Lack of Concentration and Peanut Butter Toast...

This blog needs a better title. I am sitting here on a perfect lazy Sunday, with tons to do but not wanting to do any of it. The sun is shining and I am not able to concentrate on anything, my mind is elsewhere. I have a million things to do: Chop wood, write a really meaningful blog, read one of the hundred books I have but not yet read. If I was really ambitious I would paint the bathroom and finish the tile that I have been putting off for months and months. None of it feels right. I don't want to be doing any of it but I don't know what it is I want to do. I want to be doing something else with someone else. This is not something I can put into words. I hate it when I don't have the right words.

My house is cold. My feet are cold and the tip of my nose is cold. So now I have a fire in the wood stove. This should at least help the cold nose.

Maybe it's that I have nothing "important" to do. No blind dates to go on or funerals to attend to. Nothing important. I am restless.

I love peanut butter toast. It is warm and good. It is comforting. I am now full of peanut butter toast and milk, and still I am restless. Not everything needs to be important I guess. Not everyday needs to be groundbreaking.

The sun is now going down over the island and it will be dark soon and I am still restless. After church I went to the park. It was beautiful and cold. I enjoyed an egg nog latte and sat with coworkers who happened to be there. They left and I began to read, and then my restlessness started. Since I wasn't getting anything done so I went home. To do nothing... and be restless.

I want something to come along... It has taken 2 hours to write 350 words.

The bay looks nice with the light shining on the water. It is peaceful.

Actually, It is not what I am doing it is that I am alone. I don't think that I want to be alone, but I have spent all day alone and I didn't want to be alone. It is not that I wanted to be with just anyone. I spend each day with people... but not the people I choose. They are not bad people, in fact some of them are people I care about, but not just who I wanted to spend the day with.

The one who I wanted to spend the day with was not around. I don't know why I to be around her. I don't really even know her. I wonder if I have her attention? I wonder if she wants to be around me too?

Sitting here is no fun... Waiting is no fun... Wanting to make a move and not getting the chance is no fun.. I want her to like me or to tell me that she doesn't so I can get over it and move on....

I hate being ignored. And not having contact is making me feel ignored and that makes me feel restless. So now I found my restlessness. We'll see what happens... I feel better, it must be the toast.

Buying Flowers

Something I recently discovered about myself is that I like buying flowers. There is something about buying flowers for a girl that makes my pulse race and the adrenaline run. In part, there is the thrill of putting yourself out there. It is the risk of taking a risk. This is especially true in the beginning stages of the relationship. The flowers could make her day and for a few minutes you get to be a hero. Or the well intentioned gesture could trigger her to shut you down as you attempt to cross that ominous “just friends line” from which there is no return. The interesting thing about flowers is that no matter what the response they will get a response. It is just uncommon today to get or give flowers. It is in the rarity of the gesture that the value is communicated.

In our culture giving or getting flowers tends to bring (and is probably designed to bring) an emotional response. Think about when we buy flowers for people: Weddings, birthdays, funerals and the big one when we are trying to get a girl to notice us as someone more than that guy I know from that one place. It is when we are trying to make an emotional connection to someone that the flowers come into play.

So, today as I stood in the overly crowded Haggen Floral Shop trying to determine which flower would communicate the right thoughts (of I like you and I want you to like me but I don’t want to freak you out. This is a puzzle that can only be solved with help) the thought that motivated me was: “I think you are special and I want you to know it.” I want to know that the action of buying flowers will result in the reaction of her feeling appreciated and noticed. Not to mention I want her to notice me too and to get the above mentioned response. From a logical standpoint there is no real use to cut flowers. They cost a lot and die within a week. If we wanted to be logical a packet of seeds from a food bearing plant and a pot of dirt would be more useful. Buying flowers is not about useful, it is about extravagant. I think that flowers show her that she is costly, that in perusing her we are willing to pay the price.

Part of the battle of manhood (see my blog: to the rescue) is to save the princess and win her heart. Now that we have moved beyond the cave man days of bashing a girl on the head with a club and dragging her off into the sunset. We must peruse her... be creative and risky in the approach and let her know that she is beautiful, special and lovely. Pay the price to be noticed by her and to win her affection. To let her know that she is safe and protected and that she means something to us. Then we will have the chance to ride off into to the sunset with the bride and not a conquest. Flowers are just one way to say it. Nothing makes a guy feel more like a man then buying flowers for the girl he perusing... Something tells me the chase never ends.

Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--" - Thomas Jefferson.


For most Americans this statement brings some feelings of pride and liberty or a foggy recollection from high school government class. It is amazing to me on how carefully the founding fathers chose the words that they used to form the United States. This statement of our founding document sets the attitude that the founders wanted us as Americans to live with.

The right to life... All Americans have a right to live. That seems pretty obvious and maybe it is something that I will get into in another blog. The right liberty... To be a free person. To make a life of our own choosing. Again, another topic for another day.

The strange part of this statement from Jefferson is the pursuit of happiness. To say that as a people we have the right to peruse or chase happiness. In today's American we have changed the right to peruse happiness into the right to be happy.

When did it become okay to think that just because we are American we are guaranteed to be happy? We look to celebrities, family, relationships and the government to make us happy. The sad reality is that we are completely mistaken. No one can make us happy. How can flawed messed up people make other messed up people happy. So what do we do when we are not happy we consume. We buy and eat and spend. We are the biggest consuming nation on the planet. We have become worshipers of consumption. The fact is we are not happy. We worship what we think will make us happy. Our false gods that we built have let us down. When we don't get what we want or have to be inconvenienced to get it we cry "no fair" and stop off to the court to sue someone for our lack of happiness. After all it can't be my fault that I am miserable.

We have become a nation of misery because we have forgotten how to find happiness or even what happiness means. Happiness is not something that happens to us it is something we choose for ourselves. The choice to be happy extends far beyond our situational circumstance to the core of who we are. It is how we choose to face life. No matter what we are involved in or what situation I find myself I can choose to be happy.

In my life I can choose to be happy because I know that I have a savior who loves me. He has promised me that He is working my life out for my good and that my darkest days are just light and momentary troubles. Someday when I go to be with Him in perfection I will see true happiness in all he meant it to be. Until then I choose to be happy and rest in Him. I know the Lord has my best in heart and I just have to trust Him and my happiness becomes Joy.

I want to live each day with joy…

To the rescue

After much thought I have come to a very important conclusion about myself. I am... a rescuer. I am not talking about small animals from trees or little birds that learned that the nest is a long way up. However, if I did come upon small animal stuck in a large and ominous looking Douglas Fir or Maple I am sure I would help out. I am talking bigger than trees. I am figuring out that I am wired to rescue. The idea of coming to the aid of those who are in need makes my heart feel full. I think that is why I like my job so much. Oh, and in ministry to see a lives be turned around, that's the money. And girls.... Well, don't get me started - yet.

As every girl wants to have the knight ride up on a white horse and rush her off to happily ever after, I think all (or most) guys sometime in the lives long to be the guy on the horse. When I think about getting all dressed up in a big metal get-up with big sword and shield and a horse named.... well, I will worry about the name later. Okay back to the story. So being all dressed up with my Knightly stuff ready to ride off and get my girl. Well, not exactly. I first have to go into some kind of battle to free the kingdom from some kind of menace: a dragon, or evil wizard or a huge army of invaders. Or the other metal clad jerk who is trying to get his grubby gauntlets on my girl. I digress.

Going to battle is scary! Battle is where people get hurt. I can still hear my Grandmother's faithful words. "Don't play with sticks because someone is going to get hurt." Well trade in those sticks for swords and there you go. Certain injury - someone is going to lose something. Our nice air-conditioned super-connected, multi function and disinfected world the idea of going to battle is not embraced. Why fight when we can have everything we possibly want at our finger tips? Fighting is so hard and dirty and bloody and dismembering. So the other choice is to not go to battle and play it safe at home. And that is where I tend to find myself.

Oh good... Yippee playing it safe at home. That's fun. Playing it safe is not going to make by heart leap. It is going to leave me bitter and empty. There is only so much home improvement TV one can watch before he wants to kill something. (I.e. do battle) just from sheer boredom.

And in that boredom I get stuck. Mired down in the waiting, thinking, planning and strategizing for that day that never seems to come. One of my favorite movies is "Glory" with Matthew Broderick. It is about the first black regiment of troops for the civil war. The idea of stepping up and being part of the battle for their freedom is woven through the whole movie. For these men sitting on the sidelines while someone else goes to battle for them was no longer an option. They had to fight to prove to the world and to themselves that they were men. At one point in the story the men get used to perform manual labor rather than fight. When this happened the spark and drive sustained them was gone, they no longer had a purpose worth fighting for. Doing manual labor? Who would want do dig ditches while what they wanted most was hanging on the line? It was not until they actually got to fix their bayonets and go to war with the enemy did they feel like they were winning their freedom and being men. Each man had something worth fighting for. He was on his horse and doing what he was designed to do; fight for something bigger and more important than himself. Something he could give his life to.

What you ask does this have to do with life in good old Washington? Well on the surface nothing. I am not going to go around town with a sword or rife and bayonet to do battle. That's just crazy. Deeper down it has everything to do with how God has wired my heart and how I must live. To give all I have to do battle. To kill the menace and free the kingdom or village and to sweep the princess up and to ride off into the happily ever after. That is what my heart needs that is what I was made for.

In order to go into battle for my King (Jesus) or my lady (to be determined) I must be ready to risk. To put it on the line so my heart can be set free to rescue, to fight, to save and to love. Without that all I have is existance. I don't want to simply exist I want to live.

Wish me luck! Here I go, off to battle for the first time. Better late then never. Someday to ride off into the sunset.