a movie and starbucks

i went out with a friend - jenn (http://jennylaneswift.blogspot.com/). you have got to see the bourne ultimatum. it's awesome. the plot/substance is better in the first two but it's still a great movie and a great wrap up for the series. great action scenes. i couldn't keep up with the car chases. great stunts. and they still leave a few unanswered questions which is great.

gold's gym

anyone care for a walk?

rocks

this is a post i started the end of april and have tried on and off at various time to finish but always felt that anything i wrote came up short of what i was trying to say. but i think it's time to try again.

somewhere along the way we pick them up. i know i did.

rocks. not the kind down by the creek. i love these kinds of rocks. their many colors. come rough. some smooth. some deceiving: smooth on the outside, but cracked edges revealed they were ragged on the inside. i used to collect them for my grandma for her garden at her trailer. i even got in trouble once. hiding them all in my room under my bed, making a mess, overflowing. told to throw them out, i hid them under our trailer and when grandma came explained to her that she couldn't tell anyone because i was supposed to have thrown them out. but i hadn't. i had saved them just for her.

my sister always liked the smooth ones or so i think. for some reason i've always associated smooth ones with here and when i've been at different places i've picked some up for her. or just thought of her and smiled. i even have one that sits on my desk in this really cool fish dish i have. smooth. shades of tan. shiney. i keep it because it reminds me of her. my sister.

but there are other rocks. rocks we don't see. but we feel them. somewhere along life's journey we pick them up.

pick them up and carry them. we feel their weight. extra. holding us down. residing in the depths of who we are. that pit of our stomach. still we carry them. still we pick more up and then what?

they get heavy. yet we seem unable or unwilling to set them down.

it's understandable. these rocks. they represent, remind us where we've been. what we've come through. but you have to ask yourself if these rocks - these badges of honor that say you've survived and made it when others fell by the wayside, these coat of arms that say you're protected and no one can hurt you and no one can defeat you - are they worth the weight?

more importantly, are they worth what you can't pick up because you have no room to carry anything else? are they worth what you can't pick up because you have no more strength to carry more?

i used to tell someone close to me that he looked at life like a "cost-benefit analysis". everything in life went through the analysis. the price was paid only if the benefits outweighed the costs. self-sacrifice was only had if the rewards were good enough which makes the sacrifice null and void. and most of us know that life - life lived to its fullest off the things that really matter (faith, hope, love, joy, peace, contentment, self-identity, community, longing, even sex) - are usually had for a price. and the rewards may not be redeemed for years to come. the rewards may not even be in this life. and what rewards come in this life may not measure on our "cost-benefit" scale.

but here i think this analysis works. in fact i've come to find this analysis works really well. is drinking 64 ounces of pop a day because i can worth the costs later in life? is the time and immediate energy i save in not being more organized worth the stress at bill paying time?

and here with these rocks that remind me of who i am, where i've been, what i know, are they worth the cost down the line? i mean if i let go, there's this feeling that somebody will get off, get away and maybe, never pay. if i hold on to vengeance, anger, revenge, bitterness, hurt, unforgiveness i acknowledge what happened. letting them slip through my hands feels like acting as if it never happened. so we hold on.

but what do i really gain? a reminder of their sin, their short comings, their failures? the price it cost me? their gain at my expense?

and that's just it. so much in life costs us. so much stuff....crud...oh, let's just say it...crap...in this world costs us.

why add to what we've already paid?

why pick up weights that we don't have to carry? why? for weight we were never intended to carry.

see i had a big rock.

how it came to be and the million ways i came to own it don't really matter now. only that i carried it. but as the water - living water - has torn at the layers it reminds me of an old 80's song - i think it's about forgiveness.

and that was my rock.

quite an ugly rock.

unforgiveness.

and somewhere last spring i realized that it wasn't worth holding on to. someone might not get "theirs". "what was coming to them" might pass they by.

but i was passing by stuff all the time. things. people. places. joy. and a hundred other details that make up life. life that i was meant to partake in.

the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; i have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 NIV

i played with the other rocks, but always had to sit them back down. had to move on. without them. there just wasn't room in my "pack".

unforgivenss. it was a big rock.

so i decided to leave that rock for lots of little ones. smooth ones. funky ones. round ones. flat ones. some new. some as old as the sun. some yellowed and browned. others gray like i imagine the moon.

and somehow as i dropped this rock i lost weight. literally. i can tell you the night i realized that the rock had to be left behind. i can tell you the moment that i felt myself breath and realized that i had not been using the full capacity of my lungs for a very long time.

and i can tell you an exact day when had you met me you would have wondered what i was smoking. the day the last bit of dirt and gravel and flakes that had clung to that rock were left in my tracks.

i wish the scale reflected what i literally lost. it doesn't. but it shows in a hundred other ways.

Jesus says we're to forgive. we talk about it. like it's about the other person. releasing that person from the debt they owe us. as if we are doing them a favor, a kindness, a mercy, a grace. i don't think it is. at least not very much.

i think Jesus wants us to forgive because he gets that it's about us. it's about releasing ourselves. it's about not tethering ourselves to a rock that we can't carry and blocks out life as we were intended to live it. it's about doing ourselves a favor, a kindness, a mercy, a grace.

it's about realizing the need we all have for reconciliation. see i've probably left rocks in someone else's pack. probably have had "whats coming to me" pass me by.

it's about the fact that we are all fallen. all in need of grace. all in need of a little bit of reconciliation.

and rocks just get in the way.

maybe that's why Jesus tells us

come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and i will give you rest. take my yoke upon you. let me teach you, because i am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. for my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden i give you is light. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

maybe that's what he meant.

his yoke, his burden, the way he intended us to live life is easier than we've made it.

maybe we can't pick up his yoke, can't carry his burden, because we are still clinging to our own.

clutching to a rock we think will save us.

living life while drowning.