Saturday Meanderings

It's amazing how reading writers I like makes me want to write. (Say that fast 5 times in a row!)  Like back in my more serious running days, if I read a book about runners or saw a movie I would want to get right up and go for a run.  I was reading Ann Lamott and she made me want to write.  I love her transparency and her bold way of telling the truth. So it's home church tonight, the first coat of poly is drying on the wood entrance floor and I have an hour.  So the time is available to write...but I just don't feel pregnant with anything that just has to come out.

Regardless, here I am at this keyboard and I desire to engage in the transformation of mental meanderings and fragmented thought through the "work" of writing. It requires energy to take this mental vagueness and coax it into the level of concreteness required to actually become "writing".  This is a lot easier to do when there is something inside of me just bursting to be expressed.  Not so much when the radar is for the moment empty of blips.  But heh, writers write so it's time to get busy livin' or get busy dyin'.


I guess it has been a long time since I just wrote about some random observations.  OK, you talked me into it Santago..... 
I drive a lot (27 milies one way to office). Here's some things involving driving that have crossed my mind"


Merging: Now granted, I am a fairly aggressive driver. I don't like to be namby pamby on the road but tend to like crisp, decisive moves.  So you might imagine that merging has caused me a couple of blood pressure points over the years.  Too often there is this person that tries merging into the freeway going just slightly slower than the traffic.  They put their signal on and drive alongside you, just a few feet ahead but really going almost the same speed. They don't start to come over into your lane though.  Oh no, they continue driving straight ahead seemingly waiting for some sort of traffic permission slip that will give them the go ahead to come on over.  I say merge hot, keep your speed up and get into the lane carefully but decisively. Product idea: an extra light by the turn signals, maybe a periwinkle color, that you could flip on to let the other driver know that you are hereby giving them permission to merge into your land ahead of you.

I'm Sorry: Now truth be told, as a guy who likes crisp, decisive moves while driving I do, from time to time, make a bone-headed move.  Many times in such situations I have wished there was an internationally accepted sign one could make to communicate to another driver: "I am so sorry for that display of hack driving just now.  It's all my fault, please forgive me."  But what would that sign be?  Let's face it, in this day of road rage you have to be careful about the manner in which you offer a sign to another driver.  I mean, he or she is already vexed with the dumb thing you just did and then if they misinterpret the sign you use to try and communicate, suddenly you can be immersed in an unintentional, rapidly-escalating road rage incident.  Product idea: A little placard on a short stick that you could hold up to the other driver which would instantly communicate that you accept full blame and apologize for your stupidity.  What could be on that placard that could in no way be misinterpreted?  My idea would be for a picture of a face, slightly bowed down with hands covering the face in utter humility and shame.   Please submit your ideas to the management of this blog.... 


NASCAR for amateurs:   Road racing is an interesting phenomenon.  You know it when you see it.
Suddenly you notice a car in your rear view mirror approaching at a very high rate of speed. They go whisking by and then boom, here comes another car doing the same thing in fast pursuit of car number one. Here are two grown persons, normally always men, who have tripped one another's competitive trigger and have entered a realm of temporary insanity.  They weave and bob, picking this lane then the next in a desperate attempt to either stay ahead or get ahead.  Otherwise reasonable people, I'm sure, but once they click into this mode all the built-up frustration of life comes pouring out into this race for supremacy and a chance to get even with this crazy world.

I have succumbed myself in the past...a bit. One of the benefits of age is that the testosterone levels smooth out and the raw fuel for such shenanigans is diminished just enough not to get sucked in.  Or does it? My true confession is that just before getting to my office in Bloomington, I go through a shortcut that goes between a TCF bank and a Target.  You can be proper by taking a right and taking the short road that has a 90 degree curve to the left.  Or, you can be a rebel and cut diagonally through the Target parking lot in an effort to get to the exit before the slow moving "proper" cars.  Too many times, the guy ahead of me goes the rebel route.  If there is no one ahead of me, I often proceed to prove to the rebel that I can still beat him on the "dead mans curve" proper route.  How satisfying it is to get to the exit ahead.  Caveat: This is just too silly, it's the game of a juvenile and I for one have no business entertaining such foolishness.  And yet it happens even to this guy pushing 66. Jesus, what must you think when you have to witness this???

Well, that's it for now.  Kind of fun to articulate what is normally just mental background static.  And yet it is there nonetheless and is part of the panoply of how one experiences life. (I have wanted to use panoply for some time....ahhhh, got er' in!)  Time to head out into a community of fellow sojourners who are hankering after the things of the Kingdom and its eternal light, Jesus.  And in the future,  "please listen carefully for our voicemail options have changed"...sorry, we can take up that pet peeve another time.

Lazy, lazy river.....

Transformation (Metamorphosis)

Believing it’s possible

Still believing…..

Desire for that which self abhors

Elusive, resisting all frontal assaults

Tangentially approached

Like a star only seen

While looking slightly aside it

Others needed, individualism bristles

If not done solo then how via neighbor?

Abandonment, surrender, the currency of such change

From inside out, for me, by One greater than I

With my assent, for sure, in attitude of humility

Exasperation ever lurking

Monotonously urging

Toss in that towel and join Jimmy Buffet

But you've already traveled such cul-de-sac routes

No light there…. no light there

So open clenched hands and catch

The dripping grace of Abba’s patience

Who suffers long for his child’s journey

Never tiring, endless love, offering what’s sought

Enter my child, keep joy as you pursue

End of self, rich life, outward focused

Time has come, so very worth it

Shared cross, receiving all that’s broken

Yes indeed, it’s all so possible

Still believing, still believing……

Thirty some days since last posting, the summer blazes on, seeking to fry all in its path. I guess I actually have a dream. Alert the media!  And that from a guy who has always sucked at dreaming.  There's a lot I don't care for regarding my wiring and being overly pragmatic is one of them. For me, it tends to shut down possibility thinking about as fast as a young hosta in the presence of deer!

But I do want to write. It's a mode of expression that resonates with me. As I read good writers I never cease to be amazed at how good written words can move a reader into the whole spectrum of emotion. It can inspire, convict, encourage and spawn dreams of doing so myself. 

Last night at home church I saw something familiar about me that is one of several items in dire need of transformation.....a lazy streak.  We were discussing simplicity and simplifying both conceptually and practically.  Several shared how written lists can be so freeing.  Getting things down on paper, out of the mind so that there is more bandwidth for mental free thinking/concentration.  Some keep paper by bed, by where they read and pray, and on several counters.  I really don't need to be convinced of how effective this can be....I already am a believer.  But why don't I more frequently utilize such tools....??

Because writing takes effort. Too often I allow the illusion that just putting a thought into some kind of short term memory folder will suffice..call it the power of compartmentalizing. But it's all a ruse...it really doesn't work for me.

Some aspects of my work require skills that come into play in the old game of Concentration...remembering where the matching picture is on a grid.  Who was that guy with OR spine experience that called me last week in Oklahoma?  I was so sure I would just remember at the time...didn't take the time to make him discover-able in the database. Freaking laziness my man.....

Out on the screen porch early this Saturday morning, listening to the day come alive. First birds that decide to break the night silence with their fresh songs for the new day.  I so love that time and the feeling of being a privileged observer of the natural kingdom of which I have no control. Started thinking about what I should bring to home church that evening for our offering time. Father graciously prompted me to write a poem and call it Transformation.  A seemingly crazy prompt to a Santiago who is certainly no poet (as I said in my head as He prompted me). But I have no paper and nothing to write with and that was almost that.  Except in this instance the prompting wouldn't go away and I was able to raise my lazy butt out of the chair to go downstairs and steal from the printer.

Nonetheless, a character trait that is troubling to me. It gets in the way.  Good things like dreams of writing take effort and laziness too easily derails.  In saying this, by the way, I am not beating myself up...nope, I have declared a truce on that crap.  Nonetheless, a non-helpful trait like laziness needs to be dragged out into the hot sun of the day, be named, be found guilty and sentenced to being banished. And so I do....