<![CDATA[Christov's Blog]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2 en-us Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:18:31 GMT <![CDATA[Baby's First Church Experience]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=553
I've accomplished nothing this weekend. Essentially have accomplished nothing since we've had El Ninito, but it's been fun playing with the baby and trying to teach him vowel sounds, numbers, and ABCs. Maybe we are bonding, which is accomplishing something.

Had the red shed removed yesterday, and I've got to make a neat stack of bricks, got to order a cockpit cover for Campsis Radicans, bow and stern tie-downs, and some nose-plugs to practice self-rescue, balance braces, and sculling (swim practice). Nose-plugs to keep the brain-eating amoebas outta my schnoz as the water warms this season. Must see about a hotel or something for mid-May I-Church camp-out. Caution-Lady's scared of camping with a baby. I'm thinking we'll have to rent a van if we're going to take a boat and the baby with us. Dunno, we'll see.
]]> Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:18:31 GMT <![CDATA[Hockey Game]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=551
We stopped at Murfreesboro and ate at a Sonic drive-in, and marveled at the cars parked in the lot at the Dollar General Store adjacent. Each of those automobiles were late model cars and were probably purchased on credit. Possibly explained why the folks driving them were reduced to shopping at Dollar General.

So, eat, drink, be merry, watch a hockey game, for tomorrow's another work day. To be truthful, I drank water, and my friend drank a malt.

Our seats at the game were, I kid you not, one row below the rafters. The best way to be an invisible man at a Nashville Predators game is to wear a team jersey, jeans, and a ball-cap. The crowd knew all the words to various chants and songs blaring from loudspeakers, knew hand movements, and when to wave the free t-shirts every spectator was handed upon entering the venue.

Half-naked women came out and danced, badly - I think they were cheer-leader/spokes-model types - on a carpet rolled out during an intermission. Of course, that was my favorite part of the evening's program. They appeared smaller than toys from the rafters, but their images were projected upon a screen suspended above the icy arena far below us. Later on, the women were sent into the arena to pass out gift cards to O'Charley's restaurants good for one free slice of caramel-something pie. They looked a little scared as fans demanded more of the coupons for people in some of the rows, and looked relieved when they finished the distribution.

We left shortly after the end of the second intermission in order to return to Stepford by a reasonable hour.


]]> Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:56:21 GMT <![CDATA[Entry for April 02, 2008]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=550 Sharing my brilliant thoughts
breaking my silence]]> Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:01:48 GMT <![CDATA[What the Hell Am I Doing, and Where Did Ichurch Go?]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=547 Ichurch? It's Back! (as of this morning, 3/31/08 - who'd've guessed?)


The Discipline of Silence, or Listening, or Whatever the Hell I Think I'm Doing...

In a recent email (3/20/08) to another Internet person I like and respect although we've never met face to face, I wrote:
Usually after I've tried to communicate through the medium of the spoken word, I go through a funk wherein I'm convinced I haven't made a bit of sense, should have been born without a tongue, and ought not attempt to speak again. I'm imposing a vow of Internet Silence upon myself until next time I call in. Probably I need to be learning how to communicate with the people who live in my physical world as part of the discipline of Internet Silence. And listen - I need to listen more to what others are saying.
So, I have been doing less online criticism of the spoken and written words of some of my Christian brothers and sister, and have even refrained from criticizing here the many sub-normal careerist hacks populating various government agencies as non-elected appointees and their squeaky yeslings. No, I don't think this sort of restraint can be expected to last.

The other thing that probably won't last is my resolve to listen more, and more carefully to what others are saying. Not because I don't want to listen and hear, but because it is my depraved bent to self-express and make of other people, their thoughts, ideas, experiences, nothing more than platforms from which to do so. That makes me functionally and voluntarily ignorant, to some degree. And that's bad.





]]> Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:15:11 GMT <![CDATA[Entry for March 27, 2008]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=544
Caution-Lady has scolded me for not speaking to our infant son in a high-soothing voice. My argument is that the little guy might be horrified if his old dad spoke to him in the voice of a little girl or androgynous animated purple extinct monster. Sure, it's all very well to use shrieking high-pitched tones to sing silly songs off-key, but that's about all the upper octaves are good for. At least that's the only use I'm willing to make of them.

May skip paddling this weekend, although I want to try out the Volvo roof-racks. Anyway, I've got to find the tie-down straps that came with my Folbot kayak cart (not a great product, that cart, but the straps are sound) and get bow and stern tie-downs. Will also have to get a cockpit cover for the E68.
]]> Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:26:09 GMT <![CDATA[Happy Easter]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=542
I've decided I need to listen more to other people - not do as they say, but actually listen to and evaluate what they're saying as opposed to trying to find in the content of their speech a springboard for my own self-expression. We'll see how that works out.

Here's something I'm currently wrassling with, taken from an email I sent last week:
"It's like I can't be both an Anarchist in regard to the things of what passes for the church, and one who finds himself happy to be attending the worship services of a local institutional church congregation. The truth is I'm really both."
]]> Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:28:51 GMT <![CDATA[A Rotten Friday on Small Waters]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=540 Here are some pictures - most of them turned out really badly, but this is a fairly good representative set showing the place I tried to adjust my rudder cable, some black ducks that made a strange call, the causway running between AEDC base road and Winchester, some ducks by a vacation trailer at Morris Ferry dock, some turtles - I saw a lot of turtles.

The car'd been packed with gear and boat since Thursday afternoon, but I'd forgotten to prepare a lunch in advance. We had guests in for dinner Thursday night, and stayed up talking until what is, for us, the late hour of 10:30 pm.

My normal sleep was disrupted by the fuss-wake-feed cycle of our son. Although my wife took care of feeding and changing, I wound up sleeping until about 7:30 am - pretty late. Because my wife commanded, "Don't play him any scary music," I introduced the little guy to I-Tunes with Second Chapter of Acts - seen them live - they are long-haired hippies who use hippie-speak instead of normal human speech when talking about stuff from the stage. But their Hymns album's pretty infant-safe, and I sang along, crow-like, which surprisingly did not provoke a squall of protest.

So then, after I've watched, chatted with, and played with the baby while my wife's had time to bathe, dress, and do a couple of things around the house, I throw on my boating togs, eat a bowl of oatmeal for a snack because by then it's 10:00 am, and head for the door. At which point somebody pulls up in the driveway. A friend of my wife's from school, and her younger son. They brought us a cradle her father had made for their children. We have to give it back eventually, but it's pretty cool. I and the boy carry it into the nursery. My wife and his mother are talking about babies. The kid's eyes have glazed over, so, with his mom's permission, I get him set up playing Jedi Knight II on the Mac. Finally, I get out of the house.

On the water by 12:10 - no hassles in assembling, uncrowded put in, and a place to park on the grass next to the water. My plan was to make a sort of clockwise circuit - paddling over to Morris Ferry Dock, then along the south shore to the dam, and back past UTSI, the Rec Beach, the yacht club, the officer's beach, and back.

Since my seven-mile walk at Tims Ford State Park three, maybe four weeks ago, I've had some weird neuralgia in my left lower back and left buttock that's gotten worse. It may be related to a workman's comp injury I got investigating a case of child-neglect a few years ago. Pain's almost a give-way weakness from the left hip to or just behind the left knee. Usually this is something that improves after walking a few miles or spending some time on the elliptical walker with the resistance maxed, and subsequent stretching. But not lately.

So I'm paddling the E68 in fairly strong south and west wind, and realize I've made a bad job of adjusting the cord that runs from the rudder pedals to the rudder cables with the result that I've got a kayak that wants to steer right. To go straight, I've got to keep the left pedal depressed, and my right foot cocked back at an angle toward my right shin. I found some protected water and tried to adjust the rudder cable with no joy. No good place to beach the kayak and make the adjustment from outside the cockpit.

After three or four miles of this, the only way I can get some relief for my right ankle is by raising my right knee, while keeping the left pedal pressed down. Great. At least my back's not hurting, although my left foot drifts in and out of needle sharp sleep. Flexing my butt, alternating cheeks during forward stroke, helps, some. Then I start getting these painful twinges in my left throat below the jaw that correspond to painful twinges in my left leg, near my knee, and finally, similar twinges in my left palm. All this, coupled with the fact that my arms are attached at the hands to a wooden stick held crossways to the orientation of my body that's more or less wrapped up in a wooden frame would have seemed appropriate to the day if there were anything particularly good about man in early middle-age so configured.

Following the original course of the Elk north and east past Elder Island, a black duck with white markings made a yodeling sound at me. The wind was now sort of at my back, so I unfurled the umbrella to sail this stretch, but thought better of it and put it away. Funky rudder cable problems, that raised right knee, strange pains, wind, made the combination of man and boat an unstable, mid-lake capsize waiting to happen. So I paddled on, and eventually reached my destination without mishap completing an abbreviated course of only about eight miles.]]> Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:55:10 GMT <![CDATA[This is the Better Clip]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=536 ]]> Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:39:39 GMT <![CDATA[I Don't Buy This]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=532 12 Perseverance


We believe that all who are regenerated, called and justified shall persevere in holiness and never finally fall away.

This is the 12th item in a statement of faith promulgated by a group of baptistic reformed congregations associating with one another for the purpose of missions and fellowship. Thing is, I don't buy it. My understanding of grace is such that I believe all who are regenerated, called and justified shall persevere and never (finally) fall away.

My understanding of the statement in larger font and bold typeface above is that the writer is saying the goodness of Christ shall be imputed to the believer, and that God will keep the believer saved while keeping the believer good. I don't think I've ever met a good Christian. I think such a belief leads to functional Arminianism, and to such a yoke I will not submit. More important, however, is that I don't think it is what scripture teaches.

Maybe my reading of the statement supra is mistaken, and the writer does not equate holiness with sinlessness. That'd be great. Sometimes I like finding out I've misapprehended something - it expands and perforates the walls of the mental box my genius intellect constructs for itself to dwell within.
]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:18:10 GMT <![CDATA[Image of Christ]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fiA_PcAyc7TxQnFixBlo1MbaJYK2?p=529 Scanned from a card found this afternoon while cleaning out parental junk from the nursery. Getting ready. Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951. Seemed appropriate Christ, and him crucified, boat, lake, fisherman/boatman.


I've made the difficult decision this morning not to skip the service at Barnchurch to go paddling. I've got both Friday and Saturday off this week, so will get on the water again, soon. The thing is, today I'd rather attend the service, and I guess it's o.k. to be where I want to be.

Sometimes I feel guilty when I pass up the opportunity to paddle because it is excellent mind and body exercise; I feel like I've accomplished something; seen a part of the world most other people around here will never see outside of photographs; don't have to be around other people; and any number of other positive things that make the activity both good in itself, and good for me. But the law kills, and guilt associated with choosing to do or not do something like paddling a heavy, wood-framed skinboat on one of the local lakes is just sick and wrong. So, I will rebel against it and do what I want today, find the root of the absurd self-made law, and tear it out.

Which is also a beneficial exercise. This is also grace - to be able to understand and take action to find and change what is false in one's self.
]]> Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:25:51 GMT