Tamarack

Christ is born! Glorify Him! It's very hard to keep a regular schedule during holidays! We celebrated Nativity today. I've had many church services and labors since Wednesday, and I haven't prioritized writing. With Great Lent coming up in less than two months I need to figure out a way to maintain my practice. I'll be thinking. ...

My Standard Notes account had a bit of a hiccup that took a few days to resolve recently, so I missed a few days writing. Here I go, trying again. When I was a teenager, I worked at McDonald's for a bit. I remember one of the Mexican women I worked with calling me floja -- lazy. I've been working jobs since I was 14. I got jobs out in town to avoid the constant grind of what we had to do at home. We had farm chores, cleaning chores, and both my parents owned businesses that were based on man...

To make a long and intensely personal story short, I cried at the meat counter yesterday. I haven't eaten meat in nearly 4 years. Due to a number of reasons, I've been commanded to introduce it back into my diet by my doctor and my spiritual father. I finally capitulated and went to Fresh Market to find a tiny steak to eat. Fresh Market is a fancy speciality grocery store for rich people who have the air of being rich people. The store has very moody and dramatic lighting, and every time I'v...

I'm in the midst of a crisis that may necessitate reversing my position on an important topic to me. I've been given better information, and because I've been given more sound information than what I had, the sensible thing to do is change my position. I'm not feeling any discomfort in my identity, nor am I feeling any dread about having to eat "humble pie". I'm just moving forward with the attitude that I'm hopefully less wrong than I was before. I don't know if this is the ego-killing seed...

My whole aim in life is for synergeia with God. Cooperation. I want to align my will with God's and cooperate in my own salvation. In practice, right now, it feels like Im aiming to become seaglass. It feels like much of the time I just shrug and say "oh well, may it be blessed" when faced with circumstances I don't love and just get buffeted and polished by the waves and sands of life. Of course, if the circumstance is something that needs to be dealt with, like a sudden need for a major home...

I'm off all social media now. I was never a heavy user, and I never used Twitter, but I still find that I sometimes have the urge to post my thoughts and opinions. So far, it's always come up as a sort of knee-jerk reaction to seeing something ridiculous in real life. Like today, I saw a man in a Jeep throw a tied-up grocery sack full of trash out of his window on the interstate. I hit it, doing 80 miles per hour and it exploded, scattering trash everywhere. But for some reason, it felt like...

I’ve noticed that I find it difficult to stop doing and rest when I need to. I don’t have any problems sitting still and wasting time on the internet, though. What’s the difference? Why don’t I enjoy resting when I need to, but often find myself killing time? ...

I've always taken everything to the extreme. I'm an immoderate and semi-capricious creature. I went to confession this morning and confessed (once again) shortcomings that stem directly from my lack of moderation. Later in the day, I was on a walk and was suddenly struck by the realization that moderation really is the key to a good life. Enjoy food, but not too much. Enjoy relaxation, but not too much. Enjoy everything that is good, but just enough. It's such a basic principle, but it's es...

Sometimes I wonder if I don't write outside of work because I've become intellectually lazy. When I press on this thought, I find that the more likely answer is that Im mentally exhausted. The modern world has too many distractions, too many demanding sensations hijacking my brain chemistry, too many self-important "experts" comandeering conversations. Maybe it's hard for me to write because I don't want to add to the cacophony for no good reason. I don't think anything I need to say is so im...

I need to start writing more. I mean, I'm a writer by trade but I've mostly stopped even writing coherent text messages off the clock and I'm probably devolving in my personal life because of it. I'm going to do my best to write for 100 days straight. The proximity to New Years is coincidental. This is not some kind of "new year, new me" resolution. I am doing this out of a sort of desperation though -- I'm worried my brain will totally seize up and I'll lose all my language unless I start usi...