Everything is Great

A drink for you a drink for me

Just imagine powering your next cellphone the same way you power yourself, Sweets and Carbonated Beverages. Sony has developed batteries that charge themselves by breaking down sugar. And soon hopefully we can own one for they have made remote control cars that use these sugar batteries and the cars drive faster depending on how sugary the liquid used to power them is. I think that Car races should be used to test sugar levels in all of my beverages.  Love it, love it. Electronics with a sweet tooth. :)






Now how long before they design one of these to be surgically embedded into the stomach so that we can cut down on our sugar consumption without, you know, consuming less sugar. But in the techogeeks happy future the stomach battery could be used to power an induction charger so you can charge up your cellphone every time you place it into your pocket.

The Issue of Time

We often complain about different and assorted particular wastes of time. Computer Games, Cable TV, but then we spend hours watching YouTube videos or reading technology blogs.  (or wasting a day playing in Google Wave)

So what is a good use of time? Work is good, but we denigrate anyone who works all the time. This is not what we want. Our goal is most often to find some way to create residual income so that we can stop working. Or rather work when we want to, on what we want to.  As it stands work often keeps us from doing that which we enjoy.  Yet always doing that which we enjoy gets us labeled as Addicted, Couch Potato, and Hedonist.

Effective use of time seems to need to consist of some kind of balance.  This could say something about obsession. However, it is also said unless you become obsessed/passionate over something you will never have the wherewithal to keep going in face of all that rears up against you. Without Passion how can you ever become a world class bobsledder, achieve level 80 in World of Warcraft, or learn to play John Schmidt as it is meant to be played.

Be passionate but not obsessed, focused but not addicted, specialize but remain practical. This begins to get confusing, is it a good use of time to spend a week deciding what is a good use of my time?

I begin to believe that there is no correct way to use my time effectively, in fact everything is a waste of time to someone. Family is a waste of time says the career oriented person. Girls are a waste of time says the rejected man. Work is a waste of time says the guy living in his parent’s basement.  As is art, television, sports, movies, religion, school and blogs.

The use of time is one of our biggest and perpetual problems. Our time is our major non-renewable resource. Time is the real currency. It is not one we can stockpile, not one we can earn. It cannot be saved it is slowly and constantly metered out to us. We can exchange it for money, pleasure, sleep, learning, or a mansion in Heaven. We cannot exchange it, save it or buy more of it. Every hour of every day we must use it.

So time use is subjective, if you think spending all day playing video games is a good use of your time then have at it. Carry on. But at the end of the day, the week, when someone asks you ‘What have you been doing?’ you should be able to look back and say yes this is what I did, instead of shuffling our feet and promptly avoiding their question. We need to be happy with where we are.

And where we are going.

“A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.” – James Allen,  As a Man Thinketh

As thoughts shape our future so does our actions, premeditated and accidental. What do we do with our time every day forms and changes what our options are in the days to come. You cannot choose your circumstances but you can shape them.

Now for something a little humorous, I ran across this idea a handful of months ago and threw it into a talk I wrote for church, but since it seems that the powers that be don’t want me talking in church I will give it a second life here. Plus I feel that it fits well in this idea of using time properly, especially for you religious type folk out there. Answer these questions for me please.

By the raising of the hand, how many of you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God?

How many have read the whole Bible?

Ok, how many have read the Harry Potter Series?  Lord of the Rings? Twilight?

Here is a quick word count

Number of words in the Bible (KJV) is between 774,746 - 789,626
 Twilight - 575,710 words
Lord of the Rings - 525,405 words
And Harry Potter a staggering 1,090,739 words.  That is like reading the bible one and a half times, or reading the Old Testament once and The New Testament three times thru.

No longer Human

There is a terrible dysfunction that sometimes happens to people once we get behind a camera, everything that happens in front of us seems a little less real when filtered thru this lens. We become divorced from life, one step farther away from reality we become third party participants in our own life. Once you have a camera in front of your face you are no longer the same person, you become an observer not an actor. Sometimes all that happens looking at life thru your camera is that you act less, you live less. It becomes night unto impossible with a camera to climb a tree, too jump off of hoodoo’s or to pick up a game of Frisbee, however there is also a darker problem with the idea of disassociating with life behind a camera.

There are so many stories that we hear that are sobering in what we as humanity are capable of. I read this article today there are two videos at the end, the first video was interesting and worth watching. I, However, could not bring myself to watch the second video mentioned.

Imagine, to be laying there in pain, abused, broken, dying.   Fortunately there is someone else there, someone to offer help, or if it is too late for that, comfort. But no, no they are no longer human, and the last thing you see before you fade out is a stranger coldly standing over you recording your last breaths.

Perhaps it would have been better to slip slowly into darkness, Alone.

Without our humanity we are nothing.

I wait

Forgotten, boxed up, missed for a moment. Ignored.

Then found, found but still lost, picked up, Noticed.

Taken to that place of lost founds.

Given a place, this home is not my home.

Yet redemption is possible.

A cursory examination which leads to a recognition, a remembered history. Oh there you are Peter.

So I wait

You left me and I had to learn how to live without you. But now I know; now I know I don’t need you.

Yet I wait

At the beginning you carried me everywhere. I was with you there and always. I am lost because you needed me, because I was always found. It took just a moment, a flicker of light, a momentary distraction.

Here I wait

Not enough value to pick up, too much to throw away. Only of worth for our shared history. If you saw me after so much time would I be more lost or more found.

But now I know; now I know I don’t need you. But can you return? Perhaps, but never again is there inseparability. We both know now You don’t need me.

Still I wait

Swarms of Thought

How many of my thoughts, born in a moment of ecstasy, fly around for a day or two and then fall lifeless to the ground. How much of what I think, of what I am will become just words on a page, heaping death in piles around my life. So much life forgotten and ignored. No one cares about these children of my mind. So much wasted effort, so much hidden self. How can I do anything more? Death loves me.

And now the work of resurrection begins

Bless this Mess

There are 5 kinds of prayer; Praise, Thanksgiving, Confession/Seeking Forgiveness, Supplication/Seeking help for self, Intercessory/Seeking help for others.

I didn't do an exhaustive search, but I only found one reference to prayers over food in the Old Testament. Found in the books of Moses, of law

Deuteronomy 8
10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
11 Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:
12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;
13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;
14 Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
15 Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
18 But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.

Here we are told to prayer after we eat and give blessings to the lord. We are told to pray and give praise to the lord so that we do not forget him, for the consequence of forgetting the lord is that we shall surely perish. However, reading thru these verses and the fact that we are told to pray after we have eaten, rather then before. I think we are being warned of a human trait to forget the lord when we are no longer in need. We easily forget to pray in praise and thanksgiving. So we are told, when we have eaten and are full and no longer are in need of sustenance, when we are living in a nice house, when we have wealth, then is when we need to make sure to remember the lord.

In the New Testament Christ himself prays (Mark 8:7, Matthew 14:19 and John 6:11) before he breaks bread to feed the multitude of thousands. And his prayer is stated as 'giving thanks'. Also during the Last Supper, Christ also prayed and gave thanks, before the breaking of the bread.

1 Corinthians 11
23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.

Here the last supper echoes the sayings of Deuteronomy 8, as you take the sacraments you do it in remembrance 'ye do shew the Lord's death till he comes', you proclaim Christ until he returns. Paul keeps the tradition of prayers of thanksgiving during mealtimes in Acts 27:35 (And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when he had broken it, he began to eat.) Or in his first epistle to Timothy 4:4-5 (4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.)

Prayers at meal times are there to train us to remember the lord always. The prayers are less about the meals over which they happen but about our recognization of our place before the Lord, that from him all things flow.

Romans 11:36 (For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen)