inspired

continuing

and the sabbatical marches on. is this simply delaying the inevitable?

important note to add to small update below

major event in past month that totally deserves a mention:
Champion's League Final

BARCELONA - 2
MAN U - 0

the game was watched under much tension but eventually unwound into great joy. Barça completed the tripe, first ever by a spanish team. won the league, won the league cup, and won the european cup. what a season! and i raise my glass to the boys! VISCA EL BARÇA!

small update

while still on sabbatical, i have been motivated to post a few of my comings and goings.

the comings have been to America, and in particular, Indiana. I have been blessed with the blessing of spending quality time with my family over a rather extended stretch of time, during the course of which my sister has graduated and passed her nursing exam (round of applause please) and my brother has graduated from high school (another round please). The great thing was that we had all four kids home for the first time in while. My grandma who lives on the west coast spent the month of April in our house. It was great to have her around.

i have also burnt my back not once but twice, gotta love yard work and an under-awareness of how long one has been in the sun! i worked a couple of days which was a couple of days more than i expected to work due to the currant economic climate. one of the major activies was an endeavor to learn court vocabulary, not only in Spanish but in English in order to get certified this fall to be a court interpreter. it'd be a great job, so i'll be working on that. just gotta get my legal jargon sorted out first! i met a guy who does it for a living and went along with him to watch how it all happens a few times. great experience.
i fixed up my dog's kennel and dug a firepit with the helping hands of a couple of siblings. unfortunately no fireball has been played yet. though some good games of settlers have as well as scrabble! participation has been had in two trips to chicago, both 5 stars, one to wrigley field for a bit of america's pastime and the other to the botanical gardens to celebrate my mom's birthday early! the gardens way exceeded my expectations, hit it up if you are ever there. i have hung out with some good friends and read some good books. the most recent being "The Chosen" by chaim potok. it comes to you recommended. know you know. and now you know. the previous sentence being an mistake but i liked it and so i left it. sometimes an attitude of 'what's done is done' is a healthy attitude to have.

anything else? well this coming monday i return to spain for a month for festivites, wedding, generally good times with friends, a bit of beach and hopefully a touch of random unexpected. it will be good. then when i arrive back its off to the west coast for a month and something to work for my uncle out there and west coast it a bit. and my cuz is getting married. and finally its back to indiana to start up the degree finishing process... it will be time to hit the books. and then it may be time for another update and perhaps, just perhaps, another startup, a return from sabbatical. but let us not get precipitated, nor ahead of ourselves. for now its goodnite and may his face shine upon you.

sabbatical

the lack of posting continues. so does the lack of motivation. i think i need a sabbatical. okay, it's official, i'm on sabbatical from writing on the blog. how long? not sure. more on that later.

book list

Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books on the BBC big read top 100 book list. Below is their list of books and I've read all the ones with Xs next to them...

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X (a healthy chunk anyways)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (should)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X (or was this the children's version?)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X (currently reading)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving X
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (really want to read)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon X
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (really want to)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X (halfway done)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (want to)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole X
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X (why is this separate from his complete works?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


If I counted right I had 31 but let's just say 30 since a couple I haven't finished. Not bad but then again if I am any major I'm an English major and so I should have read that many. Goal> get to 50 in the next couple of years. Watch this space.

bear with me

im going through one of those stretches where im highly unmotivated to publish anything on here. so please just bear with me till i come around again.

The Well of Grief

The Well of Grief
by David Whyte from "Where Many Rivers Meet"


Those who will not slip beneath
________the still surface of the well of grief
turning downward through its black water
________to the place we cannot breathe
will never know the source from which we drink,
________the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering
________the small round coins
................thrown by those who wished for something else.

it makes me smile

part I newsletter

click to read latest newsletter...

part II

conversation about calling...

exerpt from The Vision and the Vow, by Pete Greig (pg 73-75)

"I don't know what God is calling me to do," he confessed, and asked me to pray about what it might be.
"Why?" I asked. "I already know what Jesus wants you to do!"
"You do?" he gasped with excitement. "So, what is it? What is my call?"
I paused, enjoying the suspense. Drums rolled. String quartets tuned up. My friend held his breath...

"Your call," I said slowly, "is to be a worship leader..."
He looked pleased, really pleased, so I continued: "...but not necessarily with a guitar in your hand."
"Okayyy," he murmured.
"Your call is to befriend that funny little lady at the end of your street..."
He seemed less pleased with this prospect.
"To feed the hungry and spend yourself on behalf of the poor..."
By now he was looking distinctly troubled.
"... and to offer hospitality to strangers who just turn up in town needing a place to crash."
Consternation.
"And it's to fast."
He was starting to look furious."
"And it's to pray so long and hard that your run out of words and tears."

There was no going back:
"Your call," I continued, "is to preach the good news of Jesus to every person who will listen and a few who won't. Your call is to go somewhere, anywhere, wherever, whenever, for Jesus, and never stop. Your call is to love people no one else loves and to forgive them when they treat you like dirt- or worse. Do your job to the very best of your ability without grumbling about your boss or whining about your colleagues. Your call is to pray for the sick, and when they are healed, to dance all night. And when they aren't, to weep with them and love them even more."

I glanced across at him and was relieved to see that his expression was beginning to mellow.

"Your call is to honor your parents, pray for your leaders, study the scriptures, and attend lots of parties. Be a peacemaker in every situation: when the fight breaks out on the bus home late at night and when the gossip starts to cirulate at church. Your call is to pick up litter in the street when no one else is looking, to wipe the toilet seat, to pull the gum off from under the desk. It's to get to meetings early to put out the chairs."

By now he was smiling.

"Your call it make disciples and to teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. And don't forget to minister grace to them when they sin. Which they will. Your mission is to baptize and to cast out evil spirits. Your call is to bind up broken hearts wherever you find them, and you will find them wherever you look. It's to visit prisons. And hospitals. And to..."
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted good naturedly, trying to shut me up..."
"Your call," I continued resolutely, "is to listen more than you talk and to listen with your eyes as well as your ears... It's to do the chores again and again without grumbling. It's to buy ethical coffee and to recycle your bottles. And while you're at it, don't forget to leave anonymous gifts on people's doorsteps."

By now we were both laughing...

"And when you've done all that," I grinned, " come back and see me, and we can spend a little time praying about Phase Two..."

the soil I tread

My current residence is a small town in Northumbria called Hexham. Click on HEXHAM to read about Hexham.
I have seen the Abbey and walked around the golf course along the river, so I am getting to grips with the place! Look for details on life here soon.

by Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won't feel insecure around you.
We were all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

through passport control

As I write I am sitting on a bus on the M25 just outside of London. Come to find out this bus has internet. I think its the first bus I have ever been on with internet. I could get used to it and certainly not a bad welcome to the country I will be calling home for the next couple of months.

Last night I had originally I had intended for the first words of this post to be the following: For the foreseeable future these will be the last words I write from Spanishland. Time however ran out on me and I find myself on this historical island wondering how there can be so much traffic on just one road.

Last night I said goodbye to my home for the last four years. I was a weird moment, very weird. Without going into at the moment let it suffice to say that I don't think it has sunk in yet. As if in a dream I am surrounded by English and the only Spanish I hear is coming through my headphones.

This was unexpected until only about two and a half weeks ago, though I had begun to suspect that my time was drawing to a close. My legality ran out on Wednesday and on Friday afternoon I was exiting the Iberian peninsula as an illegal immigrant. (That in itself was a small bonus as it was a new experience, one that I will take with me for the rest of my life.) There is a lot of mileage in this whole living as aliens and foreigners in this life. I wonder if it can be stretched to include illegal ones as well?

But to hono(u)r this amazing country that has treated me so well I decided that I should not abuse the privilege and stick around too long. That and God spoke and I am excited to see just what he is up to through all this. Whatever it is, it is good, because he is infinitely good. Amazingly good. Yes, let it be known in the whole earth that my FATHER is good.

So I'm in England to work on my English (accent). There are some directions and ideas floating around in my head but that's for another post, in another part of England.

comings and goings

There are changes in the air. It started as a whisper, a soft breeze, an intuition and slowly grew into something more tangible, speaking into my ear, blowing across my face. Leaving me there alone to step out and into the heart of God.

This next Friday I leave Spain. It's not forever but its the end of an era, a season of my life that has marked me forever.

I am headed to England for a couple of months to spend some time up in Hexham. God has spoken. He has shut doors and he has opened doors. He has spoken and he has asked me to follow, to shut some doors myself.

What lies beyond I don't know. I have some thoughts and ideas but if I have learned nothing else over the last month, it's that what it says in Proverbs 16 is true, A man's heart devises his way: but the LORD directs his steps..

So it's the beginning of something new but rather than the end of what is finishing, it's the continuation of what has already begin.

just felt like saying that sometimes life throws the unexpected at you and perhaps that is what makes it a crazy ride. or is that just obvious?

countdown

15 days to illegality and counting. or maybe i shouldn't put things like that on here!

how to spell faith.

While reading an article by Sarah Bainbridge (whoever she is) (but click here for the article) I came across this statement:



Faith is not spelt R-I-S-K. It is spelt T-R-U-S-T.

and of course,

"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."



Our faith is tied up with our TRUST in our Father. What a thought. And of course, when we trust, well what does that do to our faith?

Perhaps the vision that Jesus has for his church:

People made community. A community without walls, made up of every type, color, race and culture. Real people, with flesh and blood, with ugly pasts, broken and imperfect, being transformed. A community where people without hope, without resources and without love can go and instead of being judged for their imperfections, flaws and sins, be loved. A place where those who have always been last, marginalized and rejected are served by those who have been first. Where those who have forgotten how to dream, learn again to have dreams. A home where those who have forgotten what it is to belong or have never had a father or a mother, learn again what it is to be part of a family.

A community of people who are learning to love God with all their heart, soul and strength. A community where people are committed to loving their neighbor more than themselves. A unselfish love, completely sacrificial.

A community that remembers the poor, and is willing to suffer and go without in order to help another. That doesn’t just use tithes and offerings for their personal projects, buildings or institutions, but rather to help those who are hungry, thirsty and don’t have a place to sleep or clothes to cover their nakedness, those who are sick, whether with AIDS or lung cancer, and those who find themselves in prison. And not only give of their money but of their homes, of their time and their love. People who lay down their lives at the feet of Christ and say, “Here is my life, do with it as you wish.”

A community of imperfect, forgiven sinners who despite their mistakes, forgive, 70 times 7. People who refuse to speak badly of another. People who fight for justice and lift up the oppressed, while always turning the other cheek. A community angered by injustice in their society and willing to fight for justice, even at the risk of losing it’s reputation.

A community of people that pray together. That seek after God, that long for his presence here on earth. That try to live like Jesus lived, imitating him in all that he did, always in contact with the rejected- prostitutes, beggars, homosexuals and immigrants. People who study his life together along with the rest of the Bible. People full of the Holy Spirit, living by Him in love, joy and peace, patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. Leaving behind the old person with all those old desires, crucified with Christ. People that become like Christ a little more each day, each day striving for holiness, and always covered by God’s immense grace. People willing to lay down pride and be vulnerable. People that understand that the reason they are there has nothing to do with personal merit and that they love only because He first loved them.

A community of people committed to living out Jesus’ love and everything else that he said to a broken world. Always beginning with the person next to them, be it a friend or an enemy, be it easy or hard.

A group of people willing to allow God to do all this in them. And then these people, this church, will shine like the sun amidst a cold, dark world and the glory of God will be seen through these imperfect, striving, broken yet whole, human beings, His church.

Quizás la visión que tenga Jesús para su iglesia:

Personas hechas una comunidad. Una comunidad sin paredes, construida de gente de todo tipo, color, raza y cultura. Personas de verdad, con sangre y huesos, con pasados, quebrantados, imperfectos. Una comunidad donde las personas sin esperanza, sin recursos, sin amor puedan acudir y en vez de ser juzgados por sus imperfecciones, defectos y pecados, ser amados. Un lugar donde los que siempre hayan sido los últimos, los marginados, los rechazados sean servidos por los primeros. Donde los que hayan olvidado soñar, aprendan de nuevo a tener sueños. Un hogar donde los que hayan olvidado lo que es pertenecer o no hayan tenido padres y madres, aprendan de nuevo a ser parte de una familia.

Una comunidad de personas que estén aprendiendo a amar a Dios con toda su alma, su corazón y su fuerza. Una comunidad de personas comprometidas a amar a su prójimo más que a sí mismo. Un amor nada egoísta, desinteresado.

Una comunidad que tenga en cuenta a los pobres, y esté dispuesta a pasar necesidad para ayudar a otro. Que no sólo use sus diezmos y ofrendas para sus proyectos personales, edificios e instituciones, sino para la ayuda a los que pasen hambre, sed y no tengan donde dormir ni con que vestirse, los que no gocen de buena salud, sea SIDA o cáncer del pulmón, y los que se encuentren en la cárcel. Y que no sólo dé de su dinero sino también de sus hogares, de su tiempo y de su amor. Gente que entregue su vida a los pies de Cristo y diga, “aquí la tienes, haz con ella lo que quieras.”

Una comunidad de pecadores perdonados que no sean perfectos y aunque cometan errores, perdonen, hasta 70 veces 7. Personas que se nieguen a hablar mal de otro. Personas que luchen por la justicia y levanten al oprimido, siempre mostrando la otra mejilla. Una comunidad no conforme con la injusticia en su sociedad y dispuesta a luchar por la justicia, aunque pierda su reputación.

Una comunidad de personas que oren juntos. Que busquen a Dios, que anhelen su presencia aquí, en esta tierra. Que intenten vivir como Jesús vivió, imitándole en todo lo que hizo, siempre en contacto con los marginados- prostitutas, mendigos, homosexuales e inmigrantes, estudiando juntos su vida y lo demás de la Biblia. Personas llenas del Espíritu Santo, viviendo según él, en amor, alegría y paz, de paciencia, amabilidad y bondad, fidelidad, humildad y dominio propio. Dejando atrás la vieja persona con todos sus malos deseos, crucificada con Cristo. Personas que cada día sean más como Cristo, cada día vivan más en santidad, y siempre cubiertas con la gracia inmensa de Dios. Personas que entiendan que el hecho de que están ahí no ha sido por merito propio y que aman sólo porque Él les amó primero.

Una comunidad de personas comprometidas a mostrar ese amor de Jesús y todo lo que él dijo a un mundo roto. Siempre empezando con la persona a su lado, sea su amigo o enemigo, sea fácil o difícil.

Un grupo de personas que esté dispuesto a dejar que Dios haga todo esto en ellos. Y entonces estas personas, esta iglesia, brillará como el sol en medio de un mundo oscuro y frío y la gloria de Dios se mostrará a través de estos imperfectos, quebrantados pero completos, seres humanos, sus hijos, su iglesia.

eye actualización

It's been four weeks since the eye op and I'm doing okay. Not great, not horrible. Apparently it just takes a while to recover. My pupils seems to be constantly dilated, which means I see blurry. And I'm tired of seeing blurry. It's definitely better than before. And it's definitely better in the early afternoon than at night.
They aren't are dry now. For the first two weeks and something they were dry as a kite. Or maybe it's bone. During the op I was high as a kite thanks to the Valium, but that's not the point. The point is I don't have to use eye drops near as much. I feel like I am putting them in about every hour (in spurts) rather than every 12 minutes. Progress.

What I don't know is if I will have perfect vision when it's all said and done. It will take about three months to know for sure. If I don't I can go under the laser again for free and they will touch it up. That would be another three months of recuperation though (and four hours of possible post-op agony). In the scope of things though it's nothing really. Anything for 20/20 without the aid of glasses/contacts!

old quote

I came across an old quote by Dostoyevski that made me think...


To love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.
-Dostoyevski

sanctus real

whatever you're doing.

campus america

it's 2009 and 90,90,90

for a few days i purposely avoided blogging. from about december 26th till december 27th. cause on the 26th i realized that for the past 3 years i have posted exactly 90 times each year. and as of the 26th i had 90 for 2008. so for 2 days i didn't blog so it would stay there. that's not cheating very much. and as far as i can remember it hasn't been on purpose (until those two days). then i went to madrid where i didn't have internet so from the 27th till the 31st i wasn't avoiding blogging. just for the record.

happy 2009 by the way. here they say happy new year to everyone till about the third week of february...