Thursday, December 22, 2011

so why did you decide to homeschool?

In the middle of answering Math questions about clutches of python eggs, another question came to him. And because no one else was there, and because we were in a safe place, and because there was no reason why not to, he just asked it. "Dad, was Jesus really God's only son? I mean, what about the Holy Spirit?" So we talked about it for a few minutes. And then it was back to the clutches.

Now I'm not trying to get all Ann Voskamp on you. (mute your speakers before you click!) But here are some other cool moments from our three week long homeschooling stint.






Wednesday, December 14, 2011

To know a place

Beth and I moved to Little Village just shy of 10 years ago. We've reflected lately just how in-over-our-heads we were when we came here, without having realized it. The following paragraphs from Wendell Berry's essay, "People, Land and Community" resonated with me in thinking about the work and time it has taken to know this place.

"One's connection to a newly bought farm will begin in love that is more or less ignorant. One loves the place because present appearances recommend it, and because they suggest possibilities irresistibly imaginable. One's head, like a  lover's, grows full of visions. One walks over the premises, saying, "If this were mine, I'd make a permanent pasture here; here is where I'd plant an orchard; here is where I'd dig a pond." These visions are the usual stuff  of unfulfilled love and induce wakefulness at night.

When one buys the farm and moves there to live, something different begins. Thoughts begin to be translated into acts. Truth begins to intrude with its matter-of-fact. One's work may be defined in part by one's visions, but it is defined in part too by problems, which the work leads to and reveals. And daily life, work, and problems gradually alter the visions. It invariably turns out, I think, that one's first vision of one's place was to some extent an imposition on it. But if one's sight is clear and if one stays on and works well, one's love gradually responds to the place as it really is, and one's visions gradually image possibilites that are really in it. Vision, possibility, work, and life - all have changed by mutual correction. Correct discipline, given enough time, gradually removes one's self from one's line of sight. One works to better purpose then and makes fewer mistakes, because at last one sees where one is. Two human possibilities of the highest order thus come within reach: what one wants can become the same as what one has, and one's knowledge can cause respect for what one knows."

He explains a couple paragraphs before this excerpt that though he is talking directly about farming, he is talking indirectly about marriage, too. Go ahead, read it again.

Here, also, is a link to a a recording of Berry reading the whole essay 30 years ago.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Thanksgiving Poem

Andrew Peterson is a singer, novelist and purveyor of high quality Christian art who has had about as much influence on my life as anyone I don't know. I'm currently reading his first novel, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness to my 7th grade class. The kids keep asking me if it's been made into a movie yet. Here is a link to a poem he wrote about this week's holiday. Happy Thanksgiving.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Immanual Appraoch

Last weekend I went to Jackson, Tennessee to learn about the Immanuel Approach to prayer - a method people are using to recognize the presence of Jesus in their past as well as in the present. I wont get into specifics on this post, but I will say that one week in, I've found the Immanuel Approach to prayer and to life to be a very good antidote to the problem most Christians I know have had in accessing and recognizing Jesus' presence in day-to-day life. It's been a good week for me. Karl Lehman is the guy who's spreading the good news of this approach to prayer and inner healing. Here is a link to his website, where you can find all sorts of articles that explain this further.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Ann

If you're a woman, you might like reading you some Ann Voskamp. I like reading me some, despite my not being a woman. Beth and I get her blog posts sent to our e-mail address almost daily, and everytime I open them, I feel like I'm looking through my mom's Better Homes and Gardens magazine, but enjoying it.

This is the post she sent out today, writing about some of the same things I've tried to write about on this blog, but writing about them better and womanlier than I ever could.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Classroom Quips, 9-21-11

The BFG by Roald Dahl has some pretty pacifistic teachings. I decided to turn these teachings into a little 6th-grade debate. The kids went to one side of the room if they could not see a justification for war and the other side if they could. Bernardo, who until today I  thought to be one of my lowest-level thinkers, placed himself with the pacifists. He looked across the room, shook his head and muttered under his breath, "You people are sick."

And also from this week...
Me: I'm gonna tell you guys a scary story. One time I was in Florida,
Lalo: (leaning forward) Oh yeah, Florida's scary.

Me: I've got a point for anyone who can tell me what I'm thinking right now.
Hugo: Man, these kids are getting annoying.

 And a couple others that I didn't post from last year...

Javier farted. He looked around for who he might blame, but there were only 2 other students in the room. Realizing he was caught, he said "awww," disgusted, and waved his hand behind his seat to push away the smell.

Me: Who can tell me the capital of Alaska?
Arturo: A
Me: Mmmm, heh heh, and the capital of Virginia?
Arturo (with growing confidence): V!

Javier: Why doesn't this school buy 100% milk stead of just 1%

Javier was supposed to be reading the sentence, "The dog in the bathtub is a mess."
Javier: "The dog in the bathtub is a mouse."
me: Whoa! The dog is a mouse?
Javier: apparently

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Given

I recently finished working through Given, a collection of poems by Wendell Berry. The poems are stinging, funny, prophetic; it's as if they come from a wisdom beyond our age. The second half of the book consists of what he calls "Sabbaths," - poems he writes in the woods on Sundays - broken up by year, from 1998 through 2004. The following is one of the Sabbaths from 2003 (a year in which Berry's Sunday walks resulted in one fine poem after another). Go ahead and read it aloud and slowly.




Look Out

Come to the window, look out, and see
the valley turning green in remembrance
of all springs past and to come, the woods
perfecting with immortal patience
the leaves that are the work of all of time,
the sycamore whose white limbs shed
the history of a man's life with their old bark,
the river under the morning's breath quivering
like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see
also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war
that lights its way by burning the earth.

Come to your windows, people of the world,
look out at whatever you see wherever you are,
and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.
The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention is to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.

Every household of the world is at their mercy,
the household of the farmer and the otter and the owl
are at their mercy. They have no mercy.
Having hate, they can have no mercy.
Their greed is the hatred of mercy.
Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.
Their power is in their willingness to destroy
everything for knowledge which is money
which is power which is victory
which is ashes sown by the wind.

Look out your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and go along the streams. Go together. Go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.








Tuesday, August 30, 2011

And it Shone Through a Banana...

It's always this way. It's always a mixed bag. We're always mixed bags. There are successes and failures, love and hate, virtue and vice, whizzing around us and out of us more quickly than we can label them.

Even though it was a day in which one of my 7th graders was pulled to the hallway so a dime bag could be pulled from his shoe. And even though the kid who had given him the dime bag begged the principal for mercy because he was earnestly trying to help his mom pay the bills. And even though another of my students is resisting school and guidance because she is worn out with her reading disability and appears more and more to be biding her time until she can  drop out, the virtue still shone through today. And it shone through a banana.

You see, there's this brother and sister at my school. The brother is about as rough as they come, and he and his little sister are late every day, which  means they miss the universal breakfast that the other kids get. And it means that the two kids stay hungry most days  'til their 12:00 lunchtime. Well, in between 1st and 2nd period, as the sister walked out of my Special Ed. room, and her brother walked in, the brother took out a banana that he'd gotten from who-knows-where, and split off half for his sister. And before I thought to ask the boy why he was eating contraband food in the hallway, the sister offered an answer to a more important question, "He's my brother, he takes care of me."

Monday, August 22, 2011

Safe Families needed

After the news of Dashiyah's death, we decided it was time to get back into Safe Families again. So last week we had two boys for five days. On Wednesday we will be taking a 2-year-old. Safe Families of Chicago is still looking for a place for his 3-year-old brother. The placement is for 6 weeks.

If you live near Chicago, you can get signed up to be a Safe Families host family for a child or a set of siblings. It's a pretty simple process, and you can dramatically impact a child's life. This video shows Katie Curic's take on the program.



Katie Couric on Safe Families for Children from John Norton on Vimeo.



Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Our Dashiyah

 Two years ago we helped a family by keeping their daughter, Dashiyah for about six weeks, while her parents found a home that was suitable for their large family. Our close friends, the Kimballs, took care of her brother, Joey, who was 3 at the time.


We found out on Sunday that Dashiyah, Joey and one other brother died in a house fire back in April.


We are all deeply grieved and rattled by this news.

Here are some picture of this sweet and playful little girl.

Man, we miss her.

















Sunday, July 31, 2011

Arrabon

Sunday, July 31, 9:45 am, Chicago, Illinois

Back home, between the last of the summer trips, and glad to be here. Eli's trying to dribble a full-sized basketball between his four-year-old sized legs, and sticking with it, despite the impossibility. Leeli is sound asleep and almost one. Suzy is on the tire swing under the shade of the swing set, thinking and mumbling thoughts and imaginations. Her words never stop. Isaac is a vampire or a t-rex - he can't decide. His fangs are the outer tongs of a plastic fork, whose inner tongs are surely the newest of our house's perpetual supply of clutter. And for the moments when all we can do is long for the day of All Shall be Well, there are these, the blessed foretastes.




Friday, July 22, 2011

How to Be a Rich Christian (To Remind Myself)

I. Jesus said that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of god.  So if you can avoid it, do.

II. If you can’t avoid it, accept it. Don't buy the nonsense that we're "'middle class." It is the global economy that has made us rich, so it is by global standards that we must compare ourselves.

III. When you make your budget, do it with a picture of a poor child propped up next to your spreadsheet. Keep that picture in your wallet. Make every big, out-of-the-ordinary purchase after you look at her desperate eyes.

IV. Give, give, give. Understand that it's not your money. The Old Testament is full of reminders that all that is is God's. Jesus told one rich man to give everything he had, just to enter into Jesus' kingdom. The early Christians, who were ready to be martyred, gave all they had. We, too, should be known by our giving. Give far beyond the traditional 10 percent, and to multiple recipients. Offer to God even the money in your savings or retirement accounts. If you don't have cash, give your time, give your space, give your thoughts.

V. Know the names and stories of many poor people. Always be owed something. When someone you forgot you knew comes up and tells you they'll be paying back that money you forgot you lent, you're on to something. 

VI. Do not compare yourself to other rich people. Keep in mind that anyone who appeals to the "standard of living" is trying to assuage their own discontentment with riches, which runs directly against the teaching of Christ and Paul.

VII. Remember: In our country, rich and poor used to live together. Sometimes on neighboring farms, other times within the same small town, other times on the same plantation. It was impossible for the rich to forget the poor existed. Now, it requires significant effort for us to remember them. Living isolated from the poor, a man forgets what it's like have a hungry family next door, to his own peril.

VIII. Read yourself into the parables as villain, or the warned. Watch how Jesus describes the hearts of the rich. Don't beat yourself up, just be warned and live accordingly.

IX. Understand this: The human mind is fickle. We can only think about what's in front of us. If the poor are not in front of us regularly, we will forget about them. After we've forgotten about them, after years surrounded by so much wealth, we as a people will forget how loving our neighbors and loving the poor were often one and the same. Reverse this trend in your own life wherever you can.

X. Read books and stories written by the poor. Read about their lives. Pick up news magazines and watch documentaries.

XI. If a news source offers easy answers to poverty, doubt their motives. If a news story lets you feel smug or justified in your wealth, know that they are vying for your vote or your money.

XII. Remember that to suffer is to be human. Reject all thoughts that suggest that comforts produce the abatement of suffering. It is by comforting ourselves that we can most assuredly insulate ourselves from our need for God. Accepting discomfort is an act of trust, and enables us to walk in faith. Consider that in the Bible, our spiritual ancestors, elected by God to do his work, always suffered. In the Bible, we always suffered. Like it says in Hebrews,

(The people of faith)...were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while sill others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated - the world was not worthy of them."

XIII. See monetary gain as just as likely to harm one's soul as to help it, and beware un-Christian uses of the word, "blessing." The account of the blessings Isaac offered to Jacob and Esau show an understanding of "blessing" that is common throughout the Old Testament. To Jacob, "... May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness - an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you..." And to Esau, "Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck." This passage is typical of the Old Testament's and America's usage of the word. Those who are blessed are the rich, and those who are not are poor. Material gain and moves towards wealth are blessings.

Jesus turns this idea on its head, by saying that in His Kingdom, the blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the poor, those who hunger now, those who weep now. These “blessed are the…”statements, are not instructions, but instruction. Jesus is not saying, "try to be poor in spirit, or hungry," or even calling the rich to serve the poor. He is teaching us about the way things are. He is teaching us that in the Kingdom of God, those who suffer are in fact, blessed. He is showing us that sufferers are already close to His heart in ways we who are rich do not know. In the Beatitudes and elsewhere He is telling the Jewish people that they missed the boat on what blessing is all about. We who are rich Christians have mostly missed it, too. Know that the fulfillment of the simple wish, "God bless you," may require the loss of much that you hold dear.

XIV. Trust the Lord.  Jesus never told the rich to solve poverty. He did warn us again and again what will happen to our souls when we ignore it and wrap our lives around ourselves. Your job is to be faithful to Him. If He asks you to sell all you have and give it to the poor, trust that He loves you and don't worry about the consequences. If you take any of these steps outside of a relationship of trust in God, you will have done something good, but not as a Christian. Do whatever good you do with Christ, and find His peace as just one of the fruits.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

A message from Paco Amador


If we are to believe Google images, the guy in the picture is named Paco Amador. So is my pastor. The Paco Amador who is my pastor preached an excellent message last Sunday about keeping the Sabbath holy. Give it a listen, here.  

Monday, June 27, 2011

A post in which I conclude with an obvious thought...

I have walked or ridden my bike to work most days for the last 8 years of teaching. I enjoy the walking and what it means: that I live close enough; that I get to walk the same paths as my students; that my own footprints and not carbon's are the only ones I'm leaving. I remember one of my former delinquent students giving me a lift in his car which smelled densely of weed. I see the grin of Frank, a former student whom I'd worked hard to get into a therapeutic school,  as he flagged me down to introduce me to his own son. I hear a rooster's crow one winter morning, welcoming the sun and the day and filling me with thanksgiving.

On top of these moments, I enjoy the sense that I'm a part of something larger than me.  When I get to see third-world level poverty, drug deals and police hold ups it feels like I'm part of a movement of heroes of mine who have joined with their neighbors pain, and walked alongside them.  The walking pace is important, too, because it binds me to consider my neighbors and their lives for longer than my fickle, self-gravitating mind would allow me if I drove. In short, walking to work allows me to live out some ideals that are important to me.

But this school year, the one that ended last Friday, has been different from the others. My group of students was the hardest I've ever taught - the most emotionally needy, the most resistant to authority and instruction, the most directly challenging. The gang violence and influence in my classroom and on my route has been more pervasive. And I know that every bit of un-health in the streets and in our schools is just a fraction of what exists in peoples homes. My walks are often laden with the weight of my students' pain and questions of how I or anyone might reach them. With each dysfunctionality and violence I come across, my footsteps grow heavier.

Just last week as I walked up my front stairs after a long day of work, a pair of 9-year-old boys yelled "suck my dick" and added gestures for clarity, to a pair of girls, probably 10. The girls yelled equally offensive things right back. Friday morning's particular heaviness started around 8 o'clock, as I walked by the home of a former student, Sara, whose gang-banging brothers were up early, looking down the block, at some commotion. I followed their gazes and found Frank (the proud dad) held up against a chain-link fence while two cops waited for back-up. His niece, who graduated from 8th grade this week, was held up right next to him.

I shook my head, as my feet banged like bricks on the pavement. I trudged on past a group of early-arrived students, greeted the office ladies, ascended to my classroom and plopped down at my teacher's desk. As I stared at the black screen of my computer, all I could think was, "I gotta get a car!"

As much as I am a man of ideals, I'm seeing a  limit to the extent to which I can embody them. A crucial part of my teaching job is bringing fresh energy to students, who already at age 12 and 13, have given up.  But if walking past their houses each day brings me to despair before I even get there, well,  I suppose something's gotta give.

It's the same with our chickens. In November we bought 4 ISA Browns (like Rhode Island Reds), and have enjoyed all sorts of benefits from them. The amount of waste we had to have hauled to garbage dumps each weeks was cut drastically. We were able to better appreciate the work that goes into food production. And It gave the kids some meaningful chores, and an understanding of how breakfast got to their plates. There were lots of other benefits, too, but when the rats showed up in May and wouldn't go away no matter how carefully we managed the coop, it was time to give them up.

So I'm learning that in one life, in my one life, I can't do everything I care about. When I write that statement it feels laughably obvious, but I think it's worth saying anyway: We can only do what we can do.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

N.T. Wright talks about reading the bible

My friend Tony posted a link to this video on his blog. It's so good and intriguing and instructive that I'm just plain stealing it. He wont care.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Slow me

I've been writing short poems lately. Here's one.

Slow me: Thoughts from A Midday Break

Draw me in to what's not new or news.
Envelope me in what could never be hawked or branded.
Touch me with the oldest truths.
Slow me.

Show me the dust that I was and will be.
Let me hear the unending song,
and glory in whatever notes I can hear.
Open my ears.

Give me eyes to see beyond the here and now
so that I can see the now and here for what they are:
fractions, negative exponents of time and space,
and at the same tiny time and in the same tiny space, somehow,
filled with meaning.

Monday, April 25, 2011

On Mumford

The British band called Mumford & Sons has lately overtaken the space in my brain that furnishes the songs I hum. Stylistically the band is a mix of folk, rock and bluegrass. They write lyrics like philosophers and poets, drawing themes and lines from the likes of Shakespeare and Steinbeck. I aim in this quick review to examine the lyrics of a few songs on their only album, Sign No More, for what seems to me a close alignment with the Christian faith.

The album begins with its four singers slowly and pleadingly lamenting the way life is: full of pain; disappointment; hurt; bruises. Mid-song, they then seem to have found hope. The song changes styles; the banjo slung, the tempo rises, the toes tap, and it feels like they're possessed by the idea that the pain doesn’t win.

“Love, that will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you
It will set you free
Be more like the man, you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
At my heart you see,
The beauty of love
as it was made to be.”

Man and Love being made, even designed, for a purpose; the notion that this purpose can be re-found; salvation from life’s pain; a future when sighing will cease…all persistent themes of the Bible’s story, all present in the title track, Sigh No More.

The vision for renewal of the "ought" comes back to us in the final track of the album, After the Storm. The Bible’s final track, the last chapters of Revelation, could have the same title. It says:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Mumford & Sons looks forward similarly, 

 There will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Here again we have the Bible’s theme of salvation, and the new order of things, but this time with the addition of grace in the center, a distinctly Christian understanding of salvation. The idea of grace comes back over and again in the album, and each time it sounds Christian.


Mumford & Sons seem to use friendship as their canvas. Roll Away Your Stone sounds like one man inviting another to full life. The singer is the friend who in the end rejects the invitation. But the honesty of the conversation itself is a thing of beauty, highlighting the fact that giving up control of one’s life is not a decision that everyone can take.  More clearly Christian lines come from this song:

Seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with the restart

The Cave sounds like another conversation in which one man calls another to shake his friend alive. The final stanzas of the back and forth, sung on top of break-neck banjo picking, read:

And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

These guys may not be believers.  One line asks "How can you say that your truth is better than ours?" Their recurrent use of the "f" word in Little Lion Man is a sign that if they are Christians, they wont be guests on Focus on the Family anytime soon. Whether or not they follow Jesus, though, there is something alive in their hearts and in their music that has been a help in my own Christian walk.

While I sat on my couch writing this review, I heard gunshots out my living room window, part of a recent uprising in traded blows between the rival 26 and Latin King street gangs in our neighborhood. Somehow the bald pain that Mumford & Sons acknowledges and owns, gives backbone to the hope they proclaim. Hope that promises the gunman and victim that there is a purpose for their creation, and that there is a love that can restore them to the men they were made to be. Hope that dares them and me to awaken our souls. Hope that relies on grace and not on a way we might try to save ourselves. Even as I write, it seems like a fool’s hope. But it is this old Christian hope that we hold to nonetheless.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

In Deed

Today's Chicago Tribune highlights Christians who have lost family members to murder, and who oppose the death penalty. One said:

"Easter is always such a reminder that violence and death are not the last word," she said. "They don't have power over us. Love and the love of God is the most powerful force on Earth and are eternal. This year as never before, I'm seeing that I not only need to love Nancy and Richard and the baby, I need to love the person who took their lives, love them the way God loves them. That's so brand new to me and makes me see so many things differently. … I feel a stone has been rolled away from my heart."

You can read her's and others' stories here.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Rob Bell's new book

The bad part about Rob Bell is that he's so dang cool. He dresses trendy and makes cool videos and cool Christians everywhere know him to be cool.

The good part about Rob Bell is that he raises really good questions, he's an excellent teacher and that he reads a lot of N.T. Wright, who isn't so trendy.

He wrote a new book called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. This is a link to a video in which his cool self talks over cool music and cool video footage about some really important age old questions. If you want to explore some of these questions without feeling like a geek, this may be a good book for you.

Monday, March 7, 2011

swiping out, part II


You may have noticed that I’ve been posting less often. This here’s an explanation…


The last time I posted I said I'd be taking a break from media for 25 days as a part of my church's 25-day fast. It was to celebrate our church's 25th year. (Boy, was I glad we're not Catholic!)

During the fast I found surprising communion with God, inner peace and efficiency at work related simply to not using the Internet, reading, or listening to music. As if my soul was taking a much-needed deep breath. And like I often do during fasts, I asked God, “How can I keep this going after the fast, in normal life?”

I sensed a clear response that I should limit my Internet usage to one hour per week. So for now, that’s what I’m doing. The result of this change has been continued efficiency while at work, far greater presence of mind when I’m at home with my wife and kids, and a surprising amount of enjoyment at the simplicity. I went from hopping on to check any number of sites whenever I pleased throughout the day, to saving all my Internet business to one sitting. And you know what’s weird? The same sites I used to go on multiple times per day, I don’t even care to look at anymore when my new hour quota recharges on Sunday. Nothing on the Internet feels urgent. Nothing is.  

So at least for now, I’ll be blogging less often. My wife, my kids and my soul are glad.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Sunday, January 2, 2011

swiping out

I'll be starting a 25-day media fast on Monday, so that means no Internet for me and no blog posts for you. How we'll suffer.

If you've never rested for a while from reading and hearing, I strongly encourage it. I do it a couple times a year, and it's something I've come to look forward to. The space that I generally cram full with information or entertainment will stay empty for a while. The quiet is hard to get used to at first, but after a week or so, it grows beautiful. Before long I will see and hear things that I wouldn't under "normal" circumstances. If past fasts are any indication, the Lord will speak. Rather, I will hear.

Upon returning to consumption of media, my first order of business will be to listen to an album by Mumford & Sons that I bought and loved tonight. They caught my attention because they have a song called "Timshel." The word forms the heart of East of Eden, John Steinbeck's masterpiece, and one of my favorite books. I'm right now finishing my second bout with the book. Maybe someday I'll write about the book and the word, Timshel.

For now, though, here's a video of a different Mumford & Sons song, The Cave. Maybe you'll love it too.