Reflection 3

Once I meet a girl who had had a bad break up with a guy, and you could tell that things where not going well. You could tell that the acceptable drugs of alcohol, and the comfort of her cats just weren't working any more. You could tell it in her eyes in that she wasn't really looking at you, you could tell it in that she was going to the bathroom every 10 min that she was on something stronger that was destroying her life. I could see that she was again making a poor choice. This works at me and I have to ask "When will it end".

In my line of work we call that a positive feedback loop where when something happens to activate the system and then the response to the system doesn't calm the system but further increases it until something burns out or blows up. They are rather undesirable. It's like a hole in a dam. The little bit of water takes a little dirt with it which lets a little more water out which takes a little more dirt and so on until the dam becomes useless and the water is gushing through.

The desired system is a negative feedback loop where the response to the initial impulse reduces it and eventually gets rid of the initial impulse all together. This is allot like driving in a car and then you hit a bump in the road. The bump makes the car bounce up and then go down and then up but not as far as before and slowly the bump disappears until there is no more evidence that the car even hit a bump before. This kind of feedback loop used extensively.

Long Weekend yah!

Two verses struck me yesterday. The first one at church and the second while looking for the first.

John 6:68+69 NKJV
But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord to who shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Mark 9:24 NKJV
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"

I guess they struck me because they both humble human responses to Jesus.

John 16 17~33 ish The Message

When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there's no getting around it. But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth. This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain. The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar. When I see you again, you'll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you.

Self Reflection

So I realize I procrastinate allot more doing these entries. Humm...

I remembered something the other day, and it makes allot of sense to me.
A few years ago I was in a inner-city missions group, and on one of the evenings we were split up into groups and sent to talk to people on the streets. We meet some kids and decided to see if we could play a game with them, which really didn't work out. So we decided to leave and they started to follow us. Now my predisposition told me to turn around and tell them "If your going to beat me up then beat me up, if your not leave us alone" or something like that, but I only got half way around and then one of the people I was with nicely asked me to turn back around and walk with them. Which was really the best choice, and is what I'm glad I did. They replied with a "We have a tough guy" which is really how I was acting. Soon I saw a cop drive by and I presume they left then. I guess the lesson for me sometimes folding instead of betting is the bravest thing you can do.

Vid

Vid made by some of my crazy friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHb34ilO_A4

@. Chains

chain: anything that acts as a restraint

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=chain

How do we overcome the restraints that hold us back. I believe it starts with proper planning. My management book lists 4 steps in planning.

Analysing the environment:
Setting objectives and strategies:
Determining resources:
Monitoring outcomes:

In the first step involves determining what things affect our lives, and finding out why we do what we do. In the second step concrete reachable goals are made so we know where we want to be. Then it is necessary to find out what we need to reach those goals, which in many cases involves other people. And then monitor those goals so your can measure what your doing good at and what you need to give more resources to. There is lots of information available on tools like this but I find for things to change we need to make a sacrifices, and take a risks because I believe that change doesn't happen without it.

It turns out that these procedures are just that a tool. Allot like a hammer, or a nail gun they help you to build something, but whether you are building a house or a prison that is up to the builder. The tools just help you make the building faster and better. Logically there is only one difference between a house and a prison. In a house people are free to come and go as they please, a prison the person inside is forced to remain inside.

Sometimes I wonder if we are not building our own prison every day. So many times we make choices that close out the rest of the world. And by closing out the rest of the world we close ourselves in.

In the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller he talks about his first Christmas where he realized that he had spent all his Christmas money on himself and had spent little money buying gifts for others and how he felt like Hitler. I take that to be an example of a way we close ourselves in, by focusing on ourselves.

Do you realize that we may be breaking chains but really we are just learning how to build ourselves a stronger jail to lock ourselves into. That's why we should spend time thinking about what we want to do, and I believe that is why we need God.

Do you catch that knowledge, wisdom, power, social status, money... etc. is just a tool nothing more nothing less. You can have a brilliant person who locks himself up, and a martyr who can't help but praise God, a poor and starving person who would share with you their last meal.

[Picture on opposite side: purpose = Contrasting either side ]
[ideas: house -> homeless mans' house, or not well to do house | prison -> high end home and some how show that it is a prison]

Management by Michael A. Hitt ... [Et Al.]. Canadian ed.
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller

Self Reflection

I have determined I keep to many secrets and I close in on myself to much so I propose to change that, even if it means talking to an empty room to start.

So if your wondering what has been up
there was this girl that I liked,
I wanted to know if things could work, and no they couldn't.
As I have said I made a complete fool of myself, but in some ways I'm glad I did.

I like the words end of an era with this as a sign post,
because it seems that way in many ways in my life.

I find myself wanting to do something for God. We'll have to wait and see.

I have determined that deep down I am always asking a question,
and I am always searching for an answer.
I guess I have lots of questions.
That's what makes me so strange and difficult sometimes.
I wonder if I will ever settle down.
When in heaven I don't want to ask a single one, but rather praise God forever.

I used to be the shadow, I felt the breath of life wake me up,
only to find myself in a parched land craving water.
I wonder about the road I have travelled to get here,
only God knows why.

I walk into this oasis from the desert.
I come to drink from the fount where I will never thirst again.
The keeper of the fount has one request,
that will make this water last.

I realize I am far from where I want to be
I realize God is all and all.

Oh God I am in need of your mercy
Oh God I am in need of your grace
God help us
God lead us

yes I have pushed off the next entry again, I guess it's really making me think about things.

In the Middle

So this is not a blog I plan on adding to the compilation but I feel compelled.
Three things are at the focus of my attention, one I really need a shave and a hair cut because it is driving my nerves nutts, two my MG got 20 MPG that is a down right miracle, three it is freaking cold why can't summer arrive.

I remember last year I went to a old time festival. You know the ones where they drive steam engine tractors and stuff the like. They were playing some older folk music and I have to say that I enjoy that music just as much as rap, or anything I listen to. I think part of the reason is it communicates to me an era where social assistance didn't exist, a place where people broke the land.

The national geographic had an article on Jamestown and there are two things that strike me. One is they landed not on a pure untouched landscape but a agricultural system of horticulture, and so the drive to be environmental and restore the land to it's "natural" state is really something that hasn't been around for a long long time. But that's not to say that parks are useless on the contrary I think they are very valuable, but what is intention behind them?

Two, it's really how the Jamestown people changed the landscape/environment by introducing earthworms and foreign animals,plants, and diseases that the the colonist conquered the land.

Now I realize I have a fascination with humans struggling. humm.

So if you want a teaser for the next blog the plan is to name it Chains.

!. Entitlement

United Nations Human Rights

The mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is to work for the protection of all human rights for all people; to help empower people to realize their rights; and to assist those responsible for upholding such rights in ensuring that they are implemented.

In carrying out its mission OHCHR will:

* Give priority to addressing the most pressing human rights violations, both acute and chronic, particularly those that put life in imminent peril;
* Focus attention on those who are at risk and vulnerable on multiple fronts;
* Pay equal attention to the realization of civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights, including the right to development; and
* Measure the impact of its work through the substantive benefit that is accrued, through it, to individuals around the world.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/MissionStatement.aspx

Entitlement

1 a: the state or condition of being entitled : right b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract
2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group ; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program
3: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entitlement

Sometimes we get convinced that we are entitled to certain rights, and for some of use this includes luxuries we enjoy.

But how can you claim something like free speech, or a luxury. A Christian in a religiously controlled country can't show the rulers their rights and expect a change just with that piece of information. I child in a refugee camp can't demand enough food to survive on. Is a victim of an assault entailed to a reason why.

Sometimes we like to gloat that we earned our entitlements. Now wait a minute yes we work hard sometimes, but so do many people who receive nothing. The question comes down to did you earn your physical heath, the family/community you were born into, did you earn the air you breath. If you add up everything you receive without payment only an ignorant person could keep the list short. Can we hold God ransom, till we get what we want.

So what do you call something that you receive that your not entitled to. I would call that a gift.

If you think about it most of what we work for would not have been even possible without having a foundation in a gift that we received. Where would Alexander the Great be without his inherited highly skilled and equipped army or Einstein without his brain, the turnaround street victim with out the people who helped him.

So I propose to take the gifts I have an use then to multiply those opportunities for others, or of course you could hoard your gifts and use then to multiply your own opportunities.

[Picture on opposite side: purpose = human suffering ]
[ideas: person on the street, refugee camp, medical conditions]

Choo Choo

Many times I feel like a train,
going full steam into a train wreck.
This is one of those times.
I have a crazy idea,
and it involves a fair amount of work with little pay-off.
Hey it's like what I usually do lol.
So my plan is to make a short compilation of blogs,
and eventually wrap them up into a pdf with pictures to match.

humm ...

So if there is any input, corrections, insights they would be much appreciated but,
not very many people say anything here any ways so here we go ....