16 April 2008

Duty Fulfilled Pre-Intro

I've started researching the concept of Duty as it pertains to the Christian Male lately. Specifically I'm researching the Duty of the Christian Male to defend himself and his family. Originally I had planned to write a monster article which would put paid to a lot of the things that really bug me about mainstream Christianity in this area. When I started outlining the article I realized it would be a better series than one monster read that chow down on hours of time all at once. The first Volume (or whatever ya wanna call it) is going to be on the Copouts of Modern Society. I expect these articles to go through several Refinements (re: me going through them with a blow torch and an axe) and edits. Sorry for all the rust on my writing skills guys. Hopefully my style will get better as it goes along.

I haven't really been writing much lately (with the exception of the post that precedes this one) so we'll see how keeping to a schedule and banging out a series goes.

Happy Things

It occured to me when looking over the last few posts that I've been doing a dis-proportionate amount of whining. So here're a few happy things that have happened recently:

I've started Playing Silat again. It's a blast and with a decent training partner (finally) things are proceeding very fast indeed. I've almost got the last of the rust off of my old skills and am getting new stuff from PSP (Pencak Silat Pertempuran) ever time I train. We've also been blessed with having a guy named Anthony move down from Oregon. Anthony was involved with some Serak (Sera? don't wanna start another flame war) stuff up there and I'm getting exposed to a new art which I'd been interested in for some time. I'm looking to be testing probably the first weekend in May for my level three. A move ahead that's taken way too long.

On another front we've had a breakthrough in our Home today. We had been having some family drama and snarls with the landlord, %100 of which was miscommunication and fear. We were on our way to the House of Prayer today and waiting outside our house was the Landlord. We got to sit down and talk to him and clear up pretty much all the friction that's been plaguing us recently. This may sound like a small thing guys but honestly, I can't even tell you how much of a blessing that was. My head started spinning afterwards and has not stopped. The Lord is very good, especially today.

In recent days, weeks and months I've also been revisiting my relationship with God. This is probably my biggest Happy Thing. For awhile I had fallen deeply into cynicism and depression when it came to Him. Slogging through all the crap that my family and I have gone through I tended towards blaming Him. I blamed God for failed relationships, my Back trouble and the abortion that my military career had turned into. But recently I started looking back at what exactly has happened during those two years. I think about how much I've grown in maturity and experience and I've come to realize I wouldn't trade any of it. And now that I've come the point where I'm seeking God again I've started seeing good advancements in the problem areas of my life. These advancements are even bizarre to the point that nothing but the Divine could be at work. And they continue every day.