Dillos New Year Resolutions

For as long as I remember, I have taken time on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day to meditate on the past year. Generally, I have journalled the highlights in red in my diary. Following this, I make a new list of my goals and desires for the following year. Unfortunately, I can not find either the journal or the entry from last year. It may be that, in the newness and brokenness that marked New Year’s 2007, I just failed to take the time to write things down.

One resolution I have made and consistently kept, is Do not run naked down the street wearing antlers on my head. This is a reasonable resolution at any time and any place. However, living in the high desert, it becomes an especially good resolution if you wish to keep from ending up strapped to the hood of somebody’s car.

If you will allow me, I will take time this New Years Eve to journal some of my goals and desires for 2008 online. I will refrain from publicly listing the highlights of my year.

From Phillipians:
To greater understand what it means to “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.”

To go back to the practice of memorizing scripture. Perhaps memorize Chapters 1 and 2 of Ephesians (or the whole book?)

To begin reading through a book of the Bible with Hailey-perhaps John or Daniel. Furthermore, to begin to teach her key precepts regarding the character of God.

To monitor my life in regards to stress vs. rest. Take the necessary time for rest, relaxation and meditation. Try to avoid HALT situations (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired).

GET MORE SLEEP!

Solvang Century: March

Finish STP!!!

Summer vacation to Yellowstone???

Other miscellaneous goals: Get out of debt, close the door on the marriage.
Be more disciplined regarding housekeeping issues.
Buy a television-for the hardware, not for the television shows.
Buy a new bicycle.
Buy a trainer.

I think that’s it for now. I’ll add to the list as things occur to me.

Altars, Friends and Furniture

There are long stretches of life where we walk alone, with merely our own thoughts for company. Ultimately, we encounter forks in the road where we make the decision on which way to go; the village pub, or the lonelier road into the highlands. Sometimes, providence will cause the roads of others to intersect with our own. If we are fortunate, it is at these intersections that both travelers will choose to walk together for a while. Along the old roads when such encounters proved unique, life changing and affirming, many an old testament saint established an altar.

I have had the opportunity through much of life, through God’s grace and through decisions I’ve made to experience rich friendships along this road. The last two plus years have at times felt roller-coaster tough. The up-hills are steep; the down-hills are scary and leave me short of breath. Through it all, I remain convinced that I could not have done it without a rich community of friendships.

Many of these encounters are altars where I can look back and see the love of these friends and the faithfulness of a Loving Father. There’s the dresser that a friend brought over; “I found it along side of the road and I thought you might need one.” The new set of pots and pans, the dream Third Day tickets, the yearly trek to Portland which inspired this blog, the call from Portland telling me I was missing the Buy a book and get a kiss weekend at Powell’s. The calls and emails to persevere, hold out my heart, and be faithful. The Moorpark barbeques and Simi dinners. The camera. Though many of these are things, they represent the rich care of friends that have made what could have been a dark and lonely road into a rich, hopeful and blessed journey.

May God greatly bless, enrich and prosper all of those fellow travelers who continue to share their friendship and hearts with me along this road we travel.

A Movie Not to See-Home of the Brave

Gag. I just rented Home of the Brave from Superstar Video, down the street from me. Here's the thing, and the reason for this post. I love movies. In my high school and college years, I made it a point to go see every film that won an Academy award. I've only walked out on one film at the theater; Ghost-due to its spiritual message. But I just now clicked the little square on my computer to STOP viewing this movie. It is terrible. It's kind of an anti-war (anti-acting, anti-good writing) flick. Which would be fine if it was Deer Hunter or Apocolypse Now (The horror, the horror). But this movie just sucked. I could have written a better screenplay. Heck, I could have acted better than the entire cast.

So, if you are in the video store and trying to decide which movie to rent; do not bother picking up this video. You'd be better off renting Plan 9 from Outer Space, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or almost anything else. Just run from this one.

Boots

You have to understand how very much I hate work parties. They make me exceedingly uncomfortable and I feel like I’m stepping way out of my comfort zone. So when this girl at work told me she was getting a whole new outfit for the Christmas party…..I hadn’t even given any thought to what to wear. But because I wanted to be as comfortable in the uncomfortable situation as possible, I started thinking about my outfit.

Dress clothes I have plenty of. Nice pants, different style sweaters (most of which pass the Hailey-“You look like a dork”-test), a couple nice shirts. But my shoes; gads, I have no comfortable dress shoes. So I went down to the local stores to look at black dress shoes. The ones that I really liked (that passed the DORK test) were 75 bucks. Great. So, now, I have to buy a 75 dollar pair of shoes for this party that I’m not even thrilled about attending.

Here it is the day of the party. I haven’t gone out to get my shoes yet. I haven’t had much time to make it to the store. Additionally, the thought of spending $75.00 right now when I don’t have it makes me queasy.

I’ll just wear my boots. I slide one foot into a boot. Other foot into a boot. Immediately, I feel centered. Grounded, as if I’d lost my balance and now it’s back again. Why, I think, was I going to buy shoes that I don’t like to impress people I don’t know with money I don’t have?

Amazing thing-correct perspective regained. Putting on the boots secured me again in being comfortable in my own skin. These particular boots I’ve had for about 25 years. They’re old friends. They’re comfortable, familiar, well-worn yet in great shape. It’s the whole boot mystique. Putting em on and I feel ready for action. Ready to burst through those two swinging doors into the saloon. Ready to fight, yet comfortable leaning against a fencepost. And walk…..maybe with a slight swagger.

In hind sight, there are those times when I resort to my false self and lie to myself, or convince myself that I must act in a certain way, dress a certain way; be a certain way to impress others. It’s all about being comfortable in your own skin (or that of a skinned animal). “Let people feel the weight of who you are and let them deal with it.”

Enjoying the Outdoors-Snow in the High Desert

It is always best to fully enjoy the outdoors in all of its raw beauty! That's what they invented RV's and windows for, don't you know!

One of the things that I really do like about living in the high desert is that we get our share of seasons, sweet sunsets, and

intense weather (That's 3 things; isn't it?). We've actually had two rainstorms in the last week; and today's storm brought us some (a wee bit) snow! So Hailey and I cruised up to the national park to get a bird's eye view.

Hailey took this picture of a snowy Joshua Tree!