Survey in the Vein of MySpace Yesteryears

Current guilty pleasure: Red Mill Burgers (I'm a fat fat fatty)

Current color: Steely blue (as a skin tone when I paint)

Current playlist: In between Led Zeppelin and The Who, I've been on a Matt Chandler sermon binge.

Current read: Man in a Blue Scarf, by Martin Gayford

Current drink: Water. Although I've been trying this health drink called Fuze lately. It's decent.

Current food: Chipotle and Katina's Kitchen

Current favorite show: Justified, tied with Parks and Rec

Current wish list: A place of my own.

Current needs: To sell some paintings!

Current triumphs: I have a new muse for painting. His name is Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Current bane of my existence: That inch or two of "stubborn belly fat" (thank you commercials about weight loss for the perfect descriptor) that won't go away.

Current celebrity crush: I don't know. I like the exotic looks of Mila Kunis.

Current indulgence: Board games. Nerd.

Current blessing: Possible new job.

Current outfit: Khaki slacks for work, Gold toe socks, and a screen printed t-shirt that reads "Kenney XXL Athletic Department"

Current excitement: Painting this portrait of Fyodor.

Current mood: Slightly anxious (have to go to work)

Current link: Man In a Blue Scarf, a must read for artists.

Free Association.....or something

This is a train of thought blog. Just crazy make-em-ups as I go along. It's mainly because I don't have much worth-while to say and when I do, I can't seem to express it very well.

Cut my hair yesterday. Just thought of that nugget of gold when I scratched my head a moment ago. So, it's short now. Shorter. I should say.

I work today. 10-7. It's a long day at Lifeway and we have the regional manager coming in to see how we handle customers. It's pretty stupid. "Let's fly this guy to Seattle and spend money on his trip when the store isn't hitting its budget!" Instead, they should realize that Seattle isn't Nashville and that half the stuff that they send to our store will never sell. "Let's slap a Bible verse, completely out of context, on a coffee mug and watch it sell like hotcakes!" That doesn't work up here.

Speaking of Bible verses out of context. Jeremiah 29:11 "'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.'" What a nice and hopeful verse. I love it, really, because it expands on God's sovereignty. Doesn't this verse mean that life will be peachy? No. Back up a couple of verses and Israel is in for seventy years of living in exile in Babylon before this prophecy will be fulfilled. Just a thought.

I'm loving this weather and cannot wait until it is more dependable and steady. Nothing beats the smell of blooming flowers in the Spring, though. Sitting in a stuffy room for most of the day, doing repeated crap over and over again, then open the doors to leave and my nose is filled with beautiful classical music. That doesn't make sense, but it describes it fairly well.

I may have a new job soon. Can't say much about it, but it should fit my life better than the current one, and also lead into a better fit in the long run. Here's hoping.

Also, my coworker and his friend auditioned for Simon Cowell's X-Factor, yesterday. His results are confidential, but from the way he is trying to act, it seems that they did very well. So, hopefully we'll see them on TV. That would be fantastic.

I like adding small sentences at the end of each paragraph. Feel free to check up the page and see how often I do it. Go for it.

That's about all for now, I've got to leave for work. This was fun.

The Madness of Life

I've just finished reading Tolstoy's Confession.

Wow. The man was truly a man of reason. If you have any interest in the journey of a man seeking answers to life, read this page-turner (it's about 15 chapters, each one a few pages). I don't want to spoil it for you, but I will. A little. Well, I'll at least set up the basic problem that he confronts. BTW, it is an autobiography of sorts.

After achieving success and fame and fortune and land and animals and a fine family, he still finds himself to be subject to depression, even countless thoughts of suicide. His main reasoning falls like this: he has achieved his goals, he is regarded as a genius, he has a family that loves him, but is there any meaning to his life that will not be destroyed by his death? And if not, then what is the purpose of life? It is essentially the age old question of "why are we here". What's the point? Is there a point?

Tolstoy's problem expands as he comes to the conclusion through logic and research that there really is no point to existence and that a person can do one of four things: the first is to just be ignorant of the facts and not really pursue such knowledge, the second is to "eat, drink, and be merry" and follow Solomon's and Schopenhauer's advice regarding the pointlessness of life, the third is to just follow logic to it's ultimate end and kill oneself, and the fourth is to put up with the knowledge and just live through it, bearing the burden. Add to that the weight of responsibility, since Tolstoy was a practicer of perfectionism, constantly turning life into a competition and wanting to be the best at everything and to know all there is to know. So, he felt a weight of pressure, a weight of guilt for everything wrong he had ever done, and the weight of time on his shoulders.

William Blake, Pilgrim Reading his Book

"If there is no God, everything is permitted." Another heavy thinking Russian author, Dostoevsky, sums up what Tolstoy is struggling with in a simple sentence. The whole time I was reading Confession, I kept thinking, 'why are you not putting God in the equation, or at least faith?'. Tolstoy found the idea of God completely unreasonable and therefore put Him out of the picture entirely. It was to be a journey of the mind, and to Tolstoy, God and faith were not logical and could not be reconciled to a world based upon logic and reason. Eventually, he does pursue the study of faith and something strange and wonderful happens to him. Read the dang book.

"If there is no God, everything is permitted."

The book reminded me of Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". This is another very interesting autobiographical account that tells the tale of a man who pursued logic, reason, science, and art, and in the end found God. It wasn't through the denial of any one of these realms of reality or the ignorance of any, but through the acceptance, research, and application of them that Chesterton found God. If you have not read Chesterton, do so now. I will wait. He was one of the wittiest and funniest writers of the English language.

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

Yesterday I was listening to Matt Chandler, the pastor of The Village in Texas. He is the Brian Regan of pastors, in that he makes a lot of jokes and they are all in the style of Regan. Give him a listen. It's amazing how things often line up so mysteriously in our lives. I just wanted Chandler to have a face to face with Tolstoy, because the things that they were discussing were so in line. Chandler has terminal cancer and will die someday soon, so he has wrestled with the large questions that Tolstoy was wrestling with in his old age (and in the phenomenal book The Death of Ivan Ilyich). But Chandler's answer was Christ. That's how we're here, that's why we're here, that's where we're going, that's the answer to our pain and sin and struggles and loss and tears and mistakes. There is no other answer. There is no other way out.

Chandler doing tai-chi? Maybe shadow puppets.

Anyway, this was a bit of a spur of the moment blog that turned into something much more involved and much less planned out. Read The Confession, read Orthodoxy, and listen to The Village podcasts which are available on iTunes.

Our Minds

This morning a friend of mine had posted a video on Facebook that I had seen a few years ago which had completely blown me away. It wasn't some awesome cat video or a too dramatic Stanley Kubrick audition. It was a serious video about the minds of our children. It wasn't scientific. It wasn't preachy. It wasn't cheesy. It was heartfelt and strong and unique and dramatic and convincing and touching. And it came from a familiar source. I posted it at the bottom of this blog post.

I've become more concerned about how I use my time lately. I want to ensure that it is both honoring to God and honoring to my mind. I am made in the image of God, after all, and honor both of us in the way that I utilize my time. One thing that I think is honoring to God, along with prayer and reading the Bible and showing love to others, is the way in which I think and grow in knowledge. Knowledge of God is of the utmost importance, of course, as scripture states: "If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God" Proverbs 2:3-5.

In the interest of time I'm going to cut myself short, because I have to get ready for work. I will say that I am more interested in reading Dickens than in watching Family Guy, I am more interested in watching Justified than Hawaii Five-O, and I am more interested in viewing Scorsese than the latest American Pie.  That's not to say that I don't like to laugh and live and enjoy life and it's not to say that I don't have guilty pleasures like nerdy video games or Mystery Science Theater and it's not to say that my opinion of things is always best and that other's tastes don't amount to anything. It's merely my belief that we should analyze what we are doing with our limited time and resources and cut the fat where there is any.

As promised, here is the video. Please watch the whole thing. It's phenomenal.

I like what he says about more drama in the words of two angry men than in gunshots. It's so true. I always found Mr. Rogers to be entirely boring, but the man had a great philosophy about our minds and the minds of our children. And his unique and unassuming personality is just about the greatest illustration for the strength of character and substance over the flash of style. Here's to Fred.

The Inevitable Music Post

The best bands of the week. For me. And mine. + albums + songs

1. Eels - Blinking Lights and other Revelations

Nothing like driving home from the folks' house after my mother's birthday party to bring on a melancholy mood. Especially when "Up" was on the tube when I left and had just played a touching and sad moment. I had just been to the most memorable and familiar place in my life, so I was feeling a bit reminiscent. What better album to listen to than "Blinking Lights and other Revelations"? None better, that's what. "Blinking Lights (for me)", "Railroad Man", "Hey Man", "Ugly Love", "Things the Grandchildren Should Know", and "I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart" are songs that are so near and dear to everything that I love about life, joy, sadness, love, and grief.

2. CCR - Chronicle


Everything. Everything good about this world can be summed up in any CCR song. I don't understand how this band keeps getting forgotten. VH1's list and Rolling Stone's list of the greatest musical artists both have forgotten the beauty of CCR. I think it's a thing where they are so ingrained within our subconscious that we completely take them for granted. I mean really! "Lodi", "Fortunate Son", "Lookin' Out My Back Door", "Susie Q", "Down on the Corner", "Have You Ever Seen the Rain", etc, etc, etc. I don't get it.

3. Led Zeppelin - II

"What is and What Should Never Be". That is all that needs to be said.

4. AWOL One - Only Death Can Kill You

My roommate and I spent a good half hour laughing at the ridiculously stupid lyrics of AWOL One. This white rapper has a gruff voice that resembles Tom Waits' growls, but his lyrics are absolutely inane. And I love it! If somebody raps: "Even the old lady/ She used to be babies"or "Keepin' the faith/ Like it's the faith that you're keepin'", then you know you're in for some pretty stupid stuff. But seriously, this album is the perfect nice day driving music, besides "Village Green Preservation Society" by the Kinks. Check that one out too.

That's about it. I gotta go to bed.