Violet

The whole thing is nuts!

I mean it, n-u-t-s, NUTS!

For close to 10 months this little person is developing and moving and hiccuping and growing and learning how to exist and it all happens inside another person.

I have witnessed the miracle of life, all 10 months.

As the one without a person growing inside of you, you feel so helpless at times, and all you can do is watch as the events unfold before you. It is truly like a roller coaster.

You see things in your wife that make her even more amazing to you.

You see her patience and care with every step in the icy winter, every thought built around protecting this little one.

You see her sigh from aches and pains but decidedly set her face forward and continue to walk towards the culmination of it all.

You see her courage and bravery in the most intense moments of her life.

Then there is this little person all of a sudden on the outside when hours before it was on the inside.

(Like I said, nuts!)

Then this person is in your arms, you are stunned and dazed and amazed.

For every reason in the world you just sit there and cry.

Really it seems like the only response to it all.

It's hard to remember to breathe.

She's here.

It's so bright she cant really open her eyes yet, but you are dying to see them.

Your love is so much bigger than you thought possible.

You understand God in a new and different way.


And you feel a bit closer to Him, honestly.

Now here in our life, and hopefully in yours, is our little Violet Renee.

'I can see clearly now...' well at least clearer than before

Vision has always been difficult for me. I never felt like I had a very good grasp on it. My friend Eric always seemed to have vision, but it never clicked with me. I was always more of a practical, 'carry out the vision' guy. But we need vision in life at times don't we? Seems like we do.
Recently, I was rapidly approaching a crux of life, graduation. If I ever needed vision, it was now. So some time ago I began to pray for vision, whatever that might mean. Maybe the visions were always there and I needed the eyes to see them. Either way, it had previously escaped me. But recently I began to listen more intently to the voices of people around me, voices I love and respect. Slowly I started to see some things fit together in front of me. I was able to look back down the road that I have traveled and see some purpose to it and something bigger happening. I don't see it all yet, and that's OK, but I think I see enough to keep walking and trusting in what lies beyond what I can see.
To Be a Bridge-this is the foundation of the vision
Connecting, (whatever that is) people, things, ideas, lives, my family.
The challenge with vision is that you can see a bit of where you are going, but you still have to maneuver the path to it.

what else dont we need?

This whole American life can be overwhelming when you begin to step back and consider the smallest details and then begin to see how vast their impact is in life and culture and framework of belief. this website has been helpful in considering some of these things more carefully: http://www.simpleliving.net/main/
It is all a process and part of the journey and I am far from getting a handle on it, but beginning the journey seems to be a start. Also this book, originally a PBS special has provided an environment of new thought and self reflection for me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza
of course wikipedia is more of a beginning than an end, but it will launch you into these ideas.
enjoy-

Feeling Peace

At least two or three times each winter I need to go on a walk late at night with snow falling and a fresh layer on the ground that not even one set of footprints has impressed on it yet. The yelllowish street lights blazing the trail and glimmering off of the pristine snowy covering.
I need this walk to have the peace of the moment pour in on me. These walks come at different geographical locations, this year it was a stroll down Webster, then Creighton, and Hoagland next, and Woodland back to Webster, then home.
The perfect walks are the ones when the wind is nothing more than a light breeze and the temperature hovers just below freezing. If the wind chill is too low it begins to make me feel hurried, negating the setting of peace.
I need these walks because they are a tangible exemplification of the cleansing of the psychosomatic person before God, the Creator, the Savior.
At times it can be hard to feel forgiveness, it can be difficult to embrace an embodiment of the peace that has been made with God.
These walks remind me how real it is. I can feel the cool of each flake on my skin. These flakes are every bit as real as the peace made with God.
This moment is one of many connections between the physical and the spiritual.
Is it snowing now? Go for a walk. Find Peace. Feel Peace.

Enjoying the Journey

It has become of supreme importance to me in the past few years to enjoy the journey more than just anticipating the destination. Of course this has its practical problems. For some, it can become an escapist narcotic high to ignore the trials of today while looking to the end. If I truly care about enjoying the journey than somehow I must learn to apreciate frustrating and stressful times as well as the good. I must learn to live in the moment and allow myself to truly feel the way that I feel. It means that I must let tears fall and I must let smiles slip and I must let frustration roam. None of these are a lack of control but rather the experience of more control, while I am on this journey I choose to let it happen.

'Count it pure joy my brothers when you experince trials of all kinds'