Another find from a friend

When doing your Christmas cards, take one and send it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Avenue NW; Washington, D.C. 20307. If we pass this on, think of how many cards these wonderful special people would get. Pass it on...just copy and paste.

Ah....Colorado

I stole this from a friend:

98% OF AMERICANS SCREAM BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD. THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM COLORADO AND THEY SAY, 'HOLD MY SODA AND WATCH THIS.

You're from Colorado if:

You'll eat ice cream in the winter.

When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt.

It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be canceled.

You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.

You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. And then you make fun of them.

'Humid' is over 25%.

Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains.

You say 'the interstate' and everybody knows which one.

You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.

You buy your flowers to set out on Mother's day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father's day.

You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat.

You know what the Continental Divide is.

You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal.

You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, and as an adult.

You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities.

You always know the elevation of where you are.

You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow tomorrow.

You don't care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.

Every movie theater has military and student discounts.

Everybody wears jeans to church.

You actually know that ** South Park ** is a real place not just a show on TV.

You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder .

You know you're talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags.

A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you.

Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the crap out of the Raiders.

When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.

You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels 'sticky' and you notice the sky is no longer blue

To Be, or To Be Like

Today a young family came into Ruby Tuesday to catch lunch during their holiday travels. The mom wore trendy jeans and a brown leather jacket and seemed like the hip mom that all hip girls want to become. Her husband sported a woven, long-sleeve red shirt which accentuated his bulging muscles and transformed his buzz-cut from an "I am hiding my balding scalp" look into an "I work at a bar and ride my motorcycle to work" look. They were polite, engaged their son lovingly, and demonstrated peaceful confidence. My short interaction caused a strange desire to grow in my heart: I wanted to be like them.
Realization of my desire to be like these strangers caused me to pause and consider what about them I found appealing. They seemed cool, and fun, and confident. They were good parents but didn't sell the richness of their lives to purchase family life. A brief inspection of my motive revealed its superficial root. How could I want to be like them when I dont know what they are actually like? "Who they were" came from an imaginary personality that I had extrapolated based on their external appearance.
I bought into the notion that external appearance reflects a person's nature, even though reality opposes this idea: cool clothes = a cool person. I think we need to reverse this "outside->in" model of character construction. We need to cultivate character traits and dispositions so that our soul aligns with who we want/ought to be. Once our souls obtain the nature we desire, the external image will honestly reflect who we are.

Difficult Living

"Enjoying life is difficult" -Dave Strobolakos


Immediate, hedonistic gratification proves frightfully achievable. Some people drink, some people follow lots of rules, some people have sex, some people pretend to like everyone they know. Immediate pleasure often drives each of these actions. Such individuals dismiss or ignore the long-term effects of living to experience emotional happiness in each successive moment.

Passive, disengaged voyeurism impinges on our ability to experience creation. Television, facebook, videogames, and reading function as means of escapism through we we avoid the world in which we find ourselves. We simultaneously fend off deep relationships to avoid work and pain while religiously devoting ourselves to fictional dramas provided by American media.

Subtle, erosive addictions deplete our capacity to interact relationally. Although drugs, alcohol and smoke could be such addictions, other, less often recognized social barriers prevail in our society. Work takes precedence over family life. Raising children results in a competition to produce the more intelligent scholars, fitter athletes, more gifted musicians than our neighbors.

Unfortunately, each of these responses to life unfold more naturally than conscious, determined, intentional living. Loving your family well requires intense labor. Freeing yourself from the slavery of our entertainment culture takes discipline and foresight. Maintaining a healthy balance between each facet of daily living demands temperance and adaptation. However, humans find fulfillment through this difficult struggle and ultimately, this fulfillment makes life enjoyable. In short-enjoying life is difficult.

Kalanism

"Life is for living"

Finding Rest

Last night I ventured into the wilderness of my yard for another night. Two words summarize my experience: peaceful and cold. Many of my fears from the previous night had completely dissipated. The sounds of the neighborhood gently settled around me. I distinguished between jumping squirrels and falling leaves, and during each burst of noise my heart rested calmly in my chest. Without paranoia pressing me down I enjoyed the world around me and could love it.
Sleep found me quickly and watched over me most of the night. I stirred only to readjust my limbs between positions respectively conducive to warmth or comfort. Without the winter air nudging me awake occasionally, I would sleep undisturbed. I think I will repeat my experience one more night before I leave for New Orleans tomorrow.

Residue

Last night residual thoughts from recent reading resulted in a strange (some would say ludicrous) action: I slept in my backyard in my sleeping bag. Another section of THROUGH PAINTED DESERTS lingered in my psyche from a few nights ago. Miller lived in the forest near the country club at which he worked. He says, "I suppose it takes about a week to get used to sleeping outside. But once accustomed to it, a person cant easily go back to having a roof over his head." I romanced the idea of sleeping without the comforts of a mattress, although some would argue my mattress offers little comfort. Would it free my soul slightly? Would being exposed to nature put me more in touch with its Creator? I longed to know.
I small gained insights into life, but as is often the case with life adventures, they were far from what I expected. I hoped for peaceful slumber, but suffered irrational fears. I do not fear bear attacks in the woods. I do fear homeless men attacking me for money. I hoped for communion with nature, but experienced assault by the restless city.
In spite the division between expectation and experience I value what I learned. Living without the luxuries of 'basic living' free the soul in a small way. Doing something difficult provides reward (such as fulfillment) that can outweigh the cost (sleeplessness). Being part of the world in which we live-including the city-surpasses the voyeurism of modern media experience.