Thursday, August 18, 2005

Long time no see

Sorry for the patchy entries these last months. It’s summer here, and life gets very hectic. Weekends away, family gatherings, house chores, fishing, guitar playing, conferences, and the like all take their toll of one’s time. Perhaps the biggest time waster on the planet is of course television, which I watch less and less, despite having a super dooper high definition model. No matter how good the picture is, most of the shows are total crap. Sadly, there is little to watch on US TV, which isn’t known to be the world’s worst for nothing. It took me while to realize it, but I soon caught on to the fact that, apart from a few public broadcasting channels that provide the only island of sanity in an ocean on craziness, TV here is just a means to advertise. The content of the programs is way down the list of priorities. Even the news isn’t news, it’s a vehicle to sell advertising, just entertainment for the masses. If you subtract all the commercial time and self promotion video clips showing smiley faces of the latest news people, I bet there isn’t more than 20 minutes per hour of news. Subtract the fact that they repeat everything every half hour and I’d be surprised if there’s actually more than ten minutes of actual news in an hour in the morning. World events, in the local news (about 75%) of the output, are blissfully ignored, the weather is most times about the most important thing shown. Even bad news is hidden. The city where I live has experienced about 35 murders so far this year and most of them don’t even make the broadcast. Good grief.

I’m experiencing a spiritual renaissance at the moment, after being involved with Messianic Jews in different groups and the area. I think I’ll call myself a Jew in future. I’m really envious of their abandoned worship and fervor for God, and to be honest, their dancing. It was such a thrill to be at a conference a couple of weeks ago, I may have mentioned it already in my last blurb; I’m writing this on Word without looking at the Blog. Anyway, at the conference, which I thought was just about the latest prayer and healing information on people “like me” was actually run by Messianic believers and we did dance every afternoon for a couple of hours. What a thrill! I was really able to worship the Lord in new way. I now have some great CD’s, DVD’s and the like to carry on dancing. I realize more and more the Jewish trunk of the faith, and how we are just a wild olive branch grafted in.

But, the main thing I learned at the conference was keeping my brain synchronized so I can be myself in all circumstances (that seems pretty far off at the moment). I’m working on this just about all the day…….watch this space.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Sorry about the break

Back from various trips, it must be summer. Summer here in the Midwest means cramming 12 months activities into 3 months of hot weather. There are two seasons here, winter and road construction. Road construction begins when the thaw sets in and ends when everything freezes. The highlight of the summer is the State Fair in St Paul. Here you can buy most things on a stick (Homer Simpson would love it). I ate my biggest ever turkey leg here, it was as big as a small chicken.
Anyway, the weather has been so hot it hasn't been funny, over 90 degrees F for weeks, with high humididty, which is the real killer. Add that to severe thunderstorms of Biblical proportions, up to 3 inches of rain an hour, power outages dur to fried lines (300,000 households out for two days after one storm), trees down, flooding, bear attacks, golf ball sized hailstones, wall to wall mosquitoes, forest fires- it's been a quiest summer, we normally have tornadoes as well.
I was happy to go to a conference in Michigan last week, where I mixed with fellow sojourners on the journey to wholeness, and a wide variety of therapists, doctors, and prayer counsellors. We had a great time and I was sad to come home ans back to work. I do feel renewed in my mind, so i'm quite excited. I worked on some interesting exercises to activate all parts of the brain, which is a new experience for me. I hope it's a lasting change.