Posts in category Faith

Valleys and Farms

Nov09
2016 Rob Written by Rob

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Someday you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I’ve witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun’s gone to hell and
The moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We are fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

Posted in Current Events, Everyday Life, Family and Friends

The Abyss Looks Back

Sep28
2016 Rob Written by Rob

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil”

I’ve been a presidential politics junkie since before I could vote. Part of that, I think, comes from growing up in Battleground Florida, where even the most placid and uneventful national election is cause for riot and shooting war. I remember watching Dukakis speak at my high school in the fall of 1988. I briefly shook hands with both Clintons when I volunteered on his campaign in 1992. Worked in the Hillsborough Elections Office supporting early voting efforts in 2004. They were all bloodbaths. (And the less said about 2000, the better.)

Living in California since 2007, I still have a hard time not covering for the mortar rounds every four years. California isn’t a battleground. Everyone knows that, every four years, the state outcome will have a 30-point margin in favor of Pacific blue. There are no rallies. No ad carpetbombs. No crisscrossing bus tours. No fights in the streets. There’s just the general sense that, no matter what happens in the nation at large, here it’ll still be California.

This year, that’s the only damned thing holding my sanity together.
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Posted in Current Events, Family and Friends, Navel Gazing

Economies

May13
2016 Rob Written by Rob

Hemingway came back to my mind recently with this great David Brooks editorial in the New York Times. Even if you’re not into Hemingway or even literature, I still recommend reading it.

I didn’t really understand Hemingway until I started crossing into my forties. By then I’d been writing professionally for many years, which helped, but I also needed a perspective that for me only came in the opening salvos of middle age.

Like many of us, I grew up not having a whole hell of a lot, and so in my younger days I thought that the key to happiness was having it all. When that didn’t pan out, I suspected that the key to happiness was not having anything: freedom in low overhead, divest of attachment, the power of having nothing to lose. Strangely enough, both routes gave me pretty much the same mix of bad days and good days. It was almost as if what I had – or didn’t have – didn’t greatly matter to the universe at large.

Strange that.
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Posted in Everyday Life, Family and Friends, Making Good Art

Staying Chipper

Sep10
2015 Rob Written by Rob

He doesn’t write an entry for months and then writes two in two days? What the hell is THAT about?

One of the tougher truths of adult life that I’ve had much difficulty fully grasping over the years is that the universe isn’t designed to make us happy. It just isn’t. In childhood, it seems like happiness just shows up, like food and water and air. And for kids – for whom everything is brand new, and usually have parents delivering said happiness on a platter – that’s how it works. But grownups don’t get that luxury, and that sucks. We have to work for it and make our own.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools and building materials around for the job, for those willing to take it on. For me, a big part of it is just having a fun project or two to work on, something goofy and creative that has nothing to do with Adult Work. It keeps me chipper when the grind of Adulting is proving a bit much to deal with.

If you want to see one of my current fun projects, I’ve also lately been writing a fan blog about the Fallout video game series, focusing in particular on my own adventures playing the Fallout Shelter mobile game. Kristi will probably cringe a bit to see the mention here, but hey. You get your fun where you find it.

The other thing that’s been helping me stay level this week has been listening to early 20th century popular music on Pandora. I defy you to stay in a bad mood while listening to the Andrews Sisters, early Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Benny Goodman. You just can’t.

Posted in Diversions, Everyday Life, Making Good Art
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