Deep Joy

After a day at work I love coming home to my wife and son. I am a blessed man for sure.

But, after a day at work I'm sometimes feeling tired and spent. So, what I feel like doing is letting my son play on the floor while I sit on the couch and watch TV or read the paper.

The best nights are those times when I lay down the remote or paper. I get down on the floor with my son to either play with him or watch him. He likes my presence and is happier.

Sitting there, looking at this little person grow and develop is amazing. What a privilege I have. Watching him gives me a deep joy.

Lent

I've never paid much attention to Lent. I grew up hearing it as a season in the church calendar. As an adult my attitude has been that Lent should be everyday, not just 40 days each year. Traditionally it's a time when people fast or pray or give something up.

This year I'm going to give something up for Lent - worry. For 40 days I'm going to ask for God's help to give up each worry that comes up.

If I really gave up worry for 40 days, I know I would be different. Much of my stress the past 9 months is worrying about the worse case scenarios that never happen. Where is God in worry?

I'll let you know how this Lenten experiment turns out.

Scrabble Monster

A Scrabble monster has been created. Captain Wow used to be a lowly Scrabble player who was happy to get 250 points a game. We just finished playing a game and she got 428 points!

She got 2 bingos. That is, 2 words that used all of her letters. That gives you a 50 point bonus each time.

Then, at the end of the game she made sure I deducted my 4 points off my score for the remaining tile on my rack. She did that even though she beat me by 159 points.

Help!

Shopping Palaces

I am why they build buildings like this. I am why they keep doing it. Its because I am here, all the moms are here, the old and the young are here too. Middle class America loves shopping palaces built in the suburbs. And yet, this palace of shopping called Target would be on the low end of shopping palaces.

I'm sipping my Starbucks coffee overlooking the blacktop jungle highlighted by a few well placed trees giving the illusion of a natural landscape. I like a place to park so they built this parking lot for me covering over acres and acres of grassland and swamps which displaced or killed all of the animals & insects & plants that once lived here.

I expect a place to part my motored chariot. I expect a nice big store with lots of low prices of stuff mostly made in China.

I don't like what I've created.

The Mall

I've been visiting the mall more in the past 2 months than I've visited in the past 2 years. It's one of the few places in the dead of winter that we can put our little boy in the stroller and walk. And, since he can now crawl, he plays in the kids area. So, I'm grateful for these opportunities for our little guy.

On the other hand, I'm appalled at the mall. The mall is a well adorned warehouse filled with products mostly made in other countries. The stores are mostly staffed by low wage check out clerks. Most of the products have huge mark ups over their cost. Who benefits in this situation?

The mall promotes a culture of materialism and consumerism. Or, perhaps the mall is the result of our insatiable desire for stuff. Yes, we need clothes so I have no problem with that. Yet, our local mall probably has 50 stores all selling clothes. Some variety is good but this is overkill.

We live in a free society so people are able to buy and build whatever we want. Yet, I have a sense that this kind of culture leads us away from a life that is good for our soul.

Harold Lloyd

When I was a kid PBS used to air some Harold Lloyd silent movies. I loved those comedies.

So, we just rented a DVD that had a few of his movies on it. The must see is "Safety Last." The scene of him climbing the building is unforgettable. We thought it was a fake background because the scene seemed so real. But, it's not fake. See this and enlarge the photo gallery pictures. That's a real background of downtown Los Angeles in 1923.

What's amazing is that with these silent movies they really had to act. No words to communicate so you had to act it out. The music and a few worded placards are all you have to go on. But, 84 years later we had no problem understanding what was going on because it was so well done. Be careful to not look away or else you'll miss something.