A while back I said that I was running again.

I am.

But it is more than that. It is more than feet hitting the sidewalks and roads. It is a squeezing once again, in my stomach and my chest, the conviction that I have one life to live, because the death I've already died--and not for my country.

Glory be to our great God.

...who can fathom a mercy so free?

the analogy, sins as far as the east is from the west? It isn't a distance. It is a "nothing," a lack. There is no distance great enough. Our sins are paid for, and are gone.

Why do I forget?

Nothing profound....
But I am running again.

...and struggling, in things other than running.

Tonight I feel the tension.

I was speaking with someone about overseas ministry...
He spoke of staying in America, for even if our country falls, it will be "up to someone to raise the remnant." If she survives, people will be needed to train the next generation.

By looking for the "big picture," have I missed it altogether?
Can I, in good conscience, leave a broken people for a broken people?
What if that first broken people was a privileged people, a group given a chance while the others had none?

May the Lord direct my steps.
May He protect His remnant.

The Narcissism of your Facebook Friend...or perhaps, yourself

From "The Death of Facebook"
Relevant Magazine
Brett McCracken
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=23869294963&h=SKyYd&u=0UtR1&ref=mf


"I like seeing the dissonance between someone’s facial expression and or body language and what they are saying"

"Whatever happened to that wonderfully unsteady sense of mystery, that awkward flubbing around in relationships that used to characterize “getting to know” someone?"

"Human beings are far, far more complex and wonderful than their status updates and “ingredient listing” profile pages. And it is far more rewarding and profound to get to know someone in an unsafe, slightly uncertain and awkward way than to rigorously research them and pretend to know them via all the accumulated Internet data on them."

To rigorously research someone. A temptation, either because "I heard from him that she said that he was..." (and you just have to know who this person is) or to stave off boredom.
But consider that phrase "rigorously research someone." That's just plain creepy. And it's you. And it's me. Doing the research. Being research. Why? To "know" people? Is it because we care deeply for their souls, for the way they live their lives...is it because we wish to come alongside and share in their sorrows and carry their burdens?

Probably not.
Because were that the case, you would do far more than "rigorous research." You would pick up the phone and talk. Go out for coffee. Take a trip to Walmart with them. You would get to know them in that awkward, "slightly uncertain" way.

I have had direct experience this past week with that "wonderfully unsteady sense of mystery" that comes with getting to know someone. And in part, it had to do with a transition from being a "facebook friend" to a person with whom I speak face to face. It is wonderful. (But I must admit, that Facebook has its place. In moderation, it can be a tool, but one must wield it with wisdom)

Slower passing are the hours/To tell this tale that takes its time ("Rita," by Bebo Norman)

Memories of dreams are some of the strongest, and sometimes the most sickening, memories. I dreamed two days ago that I was drowning and that I did not realize it. That I was drowning, slowly breathing in the heavy water as I slept. And I tried to wake up. In my dream, I never did. In reality, well, I awoke a thankful and air-gasping person. I wonder if I ended up drowning in my dream.

Another dream this week, a memory plagiarized from I Am Legend. I won't describe it, but it wasn't fun. Only one person didn't want to kill me. And that was because he didn't really have the time.

Why do I mention my dreams?
Because even dreams take part in shaping my "worldview"
And because I had an interesting conversation about dreams last week.

Different accounts were given by people my age about dreams predicting or warning. And that is all that I can say on the topic right now.

a day's remnant

I would ask a person's first impression of the word "remnant." I think of Israel. But of late, I thought of the morning I went to work @ 6:45, the sky cloudy and pouring forth rain in the semi-darkness of the small morning. (la lluvia en las sombras de una mañana pequeña)
The joke that day was that, by the time normal people awoke on that fine Christmas Eve, they would not even know that it had rained.

At 2 o clock that afternoon I went to my car and started it--the windshield wipers came on. A remnant of the morning no one else remembered because no one else experienced it. A remnant no one understood. The remnant is that which exists in every life-the part of each person no other person experiences. The remnant is, for the one who experiences, a choice to either remember or to forget.