Digital Wilderness

For all you Losties out there…a little entertainment for this Friday. What if Lost were a sitcom from the nineties? (via tvsquad.com)

All I have to say is someone is trying to pass the time while waiting for the final season…

Hello readers. It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a meaningful blog post. Most of my entries lately have been links to videos, music, articles on other sites and the like. Last week, I even took a break from that and didn’t post anything. Honestly, the break felt good. As with many things in my life, I put too much pressure on myself to live up to certain self-expectations and as a result, the thing in question loses its fun and becomes a burden. Making the conscious decision to not blog last week lifted that burden off my shoulders, for at least that week, and restored at least some of the appeal to me again.

Though I did spend some quality time with the couch and ice cream (topped with Magic Shell and rainbow sprinkles FTW!) over the last couple weeks, down time which I’ve needed, it wasn’t all laziness. So here goes an “in review” post covering the last week or so, from what I’ve been doing to things that have been on my mind.

Camping
Two weekends ago, I headed down to Red River Gorge with 3 other guys from my Tuesday night small group for a night of camping and a day of hiking. A few days before we left, the weather forecast called for sunny skies and great temps. However, the day of the trip saw nothing but rain, rain and more rain, with some thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. There were even thunderstorm and flood watches and warnings issued for the counties surrounding the gorge. Thankfully, it let up just enough that we were able to get a tarp and the tent up without too much difficulty, though the tarp did take some work. The next day, after a breakfast of bacon and pancakes, the skies finally cleared and it ended up being a great day for hiking. We did a 5 mile loop trail – Auxier Ridge to Courthouse Rock to Double Arch Trail, one of my faves in the gorge. While there, I logged three more geocaches, these of the Earth Cache variety (Haystack Rock, Courthouse Rock and Double Arch), bringing my total up to 108 found caches. Pictures from the trip are in the gallery.

NEXT Small Groups Conference
This past Saturday, a group of us from First Church of Christ went to the NEXT 2009 Saddleback Small Groups Conference. The conference consisted of three session centering around Saddleback’s (Rick Warren’s church) small group model. Specifically, the sessions were about Authenticity and Character, both led by Steven Gladden, and Core, a session led by small group master Lyman Coleman. Core was by far my favorite session. Lyman led us through parts of his 32-page “cook book” of exercises, drills and skill-building concerned with taking a small group to the next level. I was a little disappointed with the conference as a whole, but still came away with several good ideas and things to implement.

Church
Sunday night was a great cookout with people from church. Can’t go wrong with grilled meat, cornhole and good friends!

Health
As for my health…You may remember my twitter/Facebook status from a few weeks again. I had mentioned consistently waking up in the middle of the night, being very thirsty (drinking about twice as much water as normal), among other things. There was a discussion on Facebook about this and several people mentioned it could be diabetes. With that concern in mind, and getting fed up with not sleeping well, I finally called and booked a doctor’s appointment. The appointment is scheduled for June 11th, when I’ll get my first physical in years, as well as have blood work done for the first time. Thankfully, over the past few days, I’ve slept a little better and haven’t been quite as dehydrated as in previous weeks, so things are looking up.

Mat Kearney
The much anticipated new album from one of my top 3 favorite musical artists was released this past Tuesday – City of Black and White by Mat Kearney. It’s been three years since his last album and I’ve absolutely worn it out. Well, as much as you can wear out mp3s at least. The new album is really good. Maybe not as good as his first one and a half albums, but still really good. Expect to see some of his new songs on future Music Monday posts. Next anticipated album release: Needtobreathe, another top 3 fave, due out in August.

Books
I have a TON of books in the queue, some I’m very anxious to read. Two of those books are Faith and Doubt by John Ortberg and How Long O Lord by D.A. Carson. I’m currently reading Boundaries (something I very much need to put into practice to avoid a repeat of the past few months). Unfortunately, my exhaustion and other factors have really slowed up my reading output. I’ve only been able to get to a few pages before falling asleep. Normally I could get chapters under my belt before drifting off. Those aforementioned books are incredibly relevant to where I am right now, so I want to devote special time to not just reading them, but taking notes and truly learning and growing from the knowledge that lies within.

Processing and Resolving
I have two weeks before my summer class starts and I really need to make this time productive and meaningful. Much is on my mind, many things which I have avoided thinking about but need to be processed and resolved before I can finish healing and moving forward. Though it’s something I hate, I need to sit in silence, process and work through these before I end up getting busy and overwhelmed again.

Well, that’s about all I have at this point. Hope each of you are enjoying the days of spring/summer weather!