Snow

I see flakes breezing past me in straight lines as the tires tear up the peaceful surface. The flakes are mesmerizing.

It is incredibly quiet for being in the middle of the city. The quietness makes it easy to think that I am the only one outside today, even as I see the beasts flying past at a frenetic pace.

Is there an ice patch hiding under the surface? Yep, and here comes a concrete wall... hope I have an easy landing.

I am on the road with the beasts and one of the people trapped inside yells out the window because the beast that he lives in causes him to live in a state of constant hurry.

I end up at my destination and the snow is no longer peaceful. It has been torn up by the huge evil beasts of burden who serve only man, only destroying not helping or creating. The only purpose these beasts serve is to put man inside a cocoon and keep him from the outside where he can experience life. Serving as a coffin of his own making.

The snow is now brown and ugly. The people are afraid of it from inside these beasts. They are afraid for me. They think that I will be hurt or cold. Little do they realize the wonder and the joy, the sounds, the smells, the textures they miss being inside the beast. All they can think about it safety, warmth, comfort. They cannot think outside of their boxes to the world that lies outside.

The people who get the chance to experience these wonders are thought of as crazy or eccentric, but your life is dead without taking chances and pursuing passions and hopefully in the process getting others to see the truth. How long will it take until the masses are jarred outside of there little boxes and are willing to take action to get rid of the beasts.

Someday the snow will be peaceful and undisturbed by the beast. The people will realize that the beast's only purpose is to serve as a coffin, that shields them from the wonders of the world. Someday all the beasts will be gone and there will be a better world for all to enjoy.

Trying to get inspired.....

I just took a test at work and finally feel free now that is over to think creatively again but as I sit on my front porch (which is usually a breeding ground for the blog) I seem to have writers blog.

I guess I could blog about getting pulled over today for having no license plate or turn signals on the motobike but that is just a downer but I guess one way to look at it is that I was weaving through traffic at about 15 mph above the speed limit and even though they said that wasn't a good idea I only got a ticket for having no turn signals... oh well.

Now that weddings are over and the motobike is running again I am also feeling the need to get back to biking to work... but of course have to see how that goes

Hopefully I will get inspired soon have to see

Community

Community is the essence of what a good life is I think.

Whether the community is based around a church or an organization or just a bunch of people who share a common interest in building a life together.

One really cool example is right behind the coffee shop I am sitting in right now.

It is a community that was built with the intentional purpose of building a neighborhood where people will naturally interact together. It has community Gardens and a public workshop and all the houses face towards the center common area. Also the Garages are not attached so that people have to go out their front door and walk past all the other houses so they will see their neighbors frequently.

My mind keeps twisting and turning around the idea of community...

Thinking what is the point of having a church if you do not have a community surrounding it. Why do people develop churches with the purpose of attracting people from all over the city instead of developing pocket churches in different parts of town so that people will be staying in their communities instead of going out of them to go to church.

One of my friends said this weekend that in reality you should be able to walk to the church you go to or at the most take a little jaunt on a bike to get there. Church is not about the message or the doctrine as it is about the relationship you form with the other people there.

People who are not already in church will be attracted by the community they see, not by a perfect message or a stellar building (well maybe but the community will get them to stay.)

I have talked to people before about Christian communities but really it should be about people investing in the community that we live in and then building a community of people of all creeds not hiding away from the world.

God

Listening to the neighbors fight and watching apple smoke rise up in to the air.

My thoughts drifted to my life and if I am actually more satisfied with it when I can see the hand of God in it or whether my life would be any different if it was God focused instead of me focused.

I am at the point where I feel like I could be just as satisfied with it whether God is in it or not, traveling around, making friends, seeing the world and experiencing nature.

I can pull off making people think that I am at least somewhat focused on what God might want for my life and how I can serve him, but do I really care???

Are the people who I know who are Christians really any happier, any more joyful, anymore driven towards anything. I almost feel like the majority of people look to God in there life because

1. It will make them feel like better people.

2. It is what they have always done.

3. They feel like it is the best place to get a sense of community and not feel alone in the world.

I really do not know if any of this is true, but I know that when I am involved in a church or seeking to know God better at the root of it all is the desire to be living in a community of other people. Where people are sharing everything and being willing to sacrifice what they have for other people.

Sometimes I see this in the church, but many times I see it in other places.

The desire to know and to be truly known by other people. To be accepted for who you are without regard to your faults.

True community is hard to find and I feel that I rarely see it in the church.

I admit in this that there are a number of people that I have no desire to get to know or to be known by. I tend to be judgmental of people who seek after status and riches or who think that they have to have the best when really they should be able to be happy with much much less. Maybe some of these people are seeking to replace relationships in their lives with these things, I guess I do not really know.

One of the things that has meaning to me and makes me feel that my life is worth something is being creative, building things, bringing ideas to life, but this can never replace the relationships I have with people.

Can it replace a relationship with God??

I think so...

But I am still trying to determine where that fits in my life and if it is really true. I always feel more satisfied with my life when I am being creative and have community in my life regardless whether I am seeking after God or not.

Does it really matter???

The Greenest of the All

This weekend I went to my Grandma's birthday party.


I sat reminiscing with my family about my Grandma and as I sat there I realized my Grandma is the most environmentally responsible person I know.

What is ironic about this is that my Grandma is not at all focused on or interested in environmentalism.

She reuses everything and rarely buys anything new. She even reuses the cartons she gets meat in...

She grows most of her own vegetables or buys them locally.

Instead of buying new Christmas presents for us she would go to the thrift store and buy us books she thought we would like.

Even though my Grandma can be seen as tight she may be a great example of what an environmentalist really needs to be like.

the smooth motion of the city

I sit on my back porch, contemplating my life as I smoke the hookah and listen to the sounds of downtown with a little bit of Zero 7 in the background at least for a little while.

I am inspired but at the same time distracted as I watch the smoke cascade out of my lungs up into the night air. I wonder how my dreams for what my life will become will come to pass.

I realize that even as I sit hear another second of my life has passed by and I think of all the ideas I've had and wonder why I have never really followed any of my dreams before this year.

I think that the last time I followed a dream was when I came out to Colorado in 2001 to work at Eagle Lake as a bike camp director. Actually maybe not, I think that going to Baja was following through with a dream.

Now the dreams I have of creating and building have begun to take over my life in the past couple months. I have to figure out how to put my ideas and my creativity into action or I think eventually part of my soul will dye.

So many of my decisions in the past have been reacting to what has happened in my life not really being motivated by any driving force besides the flow of life around me.

Now I am driven, not by the job that I have just to pay off debt or the guilt that I sometimes let drive me to distraction but by the need to let the creativity I have inside of me come out, to take every idea that I have and work it through and not let it go dormant. Dormancy and floating through life are not a way to live...

I must let the dreams I have for my life flow out of me and not be held back by circumstances or the expectations of others.

Freedom is just around the corner!!!!

Samoa has a friend

Finally after all the months of waiting Samoa has a friend.

He joined the house about 2 weeks ago and has made a permanent dent in the closet floor. His greeness the Green Demon is slowly getting to the point where he can roll again on his own and is not being carried around by a groaning, struggling master anymore.

He is still heavy and somewhat ungainly but he is coming together.

Samoa will be happy to have a friend!! =)