bread&tea

As a young kid working for quarters and dollars, I used to think I was a very stingy person with purchases.... until I met REALLY stingy people. Thereafter, I thought I was somewhat prudent, but someone who freely spent and often wandered into wastefulness. But my teen years... they have been quite shocking. Nope, I am definitely not free with spending! Short story shorter, comparing your life to other peoples' only ends up in confusion, stress, and wrong conclusions anyway, so I stopped rating spending compared to others' habits. Life is much  simpler when it's just you and God, though not any less complex , in retrospect. I think, for better or worse, I've settled into something I would dub as "frugally generous". A place with much refinement to be done still, that's for sure. I count it a blessing though, through past experiences and present circumstances, to have friends who quite unknowingly teach me the value of social spending. Eating out, f...

The big things take weeks to mull through and finalize, and in the between time, I find myself constantly racking my brain for stuff that might be interesting. Every day there are insights, analogies, poem beginnings and one-liner thoughts yet to be sought out. None of that is translatable to sufficient length for posting though. Thus, after three hours of on-and-off jotting bullet-point thoughts, outlines, and saving drafts for future work, I still have nothing. Nothing I can get a start on. So I've devised a plan to deceive myself into writing something anyway. I'm telling myself that since I don't have any one big thing with a page worth of writing and a conclusion figured out, I will write about several small things to constitute one big thing. Inevitably it will end up as only one big thing because of the process. Time is fifty-percent of friendships. At least. I'd have to say that your time, what you give, and what you say are the three twined pillars for buil...

Sometimes it's easier to retreat. To just step back and marginalize any feeling of loss with some non-conflict approach. Such as mitigating the sense of being ineffective by returning with an expository contrived of fearlessly written words. It's something I wonder if Paul ever felt like doing. 2 Corinthians 10:10 says, "For some say, 'His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing." Of course Paul's letters were because he wasn't physically available to teach, but that doesn't stop me from relating to them from my own standpoint. As I can obviously see from the bible, Paul was a great orator, which easily translated (sometimes via dictation) to his letters. I, however, have neither great oratory or God-inspired biblical writing. 2 Corinthians 10 is a great chapter, but verses 1 and 9 through 11 always spring out at me. "By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you-...

Musical movies are intrinsically different than normal motion pictures, combining as much dancing and singing as regular acting. As such, I don't think I ever watched one without first mentally preparing myself for all the singing, erecting a wall of past experiences resulting in a poor stereotype. Essentially, lowering my expectations. This done, I would watch the musical, and try to enjoy the more recognizable movie side of it. The end result of course, was always negative. Musicals cannot be enjoyed or appreciated without realizing that the primary storytelling role is from the dancing and singing. The regular movie bits I paid attention to are only the little in-between interlude scenes. That said, I really enjoyed Singin' In The Rain. It started out to be the first and the last, the great that donned the mountaintop of musicals in terms of performance and story. And it did it all by winning through comedy, romance, and all-around good cheer. Musicals have been around for...

I appreciate the sentiment, but sometimes my dear kind elders can be too earnest in their attempt to convey that I have a whole life of potential and achievement ahead of me. Some words of wisdom from James 4:14, "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." Steve Jobs recently died, and I figure by now everyone else has moved on, so now is a good time to bring him up again. I look at his life and then think of the expectations and visions people have for me, ideas and sincere hopes of what heights in personal achievement and impact I will reach. Yet in the end, all I see from their viewpoint is a dismal difference between my life as a gold mist or a plain mist. It's still mist, and either way, it will quickly be forgotten. Yes, I do so love those caring people who wish the best, but I have no desire to spend my life being gold mist. They've lived most of their life an...

Matthew 5:13, NLT. "You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless." Salt. I do love salt. After enjoying two slices of buttered toast with garlic salt (someone reading is cringing, I'm sure), I'm sitting here eating Santitas chips... which have salt on them. It reminds me of when I was about nine, and while no one was around to tell me I shouldn't, I finally buckled down and ate a spoonful of salt just to prove to myself that I could. What can I say? Stupid now, stupider then. Suffice to say, I don't recommend trying this at home. In the end I did manage to get it down, but it was mostly due to stubborn refusal of the idea of quitting, having come this far already. I did drink several cupfuls of water directly afterwards though. :-) A spoonful of white sugar though... now there's something I tried at an earlier age. Sore throat? S...

I'm not gonna lie... I've second guessed my decision a few times since the last post. And I can hardly believe how many days have already gone by since then. Despite any demonic attempts to re-shackle me with fond addiction- and I easily/freely call it that- I haven't reneged on my decision because of God's refining work, which has soundly reached the point where video games are wholly less appealing than following Christ. Hallelujah! This single point is the largest reason for my resolution.  Just to clarify, as I never explicitly said what I decided (because honestly I hadn't yet), here's my conclusion, which is best described by what my decision is not . I am not ruling out ever playing video games again. Might sound contrary to what I'm talking about, but making a decision like that is just asking to fail. It's legalistic, self-will fueled, motivated by law, and guaranteed to make me eat my words later. Not something I like to do when I like wor...