I admit it: I’ve been in a serious bout of blog block.
Not counting this minor post, I’ve blogged 10 times since October 15.
That’s 44 days.
That’s a tidy quotient of one post every 4.4 days. Spin that equation a different direction, and I find that I only put up 1.59 posts per week, which I fear is pretty pathetic.
So it’s time to jump back on this wagon. I’m not even calling it a New Year’s resolution–I’m just going to do it. I can’t even blame my slacking on a lacking of material–I’ve got a half-written, half-unwritten list that’s been growing. I’ve just been failing to lay the fingers of the keys.
So here I sit with nothing more inspiring than fingers moving on keys, and I’m counting that success for Boxing Day 2009.
For now, I’ll call it a night and aim to build on this before the next 4.4 days pass.
Having taken the overnight train for this specific route, THIS ARTICLE was fairly impressive. My take? If you’re visiting China anytime in the future (especially after 2012) with money to spare, your travel experience will be like cheating, in the same way as one of my mid-60’s friends says that his degree in the pre-computer age should be worth more than his kids’ degrees.
And on the topic of daring Chinese engineering ventures, THIS BRIDGE would qualify as well.
So this morning, I saw that Advent Conspiracy is front page news at Yahoo!. If you don’t yet know what this growing movement is about, this should fill you in, in under three minutes…
I just got back from my six-month check-up at the dentist. Actually, just a cleaning.
But it reminded me of a few facts…
1) I CANNOT relax in that chair.
Over a dozen times, I became aware of my inner coaxing: “Come on Jay. Loosen that grip. You don’t have to strangle the arm rest. Dis-embed your fingers from that spongy surface. And keep breathing too. One breath every five minutes isn’t enough–move that air in and out.”
2) Some sort of dental work is ALWAYS brewing for down the road.
Brush, but don’t brush too hard or long or wrong. Floss, but nobody likes to do it anyway. Protect your teeth whenever you’re eating or sleeping or playing. And all the while, know that your gums are receding, plague is building, and you’re slowly sliding towards gumming your meals regardless of your finest efforts.
3) Unflavoured fluoride is the only way to go.
My gag reflex still kicks in from memories of childhood experiments with vanilla, cinnamon, and the infamous bubble gum. Just typing that last sentence gave me the willies all over again.
I’m hip and cool enough to be a David Crowder fan. One of his songs on his latest album is called “All Around Me”. You can hear it below…
However, I’m not hip and cool enough to have known that this song is not a Crowder original. He was actually covering (albeit VERY uniquely) a song by Flyleaf. I’m not hip or cool enough to have even heard of this group, so imagine my shock when I looked them up on Youtube and found their video for this song to have nearly 13 million views! If you’re intrigued to hear the very un-Crowder-like original (with an admittedly odd and random video), that is below…
I was riding the bus today. I nearly never do, but I was today. So I used the time to listen to a podcast.
The fellow was speaking about wealth and generosity and more. He shared a few statistics about wealth: If your household income is over $40 000, you’re in the top 4% of the world. If it’s over $50 ooo, you jump right into the top 1% of the world, the richest people on the planet.
Yet we never FEEL rich.
How does that work?
He proposed a very simple theory–we never feel rich because most of us spend a lot more time thinking about what we don’t have than about what we do have.
And that leads us away from contentment.
And that isn’t the direction I want to be walking.
A friend gave me a listen to the new David Crowder album (Church Music). If I were writing a review, I’d just say, “Oh baby!” Take that as a “thumbs up”.
One of the songs that just grabs me is called “The Nearness”. Below is a basic video of just album cover and lyrics to go with the music. If you’ve never heard any of it, here’s a chance. Enjoy!
Last Sunday, this video was part of our morning. I’ve had more-than-usual people comment about it since then.
Where I initially found this video online, a pile of comments were below. Many of them were people expressing dislike for the video because of the lack of closure that it ends with. But on Sunday, it served as the ideal illustration for the fact that life is tough and DOESN’T always wrap up with neat little bows.
From there, we moved on to discuss how we cope in such times. But I’m being reminded recently that many people bear much weight and that burdens come in all shapes and sizes. It’s little wonder a video like this connects with us.
But as we said on Sunday, the task before us in the life of faith is to allow the truth of “Life is tough” to be re-framed and outweighed by the greater truth that “We are the Beloved”.
That doesn’t reduce the weight. But it steadies our feet and it strengthens our shoulders. And when you’re under a load, that can make all the difference.
Credit where it’s due. Blair first showed me this.
For some reason it came storming back into my mind over supper tonight. A quick re-viewing confirmed its blog-worthiness, though after you watch it, you may be questioning the worthiness of such blogs. I leave you to your own questions. For now, I give you a real piece of work and this small piece of advice: Watch his eyebrows.
Having taken the overnight train for this specific route, 
I just got back from my six-month check-up at the dentist. Actually, just a cleaning.
