by Frederick Buechner

The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak -- even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. We cannot live our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music. Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may not hear nothing at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement. But be not affeard, says Caliban, nor is he the only one to say it. "Be not afraid," says another, "for lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our journeys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him.

coffee

varying degrees of coffee. black. a little bit of milk. a lot of milk. waaaay too much milk.

i would assume its Jesus and the twelve disciples.

sevilla

yesterday i went to seville. it came fully recommended and stays fully recommended. kind of like good coffee. i'll have it any time of the day. or night.

seville is three hours from where i live. going south. you hit the mountains on the way down there making the view downright nice after you get used to the flat scenary where i live. we left at 6 and arrived at 9 and had a quick visit to the dominican and colombian consulates which should tell you the nationality of my fellow travelers. the visit to the colombian consul turned into a longish one as they kept announcing that the person who had to sign documents would arrive in twenty minutes. several hours later and at 3 in the afternoon she showed up. looking sleepy. now that could be me being cynical and imagining things. or she might have been taking a lunchtime nap. fortunately for me i wasn't waiting for any colombian stamps and so i was free to roam about during the formentioned signature-awaiting session. during that i took in the real betis football stadium. a premier division soccer team. and sat there eating chips cause i was very hungry and it was very past my lunchtime.

one nice lunch later, some even better coffee and then some rain i had taken in a good piece of the city center. and the outside of an incredible cathedral. i believe i shall upload some photos of the place here shortly. a lot was left to see but it was time to go home. and it was raining. thanks to some hurricane from the caribbean. like a good appetizer it just left me wanting more. i'll be back though. maybe get to take in not only the inside of the cathedral but some flamenco music/dancing, un poquito de vino sevillano, and some more of their colorful, tight streets leading to who knows where.

en espana and your comment if you please

yeah im in spain now again after a 30 hour hiatus from new paris indiana to badajoz extremadura. working on something to reintroduce myself on here... should be posted shortly.


if you happen to check this- make a comment on the following comment in one way or another if you have an opinion:

"Life is a journey that we are all making... Or being taken on... But perhaps the older we become the more we are being taken and the less we actually making..."
-Choice

embarquation

its interesting writing knowing that really no one will read this post at the time of its postage because i haven't announced the re-embarking of not only this blog but several other things...

like spain. spain is being re-embarked upon. by me. starting tomorrow. unless of course you view embarking as something that is constant. so in that case i have been embarking back upon spain ever since i left. so tomorrow won't be the beginning, just another day in the journey. huh.

id like to make a commitment to write consistently. last time i made a commitment like that i went on to not touch that "novel" to this very day. so i think we'll go easy on the commitment front today and see if i can just put my money where my fingers type.

once i prove to myself that i truly have embarked (or perhaps arrived) upon (at) a new journey (a place) of consistent blogging i will let people know. until then may this post bask in obscurity.

coming soon.

a return to blogging...

why i don't write as much

I just want to apologize.

It's not easy to write like it used to be.

Time isn't what it once was and now I am faced with the fact that I just don't have the dedication that I once had.

I am not stopping.

I am just being honest that we just might not see me here as much these days.

I hope to rekindle what what was someday.

I am just not saying when though.

So please don't stop coming, just be patient till the day comes when I return.

in sickness

Sometimes life gets busy and one doesn't write so much on their blog. Other times one gets sick and lays in bed for several weeks and when they get better they have so much stuff to do that they don't find time to write.

For me it is the latter. With some of the former. Minus the weeks and make it the days.

Three days I spent in misery. Everything aching. One minute cold the next hot. Dry eyes. Itchy nose. And thirsy, ever so thirsty. At one point I couldn't even keep water down. And how I longed to drink and drink and drink somemore. But I couldn't. I was contrained to a sip every couple minutes. Or sucking on crushed ice. (the preferred option) Nights were nearly the worst. They dragged on and on. Never seeming to pass. I would wake, though I hadn't really lost conciousness, and see that 45 minutes had gone by. Drenched in sweat. Another 35 minutes would go by and this time I would be shivering. On and on it went. Till at last 3.30 arrived and the night was half over. Oh the misery. I lay on the floors just because they were cool. I would have semi delirous dreams of downing gallons of ice cold water and eating wild fruit. One forgets the misery of being sick when they are whole and healthy. Such is life.

This morning arrived and with it a new lease on life. I stand without becoming dizzy. My lips are less chapped and dry. And I can stay in one position for more than two minutes without becoming uncomfortable. Its really the small blessings in life that make it grand.

Here's to not having to pass through that ordeal again in this life...

explaining the below

My team, Barcelona (aka Barca) won the European Championship last night. It's a big deal. The two vids are of people celebrating in a fountain near where I live. It lasted into the morning...

Puyols and Ronaldihno celebrating the European Championship!! 

My team 

confession

I felt I should announce that I spike my hair somewhat in the front. That way if you happen to see me sometime from the other side of the street but you don't think its me because what you see is someone who looks like me but has hair sticking up in the front, you can then know that yes it probably is me as I now wear my hair standing up. And the other thing you should know is that I have been wearing it like so for a good while now. I am sorry I haven't told you before, its just that a lot has been going on and it all happened so suddenly. Just so you know...

faith

can't remem if i already posted this or not...

_______________________


sometimes it all comes together
like formulas and puzzles
sorted out against dark
randomness and chaos

and sometimes it all falls apart
leaving empty spaces at night
pondering unanswerable moments
to be left till ends of time

and in those days
one must decide
how weary souls will choose to climb
the steepening path of their design

coffee buzz

As I posted the last post I reread the subtitle for my blog and was provoked to add the following thoughts about coffee.

I drink a lot and would feel justified in saying that without it my person suffers. That is to say that I teach more that just the first english class after lunch with drooping eyelids and drifting thoughts... I guess I could summarize by simply saying that I NEED it.

However I have also noticed another phenomemon connected with my coffee consumption. Twenty minutes after I have drank a cup of the stuff I feel my heart rate jump significantly. And for the subsequent 45 minutes it tends to stay at the accelerated level of beating. Feelings of jumpiness, a steady shake, and occasionaly shortness of breath top it off. It's not something I particularly enjoy.

So I am left with no where to go. And like a broken man, I always end up back with the drink. Jumpy with an accelerating heartbeat is a small price to pay for the momentary satisfaction of tasting the smooth black liquid go down and make all drowsiness disappear...

But sometimes I wonder if I am becoming just another hypochondriac like the rest of them...

May's here now.

I just felt I should acknowledge that fact. That and how I have slacked. I feel like my life had a two month lull followed by two months of chaos. I noticed that during the two month lull I wrote more stuff, thought a bit more, and generally was more active on this. Then during the two following months I did close to very little. O mejor dicho, jacksquat.

But grace is free and abundant to all and so maybe it can cover my lack of written communication.

I am reading Isaiah at the moment and just wanted to say that I found chapters 36 and 37 particularly good. Other than that I haven't been reading much. Not even CS Lewis.

My novel (like I can even say my novel) is still in its first stages. Unfortunately those stages haven't progressed since the time I announced it's beginnings. I would like to think that maybe once lazy summer days hit I will try and move it along a bit. Which year those lazy summer days happen to happen in is another thing in itself.

I have even written less emails. But then you know that already don't you? However music listening has not decreased on the whole. I have rediscovered a band called Athlete from England and my Spanish guitar cd. Not to mention a guy from Mexico called Alex Campos and an old favorite David Gray. Quality stuff.

In other recent news I have regressed to my Christmas shaving routine. That is to say, whenever the heck I feel like it and no other time.

As for physical activity I continue to have longings to get on the football pitch but still lack a platform to do so. I play basketball maybe once a week so I am hopefully not dimishing in that area. I jog about once a month. All in all I can't seem to put on any weight as much as I would like to. This does not bode well, because as I am due to come back and do concrete for a couple months it certainly means that I won't put any on then!

During the past two weeks I have found myself teaching english while daydreaming about other places and times... That is to say that I have reached the point I can do it subconciously. O mejor dicho, without being mentally present. This can only mean that I teach too much english. Some classes just after lunch I try to do half asleep as well as mentally not present. I think at that point though, the quality actually starts to suffer. Don't tell the parents.

I preached last Sunday in Spanish for the first time. I think it went well and of course it was a small but momentous occasion for me in my quest to learn this language.

Well I have to go by bread now. Hopefully it will be hot and soft. If it is I will tear a bit off and eat it as I walk back home. Till next time.