Brand New Blog

So I've been doing this blog for one month short of two years (my log says that this entry makes 415 posts). Most of the folks reading it have been reading it for the whole time and while I'm not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth (and it is really impossible for me to express how much I appreciate your interest) it does make me wonder about the state of some people's sanity.

Be that as it may, I've been having a hard time figuring out what to do with these blog entries since it so quickly morphed into a sort of journal of my travels (physical, spiritual, and emotional) post-Katrina. One of the reasons that the blog has moved to a less frequent trend of posting is that despite my work to write more and more I've had the desire to publish less and less... I've been stuck in some sort of imaginary self-imposed theme.

SO... this morning I came up with a solution... When in doubt... START OVER!

And that's what I've done. You'll find the newest posting at Quicksilver Amusements and that's where I intend to post most of my stuff from now on (at least for the time being).

I'll be keeping SpeakLo up and running, and the archive will remain here for anyone who would like to go back and read about some of my experiences and perspectives on the last two years of chaos that started when I posted my first comment on July 29, 2005.

Thanks for reading... please join me in the next gallery.

Ladies and Gentlemen... Elvis has left the building!

Hold On To Your Life

I am not generally inclined to find worldly wisdom from Madonna, but this message from the synchronicity of iTunes was particularly interesting and helpful on this Monday morning as I begin my second week in California.

I am starting this week with my standard reaction to spending an evening watching the Tony awards. As usual, my experience of the program was a sort of call to action for my subconscious. I long for greater creativity, clarity and action. I long for a fuller experience of really being alive. I long for meaning and metaphor. I long for hope and the possibility of greatness… And I feel, not all the time but often, like time is running out.

Then the concluding note of my synchronistic hat-trick came when I started the browser on my computer and got this picture/story from Storypeople, and I take great comfort in the fact that I really do believe that there is indeed enough time for “the important things” in my life.

So… on this sunny Monday on the West Coast I sit down at this desk to recommit myself to those things that I care about. It's time to, once again... hold on to my life. How this plays out with the other half of that coin - the perspective of Jesus that if you lose your life you will find it - is something that I am wrestling with at the moment. My hunch is that it has something to do with the kind of of yin-yang balance that seems to be the key to almost everything.

Perhaps it isn't possible to actually hold on to your life unless you hold it lightly.

Welcome to Hurricane Season

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem... and in this case the safety of New Orleans. It's that time of year again. Last year we were extremely fortunate and although the National Hurricane Center had predicted (as they have this year) an exceptionally active year of storms, there were actually very few and none came barreling toward the Gulf Coast to attack The Crescent City levee system which is still operating on one leg and teetering like a drunk on Bourbon Street.

Here we are again almost to the turning point of the year, heading into six months of hot sun and hurricanes, and as my storypeople graphic above relates, the tree must come down now... it's time to get to work. Last Sunday the christian church celebrated Pentecost, that moment when the mantel of power and the obligation of service was transferred from the heavens and landed upon the earth. The day when the responsibility for doing something in the world was laid squarely at the feet of us human beings. But the responsibility was accompanied by power.. audible, visible, existential power. WE... ordinary folks... could do the work of God.

Well... there's still some pretty big work out there to be done. I guess we all better get to it.