Thought.

O Christ my God, shine forth on me and on all who dwell in the darkness of sin; show me the glorious day of Thy Passion, that with all men I may cry: Arise, and have mercy!

Graduation...or?

The Voice of My Heart

Although I am not known for my lack of words, there are moments where I find myself just simply without them.  This may be as a result of my indifference to the subject in question, or really that I just don't feel the need to communicate.  Lately, I have been wanting to get back to blogging; however, I inevitably question my reasoning behind it.  Yet, last night I was reading Sir Philip Sidney for my Renaissance, non-Shakespeare, literature course and came across a line I found to be profound.   This one sentence comes from Sidney's sonnet sequence Astrophel & Stella, and states: 

Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write.

Simple enough, but I believe Sidney touched on something profound for those of who are infatuated with words.  I say infatuated, because that is precisely what I mean.  There are some people that are just consumed, haunted, and fixated by words, I am one of them.  They fascinate me.  Their formation, their meanings, their structure, no matter what language, I love words.  And so, inevitably, if one looks in a heart or soul, like mine, you are bound to find nothing but those strange things we refer to as "words"

Thus, I have to write.  Not for anyone in particular, not to be published someday, not for anything other than it is the expression of my soul.  And even though that expression may not be polished, intellectual, or sophisticated, I really don't mind...the purpose of the words I may write is simply for them to be...

As Confucius said, "Words are the voice of my heart."

Books

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands.  So the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivions. 

-Umberto Eco

Words

"When words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain."

-William Shakespeare

My words have been scarce as of late.  I have every hope of continuing the precedent of this blog, but one can never know what tomorrow brings...

The Party's Over...

Well, the electoral process has spoken, and once again we have a president.  I just hope that this country realizes that we need a lot more than the talk of change if we are going to move forward through the issues that confront us today. 

Boise State!

Boise State 38 - Louisiana Tech 3

4-0!!!  Go Broncos!!!

A Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of Your Peace!

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console.

To be understood as to understand.

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

-St. Francis of Assisi 

Thought For the Day

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.  

For the creator, there is no poverty.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Behold the Naked Chickens...

Well, sort of.  They are naked, in that they are featherless.  However, while one might think that this is some bizarre accident, some cruel twist of nature, this is not the case.  In fact, these chickens were bred to be this way...Yes, indeed.  

They were created by scientists at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute near Tel Aviv, Israel.  The idea behind the creation of this particular...well, bird...is that it is a more convenient and energy efficient way of providing chickens to warmer climates.  Without their feathers, they will be able to function in warmer countries and thus will make it easier to provide certain nations with more meat supply.  Whereas before, there was the need to provide cooled facilities to breed chickens, which is too expensive.  One plus is that the birds were not actually genetically modified, they come from a natural breed, whose characteristics have been known for at least 50 years.  

Well, as you can imagine there are critics who say everything from, it will make them more susceptible to parasites or sunburn, to it will hinder the male chickens ability to mate because they cannot flap their wings.  Joyce D'Silva, from Compassion in World Farming (yes, you read it correctly), says that the chickens are "disgusting" and "it's a prime example of sick science and the suggestion that it would be an improvement for developing countries is obscene."  

My thought...hmm, yes well, if we would only have half as much concern for other things, we might not be in the trouble we are in...BUT, there are always the critics, no matter what idea you present, someone will always have their own opinion.  That is part of the beauty of human nature, and yet in so many ways, its downfall.  

So, to all the featherless chickens in the world, though some may call you disgusting, we hope you find your purpose, like every small boy and girl.  

Current Tune

One song getting a lot of play on itunes these days.  It's  a beautiful song.

Come close listen to the story

About a love more faithful than the morning

The Father gave his only Son just to save us

The earth was shaking in the dark

All creation felt the Fathers broken heart

Tears were filling heavens eyes

The day that true love died, the day that true love died

When blood and water hit the ground

Walls we couldn't move came crashing down

We were free and made alive

The day that true love died, The day that true love died

Search your hearts you know you can't deny it

Lose your life just so you can find it

The Father gave his only son just to save us

Jesus is alive

He rose again

-Phil Wickham

In Memoriam

Michal Ann Goll

14 February 1956 - 15 September 2008

Always loved, never forgotten.  A woman who loved unconditionally, her Savior 

and everyone

 she met.  

Setting It Straight

Well, she certainly dispelled some doubts, did she not?  

It's kind of sad that the best the other side could do was take a potshot at her speech writer...really guys?  Come on!  I know you can do better than that!  

This election is shaping up to by quite an interesting journey....

Thought

Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not. 

-Albert Einstein-

7 for 7

HE DID IT!  

7 Olympic gold medals!  

Of course he did it in pure style, winning by the smallest margin possible!  Absolutely stunning!

Never Say It's Over...

The greatest relay of all time!  Jason Lezak is my new hero! :)

What Must Happen...

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others.  In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.  When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.  It is for this reason, and not because of the 'weakness of indoctrinational work,' that they are growing up 'indifferent.'  Young people are acquiring the conviction that foul deeds are never punished on earth, that they always bring prosperity.  It is going to be uncomfortable, horrible, to live in such a country.  

-The Gulag Archipelago-

Alexander Solzenhitsyn

A Man of Many Words

Alexander Solzhenitsyn 

11 December 1918 - 3 August 2008

-Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people.  Let your memory be your travel bag.

-Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.

-It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.  

-It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven.  

Bless the Lord!

Bless the Lord, Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth!  In Him are all things, visible and invisible, in Him are all things brought to pass.  In Him is all power and majesty, in Him is all mercy and grace.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, His Kingdom shall have no end.  In Him we find our hope, in Him we find our joy.  In Him we find our beginning, in Him we find our purpose.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, bless His holy name, now and ever and unto ages of ages, amen!

Of Priests & Poets

I do not question that we need priests to remind us that we shall one day die, but I insist that we also need another type of priest, the poet, to remind us that we are not yet dead.

-G.K. Chesterton