Free diving near the volcano ~

Recently I've been going through something emotionally that triggers a lot of anger. It's a painful thing and the anger is a reaction to the pain.



But as time has gone by I've tossed and turned this thing in my brain over and over and I've gone down trying to get deeper and deeper into it to see what is it that hurts? Where is the thorn? All this pain and inflammation and negative energy and I couldn't figure out where the thorn was.



Recently I've been thinking of it as free diving. I know that's silly but I would take a deep breath and I would go in and I'd feel the anger and the hurt and the sadness and angst and I'd feel the reaction bubbling up again and it was like free diving next to a volcano.



The waters were alternately warm and cold but as I got closer to whatever it was that I was reacting to they were hot and I never could get close enough but I think I finally did it.



Freediving near a volcano is such a visual image to me. It captures what I've been going through. And I think I've finally found the thorn or the root of my reaction. That's a good thing because now I can accept it and start dealing with the actual thing instead of having to deal with the fallout from getting upset about it again. Which I've done several times.



But freediving near a volcano is one of those adult things that a lot of people don't seem to like to do. I tend to do it because I would prefer to complete the picture rather than turn away and leave an unfinished puzzle.



It's nice to finally make some progress on this. Hopefully I'll be able to let time heal the wound, if I can get this thorn out and move on. But as always, the scar will remain and I'll remember it and be careful not to put my self in that spot.



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Darkness and light ~

I saw something today that gave me pause: an adult child of a pastor that I know had posted as her theme for her Instagram site that "light cannot exist without darkness". That's a nice meme-sounding theme that puts the cart before the horse in my opinion.



This adult child of a pastor had grown up playing guitar and singing in front of the church. She had majored in music and over the years she had done really well. She played really well and sang really well but you could just tell there was some hollowness there that was weird and didn't make sense.



I was doing sound for her in youth group and got pushed to the side because she wasn't comfortable talking to me. That was interesting because if you're up on stage and you're doing your thing you should be pretty comfortable talking to almost anybody. And if you're not comfortable talking to almost anybody at that point there's got to be something going on inside that's weird. Sure enough she's all tattooed up and saying that darkness is the source instead of light being the source.



As a Christian I see God as the creator of the darkness, the void was there and he in the void created light and physical things and living things. I don't believe that it was the other way around, that darkness was there and needed somebody to rip it asunder and destroy its presence.



And so God created light. If you want to put it in the Christian vernacular, Satan did not create God. But, a lot of times in memes and entertainment, the dark one is portrayed as this all-powerful, deep-voiced, thundering presence that overwhelms our human psyches and makes us cower.



But I have yet to see the devil open up the ground and swallow people. I have yet to see the story about Satan sending snakes to bite people he loved. All I see is Satan stealing people from God, stealing things from God, and stealing creation from God to the point that we live in this fallen world that is under the dominion of a fallen creation known as Satan (or "the satan" if you listen to the Bible Project). When you light a candle in a dark room the dark room doesn't take a breath of satisfaction feeling like it finally created something, the dark room quivers and actually withdraws because light over comes darkness



Darkness runs and flees from the brightness of any light. So I feel bad for this young lady and anybody else who feels like light was created from darkness or that light can't exist without darkness. I disagree wholeheartedly and vehemently.



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Still challenged ~

Since I retired from a long career I'm in a place where I am a lot of things that don't include "employed" in the list. It's a wonderful feeling, and I thank God for my freedom regularly.



The list of things that I feel like I am includes but is not limited to:



Thinker

Walker

Project guy

Editor

Author



My wife has expressed concern that I am not being "challenged" enough right now. I disagree, I'm more challenged now than I have been in the past. The challenge just doesn't include wrestling with others and the general public to accomplish the things I'm trying to accomplish. I wrestle with me, and I continue to make progress on several things.



I have a couple of books I'm editing. By that I mean I have all the "pieces" and am now shaping them into a presentable whole. I hope to publish them later on this year.



I keep starting and finishing projects at the house. I don't go to the other house enough but have projects there, too.



I am meeting all of my objectives. I've gotten good at it and am enjoying the success I am having. Woohoo!



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Looking surprised ~

I've been told I have expressive eyebrows. My children have told me that they know what I'm thinking by where my eyebrows are, and I remind them over and over that they DON'T know what I'm thinking and they should be glad they don't.



I grew up watching Star Trek. The "real" Star Trek with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and the rest of the original series crew. I loved how Spock would cock one eyebrow up when things came up that he questioned or was expressing sarcasm or humor about something. I would practice raising one eyebrow in the mirror until I could do it, then spring it on someone to make them laugh.



I recently had some surgery to remove a spot of skin cancer from my forehead. It was very near my hairline, and when I went in for the surgery I asked the nurse and doctor if we could avoid shaving any of my hair for this. I did this for "vanity" because my hair is long to the point of being below my shoulders and I don't want to deal with a spot that is growing back for the next 5 years. The nurse was noncommittal but the doctor said "sure" and taped a note written on a paper towel to the counter saying "no trim". Every nurse that came in the room asked about that note!



But as I healed from the surgery I started wondering if this was like a facelift but just on one side. After some contemplation I've decided that in the coming months I'm going to make a point of looking surprised often and see if anyone gets the joke. Should be fun!





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Learning to try again ~

One of the things I remember about my mother is she tended to try things once and if they didn't work or they caused problems she didn't try it again.



When I was growing up she talked about how her and dad went to a party and they had served tuna fish at the party. The tuna fish was so good dad really enjoyed it. And had seconds. The tuna salad had been made with tuna packed in oil. He got sick with had vomiting and diarrhea. And so my mom always bought tuna in water and always told that story about dad getting sick one time from tuna packed in oil.



I learned that from my mother and I've had to unlearn it. For a long time I would try something and it would fail and my brain would say it will always fail. That usually translated to when I would mess up that I will always fail at that and so I should never try that again. As I've gotten older I've learned that's not necessarily true and that failure is not a bad thing. I've learned to accept when I fail as a learning experience instead of something wrong with me.



Programming computers helped with that a lot. As I learned to program I would try something and it would fail and I would try something again after a small change and it would fail over and over and over to the point that it felt like I was doing the definition of insanity, Repeating the same thing over and over and getting the same results. But I wasn't. I was adjusting and tweaking and trying to get things working. And I succeeded a lot more than I ever thought I would.



And I continued to succeed a lot more than I ever thought I would. It's kind of nice to have learned how to fail and keep rolling. I wish I had learned that skill sooner.

Forest meme ~

I saw a meme where a Turkish man had spent the last 30 years using his personal income to buy and plant over 11,000 trees in a valley in the desert and Turkey. And how great that was that he did that.



I thought about it for a few minutes and then I wondered why no one was complaining about the environment that he ruined. People look at deserts and think they are lifeless but they're not. Life is different in the desert. Water is scarce, animals are different colors to blend in with the sand and rocks. If there are wild plants they are scraggly and usually small because of the lack of water and continued sunshine every day beating on them.



I find it fascinating that people automatically use their filters for what they believe is "better" to judge the actions of somebody like this man and say that what he did was good.



It's kind of like the whole effort to go to Mars and colonize another planet. I love Star Trek and I love the idea of space travel and exploring the galaxy and even the universe, but right now Mars is a "pristine" environment littered with many failed robots that are trash on the surface of the planet. There are a few that are still active and are leaving tracks in the sand of a pristine planet. And we have a growing constellation of satellites that are orbiting this other planet that is untouched by human hands except through robots.



While I understand people looking at what we're doing here in our own backyard I don't understand why nobody is crying out to save Mars.



At least that's the logic that I keep seeing. And it's the logic that the majority of people accept as right and true. I tend to question those things and wonder what were missing when we just accept things.