Warrior Dash

So I was sitting in class last night texting and listening to the lecture, when I noticed that one of my classmates had an awesome beard growing. After I complemented him on it, he mentioned that he was growing it out as part of a challenge. After talking to him at length, I found out that this challenge is none other than the 'Warrior Dash' challenge which takes place once a year throughout the country and which was coming to our town next month. Well, I could not possibly resist such a challenge and so teamed up with him to take on the dangerous 'Warrior Dash'. In the back of my mind it all seemed to be a bit silly, until I took a look at the video of the obstacle course.

www.warriordash.com

Oh yeah!

City of God

I was reading "City of God" by Saint Agustin of Hippo and was struck by a bit of his writing. In it, he writes on the concept of good things and bad befalling all. He proceeds to state that although there is no difference in what both good and bad men must suffer, there is a difference in the men themselves.

"For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor."

To my horror and shame I have not been a good steward of my faith. Too long have I been despairing at my situation. It is time for me to turn around, cleanse my mind, and truly press into the presence of God for all of my needs, letting him remove the blemish upon my soul.

Hopefully my next post will be one of praise and glory for God, instead of my usual vitriol towards which I lean.

New Year

January 1st will mark our 5th wedding anniversary. I am not sure why, but it seems as though we have been married for much longer than five years. Not in a bad way, where you resent each other and dread waking up every day. Rather in a very comfortable sort of way, like when you sit in one of those old leather chairs and it's so soft that you sort of sink into and then all of a sudden you are taking a good nap in the middle of the day.

So much has changed in the last five years. I have gone from working for a civil engineering firm to working on roofs and not knowing if I am going to make enough money for bills, or even afford food. At first, when I started to make less and less money, I was frustrated and full of anxiety. I can honestly say that I never expected everything to turn out this way; with me attending a seminary class full time, volunteering my time at church, extremely poor, totally depending on the kindness of others to eat day by day. Nowadays though, I can only be calm. The more I go to class and study, the more I struggle with every little sin in my life. I'm not talking about lying or stealing, or some other sin that most people think about when they think about struggles. I mean that every little action and thought that I have is immediately challenged in my mind. It is as though there is an other in my mind, scouring every action and thought in trying to align both to a higher standard. Although it sounds as though this would be a burden, giving in to this other will has opened me up to a quieter inner life. My mind feels more at rest for a change. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Winding Down

Last Saturday I spent the day working on my parent's roof. It was a fairly easy repair, except I had to be lowered down with a rope.

It does not look like I am very high off the ground in this picture. The next one is much better at showing  the difficulty I had in climbing up there without a rope.

Other than that, it's been a relatively quiet week for me.

A day in the life.

Thomas Kelly once wrote, "Our old ambitions and heroic dreams--what years we have wasted feeding our own insatiable self-pride, when only His will truly matters! Placed in coveted surroundings, recipients of honors, we count them as refuse, as nothing, utterly nothing. Placed in the shadows, we are happy to pick up a straw for the love of God. No task is so small as to distress us, no honor so great s to turn our heads. Such loosening of the chains of attachment is easy, if we be given times of a sense of unutterable nearness to Himself. Still others obstruct this detachment, reject it as absurd or unneeded, and cling to mammon while they seek to cling to God."

That one line always keeps coming back to me, "Placed in the shadows, we are happy to pick up a straw for the love of God."

I am so excited and feel so blessed that I have the opportunity to help out at the church. Going up there on Fridays and Sundays to help with the sermon is definitely the height of my week, along with going to class on Mondays. It may sound corny or hokey, but I feel a real peace come over me when I am studying the old or new testament. I do not yearn for acclamation from anyone, but I do wish that I could devote entirely my waking time to ministry. At the same time I worry that if I had the opportunity to do so, that I would become corrupted. I suppose only time will tell. I would say that I am certain that I would not be easily swayed, but I have noticed that those who state such things usually are the ones to fall.

For now then, I shall keep a watchful eye on my actions and pray that I may be receptive and open to criticism when my guard is let down.

Hopefully I will be back again to blog about something a little less serious next time.

Tidbits

I am not sure what to post about today. So many little things have happened in the last week, which is how I came up with the title of this entry. About three weeks ago, one of my uncles offered to let me borrow an old 1989 Toyota pickup that he had just sitting around taking up space. In the words of Kelsey, it looks like I am "..driving a brown turd..". It is completely brown with a brown camper. Also, since it does not have any hubcaps, my uncle painted the wheels brown. Since I am Mexican, and therefore also brown, it gives the illusion of one turd driving another one. Other than that, the truck is great. Well, except that I have had to replace several of the parts just to keep it running. Oh yeah, and the speedometer cable is missing, so I don't know how fast I am going. Thankfully, it has a manual transmission, so I can guesstimate my speed quite well. Oh and the wipers stopped working yesterday. Also the starter solenoid needs to be replaced. Other than that, the truck is in great shape.

This past week my manager, a friend, and myself have been tearing off and installing new siding on a house for one of my clients. It has been both an interesting and frustrating experience for all three of us. I had the opportunity to witness first hand what it is like to always think you are right and everyone else is the jerk. I can understand the need to always be the one who is correct in order to elevate oneself above others, but it still saddens me when I see it in those from whom I expect so much more. What adds to this is the exasperation that I feel when I see someone act in what they deem to be a 'holy' way, look down on my music for being 'secular', and then immediately turn around and start arguing and yelling when they don't get their way right away. I truly hope that tomorrow when I go back to the project to finish it off everything goes much smoother.

Tomorrow I will add a couple of pictures of my turd vehicle. (^_^)

Shoes

I went to Academy to buy a pair of running shoes, as my Asics were at the end of their life. I don't make very much day by day, and so tend to wait to replace clothes until I absolutely have to. As I looked at the prices, which I at first thought were reasonable, I realized that, for many people, myself included, one pair of shoes was the same as a half day's worth of work, if not an entire day, for the more expensive ones.

Last week, while in class, we learned about how expensive it once was to own a pair of good sandals in the ancient near east. During the time of Amos, owning a pair of sandals was a sign of wealth, since they would have had to travel all the way to Damascus in order to obtain a custom made pair. Because of this, the poor had to make do with cheaply made foot-wear, while those in the lap of luxury were comfortable in their protected feet. I know that it seems ridiculous that we could ever reach such extremes between the upper of lower classes of people, but is that not what happens when it comes to food, another one of our basic necessities?

I wonder how long it will take before we begin to repeat ourselves yet again.