Disaster Recovery

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Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:21:22 GMT

Accept and you become whole,Bend and you straighten,Empty and you fill,Decay and you renew,Want and you acquire,Fulfill and you become confused.

The sage accepts the worldAs the world accepts the Way;He does not display himself, so is clearly seen,Does not justify himself, so is recognized,Does not boast, so is credited,Does not pride himself, so endures,Does not contend, so none contend against him.

The ancients said, "Accept and you become whole",Once whole, the world is as your home.

(stanza 20 from the Tao Te Ching)

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 06:55:37 GMT

How do I respond to your irrational fears? How do I convince you that you are mistaken, when you continue to hold to what you believe in the face of all the evidence? I struggled to know the answer to this for years. I lived in fear of your fear - in fear that it would some day emerge, and drown everything with it. And now it has emerged, and the torrent is unleashed. I am determined that I will not be dragged away in the flood, and neither will my family. I would save you from it as well, but you cannot grasp the hand I am holding out to you; your fears prevent you from doing that. Fear blinds you, and holds you hostage. It keeps you locked in place, and holds you back from growth. It robs you of your freedom, and locks you to a path that leads to your own destruction.

I could show you how to be saved from all this, if you would let me. I cannot save you myself, but there is a Savior from even this darkness. I would do it for the sake of what we had, for the years we invested in each other. I would do it for the sake of the children we have together, for the sake of the friends who looked to us for wisdom and encouragement. I would do it as a testimony to the love I have for you, a love that comes from Someone Else, a love that persists even in the face of the torrent unleashed by your fear.

But do I dare hope for this, that you will turn from your fears, and come back to me? That hope now seems a faint thing, only a glimmer, an echo of a memory that even now begins to fade. I can no longer hold onto you, and my outstretched hands are needed to hold onto the lives that were entrusted to us. I only hope that Other Arms are still holding you; I only trust that neither you nor I can never completely wriggle free from that grasp, that He will prevent us from falling down utterly. I can only trust that one day, even if it is as far off as that day when all tears will be dried and joy and perfection will rule in us, one day we will again stand together, and understand why this was allowed, and see how it shaped us into what we are becoming in Him.

And, as I trust, I howl in pain and anguish at what we have lost, and I pray to the One who I trust in that He will give me the strength to bear that pain, and that He will walk with you down the strange, sad, dark, scary road you have chosen to go down.

untitled

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 18:48:50 GMT

"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." - Itzhak Perlman

Quoted here.

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 19:58:30 GMT

The grace of God means something like: here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.

There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

- Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:37:39 GMT

For the Christian the essence of honesty lies in being faithful not only to the truth but to the Truth. It means not denying Christ. It means that your whole life must now pivot around the commitment that he has made to you and you to him. Your every action, every thought, every word are true or false according to how they measure up to that central commitment. - John White, "The Fight

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 21:01:59 GMT

"If I have to explain the irony, it would be a waste of time." - Michael Spencer

Something's Broken

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:52:00 GMT

The very first science fiction story I ever read was by Lester Del Rey. I don't remember what it was called, but it was about a boy who lives on one of Jupiter's moons and his robot. The plot line is pretty much standard science fiction (the boy moves away, the robot is repurposed for some menial task, the boy runs away from home, the robot meets him, they run away together.) I don't really remember the whole thing, but one aspect of the story sticks out in my memory.

The robot had a very generic error reporting mechanism. When the mechanism was triggered, the robot could only report "something's broken." It couldn't localize the error. At one point in the story, the robot's "eye circuits" are messed up, and the robot is effectively blind. The problem is, the robot doesn't know "I'm blind." It only knows, "Something's broken." So the robot sits down, and just starts saying, "Something's broken," over and over until the boy actually figures out that the robot can't see.

That's me, talking to God. I can tell that something's broken, but I don't really even know what is broken. I look around myself, at the world, and I know it's a mess, so I sit down and call out to God. "Lord, Something's broken. Either you're not fixing things, or you're fixing things, but my 'God-is-busy-fixing-things' detector circuits are hosed. So, please, add "fix Jim's awareness of repairs in progress" to the list of things you are fixing, so I don't have to sit here, knowing that something is broken, but not knowing if it's me, or if the universe blew a fuse and left us all in the dark."

Either way, He's the only one who can make the repairs.

The Rules

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 02:38:19 GMT

Listen to your instinct

Be who you are

Do what you have to do

Know what you believe

If you begin to doubt, DON'T

Freefall

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:37:36 GMT

It's as if one has stepped off a plane, and is cut loose from anything that might keep one from falling. The sensation is curious; the fear is so overwhelming that it no longer even is a factor. It disappears, or rather merges with the surrounding environment, becoming a constant part of it. One can struggle, but that's futile. No effort can stop the downward plunge; no motion will arrest the constant acceleration. In the end, all you can do is try to not think about the way that the ground is rushing up to meet you, and cling to the hope that somewhere, Someone is moving to pluck you out of the sky before you crash.

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 03:34:25 GMT

The mind searches for answers, trying to determine why.

The heart knows that there are no answers; there are only choices.

The mind protests that there must be factors, there must be determinants, that something must be behind events.

The heart sighs, and waits for the mind to be still.

Then the heart cries, as part of it dies.

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 19:58:11 GMT

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Moderate
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	Low
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Very High
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Moderate
-- Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Information --

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 19:57:18 GMT

What mental disorder do you have? Your Result: ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) You have a very hard time focusing, and you find it difficult to stay on task without your mind wandering. You probably zone in and out of conversations and tend to miss out on directions because you cannot focus
Manic Depressive
GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
Paranoia
What mental disorder do you have?

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:56:24 GMT

When I was young, I thought that life was a matter of understanding. All it seemed to take to have a good life is to desire to know "why." It's as if life was a puzzle, and the solution of that puzzle was simply a matter of study and effort.

As I grow older, the puzzle seems to be coming apart. Pieces that seemed to fit together seamlessly before now are shown to have been bent in order to fit, and are being pulled out of the picture and thrown away. There's little coherence to what remains of the puzzle; it seems as if rather than a picture of something cut up into a puzzle, life is more of a shattered stain-glass window. The shards and pieces still retain something of the original beauty, but the design is fractured and broken beyond any hope of restoration.

The habit of seeking to understand is hard to break. It's hard to just "be" when what you're asked to "be" is broken and incomplete. It's hard, too, to know whether to be broken and incomplete is really what is being asked of you, because it seems so wrong. Something inside of us cries out against the damage that we endure, the separation and loss that we experience.

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 04:10:10 GMT

Spend any time actually being homeless - not the sort of "pretend" homelessness of some sensitivity exercise, but the actual twisted-gut feeling of having no place that you can call your own, and you'll begin to realize how debilitating it is to be in that state. The experience brings a lot of compassion for those caught in homelessness, for whatever reason. We were not made to be vagabonds; we were made each to occupy our particular space, and call it mine and have it recognized as such. "Property is liberty," in that sense.

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 18:36:30 GMT

I'm like a man caught in a river that's in full spring flood. My life-vest will keep me afloat, or at least bring me up for air occasionally, but I can not direct the river. I can only hope that I will breath long enough to see where the river will take me.

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 13:10:57 GMT

Every once in a while, I get an upset stomach. Sometimes the only thing that will help is if I vomit; it's as if my body has decided that whatever I ate isn't going to make it through me, and it needs to come out. It feels terrible, and throwing up is never fun, but there's almost instant relief when it's over.

Lately, I'm finding that crying is like vomiting from my soul. There's things inside me that just aren't going to make it through me, and they need to come out. So I have to set time aside each day to throw up those things, and get them out of me. If I don't, the weight of sorrow will overwhelm me.

Welcome to Oz

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 04:16:21 GMT

It seems like I return to LJ whenever things go wrong. Lately, things have gone wrong a lot.

I find myself in the midst of a divorce. An apparently angry divorce (ironic, because I have spent years learning to manage my anger,) and a messy one (there is a law of the universe that the amount of messyness of a divorce increased geometrically as the number of minor children increased.)

The irony of this situation is uncanny. Two people who couldn't find sufficient energy, motivation and grace to behave like adults when they are married are now somehow magically supposed to find the energy, motivation and grace to behave like adults as they parent the children of their failed marriage.

I offer myself the consolation that at least I wasn't the one who gave up, but even that is ironic. By not giving up, by caring, I complicate things for the rest of the family. If I were a heartless bastard (something I'll be accused of certainly at some point in all this,) I could simply walk away, nurse my wounds, and find someone or something that would nurse my wounds and numb my my pain. But instead, because I care - and because I stayed because I care, for my children and for their mother - I now find that my caring is often worse than useless - it makes for more pain, more distrust, and more confusion.

None of which is enough to make me stop caring. I stayed because I cared, but I also stayed because it was right to care, and I've come to the place in my life where doing the right thing because it is right is better than doing the wrong thing because it is easy.

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Fri, 24 Dec 2004 00:49:03 GMT

The ghost of Christmas present

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Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:45:53 GMT

Doorway

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Sat, 30 Oct 2004 23:15:41 GMT

Giraffe

Bagels

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:59:27 GMT

Madahn

Comment

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:38:30 GMT

Thinking

Photos

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:43:32 GMT

On reflection

Manhattan Music Ensemble

Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:35:12 GMT

Schubert

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Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:28:29 GMT

Linda