Yes, it’s been a while. If you are familiar with my chosen profession, you’ll understand that I’ve been quite busy lately. However, it’s all good. Very, very busy, but good. Nonetheless, I’ve fallen behind in putting things up on the thedaver.net. Here are some nuggets of information to serve as an update:
Just finished the book “1984.” Amazing. Disturbing. Haunting. Depressing. This is writing and storytelling at a very high level (obviously…I mean, the book is famous). I had forgotten, or perhaps never realized, how powerful and…oppressive…this book is. Truly a tour de force, one I found hard to put down, and was sad to finish. This kind of book is why I love to read.
My older brother just had his 48th birthday. Almost 50, he is. I don’t see my older brother much as he lives in Croatia with his family (wife and two sons). Like most siblings, we’ve certainly had our differences over the years, but I really love and respect my older brother. I wish we were able to see each other more often.
I find prayer to be somewhat confusing. I won’t go into the several intellectual and emotional issues I have regarding prayer, but they do exist. That being said, though, I’ll tell you this - when things get serious, especially for people I’m close to, I find it easy to pray. There is a couple whom I adore with my whole heart, whom I consider some of my best friends, among the very best people on earth, and they are having a very difficult time right now. Not only does my heart go out to them, but I find myself praying for them constantly, almost sub-consciously. I am very reluctant to pray for myself (part of the confusion), but when it involves people I love, prayer comes naturally, despite my questions. “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”
Every time I have an opportunity to speak about my experiences in Africa, I feel as if my heart might burst. My eyes always water, my throat tightens up and I start to sweat. What does this mean? And when will I get back to those kids?
That’s it for now. I’ll try to do a better job now that things are settling into a sort of routine.
Tags: Add new tag, random
For the past few months I’ve really been fixated on the overuse of the word “like” in casual conversation. Like, when people use the word “like” when speaking of some episode or example or statement they made. It’s, like, beginning to drill into my brain like a laser, and I can’t, like, turn it off.
OK, you get the idea.
I read this article today on MSNBC about iPhone apps. They interviewed several people, one of whom offered this nugget:
“She’s got an app that estimates the size of something based on a credit card,” he says. (It’s called “No Ruler.”) “She’s like, ‘This is so cool, it’s like eight credit cards long.’ I’m like, why don’t you just get a tape measure and measure it? It’s this fascination with the technology without thinking, ‘Is this really helping me?’ ”
Seriously? He was like “why don’t you just get a tape measure,” or did he actually say it? Maddening!
I’ll admit, it’s a hard habit to break. I catch myself doing it throughout the day, despite my best efforts. I can also be somewhat annoying when I point it out to others who commit the foul, so I’m trying to go easy. Make no mistake, though, I intend to stamp the wayward “like” right out of my vocabulary.
Who’s, like, with me?
I must warn you up front, there is no point to this post. No deep thought, no subtle lesson. It’s just a stupid story about a stupid person…me.
Saturday, I did a little babysitting. Great kids, great parents, some of my favorite people in the world. The Monks, if you know them. That evening I drove into town and bought pizza for the kids. Paid for it with cash, right out of my wallet. Around 11:00 pm or so, the parents returned and I headed home. The next day, Sunday, I went to the office in the afternoon to work. The office was a mess as the carpet cleaners had been there on Friday, so we had moved all of our stuff either up on desks or outside. I therefore spent quite a bit of time setting up my office, throwing away a lot of trash, re-organizing…you get the idea. I stayed at the office pretty late, till midnight or so.
The next morning, Monday, I was leaving for work but couldn’t find my wallet. I didn’t think too much of it as I figured I had left it at the office (don’t worry, my office isn’t your typical office and it isn’t unusual for me to leave things there). However, I arrived at the office and found no wallet. I hunted around a bit at work without success, and left that evening determined to find the wallet which, obviously, was back at home, hidden from sight.
Got back home, no wallet. I hunted high and low. I looked in the washing machine. I looked in the refrigerator (you never know!). I looked everywhere I could think. Not seriously bothered, I called back to the pizza place from Saturday night, the last place I definitely could remember seeing my wallet. No luck, no wallet. I zipped back to the office to look there again. I looked throughout the office, upstairs, downstairs, in the restrooms, closets and cubbies. Nothing. Feeling desperate, I then went to the big trailer where we throw cardboard to recycle. Perhaps it went out with some of the boxes I threw away on Sunday? I crawled around in the wet cardboard (it was raining at the time), sorting through the pile of soaked, slimy crud. No wallet.
As I went to bed Monday night, I was convinced I had either a) left it on top of my truck when I went to get pizza, and thus it was gone forever, or b) I had accidentally thrown it out with some trash when I cleaned my office, and thus was gone forever (unless I wanted to climb into the trash trailer at work…no I did not). My plans were to begin the long, painful process of canceling ALL of my credit cards and getting new ones, getting a replacement insurance card, driver’s license, etc. A serious pain, but what else could I do?
But wait…
At six in the morning, Tuesday, I bolted straight up from a dead sleep. I suddenly knew, almost beyond doubt, where my wallet was. Here’s the train of thought that raced through my head in about 2.5 seconds:
- First, I remembered seeing my wallet on Sunday as I left to come to the office. I remembered thinking I should grab the wallet in case I needed to buy something online. This convinced me I had NOT left my wallet on top of my truck on Saturday, although I could have still thrown it in the trash.
- I THEN realized I did not throw it in the trash. The odds of that happening were tiny, minuscule. I was very careful about what I threw away on Sunday as there were a lot of documents and other such things. I reviewed everything I threw away to make sure it was OK to be rid of it. No way my wallet would have ended up there.
- I THEN remembered the key to the story. On Sunday I had carried a few armfuls of boxes to another building, the Lodge. I also remembered I was wearing my ratty Wal-Mart jeans (which isn’t unusual). I THEN remembered I had somehow forgotten to wear a belt and my pants kept falling down. I THEN remembered that on one trip to the Lodge, with an armful of boxes, my pants had fallen all the way down to my ankles, and I shuffled the last 30 feet or so till I reached a table where I could put down my boxes and pull up my pants. Surely, SURELY, this is where my wallet was, having fallen out of my pants when they were around my ankles.
So, Tuesday morning, I drove straight to the Lodge and went right to the room where I had placed the boxes. I opened the door, looked down, and there it was, my wallet.
I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere; maybe it’s simply, “don’t forget your belt or you might lose your wallet.”
The desert of southern Utah presents a few dominant themes:
Time - the geology, the landforms, the erosion, the rivers…it all communicates vast spans of time. Standing by the side of the road, pondering the Seuss-like landforms all around, it is impossible not to think of the eons and eons of time it took to sculpt such things. Furthermore, sightings of sea fossils, petrified sand dunes, frozen ripples from an ancient sea…these things contribute to the sense of great age. It’s hard to avoid feeling quite temporary in the desert.
Within Canyonlands National Park.
Wind, Sand and Water - these forces act, in conjunction with time, to carve the desert. As I stood just north of Grand Staircase in the teeth of a 50 mph wind storm…feeling the sand particles needle my skin…it was pretty easy to see how wind and sand act as primary shapers. Walking through slot canyons carved by centuries and centuries of flash floods, rains and torrents, the undeniable power of water is quite obvious.
A narrow wash carved by water
Layers - everywhere you look, layers. Old sand dune deserts, sediments from ancient oceans, vast plains from pre-history, forested basins…everywhere is evidence of what came before. The lower the layer, the older the earth. Geologists have it all labeled and categorized, have established time-lines and scenarios. The names of the layers conjure mystery, history, wonder. Navajo Sandstone. Summerville Formation. Kayenta Formation. White Rim Sandstone. Moenkopi Formation. What would it be like to see 270 million years sped up, compressed into a 2-hour movie? Faults lifing and falling, oceans advancing and retreating. Forests flourishing and dying. Layer upon layer.
Layers of Entrada Sandstone, born of ancient tidal flats.
God’s Imagination - of course, for a Christian, this is all just a reflection of the Creator and his infinite imagination. I know some don’t give any credence to the idea of geologic time, to the notion of millions and millions of years, of imperceptible erosion and shaping by wind and rain. Perhaps they are right. As for me, Utah reminds me of the agelessness of God, of His imagination, of his power and, even, of his sense of humor.
Wind. Rain. Time. Imagination.
Tags: Add new tag, outdoors, photography, travel
A view of Capital Reef from the scenic drive through the park. The setting sun played off the clouds to produce the very vivid reds and oranges.
This and other Utah photos are up on my Smugmug Site. Click here.
Tags: outdoors, photography, travel
Recent Comments