A Jeep In Summer

Back in Belgium

I'm here. Operation Mobilisation, Zav Centre.

Flew across the ocean, immediately taught for two and a half hours, trying to stay awake...it's time for a short nap and then a walk.

And yes, Ang, I DID bring my camera and am already planning some interesting (I think) pictures.

10.3

Does anyone have a copy of Jaguar OSX 10.3 that I can temporarily load up? I am gonna buy Tiger, but the timing is bad. I'm leaving for Europe on Friday, the day Tiger gets unleashed, I need to use Skype while I'm gone, and Skype won't work with the 10.2 that I'm currently running.

Everything Looks Better In Black and White

Especially a picture of myself teaching Global Trends. And look at that, I AM losing my hair. Oh well.

photo credit: Ang, thanks for appearing in class and for putting up with my friendship.

Don't Get So Lost That You Don't Feel Anything

From a recent outgoing email:

Sorry to have been incommunicado. The speed of life...um, how to describe it? Various science fiction movie units of speed come to mind--hyperdrive and light speed (Star Wars), warp drive (Star Trek). Also David Wilcox comes to mind:

Too tired to sleep,
too angry to pray,
too far down to get back up,
too lost to find my way

who knows what happened,
too confused to say,
too far gone to turn back now,
it's too late anyway

He's writing about relationships, and I get that part of it, but I think lots of things have one interpretation but lots of applications.

Yeah, I'm too busy to sleep and too wacked out to pray. But I know what happened, both at work and with various things breaking down in my life. So there's two applications right now.

oh yeah

Current Upload

_Garden State_. Yep, I'm in that kind of mood. But don't go thinking I'm unhappy.

Mike Loves

Moby. It was a great show.

Your Love is Like Blood

Like a river baby
Your love is running through me
And with every beat of our hearts
You see we're defying gravity
Well just a little bit further on up the stream
Is a shady resting place, yeah
Where you can lose all your blues and your troubles
With just one sweet embrace

I don't care what the people say
Over my dead body will they ever take you away
Any man that's cuttin' in on me
Well he just better stop
'Cause I can't spare a drop of your

Love it's like blood
Just like blood to me

-John Hiatt

Your Love is Like Fire

A fire goes out before it really ignites if one puts too much wood on it, as those who work with it know. But once it really flares, the more wood one puts on it, the better it burns, so that even houses and whole forests are burned. But when there is no more wood, however, it dies and grows cold. It is the same with love. When it is first kindled in the heart, small troubles and temptations smother and hinder it; but when it really burns, having kindled an eagerness for God, the more temptations and tribulation meet it, the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes all injustice and wickedness.

Peter Riedmann

When I want

to complain or grumble about what I don't have and what God hasn't given me (time to read all my books, a spouse, to look like Tom or Vin or Matthew, another espresso, the fruit of the Spirit) I need to re-read Matthew 20.

"Friend, I am doing you no wrong."

"Take what belongs to you and go."

"Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?"

I tell ya, those parables suckerpunch me every time.

TORITIME

"And this creature that hits things, this is Matt Chamberlain."

Bike Again

Ok, I'm a bike idiot. Can anyone tell me what size bike I need to get? I'm looking on ebay, and 47 inches doesn't mean anything to me.

I'm six feet tall.

(Revised:) The Fact Is

I'm surrounded by it.

I'm at the age when it _seems_ like most everyone is married. (I know they're not. But if you could see my mobile phone directory, where all the home phone numbers/landlines are two names, not one...) There were scrapbooking remains sitting out from the afternoon, I was over for dinner, I picked up the envelope of pictures labeled 'extra wedding pictures,' she graciously and serenely offered them to me. 'Yeah, that top one of him and the groomsmen is great, but he has his eyes closed.'

It's been me with my eyes closed.

She can afford to be gracious and serene. Everything that she ever wanted, the fulfillment of so many dreams, a place that is home--she doesn't see the desert that is my 'real.' I'm glad that she doesn't. That place where needs are met, where the fear and joy of life are shared, where someone reaches for your hand, where there is no uncertainty about the promises you've made or about the promises that have been made to you--that's a great place. I'd stand there, being caring and careful, laughing and crying, if I could.

Of course I took those pictures home. Scoured through the images, looking for focus and creativity, for memories of last summer. Forgot that I was gonna be sitting here some night and all that happiness was gonna gang up on me.

I forgot about last summer.

Last summer people prayed, my relationship was prayed against, potential was thwarted, I forgot to see, accusations bit deep, I failed, and things broke. Broke down, broke up. You name it. I sat in front of a Florida hotel in the night heat with a loaned flask of something and talked and talked. I'm pretty sure I cried. And it's not like there's any resolution now, just little pieces of hope that show up and don't work out and eradicate and finish off your heart. There wasn't any resolution. After the Florida hotel night I got up and drove home, which was what I was supposed to do.

It is almost summer, one more time, and I can't break again.

(Please don't misunderstand. If you're married or engaged or dating, that's great. Really great. If you found someone who's tender, if you found someone who's true, God has been pretty good to you. Just don't let me walk out your door with a pile of pictures.)

In the Market

Hey, anybody want to sell me a bike I can ride from St. Elmo to the Meeting Place? I don't need anything fancy.