Family

Tonight I talked on the phone with my sister, Amy. I feel I have to say her name when I talk about her because normally if I said sister I would mean, & most people I know would assume, my sister Tricia. In actuality both are half sisters but I grew up with Tricia so, by default, when I say sister I mean her.

Anyways, Amy & I talked for over an hour. Well, I mostly listened. As I said, I didn't grow up with Amy. My parents divorced when I was less than 2yrs old, Amy was from my fathers previous marriage. So, when my parents divorced Amy & my brother Ray (also from my dads previous marriage) went with him & Tricia, Chris (both from mom's first marriage) & I stayed with mom. She called to talk about dad, to tell me about him. He died back in 2002 & after grandma Dena's funeral in 2006 I gave Amy a letter telling her how much I wished I hadn't missed so much. I saw dad a handful of times in my life. Saw Ray & Amy even less. So, she decided to call tonight to tell me more about him. I know it might seem odd that its 3 years after the fact but I understand - we grew up vastly differently & are separated by an ocean of time & experiences. I think she showed much courage in it. I wish it was not so awkward myself.

She told me of his love for old gospel music & mo-town. Of his NAVY service & him almost becoming a SEAL around the time of Vietnam (which I believe was about the time the SEALS started). Told me the main reason he didn't was because of his lack of education - he was smart & quick but was a poor reader & didn't get his GED until late in life. My dad was a trucker/diesel mechanic & she told me about growing up mostly on the road - & how that was great & bad. Told me about the hard times, about his times in jail. About them wanting to see me when they were little & mom not letting them because she (my mom) was afraid he'd kidnap me (that I remember & I remember being afraid. Now I wish my mother had been a bit more rational & had let me see them). She told me that mom was the only woman dad ever really respected or loved. Told me things about moms house keeping which are true today. She talked about the many times his sleep apnea (maybe also narcolepsy?) had him falling asleep during dinner, on the road or in a chair with a cigarette in hand & how she came home one day & the chair was in the front yard, half burnt. She recounted his last days in the hospital, how he didn't want to tell Ray or I so we wouldn't have to see him that way. How he talked about me...

It's hard to say how I feel. Its hard to know what to feel. I hope to see them this summer. It'll be interesting for sure.

Spring Break

So my SB this year was a total bore, and really short. Since i work @ the community college in the media department we always use school holidays as a time to do big installs & projects. SO, I worked near full time all last week, except i got the normal 3 day weekend I usually get. Not too much went on. Played & beat Prince of Persia for the 360. Good game, kinda short. Not quite as good as the "first" PoP for the PS2 back around '02-'03 but it was good & had a good story line. Picked up a bunch of packages from my bros house (I live in the ghetto so I get my packages delivered to his home so that I actually get them). Watched the end of Avatar season 2 (& learned of Mako's death, very sad), watched the Swedish vampire movie, 'Let the Right One In', interesting & a Japanese revenge movie, pretty good, but I love classic japanese cinema. Great camera work. Also, my last 3 SB's were spent in Colima, Colima Mexico so this this SB feels really bland & borring without the awesomeness that is that city & its college population. Miss you guys!

Sunday night a few friends got together to have a farewell meal & gathering for a friend who is leaving for the 'field' as we like to call it. It was good to see all of them again. We tend not to be able to hang out much at all. So, for luch I have some tasty Thai leftovers! I'm thinkng of spring cleaning, selling my big CRT TV & getting a big computer monitor for my TV/computer needs.

Shorts:
Started reading Tostoy's Anna Karenin - might take me years to complete
Wish the Tata Nano was being released here
2 friends are leaving for Asia soon, wish I could join
I will have enough hours for my Associate of Arts degree this semester!

Of value?

Honestly I am often at odds with myself. I am a tech junkie. The main thing on my RSS feed is engadget. I have subscriptions to wired & popular mechanics/science. But, I am also wary of tech. Not for the 'robotic overlords' so often depicted in sci-fi movies, but for the impact it has on our individual & corporate lives. I look at myself & others & it seems that much of our lives is consumed with the current new tech & waiting on the next big thing. The talk is of the newest iPhone app, whats the next new game for the 360, people who spend hundreds of hours in a virtual landscape to gather the ultimate weapon/vehicle/armor. I work @ a community college & I often pass by one of our lobby/atrium's that is frequented by people often referred to as 'the pasty kids' or 'the basement dwellers' in reference to always being in front of the computer &/or living in their parents basement though they are in their 20's. Here's a large group of people who's life & breath is lived dedicated to an imaginary world lived on-line. Who spend hundreds & thousands of dollars to feed this addiction. What if instead of spending hours a day in an on-line game, they spent that time trying to affect the world around them? What if they got involved in politics? What if they studied philosophy? What if they became naturalists? What if, instead of intently researching the "history" of middle earth or any other fictional land, they pursued the history of the real world & were able to greatly affect us here & now. What if they learned of the history of the Church & were part of the guiding light for the next generation of believers?

Will we ever know? Will they decide to 'grow up' & leave the childish things of life behind? Now, I must admit, I am a gamer, but I game for fun. I own an XBOX 360, which I haven't played in about 2 weeks I think. I game to 'escape' but its just the escape of letting my mind drift from its daily bigger problems. I do not game to escape into a false reality, I do not get drawn into a fictional universe & feel as though its as important as this real one. I stay informed on the national political scene. I will occasionally read up on international news on-line. Part of me would be overjoyed if one day the computers died & we were just humans again. And instead of this virtual world between us, we had to meet face to face or wait on a some written word to get to us to share ideas. No more cell phones to interrupt us being alone or with others. No more computers to compel us to waste endless hours wondering what our on-line friends are wasting their hours doing on-line.

You and I, we could go to a park. We could walk around, pick leaves & study them, be amazed at their workings. We could watch kids @ the duck pond be amazed at these living, flying creatures. We could bump into friends, or make new ones, & spend hours talking on life, philosophy, religion, art... whatever comes up.

So, ultimately, is most of this virtual life of value? Or, is it just necessary because its where we are & where we are going? And trust me, I get the irony that I am using this tech of questionable value to share this idea.

"The LORD Challenges Job

⁶Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
⁷ "Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
⁸Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?
⁹Have you an arm like God,
and can you thunder with a voice like his?

¹⁰"Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity;
clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
¹¹Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
and look on everyone who is proud and abase him.
¹²Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low
and tread down the wicked where they stand.
¹³ Hide them all in the dust together;
bind their faces in the world below.
¹⁴Then will I also acknowledge to you
that your own right hand can save you."

Rick

The morning

Well good morning to you on this fine St. Patrick's day! Today was one of those mornings that, however crappy the human interaction & school/work is, you know its going to be beautiful. Walked outside to jump on the moped & the air was cool, crisp & moist (I know, is that possible? Yes, it is). And cresting the horizon on my way to work was the sun, in all its fireball glory, not to mention the moon who is staying out late. It better get to bed soon or its going to have a tough work night tonight.

So, I thought I'd share a few things that were on my mind this morning. Firstly I am about a third of the way into a very interesting book called 'The Limitations of Scientific Truth' by Nigel Brush. So far it has been an eye opening & excellent read. It starts off talking about the premise of science, philosophy & religion are all searching for truth & regardless of where truth is found all three of these institutions can recognize that truth is truth. One of its main focuses so far has been on sciences claim to be a superior line of study & truth because it can show its truths. Or, to show how much science has influenced our lives, its truths are better because they are scientific. Which leads to people to believe that they are set in stone & immovable... except more oft than not, they are not. If you take a look back of just the last 100yrs of scientific research & discovery you see that many of "the basics" of science have been scrapped & re-imagined, just to be scrapped again. We went from molecules to atoms, atoms to protons/neutrons/electrons, those to quarks & now we are looking @ string theory. And that's just with the 'hard sciences', or to say the laboratory sciences, the ones scientists can actually test, handle, measure. There's been a ton of rework done on the 'soft sciences', things like evolution, cosmology, anthropology & geology. Basically science is about as unbiased as TBN. Its truth can not be ultimately known. It also deals with a lot of science philosophers of the last few decades who have put forth arguments about the limitations of science - people who were atheists & hated namely Christianity - & said we should not rule out things like religion, witchcraft, magic & philosophy in our pursuit of the truth. For those of you who are up for a good read dealing with science & philosophy & religion, I highly recommend it.

Something else that's just recently happened is Obama's overturn on Bushes federal funding ban on embryonic stem cell research.You may have noticed I italicized & bolded embryonic. I do this because the general media likes to forget this aspect of it & the science community loves to let them so they can back to working with it & getting money for it. Bush did not place a ban on funding stem cell research in general. There are what are often called adult stem cells which have been widely used in treatments, have had major success in the lab & can culled from the patient themselves so there's even less likely a prospect of the body rejecting whatever treatment it may be. Embryonic on the other hand requires the destruction of a human embryo. Essentially its abortion for scientific research. While the embryonic stem cells are more 'versatile' in their use (ie, you can tease them to become almost any type of cell you want), they are also more likely to fail or mutate or become cancerous. Big companies prefer them though because they can patent them. As long as its from an unborn human the company has full rights over the money made from the genes culled from the embryo. Also it should be noted that while the embryonic ban was on in America it was not on in other countries. Its not like this 'progress' was halted because of Bush, he just wanted to distance the US gov from what was, and is, an ethically & morally controversial line of research.

One last thing dawned on me for some reason today - this is the ten year anniversary of the release of 'the Matrix'. I even looked it up this morning & it was released the 31st of this month in 1999. There have been many movies I have loved but very few impacted me the way the Matrix did. In my teens there were 2 big things in my life: my love of the martial arts & my love of the allegorical writings of C.S. Lewis. This movie combined both in a sci-fi setting to boot. Only thing wrong with the movie was its sequels.

Well, that's all for me today. I leave you with the Common Doxology:

"Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen."

Fellowship

Lately I have not been able to hang out with... anyone, really. Its a mix of people getting married, I moved, I don't have a car, people forget me, I don't call people to say 'hey, lets hang out'... you know, the norm. But last night I got a call from a friend I hadn't seen since sometime last summer saying she was in town & hanging out with her sister & a friend from overseas & that she would come pick me up so we could all hang out. I of course agreed & soon we were @ her sis's house catching up, playing Phase 10 (a favorite game of M's everywhere) & laughing. Basically enjoying life. I learned her sister is moving back to India for awhile which is awesome & I wish I could too. Not enough times like these. Last night I was also introduced to Josh Garrels , A very talented jazzy acoustic artist. If you like the likes Bon Iver & Sufjan Stevens, you should check him out. Very mellow & very intriguing.

The weather this morning in SPFLD, MO is very cool & foggy which takes me back to winter days in New Delhi & late summer days in Chardukan, though the fog here is not quite as thick. I have also been rediscovering a band that was one of my favorites in my late teens who were very awesome & I miss them. They wrote some very introspective songs. Their name was Poor Old Lu, taken from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia & today I will leave you with the lyrics of one of thier songs:

"so now hold your breath
and set the stage
prepare yourself for the cynic's rage
is it a question still of who is man?
or how they feel and what i am

but digging deep i found a way
what more do i need to say

gone through life and death
and what remains
if any blemish hang your head in shame
like a fever that just keeps you down
would you simply let it stay around?

'digging deep' i guess i say
is more pridefulness of that day
in truth i know that it is clear
i was distant, God is near

in the goodness and strife
found and empty wanting life
though so long made no sound
with tears i bowed myself down

won't you greet this man
and hear his words
maybe an open ear would make him stir
could a closed heart have saved all man?

digging deep i guess i say
is more pridefulness of that day
in truth i know that it is clear
i was distant, God is near

so now hold your breath and set the stage
prepare yourself for the cynics rage
is it a question still of who is man?
or how they feel and what i am"

Poor Old Lu ~ Digging Deep

So, blogging

I have been a bit reluctant to really start blogging. Well, blogging again I should say. There is no dearth of blogs out there. There are probably too many out there, many of which just copy & paste links or blogs from someone else. So, why blog? Well, since I have stopped blogging (& honestly stopped journaling as well) I have noticed a steady downward turn in who I am, in my character, in my communicative abilities. In my creativity. There are reasons I stopped both endeavors, which I will probably hit on in later blogs, but they are not really very good reasons to stop writing down thoughts, ideas & the like or sharing them on here. So, while I have technically had this blog for a while, I will now actually be using it! Yippee! I will try to keep rants down to a minimum. I will try not to just copy & paste whatever sites I think are awesome (but if they are awesome, yo should see them, no?). Hopefully I can be rather consistent on my posts & keep them interesting but no guarantees, K? Alright. I look fw to future posts on life, love, theology, technology & politics! Well, not REALLY looking fw to politics, but it is unfortunately so important to our lives one can not skip it. Le sigh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, ²⁵to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Rick B.