March is a bad month

Or at least, so suggests my Calendar...

I have the Alan Lee Children of Hurin calendar at my cubicle.

This is the image for March...I am glad March is ending...I bet Caesar would have agreed with me...

The Sound of Silence

This has been one of the theme songs for our life over the past few years.

Maybe its because I have now lived in California longer than I have ever lived in one place.

Maybe its because I have been waiting for 3 years to be able to start thinking about my next step, and this is the summer when that happens.

Maybe its because I am planning trips for the future, and wish the future was now.

Maybe its because I suddenly found 60+ friends from the past decade or so on Facebook...my friend total is currently up to 318...these friends range from old neighbors and acquaintances, to childhood best friends, to friends I made in a summer in high school, to college roommates, to mentors and coaches, teammates, work associates, and even a few old "enemies." They have pictures, and lives I know nothing about...but they stir up nostalgia like something crazy within me. This new surge of connections has excited me so much that I am fairly certain that most the people I have had contact with recently believe I must be a facebook addict...I'm really not...I just get really excited about finding old friends!

Maybe its because I had been hoping to be doing one of the things I love next year...and now it looks very like I will have to keep on keeping on where I am at, for at least another year and a half. Thank you California, for spending so much that you are actually laying off teachers, even while complaining of having a teaching shortage!

Maybe I have Restless Leg Syndrome...

Maybe I am just a restless person that needs to learn what peace is.

The bottom line is, I am restless.

I suspect the answer is not to ruminate on the possibilities I am not/cannot partake in at present. Actually, the best solution I have found revolves around less real action. Taking more time to read, more time to find catharsis through writing...more silence.

This is one of the few things that music does NOT help, which is difficult because I really like music...listening to music gets me through my day of data-entry. Still, there is no denying that music is extremely emotional, and each song only conjures more memories, more dreams, more restlessness.

So, I need silence. Now the question is...can I allow myself to have silence?

Lotsa Pictures

If it keeps you running

Five years ago, shortly after we were married, I received a medical discharge from my contract with the Army's ROTC program. I had run for about a year on shin splints, not knowing what they were or how to treat them (having never had so much as a sprained ankle until then). By the time I was discharged, I had almost no hair on my legs below the knees, and I regularly lost all feeling in both of my large toes.

I stopped running for about 2 years...which did not help me in fighting the traditional marital weight gain.

And I have been trying to get to a healthy weight to start running for three years, off and on. Sometimes it hasn't been practical, sometimes I have done really well. About two years ago, I managed to lose about 17 lbs, and was getting close to being able to run almost three miles. Then stuff happened, and life changed, and that stopped.

Now we're headed back towards doing stuff outside, and I am determined to get back in shape. I was avoiding the inevitable for a week, hoping to reach a personal goal before getting to buy new shoes; I have been running on the same shoes that gave me shin splints five years ago. I was hoping to reach my goal early this week, and buy new shoes right after...but in the meantime, I ran (mostly) three miles with some friends on Sunday night.

Monday morning...the old familiar pain was there, shooting up and down my shins while I walked around my office.

Sigh. Sometimes being a physical being isn't all its cracked up to be.

I have bought new shoes (a gross luxury...but a reality if I ever want to run again) at the insistance of my wife, who is entirely too good to me.

I am also icing my legs nightly.

And I am hoping to make a much slower, but no less determined return to running this weekend. I have a goal, which I might share a little later, if it looks like it is a real possibility.

But the last few days have been...ouchie...

The High Country

This is a momentous Spring.

This is the Spring my wife graduates from Biola, with her BSN.

This is the Spring our life changes…again.

And I have resolved that this is the Spring we begin to live as people not perpetually striving to gain degrees. Oh, I do still hope to proceed (soon) towards getting the next level of my education…but it is well past time to do something other than exist while we try to survive the trench warfare that is the Undergraduate years, while being married and parents.

This Spring, we will begin hiking to the high places of SoCal. Old Baldy. San Gorgonio. 7 Falls. Half Dome. Eventually, I hope to include Mt Whitney & the Grand Canyon in our list…but we may have missed the window this year, as there are not enough passes for all the people that want to make the trek.

April 5th is the first step. As part of a training course, we’re doing El Moro Canyon; just short of 7 miles, no real altitude, but a good stretch of the legs. We have about 10 people that have decided to take on this endeavor together, and I am putting the calendar together. It’s very exciting!

My first inclination is to go buy new equipment…having no money makes fighting this impulse easier…

Clinging to what we know to be true

Gal. 1:6-9: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

We started a family study of Galatians this morning. It was refreshing, and I appreciated my wife's encouragement to do it together. We read the whole first chapter and I couldn't help but wonder at this exhortation from Paul to the church, especially given what others have said regarding the nature of schism in the church. It caused me to reflect throughout the day on the state of our church, divided and at odds over certain beliefs, and at times ignoring cancerous growths in the very heart of the church itself.

God's truth is worth fighting for. May we never be so foolish as to believe the message of the Gospel requires us; but that should likewise not lull us into the stupor of a mundane faith.