I haven't posted for about a week because I have been in North Carolina. My sister had a horse show and the rest of the family explored the local area. One of my favorite sites on the trip was the Biltmore Estate. This massive house was built by William Vanderbilt and is the largest private home in the country. But at the same time a house just isn't a home unless you have rooms for you, your family, and 34 of your closest friends; not to mention the 64 servants that lived in the home as well. We also explored some of the local cuisine. My favorite was in downtown Hendersonville. It was a little restaurant called Expressions and they had a rosemary crusted pork loin with lemon mushroom caper sauce that makes my mouth water just thinking about it. A glass of Pinot Noire and a chocolate mousse for desert completed the meal. They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. That would definitely be the case for me. I love food. I enjoy cooking it, sharing a meal with friends, eating out or staying in, expensive high cuisine or hamburgers on the grill. I can be rather opinionated when it comes to food as well.
As much as I enjoyed the trip I am glad to be back in College Station where I can relax. In North Carolina we spent most of the time doing things together. While I love hanging out with people, I need a certain amount of solitude to relax. I don't necessarily need to be completely alone, just allowed to separate myself a bit to reflect and relax. I have to force such solitude into my day at home with my family. It is nice to be able to be alone and relax. In College Station I think I have gone to the other extreme. I have had a lifestyle this summer that has given me excess solitude. Too much of a good thing can be very bad.
I have many thoughts that have built up on this trip and that still spin about my mind, but I am tired and need to rest so my other musings will have to wait until tomorrow.

When are we old enough to do cool classy adult things? When I go home one of the things I look forward to is hanging out with my parents and some family friends. We go to the store after closing (for anyone reading this that doesn't know my family owns and runs a tobacconist selling the finest in cigars, pipes, and pipe tobacco) we provide the cigars and they bring a bottle of wine. They sit and talk for a couple of hours till the cigars are long since turned to ash and the bottle is empty. The conversation is light enough for me to be able to jump in and deep enough to be thought provoking. My question is, when am I old enough that I can get a group of friends together and invite them over for cigars and wine and not have people think I'm nuts. Maybe I'll have to try it anyway.

I'm going to be going to North Carolina in a day with my family. My sister has a horse show near Asheville and my parents at the last minute decided that maybe the rest of us could go up and watch her ride some, explore the area and get in a bit of a vacation while my sister works horses at the show. I'm excited becuase the area is beautiful. I remember briefly visiting the area many years ago and I'm looking forward to seeing it with fresh eyes. Right on the edge of the Appalachian mountains. It should be a good time, but I'll have to wait and see.

It is strange, this afternoon when I couldn't get to a computer I had all sorts of stuff in my head to write about, but now that I finally get to a computer I find myself with very little interesting to say. If nothing else maybe writing will become a bit more habitual for it. Anyway I need to sleep becuase it is already late and I have a lot to do before I leave tomorrow.

the words less traveled

This evening I helped some friends who are renovating their newly bought house. As I left they were thanking me for helping while I was thanking them for letting me come and play with their new house. How sweet would it be to have the budget and time to just pick a house and fix it up? Add a wall here, take that wall down, paint over that hideous orange in the kitchen. I'm sure that such a project might loose some of its appeal if I was living in the midst of the chaos, but it was a lot of fun talking with him and what he was doing with the house, how are you going to frame that out, agreeing on how weird the house had been built by the original owner. Ahhh, bliss.
I've been thinking (never a good sign) during the several awkward silences I have been part of this week about how much never gets said. Think about it, how often do you think about saying something but stop short of actually verbalizing? Now I know that often times this is a good thing as I can sometimes think things that are not especially uplifting, but aside from that how often do I stop short of speaking because I am trying to play it cool or just loose my nerve? What would it even look like if I actually spoke what was on my heart completely without any second thoughts to appearances. People might think I was nuts, but they would surely recognize that something about me was different. What if I just told my friends exactly how good it was to see them, or gave the complete and blatant truth about my life, good or bad, when someone asked "how's it going?". How would people take it if I started telling the women around me just how beautiful they are? (ex. Hi, you don't really know me but I just wanted to say that you look amazing today) Shy of that I'd just like to be able to openly tell a girl that I'm interested in them without having to spend a week working myself up for it. What would that total honesty look like? I doubt the world is ready for such a man, and even more if I could ever get like that but it would be nice if just a few more of those stifled words were set free.
As always I'm looking forward to this weekend with hope. Weekends always bring hope, hope of getting the chance to enjoy friendships and fun. Too often I squander my weekends to the backs of my eyelids (sleep) or television. But the great bit is that every weekend brings new hope of some fun get together with friends. We shall see what this weekend brings.

Say No to Drugs

Television can have a much more powerful effect on us than we give it credit for. It can influence the way we view ourselves and the world, and ties up large quantities of our time. I know for me TV has become almost a narcotic that I am much too addicted to. When life sucks or I just don't want to think, I can turn the TV on and my brain off for mindless entertainment. It is an escape from the day to day reality of a life that isn't always good. I can try to justify the TV I watch by talking about how I mostly watch educational TV and that I am learning from it, but it is like learning about thermodynamics from picture books, all you get is just enough jargon and information to be an informed idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. I escape to TV programming instead of dealing with real life. I can see how much time I waste on television, how it affects the subject of my thoughts, but I now have an addiction to battle. TV is a habit for me. I don't like living in a quiet house and TV is my traditional white noise, but I cannot help but give it my attention. If I turn it on I will watch it. I know there are better uses of my time, and I intend to start finding them with more persistence. I need to spend that time with a book, a paintbrush, building something; any of which will teach me more and help me grow. I also feel that TV has dulled my senses so that I have to look harder for the small beauties all around. I think it is time for me to step back into the real world and find joy in the small things I haven't taken time to notice in too long.

Prayer

We discussed prayer during the men's bible study I'm part of. A major point of discussion was the feeling of futility we all had with prayer. We all want the desire to pray, but feel like it has been too long since we felt like God anwered our prayers. We feel impatient that God is taking so long to answer our prayers. Maybe this is a result of our fast paced lives. God promises to finish the work begun in us, He doesn't say He'll have it done by next week, but that He will finish the work. In todays fast paced culture I think we are forgetting how to be patient and persistant. Sure we may be patient by today's standards, but in the grand scheme of things we are probably the least patient society ever. Our society screams for convenience; I want it now, close and cheap. I'm not sure God ever intended us to run at so fast a pace. He worked six days and on the seventh day rested. Today we get frustrated with the businesses that aren't open on Sundays and 24 hours isn't uncommon. His year is marked by the gentle progression of the seasons. Ours is so broken up into quarters and semesters that are again divided up by countless deadelines that we never stop running to be ready for the next step. Maybe God intended us to slow down and be happy with where we are, looking forward to and mindful of the coming times, but not counting down the days, not scheduling our time away until every waking second is filled with to-do lists.
While the others were talking about their prayer lives I was struck by the language they were using to describe prayer. I pray this and this and this, or what is the right formula to use for prayer. I kept thinking that we are missing the point. Prayer is described as talking with God, spending time with Him. We don't sit down to talk with friends and go through the same patterns again and again. Conversation at its best is an organic unscripted outpouring of the heart. You share what you're thankful for when you're thankful, you share sorrows when sorrowful and so on. You share your life as it happens. Shouldn't prayer be something like that. When God blesses you turn to Him and thank Him. When you are frustrated or worried or need help share that with Him. At the same time we need to be purposefully finding things to be thankful for lest we lose sight of the boundless gifts He has bestowed on us and lose ourselves to the faults we find in the way the world works. I believe that is the intention behind many of the formulaic prayers, to make sure we give thanks and not just ask for stuff as if God was just a genie or some cosmic magic eight ball. I guess what I'm trying to say is that prayer with God should be just like a conversation with a friend. We shouldn't need fancy language or perfect wording to be with Him, just to pour our hearts out to Him and be ready for Him to pour his heart back into us.
Anyway I need to get to bed.

I'm trying something new. As any who know my can attest I am bad at sharing what is going on in my life. I am hoping that writing it down will help me process my thoughts as well as let any of my friends who care to read know what is going on with me. We shall see.