What I did This Week: "We have a Lift-off!"

  Fall has officially started here in Houston. Well, it has been in the eighties for the past week, and compared to summer, it feels like a blizzard has come through.

 

  This week I tried to work on different projects with my little brothers. On Monday I started a piñata with my brother Paul. The first day went okay, but there are no pictures of the finished project because when we tried to put on the second layer of paper-mache it collapsed. 

 

  Then I made clay models with my little brothers. I made this abstract cat while the rest my brothers made some unidentified resting objects. 

 

 

  Then on Thursday we got to go to Mission Control at the Johnston Space Center and watch the launch of the Soyuz capsule for Expedition 41. One the elders at our church, Barry Wilmore, is an astronaut and so we were invited to watch the capsule's launch from mission control. It was surreal to say the least. 

 

  And now I leave you with this music video for one of the songs of my childhood. Here's to DC Talk's reunion!

 

                                

 

 

Some Nights We Shoot Guns

  My father again proved that he is the master of the spontaneous when at the dinner table he announced that he wanted to shoot guns this evening. I did not get to run, I got to shoot instead.



(These pictures of me are courtesy of my Dad.)

The Fear of Freedom

  Once again Saint Augustine has provided me with food for thought as I continue on my journey through Confessions. Last night I came across this quote:
   "From their grandeur of mind I was far removed. Caught fast in a disease of the flesh with its deadly sweetness, I dragged along my chains and was fearful of being loosed from them. As if my wound had been struck, I repelled his good and persuasive words, as I would a hand unlocking my chains."
  I was then reminded of what Paul says in Romans 7:14-15 (NIV), "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
  Sin is a wretched thing. There is that one moment of pleasure as we gratify our flesh, but it flees quickly. We are left groveling about with yet another link added to the chains we are loath to remove. Why is it that we drag them around? A painful burden that holds us in slavery. We push back the pierced hand of Christ when He reaches down to free us and continue to follow sin's wicked, siren song; ever unsatisfied.
  It is not till the Holy Spirit softens our hearts to the hand of Christ do we accept Him and heed the call to freedom. It is only Christ we leave our chains behind and embrace freedom without fear or regret.

  The trail is hard, it cannot be denied. Scaling the sides of the mountain truly in a daunting task. But trudging the wilderness to reach the top is impossible. No short cut there is worth trying. Any attempt to quicken or ease the journey only results in a soul piercing punishment, unmatched by any physical pain one can inflict, and only pulls us lower. The way of holiness is hard, but the way of the wicked is harder still.
  To drag one's body through that hell-bent tangle further from the way makes it more agonizing to turn back and regain lost ground. The way we make for ourselves brings us not to the gates of Heaven but drags us through the circles of hell.
  The way to holiness is hard even with the help of our Savior, but the hard things are usually the treasures worth searching for.

raining.

   Rain is nice that one, dreary afternoon. It is an excuse to curl up with a cup of tea and read F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories until it is time to get ready for dinner. And it is a nice thing to go to sleep listening to raindrops gently thud against the windows. But waking up to the rain is not pleasant. Nor is driving in the rain. After three days of rain, a body is bound to be driven to insanity or the dark pits of depression. It would be so nice to go outside without the danger of drowning in puddles.

  But then there is the miracle of rain. Water is falling out of the sky. Has it happened so many times I have ceased to be thrilled by the wonder of it? Have I come to a state where I think I am too old and sophisticated to go and lose myself outside in the mud and water? And rain is not just water. It is a thousand crystals falling from the sky, shattering on the ground, forming sheets of liquid glass. It is a healing ointment, a cleansing baptism for the face of the earth. And when the rain is over and the star that earth orbits peeks through the clouds, God's bow rests somewhere in the sky, a promise that He will never destroy the earth with water again. 

"Take My Intellect..."

  Nearly my entire life I have known the song "Take my Life and Let it Be." Whenever I sing in church, I do my best to make sure that I actually mean the words coming out of my mouth. Songs like "Take my Life and Let it Be" can be hard to sing with sincerity, and it has taken years of the Holy Spirit working in my life to come to a place where I can sing this song from the bottom of my heart. But as of late, I involuntarily shudder at the second line of the fourth verse: "Take my intellect, and use every power as thou shalt choose."
  Certainly, there is an aspect of this verse that is exciting. It could mean that God will take my intellect and use it as He did St. Augustine's or C.S. Lewis'. But there is also a terrifying aspect to those words. What if it means I will lose my memory? What if it means that the knowledge I have attained over the years will fade away? What if it means my intellect will crumble? Over the years I have seen some very sweet and dear Christians lose their minds to disease; so that possibility does not seem wholly unlikely.
  Christianity is not about living in fear though. I do not know what the future holds for me, but God does. Each event enacted in my life is in the palm of my Heavenly Father's hand. And He has given me the faith to trust Him with everything, even my intellect.

What I Did This Week: How Not to Cook

 

  This week was interesting. I had a couple run-ins with the oven, but I had some success to, so I would say my cooking has been okay all in all.

 



  Last Thursday I had baked some cookies to take with us when my family and I went out of town. I had left a pan of them in the oven over the weekend. Then on Monday when I fired up the oven to make pigs-in-a-blanket I was doing this:



 

  So I opened the oven and found this:

 

  Then on Tuesday I took this pretty cool but completely purposeless self-portrait.

 

  All throughout the week I ran with mosquitoes.

 

  Thursday I tried to make some cupcakes for my brother's birthday and this happened.

 

  But last night I had success when I made this meatball flatbread thing.

 

  And so went my week.









Running with Mosquitoes

  Last weekend I went out of town, and while I was gone it rained. It is summer, and I do live in the South, so mosquitoes rapidly propagated themselves. Being out of town, I did not run during the weekend. Well, I actually had not run since I had my wisdom teeth removed, simply because I am lazy. But Monday is always the day to start over. So on Monday afternoon I laced up my running shoes and stepped outside into ninety degrees fahrenheit and one hundred percent humidity.

  When I started, I intended to run three miles. It only takes about half an hour to run that distance, and so it seemed very possible in accomplish my goal. The first mile was hot, the second uncomfortably so. Nothing suck the will-power and the strength out of you like the burning sun. On most days I probably would have tried to barrel on through the third mile, but on Monday I encountered the mosquitoes I had not seen all summer. At first I hoped to outrun them, but the little fiends were starved for blood and they tried to bury their proboscises into every inch of my skin that was exposed to the air. After I finished the second mile, I had enough of running with monsters. I walked about a quarter of a mile, trying to brush mosquitoes away from my arms and shoulders. Then I turned around and realized I had a swarm of the creatures following my person. I completely forgot the concept of cooling down after a run and made a mad dash for the house.

  I was able to evade the mosquitoes and so I went inside to tell my Mom about my run. She pointed out to me that I probably would have been fine had I used mosquito repellant. So on Tuesday I did, and I did not get bit by mosquitos. I did, however, run through a few swarms of gnats, and I am still surprised I did not inhale any. Hopefully I will run again this week, and I will wear mosquito repellant again.

What I did this week

  This past week was a busy one, starting with last Sunday night. First I babysat my brothers. We ate French toast and had an Andy Griffith Show marathon like the homeschoolers we are.

 

  Then on Tuesday I decided to drench my hair with honey and olive oil to make it softer, and the pictured grease-bomb was the result. After I washed it out though I decided it was worth the effort.

 

  On Thursday one of my brothers and I made a car.

 

  Friday my family and I went out of town. While on a six hour car ride, my inner artist came out resulting in the following drawing.

 

 Our first stop was my Great Uncle's where my brothers caught an ant lion and I meditated on whether or not it was worth it: living in all that beauty but being in the middle of nowhere.

 

  Friday evening we got to our cousin's house. Then on Saturday we went to Lake Ray Roberts where we went on a hike.







 

  Then my cousin twin and I went and got frozen yogurt.

 

  Aren't we precious. ;)

  And so went my week. It was a good one!



Looking for You

  Last week I started reading The Confessions Of Saint Augustine. I had purchased the book in June and then let it marinate in a stack of books sitting by my bed that I am set to read. To be honest, the book terrified me. From what I had heard of St. Augustine, he was intense and his train of thought was often too much for minds such as mine. I was not wrong, as I discovered soon after I began Confessions, but I also found his writing to be worth every bit of the brainwork it takes me to comprehend what he is saying.
  In Confessions, Saint Augustine is taking into account all of his past deeds and confessing his sins to God. So while it is an autobiography, The Confessions Of Saint Augustine is written as a prayer which gives it an interesting dynamic. The first chapter of the book opens with these words, "You are Great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and to your wisdom there is no limit. And man, who is part of your creation, wishes to praise you, man who bears about within himself his mortality, who bears about within himself the testimony to his sin and testimony that you resist the proud. Yet man, this part of your creation, wishes to praise you. You arouse him to take joy in praising you, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
  That is so true. When I allow myself to drown in the busyness of life, when I start looking for fulfillment in anything but Christ, my soul is restless. My soul refuses to be content apart from Christ, because Christ is who I was made for. I am restless looking for Him.

fishing.

  Almost as long as I can remember, my Dad has gone fishing, and when I was about eleven I starting going with him. Somehow I developed a love for the pastime I have not been particularly successful at. I have caught my fair share of keepers, but when my Dad and I go fishing, we usually come close to setting records with the numbers hardheads we catch. This Thursday was no different as my Dad, my little brother and I headed out to Surfside to try and catch a bull red.
  By the time we got out to the beach, the sun had fallen below the horizon and a little slip of crescent moon was rapidly sinking after it. The sparse clouds above and the breakers of the waves were lit by a flare burning at a power plant to the west. I tied rigs to both my brother's and my fishing rods with no-name knots that would have made a boy scout cry, then my Dad took my brother's rod and cast it out for him. I picked my way through the seaweed strewn over the beach and waded into the water until the ocean splashed half-way up my calves. My first cast was unsuccessful, because the line wrapped around the tip of my rod and jerked as I brought it over my shoulder. After fumbling with my rod to get the line unwrapped, I casted out again. The second try was better, but not perfect as my rig did not land where I wanted it to. It turned our fine though because within a minute some unsuspecting fish had tried to eat my bait and found a hook affixed to the corner of its mouth. I reeled it in, and since it was a hardhead I unhooked it and threw it back.
  That hardhead was the first six I caught. One right after the other chomping on the bait I had lobbed into the ocean, getting reeled in, unhooked and thrown back. After a while I found that fishing was rapidly putting on years. Somewhere between my third and forth fish I sighed and looked up above the horizon at the stars. I do not live in the city, but at my house there are not many stars to be seen at night. There is not much to light up the sky above the ocean and the light of a thousand suns burns over the water. While I watched the stars glittering I saw a shooting star tear across the sky, and my seemingly pointless fishing trip earned its worth. I dug my toes into the sand and kept watching till another hardhead took my line. Who needs fish when you have a sky full of stars.