my friend mark has cancer. if you don't know that already, this may be your first time on the world wide web. pray for him. pray for him his own words...

Here's what we do...we pray "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done." with a recklessness that we have never had before. We pray it with all of the hope we can summon, and then a little bit more. Now is not a time for practicality, it is not a time for sensibility. It is a time for recklessness and hopefulness and dreaming. I am slowly seeing the Kingdom come in my life. I think we are slowly seeing it come in the life of the LP. But all of us have a responsibility to seek it, to look for it, to fight for it. And in our seeking, we will find. In our looking, we will see. In our fighting, we will win.

playlists

i suck at em'
this one rocks

1. the 6ths - as you turn to go
2. +/- -summer dress (all her winter clothes)
3. camera obscura - let me go home
4. rachel goswell - gather me up
5. azure ray - nothing like a song
6. iron and wine - naked as we came
7. wheat - the beginner
8. big thick skin - track 7
9. unwed sailor - jubilee
10. daniel lanois - san juan
11. ray charles - hallejuah, i love her so
12. mates of state - open book
13. wedding present - come play with me
14. nada surf - blizzard of '77
15. pinback - AFK
16. joanna newsom - "en gallup"
17. vince guaraldi trio - Christmas time is here (vocal)
18. saturday looks good to me - alcohol
19. luna - malibu love nest
20. arcade fire - wake up
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currently playing:: this sweet playlist

Iraq as another Vietnam? Compare election coverage then and now.

Gambier

Kerri and i escaped for a couple days. Every year (starting last year) we stay at the Kenyon Inn and eat a late dinner in their resturaunt. Their is something to the whole eat where you are staying thing that I really like. I also like that this whole community relies on as much locally grown and raised food as possible. with Fredricktown right up the road, I makes alot of sense. We eat here knowing that the local organic markets are being supported. Yesterday we spent some time in the college bookstore. Kerri found a new vegetarian soup cookbook that looks good and I picked up Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke. I love this book and now I own it. Today we are at our favorite coffee shop here.

a snipet from my reading today:

There is no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!

i haven't had time to post this recently, but last week riley and I were building a snowman in the commons area where we live and our neighbor came out and started helping us... after snowball fights, eric(his name too) suggested we go sledding. we don't have a sled so he offered us his only one... an old school challenger that had been in the family for over 60 years. solid. here's the after steering his way down a rather large hill all by himself... i was proud...

oh, by the way, he loves to crash!
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currently playing:: willy porter - high wire live

merton, feb.26th 1965

"I must admit that I like my own cooking. Rice and pinto beans today, for instance, with apple sauce from the monastery and some peanuts. A nice supper."

merton makes me smile
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currently playing:: Mozart - symph.#25

my first 2 1/2 hour wilco show

surreal... fantastic imagery... truly a great concourse of phantasmagoric sound
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currently enamored by:: wilco

here are some thoughts from my friend Chris who I miss greatly (he's not dead, we just don't see much of eachother)...
his thoughts on prayer and fasting go right along with what our spiritual community has been contemplating together

I guess I've never really thought about fasting as having a direct and practical impact on meeting others physical needs. I have always thought that fasting was about praying for a need and going without something to "deny" the flesh and show that "man does not live by bread alone."

Then I read this scripture again and realized that our desire to simplify, to get rid of excess, to live on less so as to give more away...is really all about fasting. I never realized that our fasting should take on REAL physical forms of caring for others. The meal(s) I give up should be feeding someone else. The motorcycle I sell should allow me to give someone else what they need.

We should be going on permanent fasts of things in our lives and allow the funds we would normally spend on them to take care of the hungry, naked, and homeless all around us. I think this is what Jesus meant when he talked about the rich giving out of their wealth. If I give away hundreds or even thousands of dollars to help the needy, but it doesn't REALLY cost me anything then what's the point? If I fast something in my life, but never think to meet someone else's need with the resources I've given up, then what's the point in that?

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currently playing:: belle & sebastian