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"Too much and too little wine. Give Him none, he cannot find truth. Give him too much, the same thing
Men spend their time chasing a ball or a hare. It is the entertainment even of kings." - Blaise Pascal
It's beautiful in my mind the way that a rainy morning can bring back all sort of memories, something I might be guilty of is
ruminating on the past more than I ought, but it is undeniable that memories are sweeter than real life, and the hope of the
future life better than working to make this one more enjoyable. Even times in which I lived in anguish, when viewed from the
warm comfort of my rocking chair are pleasant and dreamy. One particular memory about a short affair with a tragic woman haunts
me especially. The long walks in the biting wind through snow and disreputable neighborhoods are transformed to something lovely
and pleasant and in my mind it makes sense now because they just prefigured the stifling warmth in her apartment. Perhaps I shouldn't
go any further because I hope to one day attach my person to this website and I hope to not give too much of my personal life! But
only that this morning I chase the hare, unable to read because my mind does not wish to read the lives and tales of others, but
is hungry for the story of itself! What better story than one you lived. Maybe as activity in my life decreases, the desire to go
back to the interesting parts of my life increases. I'm glad that I have all these memories and I hope one day I can write them
all down in a complete way and share them with you.
~Alex
It's all feverish in color, the brght red bouces off the steel all around in the dark and you can see it there haunting and malicious, and the redness too conveys a sense of heat and fever and sweat and moisture that builds all over until it comes unto you all of a sudden at once and the fever has taken full control of you. And from somewhere far off the icy winds blows against the windowpane and makes water on the window, enough to assuage your thirst... The trees of Autumn sat redly in the dying day light, an intense golden ray that focused onto the oak tree. I want to leave everything behind just to sit under it's leaves, but the big machinery of life chugs on and careens me past the tree and all that is beautiful, the machinery of life only cares to drive me toward that open grave, and how quickly too! ~Alex
To sleep is to satisfy the most basic human need, but also to put your hands on the height of human mystical experice at once. Many times in my life the way out of a difficult situation has been handed to me through dreams and yet others I was unable to think clearly because of a lack of sleep. To sleep is to enter unto another world that is similar enough to ours, but at the same time radically different. Paradoxically, entering into this other world leaves us feeling refreshed and ready to live in that baser of worlds. It is like a journey that at the end leaves you more ready to embark than when you set off! "like a dreamless sleep, then death would be a great advantage. For I think that if one had to pick out that night during which a man slept soundly and did not dream, put beside it the other nights and days of his life, and then see how many days and nights have been better and more pleasant than that night" - Socrates "And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions." (Joel 2:28) ~Alex
... Sometimes humans desperation for food is overwhelming and it's good to see that everything doesn't matter as much as getting to Del Taco and getting just enough food to feel right as rain. . . . I was supposed to drive, but I feel so terrible and sick because I threw up all my life force so I begged just a few moments to get myself together and then I could drive. So I played the fool beautifully (something I often do) and it was wonderful! Sometimes the person everyone needs is the fool, a sweet and beautiful fool to gladen hearts, but I wasn't truly the fool they needed because i fell asleep. . . . In Amarillo I drove and I drove long and hard, but steadily and as quickly as mad sense. Everyone else slept and I saw the sun rise in Arkansas. The ombre in the sky from warm newness of day to the cold reaches of infinity, like someone has shaked a jar and all the sentiments were seperating themselves. This part of the country was clean and made me feel at peace. . . . I really don't remember much, but so long as there was road under me I kept on driving and sometimes stop to get fuel or food and mostly coffee and then I would keep driving. To think that you can point your car in one direction and just go until you're all the way across and gone inches on the map. I kept thinking that I am somewhere and this is home for many people and what sort of folks lived here or what sort lived there and it made me sad because I'll never know, and I saw all the churches and it was a nice feeling to know that this universal trait of worship that is the throughline of humanity is truly everywhere you look. . . . We got to Nashville sometime after the sun had sunk down low beyond the hills and stopped into a bar. Nashville had the biggest affect on me of anywhere. I hadn't been since I was a young man (and then I was more interesting in spiting someone than to really enjoy the trip I was on), but this time I dug everything! All the people and all the life that everything exuded. Everything leaped and jumped to the very beat of life. Nashville is a place where you can reach out to someones soul and they'll be reaching right back. I don't care, the soul of America lives down south. And after this there was more road and the darkness got intensely dark and the road just kept going and going. ~Alex
I read Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms' and like it decently. I don't think that any of the usual criticism of Hemingway are that valid or really interesting enough to be worth talking about, but what I did see in him is a profound lack of the love of living, or at least that's what his writing feels enginered to convey. To say I am in the world, but that isn't so neat to me, but I will live life too! But I think that some exceptional moments of beauty stand out like the lightning quick and cutting descriptions and some few neat descriptions of places in Italy. . . . The world is beautiful and all the people only enhance that and even sometimes I think that the true beauty of Creation is in the people and this world exists only to spread it all around. One beer is to calm my frayed nerves and two beers is to give me the confidence that I need, three beers is to make everyone your friend and four beers will only cause you troubles. I float around as a little fool and an innocent child with nothing but my Bible and I ask everyone questions and questions and questions and I'm floating and everyone gentle leads me to where I need to go. And I sleep. . . . I wake up twice to go run to the bathroom and throw up, and the third time I can't make it and just throw up between my legs. "excuse me, the young man beside me throws up on the floor." It's funny and beautiful beyond words, only I feel bad to throw up on her shoes and to make someone else clean it up, but being sick on a plane is tenderness and the Godliness of people and if I could get a little food in me I'll be right as rain. ~Alex
Sometimes in life when everything seems to be overwhelming, I want to take on this role that I call the observer. Some one who exists just to see life, but not to participate or to be seen by life. Seeing life happen is so very dear to me, but for me, humans are the scariest thing on the planet, and just when I think that I understand them, I find that I'm not at all where I thought I was. Humanity is incredible though because it is nothing less than a portion of the living God. The fullness of God saw it fit to send His only son to become a part of humanity, to live admist humanity in it's entirety. I believe that Jesus saw this too, in His draw to save the world, but also the way that the world wearied Him greatly and the many such scenes of Jesus sneaking away to some hidden mountain top to be along. It's that desire to float up just high enough to be above, but still a part - an intermediary space. For about two years, I was deeply interested in Quaker worship and would every Sunday go to a Quaker meeting (a grand old 19th century meeting house with an ancient oak tree and massive cemetery behind). When I was well in practice, I could feel my spirit leave my body and hover just above my head - being drawn out upward toward God. This is only to say that there is something of being alone with people that is special in God's eyes. My attraction to humanity is the greatest driver in my life, but the complexity scares me - interacting with humanity is nothing less than comeing to a more perfect knowledge of God. ~Alex
Heaven's bow pulled taunt and shot the sunrise into the sky. It was turquoise and emerald like water that made you want to dive in and forget about the world below. The sky was like a lake or maybe the Atlantic Ocean with little long and red sandy barrier islands that made you want to jump in and start anew, wandering those islands for as long as you could. To look up at the land and know that whatever foolishness that existed there wasn't your foolishness any longer but someone else's. A distant other world where people faught and rushed around with vanity, but on the islands in the sky there was a cool breeze and you lay into the sand and close your eyes.~Alex
God's lonliest stars in the sky, look into the dark early morning sky and the stars pierce like light in the infinite no thing, the Heavenly bodies the sky the sky the chill and the sky. The little bit of green and red like salmon swimming up in the infinite no thing nothing prething the sky. The sky that I look upward to every morning to remember that I can love and that love is material and real the sky that eases my fear of death and that brings me closer to the divine. The sky made early by God and shown to humans forever, I'm jealous of the early humans that lived without science who could see the heavenly bodies for as they were, high and distant bodies which were the hope to be, to be heavenly bodies as a reward for life in the earthyly bodies, that is what the stars are! Don't believe the science of many suns as there is just one sun and one son. The heavenly bodies that hang above us an give us direction. The heavenly bodies, but look the stars have faded and fled away but one hangs there in the sky and burns brightly! How brightly it leads me and calls to me - maybe Venus! Perhaps Jupiter, but no matter, Heavenly body that hangs on through the night and into the morning! It is love that hangs on like that in the sky and I begin to pray because already my heart is hard and stone like but this heavenly body guides me toward the day and toward the son. ~Alex
God's lonliest people, in the rain and humid sticky air walking the same worn path and same threadbare clothing and same immovable smile. Who doth rest his head upon the decaying leaves of the woods, sleeps and dreams visionary dreams. Compleating his rounds to do them again, to force out all darkness in the park and to be God's loving embrace. God's lonliest people well read and patient to sit under a tree and wait for marching orders, to march up unto the hill and look down on God's domain and smile to know it isn't his and never will be. ~Alex
The bottle of wine was uncorked and place on the counter and it sit there. The wine was breathing and filling the air with wine notions, the walls breated too and the room swelled and contracted and I felt everything breathing, except for me, I don't remember that I was breathing. I can't remember too how the wine was poured, but the wine was poured in a cheap drinking glass and it was filled almost to the brim so that a little bit of wine poked above the rim, and the tension kept it from spilling over, "this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." (1 Cor 11:25). The wine was red and inky and thickly red like blood like that blood that beat hard in my head and filled up the vials. When it had touched my lips the wet dry taste refreshed me lay in my belly like fire. The bottle still sat there breathing and staring and the light shined through the bottle in transparent green-ness. This little bit of wine will gladden my heart, I thought this little bit of wine will be for freedom and it all washed away - everything washed away in warmness and life. Just glass fulls of life that go down and lay inside you to make you forget wish you might want to remember and to bring to you mind those things which you might have forgotten. ~Alex
Clothes hung out to dry, on hangers stuck in the gutter in the damp morning air. There is a dull pain all around that hangs and floats about penetrating everything, soaking deep into the deck so much so that everything slants and bends toward the sun, the new day the feel of warmth and the smell of spice and sewage. It is a joy to feel everything in life even the dull pain of the mind and the pain in the knees and the pain in the ankle, the stiffness in the back it is all only so much to feel and remind you of the great multitude that this life is. The sun comes up and everything is sticky with humid yesterday. ~Alex
The sound of the rain was the only sound that was there when I woke up, it was the sound of the rain hititng the roof and the side walk, and puddles of water. There wasn't any other sound or anyone to make any other sounds and the rain dominated and pounded, my first thought was that the sound of rain is peaceful, and people who love watching it rain usually sleep in warm dry beds. Outside I felt the door knob and it was sticky with the rain and already it was humid and my clothes stuck to me, the sharp smell of decay and the herb garden were sharpened by the moisture, and I drove to work with my windows down because I wanted to feel the rain and know how it is to be wet. On the way to work I saw two people sleeping under the church awning with their two dogs, large dogs, maneaters. I gave the dogs treats and asked if they needed anything and told them they should leave once the rain lets up, "yes the doctors say they can reattach the arm, but unfortunately not in my lifetime" As I left work the clouds parted and the sun steamed the ground so the blacktop steamed upward to heaven. I was looking for a rainbow, but only the blinding light that shone down hard on the redbrick and the mountains far in the distance. Everything was wet and the wetness penetrated my mind and I felt like my soul was damp, and I frowned at the world knowing that I should be happy. Rainy days are beautiful when you are close to someone you love and warm and dry, when you never leave the house, but stay inside all day to read, glancing up and seeing the pitter patter sometimes hard and sometimes just spitting, the rain makes the world peripheral and someone else's problem. "And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth (Gen 7:18) ~Alex
Today I hope for the ability to live life as my cat does, to be excited for the banality of life. to eat the same food from a can day after day and to eat with such fervor (she is quite fat), to be so joyous when she hears my car pull up as though we had not seen each other in 5 years and not 5 hours, or to rush to an open door or window and enjoy the cool breeze with the sunbeam saturating her with morning light. It seems so obvious to me that animals share in the sentience and joy and anguish of Creation just as much as anyone, although animal life is a pyramid with humanity at the top as protector, we are also very much a part of this beatly pyramid. Humanity's arrogance has done serious damage to the part of us that is simple and without ego like the animals, the part that can truly feel joy in the day to day of life. Lifes tragic beauty comes and goes over me like so many waves in the ocean, but the sweetness of life and breath in my lungs will always drive me onward. Today, I will live with some simple joy as the beasts of the field. ~Alex
Sometimes a dreadful feeling will comes around in the warmth of bed and siezes me in my warm and restful lulling presleep, and I too scared to think oh what could be the casuse, I turn to turn away from this dread, my body too scared to begin a search for the cause of my dread, everything in life causes me dread. I might be the guiltiest conscience in the world for as much as I worry, but why worry? Is not all of this dread I feel just foolishness? Can not I just think away this dread and agony, my lamentations turned to joy! It is my choice to rejoice or to be depressed in this world, as it is everyone elses choice. We live in this Creation that is half created for humanitys rejoicing, and half just for tricking us into a deeper depresssion. I want to hold on always to the joy in life and never to the dread. Even the greatest dread can not seperate me from the greatest joy of all creation, only my mind can do that only my flaws and human weakness can trick me to believe that the world is against me! When really God is for me and if God is for me, who can be against me? ~Alex
"Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." (John 6:29) I certainly might be the guiltiest when it comes to passing the buck, or givin up. Often I say well that doesn't really matter or that isn't really MY responsibility, and this always ends up in nothing getting done. I think what I'm excetional at is defining what is not my job, but I'm perhaps poor in understanding what is my job. God created humanity to share in the joys of creation, but because of our fallen state we must also work towards the greater joy, so what is humanity's work? I have no real answer but only to see what Jesus did here on Creation; to be gentle and meek and to reach out to those around Him. Lately I've been having difficult thoughts about the purpose and ends of the Church here as we see it, and I think that these top down organizations always devolve into something resembling corporate America, only naturally because they structure themselves that way, and in turn they are entirely interested in the things that corporate America is interested in, money, butts in pews, influence, power, and innovation. But it strikes me that this is no where in the teachings of Christ, in fact we often see the opposite. I believe that if we outsource the work of God to the clergy, we also outsource the mission and identity of Christianity to people who are more interested in organization than mission. If every church in the world were shuttered and a Mass was never said again, the teaching and mission of Christ would still be true, perhaps more so! The coming of Christ wasn't to say there will be some small priestly class who is godly and like me, but instead it was to say that everyone is like God, everyone contains God in their inner most being, and as such must take up the works of God as their most basic driving force. We must stop allowing so called 'professional' ministers to hijack the mission that Jesus gives to us in the Gospels. The longer we outsource our duty, the more damage will be done. ~Alex
Sometimes when the sky is full of rain and you are bound inside, your mind wll take the rains and lead you to where you'd rather not go - as though a certain amount of movement is required out of humanity either physically or mentally, so that walking down the street or in your mind it is indistinguishable, everything real as your mind decides what is real and what you brush aside as fiction. And when the sky is full of rain and raining buckets you mind will take you by the arm and show you things you once saw. It will take you to a loft, small and foreign just 12x12 cluttered but warm so warm in fact it's hot and sweating in winter clothes. The loft where the snow always falls just outside the window and you spend an entire winter watching the snow fall on pristine streets, undisturbed, wondering where humanity has gone but it is only too cold and humanity is holed up in lofts that trap warm air and get hot! That loft where you must duck so not to hit your head as though built not for you, but someone specific, someone 5'1" who could happily live there forever, but you are an intruder - truly and forever different constantly alert and listening for the proper tenant to come crunching down the snow, or loud pipes to come screaming through the snow, only they never come and the snow keeps falling ontop of snow and no one crunches it except you when you leave through and walk to where you ought to be. ~Alex
That cool and easy feeling that follows you around in life that usually precedes times to rest and recollect everything, like the mornings dew resting on the skin and the lungful of air that wakes you in the morning. The room still there still the same as when you slept, but different, you are different always and every day different. The darkness that envelopes you, not to destroy or erase but to protect and keep you forever in its loving embrace "i'll join you all soon, wait for me!" The Moon in perfect allignment with venus and some other heaenly body or satellite can remind you of the truly wonderful state that humanity was created from, Creation was all we every needed and the creation we created from Creation is so obviously flawed and corupt, but I am reminded perfect too! The same smell that two very different people can have reminds us that we are all together forever in love. Enemies and strangers walk together in love and similartude forever in the darkness forever closed around on all sides, forever and the candle is blown out forever. ~Alex
Time slips through our hands like so many ribbons fluttering in the wind, they are divided and they are no more and should we try to gather it all up, we find that it has only aged us and we can no longer run to pick up the pieces. Sometimes it is pay day and when I blink it is payday again and I've worked all week and I cannot remember it. Too often my life is just an inconvienent reality between big moments in my life. I'm famous of this, just biding my time. I want more for life to happen every day and for the big things to be built upon big life - it only makes sense for everything to be as big as it can be because one day you are to become infinitely little. So be big in everything you do, in this life love as bigly as you can, and enjoy the fruits of Creation which God put there for you to enjoy. Feel the passion that you heart constantly emanates, but we must ignore. Pursue those passions so far as they make life worth living. Eschew anything which seperates you from the enjoyment of life because 80 or 90 or 100 years is nothing when compared to infinity. Humanity is constantly gazing at infinity, but forced to be in the temporal, but if we live and live and live, we bring some of that eternal essence to the here and the now. ~Alex
"And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to
come.(Thessalonians 1:10)
To wait for Jesus to come fom heaven was the highest work of the early Christians. Just to wait, not to do anything good
or evil. I don't ever just wait for Christ to come again - it's something that I'll agree with and believe in, but I
never just sit in quiet and do the most important thing I can here on Creation. Sometimes when I find myself in an especially
bad sort I'll bemoan myself, oh, what if Christ were to come back right now! But I don't have any patience to just sit
and visualize the second coming. This is the deliverance from wrath to wait and put all your hope in Jesus. You time is
the most important currencies that we carry around on any day, we must spend them wisely.
~Alex
The days are long since getting shorter and the trees turn red up in the mountains, the mornings I shiver and rock and look toward the horizon in search of my sunrise! But I stay encovered in the dark, it floods in through my back door and fills the room with its cool presence. These four walls fight back, but it isn't any use. The dark night reaches out to encroach upon my morning and everywhere across America it is dark and cool. Lovers stay in bed with the covers pulled up tightly to the chin - Creation is sleepy let it rest. The people are tired let them sleep. The Ocean is violently angry at its solitude, her waters foam upon the shore. What strange time in Creation, I love you oh fall! Fall is poetic confusion it is dying, but beautifully - the last vestige of life and pumpkin pie. I sit cooly in my wool sweater and watch for a sign coming out of the dark, that beauty that Cretion holds, sometimes deep and hidden away. ~Alex
The living always envy the dead, for the living have nothing that the dead do not. It is the dead who crowd around and look up from their tombs and pity us, still busying and hurrying in our futile work. Before the great entering into that new and everlasting life. I like very much refering to the dead as 'the falling asleep of ... in the lord' or to speak of someones dormition. That captures the true essence of it, to sleep in the hope of waking up to a better day. Many people I talk to have such an acute fear of death and its finality (myself included) and some are sure that technology will end the burden of dying and we will all live forever. It's because death is seen as the ultimate extinguishing of every- thing we think we have. In reality it all starts at death, and this is only a temporary deviation from our true states. I don't know if I really have a point or a conclusion, but I think that sometimes when life feels overwhelming, I think about how I will die one day and this feeling, even if it is negative, is rare! Something I won't have forever. Inferior, certainly, but it's like the way I look back on small and coarse apartments I had, how I grew there and changed and left it forever. To know you will die is to know that every action here in Creation is without any true force and maybe it will help someone be less serious about the little things. To know that you will die and enter into something greater should be encouragment to love one another as soon you will all be one. To die is to live your fullest into Creation! To see the completion this phase in the cycle. ~Alex
Meeting new people is one of the single most exciting and living giving things that we can do in this life. It's like an infinite number of books so complex that no human author could write it. A novel in which you are a central character and the pages don't move with the turn of a hand, but with the investing of time, you give up a little bit of yourself to learn more about someone else. I think it might be problematic that in my life I see meeting people as reading a book - reading a book is basically something done alone and with entire control in the hands of the reader, but people are different! It's almost nothing like reading a book... almost. Other people are the most terrifying and enticing in all Creation. I'm thankful every day for the multitude of people that I will never be bored, that I only need to step out into the world and there is a complex web in which to insert myself. In other people I see little bits of the divine, but it's all tangled up in the life, so long as we live in this world everything is going to be tangled up and confused. Someone said to me today, everything can be fix, except our sinfulness. Humanity is massively strong and we do a multitude of things both good and evil, but none of this solves our problems, when the real problem is the self importance that seals us off from others. So I will try and see people even when I'd rather not and I will give unto each person my entire self - for it is not mine. ~Alex
"Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech (Genesis 11:7) "Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city" (Psalm 55:9) Are we truly alone within these four wall? The door is open and it lets a little darkness in and a little of the morning breeze that smells like dew and so empty of light. It's all so much terror out there. My biggest fear is people, somehow their gaze is painful to me, but I cannot live without them. I long to be around people joyously smiling, but too I see sharp daggers in their eyes, I see judgement and I see I cannot understand, so many mysteries all around me. I cannot make sense of it, and they surround me like so many snakes, but is a snake evil in itself, or does it simply bite with its venom out of nature - because if a snake did not bite kill and deceive it would no longer be a snake. God divide us up so that we could not understand one another. Once we all lived in perfect understanding, but now we are all alone in our own language Creation divided into so many pieces. This is the root of all strife, that we cannot know another like ourselves and how little we know ourselves. We have been divided and long for repair, long for oneness, but we hate the reminder of our fracture, to see the division to see the other to see people is too much! We are divided and cannot speak, we reach out to hold but cannot reach. ~Alex
I went for a walk yesterday after dinner and the sky was an angry fierce sea in the midst of storm. Gray and just above my head, there weren't many other people, but it was one of those perfect days. I often do get caught out in the rain and the first couple rain drops are uncomfortable, but once you get completely saturated, you can wear it like a badge of honor. A way of showing you're truly indifferent to the weather, a real nature boy! Everyone (I think) has at least the desire to be like this - something primal inside of us. For a year I promised that I would ride my bike to work everyday in all kinds of weather, I think that living this way makes you appreciate the warm sunny days more, living through the discomfort makes the perfect day that much sweeter. In life I try to live through the discomfort, but sometimes I just want to take the easy way out - that is our world in a nutshell... I saw someone that I once knew the otherday and she looked different and gaunt - I hoped that everything was okay, but you never really know. People pass in and out of my life as I'm sure is common for most of us, but this evidence of the passage of time always gives me an uneasy feeling, to think that there's something infinitely larger than I and I have no way to control it at all. It's about the 'I' the ego, the wanting to have control in a world where this is truly none; only the illusion of control. But I can push all of that aside and go on walks in the park and feel peace within Creation, knowing that I have no say in the matter, but I think that might be for the best. ~Alex
"and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart" (Psalm 104:15) "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things" (Ecclesiastes 10:19) Sometimes I forget that life is meant to be a pleasant experience. The world in which I live often tricks me into being spartan about all things in my life, militant about work and eating and my leisure time. Sometimes too I think that the world is my enemy and that I must fight against it. But Creation is essentially and basically oriented toward the good cheer of man, it is only our misuse of Creation that results in destructive vices. Mark Twain said he wouldn't have any confidence in a man without petty vices. A minor vice, especially one that is rooted in a love of Creation is a great thing! It is the spice of life. Only now moderation seems to have fallen out and we are left with either vices that totally consume the person, or pursuing a life free of them that the pursuit of the perfect life becomes a vice! Essentially it is a fallen world that we live in and we are fallen creatures, but God has places joy even in the fallen Creation to give us peace and respite - it is a gift! ~Alex
POST LOST
It seems like summer gave up the ghost without a fight, the trees are turing and the mornings are already cold. I'm looking backward at the summer gone and feeling that it went away so fast, trying to wonder what I did! I have a little bit of an obsessive interest in recording things that I've done - reading a daily planner from years ago is a lot of fun, to see my life as more interesting than it is in my memory. I really lose so much of my life, the regular days where not much of anything happens, that is the bulk of my experience here in Creation. The big exciting trips are only slight detours to what life is really about. I remember one summer I recorded every dollar I spent and looking back now I can picture almost every day based on what I spent (or didn't spend), and another summer I would write every morning in a stream of conscience style, those pages too give me such a nostalgic look into my own mind.
Weariness that takes a hold of body and mind that dulls certain aspects of life and enhances others. such a deep tiredness is a feat of the human body that one could go without rest and still go through it all. What huge multitudes of people live without true rest, even in leisure (and I would say especailly so) can a body get even more tired than after work. A fervent desire to get as much relaxation, just as is the desire to get so much production out of work. To smile hard and live large is not rest, but just part of a three legged stool, to work, to rest, and to enjoy life. There exists a natural rythnm to life that we can find and adhere too. It strikes me that our world is one deeply out of balance. Everyone is on edge because of excesses and deficencies. To know the rythnm of life is hard, but it is only so obvious everywhere we look. A tiredness that soaks into your bones - tiredness of travel. Weariness of seeing so many places, never before has anyone seen so much in such a short period of time - go fast! The world is so fast that I'm always behind. I don't want to keep up but I do, for I am not larger than these things. So we run and work and sweat and sleep a little and what will be done about it? The big world will continue to whirl out in space and we hold on joyfully in the hope that we can make it all a little more pretty. Come take a rest from your glorious labor and watch the sunset and know that creation rests and creates beauty. ~Alex
Thoughts of a church built for fishermen, softest couch-like pew for a respite from labor. Salty taste everywhere, salty white wine becomes the blood of Christ and true rest from the storm. Life is a storm that beats upon the poor and broken - the rich sleep dryly in houses built with stolen funds. Truly the son of man is soaked through to the bone and shivers violently. The son of man has no place to lay His head. The cool sand the softest bed given him by God. Life is a storm and God stands stalwart by you. Why I think is life but a test? Be strong oh soul be stong and do not fail me. Woe to the rich for in your weakness you become more weak! But in the church for fishermen the strong and scarred hands accept communion honestly. For whos sins are not forgiven if he is honest? Who understands human nature and tragedy better than one who lives it fully. A church built for the subaltern, that exalts the lesser to the greater and gives woes to the rich. A world upside down that turns my mourning into dancing. ~Alex
Hmm, A princess story about a dragon and then a knight commes to help her. And then the king and then the king and queen get a casle and then the princess comes through with them and then um she bought a cat and it talked a lot. uhm, He liked to spin in circles. Uhm then she bought a dog. uhm after she bought the dog she brought him to the dog park. After seh brought her dog to the dog park she gave them a bath. uhm and then the princess went and got new dresses at TJ maxx. And then she met a friend. And then she went back to the castle and got a big sleep and then she woke up in the morning and had cereal. Then her friend came over Uhm, and it was her birthday, so she gave her a present, it was a dinosaur. SO she tried riding it outside and she invited her friends to do it. Uhmmm, then she found a prince and they bought a castle, and it was the biggest castle in the whole entire world, and then they slept all day, THE END.
I'm famous for putting things off that set me up for success. Why do today what you could do tomorrow would be my motto. What's esecially frustrating for me is that I never delay a task to go and do some other task that's more fun and exciting, but I put it off so I can listlessly do nothing. I have a trip coming up and all week all I had to do was get groceries and wash/pack my clothing. My solution, just shop when I get there and bring my clothes in the laundry bag and do it there. It's almost funny if it weren't my life. I think that's why I like linen so much, it fights against the desire to just get one more use out of your clothing before washing them, the wrinkles won't lie! But on the otherside I am expert at doing something that will set myself up for failure immedately! I think this is especially true with people. I will eagerly dislike someone with just one interaction and let that one interacton inform my entire relationship with someone. All of this comes from us, humanity, living in a fallen state - we know what the right answer is almost always, but we choose to take the easier or less helpful way. It's something to struggle and fight against. Anything in life that is worth having is probably difficult to attain, but that should be a motivator! Sometimes we fall and come up short as how we see ourselves and that's helpful too! You must know yourself and how you act to change your behaviors. Humanity is a beautifully funny combination of animal desire and laziness with eyes that look upward towards perfection - each of us can decide which part we want to take, but it gives me a lot of hope and joy to know that we're all out here in Creation struggling together. ~Alex
I'm always making these tiny changes in my life with the hope that they'll make everything better. In retrospect they always seem so silly, but in the moment, it's such a driving force! Some examples of recent little changes include; rearranging furniture, getting rid of some few couple items, buying a beach chair and hawaiian shirts, biking everywhere, driving everywhere fast, cutting all my trousers into shorts... and many more that I can't even remember! These little things are pursued with a manic fervor. I'm sure that my life is the same no matter what I do and I understand that only huge long term systematic change will really improve my life, but these little passions and trends - gales of desire give life a little seasoning. It is all joy and so long as it is all joy then it is beautiful. Life is more than success and progress, it's mostly about joy and love and it's all so readibly available to us. ~Alex
"For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." (Hebrews 10:37) "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be" (Revelation 22:12) "But of that day and hour knoweth o man no, ot the angels of heaven, but my Father only." (Matthew 24: 36) Being a Christian in the 21st century requires a certain amount of mental works arounds for a number of reasons, but the one that is on my mind today is about the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is almost certain that the early Christians believed that Christ would return shortly and that they 'would not taste death' before seeing the Kingdom of God come. From our vantage we can see that not only were they wrong but they were quite wrong and centuries of Christians who also though that Christ would come again in their lifetime were wrong. Maybe Christ will come again in our my lifetime, but I'll only know certainly after I'm gone. What I want to zero in on is this idea of a little while. It strikes me today that a little while is truly an impossibly small amount of time. Modern man's attention span is shrinking due to the constant influx of information and stimuli. Any moment not spent in activity has to be spent on some device (I am beyond guilty of this too). In my life I find it to be helpful to think of time in God's perspective. For God 2,000 years is just an instant. My life is but the blink of the eye for one who is timeless. Humans are finite creatures oriented toward the infinite. It is our choice to either cultivate a love for the finite and to cram our life full of activity, or to sit and get glimpses of eternity. For the majority of my life I was of the former camp, and happily too, but one day I had this reaccuring thought of myself my bones in the grave for ever and ever and the way time would go on forever, I never had such a crushing thought. This was my first glimpse toward eternity, and the beginning of my conversion. I am far from perfection, but I try to be patient - knowing that in reality my life is brief. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.(James 4:14) ~Alex
I finished reading Phantastes by Geoge MacDonald yesterday, it is one of those books that sticks with you and yearns for another reading. I'm a little bit familiar with MacDonald from knowing some of his sermons and his general theology, and I think that is pretty crucial for knowing this book. As MacDonald presented a type of universal salvation that wasn't built on hippy sentimentality or hedonistic compromise, but one that has its roots in ancient Christian belief. A universalism that has to struggle to get there. Phantastes glorifies death in the fairy world and there is little sadness in it - replacing all it with feelings of great tranquility and glory. This longing for death makes sense because for humanity, death ultimately leads to our great rest and then great glory in the Ressurecton. It is all a matter of fact, something that gives me great comfort and crippling anxiety. The wonders of going to a another world is something that people yearn for, especially now in the world we live - escapism is the backbone of the American econoomic machine. But it strikes me that the fairy world, or the the fantastic world is in fact our world seen with new eyes. The wonders of Creation are more wonderful than anything that a book can present. Just go out and look at your town with eyes calibrated to see wonder and you'll see it in abundance! Set your brain to feel the love of God that pulsates through Creation - you'll know that the world is living and leaping out and you have a journey to set off upon. I believe that is MacDonald's goal in this book. To show through the other fantastic world just how sacred our own is. ~Alex
Outside my screen door is the cool summer darkness and a symphony of crickets and critters of the pre-dawn. It's the first day back to work and the summer (excluding the labor day weekend bittersweet last glimpses of summer) is over. Gone are leisurely hours spent in the sun or long walks. Afternoons sitting with a book, wittling the days away, or exciting trips. Summer of 2025 is now a glorious memory. My life for the past few years has been neatly divided into summer and not summer, a time to make money and a time to spend money, a time to work and a time to rest. I think it a misfortune that everyone cannot have some kind of division in life like this. It seems that Creation beckons us to take the seasonal approach to life, everything in creation has its season, should man be any different? just as much as I love to labor and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, so too do I like to rest. There is something of being made in the image of God in all this. 6 days of creation and one of rest. I deeply enjoyed my day (or three months) of rest, but now I yearn for my days of creation! All of us have some part in making Creation special. If all of us just did one tiny part to make Creation wonderfully alive, it would be overwhelming alive and leaping! It's essential to see humanity as the pinnacle of creation and it's ultimate caretaker. Not apart of creation, but its essential part. We are all very much a part of the natural cycles as is the tree or the bird or any living thing. I will embrace the cycles of creation and my duty therein! ~Alex
Sometimes when light filters through clouds on Sunday the Heavens open up brilliantly. First feelings of fall in the air already - the change of creation, constantly changing! Grab on tightly and watch time fly by. First dots of autumnal red in the mountains and the children are back in school. The world jolts back into something recognizable. The great wheel keeps creation humming alone nicely. And the light will illumine stained glass windows in a momentary respite from the world. What great solitude we seek out, and what terrible lonliness we fear. Today I learned from a odd framed news article that the corner store at the end of the world use to be a church. And by a path of strange business transaction it went from home to shop to ice cream place to shop and to shop. God is funny, and creation keeps humming along - He'll get us all into a house of worship one way. The world feels deserted sometimes and I'm afraid that I'm the last person alive, then I feel great relief when I turn a corner and see someone and I know I'm not alone on creation. ~Alex
Inhale deeply filling your lungs so that your ribs bend and creak and moan. You've been seeing the black dog with your red eyes since
you got onto the interstate. Turn on the radio, the club dance music floats through the air in its hypnotic rythmn like the crashing of the
sea. It's a club music memorial, someone has died and you feel the tears flow out of the radio, maybe you're sad too? The further you get
from the city the more static you pick up and gospel starts filtering through the club music... when I fall on my knees... it's a sound
that probably hasn't existed before and you might be the only one listening. God has a way of speaking to us in the language we know He finds
us where we're at and leads us home safely. You turn the radio off because the sounds of the night are enough - the hum of the engine is
too melodic to ignore. The radio is off and your thoughts swell and your heart melts - you see the black dog with your red eyes just as
you take the exit. What is this desire? To see someone you know. Nothing is familiar at night it's like a curse. What is this desire?
to sleep when you are beyond the limits of exhaustion.
~Alex
Go out and look at the public places in your town around noon on a work day. That is when the most interesting people come out - as though the working stiffs held back this populatio,but when they are forced back to their positions then there is a changing of the guard. Go out to your public parks, on sidewalks on back streets, font porches, and places where people congregate. These are the people who, through whatever means, are able to break out of the pressure to work 9 to 5, they are freeer and more honest. And though I am not free of employment, I have an intersting amount of time available, so I can often interact with people who are free! It's a entirely differnt world hid in the familiar places we know. I've seen barefooted men sit under trees like Siddartha and let the entire world roll past, I've seen a woman who walks the park and gathers up groups of geese and will sing to them beautifully. The geese form polite little crowds and enjoy the singing as if it perfectly natural. There are inventors whos inventions society is built upon, passed by the strong current of time now sit on benches and teach whatever students may wander by. Wild children who are not compelled to go to school run through the woods with garlands made of leaves hung upon perfectly simple heads. Bow and arrow drawn and ready to take home their next meal. Old people who seemed to live 5 lives in the span of just 65 years, who now (in contrast with the business of their youth) do absoloutely nothing but tell stories of old times - another world entirely! Artists and poetys abound making work that will never be displayed and never known. This is the world that exists around us - these people on the margins. People who can't easily fit into our economic system, but none the less give the world its charm, and through them, a considerable amount of creations beauty is enhanced. "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." (Matthew 5:13) ~Alex
I roll out of bed and stand in front of my window to take in creation - the world asleep. quiet except for the nocturnal critters song, the world is all able to be held in your hand, I can understand this world. My only concern is that which the light touches. The sky this morning hung low (so i ducked), it hung low and green and heavy reminding me of those early morning skies which just barely preceed a snow storm. My life is entirely defind by these early mornings, half dreamily half alert seeing the world for what it is nothing more or less. I've let my life become defined by this early rising rythmn (even trained the cat to wake up promptly at 3:30am and join me), with secret hope in my heart that the sun would never rise and day would never start. Early morning noodlin' doing what I want. I never have this sharp focus and wanton disregard for anything later in the day, I lose it around 9am when I've got to get out and hustle up a few dollars for my daily bread. These early mornings are when the barrier between this world and the next are paper thin, I can feel the souls on the otherside calling out to me, the saints enchouraging me, God speaks with me in a hushed gentle way. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that God wakes you up between 3 and 5 am. That time when no worldly concern can seperate you from the ultimate reality. But surely time flows and that sure lights up the sky. They say the sunrise begins the day, but I see it as ending the morning - at least it's beauty matches the somber feeling I get about the ending of my quiet time. Creation becomes peopled, busy people who rush and sweat and eat and drink and laugh and cry and hurt and hope and help and love and pray and sleep and create the silence of the new day. ~Alex
I'm always seeking out joy in my life, but I'm not sure that I know what joy is - it's a frustrating way to approach it - searching for something you cannot define. I'll try here and paint a picture of my joy. I take the Bible to be the most important in my search for joy, quote "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you" (John 15: 11-12). That your joy might be full! So my joy is not on or off, but progressive - sometimes little joy and othertimes great! Sometimes I seek out the little joy and ignore the big joy. For me the little joys are the little joys of life, an early morning coffee, a walk in the park, time with family, or a huge heaping of rice and beans. A man can get stuck in these joys - because what joy is present in theses little joys! The larger joys are more diffcult. The larger joys are struggling that pays off in the end. I find the larger joys in reading, writing, meditation, and prayer - esentially in solitude. The larger joys always begin as work and I find no pleasure in them at first. But through constant perserverance I feel the little spark born and after a while (usually about a month) I feel the beginnings of the greater joy, or my joy approaching fulness. Through seeking the big joys, your love will be perfected. ~Alex
Things are becoming unrecognizable they change so much. I look at the fish living in the pond and they were seized with terror. They don't live like fish use to live - not simple nor carefree. They do not swim peacefully in bliss as fish did when I was a child, but their faces are filled with terror, terror of the knowledge that they live in a finte pond with so many walls and so much sky. It wasn't meant to be like this, but what was it meant to be like? Things are changing so quickly, who can keep up? I was born a human, of this much I am sure. I was born into creation - made for the enjoyment of all living things, this I am sure of too. Creation that abounds but only in as much as it is filled with life that also rejoices in life. Creation and life walk hand in hand, but are we such an unreliable steward? Rejecting our inborn duty? Things are happening and they call it progress, but it doesn't look like any kind of progress to me. A death march to desolation, the eternal and never springing winter. A death march of all life and all creation - fleeing from creations longing embrace. Everything is changing and everyone is on edge, horrible gnashing of teeth! I see faces full of sadness and faces full of madness and faces confused. Beautiful souls living in a world becoming hostile to beauty. Creation is ours and ours to do with how we please. Strange ideas that humanity has for creation! Death March of creation - the Earth's final repose. Humanity who's soul slumbers within, choked by hatred and greed. Living in a world that doesn't want you alive - your soul sleeping inside. Souls choked out by ambition and lies. Humanity who wakes up everyday but doesn't know why. Ignorant of their True orientation, too busy too busy, but busy with what? Humanity who's golden soul shines even in her slumber, through the slimy mire. I lay down to slumber, but do not forget me, I return to creation,but my soul burns on brightly. ~Alex
Time is fleeting. It's a resource that I wish I had more of, I'm constantly frustrated watching it slip through my hands. With phrases like,
'just killing time' or 'I've got too much time on my hands' coming out of my mouth it's clear that I'm two sided in this. When I don't have time
it's all I want, but when I find myself with too much time, it scares me. Time is like pure potential energy - you can really do anything with it
When I was but younger I could throw away time like it was nothing and I often did enjoy to throw away time playing video games or reading trash
novels or watching TV. It felt good to sit and do nothing because my time felt like it would never end. The older I've gotten, the more aware I am
(sometimes constantly and overwhelmingly) that my days are limited. I like to think that somewhere there is a clock for me which counts down slowly
for me. Realizing that you will die makes every moment so much more precious, and makes it all the more frustrating when I realize how little I value
what bit of time I have. I sit over my weekly planner and see what time I have in my schedule to do the things I love. Can I move this here or there
Or pencil in time for reading and writing. Can I be more vigilent in my evening to not waste time in passivity! When I go off on this extreme, I feel
so militaristic about my life and it ceases to be fun, but to be more work. Doing the things I love is good because it's in contrast to the things I
don't want to do. I dont think there has ever been a group of people who did only what they want and never what they don't. Free time and the activities
I love gain their sweetness by longing for them. today I will exercise moderation; balancing work, passion projects, and none-activity, all in time.
~Alex
I hope I don't sound misanthropic in saying this, but I realized lately that I think the best experiences I've had in churches have been when I'm
either in an empty church, or visiting a church that I've never been to and don't intend to go to again. I've heard say one time that church would be
great if it weren't for all the people. There is something to this! Church is holy not because of people, but in spite of them. It is a sad reality
since the beginnings of Christendom, people have argued and disagreed and fought and done all sorts of wicked things in the name of Christ. It is
unfortunate, but it is the reality that we cannot have anything without people. Even the most reclusive hermit sees and ministers to the people around
them and uses their gifts for the larger community. I try to always strive to love everyone and not let them get in my way of loving them. Christianity
and civilization as a whole isn't easy, and interacting with people is probably the most difficult thing we'll do on any given day, but it is also the
beautiful and worthwhile thing we can do. We cannot have anything truly lasting without each other.
~Alex
Here's the thing, we're on 12th street. If we keep going we'll be on 13th Street. Got it? I got it but when I'm with people I never want to be alone,
When I'm alone I can't imagine ever being with people. The sea will be my mistress, my lover. She never lacks for conversation - a steady crash is her
song. Lay and let her envelop you, lay down in the sand and let her take you away and she will show you true darkness. My foot steps in the sand, happy
clomping and crunchy along. I look to see things lost in the sea some accidentally and others with intention. long journey to toss it in the sea. I look
behind and see the people rush madly under warm glowing light. I come to the sea with my illness and she bare what ailment.
...
The sea is my lover, before dawn I dive beneth crashing waves. The sea is my lover in dawn's light tucked far away - little when next to her. In sunrise,
what sunrise? the beach bepeopled slowly, sleepily. Each lovely and lonely with wistful smile. The breeze gives me something and takes away just as much.
The sea is my lover in endless expanse.
~Alex
Certain key pieces of architecture loom largely in everyones imagination, especially if they figured somewhat magically in youth. For anyone from
Maryland, I'd take a bet that the Bay Bridge is one of those pieces of architecture that occupies a place in your mind that stretches further than just
west to east. My impression of going over the bridge as a child was some kind of awe mingled with terror. The way all the cars would line up and pay the
entrance fee felt like an amusment ride for automobiles. As a child I grew up in a somewhat rural part of America and for me the largest man made structure
that I knew was the mall and even the mountains that encircled my hometown were but gentle rolling hills, some distant relative of the Appalachians. The
Bay Bridge was a massive super structure in my mind, I couldn't imagine how humans could create it! It also had the characteristic of being a gateway to
a new world. A place not filled with those rolling hills dotted with cows, but someplace swampier lower and smelling of that decay which also makes you
feel more alive. As I got older and had to travel across the Bay Bridge for work I saw it as a great misfortune. At the time I delivered food to restaurants
and when I found that my stops lay there on Marylands Eastern Shorn I felt as though cursed. I saw the Bay Bridge as a pinnacle of everything wrong with
society. It's otherworldy splendor faded away and I saw it was old and coming undone, traffic constantly holding up my deliveries, and I realized that
everyone going across the bridge (besides myself) was somehow the worst driver I had ever seen! As I'm reflecting on the bridge for this little post,
I'm finding that I hold a synthesis of the two former ideas and a new third idea! The Bay Bridge is an absolute institution in our hearts and minds
as I'm sure that many other pieces of local architecture are for many other people, but at the same time, everything in the world is far less than perfect.
But much like Saint Christopher, the Bay Bridge bares us on her back and takes us across the otherwise uncrossable bay; thanklessly and tirelessly.
~Alex
"That ye put off concering the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit
of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)
My life is constantly oriented towards becoming. I see my life as segmented thus; the old man, followed by the man I currently am, followed by the
man I am to become (the new man). The difficult thing is that you aren't alawys the man you are. Throughout the day I am constantly switching between
the three. In a moment of weakness or anger I become the old man and i'm inconsiderate or I eat too much, spend too much money or just generally over
indulge. Other times I am me; the me who everyone expects to be. And other times, though rarely, I can feel myself break through and become the new man
who is selfless and kind hearted and loves others. Creation is defined by cycles growth and decay running after each other forever. It's important to
remind myself that I am part of creation and I am very much a part of these cycles of growth and decay and growth. I will never truly put away the old man
because his purpose is to lead me toward the new man; though I fall I get back up. I'm not trying to justify the behaviors that I have that are less than
perfect (were it my choice, I would be the new man constantly), but I believe that the perfect love, tenderness, patience, and charitable disposition of
the new man extends to ourselves. Just as you wouldn't condemn your brother or sister, friend or co-worker, or even someone you've never met, so should
you not condemn yourself. Give yourself the nurtuting that you need to become the best version of yourself, so you can in turn let it shine out in the world.
~Alex
One of the practices that has become central to my adult life is to watch the sunrise every morning. Sometimes I'll sit and watch for a while
and other times it's only a glimpse as I rush off to work, but no matter what I'll always catch a glimpse of the sun peeking over the mountains
and I'm filled with a sense of newness. The sunrise is creations coming to life - newness and sameness! There is something there for me, the way
the sunrises every morning yet each is slightly different and unique. As are the days which the sunrise initates, each day can feel samey, but if
you look at it thoughtfully, you'll see a multitude of small differences. I always like to say we must 'set ourselves up for success' and there are
few things that so prepare us for success as the sunrise. There is something core in this activity, uniquely human and also unique to creation.
Humans evolved to stand upright on two legs so that they could orient their gave upward toward heavenly things. Our history is a story of humanity
constantly being led from the lower to the higher - I always try and remember my place in human history (though often I don't and I find myself
oriented toward the ground.) But the sunrise is also shared by all of creation! It is the sunflowers cue to start following the sun. It is the
beginning of the birds song. The bugs begin to rejoice and sing - the sunrise tells creation to come to live and we should respond accordingly!
Today I will act together with creation and rejoice at the coming of the sun and the beginning of a new day.
I'm really not in love with everything thing I write, in fact, once the words leave my mind and are committed to paper I can't stand to
read them. I'm sure this is abundantly clear to any eagle eyed reader of The Shaking Reed (or really any reader with a pulse) - typos abound
in each days entry. I'm not much of an editor anyway, but especially my inability to read what I've written makes mistakes lasting. Each piece
I write on here is a little piece of me which I send out into the world. I try and give each piece the love and nurturing it requires to grow up
and become its own, but posting on The Shaking Reed is each pieces leaving home - moving away to be its own thing. It's a heart breaking experience
but writing is a form of communication at the end of the day. A big notebook full of the greatest words written is nothing if it isn't read.
A beautiful experience too is reading my own writing that I've written long ago. The years make it not my own and instead of cringe at what
I've written, I see some greatness in it that I never saw before - as though someone else has written it. My goal with the new direction of The
Shaking Reed is to overcome this dislike of my writing new and to have an archive of my writing old. And largely to communicate, to hone my ability
to share the way I see the world with others.
I've been given many opportunities to fail lately, and I've taken every single one of them! Both because I recently started a job that
I'm not naturally gifted at, and because after a summer off, my driving skills are a little rusty - (and even working on the new life of
The Shaking Reed has given me chances to mess up things I've never had the opportunity to mess up before). Every day I've forgotten some
little detail, or mixed two such details up - zigged when I should have zagged. But the point isn't that I feel sorry for myself, in fact
I'm happy to be surrounded by all these mistakes, in my life I find the easiest way success is by failure. To fail at something is to learn
a very important lesson. Just reading or hearing about the way to do something is always shallow and I crave to get 'hands on' with a new
task and see how failure and success feels. Failure sets the goalpast by which success is measured. I've learned little by little to just
smile at little failures. This is due in large part due to the grace I've been granted as I get older and the way in which humility seems
to naturally be cultivated. I think that if your humility doesn't increase with your age you're toast! We will never be perfect, but we can
be happy, caring, and persistent! What hasn't gotten any easier with age is when I fail my family and friends, letting down those whom I love
deeply. This always gives me the most dreadful gut flight feeling. It's painful to think that I can't be perfect to those that I hold to be
perfect toward me. Every day we must remind ourselves that we are not the originator of perfection, but it's caretaker. Through hard work
the fruits of perfection can be ours; humility, tenderness, and love. While I'm not prefect, if i cultivate these fruits, it will get me much
closer.
Sunlight Filtering Through
With sunlight filtering through my window these days begin sleepily, the days of my life that are forgotten - lay blank in my journal.
With sunlight filtering through pine tree needles warmly like stained glass, those days of life where the most noteworth thing is a
gentle northbound wind that gives momentary relief from the oppressive heat of the day, or days in spent in contemplation, inactive
as though accidentally. When dinner looms large and the smell of chickpeas roasting with plenty of tomatoes fills the kitchen. These days
are the currency of life with which we buy our way into Heaven. Happy contemplation and happily content. Time spent with my beloved, but
do I treasure these rightly? Herein, between life's great joys and great sorrows is the meat of life - but forgotten.
~Alex
August 9, 2025
This morning I got a call from a number I didn’t have saved in my contacts, so I answered the way that I answer all calls, in a thick fog of confusion
(it turned out to be just a coworker confirming plans for the coming day). A huge chunk of all my phone interactions go like this. A number reaching
out to me that I’m almost certain I know, but am unable to place it. Each time I play along, hoping to figure out who it is based on context clues,
but I’m sure that my confusion is obvious.
One of my worst habits is to periodically (or weekly), I go through my phone and prune my contacts – removing people I haven’t spoke to in a while or
who maybe I think it best not to talk to. The idea seems to be that if if the contact is out of sight then it is truly and forever out of mind. This
theory that my mind has come up with would be perfect if not for two uncontrollable variables; first, a massive flaw of the telephone is that it works
both ways. And second, in life it always seems that you run into the people you’d rather not. It’s funny that this blunt utilitarianism has infected
just this one annoying aspect of my life. When I think about it deeper, I think this stems from a desire that I have to make things fit into clear
categories. You’re either in my contact and I talk to you frequently or you’re not and I don’t. This removes entirely the maybe, the occasionally,
the rekindling. More importantly It removes grace and forgiveness. Lose my number taken to heart. It is almost always a way of avoiding people. Placing
them forever in the not speaking category of my life. Its shocking to realize that within me is a desire to destroy connection. When all life is IS
connection – connection of all living things on the living planet with the living God. Humanity has a great power, to build or destroy; to connect or
sever. Today I will keep everyone in my contact list. I will reach out – connect!
August 8, 2025
Some Thoughts on Technology
I had an entire different Reed planned out for today, but after running into several technical issues, I lost the file. And surely I could re-write
it, but I think this is an even better opportunity to talk about technology. When I was young, my family was all but certain that I would one day
start my tech empire because I was able to play games on the family computer and when I unplugged the wifi, counted to 15, and plugged it back in,
it worked. Technology was something that I loved the fruits of as a child - it felt that it had no limit, I could be anyone and access anything.
As I got older I started to read books more and I felt a new kind of magic. one which surpassed the feeling that technology gave me as a child.
were defined by a desire to be connected to the world and to people. And I, granted not entirely in error, saw that the massive amounts of technology
that defined our lives; cars, computers, smart phones, and the endless feed of media, really seperated us from one another and creation. And I lived
for a few years as a wanna-be luddite. Now, seemingly a product of getting older, I see technology for what it is - simply a tool. A tool that is
often used for evil and for profit. Used to divide and conquer us. To distract and pacify, but ultimately a tool. A tool that should I choose, I
can use to share my love of life. Pivotal in my new understanding was the knowledge that not all technology has to been designed to be mindless.
Some computer operating systems are designed to be obtuse, making everything difficult. Cars with manual transmissions. Even printing out a map.
I've found a systhensis of being able to use these tools for good, but making them obtuse enough that they don't become as part of my life as
breathing, smiling, walking, feeling. It would be silly to eschew hammers because it allowed me to do something I couldn't do with my hands, but
at the same time it would be silly to make a hammer my entire identity. I am thankful for moderation and the ability to share the thoughts in my
mind with you all.
August 7, 2025
I think...
I like to think a lot when I’m out on my daily walks in the park. To really let me mind run as wild as it wants – sometimes it’s crucial to reel
your mind in or else you’ll spiral, but like a dog on a retractable leash, it’s good to let it run! I think about all the people I see in the
park. Out walking and enjoying the day, playing with their children, or two lovers sitting and feeding the ducks. Everyone has their own memories
and thoughts and feelings, opinions which remain almost entirely unaccessable to me. And everyone has their own death they must die that they
carry hidden within them. I wonder how they think about death and do they do so often?
I think about the geese too – just as soon as they get settled from the big trek northward they’re heading back south for the winter. Are these
geese here the same ones as last year and next year will these same geese go else where? Where will they go to?
I think about smoking a cigarette (though, I haven’t had one in almost a year). Which gets me to thinking about all my friends. What joys and
struggles have they encountered today? I could reach out and call, but that would make everything real and tangible. I wouldn’t ponder any more,
but I would know. On my walks, the last thing I want is reality. When I walk, I try to communicate with something larger. The vast movement of
the Earth is real, I have to hold on tight, I’m spinning, all at once, thousand of miles per hour through space. My connection to every living
thing ceases to be religious doctrine because I realize that it’s obvious fact. The questions I have on my walks feel like questions in as much
as I ask them, but the fruit of the question isn’t in the answer, it’s in the asking and in the pondering!
I love to walk and to walk and to feel alive It is important to me! To get out into the big connected world and to be the movement of creation!
~Alex
August 6, 2025
Ora Et Labora
It seems that in the mid-Atlantic summer is coming to a close. The heat has broken and a cool breeze blows the trees – soon all the tomatoes will
be harvested and inevitably I’ve found myself at work again. I thought for certain I would feel that remiss for not going to the beach more and a
longing for long hours of solitude, but I felt new and alive. The cool morning air filled my lungs and I noticed that I hadn’t smelled the early
morning in a long time. The beach air fills your lungs in a way that’s hot and full of sun, but the air that fills my lungs on a work day propels
me forward. I’m surprised too to find that I missed the down time in my job. When my body is working and my mind floats off elsewhere, or when I
am sitting and waiting in the space between the end of one task and the beginning of another. Time enough to think but not enough to sleep. In
this down time I found incredible treasures that I had been seeking out all summer. In fact, I found the future of The Shaking Reed in one of these
layovers. When my mind is truly open and not distracted, it’s truly open to ideas to God. A vessel can’t be filled unless it is first emptied. It
reminds me what David Lynch said, “catching the big fish”. But sometimes just trying to open my mind I get all distracted – my labor and my lesiure
are tied. My labor is the bridge connecting the idea to my mind, it is ora et labora. The Smile on a child’s face, standing back to look on
projected completed, small talk with a coworker, and even the challenges of working too. All these are tools my mind uses to organize my thoughts.
Labor is what connects me to the world. Working diminishes the me that only thinks of me. To work is to acknowledge that we all need each other.
I leisure to labor so I can wait on God and the big ideas.
WEBSITE NOTE!
As you might have noticed, The Shaking Reed is undergoing some huge changes in the coming weeks! Pleased stay tuned for regular posts and the next
big thing! And please keep me and our webpage designer in your thoughts.
