12/31/14

Caged Bird
By Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Gabrielle Aplin - Home

12/28/14

Fast.
A period of such abstention or self-denial.
Wait.
stay where one is or delay action until a particular time or until something else happens.
Long.
a yearning desire.

Why fast? Why wait? Why long?

What is it about the journey? Why is it more important than the destination?

The question has always been proposed:
Do the ends justify the means?

I would say the means are the ends. Or rather that the ends only hold any sort of value what so ever because of the means.

What is it about the taste of a meal after having taken so long to prepare it?
Why does it taste so much better?

Without fasting, without waiting, longing, what do we have in this life?

Why does the shower after living in my car for a week feel better than any other shower I've ever had?

Every morning before work I wake up and shower almost as an annoying part of my morning routine. Yet when I fast from it after the waiting period I find new joy, new appreciation for the shower and each drop of water feels better than all the months of drops prior.

Why?

Why does the first bite after we break fast taste better than limitless food whenever we want?

What is it about waiting for that wedding night?
What is it about waiting for Christmas morning to exchange gifts?
What is it about the sunrise after a cold dark night?
What is it about the drink of water after a day in the garden?

What would happen if life was boiled down to merely ends and destinations?

whatever, whenever.

Travis just came downstairs I've lost my train of thought, and we are talking now.

Relient K - I Celebrate The Day

12/20/14

Religion is a breeding ground
Where the Devil's work is deeply found,
With teeth as sharp as cathedral spires,
Slowly sinking in.

God knows that I've been naive
But I think it makes him proud of me.
Now it's so hard to separate
My disappointments from his name.

Because shadows stretch behind the truth,
Where stained glass offers broken clues
And fear ties knots and pulls them tight.
It leaves us paralyzed.

But in the end such tired words will rest.
The truth will reroute the narrow things they've said.
The marionette strings will lower and untie
And out of the ashes, love will be realized.

God knows that we've been naive
And a bit nearsighted to say the least.
It's broken glass at children's feet
That gets swept aside unexpectedly

Sleeping At Last - Naive

12/17/14

Cosmology
Cambrian explosion
Uniformitarianism
Catastrophism
Gradualism
List of flood myths
Actualism
Modal realism
Paleoecology
Anthropology
Ontology
Theology
Truth
Faith
Science
Evidence
Perspective
Agenda
Cognitive dissonance
Survival
Surrender
Love

A man could get lost in Wikipedia forever. Research and searching. What is this?

Glen Hansard - Love Don't Leave Me Waiting

12/13/14

MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT
by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.
Want more of everything ready-made.
Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery any more.
Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something they will call you.
When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace the flag.
Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot understand.
Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion--put your ear close,
and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world.
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions
of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark a false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Sometimes
It's like you grew up down the street
It's such a mystery
The way you know me

Walk The Moon - Come Under The Covers

12/10/14

Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures


This tribe, the Cofan, has 17 varieties of ayahuasca, all of which they distinguish a great distance in the forest, all of which are referable to our eye as one species. And then you ask them how they establish their taxonomy and they say, "I thought you knew something about plants. I mean, don't you know anything?" And I said, "No." Well, it turns out you take each of the 17 varieties in the night of a full moon, and it sings to you in a different key.

When science meets aboriginal oral history

“Scientists are sitting around and academically discussing different theories about peopling of Americas, and you have all these different views on how many migrations, and who is related to, Then when we actually undertake the most sophisticated genetic analysis we can do today, and this is state of the art, genetically — we could have just have listened to them in the first place.”
-Eske Willerslev

chronological snobbery - the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.
-C.S.Lewis

We’re all a product of our time. We each think we live in the wisest, smartest era of history. What if our modern science is far too narrow minded? What if the lens and perspective it takes isn't the full story? What if there is more? More that won't ever be explored or discovered because it cannot fit anywhere in the narrow views and minds of those we have given all authority and power known as scientists.

The scientific method can it solve all of our problems? Can it seek out absolute truth?
Or is it merely another faith system generations from now people will shake their heads at embarrassingly?

What is reality? What is it to look through different lenses, to speak with humility confessing there is so much we don't know and possibly can't?

I find it difficult to truth authority and I'm not exactly convinced I should put my faith in the scientific communities laws, facts, and truths they seem to change with each new updated edition of the publication. Perhaps I'll wait until the dust settles to see where I stand.

Will the dust ever settle?

The Last Bison - Setting Our Tables

12/06/14

Last night was beautiful and I want to remember it. I want to bottle the moment the night and hold it dearly. The best I can do is hope my memory serves me correctly and these words revive such moments hold them in suspension.

Last night Alan dropped by before he went to hang out with Bailey. Brian came home after spending time with Lauren and Travis after spending time with Melissa. These nights I suppose will become more and more scarce as we grow older. Here I am the first of this group to reach 27 though Travis is only 2 months behind me it feels strange we are entering into our late 20's.

The night was rare and unique. We aren't in college anymore but we aren't yet husbands. This strange place between our childhood and adulthood. The self awareness of it all is what makes this time so interesting.

Our conversations orbit around such things as careers, women, buying houses, retirement plans, beliefs. Yet in the same breath we joke, we laugh, we act like we are 19 again. Its interesting to me how I've known these guys since I was a kid. We've grown together. We've gone separate ways and yet still come back to this friendship.

We play the same board games we did as kids but the conversation has grown with us. The drinks turned from mountain dew to bourbon. The competitive edge has rounded to a smooth bend of friendship.

What are we right now? We are in this place where we can spend time hanging out with 40 year old friend and yet at the same time go to the bars like we are 21.

I have no problem going to sleep around 10 on a Friday night or staying out until 2.

I want to live in my car and travel around the country, yet I want to put some away for retirement.

Alan talked about protesting in Ferguson. How he can up in leave to go and not worry about leaving his wife, his kids, his job just go and protest and not worry about if he gets arrested. Yet talking with older friends he learned the perspective of how temporary this place we are in truly is. We won't always be able to go wherever risking our lives because our lives will mean more to others. They depend on us. What a selfish act to get arrested stranding my wife to care for our kids solo. Yet we need people there showing the numbers of those who won't settle for injustice.

I told him about how I want to climb Mt Whitney, I want to hike the PCT and the appalachian, and hike around Machu Picchu. Yes right now I feel as good if not better than I did when I was in high school but someday and I'm not sure when that day will come, hiking around for days and days will not seem fun...even still it won't be possible someday. Its strange how temporary everything is. I think that is what makes youth so beautiful and rare.

in my 20's each year has been better than the last but the scales will tip. They must and I wonder what that will feel like. What will it be like to look at my life and admit my best days are behind me? When will that day come?

But now, these days, this time, we are young, we are single, we are friends who's roots have been growing deeper and deeper into each others lives. Brian Travis and I sat together talking about Travis buying a home and us living there helping him pay the mortgage. I use to vomit at the thought of friends spending there time talking like adults now I see the beauty and value in friends growing together helping each other on deeper levels than simply spending time together for entertainment. Friends are valuable.

Friends help make life's weight lighter. Friends help make life's pain easier. Friends help life's pressures, worries, and also life's celebrations more joyous.

How beautiful it is to attend a friends wedding and share in that day with them.

I have always been told how love makes the world go round but the more I live the more I see the truth in such statements.

Without love life is only existence.
Life is merely survival.
God is love.
God breathed the breath of life into us.
God breathed His Spirit, His image into us.
God breathed love into this reality and through it life and life to the fullest is now possible.
That thirst for something is satisfied in love.

God is love.
Love is home.
Home is where the heart is.
Home is where I am understood.
God is home.

Brady Toops - Come On Home

12/02/14

Dear 28 year old Adam,

I've just turned 27. 2014 was the year I backpacked around Europe with Freado, his wife, and her cousin. I saw the freaking pope. I met a wild horse on a mountain. I saw the sistine chapel ceiling. I tasted a family meal in Rome. I watched God's faithfulness create food from dirt at the Arawak garden. This is also the #yearofthebeard14 in fact as I am writing this I still have the thing on my face. This was also the year I did the Parish Farming Internship in Norwood with Erin and Robert. 26 has been a very good year and I'm excited to enter into my late 20's.

Things I'm doing now:
I live in Clintonville with Travis, Brian, and Ellen. I'm still working at the VECC I've been there about a year and a half now. I'm still trying to learn how to play guitar but finding time to practice hasn't been easy but I do find that when I can it is very rewarding. I finished my first season at the Arawak Garden and I can't begin to put into words how that small patch of land makes me feel. I have confidence that you will always remember the way it felt to work that land even if you forget what crops God grew.

Things I hope you're doing:
I think this year I finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. I think I want to be a Kindergarten teacher but I don't want to go back to school. I'm not ready for homework and school debt just yet. I'm not sure when I will go back to school but at least I have the vision and the path I'd like to take. I love the preschoolers I work with now. They teach me so much about how to be a human and how to live life. I want to keep learning from children for the rest of my life and I want to hopefully teach them some things in return. I hope you are enjoying a beardless face. Remember how difficult eating was. Remember the pain when a kid would pull on it. Remember how your friends would laugh as things would get stuck in it or you would act like a caveman. I hope you are still working at the Arawak garden or you've bought land of your own in the city and started working it. I hope you went to Egypt. I hope you climbed Mt. Whitney. I hope you still have this amazing long hair. I hope you never worry about money. I hope you keep fighting for freedom for others and yourself. I hope you are still hanging out at Fruit of the Vine and I hope you never stop. I hope you're still learning at Franklinton Gardens.

Things I've learned since turning 26:
I learned what I want to be when I grow up. I learned more about who God is. I learned about community in Norwood. I learned how important it is to be hospitable. I learned how difficult and yet how rewarding it is to need other people. I learned how we, the living, depend on the sacrifices of the dead in order to continue in life. I learned how none of us are self sufficient and how thankful I am that we aren't. How strange it is that men can grow beards. What is a beard? Hair pushing out of my jaw and cheek. How does this much hair fit behind my skin? Why is it that long hair on our heads is feminine yet hair on the rest of our bodies is masculine? What is it that if I let go and allow hair to grow it completely changes my appearance. I look older, I look different. I look scary. I look crazy. How does letting a beard grow naturally do all of those things? Why did God allow some men to grow beards? After growing this beard for 11 months I think I have realized like most things in our lives God doesn't want us to simply let nature take over. I first started growing the beard as an act of letting go and it has become a test of my word. But as the year has gone I've realized that we humans are called to constantly be shaping Creation, with respect, shaping. Eucharist is not simply wheat and grapes. There is a rendering that takes place first. We are not simply naked. God rendered the first clothing from animal skins. We are called to shape, render, create, in this life. Along with that comes unique grooming. Shaving, tattoos, piercings, hair cuts, jewelry, clothing, I believe God wants all of the different cultures to be expressed and celebrated in this life and in the reality after. I look at myself in the mirror these days and I see a man who has let go and I find confidence in the fact that I can let go but I find freedom that I don't have to. In the mirror I see the animal part of me, coming to terms with my mortality. Humans stink, we bleed, we die. I am no longer trying to avoid or deny my humanity. I sin. God as Jesus didn't flee from humanity, didn't flee from the mess why should I? Today I exist and today I celebrate existing for 27 years I can't guarantee I'll make it to 28 but at this moment I exist and that is so rare and beautiful. I am thankful I am not simply an animal and I am not simply an angel. I am that beautiful rare creation in between. I am human. I am Adam. I learned life is about dependency, community, hospitality, mercy, and most of all LOVE. With all this good I also learned that marriages can fail. I learned that if we don't work at it our lives can fall apart. I learned that friendships are the greatest things to invest in. It seems like every year I learn more about love. This year I learned love is more than something towards a woman. Love towards my friends is a very beautiful thing. I'm learning to value the love we have for each other and how long we've been friends. I'm learning that the love between friends is a powerful thing and as years pass I don't think I'll fully understand how valuable they are until I'm on my deathbed looking back at this life I've spent. I know with each passing year more and more of these men get married and have children. I am trying to enjoy the time I can spend with them. I am enjoying those friends who are single at this point. I'm growing and healing together with them as we go through divorces, as we become fathers, as we become husbands. As we enter our careers. We are facing these parts of life together. We are facing these fears not alone but with love and support. I know this season will one day pass but for now it is beautiful and I am so thankful for it.

1987 Born
1988 00
1989 01
1990 02
1991 03
1992 04
1993 05
1994 06 Started Grade School
1995 07
1996 08
1997 09
1998 10
1999 11
2000 12
2001 13
2002 14
2003 15
2004 16
2005 17
2006 18 Graduated High School
2007 19
2008 20
2009 21
2010 22 Graduated College
2011 23
2012 24
2013 25
2014 26

11/29/14

The Soil, Her dog, and She

silence, nothing but the crunching of our footsteps and the sound cold air makes as it passes by you hurrying to where it needs to be next. The city skyline behind us the resting soil before us. How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist. I try as much as I can to hold this moment. To fold this night neatly and keep it in my pocket. But the very reason that makes it so beautiful is the very reason it must end. Nothing lasts forever. Love must be free. I stop and we stand there in the mixture of soil and rocks worn to show the path many before us have taken. I take a deep breath and look at her.

God it's been a year. I never thought I'd see her again. Here she is beside me her arm wrapped through mine in the cold. She's beautiful. I've been to Paris, Rome, Victoria Falls, Wicklow Mountains, NYC, Pacific, Atlantic, I've looked towards the stars, I've watched a seed sprout life, there is nothing on this planet like her and the beauty she holds through my lens.

I try to walk as slowly as possible but the night is slipping away. This could be the last time I ever look into her eyes or listen to her dream. We get back to her car and I'm not ready yet I set her on the trunk of her car and try as hard as I can to keep this moment. Jesus how I love her. Her laugh, her smile, her mind, her heart, she gets it.
She gets me.
To be understood. That's home to me. She feels like home.

we pull up to her house and we are sitting in her car like a year hasn't past. We are sitting in her car talking, laughing, singing the Avett brothers, existing. She, me, and the dog between us. Perfect night. How rare and beautiful it was. I want every night to be like that night but the beauty of it, the truth and reality of it is that I can't get what I want. I have to release my grip hold my hands open.

A year had past and I am exactly where I was. Is time cyclical? I am thankful for this night I wasn't expecting to ever have another with her. Life is grace. I don't know if I will die today, I don't know if she will. I don't know if I'll ever see her again but in that moment. In that time we simply existed together and it was enough.

How rare and beautiful it truly is, that we exist.

The Avett Brothers - Salvation Song

11/26/14

I woke up from the same dream:
Falling backwards, falling backwards
Until it turned me inside out.

Now I live a waking life
Of looking backwards, looking backwards;
A model citizen of doubt.

Still I’m pinned under the weight
Of what I believed would keep me safe.
So show me where my armor ends,
Show me where my skin begins.
Like a final puzzle piece
It all makes perfect sense to me…
The heaviness that I hold in my heart belongs to gravity.
The heaviness that I hold in my heart’s been crushing me.

I’ve been worried all my life,
A nervous wreck most of the time.
I’ve always been afraid of heights,
Of falling backwards, falling backwards.
I’ve been worried all my life.

Until one day I had enough
Of this exercise of trust.
I leaned in and let it hurt,
Let my body feel the dirt.
When I break pattern, I break ground.
I rebuild when I break down.
I wake up more awake than I’ve ever been before.

Sleeping at Last - Pluto

11/22/14

The Fear of Love

I come to the fear of love
as I have often come,
to what must be desired
and to what must be done.

Only love can quiet the fear
of love, and only love can save
from diminishment the love
that we must lose to have.

We stand as in an open field,
blossom, leaf, and stem,
rooted and shaken in our day,
heads nodding in the wind.
-Wendell Berry

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

11/19/14

How a pizza joint only open one day, doesn’t advertise and doesn’t list prices has been around for two years http://t.co/g1pLXOPY3F

— Weekend Edition (@NPRWeekend) October 27, 2014

A photo posted by Adam🌱 (@zmorris93) on Apr 4, 2014 at 4:45am PDT

Lord Huron - Ends of the Earth

11/15/14

On the feast of St. Nicholas in 1273, Aquinas was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s, his secretary and friend, expostulations he replied, "The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me." When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said, "I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw." Aquinas died three months later while on his way to the ecumenical council of Lyons.

Sleeping at Last - Saturn

11/12/14

The fact is that the awakening we seek may depend on the depth and richness of our own uncertainty.

Help, O Lord - Ordinary Time

11/08/14

Parish Farming Internship 2014

May

July

September

November

Lived Project

The Steel Wheels - Dance Me Around the Room

11/05/14

...They snatch
what they can carry and fly
into the trees. They flirt out
with tail or beak and waste
more sometimes than they eat.
And the man, knowing
the price of seed, wishes
they would take more care.
But they understand only
what is free, and he
can give only as they
will take. Thus they have
enlightened him. He buys
the seed to make it free.

...There will be
a resurrection of the wild.
Already it stands in wait
at the pasture fences.
It is rising up
in the waste places of the cities.
When the fools of the capitals
have devoured each other
in righteousness,
and the machines have eaten
the rest of us, then
there will be the second coming
of the trees. They will come
straggling over the fences
slowly, but soon enough.
The highway will sound
with the feet of the wild herds,
returning. Beaver will ascend
the streams as the trees
close over them.
The wolf and the panther
will find their old ways
through the nights. Water
and air will flow clear.
Certain calamities
will have passed.
and certain pleasures.
The wind will do without
corners. How difficult
to think of it: miles and miles
and no window.
-Wendell Berry

Run River North - Foxbeard

11/02/14

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

I don't know if what I did was the right thing.
I didn't ask for this.
I didn't seek this out.
Would silence be the better choice?

Martin Luther King never seemed to think so.

But who am I?

Who am I to pick up stones?
Who am I to point fingers?

The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

Am I supposed to judge?
Do I have the right to make such decisions?
Can I see the heart of men?

You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?

What right do I have to throw stones?

I am better than no man.
I am cleaner than no man.

my sins have stained my record with equal portions as the very man I saw.

Oh what guilt is this?
What have I done?
What price have I paid?
Did I do the right thing?

The right thing...what the fuck is the right thing?

I feel like a coward.
I feel like a hypocrite.
I feel shame.

What is the loving thing to do?
to let my brother experience the consequences of his actions?
Or to show mercy and keep my mouth shut?

My heart is heavy.
Of all the bible studies
All the small groups
All the books
All the sermons
Here I am, and no one has taught me how to handle this.

God I didn't ask for this.
Give me peace Jesus.
Give me courage.

Run River North - Monsters Calling Home

10/27/14

10/15/14
Something that is on my mind and I want to share. Monday Night Service is a ministry that was founded on bringing more teaching and spiritual growth to those that are served by the pantry. The Bible study was a integral part of the purpose of Monday Night Service. It was to give those touched on Saturday morning pantry the means to "give them more" in coming alongside their journey to and with Jesus.

As you know many of our serving volunteers may not be able to stay for the entire evening. Some come to lead worship and some have to leave after providing and serving the meal. However, it has been burdened my heart that all of the core ministry team does not participate in the entire ministry of a Monday Night which I would like to see change.

I feel it is important that each of us as the core ministry team be there for the entire ministry from worship, to meal and to the Bible study. It is why we are there. While there is a physical meal, for many of the beginning years the purpose of Monday was the feeding of the Word of God. If the core ministry team/leads do not find it important to stay for the Bible study, this is not in line with the vision for the ministry in which Monday Night Service was started.

I would like for you to pray and seek the Lord's direction. I am also asking that if you are a core team member of this ministry that you stay for the Bible study. When I return from Chicago, we can discuss this individually and as a group, but it saddens me that this ministry's entire core team does not stay for the Bible study.

- Kelly


10/24/14
Hello everyone, below you will find the schedule for this coming 4th Monday of the month. Greg, you and your group are on for worship and the meal. Jim you are finishing us up in the book of Romans, Chapter 16. What a wonderful time it has been in the book of Romans.

Starting this Monday we will be switching up the schedule of activities during the course of the evening, please be sure to review the new evening timeline below:

5:30 Doors Open to guests (group/meal should be here)
6:00-6:10 Announcements
6:10-6:40 Worship
6:40-7:10 Bible Study
7:10-7:40 Meal and then cleanup
(food served by small group)
Cleanup- group helps clean up pantry and kitchen.
All serving, kitchen and other activities will pause during the teaching/message.
Matthew 4:4 - Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ " (Deut. 8:4)



Tonight as I drove back from the Pantry I reflected on this past weekend.
God's will too great to be considered a coincidence.
There in the wilderness in that far off place witnessing what I saw.
What do I do with this?
I didn't ask for any of it but here I am.
What would You have me do?
Ed said tonight we will not have the meal after the bible study.
all volunteers are welcome no matter if they can stay for the full time or not.

I sat there in that building listening to the two of them speak thinking about the years we have spent together. How many cups of coffee and scoops of potato salad have we seen pass through that building.

And there I was sitting on a log stoking the fire as my friends and I set up camp and prepared dinner after the half day hike to where we would rest for the night. Why was I there at that time? The original plan was to start Friday night. Why that forest to hike through? Why that weekend? It was suppose to be earlier in the month but schedules shifted. That moment in time that collision course orchestrated perfectly and me there on the log blank into the fire and words, empty words, rattled into my ears and soaked in my brain. Words but words seem so silent with the scream of sight.

Why did we bring the dog? It was a last minute add to the crew and without it's leash it wouldn't have wondered off. Mutual friends too strange. The whole situation too much to process as I sit jabbing the pile of embers.

Now what?
ignore it?
attack with it?
invite a third party?

The older I get the more curtains in life I seem to pull back. Is any of it real?
Are there any sincere?
oh how I thirst for something genuine. Something I can put a flag in and know this, this is a rock that will not wash away. But where do I find such a thing?

Does one even exist? and if not what does that mean as far as pulling curtains? Will I one day pull the final one and confirm my greatest fear?

But this entire situation it seems to strange to be chance.

Christ show me the way. Let me drink from Your peace. Let me rest on Your path. Show me oh Lord.

Down in the River to Pray - Alison Krauss

10/23/14

Christian cobblers, does his duty not by putting little crosses or ichthuses on them but by making the best shoes they can make and selling them at a fair price so their neighbors can have good shoes. A cobbler, a smith, a peasant, every man, has the office and function of his calling, and yet all alike are consecrated priests and bishops, and every man should by his office or function be useful and beneficial to the rest, so that various kinds of work may all be united for the furtherance of body and soul, just as the members of the body all serve one another.
-Martin Luther

Damien Jurado - Sheets

10/18/14

Council of Jerusalem 0050
First Council of Nicaea 0325
First Council of Constantinople 0381
Synod of Hippo 0393
The Council of Carthage 0397 Issued a canon of the Bible
Council of Ephesus 0431
Second Council of Ephesus 0449
Council of Chalcedon 0451
Second Council of Constantinople 0553
Third Council of Constantinople 0681
Second Council of Nicaea 0787
Fourth Council of Constantinople 0870
Fourth Council of Constantinople 0880
East–West Schism 1053
First Council of the Lateran 1123
Second Council of the Lateran 1139
Third Council of the Lateran 1179
Fourth Council of the Lateran 1215
First Council of Lyon 1245
Second Council of Lyon 1274
Council of Vienne 1312
Fifth Council of Constantinople 1351
Council of Constance 1418
Council of Siena 1424
Council of Florence 1449
Synod of Constantinople 1484
Fifth Council of the Lateran 1517
The Protestant Reformation 1517
Council of Trent 1563 Vulgate
Church of England completed the King James Version in 1611
Synod of Jassy 1642
Synod of Jerusalem 1672
First Vatican Council 1870
Synod of Constantinople 1872
Second Vatican Council 1965

The History of Christianity can be summed up in one word: division.
If Jesus rose from the dead in the year 33 then there were only 17 short years before Christians started dividing. Even Christianity at it's root was a splitting from the Jewish faith.

Jesus came to fulfill the Jewish faith not divide it.

Even before Jesus there were the Samaritans and the Jews.

I see Jesus not caring about people being Samaritans Jewish or Gentile.

It makes my heart heavy spending a morning reading about countless councils over the last two thousand years all of them excluding and undoing and redoing. Over and over and over.

None of it looks anything like Jesus' actions and teachings.

How can any of these religions claim to know God while still remaining divided?

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
-Galatians 5

A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse. Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart.
-Mark 3

Show us how to love.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
-1 Corinthians 13

Lets die with the dying
Lets cry with the crying
Lets love like Jesus

Josh Ritter - Girl In The War

10/15/14

I woke in the morning my sleeping bag covered in dew, the fire reduced to a smoldering, although still showing life. The sky was dark but the sun was scaling the hillside making good on its promise of another day. I was the first one up so I sat silently in my cocoon sleeping bag. I locked my eyes on the hill where the sun would show its glory. The sky swirled with colors purples yellows orange the kind of stuff brushes dream of being dipped in. Eventually the sky turned blue but the sun wasn't revealed. I'm not use to this sort of sunrise. In the flat land of Wauseon I'm guaranteed a sunrise payoff but not in the hills here. I slowly leave my cocoon of heat and make may way over to the fire I grab a couple handfuls of straw and attempt to resurrect last night's fire. After a couple heavy blows from my mouth the fire is back giving me the heat I was hoping for.

Its interesting to think about last night's fire this mornings pile of ashes but just as God turns beauty from ashes and life from death I to get a taste of my image bearing Creator as I breath new life into the dead pile.

Tents slowly unzip behind my back and coffee is placed in my hands.

sipping and stoking I leave my masterpiece and make my way towards morning devotions.

After prayer and breakfast when the morning's chill was replaced by the afternoon warmth we headed to Brush Creek there we met up with Tom, Karen, and the two boys. They were in the boat Tom hand crafted. It looked like something straight out of the Lord of the Rings. We hopped aboard and rowed to the Ohio River.

There we swung on a rope swing off an island sat on the shore chewing lunch the weather was perfect. We headed back up the creek and once dried off we shared another warm welcoming meal together.

After the meal I headed back towards Columbus. I wonder what life would look like if I were born 100 or 200 years ago.

First Aid Kit - My Silver Lining

10/01/14

Isodore's Plough

St Isodore (1070 – 1130) the Farmer was born into a very poor but devout family in Madrid. He lived his life as a farm labourer yet found the time for daily devotion to prayer and often attended daily Mass. He married and had a child. One day the child fell into a deep well. His distraught parent’s prayed as they tried to help. Miraculously they watched the water level rise to bring the child to the surface. St Isodore was well known for his many miracles but he also had critics. Fellow workers once complained that he often arrived late in the morning for work because he attended Mass. His master, while investigating their complaint found St Isodore in Church but an Angel ploughing the field. On another occasion he was seen ploughing a field with an angel on either side of him. St Isodore’s wife would often keep a large pot of stew on the boil for her husband when he returned from work, knowing he was likely to be accompanied by poor people he met on his way home. On occasions the pot seemed to miraculously feed many more people than physically possible. St Isodore is the Patron Saint of Farmers and bricklayers as well as his home city, Madrid.

As I slowly pull around the curvy gravel road I see behind the cloud of dust two doberman pinschers, Merry and Pippin, racing in my rear view mirror towards the farm. I pull off into the grass to join the rest of the group. We are all greeted by two barefooted boys with wooden swords, Isaiah and Arbutus. Behind the two brothers is their father, Tom leading Violet the cow into the pasture and behind him is their mother, Karen. I stand back a bit as I watch this community reunite. I see decades of friendship in their smiles and embraces. This is so much bigger than me. Yet here I am invited to partake in this expression of love this expression of God.

We unpack our stuff in the yard pitching our tents in a row as if we were a tribe of nomads. I walk towards the barn stepping between two bails of straw I see a 1969 Volkswagen van. As we make our way to the back where the Christmas lights are strung about the dusty rafters I am hit with two distinct smells.
My grandparents barn in Lyons, Ohio. The barn my brother, our cousins, and I would climb and explore all over on the weekends we stayed with grandma and grandpa. Playing with old farm tools and running through the field behind it.
The other smell was a bit more recent and caught me by surprise. It smelled like N'Dola, Zambia. The simplicity and the beauty within it. These two memories triggered in an instant at a simple inhale of my tiny nose yet such vast places in my memory.

I'm reminded of my grandpa's death one year ago this past Monday. My grandma selling the farm house to move into a senior care center while I was home this past Labor day for the county fair. How much things have changed in her lifetime. How much things have changed.

We take a tour around the land. We see the brand new privy behind the barn, we see the newly planted vineyard, the chicken coop and the garden in front of it. My heart is nearly maxed and I haven't been here for an hour. Tom tells us the horn will blow three times when dinner is ready and he leaves us to our discussions.

After we settle in with our coffees and readers the environment is so completely different but the conversation and my friends are the same. We dig into discussions of Christ in the wilderness of the temptations of Christ, the temptations of all of us. How Jesus overcame them and how we pale in the shadow of His triumph yet hope in the mercy of His grace.

After the discussions our warrior friends put away their wooden swords and pick up their mallets inviting us to a game of croquet. The Lockridges share a mallet and ball as a team while Angela Mandy and I play individually, the rest of the group cheering as spectators. As the game goes on a frisbee is thrown over head. The dogs now joined by Kaiden add an element of surprise to the match as they trample through the field of play back and forth pulled by the desire to catch the disk. The air is completely silent with the exception of our laughter as Erin and Robert struggle to pass through the first wicket, Joshua runs with the dogs after the frisbee and jokes are made inbetween. The sun is setting and dusk is here. This moment is so peaceful.

After the game its nearly completely dark but the boys aren't finished yet. They have set up the capture the flag game and are ready to pick teams. We split and in almost complete darkness begin to strategize. After a bit of running, tripping, falling, and laughing a flag is captured and the game is over.

The horn blows and we make our way slowly up the hill exhausted and retelling our highlights of the game. We remove our shoes and enter into the single room home. Inside its a different feeling. The sun has fallen and the sky seems to remind us it is time to rest. The room is lit only by candles and very small lamps. We gather around the large table holding hands giving thanks to God for this meal and this day.

After the meal I find myself again lost in the midst of a beautiful community. I haven't met any of the people in the stories that are told. Some stories I've already heard before but I love hearing them all the same. The wine was flowing and the room ebb and flowed with sighs and laughter.

We existed our hosts' home thanking them over and over for the meal. We followed behind Joshua leading by the light of his headlamp to our campsite. There we built a fire and cracked open a few pumpkin beers. The conversation continued but this time of a different nature. Now outside we are reminded of our smallness. Under the stars in the cold dark of a late September night. This conversation was intimate. It was slow. It was precise. As the fire began to fade I wasn't ready for the day to end but I knew the only timepiece we had was the endurance of the logs. I asked if I should find more wood and my fears came true. The group politely refused as they stood one by one stretched and moved towards their dwellings for the night. Left alone I decided against a tent. I wanted the stars and the fire as my bedtime story.

I unrolled my sleeping bag and crawled inside looking up at the dark sky seeing all of God's stars crystal clear. My eye lids grew heavy and closed slowly like garage doors.

Breathe Owl Breathe - Swimming

09/26/14

You can't have roots and wings.

This is the weekend of the Parish Farming Internship we visit Isodore's Plough.

I'm finishing up some of the readings and my journal.

The morning is calm as I sip coffee and express my experiences over the last two months. The soothing sounds of morning pour out of the kitchen into the dining room table where I am perched. I can hear the sink running and the fridge door as Ellen completes her Friday morning routine. Travis stops and talks with me for a moment before he leaves for the morning commute.

I want so much to have wings.

I want to see every country
every city
every tree
every mountain
I want to stand on every continent.

But I hate money.
I don't want to slave away to pay for such things.

I am always reminded of what Christopher McCandless wrote:
Happiness only real when shared.

What good are wings if I fly alone?

Yet roots and feel so restricting.
roots give meaning and purpose to live.
Roots give color to the outlines of the painting of life.

How do I dig such roots while still feeding my hunger to explore?

As years seem to fly by I look at myself and see I am nearly 27.
...27 the start of my late twenties.

I've never been this old before.
My friends, my roots around me seem to be settling into the soil they are around.

I find myself trying to fly together but finding their nests beginning to be built.

I'm not ready for that yet. There is so much more to see and taste.
Marriage and family
those things can start in my 30's but now, in my youth I want to climb, I want to run, I want to see!

How many more summers of good knees do I have left?
How many more years of healthy lungs and strong back do I have to spend?

I'm not ready for my coffin couch with my Netflix grave.

I want to fly with my wings and yet I want to share with my roots.

I am so excited for this weekend. I love this Parish Farming Internship.
It always feeds me more than I can bare both physically and spiritually.

Young Rising Sons - High

9/20/14

As the sun went higher, the color faded and the earth gave way to nothingness, as though the color were a trick, as if the sun were teaching us there is no such thing as beauty, only what it chooses to shine a certain light upon that stimulates a certain chemical in our brains, as though the two were old lovers, teasing each other, reliving some forgotten memory.
But if they were teasing each other, they have certainly stopped. What we have here in all this dead dirt is the stuff of life without life's spark. All of us are made from this stuff, this dirt. Everything in life is just this magical soil, fairy dust, if you will. Plant a seed in the soil and that seed will find the magic around it to make some sprig of wood that, with time from the fairy dust around it, will make a tree, and with the aid of water and more dirt and a hundred years, a tree the height of a skyscraper and the width of a house. All of it from dirt. Grass grows the same way, carrots, potatoes, onions, apples on trees, barely for beer. Rocks are dirt fired in the furnace of the earth's belly, steel is processed rocks, diamonds are rocks forged in the compression of earth's weight, and people, you and I, are dirt lit with, depending on what you believe, the magic seed of the aliens, or the accidental nothingness of Darwin's dreams, or the warm breath of God, the spark of life, giving an embryo a heartbeat, the magical glint that brings the dirt alive, sets in its DNA a coded direction and a mysterious motion that becomes greater than a tree in complexity, able to question its own being, able to guess at its creation, able to love and to hate, to live inspired, then to die, to return to dirt, to the vast abyss of nothing that is a desert in midday, a sea of brown, only beautiful when the sun tricks the eye, only beautiful in the playful metaphor of light.
-Through Painted Deserts, Chapter 6 Trouble by Donald Miller

Echosmith - Cool Kids

09/17/14

It's actually the souls of the trees we're seeing in the winter. In summer everything is green and idyllic but in the winter, the branches and the trunks all stand out. Just look at how crooked they all are. The branches have to carry all the leaves to the sunlight. That's one long struggle for survival.

Robert Earl Keen- Road to No Return

09/13/14

Scuola di Atene


In the Stanza della Segnatura Raphael painted four walls science, theology, poetry, and justice four areas of human knowledge. The science and theology walls are on opposite ends of the room.

In the Scuola di Atene the wall for science it is divided down the middle into two ways of thinking. The sides are divided by the leaders of those schools of thought. The left side is Plato talking to the right side's Aristotle.

Plato was a philosopher of the theoretical that which cannot be seen. On his side of science there is among the crowd Pythagoras the mathematician focusing on theoretical math. Also on the left is Heraclides who believed all things were always in flux thinking by himself at the bottom of the steps writing on a block of marble. Heraclides is painted to look like Michelangelo. Rachael paid homage to Michelangelo who was painting the Sistine Chapel a couple rooms away at the time.

Aristotle who was a philosopher of the observable, the physical has his team on the right side. Euclid was the father of geometry a very tangible type of math. Diogenes one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Astronomers Ptolemy and Zoroaster one theorized about the moment of the planets and the other holding the celestial orb.

Even in the science area of human knowledge it is divided by the seen and unseen. None of these men were Christians yet here they are inside the Stanza della Segnatura. On the opposite side of the room there is La disputa del sacramento. This painting isn't separated side to side but top and bottom.

On the top there's God the Father, Jesus, Mary, John The Baptist, Holy Spirit Dove among the four gospels, Prophets and Saints surround the trinity.

On the bottom there is Fathers of religion, Priests, Popes, people like Dante. But the awesome thing about this wall is what is in the middle connecting the top and the bottom.

the Bread of the Eucharist the body of Christ is the link between the bottom and top. the bottom group is coming to understand the divine knowledge through the bread the link, the body of Christ. It is through this meal this communion that we are able to understand to reach to connect with God. The gap is bridged by Jesus. His body his blood.

In this time Science and theology lived in the same room. That room was in the Vatican of all places. Where the leaders of Christianity lived on the walls of that place were men who did not claim to be Christian. Today we separate our thinking. It is either science or theology. We cannot stand the contradiction. Yet in the past the two sat opposite each other but still in the same room. God and science together in man as we wrestle question and seek.

All truth is God's truth. Why are we today so afraid to seek? Why are we uncomfortable with the tension between the two? What happened to Christianity that thinking isn't valued instead only faith? Why can't both exist in my mind? Why can't science and theology balance like the struggles of my head and my heart.

Life should never be lived in black and white. Grey is where life and truth live. Right and wrong exist but they can take many forms and different in many situations. Strict law must always be balanced with loving mercy. Grace must always be tethered to truth.

We as humans are stuck in the middle of this room.
Not completely of nature and simply the physical realm.
Yet not completely spirit and of the heavenly.
We are in the middle. We are wrestling with decided to stand with the physical or the spiritual not knowing that the answer has always been both.

It is good to be physical. It is good to be spiritual. It is good to be human.

That is exactly what I am,
Human
Image of God
Soil

Adam.

La disputa del sacramento


Little Boxes - Walk off the Earth

09/10/14

Earlier this month I went home for the Fulton County Fair. I think ever since I have existed on this planet I have never missed one of these fairs. It has always felt like home. But this year was different.

It didn't feel like home.
I felt out of place.
I stood there with old high school friends listening to them talk and I slowly began to realize how much I have changed. The fair doesn't feel the way it once did not because the fair or the community has changed but rather because somethings have happened within me. I have grown. I have changed.

I travel back to Columbus and I go to my friends' house to hang out but even there I find myself uncomfortable with the subject of conversation. I feel out of place among who have always been my friends.

I come back to the place I live. I sit in the living room or at the table silent. Listening to conversation around me and I find myself again not exactly fitting in.

What is happening?

I am getting closer and closer to turning 27.
I have never been this old in my life.

I am beginning to see my friends grow and head in their paths that life is taking them.
I see my own path as I grow older and experience more.

Things are always changing.
I graduated high school
I graduated college
I've moved out
I've grown up
but there are changes no one warned me about.

No one told me about the slow subtle paths we all take and how such close friends begin to seem like strangers.

Where do I fit in?
Where do I belong?

I don't like making new friends. I've had these friends my whole life. What do I do when the people I love change. What do I do when our conversations become shallower and more on the surface?

I want the depth we once shared but now our deep thoughts have taken different paths. No one wants to hear my thoughts, my conversations because they do no interest they do not fit anymore.

How great the urge to fit it always seems as we live out our lives.

What if I found truth but no one wanted it? Would I live in lies to be with a community or would I live in truth alone?

The balance between my path and staying connected. How do I do it?
Life is so strange. Nothing stays the same.

No one told me 26 would look so different from 22. I wonder what 30 will look like. I worry about things I shouldn't.

I want to fit in. I want to belong. I want to feel home. But home keeps moving. I keep grasping for it and it seems like the space to stand is shrinking as the waters of time rise.

Grey or Blue - Jaymay

09/06/14

Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face.
Never yet thine eyes behold a tree;
'Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
'Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests a man, is man.
-Henry Sutton

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.
-Marcus Garvey

If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.
― Michael Crichton

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
― George Orwell

Study the past if you would define the future.
― Confucius

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.
― Aldous Huxley

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
― Winston Churchill

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
― Edmund Burke

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

You can’t tell where you are going, unless you know where you have been.

World Population:
AD 1 200 Million
1000 310 Million
1500 458 Million
1750 791 Million
1800 978 Million
1850 1.26 Billion
1900 1.65 Billion
1950 2.52 Billion
2000 6.07 Billion

United States Carbon Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Burning, Cement Manufacture, and Gas Flaring:
1800 0.01 metric tons of carbon per capita
1850 0.23 metric tons of carbon per capita
1900 2.37 metric tons of carbon per capita
1950 4.32 metric tons of carbon per capita
2000 5.34 metric tons of carbon per capita

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal.

An economy or economic system consists of the production, distribution or trade, and consumption of limited goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location. The economic agents can be individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. Transactions occur when two parties agree to the value or price of the transacted good or service, commonly expressed in a certain currency.

efficiency
economy

When I look back at the history of this world when I look at where we are today I think about the industrial revolution. Out of the 10,000 years of known human history we have only been living at this level for 250 years.

That's it. 250 years of machines and oil and engines. What price are we paying to live at this level of comfort? We have no history to look back upon and find the answers. We have never lived like this before.

Divorce
Obesity
Depression
Boredom
Global warming
High fructose corn syrup

We have no idea the price we are paying to live like this. We are writing the new history as we go.

We have never had this many people living on the planet at one time before.
our use of fossil fuels is increasing per person as our population increases.
Something is going to give.
There will be a tipping point.

thousands of years later people will learn about the industrial revolution this short period in human history where we sucked resources from the earth to create fossil fuel slaves in order to control the climate, to avoid sweat, to avoid work, to sit in chairs for our lives. To dodge pain.

Our scientists speak with such arrogant confidence.
Our economic leaders have all the power.

but the reality of it all is that we have no idea what we are doing because we have never been here before in history.

In the past God use to have all authority
then Kings, emperors, chefs, rulers had it all
Today money rules.

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?
-Matthew 6:24

Today I see the world choosing money over God. I see the world saying life isn't more than food. Our body isn't more than clothing. I see the world loving money and hating God. But at what cost? What are we doing? Where are we heading? Are all of these luxuries really increasing our quality of life or hollowing us out?

I wonder what the history books will say about this time I live in.

Radical Face - Doorways

08/27/14

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.
-Jesus

The Novel Ideas - Running Speed

08/20/14

Atoms and molecules contain electrons. It is often useful to think of these electrons as being attached to the atoms by springs. The electrons and their attached springs have a tendency to vibrate at specific frequencies. Similar to a tuning fork or even a musical instrument, the electrons of atoms have a natural frequency at which they tend to vibrate. When a light wave with that same natural frequency impinges upon an atom, then the electrons of that atom will be set into vibrational motion. If a light wave of a given frequency strikes a material with electrons having the same vibrational frequencies, then those electrons will absorb the energy of the light wave and transform it into vibrational motion. During its vibration, the electrons interact with neighboring atoms in such a manner as to convert its vibrational energy into thermal energy. Subsequently, the light wave with that given frequency is absorbed by the object, never again to be released in the form of light. So the selective absorption of light by a particular material occurs because the selected frequency of the light wave matches the frequency at which electrons in the atoms of that material vibrate. Since different atoms and molecules have different natural frequencies of vibration, they will selectively absorb different frequencies of visible light.

Reflection and transmission of light waves occur because the frequencies of the light waves do not match the natural frequencies of vibration of the objects. When light waves of these frequencies strike an object, the electrons in the atoms of the object begin vibrating. But instead of vibrating in resonance at a large amplitude, the electrons vibrate for brief periods of time with small amplitudes of vibration; then the energy is reemitted as a light wave. If the object is transparent, then the vibrations of the electrons are passed on to neighboring atoms through the bulk of the material and reemitted on the opposite side of the object. Such frequencies of light waves are said to be transmitted. If the object is opaque, then the vibrations of the electrons are not passed from atom to atom through the bulk of the material. Rather the electrons of atoms on the material's surface vibrate for short periods of time and then reemit the energy as a reflected light wave. Such frequencies of light are said to be reflected.

The color of the objects that we see is largely due to the way those objects interact with light and ultimately reflect or transmit it to our eyes. The color of an object is not actually within the object itself. Rather, the color is in the light that shines upon it and is ultimately reflected or transmitted to our eyes. We know that the visible light spectrum consists of a range of frequencies, each of which corresponds to a specific color. When visible light strikes an object and a specific frequency becomes absorbed, that frequency of light will never make it to our eyes. Any visible light that strikes the object and becomes reflected or transmitted to our eyes will contribute to the color appearance of that object. So the color is not in the object itself, but in the light that strikes the object and ultimately reaches our eye. The only role that the object plays is that it might contain atoms capable of selectively absorbing one or more frequencies of the visible light that shine upon it. So if an object absorbs all of the frequencies of visible light except for the frequency associated with green light, then the object will appear green in the presence of ROYGBIV. And if an object absorbs all of the frequencies of visible light except for the frequency associated with blue light, then the object will appear blue in the presence of ROYGBIV.
-PhysicsClassroom.com


Color is the music light makes with creation.

Without light there is no color. In the darkness a green leaf is no longer green. We cannot see its colorless self without light but once light combines with the leaf they sing their song of green together.

Without light there is no color.

What does the world look like without light? It is dark it is colorless it is grim.

But when the light of the world enters in everything is illuminated.

It is light connecting with creation reflecting and accepting what light has to offer. As they create soundless music together. Our eyes much like our ears for music must be able to see the frequencies in which these songs are painted. We cannot hear a dog whistle just as we cannot see Ultraviolet.

It is in this perfect harmony of
light
creation
perception
that we are able to enjoy and unlock the beauty of this existence.

Without any one of these three things the music of color is lost to us.

at night the song of color rests awaiting its musician, light, to return and strum the rocks, the trees, the ocean, the animals, the birds, the flowers, the sky, the soil to begin its wonderful song of colors. Creation welcomes the light and returns its individual reflection based on the music that object can play.

Light plays the world like an orchestra using every instrument it can reach to play the notes on the color spectrum.

The symphony of light.

Dawes - When My Time Comes

08/16/14

From Eden's bowers the full-fed rivers flow,
To guide the outcasts to the land of woe:
Our Earth one little toiling streamlet yields.
To guide the wanderers to the happy fields.
-George MacDonald

One Night - The Steel Wheels

08/10/14

From this I was partly aroused by a glimmering of white, that, through the trees on the left, vaguely crossed my vision, as I gazed upwards. But the trees again hid the object; and at the moment, some strange melodious bird took up its song, and sang, not an ordinary birdsong, with constant repetitions of the same melody, but what sounded like a welcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.
-Phantastes A Faerie Romance Chapter X by George MacDonald

What is it to stand on top of a mountain if a helicopter dropped me of?
What is it to rest without previous strife?
What is it to drink without thirst?
To return home without first leaving?
Resurrection without death?
Forgiveness without betrayal?
Love without risk?
Freedom without fear?

Without Judas there is no salvation.

Ancient peoples found that their clothes got cleaner when they washed them at a certain point in the river. Do you know why? Because human sacrifices were once made on the hills above this river. Bodies burned, water seeped through the wooden ashes to create lye. The crucial ingredient. Once it mixed with the melted fat of the bodies, a thick white soapy discharge crept into the river. Can I see your hand please?
This is a chemical burn. It will hurt more than you have ever been burned and you will have a scar
Stay with the pain, don’t shut this out The first soap was made from the ashes of heroes, like the first monkey shot into space. Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing
Stop it! This is your pain. This is your burning hand its right here
No! Don’t deal with it the way those dead people do. Come On!
what you’re feeling is premature enlightenment
this is the greatest moment of your life and you’re off somewhere missing it
Listen to me. You can run water over your hand to make it worse, or, look at me. Or you can use vinegar to neutralize the burn
First you have to give up. First you have to know, not fear, know that one day you are going to die.
Its only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.
-Fight Club

Everywhere I look in my life I see this question being asked.

Safe or Free?

It keeps reappearing over and over. I know I must have written on here over a hundred times about this idea but there is something about this that awakes my heart and moves my spirit. There is something to this freedom I keep searching and seeking. What does this mean? Where will it lead me? Why does this fascinate me so deeply?

We want to eliminate pain but at the cost of freedom.
That is too hefty a price.
To lose freedom is to lose life.
What is it to eliminate pain but lose your life in the process?

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?
-Matthew 16

Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing.

Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows.

Sea Wolf - Middle Distance Runner

08/06/14

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.
― Dr. Seuss

Taste of the #wedding #YoureWelcome pic.twitter.com/viLlDMMvXD
— Adam Schuch (@ZMorris93) August 3, 2013

We found a seed in the most unlikely of places.
In the walls of a forgotten part of the city.
We put it in some soil wondering what would happen.
As it grew we held hands enjoying its beauty.
The sprout turned to a tree as its roots dug deep.
Together we pulled the weeds and watered its trunk.
We watched in awe as its flowers turned to fruits.
Laughing we tasted as we sat beneath its shade.
But like everything in life nothing lasts forever.
The leaves began to wilt they turned from green to brown.
I yelled at the damn tree punching it's bark.
She watched as the tree faded and I raged.
Quietly she turned and walked away.
After the tree fell to the ground I sat at it's stump.
Here I have built my home in this place of decay.
My rage has passed and I've grown so much.
My stone heart lifted by God's balloons.
Now I still sit under the up heaved roots.
But I say to this most unlikely place:
Love never fails and Love ALWAYS hopes!
I've seen a dead seed sprout wonderful life.
Hakuna Matata

I wonder if she still has that letter I wrote her in the fall.
I wonder if the painting I gave her still hangs on her wall.
if she wonders half as much as I do.
if she misses being in my arms.
if a dandelion still grows in the pot we painted.
if she wears my sweat pants.
if she still has the Tolstoy book,
the Meaning of Marriage,
Restoration Agriculture,
Reaching for Rainbows,
I wonder where is she, where she's been and where she's heading.
about the books she's read and her thoughts on them.
about the songs she sings and how they make her feel.
about the things she's seen and how they inspire her.
I wonder if she's living in freedom and what that means to her.
if certain places, smells, words remind her of us.
I wonder if she will ever reach out to me again.
if this silence stings as much on her end.
if she's waiting for me to make the first move.
if she's dreading that I'll do such a thing.
I wonder if she knows how beautiful she is.
if she believes what I wrote to her in that letter.
if I appear in some of her dreams.
The part I've played in her life, big or small.
Does she miss how I'd make her laugh?
Did she feel the common thread woven deep within?

I remember she never thought I was sincere.
But I've never been so vulnerable.
I wonder if she knew how much I hated heights as I screamed beside her at Cedar Point.
I wouldn't have ever been so vulnerable around anyone else.
I loved how she laughed as I gripped the coaster
In that moment she saw such a raw me that I'd never shown anyone before.
Under the stars on that night by her parents' old house
I actually got on a bike because I knew how much she wanted to train for that marathon.
how I wanted to support her in that.
I cannot believe I did that.
One of my deepest wounds exposed freely to her.
The things I spoke to her that I've never told anyone else.
She was, by far, my best friend
With her by my side I awoke from my sleep.
I threw off the blankets of fear and found life.
How badly I wanted to push her, to encourage her, to stand beside her, help her voice be heard, help her heart chase the dreams planted within her.
Maybe she'll never know how thankful I am for how she helped me.
Maybe I'll never get the chance to help her move towards Christ's heart.
Maybe that was the end of our story.

Nothing in this life lasts.
Seasons go and seasons come,
steady as the beating drum.
That was one hell of a beautiful season.
Nothing in this life lasts.

I choose to smile because it happened. She is by far the most beautiful thing I have experienced in Your creation God. I am thankful for the time we had. I hope she lives a life always free. I hope fear never touches her. Her heart shines such a beautiful reflection of Yours God.

Her beauty is nothing compared to what
She will become
In time, become

But this season is over and I need to move onward. So I am making the choice to never write another letter to You about her so long as she chooses not to reach out to me. I want her to be free it's what I've always told her and with that I want her to choose what she wants whether that means never talking to me again or down the road of life reconnecting. But for me I need to make a choice and although my heart may feel for her my mind will choose not to write about her. I love her very much so but love can take many forms. I will love her by withholding my letters about her to You. It is for freedom You set us free.

I pray that You keep that woman's heart free, always.

I give up
I let go
I surrender
the beard is a reminder of this
I give up

Ray LaMontagne - Empty