Unpredictable

For the life of me, I can’t figure out people. People are chaos theory personified. Which is hard for me because I’m a figure it out kind of person. I like seeing how things add up to something. But people don’t add up. I’m constantly surprised by what people do. Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise, many times it’s not.

People are just too complicated. There are too many factors involved. Too many experiences that shape a heart. And it makes us all so unpredictable.

While I was typing this, one of my kids started another argument with another one of my kids. Which is extremely predicable. You just never know when it’s going to happen or why. It’s completely unpredictable.

I like to read a few blogs, and I can’t predict what people are going to post. I mean, you can read a blog and say to yourself, “that was the kind of thing I expect from that person.” But you never know just what someone might say. And don’t even try to figure out what people are going to do. I don’t even know what I’m going to do five minutes from now. I mean, I have some ideas. But you never know.

Some people are more consistent than others. In fact, it’s nice to be around people who are more consistent because they seem less dangerous. It’s like a guy who might be violent at any moment. His family lives in terror, not just of what he will do, but of what he might do, at any moment, because he’s unpredictable.

I’m not the dangerous type. Not really. But I honestly believe I have some challenges relationally because people can’t figure out what I’m going to say next. When it comes to words, I’m very unpredictable. I mean, I could be talking to you and then suddenly





© LW Publishing 2011

Life, the Three Stooges and Everything

I wonder sometimes if God is watching from on high, a little bored or something, and we make for some good entertainment.

We watch the Three Stooges. God watches us.

I’ve heard people (mostly women, but my daughters as well) say things about the Stooges over the years, things like: Why are they doing that? They’re not making any sense. That was kind of random and pointless, don’t you think? Why do they keep hitting and hurting each other? You don’t really think that’s funny do you?

These criticisms are fair. But it’s funny anyway. And in many ways, the Three Stooges are a perfect metaphor for the human race.

They are we.

I’m not talking serious theology here. Not really. It’s more about trying to get into the heart of God, which seems kind of inscrutable to me at times. But I imagine God watches us, and he gets tired of crying about it all the time. Wouldn’t you? There’s a lot to cry about, you know? The human race is very good at stupid. So, just from a love standpoint, it must get emotionally draining, all the heart break and sorrow. Even if it doesn’t make God “tired,” he probably still wants a rest from it all. Kind of like he rested on the Sabbath.

So I imagine God, turning the sound down on the earth, putting on a pot of whatever spiritual thing passes for coffee, and watching the chaos while humming the tune of Three Blind Mice.

He stops weeping, for a little while, and he laughs.


Psalm 2:4
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Keep Your Eyes On The Navel

I recently discovered this word: “omphaloskepsis”

Isn’t that great? It sounds like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Webster’s Dictionary says it means “contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.” It comes from the Greek language (doesn’t everything?). “Omphalos” is "navel.” Without the “om” (a meditative vowel all to itself, for those who are into such things), the word sounds suspiciously like something else we won’t get into here. And “Skepsis” means "examination." It’s probably related to the word “skeptical.” Who knows. But what gets me is that there’s a word for the act of contemplating one’s navel. How cool is that?

I suppose there must be a word for everything, or at least we have the power to create a word for pretty much anything. I just love this, how we find ways of saying things that no one would ever really say, but we could if we wanted to.

The thing is, what I’m most concerned about here is the important issue of individuals who are omphaloskepsistically impaired. Consider how it makes a person feel who wants to meditate, but they can’t actually see their navel due to a distended mid-section resulting from hyperphagia.

Hyperphagia is a word for the problem of eating too much. Do you, too, suffer from this tragic, crippling disorder? Oh, the humanity! Perhaps we should start a foundation or a telethon or something to deal with it. A support group at the very least.

Hi. My name is Dave. And I’m a hyperphagic.

Frankly, I’m just happy that I don’t suffer from autocoprophagy. I would tell you what that is, but it might make you disgorge whatever your hyperphagia led you to recently consume.

I’ll just leave it to you to use what I’ve offered here as a starter for spending some quality time omphaloskepsising.


Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

Fickle

I have to admit it. Sometimes I’m fickle.

What a rotten word. It’s almost like a curse word, isn't it? Fickle. Sounds like something stuck to the bottom of your shoe that you can’t get off. Sounds like a sharp object sticking out of the carpet, waiting for the bottom of your foot.

But there’s no getting around it. There are a few things I stick with for the long haul, my wife and kids not being the least of them. Music is not a problem. Or reading. Or studying the Bible. But with a lot of other things I’m into it for a while, I’m full of curiosity and wonder, and then it starts to trail off into an occasional ho hum whatever.

Exhibit A: For a while I was into photography. I got an okay camera. I read books on it. I read articles. I started paying attention to photos, really thinking about what I liked or didn’t like about them. How they were composed. Here are a few images I shot:

I really enjoyed it, trying to get different kinds of shots. Especially with my cheap camera. It was a challenge. But now I have a hard time remembering to take my camera with me to anything. And I don’t really know why. Whatever the reasons, I lost interest.

And this isn’t the first time this has happened. I have picked up and sat back down: Baseball. Piano. Fishing. Roasting my own coffee beans. Drawing with colored pencils. Writing poetry. Basketball. Exploring my family history.

The list goes on and on.

It honestly, if irrationally, makes me feel at times like the bourgeois pig that inspired the misguided Karl Marx to write the Communist Manifesto. When I think about it over time, the ins and outs of one fascination giving way to another, it makes me feel like a petulant child who can’t make up his mind what toy to play with, the kid who is bored all the time and needs to be entertained.

Then again, maybe it’s just the way life goes when you have an inquisitive mind.

?

Psalm 63:3-5
Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Doll's Eyes

When I was a kid, my sister had one of those dolls with the eyes that moved around in it’s head on some kind of spring or something. Have you ever seen one of those? The idea is to make them seem "real," but they’re kind of creepy. You turn the head, but the eyes keep looking at you. It makes me think of that Telly Savalas Twilight Zone episode...

“My name is Talky Tina, and I’m going to kill youuuuuuu.”

This “Doll’s Eyes” thing is what they use in hospitals sometimes to see how a person’s brain is doing. If your head is moved, your eyes should move in the opposite direction like these kinds of doll’s eyes. If the eyes move with the head, well, that’s not good. The eyes should naturally move in the opposite direction. If your brain is in good shape, when you’re looking at something and you move your head around, your eyes stay focused on the thing you’re looking at. Go ahead, try it. Look at your computer screen and move your head around a bit. Your eyes, amazingly, stay in place on the computer. (If your eyes couldn’t stay on the computer while you moved your head around, please see a medical professional RIGHT NOW!)

Anyway. To my point. I was just thinking about how amazing this is. The technical term for it is “Vestibulo-ocular Reflex.” Without it, we’d have a hard time reading a newspaper or a blog or pretty much anything else. Driving would be down-right dangerous. And you can test this too. I’ve done it. Just consciously hold your eyes in place while you move your head around. Things get blurry really fast. To focus you have to hold your head still. It's actually hard to NOT vestibulo-ocularize reflexively.

Imagine if your eyes had to move with your head. Imagine you didn’t have a vestibulo-ocular reflex. Now that would be a tough way to live. Imagine how stiff your neck would be all the time.

It’s a truly amazing thing that our eyes can stay focused on something while our heads move around. I mean, just think of the complexity of it. The way I understand it, your ears tell your eyes what to do in this situation, and a vast number of muscles and nerves all respond practically instantaneously to compensate for the movement of the head. It’s not that our eyes are weighted and are relying on gravity to stay in one place. No, it’s just muscles and nerves reacting in split second timing to the movement of our heads. It is a supremely amazing thing that I totally took for granted. And maybe you did too.

Until, hopefully, right now.


Psalm 139:14
Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

Getting There

I recently saw this picture of a family driving together on a motor cycle:

The baby in a bucket is obviously fake, but it gave me a flash back:

When I was a kid, we went on a few vacations. Nothing fancy, but they were still vacations. We went south to visit my dad’s family, and sometimes we would hit some other places on the way there or back. The Smokies or King’s Island, that kind of thing. We usually had enough money to get in the door and drink out of whatever water fountains we could find. Dad would do everything in his power to direct us away from gift shops and food stands.

By the time I was six or seven, my oldest sister had passed away and my oldest brother was on his own. Which still left four kids at home. Four little kids who had to fit in a car with two parents and a lot of luggage. We didn’t have a station wagon or a mini van. Did they even make mini vans back then? What we had was as big a car as my dad could find and afford. Dad packed the trunk as tight as he could and we headed out.

Seat belts? They were safely tucked up into the long bench seat, out of our way. People didn’t wear them back then. I didn’t wear a seat belt until I was in my twenties. And air conditioning? That was for rich people. My parents didn’t even get air in their house until long after I moved out.

I distinctly remember one trip, driving at night to avoid traffic. We all slept while dad drove. My younger brother was in the front between mom and dad, and I was on the floor of the back seat, with my older brother and my sister sharing the seat. I was slumped over the hump on the floor that covered the drive shaft, hearing and feeling the wheels on the road, humming beneath me. Somehow it was soothing.

It was good when we were asleep, because when we were awake, someone was usually fighting. It was mostly my older brother and younger sister, but we all got into the action. It’s what happens when you pack people into a car like sardines.

Now I have my own family. We have a mini van which, no matter what anyone tells you, is the greatest vehicle ever created by mankind. We only have three kids, but we’re still packed like sardines when we go on a trip. The kids manage to fill every square inch of the van. And they manage to fight about pretty much everything. But we have a great time, just like back in the day.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But we do make them wear those newfangled seat belt thingamajimminies.

Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

Ode De Café

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height of
My cup and cream, when drinking dark, not light,
For the best of beans and ideal Sumatran.
I love thee for the gift of everyday's
Morning brew, aroma and roast.
I love thee freely, as men strive to wake up;
I love thee purely, as they face the day.
I love thee with a passion for single source
For my waking needs, not lame house of Maxwell or other cans.
I love thee with a love that needs not approval
of sinners or saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! And, if God choose,
I shall but love thee forever after death.



With apologies to EBB

Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011