Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


6.30.2003  

Memories

I had several great conversations with various people over the course of the weekend. What struck me before the drool began to flow last night is that the past two to three years have gone by in a veritable blur, and it's causing deep appreciation for this journey called Life.

Talking to Jon brought back a flood of memories...especially since life has changed so much for his family these past couple of years. If I close my eyes, I can see their house up on Aiea Heights. Jon and Amy were the ones who actually paid the rent, but it seemed like so many of us lived there with them. When we were all in youth ministry, we learned to do ministry together. After most of us left youth staff, we learned to hang out together. When we hung out together, we learned that we really did love each other. Today, it's bittersweet to think about that house; it stands there up on the hill, rented out by someone else, someone that doesn't realize just what it means. It means laughter, it means tears, it means memories that will echo for long after they move on to pay rent somewhere else. I remember telling Jon that when we helped them move, it was like we were all moving out with them. That day we did the garage sale, you could hear us saying, "oh, remember when...?" over and over again.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I have to close my eyes to see it; I can see it right now. I can see the spot down on the road where we sat when he told me he and Amy were leaving. I can see myself sitting at the table when they told us they were gonna have a baby. Twin girls, they later found out :) I can see the high school boys wrestling on the floor, and can hear Amy telling them to stop. I can see the time a bunch of us raided the girl's sleepover, and we turned off the electricity. Oh, right, that was more than just one time ;) I can see Jeff and Andrew and myself...eating...we made sure to let the girls go first, lest Amy scold us for that, as well :) I can see Andy in the kitchen, making coffee, Im laughing with Jenn, and Lisa crashed out on the floor. Inevitably, I'd sneak outside to talk to You, Lord. The moon and stars always did look better from up there, outside that house in Aiea Heights. Yeah, there's a lot I can see now...and it's not such a blur anymore.

posted by Bolo | 4:35 PM
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6.28.2003  

dot dot dot

Alrighty then! The house is now empty, except for me myself and I. All three of the Merrifields are gone, with Dave and Mon off to Kansas, and Jon back home to Vermont. It's quite serene...I feel very much the Man of the House :)



My shins have been bugging me as of late...whenever I play basketball, they seem to hurt a little. Gah...shin splints? Stress fracture? I'm hoping it's the former. Stress fractures aren't good.



Been reading a series by Sara Douglass...fantasy stuff, but it's actually quite good. It's sucked up a lot of my time, which is a good thing during the summer. Surprisingly, the series continues to build, even though I've already gone halfway through the third and last book...at least, I think it's the last book. As my good buddy Jack put it, it's "masterful storytelling!" Very, very rare...



Oh, speaking of which, I'm in need of reading material, so gimme a buzz if there's anything I should be reading. Mystery, fantasy, historical, biographical, humorous, theological...whatever.

posted by Bolo | 12:33 PM
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6.23.2003  

Wow. Dave and Mon came back last night. I feel like *I* was the one who got rocked, when Dave was sharing. There's a lot that they both had to say, but some of the things he shared were just...well, not only convicting, but heart breaking, to put it mildly. It's humbling and frustrating, knowing that there are whole people groups who've not only never heard of Christ, but wouldn't even be able to read a simple passage of scripture, let alone the entire bible, because they're illiterate. And they *long* to have even the simple, well-known story of David and Goliath told to them...something virtually any church-going child in America could tell them without a hitch. *Sigh*...which is the greater tragedy, those who have not heard, or those who hear but do not listen? Oh, to yearn and listen as they do!!!



It seems like everyone was getting engaged...and, as the tendencies have it, married as well. Interesting how one just kinda follows the other ;) Well, uh, now everyone seems to be breaking up. Gah. Well, I suppose it's a good thing for those involved...*shrug*...just don't let that particular illness near me!



posted by Bolo | 3:22 PM
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6.22.2003  

Wrote this yesterday. My entries as of late seem to have taken on a rather dark pallor. Cool, eh?



Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel as though you are, to say the least, less than perfect? You know the type. Repeatedly, you do the same things you vow over and over again NOT to do...lust, anger, pride, selfishness...the list goes on and on. You feel as though God isn't listening to your prayers; if He is, there's no way that He really believes them anymore. Or, perhaps even if you do sincerely mean what you're praying, and He knows it, you get the sneaky feeling that there's *more*...that you're just not seeing everything, and you're missing the point. To make matters worse, nobody understands, and everything seems to crash down around you, thus making your state of mind even more self-pitying than before. Of course, being human, we must place a thin shell of pride around ourselves so as to keep the pain from crashing through once more. Oh, but the pain does crash through, despite our best efforts. Guilt, horrifying and haunting, tirelessly chases us down. I repeat...ever had one of those weeks? :) Well, my week wasn't quite that bad, but it seemed doomed to go that route many times. Fortunately, God was gracious, and I don't think it's been that bad, but I did find myself yelling at God, telling Him that I hated sin, I hated how stupid I was, hated how blind I seemed to be. *Sigh*...I think that in a way, I didn't fail nearly as badly as I think I did. All my yelling/praying really was honest, and nothing that I read or can think of reading in God's word tells me otherwise. One of the things I realized as I was thinking this week over the ways I've failed is that God's allowed sin to become much more distasteful to my soul. Even just a little of it has me swimming up to my eyeballs in conviction, it seems. I guess it's also a lot harder to dismiss the tiny sins I used to glance over. *Shudder*...I was reading this morning that what makes sin so horrid first and foremost is not how damaging it is, but how dishonoring to God it is. I'm still digesting that, but what helps is when I think about it in the "if-then" context. If sin is dishonoring to God, it is then damaging to us, because our relationship with Him is then hurt. But it won't work if you say that if sin is damaging to us, then it is dishonoring to God. Hmmm...like I said, I'm still trying to digest that and figure it out. *Shrug*...



posted by Bolo | 4:02 PM
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6.19.2003  

This morning I was reading through Ephesians 5...yeah, that portion on the church being the bride of Christ. It's got me thinking...again. Well, most things make me think, but this is the kind of thinking that hurts my head, makes me smile, and causes bewilderment. The very notion of appearing before Christ, spotless, holy...hehe, I get this nasty picture of being in a gleaming white wedding dress :) Eeewwww! Seriously, though...the spotless and holy thing...wow. If I really, really think about it, being in such a state is so foreign to me, and yet it's not, or at least it shouldn't be. Hmmm...I'm still trying to sort through the passage...more later. Maybe. *Shrug*

posted by Bolo | 1:19 PM
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6.16.2003  

As of late, there's been a lot of pondering going on in my foggy noggin, with much of that pondering focusing on my fears. Not the kind of fears that you get when you stay up way too late watching X-Files reruns and there's nobody else at home. Those kinds of fears are silly and, if I may say so, deserved. Of course, that doesn't mean that I wasn't up late last night watching an old episode of X-Files, all the while feeling the need to turn around every few minutes and make sure nobody was behind me. Anyway, back to the "real" fears. Those fears that nibble at the edges of our souls and make us angry and irritable for no particular reason, those are the ones that have caused me to wonder if I'm really going in the right direction. To be perfectly honest, I've wondered if "the right direction" even matters, 'cause if I'm just slipping backwards, it won't even matter whether or not I'm on the right path, 'cause I'm not going where I need to, you know? Gah! All this wondering leads me to crawl inside of myself during some quiet moment of the day, when no one else is there, and hope that the silence itself won't be deafening. It is at that point, when the fears begin to overwhelm with their jeering, that the seeds of hope, watered by my tears, begin to take root and bloom once more. *Sigh*...bit by joyful bit...

posted by Bolo | 5:18 PM
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6.13.2003  

Woohoo! It's Friday the 13th! *John wiggles his fingers at you and makes a silly face* K. 'Nuff of that mature behavior already ;)



It's been pretty much the same 'ol same 'ol around here. Sleep, workout, work, sleep, workout, work, sleep...you get the picture. I've been thinking about that recently, at least in terms of life being the same old routine. This summer, it'll be very much routine, as there's not a whole lot to get excited over around here...I used up my excitement quota for the summer in May. Oh, but what a May it was!!! Three weeks at home, during which I nearly decked half my friends for telling me I looked white even though I was still twenty shades darker than they were from the moment I stepped off the plane. Well, I didn't mean that. The decking part, that is. The twenty times darker part? I meant that :) Anyway, I'm getting off the subject. The routine thing really shouldn't be "routine." Last night, I was pondering The Seen vs. The Unseen. My senses and my emotions tell me that life is boring for me right now. Truth be told, I believe that most of the time. But then every now and again, I get this reminder that what I'm seeing through my own eyes and what I'm feeling with my fallible human emotions is not only temporary, but also so far off of and so much less than what the truth really is. You know what the cool thing is? If I stop and listen to that reminder, I get this tiny glimpse of what I normally don't see...and that glimpse is enough to make me grin like a fool. The question I then must ask myself is, "is this day really routine and boring, or is it a day that God has made?" 'Cause if it's a day that God has made, then it's a day to rejoice and be glad in...God doesn't make boring days.



Hey, you two monkeys in Seattle...behave yourselves, would you? And Boss, don't forget yo liquid shugah!

posted by Bolo | 4:13 PM
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6.09.2003  

It's a very amusing thing to see your very close friends getting all giddy over a girl. The bad thing about it happening right now is that I'm not there to witness the silliness firsthand...*sigh*. Oh, the endless joys of teasing your friends when they do things just for the sake of being able to drool over a girl a little bit longer! And you know what? I can only do it over the phone. At least we live in the age of cell phones and free nights and weekends :)

posted by Bolo | 4:45 PM
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6.06.2003  

Mark it down. I woke up before 9 am this morning. Well, kind of. Around 5 am, my bladder decides it's full, so I wake up, do my business, and lay down to go back to sleep. Thing is, I can't. I think I lay there for half an hour before I decided to call Brian. He'd just gotten home, so the timing was good...I hadn't teased him for almost a week already :) That bugger told me about the latest surfing exploits, though...he said the south shore is sweet right now. Gah!!! NOT FAIR!!! Ooohhh, to taste the blessed salt water of the Pacific, the world's largest bathroom...*sigh*...



This one's for a certain few out there: You're killing me Smalls! You know who you are...congratulations for clicking :)

posted by Bolo | 4:15 PM
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6.04.2003  

It's been pretty cloudy around here recently. Gah. Is there no sunlight in this land? Supposedly, it gets really hot around here during the summers. I'm waaaaaiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiing.



Dave and Mon left for Africa this morning, so Jon and I are alone in the house. I was talking with Dave last night, and we both agreed that having just come back from OneDay a week before, it's a great time to be on a mission trip. He's got a great perspective to see things through, and I don't doubt that his heart is bursting with a ton of joy. To be honest, I'm a little jealous...I wish I were going on a mission trip right now. Crazy, isn't it? Aahh, but that's precisely what Heather Mercer was talking about...a generation who will be foolish for Jesus.



I'm hungry. Very, very hungry.

posted by Bolo | 3:32 PM
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