Insidious Adaptation

It was the night after a long run, one where I went out too far, gone too long, didn't eat enough either. It was a time when I thought I could push it a little more, a little farther, and maybe I could finally obtain a coveted self-accomplishment to allow myself a little peace. "When I hit 15 miles, then I will buy those new shoes."  I will never buy the shoes, I just need something to look forward to, even if that, "thing" will never be allowed to happen.  It was at the end of one of those days, where the push of an accomplishment consumes any other idea that is life and the payment for such an accomplishment, isn't just the fatigue, for that is masterable, but it is the mental craving for something.  I have a theory based loosely in logic, one of chemicals and exercise; the longer the exercise, the more the chemicals used, so then the less brain chemicals there are later. Either way, I was burned, a longer, deeper burn that muscles provid...

According to science, everything is 99.9999999% nothing. Article here.   With that in mind, the scientific explanation that anything material is mostly electron clouds and magnetic force is what we feel, could we ever question miracles again? If science, which is typically the anti-religion take of the world's origin, existence, and meaning, is so convinced in the presentation, which is empty space, why would we struggle is accepting "non-natural" events from affecting our lives, when the "natural" isn't as concrete as we thought? Science! Jesus was a man, a Son, physically, birthed from a virgin. Science says this is impossible. The Old Testament prophesied of Jesus coming, as a savior, the messiah. Science says he was just a man. The New Testament says that Jesus did come, He was alive, He did talk and interact and die and rose again from the grave. Science claims this man did live, but that he must have been a crazy man claiming what he did. S...

Thou shalt not... Christians are commanded to, and commanded not to. Yet, this freedom Christ gave when he died on that cross has gotten distorted. A sense of entitlement has come about. It is not your church or church attendance that matters, the list of actions, charities you contribute to, or reciting of verses that are lingering words in your mind to sound haughty, that matters, but our love. We are commanded to love the Lord our God and love a neighbor like ourselves. These are non-negotibles. Due to needing to categorize and condemn a man for their actions, keep them away from us, we Christ followers sure think a lot and do a lot for ourselves. We justify a sin when we know better. It turns out we are good at one thing aren't we, reviving an old forgiven nature, going back to our own vomit, awaiting a time to be spewed out of the mouth of the one who gave us life. A nature that a conversion of the Holy Spirit should no longer be in love with, no longer stand. A Christian ...

It isn't that we have such great lives, and that man as a whole is not living in his own squalor, but it's the fact that there is a reprieve offered. There is a way out of suffering, out of heartache, there is a peace that can be found here on earth that few really allow themselves to see. One could argue that man has a desire to suffer, living in destruction, to harm one another to then receive harm. We know that if people are suffering in the world that even as calloused as we have become, saturated with news of horrors unheard of in our own life, that we still hurt because others hurt. We can continue to distance in our minds of the suffering of other people, but we hurt, or we distance ourselves from the reality of it. When we start, in one way or another, to distance from the reality of human suffering, we all suffer. Think about when you read a memoir about some horrors a man or woman has lived through. We read these things as stories, yet there is a thin strand of re...

"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord."- Ephesians 6:4 What is it to provoke someone? What is it to influence a life in corruption? When we interact with people, do they walk away worse than before meeting us? Nobody wants to admit they could be a contributing cause to the destruction of another because that is a lot to take on, and counseling says that people are responsible for their own actions. All very true, even the painful part of acceptance. However, what if in our pursuit for self-satisfaction we eat up and produce noxious fumes polluting the purity of life along the way? What if on our way to weight-loss we post pictures promoting our thinner physiques as our salvation to an otherwise pathetic self? What if on the way to becoming a doctor we produce long, difficult sentences to show our knowledge, thus superiority? What if in my accepted way of self-promotion I provoke you in a negat...

"All our steps are ordered by the Lord; how then can we understand our own ways?" - Proverbs 20:24 What are we called to do with the short amount of time we have here on earth? Honestly, are we to live in this perpetual cycle of ups and downs, building some self-fulfilling legacy that in 1 year, 10 years, 100 years is dead anyway? The man who invented some of our most-common household items, what was his name again? We look and glorify the people of the present as though they are what we would like, yet, we fail to see that the focus and adherence to the present makes us die in the moment. " Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding"- Proverbs 3:13   Looking to the future is deemed "unhealthy" in the world of psychology. We are called to be "mindful" of the here and now, yet, we fail to see what mindfulness is anyway. We fail to see that when we are being "present" what we are doing oftentimes is succumbing to...

A choice to change isn't exactly where the change starts is it? Like isn't the choice to change just acknowledging a change needs to occur and the reason for a change is what is being addressed? Is the reason for change because of a consequence, because of something so significant that it can no longer go unnoticed? Take weightless for example, many people claim they need to change their diet or lifestyle to lose weight, but then instead of taking out what they must already recognize as the problem materials, by way of recognizing lifestyle choices, they go too far and want a restrictive diet plan. Doesn't it make more sense to start with acknowledging why the change in the first place? After all, the holidays are a time where it becomes socially acceptable to eat more indulgent foods therefore putting on weight in a lot of cases, especially if the rest of the year you were working on diets only to let it go at the end and do it all over again the next year. Isn't start...

My body may be sick, but my soul, she is weary. It is the man inside that has been sick my entire life, My. Entire. Life. The word MY cannot be acknowledged there enough, for it is my life right? Me! The problem with sickness isn't the sickness itself, for whether it is a cold, flue, stomach bug, depression, anxiety, these reactions and ways we interpret them are neither good nor bad, but just are, yet, we submit. WE submit to the flu and gather around those who have it, comforting, loving them, "say prayers," and all rightly so, for the, "flu" as we know it to be does have the potential to hospitalize or kill a person as the media likes to give their annual account of flu-related deaths. The, "flu" or a, "cold" seem to be these underlying spirits that promote fear and hyper-cleansing. Yet, then there are "superbugs" that evolve from such hyper-sanitary areas making us sicker than ever, maybe by resistant strains of the sickne...

“and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!” Matthew 18:3 NET The innocent unwrapping of pretty paper. The adults patting themselves on the back as what lay beneath a tree a bounty a plenty. We are good parents, for we provided these extras. We may secretly compare with others and what they have, we my have held on a little too tightly to the shopping this year, spent a bit much, been carried away with elation. For this too shall pass.  Tomorrow is December 26th and the reminders of what we aught to do shine as bright as the bulbs do on this Christmas morning. We are called to be consistent us adults, yet, we show children emotional doing by overdoing, and overreacting, we are at times their biggest stumbling blocks. Children’s minds are infinite in possibilities. Like Jesus, Immanuel, How numerous are his ways. The mind of a child submits eas...

For one to, "lose weight," one has to place the body in what "experts" call a caloric deficit.  "Experts" are  people who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area. "Knowledge" is  information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. "Understanding of a subject...."  The rabbit hole goes deep, for one can eventually dig to a basis they can question and therefore erode the basic foundation on which one believes. Unlike weight loss, which isn't actually understood by anyone, there are other, more prominent facts in the world that do require understanding.  Jesus for one.  For two, Halloween Candy.  Yes, Halloween Candy, has little to do with weight loss and even less to do with Jesus, right? I mean, Halloween itself, has some believe is the promotion of demons or satanic rituals. All Hallows' ev...

"Trick or Treat." "Yes, good, say that. We knock and we say that." My coaching is weak, I don't think I ever said "trick or treat" when I was a kid, probably just a "hello." But us fathers want our children to be better than us right? So, the follow through, the delivery, that is what has to happen here. Let's see if she sticks the landing. ... "Look at them run up there." A few houses in and a neighbor and new friend of our daughters are together, no longer needing an adult to guide, but convince each other this is safe, this is what we do. "Did you say thank you?" I ask my daughter, "Thank you." She says to a now-shut door. "Sweetheart, let's say thank you to them." "Ok." The walk from one house to the next started slow, apprehensive, turned into a slight jog for the children, then a run from the house almost going into the street. A few falls, a couple crash...

"The feels," given permission to take over as hormones are reason enough to indulge our desires. As though we have no control of who drives the car, only that we are in the passenger seat and we pray for no crash, or at least airbags if we do. Kids are having sex. Sadly I did, too young. I was too immature, not ready for the what I was giving up. No value to myself, only for others to see me as equal. Wanting to fit in with the world, a social group, peers, to discuss in the locker room with detail now, for this is what we do right? How we make sense of our actions, by measuring against those around us? It was dark, too dark, for neither of us wanted to see what was going on. I prayed for it to end, just to be done, for if I could have gotten a reprieve from this act and still claimed to have done it, I would have. The sex was not wanted, but to claim I had sex, for I couldn't go to college a virgin. A dark room, an adolescent kid, practice putting on a condom in re...

Cartoon depictions of worldly desires tend to make a situation more acceptable, more tolerable, less critical. The depictions of a friendly Santa, the cartoon ghouls, the jokey turkey with a personality fighting with a can of whipped cream. The comfort of child-like nostalgia, we are trying to recapture what we once had, innocence. Not innocence in what the the world has shown you through years of experience, but in knowing God as well. Ouch, see, that is the harsh stuff we don't want to hear. However, once one looks at what nostalgia in this world is, once one pieces apart why we feel a certain way, even a good way, we tend to see through the smoke of it all. Why do this? Why look into even the good emotions and see what causes them? Why would I stare at a box of Pop-Tarts, looking into why they provide comfort, a sense of slight warmth that all is right in the world, despite knowing it isn't? Because we cannot have one side of a coin without the other. We must understan...