Archive for the “Religion” Category
This morning, I turned on the news to find that Israeli forces were making preparations to move into Gaza. A few hours later, during the span of watching one of my favorite movies, I turned back to the news. Now CNN’s reporting that Israel has moved those forces it was preparing earlier into Gaza.
I haven’t been following the news closely enough lately to know who started what this time around, but it really doesn’t matter. People are dead on both sides, chaos is growing in the Middle East and the remaining people in this world are being sucked into it, whether through incensed displays of pro-Israel/pro-Palestinian rhetoric or even through higher fuel prices. It’s not important how I feel the situation needs to be resolved, nor is it that of Jewish/Christian/Muslim sympathizers, lovers-haters and/or politicians in the United States either. The people of Gaza and the people of Israel must come together to find what will make it a win-win situation for each side. Too many other people trying to inject their wills into things for political, religious or economic reasons will not move peace forward. Just as it never has in the past.
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Human potential gurus always say that in order to be successful at anything, you have to write down your goals. Thus, in the spirit of the New Year and to move myself closer to success, I’ve decided to make my resolutions for 2009 public. Everybody’s kind of familiar with the way this works, so here they are:
- Not being hungover on January 1st, 2009. I’ve already met this one, since I confined myself to only one 40 on New Year’s Eve. Congratulations to me.
- Blog more regularly. And not the kind of stuff I’ve been posting over the last few months. I’m hoping to blog more often and present the type of insights on current events that only I can provide. I also want to focus on blogging about simpler living and those things that nurture the soul.
- Get my financial house in order. Pay off my debts. Live inexpensively. Squirrel away some of it into savings — invest the rest. Set myself up to by some land (and give up the booze and the one night stands and other assorted tasks mentioned in the lyrics of Baker Street). Get a great paying job with some serious bennies.
- Follow my bliss. Be genuine to myself. No matter how unpopular being me is. That is, follow my bliss, even if it takes me off a cliff.
- Don’t settle for mediocrity. Anything less than my best is sinful and an insult to the greatness I’ve been endowed with (and by coincidence, the greatness that every other individual in this world has been endowed with).
- Be creative (and leave something behind). Notice that I didn’t say be procreative. Anyway, I’m going to put some serious work into my novel project. I’ve always been interested in music and almost always wanted to try my hand at making music. I’ve been working a lot with video lately. So it seems 2009 will be the year for opening the floodgates and unleashing the perfect creative storm.
- Market myself better. Not just me personally. Not just me professionally. I’m also needing to put a better face on some of my online projects (such as this blog and on my professional website, HireJohnny.com).
- Do what Jesus wants me to do. In brief, he wants me to love God and to love others. That’s a big enough order to fill everyone’s future resolutions from now until the end of time. Without putting words in Jesus’ mouth, I think he would have extended that loving thing to loving myself, so this plank of the resolution is getting very heavy indeed.
- Remember why I’m here. Not necessarily in a theological sense, but more of an existential sense. There have been a number of times in the last thirty-three years that I have come close to buying the farm, but didn’t. Was there a reason to this? Doesn’t matter — I’m going to kick down the doors and make a reason for my life and presence in this world.
- Kill the Devil and strike the root. Yeah, yeah, yeah — both of my ever-present mantras make their appearance in this year’s list of resolutions. But both are important and haunt me in both my dreams and my waking hours.
Well, there it is. That should keep me busy, at least for the next year. I’ll be sure to tell you all how it goes at the end of the year.
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As you can see, I’ve been mostly gone for awhile. I don’t know if that qualifies as my “Forty Days and Forty Nights” that I’ve been promising, but I’ve definitely been gone in a lot of ways. Over the past few months, I have experienced sick pets, dead pets, physical illness, getting laid off, getting hired, canceled trips, drunken stupors, commemoration of personal losses, long periods of getting lost in space and time (errr, is that getting lost in time and space), interning with the government, etc. I could have said that I was driven crazy by everything that’s gone on over the last couple of months, but it’s never really been that long of a drive.
Anyway, while I was taking a drive, I missed a lot of opportunities to comment on all the goings-on in the world. It was probably better to just leave it to the pros who were blogging about the failed economy and how Ron Paul told you so, evil politicians, violations of posse commitatus, how civilian protesters and veterans are being beaten, imprisoned and threatened with tear gas, Obama-Biden, McCain-Palin, Barr-Root, the groundwork for the New World Order and other topics you won’t hear about in the mainstream media until it’s too late.
Anyhow, for a recap of what’s happened, I would recommend that you check out the 22 blogs that have kept me in touch (and in some cases entertained). Here they are:
There you go. So be sure to shoot your TV, add these feeds to your favorite feed reader and open the virtual door to some interesting stuff.
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