The Lesser Lights: Orion and Sparky

Genesis 1:16 - God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.




Over the last 3 years I have run a little over 1500 miles at night. And one thing that has been constant over those 3 years is Orion and his dog... my favorite stars. (I know they are groups of stars)

Orion is always there with his dog (whom I have affectionately named Sparky) to cheer me on. I always look for them first thing when I go out to run.

The more that I run the more that I can understand the ancients who believed that the stars were somehow representations of the gods to them. The gods were manifesting themselves to the humans in the stars. I can see it. Like the sun and moon the stars are always there. You can relay on them and even take them for granted. Orion and Sparky are welcome running partners for me any night.

I know these stars are not manifestations of God per se, but he did create them and hang them in the sky. They may not be the way that he manifests himself, but they are the way that he manifests himself since they are his creation and he shows them to us daily, or should I say nightly.

I thank you Orion and Sparky for your faithful running support and further I thank God for teaming them up with me.


-- Eli

The Road to Recovery out of that Lost Eon

New on the Celldweller Wish Upon a Blackstar Chapter 2 is the song Eon. It really speaks to me and expresses the feelings that I have regarding the last couple of years for me. 

The other day I had the occassion to speak with someone about a potential ministry opportunity and as I did so I was able to share some of te struggles that I've had over the last couple of years. What I noticed wad how good it felt to be able to share these feelings to a prospective co-laborer in Christ, trusting him and God to do what needs to be done with those feelings and thoughts. I've felt that Eon catches the tension I feel for awhile and I'm just now getting around to sharing it. Here's the lyrics:
 
I'm pacing inside this empty room
Told to wait til my life's withdrawn
Uneasy, I'm waiting here anxiously
It's a waste and I won't wait another Eon

Endless night
Long for light
My head against this tomb
And pushing through
I'm pushing through
Facedown and pushing through

Trapped and isolated
Time is dislocated
Eternity is what a moment seems
When I can't feel anything

Erasing my final memories
They wont stop til my whole life's gone
Uneasy, I wait for normality
It's a waste and I won't wait another Eon

When life is gone without a trace
And hope is lost in times embrace
I won't wait or hesitate; I'm pushing through facedown
I won't wait or hesitate; I'm pushing through

If times a song, I won't wait for its reprise
I am done wishing farewells and goodbyes
I won't let this place overshadow my birthright
I won't wait another Eon

Impatiently, I'm cutting through the earth in front of me
Bone on stone, blood and sweat married
Can't hear the voice that whispers fears when my heart is pounding in my ears
All I see in my mind is not what I've left behind
But all the things I've been missing in that lost Eon

Trapped and isolated
Time is dislocated
Eternity is what a moment seems
When I am lost inside this dream
When I can't speak and I can't scream
And I can't feel anything 


Several lines are worth noting:
Face down and pushing through- I have never given up. I have persevered. I'm gonna get a tattoo of the kanji for persevere, because I wasn't always sure I was coming out on the other side of this. 

I am done wishing farewells and goodbyes
I won't let this place overshadow my birthright- sometimes I feel like all I can see or feel is the mistakes I've made. When they are all I see they feel like they overshadow my future. They won't as long as I don't dwell on them and give them the power to overshadow my future.   

All I see in my mind is not what I've left behind
But all the things I've been missing in that lost Eon- similar idea, in order to move forward I have to stop dwelling on the past. I can never become who I'm supposed to be tomorrow of I never forgive myself for who I was yesterday. 

The chorus- sometimes time feels like it slows to a blur, not one of speed but one where everything just goes by in slow motion. It's in those moments where I am most vulnerable to dwell on my fears and my screw ups. It's in those moments that it's most critical to focus on how far I've come by the grace of God. 

I won't let this place (my past mistakes and my fears) overshadow my birthright

-- Eli

Noah and the Hurting God

I was reading Genesis earlier this week and I was struck by the passage that speaks of God being grieved in his heart for having made man and sad/disappointed enough that he was going to destroy the whole world. Plants and animals too, not just the people. I wondered, what changed in his mind that he was ready to destroy everything but then a short time (cf 2 Peter 3:8) later he himself died for our transgressions.

I know Ephesians 1:10 says that at the fullness of time Christ appeared on the scene… but why was that fullness not when he was so moved to destroy everything?

Was it because he had not yet developed a relationship with his creation the dying for our sins would matter to us? Was it because he hadn't imparted the Law and therefore we had no recollection of our transgressions for it to matter that he dyed for our sins? Was it to demonstrate the futility of life apart from him? Was it to show us that when we are left to ourselves we will self-destruct and destroy even the beauty of the world? Was it show that being a good, moral person who does what is right still isn't enough without Christ at the center of our lives?

I don't know.

What I do know I that God was saddened enough by how his creation turned out that he wanted nothing to do with it. I know that God couldn't bring himself to destroy all of it (Noah & his family & the animals were saved). I know that God made a covenant (that is a deal) to never do that again. And he STILL died for our sins.

Whatever God's reasoning, timing and planning were without we would not have the opportunity to know him. We also wouldn't have a God who disappointment in the most of intimate ways.

God was sad.

He was disappointed.

Many of us have been there. Many of us know what God must have been feeling.

What better God is there than one who can say, "I feel your pain!"?

-- Eli

Frozen

Celldweller has a song entitled Frozen with some lyrics that have made me think critically about what I recently re-read in Rob Bell's Sex God. He was speaking on lust and how lust takes our focus off of God and almost more deviously twists our perceptions of things that were intended to be good. Like sex. God intended it to be a beautiful thing between husband & wife and lust (thu the work of Satan) has twisted it to something else. Bell speaks about David's son Amnon fell in love with his sister Tamar. And he lusted after her. Ultimately he raped her and became so enraged at the sight of her that Scriptures say he hated her more than he had loved her. The lyrics in Frozen say:

Inside this fantasy
It seems so real to me
Synthetic ecstasy, when her legs are open
True Love behind a wall
Where men and angels fall
A fading memory, when my mind is frozen

(I recommend Sebastian Komor's Filter Overdrive remix)

Synthetic. That's what lust is. Trading the real for the unreal. Bell goes on to say that lust becomes our master. When we want something so bad thAt we can't think of life without it, it owns us.

That's his point. And I think God's too. Lust, not just for sex, becomes our God very easily. When we focus on something and spend all of our thoughts on something it becomes our master. We then becomes frozen inside the fantasy that seems so real to us we are unable to see it isn't real.

I wonder who/what is our master?

-- Eli

Unabashedly Christian

I had the occassion just now watch several Christian band's music videos on a channel I didn't even know we got. It was refreshing to be reminded how far Christian music has come since I was wrapping up high school. It sucked back then. It is tons better now. In some ways it still leaves much to be desired, but it is better. It is tolerable an there are maNy bands that are actually good. There is also a wide selection to choose from.

My two cents for the penny it is worth.


-- Eli

Even the Dish Network guy gets it

We had dish network come to install dish serviceto the apartment last eve. It took forever because satellites and apartments don't play well together. So we are signing te paperwork at the end and he says, is that your bike out front? I say yes. He says what did you do to it? I say ripped all the plastic off and hacked up the tail. He says why? I say because bikes didn't look cool in the 80s. He says that's an 80s bike? I say yeah. He says you have accomplished your goal cause that bike is awesome!


-- Eli

2k10 day 5.2

Actually went running tonite. Ran 4.5 miles checkyhe tweet to your right. It was very cold. Keeping up my numbers for the year. Goodnite.

-- Eli

Day Numero Cinco

This is Day 5 of the new year. So far for my running goals I'm good. This is Tuesday of the first full week of the new year, so I better hit my running goals for it. Tonite will be the first run of the new week. Sunday was cold and Monday was class. Unortunately, tonite will also be cold. Hey, I live in Florida, it's not supposed to be in the teens at nite!

Look for Day 5.2 to see if I actually run tonite.


-- Eli

The woods called to me like flies on stink

I will remember our first house in Athens growing up forever. It was a duplex and the dude that owned had finished the basement so it was the only duplex in the neighborhood that was two storey. It had a spiral staircase leading downstairs and a small deck off the kitchen up stairs. It was set on a hill so the back of the house and the downstairs was downhill from the front. Our neoghbor was a crazy cat-lady named Miss June who was a smoker and a teacher.

Behind the house was some woods with a creek in them. The woods ran parallel to the back of the house with the creek running the same direction. Going out the front door of the house and turning left took you to the end of the cul de sac. If you passed the house there, you go through a small patch of woods that shielded the homes from the railroad track. This track ran perpendicular to the creek. It had a phenomenal tressel to bridge the creek (it wasn't anything special to most, but to a 9 year old boy it was fantastic).

Abe and I use to love to enter the woods behind the house, bushwhack to the creek and then make our way to the train track via the creekbed. There was sandbars, logs, barbed wire fence and of course the creek. We could seem to make it to the train track without gettig wet and muddy. This of course, was part of the adventure. We always made it, but we were always wet and muddy. This was not a problem for Abe and I.

What was the problem was that mom was very specific about us not being allowed in the woods. There was nothig inherently wrong with the woods, save that we nearly ruined whatever we were wearing when we entered the woods. This is why mom forbid us in the woods. At the time it was beyond my ability to comprehend why she would not want us in the woods, even if it meant ruining clothes…

We went down to Ron & Deb's for new years. Deb got the boys cowboy boots. They have been wearing them nonstop. They were trying to wear them to do flooring work at Ron & Deb's. They also were crawling around on the floor scraping the toes of their boots up. They couldn't understand why I didn't want then to crawl around and scrape up their boots.

I then understood the ban on the woods when I was 9.

-- Eli


-- Eli

2k10 Day One

I've decided not to make any new years resolutions this year since I never keep them. I'm instead reaffirming my goal to run 1000 miles this year. I set that goal 3 years ago and hit 75% of it. With a little knee grease I can achieve this goal. Stay tunes for upcoming details.

Day One: ran 4.25 miles


-- Eli