The Gift of Language

Over the weekend, I noticed and read several things that made me a little depressed both about my vocation and myself. It all stems from one thing: laziness. I am quick to see wrong actions and wrong beliefs in others, but also know they are in me or I would not be so quick to recognize them in others. The articles I looked over were about the fact that more and more schools are choosing to not teach the art of writing in cursive. It made me sad, but I personally only sign my name in cursive. So, not really helping the cause. What I noticed was that while driving a van full of Junior and Senior high school girls to Augusta and throughout the race, hotel stay, meals, and the eventual ride home. There seems to be a severe breakdown in language, both spoken and written. There are about, give or take, 250,000 words in the English language, but it seems we have settled for much, much less of a total. This breakdown of language can be seen in our writing, both on the student level and in our modern-day authors. Some of those said authors churn our 300-600 page books in mere months and some have even admitted to having ghost writers. It seems we have lost our imaginations and in giving that away to the many, cookie-cutter media outlets, we have also given away our memory of what it was like to read a story, or an essay that was thought about before it was written. We have become so lazy that we allow ourselves and those who write for us to follow patterns and insert new names into the same plots. We talk and write for utlitarian use only, but have lost even the true definition of that. We speak too much about things that do not need to spoken and leave unspoken all those things that need...must be spoken. We are lazy. We do not read as we should. We do not speak as we should. We do not write as we should. Which makes me no longer wonder why our leaders, teachers, preachers, ourselves, etc. cannot have a conversation or a dialogue about very important topics in very trying times, but this is not new. Humans have always been lazy with language. We have always tried to use two words to say one. We have seemingly wasted the gift of language. I wish I knew a remedy. I will end with a quote from Abigail Adams:

"We have too many high-sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them."

The Long Slow Run

This past Sunday I ran, with own, two, short legs, 16 long miles. It is the longest I have ever run in a single portion of time. I cannot explain what it feels like to run that far. I could use all the quick adjectives like painful, sweaty, exciting, but feel so much would be missing from that. Minus the pain in my sore legs, I myself feel a little odd in saying out loud that I really did run that far. It feels like it was something I meant to do, but got too busy and added it to my to-do list or slept through. I will say this, I did run those miles and will run them again because running is like nothing else except life in general. And this is only a connection I have just recently been able to understand. 16 miles is a long, long way. It would take about 20 minutes to drive in a car. It took me 2:20 to run. You can think about a lot of things during two hours. You can pray about a lot things in two hours. You can plan a lot of things in two hours. But all of that is not why I will run again. The reason I will run again is two-fold. One is that two hours is a long time to make yourself believe in the "small, slow, next step". I need to believe in that. My whole life has been and still is millions upon millions of both real and proverbial "small, slow, steps" and it is and has been hard for me to make it to the next one. On Sunday morning in the early morning, I saw my white car waiting for me and I knew and got to see first hand that the next, small, slow step does eventually lead in the right direction and does eventually lead you to your goal. And the second reason is real simple, I love food and I burned 2300 calories while running and that is a lot of food. That is a lot of brownies. Not such a bad trade-off. So...if you need me next Sunday morning, you'll find me running and training for my next chance at an eating contest; making it there one small, slow, step at a time.

Blessed Friday

Friday and all the things it means is a great example of how powerful concepts can be. Friday is not much different than the other weekdays. It is still just a 24 hour period where most people still have to go to work. We do not get paid more on Fridays. It is only the end, which for some reason we are happy about. I am not happy at the end of the summer, or end of the weekend, or the end of my current good time or event. Friday stands alone for me. It has the same feeling everytime for me as those first couple of mornings when Fall has finally come. My energy level increases. I forget that I am still sleepy. I am driven outdoors instead of indoors. I feel happy that I get to be alive; all these things, even though I am still sitting in my car, driving on the same roads, going to the same job, to do the same things, but feels like nothing else. So, with all of this said: Happy and Blessed Friday.

Christian Environmentalism

I have really been doing a lot of thinking about Christians and our views toward the environment as a concept and our local environment. Wondering how Christianity has gotten so far away from Adam in the Garden and his role as caretaker. Wondering how we have only completed the easy act of producing offspring and thus only completed or seemingly paid attention to one-third of the Dominion Mandate. Wondering why there are not more sermons...no strike that, any sermons about Christianity's responsibility for the land. God thought His Creation was good. How come we do not? Maybe too many Wendell Berry agrarian essays, but I do not feel like that is the case.

Greetings!

Have decided to move both myself and my thoughts into the Twenty-First Century. Hope you enjoy my thoughts, comments, etc. Feel free to add to the conversation and the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and opinions.