Joy that needs a voice

If you hear beautiful music, the next words out of our mouths are "listen to this". Or when you see the sun glint on the fresh snow you probably say "look at that"! Or if you have a piece of chocolate, isn't it almost immediate we say "mmmmmm, taste this"?

These are all ways we express joy. The thing about Joy is that you want to share it with somebody else. Joy is not something we can keep bottled up inside. It is joy that brings us together in this season to share and give with others.

Joy is not the same thing as happiness. Happiness, as the word implies, happens. Joy transcends happiness and goes deeper. We can experience joy even in the midst of great hardship. Sometimes that joy helps sustain us, and can help sustain others. And then there are those times we are so "pregnant" with joy so wonderful that it just has to come out.

What gives you joy? I've found times when I'm so "pregnant" with joy that I have a perma-grin. Spending time with family overseas that I don't get to see often, skiing in the Alps, discussing deep questions with my Confirmation students, or making new connections with people all develop my joy. My soul magnifies my joy!

What brings you joy? Does the stock market bring you joy? Or the Tuesday evening show lineup? A young child learning the alphabet? Someone who is in a hospital who shares words that touch your soul? Joy is found in the common, ordinary things of our lives.

Joy is good for you, and good for the world. May you find joy in the everyday occurences of your life as we enter the New Year!

Peace,
The Gust

Posted in: on Thursday, December 31, 2009 at at 3:48 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

Blurry Season

This time of year is normally filled with Christmas carols, white snow and massive amounts of anything edible. Snowman are out and in full swing making many winter wonderland appearances while Christmas presents are being bought and ripped open at a rapid pace. Smiles, alcohol and a good amount of laughs are passed around like a peace pipe on an Indian reservation. Overall it’s a good time to be around friends and family and catch up on some of the happenings of the past year, regardless of how far you have to travel to see some of them.


Christmas time or even winter time is a good time for the winter advocate or the closet skier to get out and enjoy. Hopefully you live in the northern hemisphere and get to enjoy the winter sensations but even if you don’t you can still feel that “Christmas feeling” in the air.

I just wanted to make a quick note and I hope everyone got to feel that special feeling and got to see everyone they wanted to see during their few mandatory days off this winter.
*raises glass quickly*

Cheers to Christmas time… can’t wait for your drinking buddy “New Years Eve” to come along next. Shit, what to drink? Guess I have to go shopping again, but this time to the liquor store, haha…

Ciao-

Posted in: , , , , , , , , on Monday, December 28, 2009 at at 9:11 AM 2 comments Links to this post  

Radical amazement

As we enter the Advent and Christmas season, we have a renewed opportunity to experience rebirth. As we wait expectantly for the birth of a Jewish baby who would grow into an inspiring rabbi, I am reminded of the insistent message of a modern Jewish rabbi about radical amazement.

Abraham Heschel was a Jewish rabbi who was born in Warsaw, Poland and who escaped to England before the start of World War II. Heschel immigrated to the United States and taught at Jewish Theological Seminary. Heschel participated in Christian-Jewish dialogues and was very involved in the Civil Rights movement. Rabbi Heschel wrote that the greatest obstacle to knowledge is our attachment to conventional notions or mental clichés. We take things for granted. What Heschel said we desperately need is radical amazement, which means being maladjusted to conventional notions.

That's right: it can be good to be maladjusted to the way we always have seen things because then we can see the world and our lives afresh.

Radical amazement is what happens when you look at a gorgeous sunset and suddenly are amazed not just at the colors but also at the very ability to see! Radical amazement happens when you not only hear beautiful music but also are amazed at the ability to hear and enjoy at all! Radical amazement refers not so much to what we know as to that we know. Radical amazement gets at the root wonder of being here at all.

As civilization advances, Heschel said, our sense of wonder declines. We take things for granted. Yet Heschel insisted that a life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not so much a will to believe as a will to wonder. We have the chance for radical amazement again. Our home computers are more powerful than themainframes that NASA used to land a man on the moon yet we often complain about the slowness of a program. We sit on an airplane for a few hours to travel to the coast, yet we complain about a line for boarding. We turn on electric lights for granted without giving thanks for them. Who ever stares with wonder at a light bulb? Yet a candle flame can stir up in us a sense of wonder so weapproach our life with freshness.

At this time of year we tend to light candles. We slow down for a moment to wonder at the flame. I believe our Advent and Christmas seasons are a success even if we only experience a moment of radical amazement. Radical amazement can open our hearts to the wonder of that little Jewish baby asleep in a manger so many years ago.

Radical amazement can open our eyes to see the gift of the people who are now around us. Radical amazement can open our hands to reach out to others who, like us, share the same hopes, desires, and dreams of mankind.

During this Advent and Christmas season there are many opportunities for busyness and frantic activity. We may enjoy those activities and even thrive in them. There are also occasions where people keenly notice the emptiness of loved ones who have died or moved on. We may feel saddened by those losses. Through all the ups and downs, may everyone have a chance to help one another re-discover ourselves in this season of radical amazement!

Peace,
T-Blogger

Posted in: on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at at 12:00 AM 3 comments Links to this post  

Live your life

Written above are 3 simple words that are actually quite easy to say, but rather hard to follow. Many people talk about trying to do fun things and go cool places, but I feel like very few of us succeed in doing so. Many of us repeatedly step up to the plate and all we hear is the ball fly by us while the umpire screams, “you’re out!!”

Why do so many of us fail to hit the ball or even swing the bat. I guess half the battle is getting in the batters box, but the other have is finishing what you started to do. Good intentions don’t get you anywhere in life. You need to finish what you started, you need to do what you said you were going to do and live your life the bet way possible.


What do I even mean by living your life? Well, to put it simple, “enjoy your life”, but those words don’t add much clarity as people will settle with what they have and tell you time and again they are enjoying their lives. But who are they kidding? Are they really? I guess it’s not your nor mine place to say yes or no, but it is quite easy to read between the lines and see who is getting in the batters box and swinging and who is still riding pine.

You need to be able to wake up every morning and be excited about your life, your accomplishments and what lies ahead of you in your path. You owe it to yourself to have the best life possible. So why not have it?

You would truly be surprised how fun your life can be if you just let it be fun. IF you smile a bit more everyday and do a few more fun things here and there. Get out and go for a walk in the park, see your favorite movie, drink your favorite wine (and maybe have too much), laugh hard and loud without caring when and where you are and most importantly live your life.

Too often we see mid-life crises, or people that have breakdowns. We push ourselves too far to the edge and finally we do fall over. I don’t think we need to slow down, but I do think we should smell the fuckin damn roses once in awhile. I mean why not? Plan for doing something fun. Now this doesn’t mean plan a specific time for fun, but rather have fun in doing more things. Expect everything to go well, more often than not, how you think about a particular task, errand, person, whatever…, will make it that much more enjoyable in the end…

Try this, trust me…

Bamer-

Posted in: , , , , , , , , , , on Friday, November 27, 2009 at at 10:37 AM 1 comments Links to this post  

Why not be gay?

Ok, ok, the title isn't the best, but at least it got you to read this far.. haha, sucker.

No but to be serious for half a second, have you ever thought about being gay? Has this thought ever trickled into your mind or have you ever had a tiny urge to try? Watch, talk about it, whatever?

Before you start getting all these weird ideas in your head about why I could be possibly talking about this, let me explain a few things. First and foremost just think about any gay friends that you have or possibly have known through out your life or maybe ones that are still currently in it. Do bad thoughts come to mind or are you giggling because you are remembering how cool and laid back your buddy is.

Chances are you are smiling because probably a pretty high percentage of the ones you know are super cool and fun-loving, easy to get along with dudes. (I will talk from the gay standpoint and not the lesbian one, because I know more gay guys) These guys tend to be the ones that simply genuinely nice. They are normally gentlemen are always making you smile or laugh.

I got to hand it to them, first of all it's not that easy to come out of the closet in today's society where it's not particularly easy to do so. Not everyone is a gay lover and there are still quite a few gay-haters (making up words now) that are out there. I tip my hat to them, because not only do they have to come to grips with something that is not socially excepted, at least not right away and then on top of it they don't have as many potentional suitors to chose from. But even after all the adversity they tend to be cool dudes.

As was recently explained to me, "Gay guys have the best of both worlds, they are caring like a women but yet chilled out like a guy..." And after hearing this I couldn't help but not my head in total agreeance. I mean being gay is a pretty good mix of the desired traits from either sex. Cleaner, more dependable than most straight males, whether that is with actually cleaning or personal hygene, I believe in my experience it holds true. And yet they still have that respect and caring that normal so desire from women. Not a bad combo.

This blog isn't really about my lust to start batting for the other team but rather a simple observation about the switch-hitters of the world. Kudo's to them for going against the grain of society and being happy. I mean I don't have statistics in front of me, but I would be willing to guess that gay couples having lower divorce rates then heterosexual couples.That in itself says something.

Alright, enough of the random gay rant, but I just wanted to give a shout out to the "switch-hitters" of the world, keep on rockin it.

Next batter please...

Bamer~

Posted in: , , , , , , , , on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at at 4:09 PM 4 comments Links to this post  

Cultivate goodness

As Luke stated, I'm "the new guy" around here. My focus tends to be on what I'd call "earthy spirituality." I draw hope and inspiration from what happens around us in our everyday lives and how we are all inter-connected.


As I look at my life and at the world around me, I sometimes struggle with the slowness of change. I get frustrated at the slow changes that take place to bring about help to the people who need a hand up in life. I get frustrated at the slow changes in our society for healthy priorities in politics.

And then I look at my own life, where change is often even more agonizingly slow. When I want to make changes in how I speak or act or think, I find that old habits die hard. It seems difficult to root out all the old, bad habits personally and societally. Awhile ago I re-read some thoughts that Martin Luther King wrote nearly 50 years ago, and which I find helpful for our day as well. King wrote: "Concentrate not on the eradication of evil but on the cultivation of virtue... Evil will not be driven out, but crowded out."

This has struck a chord for me. If we focus on the bad things happening around us, we become problem-centered. However, if we focus ourselves on nurturing goodness and mercy, then these positive attributes become the center of our lives. It becomes overwhelming for us to try to root out all the evils around us, and we can lose hope. However, if we focus our efforts on cultivating acceptance, generosity, and understanding in little ways together, we will make a difference! We will, in effect, crowd out evil. Jesus Christ did not get rid of sin and evil when he died on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago. However, He crowded out their power by displaying God's deep love for us. We still deal with the effects of sin and evil, but we have confidence that they will not have ultimate power for us.

This focus on cultivating virtue rather than on eradicating evil seems helpful to me. This focus on crowding out the power of evil by focusing on joy seems more open to the earthy lives we lead, and more hopeful and realistic about what we are able to do in our day. This focus on cultivating goodness can help us to see the assets in our lives and the world around us, and then work to improve and build on them. Let us resolve together to focus not solely on rooting out evil, but on nurturing and cultivating goodness!

Posted in: on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at at 10:02 PM 2 comments Links to this post  

New look, new rules...

So I am looking around and all I see is cobwebs on here, yes I know it's been awhile since I have posted a blog, but I want to get back to it soon. You will continue to find the same humor and overall awesomeness in future blogs to come, I promise, but the next time it will be with new rules and a different perspective thrown into the mix.

What do I mean?

Well I want to introduce another auther on here: The Gust or T-blogger, or a number of different aliases, but either way there will be 2 different bloggers on this site.... muwahaha! Hopefully we can invoke even more discussion on here and bring more crazy views besides just my wacky ramblings.

Just a heads up for new things on the horizon, because a little variety is great. Maybe that's why we have different guys and girls that we fuck, kiss, screw  date over the course of our crazy journeys.

Catch soon with more random rants.

Caio-

Posted in: , , , , , on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at at 8:38 AM 3 comments Links to this post  

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