Early Birthday Present (aka, my newest toy)

Thanks to early birthday money from Mom and Dad, I bought my newest toy this week: a Creative Zen V Plus 4 GB MP3 player.

Go ahead, just spend a few quiet moments taking it in.

Yeah, I know. It is pretty amazing. Small. Light. Beautifully styled. Incredible sound. Easy interface. Rechargeable battery. Sleep timer. Radio. Calendar and Contacts - sync'd with Outlook. All for $100. I know! It just can't be beat! So far, I've put 482 songs on it, and it's not even half full!

Ahhh...

Contemplation is the response to a call

I know I've posted a portion of this reading before from Thomas Merton, but I just keeping coming back to it over and over. Read it slowly, pausing at each line break, and learn from the master of contemplation:

Contemplation is the response to a call:
A call from Him Who has no voice,
and yet
Who speaks in everything that is,
and Who,
most of all,
speaks in the depths of our own being:
for we ourselves are words of His.

But we are words
that are meant to respond to Him,
to answer to Him,
to echo Him,
and even
in some way
to contain Him
and signify Him.

Contemplation is this echo.

It is a deep resonance
in the inmost center of our spirit
in which our very life
loses its separate voice
and re-sounds with the majesty
and the mercy
of the Hidden
and Living One.

He answers Himself in us
and this answer is
divine life,
divine creativity,
making all things new.

We ourselves
become His echo
and His answer.

It is as if
in creating us
God asked a question,
and in awakening us to comtemplation
He answered the question,
so that the contemplative is
at the same time,
question
and answer.

And all is summed up in one awareness -
not a proposition,
but an experience:
"I Am."

- Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, 48-49.

Lunar Eclipse

Thanks to my wife's alarm clock, we all got up at about 3:00am this morning to view the full lunar eclipse. It was pretty cool, actually. The moon was red and the stars were amazingly bright in a cloudless sky. Here is a local TV channel's article and and a picture.

I wonder what people thought 1,000 or 2,000 years ago when they saw something like this...

A Rainy Morning and a Bagel

I love cloudy, rainy mornings. We don't get many here in Tucson, but we had thunderstorms all night that are just now beginning to clear. So I had a nice walk to my favorite neighborhood Bruegger's bagel shop, got breakfast for the family, and had some memorable ordinary moments:

• Smelling the freshness of the rain, reminding me to pay attention to each step I take...


• Touching the wet Red Bird of Paradise in my front yard, reminding me that water is essential to life...


• Saying good morning to Cliff and Linda on their way home from the Oro Valley Farmer's Market (remember Cliff?), reminding me of friends along the way...


• Hearing the huff and puff of the beginning jogger passing me ever so slowly, reminding me of the air I breathe...


• Seeing a circle of rain-battered pink oleander blossoms on the ground around the bush, reminding me that there is a time for every season...


• Tasting the Bruegger's everything bagel with plain cream cheese, reminding me that food is good...
  

(bagels are truly bread from heaven...)

Follow-up on Peru quake

I found this follow-up article on the Peru quake last week, even though it's no longer one of the top stories:

Rescuers: 'No hope' left of finding survivors of Peru earthquake

I hate summer colds

Maybe it was too much recycled airplane air...

Maybe it was being around our best friends' daughter...

No matter...I've now missed two days of work because of my summer cold. ugh.

I actually feel quite a bit better today and I'm trying to catch up a little. But I can feel the first afternoon nap coming on...

When the ground moves

On January 17, 1994, at 4:31am, my wife and I were violently awakened in Woodland Hills, CA, by the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake. I remember trying to hang on to the sheets of the bed to keep from being tossed out of it. We were literally bouncing on and off the mattress. I also remember thinking that I was glad we were on the 3rd floor of the apartment complex because I didn't want to be crushed when we fell all the way to the ground - and I was expecting to feel that falling sensation at any second. It was the most frightening experience of my life.

We were lucky, though. Our building didn't collapse. We didn't fall. Our one-year-old son, sleeping in the next room, never even woke during the quake. None of us were hurt.

But I do know what it's like to try to get out of a damaged building in complete darkness. I do know what it's like to sit outside, waiting for news and wondering what to do next. I do know what it's like to be on edge for months and months, riding out aftershocks, hoping it's not happening again. I also know what it's like to have family and friends come together and support each other in the days following.

But I don't know what this is like:



I don't know what it's like to lose all your belongings in a matter of seconds. I don't know what it's like to have a loved one perish when the ground moves.

My thoughts and prayers are in Peru tonight...