Someone help me out here?

Just a little conversation starter. It's probably way too vague for passers-by to really know where I'm coming from, but it's a start.

Been frustrated lately. The Bible is full of obvious miracles, God speaking to people... a direct, personal, undeniable(to those that experience it,) physical presence. Fast-forward to today: I'm stuck in the same-old day to day grind, repeatedly falling into the same old struggles. There are no amazing miracles or mystical godly presence in my life, and how can I distinguish coincidence from "God's working"? People tell me that God works differently now, that he works behind the scenes, and that the Bible, logic, and a little faith is all that we need, but I can't see the parallel between Biblical times and this inactive daily grind. Has God left us to mostly fend for ourselves for a few thousand years between Jesus and the Rapture? Bah- a single "Paul's Conversion" moment could answer so many of my doubts. What is God up to?

Anyway, despite my above grumpiness, Merry Christmas!

It was a good idea at the time...

...I thought that since I needed to make dinner rolls for a get-together tonight, I would make them from scratch- flour, eggs, yeast, etc. Good idea, but poor execution. In two words: hard tack. I gotta work on that a little more...

Not dead, just quiet

Oh yeah, I have a blog, don't I? Besides using it for picture posts and online info storage, I'm about ready to drop the whole blog altogether. If you need to get in touch, leave a comment and I'll find it eventually. There's an impromptu Monday bordom-beater party going on upstairs, but I'm too tired to join in and it's too loud to go to bed. 'Nite!

Overlooking the water gap 

Looking down on Harper's Ferry 

Bridge pylons in the Shenandoah 

Sunday Notes

I figured it was easier to post my notes for Sunday here than to find a floppy disk and copy them onto it. Since my printer is down, I'll just copy and paste the text from here onto the family 'puter. See ya.


"Discovering God's Will"
Part 2 - "Are You Ready for This?"
Nov. 20, 2005

1. Is there a difference between seeking God's advice and pursuing His will?
- Why do people often want to know God's will, but are not willing to follow it?

2. Which do you think is more difficult: discovering God's will, or following through once you know it?
- What are those difficulties?

3. Name at least two attributes of God that make Him a desirable source of advice for your life.
- Knowing these attributes, what (if anything) still holds you back from pursuing His will?

4. According to Proverbs 3:5-6, what conditions must be met in order for a person's path to be made obvious?

- Leaving what is comfortable, changing our attitudes, letting go of our sinful desires (and addictions?) This is what drives our fear against "Acknowledging Him, in ALL our ways". More often than not, we already know where these weak points are in our lives, but we either didn't know that those weaknesses were the barrier to knowing God, or we knew but did not want to give them up.
- It is our WILLINGNESS to learn, acknowledge, and follow God's providential & moral guidelines that we find God's will for us.

Brr.

Ya, it's cold here again. We haven't turned on the furnace here in the house yet, so I'm huddled up with my electric heater for the meantime. I wonder if Ben ever got around to ordering that heating oil...
It's been a slow night. No deep thoughts lately, although I still need to look at next Sunday's lesson a little more. Just telling my adoring blog groupies I'm still alive.

Weekend Warrior

Ah, the weekend. All my fun is had there. Unfortunately, it's supposed to turn cold up here by tomorrow evening, so that'll be a real outdoor-killer. I've had skiing/snowboarding mentioned to me, but after my miserable failure at skiing last year, I'm a little skeptical about going again. It's like biking, bowling, or skating: it take a lot of time to get good at, but once you've learned how it pretty much stays with you.
I get to (try to) teach the next lesson in ConneXion this coming Sunday. At least I don't have to give my testimony like I did 2 weeks ago; I had to keep stopping to collect my thoughts. The new visitors probably thought I was nuts. Ah well.

The AT in Boiling Springs, PA. 

Entering the Cumberland Valley- looking behind me (south). The AT is the green strip in the middle of the photo. 

Cumberland Valley, PA, on the AT, 11-12-05 

Elections

Well folks, I discovered this past week that there is an election for governor in my state tomorrow. Actually, I've know about it for a while, but have ignored it up until now. Anyhow, I figured that I would take a quick look at the candidates' web sites, find the differences in issues, and vote tommorow based on those. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. About 95% of their sites said [I]exactly the same thing.[/I] They're concerned about taxes, traffic, growth, etc, and they (if elected) will do something quickly and decicively to help "save" the state. The other 5% was about how their opponents are wrong (which contradicts what their websites say, of course.) And now my brain hurts again, which is bad considering I've had a headache for most of the day. I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow. Ow. I need a root beer float...

KiKat float, the Saturday night house special... 

update

Nothing too deep or thoughtful today, just keeping the blog up to date. I still haven't gotten the chance to go camping this fall, and it's quickly getting too cold around here, so I don't know if I still want to or not. If the weather's nice this weekend, then maybe. This week's been dull, and has gone by very quickly. Still, I keep busy after work between running (getting a lot of miles in lately,) ConneXion stuff (meal/Bible study tonight,) and chores around the house. And re-discovering Mario on my old Nintendo on Halloween night. We just got another roommate here in the DudeHouse, so between the three of us we could make things really interesting around here (insert squeaky laugh.) Spiritually, I've been pretty stable lately. No big questions or doubts, no deep truths or discoveries.

Anyhow, I'm hungry. Time to go fill up on dinner.

(edit, 8:30 PM) Go pickup a copy of "Lord of the Beans", the latest Veggietales video. The new silly song is the bast laugh I've had in a long time. Not to mention the terrible puns and plays on the movie and book.

The basics

1) What determined the mass and charge of electrons, protons, etc. so that matter congeals instead of a universal blob of radiation?

2) The size of the sun, the distance of our planet from the sun, the ability of our planet to deflect harmful radiation- all these factors (and more, I'm sure) simply to create a place that had the potential (not the certainty) for life.

3) What is the possibility that a bunch of atoms could be in the right place and time, under the right conditions, to merge into an amino acid?

4) What is the possibility that enough of these acids (hundreds) were created, and lasted long enough, to form into a protein chain (some protiens in our body consist of thousands of acids.)

5) How do you go from random formations of atoms to a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating single-cell creature? With nothing more than a "random" code of DNA (itself a string of thousands of proteins), how could a single-celled creature go from luck to life?

And there are probably many more layers of evidence that I could go into, but it 's late and I'm tired. Just two more thoughts:

-The Law of Entropy. If everything is slowly moving from order to chaos without intelligent intervention, how could such an amazingly complex, intelligent creature like man ever be accounted for without intelligence?

-Occam's(sp?) Razor. The simplest explanation is the most probable. Yeah...maybe we are the product of billions of lucky variables. It's possible. BUT, it's even more likely that we were created by intelligence. God does not play dice.

My conclusion: God exists. The tough part: determining the attributes of God.

Quick thought

The more I study, the more I think that all the facts I need for living the Christian life have been told to me already, time and time again. My problem is in living & applying those facts. THERE is the tough part.

Nuthin much

Saturday. Blah. Except for catching up on sleep, I've done little of anything today. Shoot, I couldn't even watch more than the first few innings of the World Series (go Astros!) before I got bored. Seems to be my MO lately- besides running/exercise, I haven't had a lot of motivation to do much of anything. Looks like I've been let off the hook with ConneXion tomorrow- Philip wants to finish up a video series, so I won't have to give my poor excuse for a sermon tomorrow. I fear though that the level of studying I had this past week is going to fall away now that the pressure is off.

-It stinks to be the quiet guy sometimes... (random thought)

I'm Back...

Ugh, back again. Blogging is low priority on my scale right now- trying to juggle work and preparing something to say this Sunday, and I'm doing poorly on the latter. I've got plenty of ideas, I just need to sort them out.

-What am I so apathetic about being a Christian? Probably a combination of doubting/questions, particularly an absence of a physical God "Lording" over me, my own sin nature (DEFINITELY). I've been reading through another section of "Mere Christianity" that's been helping me to get a better perspective.

-I've been teetering between two extremes: (1) Burning out while trying to live the Christian life on my own efforts, and (2) Not really knowing how to practice faith in God. What does faith involve? Just sitting and waiting? Invoking God's intervention through prayer? How much is God's effort, and how much effort should I be putting into following God? Where's the balance?

-C.S. Lewis related the junction of faith and effort to the two blades on a pair of scissors.

By attempting to live the Christian life on our own efforts, we will fail time and time again. But that's fine- that's part of the design of Christianity; we are SUPPOSED to fail with our own efforts! God leads us to those moments so that we might finally admit that we can't do it alone, and begin to have faith that God will work instead. Our faith will then lead us back to working for God. We'll probably never know specifically what we do for God, and what God does for us- the two should be intertwined, God working in us.

The keys are to (1) Search out enough truth so that a seed of faith can begin, (2) When we begin to exercise that faith, God will begin to root out our sin nature and self-centeredness, often by frustration of our own efforts. But we MUST be willing to go from academic, church-pew understanding of "Gospel theory" to testing it ourselves, making it "Gospel fact". (3) When we inevitably come to the end of ouselves, than we see just how lousy, sinful, worthless creatures we are. How can anything we do be seen as pleasing to God? (4) It is then that we need to say "God, do with me as You want to." In surrendering to this point, God can then finally work (until we hit the problem in #2 again, and the cycle begins again.)

There we go. I'm heading to bed.

Kaboom! -Cedar Creek Reenactment 

A good position? 

Wait a second... 

Be back later

Heading out to Cedar Creek. Pictures and a longer post to come. I was reading through portions of "Mere Christianity" last night, and I found something that really hit me. I'll elaborate later on.

Wait... what did I just say I'd do?

This past Wednesday, I was asked if I would speak for a week or two for the 20-somethings group at church in a few weeks. I've helped out the group for over 2 years now, but its just been setup, powerpoint, that kinda thing. To be honest, I had no clue where to even begin, and I was REALLY hesitant about saying yes. In fact, the exact words that I used were more of a "ehhh...well... I'm not sure...", which Casey took as a definitive "yes." Phooey.

What pushed me into this really? I know that if I take this challenge seriously, and work hard, I can learn TONS compared to sitting back and listening. I betcha you can still remember snippits of speeches or other presentations you had to give in front of the class from way back when. Learning and teaching are two completely different things. Plus, it gives me a chance to exert some faith that I've had trouble exercising lately.

Something I decieded the other day: I've spent the last month or so trying to learn about faith, and how I can't do good on my own. Unfortunately, I've been dragging that fact in the wrong direction by not trying so hard to do good and generally resigning myself to the idea that I'll never learn anything until God bonks me over the head. Where is that verse "You will find Me if you seek after Me with ALL YOUR HEART"? My heart hasn't been into it lately. Now, if I can somehow turn this into a mini-sermon...

In other news, rain stinks. I wanted to go backpacking this week, but oh well. I haven't gotten enough sleep lately anyhow. I did get a new road bicycle this past weekend, and have been putting it through the paces lately. The rides are getting especially nice this time of year.

Tiger @ National Zoo, DC 

Dub! DUB! (I had to get that out of my system.) 

WW2 Texan @ Martinsburg Airshow 

Cooler Days

20 degree drop this week... nice. Leaves changing, temperatures just right, Serenity comes out tomorrow... October should be fun. I'm starting to plan another quick hike next weekend, and the Cedar Creek Reenactment is the Saturday after that.

In other, more serious, news, I'm still struggling like crazy in my Bible studies lately. My focus hasn't been great this week, and I'm still treating my studies like a bad college course instead of having the seriousness I need to focus and think. It's a sad state I'm in- I know what I should do, yet I don't do it. I've got too many bad excuses when it comes up- "Is God really there, helping me to study, or just watching from the sidelines?" "Why does God make us struggle with study instead of just dropping a miracle and suddenly our whole outlook's changed?" What comes first, faith or fact? I hope God does something crazy in my life soon to knock me on my butt and get me going in the right direction- heaven knows my efforts have come to nothing.

Upcoming pictures

Bleh- after working in the field last Saturday, and a long, stressful week in the office, I'm ready for the blessed weekend! Hopefully, I'll be heading to an air show in Martinsburg on Sat., then to the National Zoo Sunday. Haven't learned too much this week, unfortunately. Well, I'm gonna take a bike ride before it gets dark.

(grumble...) 90 degrees on the first day of fall? Bleh.

My brain hurts

I'll try to say these things without confusing anyone too much. Where does faith in God meet spiritual fact?
Here's my dilemma. I, like 98% of men (and the other 2% are liers) struggle with lust.
(Side note: this is... disturbing to write about this on the blog, knowing that the only person that visits and leaves comments on my site is a lady. My blog, for me, has become a place where I can straighten out my tangled, scatter-brained thoughts into something simple, understandable, and focused. It helps me to think more clearly when I write things down, so please don't take this as a personal message, miss. It's unfortunate that we Christian men don't speak about this all-pervading problem more frankly with each other- it's the pink elephant in the corner. Everyone has it, no one talks about it, and I'm tired of protecting my pride. Anyhow, back to the question.)
Over the past few weeks, I've begun to meet with a Christian brother daily during lunch, and I've been candid about my struggles with sin. It has helped out immensely the past 2 weeks- but in the past few days, temptation has made a comeback in a HUGE way. I've kept it at bay for now, but my struggle and my doubts have come to head, and I need an answer. Thus far, my resistance to temptation has been mostly due to being ashamed to have to admit backsliding to my Godly friend. That's fine, but I know the true defense should be my faith in God (i.e. the Shield of Faith.) I know from personal experience that personal resistance isn't enough- sin is too powerful, and sooner or later I fail. All God requires from me is faith- simply to look at Him, trust Him, and keep walking through my life and my struggles with this trust constantly in mind.
Yet, I am very often afraid to take jumps of faith, because I cannot see how God will help in my situation. And too often, the help has come in timely distractions (such as this blog,) and not in spiritual truths that will help me to more adequately resist next time. Put it this way:

-God wants me to simply have faith, and he will reveal truth to me in His timing.
-I want to know spiritual truth first, and I will hang my faith upon those facts.

I know which one is correct, yet I find it extremely tough to let go and live life on faith.

Lord, help my unbelief.

Quick question

Here's a contradiction that's been plaguing me since lunch today. God wants my to have faith, and He will begin revealing Himself to me in time. I want God to answer my questions first, and then I will begin to have faith. My fear is that in having faith, but not all the answers, I won't be able to explain myself to non-Christians, leaving me open to doubt and sin (not that I'm any better where I am in spiritual growth right now.) I'll be one of those "brainless religious freaks", unable to answer their questions and be a witness- or even worse, driving them away from God by reinforcing their view of futile religion.

"What will people think if they label me a Jesus Freak? What will people do when they find out it's true?"

"...There ain't no disguising the truth..." Dc Talk makes it sound so easy, like they have such a solid grasp on the truth. I have hell of it every time I try to study the Bible- old English, words that I only have the faintest grasp as to definition, always using metaphors that leave me confused, etc. Combine with worldly worries, and I wind up spinning my wheels.

Lord, help me to not fear the consequences of "blind" faith. Remind me of Who's in control. And please, PLEASE, help me stay focused on looking for the truths in the Bible, while allowing You to lead and show me. Lord, help my unbelief.

Crazy Day

A coolant hose broke in my car sometime over the weekend. I pulled into the church parking lot Sunday morning and noticed steam just beginning to eek out from under the hood. I went home with family Sunday instead- which wasn't too bad of a deal, actually. Free food, a little football, and beating my brother at Smash Bros. Melee (Pikachu rules!) My cousin came to take a look at my car that night, right after the evening young adult service. This afternoon after work, he came to fix the broken hose and fill the radiator, and I biked the half-hour over to the church to help him out and pickup/pay. My bike's in the shop now, after the rear shifter broke while I was riding (it's only 9 years old!) It was a... pleasantly busy day.

Getting my hopes up, #2

I finally worked up the boldness to tell my work-friend about all the stuff I put down in the previous post. Although I can't say I've learned much this week, I am certainly feeling better and more optimistic about finding some answers.
Lots going on today. We're having a yard sale tonday, and I just got back from helping spread mulch at the local community center. I may yet go biking, setup chairs at church for tomorrow, and go home to do laundry. Phew!

It's been a While

~ I've come to face some truths this week, in between work, Orleans-watching, and goofing off. I've been mistakenly looking for a deeper truth, some verse or explanation that would explain away my doubts and fears and allow me to live a Christian life without constantly second-guessing. I wanted to nail down God academically- explain away every doubt or question that would come my way and leave no trace of doubt behind. My fear was that if I didn't do this, people would accuse me of being a sheep- just doing what I'm told, ignoring evidence to the contrary just so I can live in my happy little "Christian" dream world. This accusation has eaten at me so much that even while I worry about it, it gave me leeway to sin in the meantime.
~ I've been double-faced. Even while I go to Bible study, church, prayer meeting, etc., my personal relationship with Christ is no deeper than the surface. Like the sower parable, I'm choking under the weeds- the cares of the world I haven't been willing to leave behind.
~ God has said we cannot follow Him on our own, and I certainly believe that. Will this gnawing doubt and fear of sacrifice and rejection always be here in me? Will I be one of those folks that makes it into heaven by the skin of my teeth? Will my relationship with God always be so shallow? I need to find someone to come alongside me and help, but I'm afraid of opening up to anyone. This is my prayer tonight.
~ In other news, I fixed up my bike this week after gas rose above $3 a gallon. I'll be riding the dozen miles or so home tomorrow morning with laundry and whatnot.

Bear's Den sunset (better!) 30 miles to the ridge across the valley. 

Appalachian Trail, somewhere in northern VA 

Well, it's been a while. I've been really tired this week, especially since Thursday. Wednesday night at study, my roommate tells everyone that he's planning another outing to Bear's Den to watch the sunset, after last week's poor, overcast showing. THIS time however, the skies were nice enough so that I could take my 6-mile hike along the AT. 6 miles in 3 hours, with 2-3 500-foot climbs/drops betwen me and Bear's Den. I arrived only 5-minutes before the group did, and the sunset was great. I went almost directly to bed (stopping for ice cream on the way home.) Tonight, I was jogging in the rain.
My other excuse for not posting was that I really haven't learned much this past week, despite the help from Mike at work and the Wed. night study. At least I finally nailed down the next question to ask: faith is not "emotion", but a decision based on evidence of things we cannot see, yet I hear about people "on fire" for God; people with a powerful want to know God better and work for Him. I know the major Biblical facts from many years of church and study, and yet I have little fire: I struggle with sin and motivation to find time to study and learn. What am I missing or misunderstanding in this reguard?

Getting my hopes up

It is late and I am tired. It's cooled off quite a bit this week (only 80 today!) , so I've run several miles both yesterday and today. I was hoping to have something a little more profound tonight, but I left the book I was gonna start studying out of at work this afternoon. 3 of us at work (out of about a dozen office workers) had a short prayer meeting this morning, and then I met with Mike during lunch (he gave me the book "The Green Letters" to start studying.) Hopefully I'll remember tomorrow. My younger brother sounded like he was doing well; he's back at college (Computer Sci. major) for his 3rd year. Later!

Shenandoah Valley, looking west from Bear's Den Overlook on the AT, with VA 7 winding towards Berryville.  

Yeah...about that hike...

Ya know, the main reason I thought that AT hike would work was because there would be plenty of my friends at the overlook when I got there. When I got out of work at 4:00, it was nearly overcast outside, and I thought "what if there's no one there when I get to the overlook- I'll have to walk 6 miles back in the dark to my car instead of hitching a ride. " I went to the overlook later on, but I took the easy route with only 3 other friends. In the end, I only hiked about 100 yards of the AT to get to the site.

One of my friends from the youth ministry also works with me at my job. Today, while we were talking he asked me if I wanted to start getting together with him over lunch to discuss my questions about faith. Awesome timing.

A step forward

Like I said last night, the possibility of taking on a greater role in the church has me a little frightened ever since it was hinted at last May. All summer, I've felt unprepared for the possibilities-
"I've had too many doubts about my own faith and too many unanswered questions. If I'm not even sure about my own faith, how can I encourage others?"
-Specifically, I've had a hard time reconcilling God's apparent inactivity in my life to the active, emotional flow of faith that I've seen in both "strong" Christians and those who are actively struggling and seeking. The technical, scientific view that has been my focus since before college seems to contradict this touchy-feely, emotional faith that has been seen in others. And despite my own multitude of questions, I've wasted the whole summer doing very little aside from being dragged into prayer sessions and Bible studies. After all, I don't want to look bad to my friends and my church, now do I?

Finally, tonight I found some good answers at the weekly study. It took some wrangling to get to the point, but I got it.
1) Faith is not the absence of doubt. I was comforted by this, but it didn't answer my questions.
2) Faith IS NOT THE SAME AS EMOTION. My entire technical, scientific worldview had me thinking that since I didn't have this touchy-feely emotional charge, I must not have a strong faith. In addition, since God is outside of the physical world, you can't use science/physical evisence to search for God in one's personal experience, and that my only hope was that God would give me a "Road to Damascus" moment to turn me around dramatically. But faith is not emotion. This rids myself of the goofy idea that God must drop evidence in my face for me to get over my doubts and follow Him. There is truly evidence to be found for the nature of God out there. I simply haven't tried to look for it.

With that off my chest, I'm going out for a 6-mile day hike across the AT tomorrow after work. My friends are going to watch the sunset tomorrow from a viewpoint on the Blue Ridge, and instead of taking the easy, half-mile stroll to the overlook, I'll head in early from the other way and get someone to drive me back to my car.

I'm getting better

It's way too late for me to be posting, so I'll keep it short. Our young adult ministry had a meeting at the Dudehouse (aka. my place) last night. We started to plan what we were going to do with the ministry this fall. We've been praying about this all summer: what does God want us to do with ConneXion? Instead of starting up the usual Sunday night service again, we're going to try more small groups, prayer, and praise. Since nearly all the older leaders are married and/or moved off, however, I think God wants the younger kiddies, namely those my age, to step up into those roles. Heavy stuff.
I can hardly think, so I'll try to find time to finish this thought tomorrow.

The sinuey influence of ladies, and Saturdays at 5:30AM

First off, thanks for the link to my blog from Sarah Jo (http://cupofjo.blogspot.com), an old friend from me college days at LeTourneau. Mysteriously, however, this link has compelled me to update my blog again, lest someone follow the link and take me for a lazy bum that never updates.
I think I wasted an opportunity this morning. I had been thinking last night about whether or not to go to a men's breakfast and discipleship meeting at 6:00 this morning (as it said in the church bulletin last week.) After a few minutes of waffling at 5:15 this morning, I finally deceided to go, remembering a Bible verse that (poorly paraphrased, probably) said "You will find Me, if you seek Me with all your heart", which I took to include getting up way too early on a Saturday. I got to the church at 6, and discovered that no one ws there! After waiting until 6:15, and thinking about what God's purpose might be in leading me to an empty church parking lot early on a Saturday, I was getting ready to leave when a car finally pulled up with a gent telling me that the meeting was going to start at 7, and that he was there to setup. Here is the mistake: I left after we spoke for a minute to go home and do laundry, but I didn't return at 7. I went with parents into the DC suberbs all morning and afternoon (free breakfast, plus I found a copy of the board game "Risk 2110"!), and have gotten home now (obviously,) but I still don't feel right about not waiting or returning to the church. Did I miss an opportunity to learn/grow? Did I fail to seek "with all my heart"?
Anyhow, not too much I can do about it now... I might take a nap for awhile.

Still chugging along

I really need to get into the rhythm of posting as soon as possible after I've had a good thought (if I decide to keep blogging in the near future...) Yesterday's Bible study was...okay. The topics were all over the place, completely scatterbrained. I could hardly keep up. I really don't like those kinds of studies much. I'd must rather have a smooth flow of idea, rather than semi-silly tangents all the time. Anyhow, it is late and I am tired and I hope this made some kind of sense. Nothing big planned for the weekend. Bummer.

The trial period

I've nearly lost all hope for this blog ever being something. It's rapidly becoming tiresome to me to post my thoughts here, only to have them heard by no one. My original idea of "If you post it, they will come" doesn't exactly work. I've been so bored the past few months- nothing seems to hold my interest for long at all. The guys I hang out with all seem to have their own lives, whereas mine is spent trying to hang onto them. My own hobbies- hiking, fishing, reading- are all done by myself, and are rapidly becoming dull and unexciting. I don't want this prayer group at my house every week as much as I want someone to talk to DAILY about my hopes and problems. We sit, we talk for a while, and after I've shared (usually the shortest of the group,) I drift off into my own little world for the next hour and a half, while the rest of the group yaks on about this or that problem, half-gossiping, then praying elaborately while I dream about everything but God. Even God Himself holds little interest for me right now. I read the other day that we will find God if we seek him with all our heart. Maybe God's trying to break me down to do that. In any case, I've written too much already. Out.

Anybody out there?

Alright, since I lost my update last time, I'll pre-type my blog in Word before posting.
That said, it's been quite a few days since my last update. Yesterday was my birthday- 24
years old now. Where did the best times of my life go? College is a done deal, work is
long and dull, and my "fun" has been getting consistently blander since graduation. True,
I probably over-glorify the "good ol' days", as many tend to. Still, I've only seen a
friend from LeTourneau ONCE in the past 2+ years. The nearest classmate lives in Georgia.
It's tough to sever connections with so many old friends so cleanly. Part of my hope for
this blog was that I could attract old friends... Who knows if I attract anyone at all?
Blah. Anyhow, my newest distraction is "Puzzle Pirates", my first Online RPG.
Interesting stuff. I'm also reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel". And I still need to get
more fishing gear before the weekend.

Testing...

Well, I HAD a nice post, but something goofed up and I lost the whole shebang. Phooey. Short version: Got a fishing pole. Darn Minnesotans. Can't concentrate during prayer. Narnia.

Doldrums

Nothin' to report but a boring week. Saturday was nice, as I went to the living history demonstration at the Kernstown battlefield and saw "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" that evening. Starting Monday, though, it's been really dull. Long workdays, hot and humid outside, and little to do but read at night. Oh well, it should get better this weekend.

Me! 

That all you got?

Feeling much better after several decent days of rest. Nothing profound today, which reminds me that I haven't exactly been praying or studying much lately. It's a little depressing to think about how easy and how often I forget about God going through day-to-day. You'd think an all powerful, all knowing God would be the equivalent of a pink elephant in ones life, but he stays in the background amazingly well. Leaves it to us to seek out him. I often wish that God WOULD knock me around more- make me look for him, instead of leaving me in this easy life where I'm content and not having to rely on God daily.
~Screw my comforts!

Swallow Falls, Youghiogheny(sp?) River, Garrett County Maryland 

Weekend

Spent the weekend at Deep Creek Lake state park in western Maryland. Beautiful place, but a bit overdeveloped for poor ex-college students like myself. The trip out to the lake was... interesting, especially through the center of West Virginia boonies. Romney, Keyser, and especially the Piedmont/Westernport/Luke was so different- mountainside towns nestled on the steep slopes along the North Fork Potomac. I wish I knew what that huge factory we passed by at Luke manufactured. Anyhow, I'm still tired. I'll try to add-on tomorrow afternoon.

Narnia, among others

Finally finished reading through the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time yesterday. I've been thinking on the possibility that most people can't "see" God because in their hearts they've already made up their mind that they either don't want God to exist, or they don't want to face the consequences if God does exist. As a result, they make up every possible excuse they can find to prove to themselves this fact. Oh, we want proof, but we are mostly unwilling to take a serious look at God for ourselves, and decide for ourselves on the evidence we can easily find. Me? I'm lazy when it comes to God. I ought to be praying WAY more than I do, for starters. I hope I can stick with it this week.

Also thinking about that last chapter in the book, and imagining Grandma there. Pretty cool...

In other news, my RvB Season 3 DVD finally came today. Still hooked on Naruto too...

Grandfather (lower left) and his 14 children, in order of age (1st row, l to r, 2nd, r to l, 3rd, r to l.) 

Schmidgall

The same day I last posted, I discovered later on that my grandmother had died early that morning. On Wednesday afternoon, I took off with my Dad to drive the 24-hour grind up to MN for the funeral. I just got back, and I am exhausted. I'm glad that I went, though:

Seeing my mom through the viewing.
Being a pallbearer (along with 5 other grandsons) at the burial.
Seeing all 14 of grandmother's children in 1 place.
Going fishing with grandfather and a few my uncles the night after the funeral.

She was an amazing person. Simply amazing.

The daily grind

Bleh. Back to work after a great weekend. The survey department's looking a little thin this week - one of our two survey crew chiefs quit last week, and one of the techs had called in sick again (3rd straight - I'd like 6 days off in a row too...) So today, it was only myself and my boss in the office today, covering all the computer work that needed done. The situation is really not suprising - it happens on a regular basis every few months. Most surveyors seem to always be drifting around between companies, looking for better benefits, pay, or less work. And they're always grumpy at work; its too hot, or too cold, or too rainy to get much work done, or the boss expects too much. Living for money, for self, never content- miserable.

In other (major) news, my grandmother currently has stage 4 lung cancer, and isn't expected to live more than another month. My mom (her first child, out of 14!) has been with her in rural Minnesota for the past several weeks, as well as several of her brothers and sisters. I'm not too worried about grandma - I know she's a Christian. I'm more worried about mom, and how she'll take it.

Jake 

Great weekend

Where do I start? I brought the family dog Jake over to my place last night - cocker spaniel, 7-ish-year-old male. No particular reason, I just figured he could use the change in scenery and I'd like a pet around the house for a while. My brothers might not like it, but oh well. My only problem with him so far is that he's a HUGE bed hog, as I found out last night. He'll be sleeping on his own doggie bed tonight.
Went into Winchester to see the fireworks with my roommate this evening. I hadn't been to a fireworks show in years, and I realized what a fool I was tonight. We need to have more good reasons to use pyrotechnics around here- 15 minutes a year isn't gonna be enough for me anymore...
And finally, the pastor this morning gave a GREAT sermon on prayer, which he's been doing a series on for the past few weeks. The timing was amazing- several of my friends from church were already planning a small prayer meeting at my place this evening. Job problems, family sickness/deaths, and just stuff that's been on our minds this past week. The power of prayer is awesome- so I'm told. I've been terrible at keeping up a good, constant prayer life by myself so far - hopefully this'll be a great help. Anyhow, hope you have a great 4th!

Where is he now?

Hello and welcome to my first weblog! The name's Randy, and I'm a land surveyor working in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. I'm 2 years out of college (BS, Elec. Engr.) and am quickly becoming bored outta my gourd at working for a living. Still, I don't mind my job at all, even if land surveying wasn't exactly what I was looking for. For free time, I frequent the city library, go hiking, and pester my family who lives nearby (2 younger bros, 18 and 21, and my parents.)

I started this blog for several reasons:
1) As I said before, I'm getting bored and needed something extra to do.
2) I thought that having a weblog would help me sort out all the crazy thoughts that pop into my head during the course of the day.
3) It may be a good way to keep in touch with old friends (*cough4Bcough*) and distant family.
4) I needed an excuse to use my camera more.
And I'm sure that I'll think of more.

Anyhow, for the 4th of July weekend, I went backpacking (for the first time this YEAR finally...) into the George Washington Nat'l Forest. Spent the night on top of the Massenutten Ridge. About 8-9 miles loop hike, hot (85) and humid but no rain.

Next time: 4th of July thoughts (maybe).

Took this photo yesterday evening during an overnight on top of Massanutten Mtn.
-Luray Valley, looking east towards Shenandoah Nat'l Park.

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Message test... 123? Welcome to Randy Edwards first weblog! I'll put up a decent intro in the near future.