Monday post in five minutes or less ...

Had a good weekend.  Cut down a tree that was infested with carpenter ants and ran over a snake while I mowing the grass.  Gross.  Only made better by the dog finding it and carrying it around the yard while the kids ran around screaming murder.  Back in the saddle on this Monday.  Three thoughts, as has become customary:

1. Really, really interested in The Power of Habit.  Something as simple as the cue, activity, reward cycle is incredible when you take it apart and examine it against your own behavior.  I am glad the list of things I am trying to take out of my behavior is smaller than it was a few years ago.  But man, those hangers-on are hard to dynamite out.  Aren't they?

2.  Treehouse has come to a screeching halt.  I have got to get cranked up with that again. The Alabama Bar examination preparation is taxing.  Not much writing.  But it has made me appreciate the importance of organizing my time.  I am hoping the time lessons will survive once the exam is over.  Going to have to move Manresa, but that's alright. 

3.  Should native Floridians speak Hebrew?  I heard such a thing recently and I just don't know if it is natural.

Here is to a good week for you and yours.  I'll leave you with the chalkboard.

Ryan

yoga, baseball, and blackboards

It was a great weekend.  Jessica and I enjoyed "hot yoga" on Friday night.  Unbelievable.  I was very humbled by the many people who were by all appearances much more limber and capable of maneuvering than me.  And they turned the heat up to guarantee that you leave soaked.  I am intrigued by the idea that strength training can be accomplished without the artificial use of weights.  We finished the night off with a great dinner, creme brule and coffee.  Bryton and I took in a Wahoos game on Saturday night and he learned a valuable lesson about supporting your team even when the chips are down.  Three thoughts as has become customary, on this Monday afternoon:

1.  I sat through a deposition with a widow today who is fighting an insurance company that will not pay her death benefits.  I am grateful for this job. 

2.  I am reading through The Catcher in the Rye.  I am intrigued by the narrative, it does a remarkably good job of capturing the musings of a tortured soul.  I read that many experts characterize the story as one of adolescence.  I am not sure I agree.  The narrative reminds me (in tone) of Thomas Merton's description of garden variety alcoholic despair, loneliness, and spiritual bankruptcy.  The juxtaposition of these two narratives serves as a great reminder of the universal nature of spiritual failure and the solution. 

3.  I am reading through The Power of Habit, which was generously loaned to me by Dickie Appleyard.  The role of rote repetition and conscious habit in overriding ingrained behaviors isn't exactly a new idea - but seeing it presented with some science helps reinforce and contextualize it.

It is going to be a great week. I'll leave you with the same blackboard which hangs in our kitchen -  changed weekly.  Ciao,



Ryan

Thursday ruminations, mindfulness, and Lectio Divina

It wants to rain outside.  It really does.  The sky is a magnificent deep electric blue.  Full of the potential of going deep purple.  I slept soundly last night, which was welcomed - as I spent from roughly 1AM to 230AM on Tuesday massaging several cases which have me in knots.  Three thoughts on this Thursday.

1.  I have been thinking about how important it is not to treat people as "life" accessories.  I have seen rather gross examples of this, curiously by the very wealthy.  It is not necessarily malevolent.  Rather, it often presents as a view of humans as intriguing, but in a strikingly aloof and detached way.  Those of us who might unwittingly admire a certain detached  aloofness (for reasons which may not even be entirely clear to us, but probably having something to do with malignant ego or better yet - immaturity) can be subtly drawn into this way of looking at those around us.  It is important that we not do this.  We must really see people. 

2.  Jessica and I are looking at a retreat in January.  I am looking forward to it.  There is repair in "non-doing," as Jon Kabat-Zinn might call it. 

Good to be controller of the pictures.

3.  I spoke with my good friend Clifford, who through the marvels of technology - somehow placed a free international call over the internet from China last night.  I miss running with Clifford and Daniel and impromptu Greek lessons!  Amazing what you'll talk about at 5:00 AM while running around Pensacola half dressed.  Our progress through Augustine's Confessions is much slower than we'd intended.  An unintended Lectio Divina.  But there can be no fast spiritual digestion, at least not in my experience.  We'll push each other forward slowly.  Hoping he'll join me at Manresa in July.

I'll leave you with Morrie Schwartz, "[M]ost of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking.  We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do."

Am I awake?

Ciao,

Ryan

ahh ... travel blogs, Boston, and running in the woods with a regal Weimaraner

It has been a good week so far.  Lost a big hearing.  Got fussy with my wife about the upcoming Alabama bar exam (need to be careful here as I got divorced not long after the last bar exam I took and I have grown really, really fond of Jessica).  Had a client drag in a big shot lawyer "friend" into a "friendly meeting" to basically question what I was doing in a case.  I did take a break yesterday to watch Jon Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness talk at Google given several years back.  It is a mindfulness security blanket and always seems to help me come back to reality.  Enough rambling?  Three thoughts, as has become customary on this Tuesday:

1.  Rolled through a great travel blog a few minutes ago which inspired me to write something ... anything, for the first time in weeks.  I miss traveling and seeing new places.  In due time I look forward to some travel adventures. In the meantime, I have offered to carry Daniel Ewert's camera on his next award winning photographic adventure - which I understand may involve a remote waterfall on an Indian reservation somewhere (anywhere).

2.  Have talked with several folks who were at the Boston Marathon (oddly enough the bombs exploded within about a minute of when I finished my last marathon).  Talked to a guy today who still seems shell shocked.  I know that feeling.  I cannot get the picture of Martin Richard out of my head.  He looks an awful lot like Bryton. 

3.  I took the new to us Weimaraner (we settled on the name Duchess, as she does look pretty darn regal) for a run out at UWF on Saturday.  She did great.  Ran past an old rusting washing machine which must have fallen off of a plane, as I cannot imagine how or why someone would have carried it into the woods where we found it.  Thought about how this once very useful piece of machinery had been discarded and beaten up by the elements.  And I thought about how that happens to most of us.  We get beat up in this grind of life and often forget to keep on breathing and living a little.

Time to relieve the kids of their time in front of the TV at papa's office - I am convinced the only reason they like to come here!  But we work with what we have.  Ciao -  Ryan

camping, Merton, and Nouwen

I haven't written much of anything over the past month.  And that is okay.  Have moved through Lent in a rather bizarre manner and I'll spare you the details.  Three thoughts on this Wednesday, which has become customary.

1.  We had a great camping trip this past weekend at Chawacla State Park near Auburn, Alabama.  One of my resolutions for the year was to take the kids camping at least twice this year.  We have made two trips, to Pickens and Alabama.  I may (emphasize) see if Jessica will agree to let me take the two little ones to a Ft. McRae by boat for an overnight before it gets too hot.  It was a lot of fun to watch Gracie show Steve Hogan how to pitch a line after he got stuck in the trees twice.  If only I'd had a video camera. 

2.  I have recently worked through a book titled Beneath the Mask of Holiness.  In looking over the comments of other readers, there is certainly an appreciable attack on the "sensationalist" approach of the author.  What is perhaps most helpful about this book is not any new revelation of Merton's demons, but a clearly and well painted picture of his humanity.  As is the case with most of us, Merton is a remarkably complex individual.  Notwithstanding a gifted mind and a contemplative soul, he faced baffling challenges in the area of love and its ugly and inbred distant thirteenth cousin (lust), alcohol, and  bluntly - narcissism.  There is truth in observing that we are hard pressed to fully understand a solution without a thorough understanding of the problem.  This analysis of the M affair and Merton's troubled past does not detract the least from the powerful affect of his writing, which should never be consumed through rose colored glasses.  In reality, many of the spiritual giants, if known more fully, probably have stories in their closets that would cause some to call the essential validity of their testimonies into question.  Rather than appreciating the frequent placement of institutions and persons upon pedestals from which they can easily be attacked and knocked down (I'd urge, for self expedient reasons), we see here that Merton - in all his humanity - was still able to carry a message of hope and love to those he wrote to.  I also happen to believe he was quite often writing to himself, even outside the context of his private journals. 

I agree the author makes a bit much of the edited nature of SSM, and yet we really cannot be all that surprised by this.  We must also be mindful that there is (shocking, I know) a bit of marketing which goes on in all books such as this.  Don't throw the baby out with the relatively minor soiling of bathwater here. Merton's struggles illuminate the directives of his writing.  This book gives the Merton student a more fully developed lens from which to continue appreciating his many works.

3.  Jessica sent me a great piece from Henri Nouwen that I will leave you with:

We can only be faithful in our affirmation that God has not deserted us but calls us in the midst of all the unexplainable absurdities of life.

I have little doubt that Thomas Merton, with hearty laughter, would firmly agree. 

sand ... at the beach and in the desert

Cooler weather has rolled in.  Which is nice.  I am told the fireplace is in operation at home base and I am looking forward to planting myself in front of it.  Three thoughts, as has become customary:


Kids climbing through tunnels at Ft. Pickens


1.  We spent a wonderful weekend out at Ft. Pickens as a test run for our Auburn trip with the Tuckers and Hogans next month.  Our good friend Ron was generous enough to loan us his 30' camper.  Jessica packed a great stock of provisions and we made our way out on Friday.  I even managed to back up without incident.  No small miracle.  We were joined by the Epstein crew and had a great time.  One of my favorite parts was climbing to the top of Battery Langdon and hanging out with my oldest daughter. As I laid out and looked up at a beautiful sky, my mind drifted back to some of the camping trips that I took as a kid.  I hope I will send mine away with good memories. We celebrated Jessica's birthday on Sunday with a bunch of visitors at the park and a "parade," complete with a sombrero and a banner.  

Me and the birthday girl.

2.  Making my way through Lent.  Have not exactly been on target with the spiritual exercises, but there is progress.  Slow progress.  I feel like I am in the desert for sure.  Not sure why exactly.  But I have come to learn and believe that the desert can bring good things.  

3.  Life is good.  











boxes, tipping, and giving ...

It is a beautiful day outside, and I cannot help but think of how great it would be to be sitting on the deck of a sailboat writing this post.  Perhaps one day.  We are settling into new routines around our house, to include the two youngest playing soccer.  They seemed hungrier at dinner last night.  Gracie gave her first deep southern accented quip (that I've heard) when she rolled off something about "Barney Fiiiiife" of Mayberry last night.  These kids give so many opportunities to smile.  Three thoughts, as has become customary:

1.  I am reading through Breakfast with Bonhoeffer by Jon Walker right now.  He opens with a tale of "Zillow dreams," and his own family's dashed dreams of homeownership.  There is a duality to homeownership for sure.  If I remember little else from Walden, I was completely sold on Thoreau's description of the home as little more than a large box.  Could be nothing more than a box used for the storage of tools, similar to one he observed near a rail line.  In all reality, the home is at its most basic, mere physical protection from the elements.  And yet it is so much more.  There is a quiet confidence and peace that comes with the stable home.  There are memories, smells, and stories that float delicately in the spaces between rooms, floors, and windows.  And yet, Walker and Bonhoeffer remind us that all too often we are perhaps a little too worried about living a life that looks like we think it should.  Walker writes, "Am I willing to serve Jesus, but only as long as my kids [or wife, or husband, or I!] can live a normal life as defined by the American dream."  For many who have suffered in the new economic realities, this has meant grappling with challenges to homeownership.  I spoke with a woman today who was married just shy of (50) years before her husband passed last year.  She and her husband served in missions capacities for close to (40) years in Micronesia and Alaska.  I find myself asking whether I am more worried about my comfort or the mission.  I wonder if in losing things we might find great opportunity to find much.

2.  The Lectionary reading from Luke (9:28-36) this week paints the vivid picture of the Transfiguration.  Why is it that our first instinct, as was Peter's, is to put Christ in a box where we can try to pin Him down, control, and understand Him?

3.  Slate published an interesting story today questioning the percentage rate at which we customarily tip, as compared to the rate at which Christians are "tithing," or perhaps more properly stated, giving.  It is interesting to me that we have become more generous with servers than we have with our houses of faith.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  Luke 12:34  This is certainly an uncomfortable question that I avoid at all costs.

Have a great week.  The Peace of Christ be with you.

Ryan

Tuesday morning post in five minutes or less ...

It is a cloudy morning here in Pensacola.  Yet, the day feels hopeful and the light could break through at any moment.  Jessica was kind enough to run slowly with me before work.  My IT band is on the mend, and though I have gotten used to sleeping in ... I am grateful to run.  One of my favorite signs on a marathon course said, "There will be a day when you cannot do this.  Today isn't that day."  I think of that often.  We run the race.  Three thoughts, as has become customary:

1.  I've heard several inspiring stories involving children this week.  One involved a car accident where an SUV rolled over on top of a small boy.  This child was pushed into an embrace of wet soggy earth, as if he was being cradled.  He was unscathed.  

2.  After saying prayers and good night to their parents, a young boy and his sister were overheard earnestly praying for children in China.  As if once the fluffy prayers with parents were over, they got down to real business. 

3.  I'll leave you with a great passage and a poke in the eye from CS Lewis.  They have been on my mind for days:

The Lord is the strength of my life.  Psalm 27:1

"For I am not sure, after all, whether one of the causes of our weak faith is not a secret wish that our faith should not be very strong.  Is there some reservation in our minds?  Some fear of what it might be like if our religion became quite real?  I hope not."

Have a great Tuesday.  Ryan

squirrels, feelings, and Frank Laubach

Cold Tuesday morning here in Pensacola.  We are not accustomed to these temperatures!  Our youngest daughter has a birthday today, and despite her request for a pancake breakfast last night - she modified that request with a plea to sleep in when roused by Jessica this morning.  Hard to argue with her.  I am  reminded this morning that we might not have her in our lives had I stuck around to have the snip, instead of taking a peek at the surgical instruments and deciding that procedure could be postponed.  Providence.  Three thoughts on this Tuesday morning, as has become customary:

1.  The kids and I got a few miles in over the weekend.  It was the first relatively pain free running for me in a couple of months.  We hung out at the park for a while after our run on Sunday and when it was time to leave, I sent them to track down their shoes.  My son was quickly sidetracked by a squirrel.  I found myself simultaneously entertained and aggravated for a few moments, covering all the reasons in my mind why he needed to hurry up.  Then I thought of a few things.  The pup in the movie Up, who instantly goes off the rails when he thinks a squirrel is nearby.  I thought of Kahlil Gibran's reminder that we should not seek to make our children like us, but we might strive to be like our children.  Barbara Brown Taylor's lesson that it is alright to get lost and go off schedule.  And most importantly, Christ's own very direct reminder in Matthew 18:1-3 that we should come to Him with the faith of children, squirrel chasing and all.

2.   Finding myself very thankful that I did not fly off to Atlanta on an hour's notice last Friday to buy a car.  I credit this entirely to my wife.  The entire time I was trying to convince her that my irrationality made sense, I kept hearing Dave Ramsey's voice in my head, "If you're wife has one of those feeeeelings, you better listen."  What can I say, I'm slow.  It has taken me many years to learn to listen to two very important voices: 1. the still voice inside, and 2. the remarkable woman I'm married to. 

3.  I'll leave you with a 1931 entry from Frank Laubach's writing, "The best way to act: talk a great deal to the Lord."

Have a wonderful Tuesday.  Look for a miracle.  Ryan

Monday afternoon post in five minutes or less ...

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  Sick babies at home, car accident, and lots of prayer for discernment.  Three thoughts, as has become customary.

1.  Just finished Paul Johnson's short biography on Winston Churchill.  I love that Churchill was good at getting over kicks to the gut.  That is something I have never been good at.  Estimated that he wrote somewhere around 10,000,000 words over his lifetime and painted 500 works.  Not to mention (50) years in Parliament and serving as Prime Minister during WWII.  Unbelievable man.  One of my favorite bits of information was Churchill's deal to ask for no special remuneration after the war in exchange for all of his government papers.  He used those papers to write memoirs which generated roughly $50m in present day dollars.  How many would have asked for a modest pension. 

2.  I am getting close to finishing No Man is an Island.  I love Merton's voice, but I feel like I retained so little. Biggest take aways?  A love that is only had for the purpose of making us feel fulfilled is an incredibly selfish love.  Also, asceticism is not meant to make "freaks" out of us (Merton's choice of word, not mine).  Perhaps that is the danger of mystical writing.  There isn't always a driving power point we can walk away with.  And yet, perhaps this is the beauty of a type of writing which bristles against our requirement that everything we digest include "five easy (to remember) steps" to bettering our lives.

3.  I have started reading Bonhoeffer's small book on the Psalter.  I am working through it slowly.  I am intrigued by the idea of praying through the Psalms, and in doing so, praying through Christ.

It is a Monday indeed.  The week is full of possibility.

thank you for the days of 2012

Everyone is tucked in soundly at my home.  I am sitting at a candle lit kitchen table enjoying some silence and a few minutes to read and write.  We had a busy day with errands and enjoying some advances in our family's financial plan.  Financial Peace University is working.

Three thoughts, as has become customary, on this last evening of 2012:

1.  We began a new tradition tonight with a New Years Eve dinner.  We mapped out some goals for our family as well as each individual.  We put them to paper with the thought that we will revisit them next year to see how we have fared.  Putting goals to paper has power.  I can honestly say that taking this action has paid dividends in years past.  It is exciting to see lists from years ago where I have grown where I intentionally asked and sought to.  We are growing or we are dying.  It was also quite remarkable to reflect on all of the life our family enjoyed over the year.  I was impressed that among our three children I heard goals of being more kind to siblings, praying and reading scripture more, starting a new sport, and improving manners. 

2.  I read the following from Merton's No Man is an Island yesterday.  It haunts me:

Most of the moral and mental and even religious complexities of our time go back to desperate fear that we are not and can never be loved by anyone. ... The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them. 

I read vitriolic commentary earlier this week which tackled the awful events in Connecticut and the alleged silliness of calling on God for healing.  I understand how one would question where God is in such horror.  In the case of seemingly God forsaken atrocities, the fair question exists: how can God possibly love mankind?  While atrocities present troubling questions of faith, Merton may point us to the greatest obstacle to communion with God.  Our own self hatred.  It is deceivingly subtle.  Perhaps a disassociative state of ennui, consumerism, and quiet self loathing which has at its root the simple and obvious - profound disconnect from the Divine.  Thoreau described many men as living lives of little more than quiet desperation.  This desperation is satiated with none other than His grace and an unabashed submission to Divine will.   

3.  I seek more growth in the coming year.  Jessica and I have started on Bonhoeffer's small book on the Psalter, and I am incredibly excited about working through it together.  I have written down more well developed personal goals for the year and if you have not done so, I urge you to consider it.  I am deeply grateful for the rest that has been given over the past month.  As St. Benedict urges, onward with prayer and work in the coming year!

Ryan

terra firma, Andromeda, and mercy upon us

My kids are watching a Christmas movie.  My wife is resting peacefully in our bed after a long day which included a visit to the ER.  She had either really bad indigestion or an angry gall bladder.  I am sitting next to a very nice fire listening to Miserere Mei, Deus (Pslam 51).  Our pug is snoring loudly on the couch next to me.  Life is very peaceful at the moment. 

My family attended a Christmas party last night hosted by the Leonard family.  It was a great time.  Among those in attendance were many of the remarkable men who meet regularly at the Drowsy Poet at 5:15ish on Friday mornings to run and study.  Among the entertainment was a telescope, which always amaze me.  Seeing Saturn and its moons, the Andromeda galaxy (and its hundreds of billions of stars), and even just plain old ordinary stars, boggles the mind.  I cannot help but wonder if the truths which exist here on terra firma can be true throughout the expanses of outward space and the microscopic expanses of unseen molecular worlds.  I am also convinced that as is the case with time, God must exist and flow through space in a synergy which defies measurement.  In looking out I am  reminded of creation in ways that literally take my breath away. 

We have much to be grateful for.  Christ is coming!

Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness
According to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offences.
Wash me throughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults: and my sin is ever before me.
Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear when Thou art judged.
Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother conceived me.
But lo, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.
Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.
Turn Thy face from my sins: and put out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Thy presence: and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
O give me the comfort of Thy help again: and stablish me with Thy free Spirit.
Then shall I teach Thy ways unto the wicked: and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou that art the God of my health: and my tongue shall sing of Thy righteousness.
Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord: and my mouth shall shew Thy praise.
For Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee: but Thou delightest not in burnt-offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise.
O be favourable and gracious unto Sion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, with the burnt-offerings and oblations: then shall they offer young calves upon Thine altar.
Psalm 51