cRAZY eIGHTS

Crazy 8's

8 Things I'm passionate about
Tara
my kids
God
Church
Photography
Food
Cooking
video games

8 things I want to do before I die
be debt free
travel some
be organized
baptize my children (or watch someone else do it)
hold my grandchildren
to feel like I live up to the title Pastor
to take a photograph that points people to God
to eat in Colin's restaurant

8 things I say often
"hey"
mmmhmmm
o-kay
listen to your mother
are you okay
I love you (to my wife and kids primarily)
as if
What did you say?

8 books i've read recently (or am reading)
3:16 The Numbers of Hope
Working the Angles Eugene Peterson
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Dark Night of the Soul St John of the Cross
Hebrews by Garth Leno
Getting things done by David Allen
I'm Just here for the food by Alton Brown
In the heat of the kitchen by Gordon Ramsay

8 songs i could listen to over and over (this one is REALLY hard!!)
So damn lucky by Dave Matthews Band
Where are you going by Dave Matthews Band
Crash into me by Dave Matthews Band
Hawkmoon 269 by U2
Running to stand still by U2
Empty me by Jeremy Camp
This is a call by Thousand Foot Krutch
This is your life by Switchfoot
(this list would be different tomorrow)




8 things that attract me to my best friends
honesty
sense of humor
acceptance
understanding
time for me
comfort with silence
openness
courage

This is me caving.

As it seems that people keep tagging me (read: TARA) and that Colin caved and wrote up one of these tagging things... I decided that I would play along, but I do it somewhat begrudgingly and am mildly annoyed at Colin for caving so that my stand was made that much harder....

Anyhow, I've been tagged a number of times so I'll start with this one:

The Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.


Okay here goes:
"Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross; translated and edited by E. Allison Peers

On page 123 there is only 5 sentences (gotta love books translated from another language! - in this case 16th century spanish)


The spirit (referring to the human spirit) suffers all these afflictive purgations of the spirit to the end that it may be begotten anew in spiritual life by means of this Divine inflowing, and in these pangs may bring forth the spirit of salvation, that the saying of Isaias may be fulfillled: 'In Thy sight, O Lord, we have brought forth the spirit of salvation.' Moreover, since by means of this contemplative night the soul is prepared for the attainment of inward peace and tranquillity, which is of such a kind and so delectable that, as the Scripture says, it passes all understanding, it behoves the soul to abandon all its former peace. This was in reality no peace at all, since it was involved in imperfections; but to the soul aforementioned it appeared to be so, because it was following its own inlcinations, which were for peace. It seemed, indeed, to be a twofold peace-that is, the soul believed that it had already acquired the peace of sense and that of spirit, for it found itself to be full of the spiritual abundance of this peace of sense and of spirit-as I say, it is still imperfect.


So that isn't five sentences but you get the idea, if you want to read the book for yourself you can find HERE. I am working through this book with my home group. It can be tough to get through at times, but so far I would say that there is value in perseverance.

I am going to "tag" the following people

Jinny
Colin
Chris
Aaron although he seems to have forgotten how to use blogs
Dave (although he doesn't write in this blog anymore)

I was tagged.

She tagged me.
Something about "Crazy Eights". Bah.

This is what I have to say about being tagged.

(I hope you enjoy the slightly coffee stained tongue too)

She will likely say I'm lame and then make this face...


Which is fine, because I'm fine with my decision in not be crazy about crazy eights.
(this photo of Tara is now my computer's wallpaper)

wow... that's harder than I thought

So ever since my wife won a new blog template I have been silently lamenting the fact that my blog has only a "stock" template. I know I could find a template from a third party kind of website, but I thought, I'm a semi-creative type. I know what I like and what I don't like; I'll make one.

Now I am using the GIMP an open source program much like Adobe Photoshop. I know that the program is far and away powerful enough to do what I think I'd like, but as I was trying to make a header for my blog, I found I wasn't so sure of what I like and wasn't so sure of how I wanted it to look and tie together. So I have to think some of this through a little bit.

I'm thinking it's harder than I thought to be a designer of any kind.

So this is how it is...

So I read a blog post today that I thought was pretty neat. It's from a guy named Joe McNally. You may have heard of his name before as he's a pretty top notch photographer.
Allow me to quote some of his words...

You see, I’m in this club. Along with a few million other guys. We are card carrying members, have a secret handshake and hand signs similar to the tap to the nose Redford and Newman used in “The Sting.” It’s a huge club cause every lumpy guy who somehow ended up with a wonderful woman in his life is continually thunderstruck by that event. You look over at her at the end of the day and scratch your head. “How exactly did I swing this?” you ask yourself.

Cause face it, most guys just recently stood upright and discovered the miracle of opposable thumbs and the world of possibilities that presents. It’s pretty cool. And being in the club really can get you through the worst of days in the field.

So, yeah, what he said...

Tara, I love you. You make me smile. You give me a safe place to be me. You let me be me. You remind me when I'm not being me. Knowing you love me helps me feel secure in what I do, in how far I can stretch and helps propel me to be more than what I am now.

Happy Valentine's Day

You rock.
DJR