Thursday, January 10, 2008

Resolute

Well it's been a little while and I feel obligated to write something but my new goal for the blog was to continue a steady amount of blogs to practice writing and hopefully commentate on important issues including social, political, spiritual, personal, etc without simply typing words that are only there to fill space. So I'm forcing myself to blog but I hope it encourages real thought and not just ramblings.

New years are filled with resolutions. I suppose I'm in favor of them despite the failure rate I always hear about ("My new year's resolution was to get in shape - I've since gained 15 pounds") and I try and steer clear of totally cliche ones like losing weight or stop smoking... even though those aren't really applicable to me... but I would avoid them anyways if they were applicable because I'm always opposed to the cliche. Last year my two new year's resolution were to start flossing on a regular basis and to not be anal about being on time. I'd say my teeth are cleaner now and I've realized that I will probably never enjoy missing the previews despite living in Latin America for 4 months.

I decided to follow in last year's footsteps and choose one semi-ridiculous one (flossing) and one semi-serious one (being anal about punctuality). So, I decided to start stretching on a daily basis (I've heard it's healthy for you and I've always wondered if I could stretch myself to double-jointedness) and to somehow interact with the poor (this last year I've been reading/listening/talking about how God is a god of the oppressed, how God can be found amongst the poor, and how poverty is one of the major issues Jesus addresses and so I thought it about time to hopefully do something about it).

I've yet to start on either of these but I plan to.

In the last week though as I've been thinking about the new year and new plans and how I want my life to be lived and having to come up with a prayer request every week (Matt Morgan), I've come across one thing that keeps popping up and could possibly be inserted as "new year's resolution #3." Resolution #3 would be that of slowing down. Living in Wengatz (now) is different than living in a home with your own room (last fall, last summer). Although I don't think I took full advantage of having time to myself, I think I was at least able to understand the advantages that spending time alone can offer.

I love living on a wing. There's constantly guys around to hang out with, do stuff with, and just live with. But I will admit that I fall into the trap of sitting on couches telling stories or talking about music and getting distracted from other parts of life. I don't want to downplay hanging out, because I think that's the point of living on a wing - being bored together and hopefully forming relationships. So I'm not saying that talking about the top 50 albums of 2007 is unimportant or even not spiritual. What I do want to say is that there should also be time where I'm not doing that.

My definition of slowing down: being [relatively] alone and forming thought processes that are beneficial to my maturation as a human being.*

This can include but is not limited to journaling, reading a book (Bible or other), praying, or simply thinking. Some might call it a quiet time but in case you forgot, I'm not a fan of cliches (especially Christian subculture terms) and more importantly, I would probably find my slowing down to be different than a quiet time. Why? Because I wouldn't require the Bible or praying part to be necessary to call it slowing down and I also find the term quiet time to suggest that I'm in relationship with God during my quiet time and then I go into some sort of nonspiritual hiatus from God until my next quiet time. Maybe that's not the connotation that's always or generally associated with the term quiet time but it does for me.

The reason I want to slow down is because I don't want to always be immature and I hope that I learn to understand the heart of Jesus while simultaneously understanding myself better. I think the before mentioned actions of slowing down may get me closer to that.

I hope this resolution fares better than most diets do. Gotta be resolute.



*How'd that sound?

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Fall Media Intake

My tri-annual media update. Highlights are highlighted.

Fall '07:

literature
one day in the life of ivan denisovich .. alexander solzhenitsyn / the castle .. franz kafka / anna karinina .. leo tolstoy


podcast
the relevant magazine podcast / this american life / mars hill bible church


film
superbad / evan almighty / live free or die hard / next / the goonies / constantine / knocked up / rush hour 3 / the simpsons movie / ratatouille / it / the weather man / underdog / van helsing / 3:10 to yuma / goodfellas / the last king of scotland / [friday night lights: season 1] / lucky number slevin / the da vinci code / cinderella man / letters from iwo jima / fracture / alpha dog / disturbia / the final cut / the good shepherd / the treatment / american gangster / deliverance / breach / the break-up / waitress / the sentinel / three kings / hot rod / once / death at a funeral / juno / sigur ros: heim / end of the spear / this is england / amazing grace / apacalypto