Life to Date

Ladies & gents, a quick hello is in order.
After much torture & struggle, it looks like I'll be moving this blog to the root of my site, which is moving to a dedicated server at LiquidWeb. As well, this will be switching from Blogger to WordPress.
That's not because of heavy traffic here, but because of Real Work elsewhere. Which is cool.
And I intend to update this place more often. Discipline is a good thing...I'm trying to learn it.
Y'all enjoy yourselves!

The Superdome Complex

Byran's thoughts in Tiger or Turtle? resonated with the ideas coming from some discussions with my coworker Jerry, a recent Wednesday evening topic/discussion, and a conversation with some of my friends on Friday night.

We've bought into the belief that our job here on earth is to keep the gospel safe. Rather than launch out into the deep, we build lifeboats. The church is a place to "get away from" the world and leave the front lines, not a team of soldiers fighting together through enemy territory. Church life is all about risk aversion, not staking my life on hope.

Do you see it in this piece?
"...the true church is a safe place for us as believers. As the ark in Noah's day, as the Superdome today, it is a refuge. The church shelters us from the floods of the world and its wickedness, from the devil and his tactics. We can stay inside and be safe. Or we can leave.
In a hurricane, a refuge without roof, walls, or floor is not a refuge. There may be different sizes of refuges. There may be different flooring, siding, or roofing used. If the boundaries are durable and solid, those sheltered inside will be safe from the floods..."

Where's the Lion of the Tribe of Judah?

Waking up

Did you ever woke up to realize that you had been sleeping?

I'm slowly coming to after several months of frantic wheel-spinning, spending my store of time & mind outside the framework where real Life lives. Still not totally out of the woods, but slowly my life is re-learning to focus on Jesus.

It's like waking up.

Funnily, it starts by sitting still, thinking about Jesus. Getting a good night's rest helps too.

Today, life seems urgent. I'm like a bystander watching several streams of traffic, all going places fast. Which ones shall I join?

All in good time, He says. You're still being prepared. So, I'll try to make the most of this time of preparing.


All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
a light from the shadows shall spring;
renewed shall be blade that was broken,
the crownless again shall be king.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Still kicking

but not knowing which way to kick. Life's incredibly busy right now, but still fun. Especially when I get to cross off several major to-do's. Sadly, the list is already overflowing again.

Ever had the feeling that you were paying attention to the insignificant things at the expense of the things that really mattered?

About this "extremely moderate"...

freeradical wondered why I chose the "extremely moderate" moniker. So - here's an explanation.

For some reason, I love twisted, brainless humor. Couple that with semantics, which I also have learned to enjoy, and you get this:

Moderation: quality of being moderate and avoiding extremes (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

Extreme: of the greatest possible degree or extent or intensity (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

We are supposed to be moderate in all things.

Therefore, we are supposed to be extremely moderate (moderate to the greatest possible degree...)

You may think that "cheesy" is too kind a description for this, but for some reason it turns me on.

Actually, I prefer to be moderately moderate. That lets me get extreme when I feel like it.

By "moderate" and "extreme" I'm not referring to politics, theology, or something like that per se: just to whatever I want to have an opinion / attitude about.

Weird enjoyment

I've spent the last 2 hours or so doing things some people would groan and shake their heads over: sweating out a Linux sound configuration on my new box and browsing blogs. Quite enjoyable, actually. The sound configuration isn't quite finished, but it's fun to poke around with the guts of my system. Next up: getting my Canon i860 printer working. From what I've seen by searching, it's an involved, but doable task. We'll find out.

It's interesting what you can learn from people by listening to their commentary on old pictures. Grandpa brought about 130 pictures over for me to digitize and catalog. The commentary he provided as we looked through the pictures was amazing.

More later...
Eugene

The first words

And these were the first words uttered in the extremely moderate blog of Eugene Friesen...

Hopefully not the last, or the most meaningful.