That Fifth Fotoshop Foto Biz…

Okay. The reportedly random and easy blog post: Fifth photo in the Fifth photo folder. While it tends to look considerably less random when it turns up something site appropriate as in certain… ahem… cases that may have tagged me here, a little re-org goes a long way. By golly, I meant to do some, too. Well… it’s not that I meant to do some, but more like “… if I post that photo I’m a dead man”. So lookee here… what have we now? “No… the only random thing about posting THAT Fifth photo in the Fifth folder will be the five places they find my five body parts afterward.” So… let’s just keep re-opening that photo folder and doggone… if there isn’t a new folder in there… I wonder what’s going on? “Hey, look at this… prayer works!”

Truly amazing. Yep. Look ….a photo of the dog! Nobody died posting a photo of a dog. This really must BE the fifth photo of the fifth file folder. Yep. Like that secret fifth column during World War II… it was here all along and I just didn’t know it!

And whaddya know? It’s not just any dog… no… any dog would jump up on my bed at 3:00am and disrupt an otherwise good night’s sleep with a “Is it breakfast now?” inquiry… because he doesn’t have to go to an office… ’cause he gets to sleep all day. Right. No that’s any dog. That’s much more like this dog named “Jib” I’ve run accross. Somewhere. Not sure where. But Jib just doesn’t seem to get it, and hard headed little dude that he is….refuses to read the memo as to what constitutes official sleeping quarters, wake up time, breakfast time, how to read the clock – the whole bit. “We said moving hands of the clock… not a minute move of sleeping hands on the bed. And when I rollover… and don’t say anything….trust me… that’s the way it’s supposed to be… they’re no treats, and you’re not supposed to be involved.”

But this dog… he slept quietly and comfortably in the closet. All the night. He didn’t have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and have to have special food or stay two weeks at the Vets living the life of Riley while busy spending my money like a King and playing losing hands of $500-a-chip poker with the other dogs and veterinarians (Whoever said there was no money in going to the dogs?).  No, this dog, our Buster, was a healthy animal until suddenly, one day, he wasn’t.  Model citizen. Yeah…  and I know for some that concept brings up whole sorts of issues….but that’s another can of something.  And I also know he looked a lot similar. Some folks don’t even know there was a change!  But heck, the old guy seems a saint by comparison to the newer model.

Well… in truth, Buster’s breath was about as bad as it gets… but he seemed to understand and was more than happy to be scratched while breathing in the opposite direction. What a guy. And his toys seemed to last a lot longer… at least long enough to learn their names and he seemed to know which one was which, and he could respond rightly when you said, “Go bring me the corn!” so you could throw it.  Okay… so he wouldn’t actually give it to you without a tug-of-war… but at least he “got it”. By contrast, Jib’s toys are measured in minutes of lifespan… so he seems to have no idea what you’re talking about when ask, “Where’s Fuzzy man?” but just gives you a look like you said “Want some dinner?” or maybe he does understand… but understands mostly, “Hey… you threw the remains in the trash, remember?” Oh yeah. Well… so that leaves Jib on this restricted diet of fire hose and the ever annoying squeaky (fire hose) protected octopus. And no, I can’t recall Buster’s toys ever having to be confiscated for my ears’ early morning protection.

So that’s my bit. Yeah. Totally random. Totally. Now as to tag…. random idea… I’ll just take the Fifth… and remain silent. ‘Cuz, yes… it could incriminate me…. or at least find me back where I started…living in fear of the body parts department.

Facin’ It on Face Book

So I tried a Facebook page. Ha! What a hoot that is. Makes me think of how things must have gone when they were first putting mail slots in:

” ’scuse me, bub… would ya’ mind if I sawed a hole in your front door? Y’know it’s the latest.”

“My front door? Put a hole in it? Why’d anyone want you to do that?”

“Normally, it’s so’s we can let the bees in…  But for you I gotta special. For you… I got the best hole-in-the-door… it’s one people come by and drop things into your house through a hole. I’m thinkin’ for you… we’ll be lucky and it’ll be some sort of bomb…”

“Huh? I’m afraid I got stuck on that part about the bees…”

“Nah. Got that covered… literally. I mean we put this hinged sheet of metal on it. Tight, man. No bees… only the good stuff. Bombs …if we’re lucky.”

“M-kay if you say so. What kind of good stuff we really talkin’ about?”

“Y’know… notes from your friends, photos of their kids, bills, junk mail… the whole she-bang.”

“Junk mail and bills? Great… I mean if it was just notes and photos.. and a few bombs here and there… I’d say… sheesh… who wants that?”

“Yeah… there’s always a darkside… but at least no fruit cakes other than you…. and then all the rest… just comes with it.”

“And drop dead notices from the IRS, too?”

“Nah… for those you need a subscription or something. Ask the guy down the street with the potato in his tailpipe. You want this thing high in the middle or at the bottom?”

“How low can you go?”

“Feets don’t fool me now… how’s that fit?”

“Done. Dude, that was sweet. And at last… I’m with it. Git me some shoes… maybe I can be somebody.”

“Nah… I’d say you’re more like a target.. actually.”

So I got myself a new mail slot… they call it a Facebook page. No, you don’t want to go there. Even I don’t want to go there. Tell you why: It was of course an immediate hit with the kids. Yep. Went something like this:

“What’re you doin’ on FB?”

“I don’t know. Followed this link to friend’s photos.. and here I am.”

“Couldn’t they have just emailed them to you?”

“I guess…. but then they’d have to email them to everyone… and y’know that’s a real hassle. Files get too big to email, IP’s get upset, everything gets put in the spaminator… and first thing y’know… nobody gets anything and you’re feeling anti-social…”

“Not half as much as… uh… y’know I’m not friending you.”

“Sure, that’s okay. I can digg it.”

“And I’m locking up all my stuff from you, too.”

“Y’know… I’m r-e-a-l-l-y not interested in that.”

“Right. You know and I know… this is really jus’ you wanting to see my stuff.”

“Y’know… there’s something like 175 million people on this thing? I don’t think I’m going to be spending that much time trying to learn about someone (you) I already know pretty doggone well. I mean seriously… ain’t a lot of secrets there I don’t I already know.  Want to run through the list?”

“No.”

“Okay… and for the record… the stuff I don’t know… I’d be happy keeping that way… but somehow you’ll leave it out for me like something the cat dragged in.”

“We don’t have a cat.”

“I’ve always thought cats are best when they’re rhettorical.”

“And you know you DO wanna see it.”

“No… fact is… I’ was 20…. once…and that was enough.”

“That’s right… forgot you starred in Land of the Lost. Weren’t you the Raptor?”

“Gas was cheap when you could throw a dinosaur in the tank.But I never understood what Esso was thinkin’ with the tiger…”

“Sure… whatever…there… now I’m all set for maximum encryption.”

“Oh… an’ I’m feelin’ the love…”

Yeah… so this is a move getting rave reviews around the house. Including… and especially from me.

And that’s the truth. The way things are these days, I have a business web page, a blog, and now a FB. I’ve been over at OC, I’m on Lync.net, I’m on Reunion…  which has morphed into something else like “MyLife” in the last day or two… and I’m wondering what ’s all this buzz about Twitter. No I”m not asking for all this stuff.  I rarely even check it once I set it up. Even forget my logons and passwords. And then just when you think you’re “done”, a friend or a client sends one of these “invitation” things to some new network at you. What are you gonna do? “Just say no?” Those sorts of campaigns tend toward the ex… as in ex-friend, ex-client, etc.

So I keep getting dragged into  and onto these things against my will. It’s like the Leviathan’s at the other end. We have all these places… all these media… and all these networks to keep up with. I mean… is it just me… or does it seem like someone is literally trying to suck all the life out of our real live human relationships and replace them with “virtual” people we hardly know? Yeah, sure, they’re great people. But have we “met” them… or only encountered them on-line? Give me the flesh and blood…. warts and all… it’s a reality I can manage… maybe not well.. but at least I won’t get confused…. or if I do… at least it only takes half the time to get and stay there.

So I’m thinking there’s a reason our Church communes us in the physcial flesh and blood… and it’s starting to look like a very good one. We should not lose the message, not lose the meaning, and not lose the flesh and blood reality of our lives while we can still hang on to it.

Okay… the rant-o–meter’s reset to off.  Thank you.

Bloggerversary

So I managed to go A distance… though obviously not THE distance…. and write for a year. I’ve learned a few things along the way. Mostly I’ve learned my limits… and the limits of the interest of others in what I have to say. Hmmmm. And while that ought to be depressing… it’s not.  And it’s not because the goal was less about audience and more about mission. The mission remains consistent with the original purpose of recording a journey into the Ancient Church… though now that we’re here… it sometimes to gets bogged down… especially when the lights go off.. and someone keeps flashing them. “Is it really time to go?” Perhaps.

But then building an audience… well… I think that’s something for the truly committed; the ones with an actual travel itinerary rather than those  folks like me whose intent was simply to get into the middle of the thing and see what comes next. So here I am, but I don’ t think I’m into the middle of it yet… at least I won’t be certain of that until I’m out the other side… which in truth, doesn’t find me pushing the “Eager” button  at the moment. I mean… like the old song says, I want to get to heaven, but not just yet.

So I’ll apologize to those who wished for something more significant… but a St. Silhouan in the BEFORE mode… I’m probably not. I’m sure any monk worth his salt would probably be excused for putting up that yellow police-line tape around me and shouting to passersby, “Keep it movin’ folks; nothing to see here – just another ordinary guy gettin’ it wrong; that’s right, just keep movin’ right on by. Thanks very much.”

One might suppose the mercy of God hides much of ourselves from each of us most of the time…  as befits the true humility of our station in life,  for otherwise, it might prove more than we could bear. And I hold to this rather than speculate that this blindness is the work of the evil one, for  looking at the humble nature of our gifts, I am only too certain that we have been more blessed than we know…. to not know or contrast these with a look at the coarseness that is equally close to us as well. Seeing just an edge ought to be enough to assure something of a desire to offer a similar mercy to others, that God might touch their hearts… or more likely, that through them He might at last touch ours…. and touch he has.

Yes, there are many wonders in the Christian life. Most are hidden from me, yet still I keep looking.  And amongst the ordinary things seen here… well… there is little surprise it should seem more than ordinary, or more than dismissable… as sometimes one hardly knows whether one is here or there. So in truth,  the fact that not many are curious about these things is no surprise but reflects the fact that  numbers really are not the goal.  Curiosity was not expected so much as correction… and there’s been scant  of that… which means less than it sounds, for much remains correctible indeed, and maybe our studied obscurity is indeed more vice than pretense to virtue.

Rather then, I think what it means is that few of the ordinary things in my limited travels warrant discussion, and the extraordinary seem beyond words either because there are none, or because a veil should remain as it does over any holy of holies. And it does remain not so much because it is indeed holy… but for fear that it might not be. In truth sometimes we know little of what we find  and there is circumspection at least in not burdening others with that which we cannot name in a helpful way.

Thus if there is one thing that keeps me keyboarding, it is the struggle to give voice to and search for the language that lifts the veil without compromising the vision…. either yours or mine. For as the book says at some point, the ability to give voice  and account of one’s faith without fear, without offense, without unjust over-statement or misleading understatement, but with invitation… or as reciprocation to another’s invitation… that seems much of my own motivation and search for understanding. Maybe that will come… and maybe it won’t.  At least for now it keeps me searching.

So for now, I’ll leave you with the thought that perhaps we’re each soda bottles… some are shaken up, others flat, and others just right and refreshing. And we don’t know which we are on a given day… but if you take the lid off, we’ll find out. So yes, in some respects this is a journey to a third world bottling plant where they drip that gooey stuff in, add some fizziness, maybe some flies or whatever “comes naturally” , turn up the pressure, and see what happens… because consistency is… well…. something for “the other guy” in a less colorfull place.

From Blogless to Dogless and Back

Blogless.

Blogless isn’t exactly a variant on Dogless… though perhaps its close. I’ve been dogless… a state you can’t visit until you have a dog. .. and then you don’t. The first condition makes you Dogful, and the second… Dogless. Doglessness is a condition of longing for a condition of Dogfulness that no longer exists. Either you “get over it”, or you “get on with it”. The first solution translates into satisfaction with the change of state, while the other seeks a restoration… a thing that cannot be had for the moment gone remains, and the moment sought is never found: There is no replacement of one WITH another… only transition from one TO another.

When a dog becomes part of your life and your family in ways you don’t even fathom until it dies… and leaves you Dogless…. it will never be the same Dogfulness that you knew before. That first dog comes with no pre-conceptions… your transition from owner, to trainer, to trained… seems to go without your even noticing how much you’ve learned and how much your dog remains in control. You forget what it was like to conform two lives together… and simply think you’ll restore the same life to your side. But that’s just not the case. No two animals are the same, nor are you the same. You think you’ve been steeled, but in fact your heart has softened. And so round two’s “preconceptions” meet with “nothing like”… and it’s a whole new transition, a whole new learning, and restoration that may see a new peace but not the same. Maybe it will be “better”; more likely it will only be different… but a partnership nevertheless,  and an effort of joining two lives…and an ambition lives at least another day. It is a faith of sorts… warts and all… and lack of sleep… but there you have it.

During that Doglessness… through the pain that you’ll remember, you’ll  recall those who understood what you didn’t… until you crossed the bar yourself. And it is odd how readily we can discuss the death of our pets, our fourlegged partners… with each other in ways we cannot or will not even begin to do with respect to those of our two-legged losses. For what seems an intrusion into a personal grief is somehow so easily shared as it concerns animals that maybe we ought to know better.. maybe we ought to understand how we can transfer our learning to ourselves, our families, and friends. But we don’t.

Surely people aren’t animals. And with animals, we’re already far more accustomed to discussing their lives, their play, their animal instincts and behaviors and the whole of our life with them – we do all of this as we would never dream of doing when it comes to our two-legged partners. The dispassion and detachment, the humor and yet earnestness we can seem to find in discussing our pets… and even how this seems to make sense… just seem inappropriate to a similar discussion of another person.

Maybe it’s the experience of looking on at the dog park in this… where we watch a process we don’t fully understand and readily admit our limits, and at the same time  are easily helped by others… this all seems so natural there on the side of the hill where these admissions lead to  learning, sharing, and reform of our lives. All these virtues…  we seem to gain almost effortlessly as we gently… even benevolently look across to our subjects frolicing nearby. There is little judgment… and more resolve, more recognition of the goodness of exercising and exorcising these small demons… and fellowship among each other bound in a common struggle. How like it seems to the playground, the nursing home, and so many other settings… and yet so distant.

And the thought occurs that perhaps this isn’t all that far from how we come to Church, how we, too, are seen by our Heavenly Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, by the great cloud of witnesses… and all the like…. even as we, too, are called as well to stand with them aside that hill, to see ourselves, and come to that moment of discussion, awareness, repentance, confession and reform. Another phase in our training; another day; and another place.  And we won’t just be dogful or joyful, but blogful again as well. It’s just what it is.

Pre-Lent: It’s all about the Donuts

Okay. Pre-lent is upon us. I’m contemplating my fake cheese cookbook again. Yep. The disaster that went happily into the Hereafter… but now looks like it might come back. Can’t say it was the fault of the recipe… I mean I kept forgetting something. And I don’t know enough ’bout cooking to know what tastes…. mmmm…. just wrong. Nor do I know enough to know that if I just replace the offender with another ingredient out on work release… maybe we won’t have to go back to jail and fail to collect our $200. So I imagine I’m in for another attempt or two. All ’cause I can go without the meat thing just fine… but cheese kind of makes the hard to swallow a lot easier for those of us with challenged buds.

Of course, we could just go with the bread and water. I used to do this in High School at just about every caffeteria lunch. September was a teaser… they gave you burgers and pizza… followed by… well… truth is we never figured out what it was followed by. That was part of the problem. Oh, it always had a name, but it was a name scrawled in fear. I mean isn’t that SUPPOSED to be part of High School? Someone writes something on a blackboard… and everyone gets the shakes. Why should the lunchroom be different? I mean… even the so-called “chefs” want in on the fun, right? And by the way… where do these people get their training? Surely it’s some place where “feedback” is not meant to be something anyone wants to think about as having some sort of “loop” quality to it… I mean… quality just isn’t in the equation.

But where was I? Oh. Pre-Lent. Most people think of Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Rio… whatever. Wild excess. Things run a lot tamer in my neck of the woods. Something more like a wild night at Cactus Cantina… maybe even a half of a Beef Fajitas dish with a half salad and a Frozen margherita… complete with anglicized spellings. Well, I stumbled on something close to my heart… a Krispy Kreme run. Yep. Part of the ol’ collegiate experience. Who couldn’t forget opening their dorm room door to be greeted by a couple of young sweet things selling donuts… closing the door quickly… and re-opening it after a quick 10 second “make-over” ?  “Just a minute… let me look for my many many bilionity dollars for your donuts… ah… I keep them right here… next to my black tie, white dinner jacket, and keys to my many, many Porsches and Corvettes… be with you in minute… there”.

No… the Barry White Love Unlimited Orchestra somehow wasn’t the soundtrack of my Seventies college experience… but we are coming up on the ever-dreaded Thirtieth reunion. And while I wonder if there’ll be a donut run? I’m thankful that interim visits have assured me that the car can complete its Mission Possible: “Must seek out and find Krispy Kreme….”. Yes, despite the best efforts of its formerly misguided management, the old evil double-K didn’t manage to go bankrupt and disappear. Maybe they’ll paint an icon with a donut lover someday… and he’ll be saintly cop or someone. Maybe not. But it could be good for business… if not a challenge for fasting. Ah… think of the paradox.

Anyway.. my babbling aside, I couldn’t help sharing this story from Sunday’s Washington Post (full story here):

Fleet Feet and Sweet Treats

RALEIGH, N.C.

In a charity race Saturday, more than 5,000 runners ran two miles to a downtown Krispy Kreme shop, at a dozen glazed doughnuts each and returned to North Carolina State University in less than an hour. That’s 2,400 calories and 144 grams of fat consumed while burning about 400 calories during the run. The student-run Krispy Kreme Challenge raised about $35,000 for the North Carolin Children’s Hospital. The event began on a dare among college friends in 2004.