shenanigans

Posting from San Jose.
This is a fun weekend friends.
Pics to come when I get back.

i'll be

I told myself a long time ago that I wouldn't write any more songs like this. Oh well. Is it better streamed from Youtube like this or Soundclick like I did a few posts down? Youtube kills the audio quality but is more familiar. I put the mp3 file on Soundclick for download, link below.

I promise
To do right by you
I promise
My walls come down for you
Today and tomorrow I'll be the same

I'll be the one
With an open shoulder to lean on
I'll be the one
To shield you from the cold and broken
The tears I cannot wipe away
I'll shed as if my own

When you speak
I'll hold my tongue
I'll take my time out
Until you're done
Leave the car in
Park and let it
Idle on and
Watch the parking lot close

I'll be the one
With an open shoulder to lean on
I'll be the one
To shield you from the cold and broken
The tears I cannot wipe away
I'll shed as if my own
Even as the world is spinning
Right now this feels like home

One hour
Eight months
Two years
I'll wait
Lord I'll wait

I'll be the one
With an open shoulder to lean on
I'll be the one
To shield you from the cold and broken
The tears I cannot wipe away
I'll shed as if my own
Even though the clock is ticking
If you would just not go

Download the MP3

it's only temporary

Knowing that, in seven months time, everything familiar will disappear from an airplane window has given me a unique and wonderful perspective on what is important. What little I can take with me becomes infinitely more valuable than everything that I must leave behind. Not that I am living in an bare apartment with milk crates for furniture, but my furnishings do reflect the temporary nature of my living situation. I have not decorated in the same way as I would if I were planning to grow roots.

This anomaly has made my decisions clearer and simpler. There is no opportunity for situations to needlessly drag on, no chance for anxiousness to turn into sin. It is startlingly easy to compromise convictions when one is comfortable where he is. We are often obsessed with maintaining the status quo and avoiding change. But because I have big changes quickly approaching, the status quo does not concern me. I can discern right from wrong and act accordingly, because I don't have the luxury of time to cloud my judgement. I can make the decisions of a better man. Pain is not dampened, but the temptation to defer it for as long as possible is.

My future is invested elsewhere. The more I think about this situation, the more I believe this is how we should see life in general. Life here is impermanent. The more we are invested in heaven, the less concerned we will be about what doesn't really matter. Our roots should be just deep enough that we don't fall over under our own weight, lest when it comes time to be transplanted, we are unable to budge. Look around at how you have chosen to furnish your life.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where theives do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:20-21

for sale

AHHH! Want! So beautiful, 1961 Triumph TR3. Only $3k too....

Someday, if I ever have a garage, I will have a quirky British roadster to tinker with.

fisheye my desk

Coworker brought in a gaggle of off-brand lenses to show me. I bit. Cheap fisheye lens coming in the mail. This one. Hope it comes in time for road trip.

This is my desk at work. Why yes, I do have two giant Apple Cinema Displays. Main one is 30", secondary is 23". Yes, they are (kinda) necessary for work.

rube goldberg

OK GO - This Too Shall Pass

Wow...these guys keep getting more awesome.

love language

The only way I am able to show love to my dad is by changing his brake pads for him.

[Sam:] "I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?"
"I wonder," replied Frodo. "But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

psalm 39

"Show me, O LORD, my life's end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man's life is but a breath.

Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.

"But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.

Save me from all my transgressions;
do not make me the scorn of fools.

I was silent; I would not open my mouth,
for you are the one who has done this.

Remove your scourge from me;
I am overcome by the blow of your hand.

You rebuke and discipline men for their sin;
you consume their wealth like a moth—
each man is but a breath.

"Hear my prayer, O LORD,
listen to my cry for help;
be not deaf to my weeping.
For I dwell with you as an alien,
a stranger, as all my fathers were.

Look away from me, that I may rejoice again
before I depart and am no more."

David's difficult psalms usually end on a hopeful note, but this one doesn't, as if to say that some days end without answers, even for God's anointed. When faith hinges on answered prayers and blessings received, God is reduced to the means to an end. Sometimes, His people pray in earnest and hope according to the Word but fail miserably. We must be prepared for when God does not act according to our expectations. It is easy for sincere faith to degenerate into demandingness.

I'm planning on visiting Samoshel tonight. PCC serves ice cream and hangs out with the residents once a month. I have no idea what to expect.

beijing...

I miss these guys...too bad blogger is blocked in China.

brain dump

Last night I dreamed I was in an airport in DC about to fly to Africa. One of my best friends, who is an optometrist in Maryland, showed up all of a sudden to give me an eye exam in the terminal for some reason. I was happy to see him. Most of the people I am closest to are far away.

I cannot watch Forrest Gump without crying like a baby. There is something about a simple person living in a complicated world that is heart wrenchingly beautiful. Same with I am Sam. Their pursuits are both innocent in motive and unwavering in intensity, qualities that are uncommon off the silver screen. Interesting how such people have to be written as characters with diminished capacity in order to be believable.

Lately I have been feeling with greater frequency a longing that I haven't felt since high school. A longing that delivers a physically painful hollow feeling in my chest cavity. Where before I recoiled from it as something to be avoided, I recognize it now as a desire for things which do not exist in their meant-to-be forms on Earth. I am not afraid of such longings anymore. It is not sadistic to embrace this type of pain. It makes it that much easier to place my treasures in vessels that will not erode with rust or decay.

On a lighter note, I did a more serious recording of Sail the Sea. Original video and lyrics from a previous post. Stream it below, or download the MP3 here.