spurious//notorious

So I think I’ll start posting my blog entries to Facebook notes as well as the actual blog itself. Maybe that way I will actually get some readers ^.^ Maybe if I get some readers I will actually become consistent in updating my blog. shameless self-promotion: http://www.spklr246.com

In my last post, I mentioned the emergence of a modified “Daniel” fast manifesting in my daily routine for a period of 10 days. In said post, I promised routine updates. As you may (have) notice(d), such updates did not occur. Any of you trying to be a good parent/spouse/Christ follower/friend/youth pastor/hacker (sorry, “Technology Enthusiast”)/employee/(social) human being can probably relate to the absolutely oppressive feeling of “Why Bother” when it comes to finding time for such things as blogging.

This month, BGE called in an outstanding balance allegedly DUE to them, backed by the threat of termination on my power service. Terminate! We don’t even keep the heat above 65 for more than a few hours a day - and even then, it doesn’t do a lick of good. Jess spent an hour on the phone trying to get someone to help us find a happy medium- a budget plan - something that will make it so we don’t lose our heat in the middle of winter while we have a 10 month old son! So far this winter, I’ve paid Constellation Energy what I can. Not in full- not by any means. We can’t afford it. When our rent hits on the 1st of March, it will bounce our account. Whatever. Times are hard and money is fleeting.

As the season of Lent approaches, I find meaning and and a sense of hope that by minimizing my desires, I might become more sensitive to the abundance that is freely available from our Heavenly Father - sensitive and receptive to the fact that He will continue to provide despite my yearnings for security and assurance in this earthly realm! I think that such an awareness is what I had in mind, what I was seeking, when entering into my (prematurely broken) Daniel fast. I want there to be less of me and more of Him. Less of me wanting and more of my needing wife and son.

Unfortunately, it seems that I’ve been missing the mark over and over again. In trying to be “all things to all people”, my immediate family has taken the shortest end of the stick. This is not what I have had in mind by taking on other responsibilities - by following things that I truly believe to be callings. Did the Lord not lead me back to Baltimore? Did He not deliver me into the positions of ministry and employment in which I currently operate? Why then, do these things seem to interrupt so rudely the ebb and flow of my family life? Would YHWH truly call me to do things that make my wife to feel miserable and lonely, and cause me to be a relative stranger to my own son?

So I’m considering my Daniel fast to have been a practice round. Despite my Protestant upbringing and subsequent knee-jerk distaste for so-called “pagan rituals”, such as following the Holy Calendar, I have chosen to observe Lent this year. Despite also my general discomfort with the decision made at the First Council of Nicea to separate Easter (Pascha in the East) from Jewish Passover, I will follow the Season of Lent in the manner and days adherent to that of the majority of Christians in the world (i.e. the Western way ^.^ ). In so doing, I aim to accomplish three goals: Finding time to dedicate to prayer twice daily, spending most or all of my free-time (heck, even just creating “free-time”) with my family, and cultivating an inner tranquility (which sounds trite for sure, but people I have next to none- believe me).

So that’s where things stand these days. I covet your prayers for my family and for the areas in which I / we minister (namely the youth group and the Faith Center).

(if you’re reading this on facebook, please drop your comments not here but on my blog at [shameless self-promo again] http://www.spklr246.com)