Rhetorica ad Herennium

Perhaps I don't believe in Evolution as an origin of life, but like a chicken is unrecognizable in his egg, we change from simple, yellow ducks into complicated working, clucking, and at times seemingly mindless... what are we anyway? Machines? Taxidermic consciences? I guess the answer is as explanatory as "body and soul". That's helpful.

What I'm getting at, is that I've grown unexpectedly. And what's a blog's entity but for chatting up the page with your own thoughts, externalizing a little piece or moment of who you are. Or were.

Even looking back a little over a year ago, did I know I'd be neck deep in technologies like Groovy, Maven, or Perl? Or that I'd have a mean back spin in Table Tennis? Or that I'd have a fetish for remembering techniques? (If my mother could see my now.) I think I irritate my wife sometimes when I get to talking and work my way onto an esoteric island of DSL's (domain specific languages) that I've found. On the other hand I think she's established a healthy wisdom of knowing at exactly what point to smile and nod.

I use to think Love ruled the world. I still do. But it looks a little different. It's like when you watch so many hollywood movies that you get these ideas that her eyes will always sparkle and sunshine will poor through the window reflecting off even the light absorbing paint on the walls and tint everything with a feeling. You think even after years of marriage that same feeling invoked by the silver screen should be ever existant. Like the soft hum of an engine.

The other day we laid on the floor of our living room after a simple dinner and played cards. Afterward, she put her head in my lap and I used the cards to make up a story. "Once, there was a... (King of Spades) Secret Agent Man, who had.... (3 of Clubs) 3 children!" And on it went getting more and more ridiculous. In the moment, it somewhat felt... normal. There wasn't feelings welling up inside, except when she laughed, and I don't think I heard any Quelqu'un M'a Dit notes in the background. But as soon as it was over, I looked outside and saw the sun just setting, and it hit me. Those Hollywood moments happen all the time, and sometimes we're just too organized and task oriented to realize it. I'm going to do better at creating those scenes and most importantly recognizing them. It's amazing what you can savor when you pause and focus.

A year ago I also dreaded working the "office job". Pushing paper, reading hours of emails until your eyes fall out of their sockets and your taken up with the more important task of not losing your mind as well. What I found and what was probably told me a hundred times was that when you're an "engineer" it means the guy that walks up to a mountain and says, "I challenge you!" I've become obsessed with finding harder and harder problems, and peering into an ever growing toolbox seeking solutions. While most of my problems are conflicts of 0's and 1's, or better put, a sandbox of 0's and 1's that need to be shaped into a castle, the most complicated is the problem of people. Of course, in the end of the day, the vastly more complicated people problems are the only one's worth solving.

I use to think Love ruled the world. I still do. But it looks a little different. I used to think "all you need is love", except somewhere along the way I misinterpreted that little simple triple. I thought Love was a solution to problems- in that, "We need to scale that hill" - "Ok, here's a rope." But now my definition has evolved a little. It's more like, "We need to scale that hill" - "Ok, but it's ok if we can't". Love is no longer a solution to external problems but internal ones. There will always be antagonists, and men of contradictory actions, and people who will hurt you, and people who will get hurt, and people with scar tissue that does what any good scar tissue would do and over compensate for the offending abrasion. Over those external circumstances, we are powerless and love is useless. But Love allows us to forgive others, forget ourselves, and live in this tumultuous life with peace. And truthfully we all need a whole lot of that Love. Too bad I didn't know that a few years ago.

Thanks be to God I'm learning some of these lessons. In a few years, I'll learn some more while I'm miles deep in a career, up to ears in little tawpies, and perhaps my memory tricks will help me retain those lessons for as long as I need them.

Of Friends and Songs.

This is pretty cool.

http://friendswritesongs.tumblr.com/

Of Día Tres

There's always the sounds of sirens. A constant reminder of the various dangers the deprived creation's mind can bring upon itself. They seem to be always around because every now and then I realize I've been hearing them whiz by every few minuets.
Children laughing and playing. Making the best of the life that can be had in a place like Acuña. The front door is always being swung open and closed because the only difference between playing inside and outside is the golden touch of the sun.
Concrete spans both sides of the door frame. The temperature also. The dust freely wanders in and out because the grass is always greener. And the feeling of home is the same.
Wild dogs run around outside without restraint. Some of them begin to fight viciously and the nearby kids just keep playing. Somehow they manage to still be kids when they're lacking food, education, and real safety from the local mafia. The Cartels control all the politics and trafficking here too. It's only safe because no one is challenging their lordship.
A Mexican radio- no, two of them now- are blasting homegrown Mariachi music. The only thing a radio seems to play around here. Within three miles of a town with a McDonald's lies half-built mud-brick buildings, shoulder to shoulder, scared with spray-paint, scattered across 4500 mi^2 of dessert. Seattle spans 84 mi^2.
I lay on a couch to sleep in a house I've only entered twice, in a home where they don't even speak my language or know my world. Yet they invite me to eat of their slim pickings.
Dust devils dance in unfinished streets where cars bought and sold ten times over studder by as beaten and as durable as the people who drive them.
Parents let the kids run rampant in the stores, as in the streets, they'll go find other kids, play cops and robbers and show up again when they need the parents. The bag-boys at checkout were a 50+ year old man and a 13 year old boy, side by side. Not working for wage- because it's illegal- but working for tips. It's every man- every child- for himself, again, as in the streets. The parents hardly ever keep a real eye on the kids, not because they do not care, but because the culture instills a sense of strength and survival. Strength because despite the poverty, gangs, and moral corruption, they still lift it, take it as it comes and find a way to enjoy life, find a way to survive. From the time they can walk out the front the door, they are required to learn to survive. As their parents did. And they do.
It's a new world down here. One that is in as needy as my own in material things, yet perhaps close to same in it's moral condition. The pressure on a Christian of who to help and how is immense. How could it not be? I want you all here now, with me, out of your pj's and quilt beds and warm homes and carpet rooms and full fridges and filtered water and wii consoles and fine restaurants and endless opportunities to live the American dream. Not so you'll give up all these things or so you'll feel bad and make a one time emotional donation. But so you'll be grateful for what you do have and that you'll have a new heart to help the poor, the widows, and the spiritually impoverished. In your community or in this one. My life was changed on day one of going to Mexico. And I have three more to go. How can I not use the assets God's given me, my mind, heart, money, mentors, the graces that are paired with salvation, the graces unique to me, to do what this world needs most?
Alas, I can not.

Of Two-Steps

Tomorrow I leave for Mexico to go to an orphanage to see what needs they have and how I can help them long term.


Also, I wrote at work today.

The Angels and the Demons both terried at my door,
Angels, exercising flaming blades; the Demons seemed to snore.
Or perhaps they were snarling at the sight Angels afford.
Yet, each party awaited me, eagerly at my door.

Inside I mulled it silently, watching while I wait.
Great questions clenched my spirit, of future and of fate.
Am I safe to take a new road? with past stains upon my stave?
What if creatures dead and gone to me, were all along awake?

Some roads I've taken carelessly and bare the scars to prove.
Perhaps the one most damaging, the one I can't remove,
Is the one that lies the deepest, secret e'en to the local news.
So what should be marked experience, with puzzlement is viewed.

This ignis fatuus haunts me, this Demon's riddled crime.
Yet criminals upon the cross, hung with greater ease of mind!
So why not I? What can't I? have peace 'neath trials eye?
Because it was of me that my innocence had to die.

Here I stand roads later, a slew of sufferings and signs,
Afraid to rouse evil's behind me, or provoke equals from on high.
Inside my room I tensely mull, biding or wasting all my time,
Hoping what the Writer wrote for me, soon illuminates my mind.

The Angels and the Demons, quiet, close, so they can hear,
Me passing o'er a single thought: That e'en though their near,
It's not the celestial beings' power that I've come to fear
But the order they'll be given once my free will is made clear.

Of One Sunday's Closing Ceremonies

I roll out my little makeshift bed.
I plug in my little lamp.
I invent little ideas up with my 10 inch head.
I think of all the problems I have and toy around with different ways to solve them.
I type away on my little keyboard making small noises that fill up the entire room.
I burn away the hours at night, plotting my grand schemes to optimally navigate roads I've self defined.
I have my goals, that I want to subdue, that I've chosen, that would make me happy.
And then I remember it's about what Christ would have me do.
I wonder if I have anything figured out after all.
I question if all my operations will ever be executed as planned.
I look at how Jesus spent most his ministry on 12 men, yet took opportunities to feed 5000, knowing all along who'd see the truth and who'd take advantage of his compassion.
I realized I need to be, should be, desire to be, just like him.
A "little Christ".
I unplug my little lamp.
I roll over and wait for my eyes to adjust so I can stare at the ceiling.
I know I don't have much figured out, but I know I have enough figured out.
Goodnight.

Of Café Manchas

I got mounds of dirty clothes, that have been sitting for weeks,
Probably got little animals, living in between the seems
I got mile high stacks, dishes on my desk
Fingerprints on the walls, I’ve done well to neglect
Coffee stains on my shoes,
'cause I’m just that incredibly smooth.

Got books strune across, a matressless room
Guitars, drums sets, and amps, and still a spot just for you
My floors a home to the critters, and itty-bitty ants
They throw all kinds of parties, and invite all their friends
Coffee stains on my shoes,
'cause I’m just that incredibly smooth.

But with your love I don’t mind,
I’ll be myself every time.
Coffee stains on my shoes,
'cause I’m just that incredibly smooth.

Café manchas mis zapatos, porque estoy que muy genial.

Of Customa Cistorca

I think I can finally say I know how
To figure this all out.

Patterns, will tell me I’m a grown man
Will say there’s too much to know man,
I’ll never figure it out.

I’ll tried five different ways to say
I lived two lifetimes to date.
The only record I keep are mistakes
So I can figure it out.

Lose souls and cleaning feels so hallow.
Memorize the old tunes note for note;
If I could be considered closer than most,
For you, I’ll use every skill I still know.
To one day figure it out,

Even after all those desert years,
My faith and heart can be clean and clear.
If you can see and have patience with me;
Listen close to the voice of the first of each;
You’d see, that what I’d say, I hide in these.
So you can figure this out.