calmly and with civilit...

Last Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday until about 1:00 p.m. our family was all together at Family Camp at Circle C Ranch in Delevan, NY. Don't ask me where Delevan is because I would just refer you to my GPS as to the exact location and path to get there. All I know is that we went West and then South for a while...and I am so glad we did. We had a time we had no business having in a place that holds great significance to us. My wife Nan was saved from the penalty of her sin there when she was 16 and we took couple of trips with the teens from Sodus Bible Baptist Church to the Snow Camp they hosted. Our boys were so excited to be there and did things that they had never done before like rock climbing, horseback riding, and water balloon volleyball. It was also great to just get away with fellow believers, hear from God's Word, and just be in a place that, for 40+ years, has been preaching the Gospel of Christ to kids who desperately need it. I think the thing that I enjoyed t...