Christopher's Meanderings

The ocean stretches out before me in every direction. Treading water, I can tell it's time for me to swim. Fear is gone. Reticent doubt has been removed. Only blue expanse remains as far as the eye can see and the mind can comprehend. The water is warm. I am warm. Comfortable and swallowed in the blanket of the sea, I begin to swim. The horizon breaks in jagged, gentle lines of rolling waves. Going forward makes as much sense as going backward. My muscles respond the way they always wanted to when I was in a pool or at the beach. Every stroke, every kick provides a response. Progress isn't about arriving, it's about continuing the journey. The sights are the same at each site in the journey. The blue expanse surrounds and envelopes me. Topaz mirrored with slight reflections of the light source just beyond the corner of my eye. Firm ground has never felt as right as the resistance of the water to the sole of my foot. Each kick, each movement of  a calf muscle, the ti...

I recently started a second (third if you count home schooling) job at a local game store. It involves hosting escape rooms, doing some wood working, and doing some retail. I love the fact that I will be doing some things I enjoy while getting to be with people.  The best part of the job is that it works with my schedule to still travel this year in the way I want.  Today, I booked a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Why? Because I had some ticket vouchers which were going to expire at the end of May and wanted to go somewhere. My original plan was to visit a friend in El Paso, but ticket prices there tripled. So, I started researching warm destinations and ended up with a reasonable round trip experience to Florida. What am I going to do there? Explore for a day, do some writing while traveling, enjoy the train ride to Chicago, and maybe try something new. Still don't know where I am going to stay, but I am aiming to do this trip as cheaply as possible. If anyone has ...

I have continued to write everyday, but some of that writing is now in my journal instead of on the blog as it seemed a better venue. However, I wanted to share something I have been thinking about- goals.  There are a number of goals I made when I was a younger person. I am a different person than when I made those goals, and the world has changed considerably since then too. Some have been postponed and others have altered.  There are a few goals which have persisted for years though. Rather than share those goals, I thought I would share some of the things which have kept me on track with both the accomplished and long-standing goals.  Motivation, or the "why," must be present for a goal to have any staying power.  Here, I am talking about how a goal is carried out on a daily basis. What makes you get out of bed?  Personally, I struggle with depression and there are times when I could just lay down and never get up. However, I know how good I ...

During my high school years, I was lucky enough to spend some time at a Bible camp in central Missouri volunteering. It was lucky because I learned a lot at that camp- other Christians can show you important differences in perspective, the joy of serving students, and the satisfaction of hard work in the sweltering humidity of summer in the Ozarks.  Looking back on those times, I see now how precious they were. It was something separate and set apart from all of the hustle and distraction of high school. For me, high school was about music, girls, and grades. Somehow, these few weeks were truly holy in a way I didn't even know at the time.  My first impression of the camp was that I was going to be lost in some place time had forgotten. The surrounding hills were populated with people who looked like those old photo's from Johnson's War on Poverty as he visited Appalachia. I thought outhouses were a thing of the past, until my grandparents navigated those twisting roads...

Every once in a while, a story will come up like it did near the end of of January. A stone circle which had been identified as being between 3,500 and 4,000 years old.   At its face value, a story like this may cause us to question whether scientists (in this case maybe archaeologists or geologists) really know what they are doing. Then we might doubt the scientific method.  Some things to keep in mind at this point though: 1. The circle never had a completed study done on it.  2. Even if it had, individuals in science do make mistakes. 3. ^ This is why we have peer reviewed journals as well as plenty of other forums to see if someone's findings are worth believing or not.  4. In other words, science and the way we carry out the scientific method does not and should not happen in a vacuum.  5. Testing can and should be rigorous. 6. Question everything. Believe some things. Think about how you know.    7. Be careful how and when you pre...

I love thinking about the church and how it could be better at bringing people in. Whether it is Sunday mornings, volunteer opportunities, or smaller group gatherings- there are almost always areas local churches can improve in welcoming new people.  Why should the church bother doing this? Without welcoming people, we will not get better at evangelism and discipleship. We will end up talking to ourselves and our effectiveness decreases. Thankfully, God can use the local church in spite of itself, and often does even when we don't think about these things. However, why not try to improve if we can do so? So, in that vein, I started wondering about how we process social interactions and if there was anything we could learn and improve on in local churches. The main reason I started thinking about this was I read a short but provocative article entitled Falling Walls: Social Relationships as a Spatial Problem .  The main thing that post prompted me to think is about how pe...

I'm about to head out to my weekly board game night in an effort to regain some of my sanity from all the time indoors this week. In that vein, I thought a brief post on games was appropriate. 2018 was another great year for board and table top games. There were so many published, I haven't even been able to try half of the games I want to yet. Hopefully, we get a little more levity in terms of what is published this year, but there is no guarantee. Since the amount of games published last year can be overwhelming, here are my top three games from the year. 1. Azul A wonderful puzzle game with plenty of replay-ability. I've played it with people new to board games, kids, and veteran games. It's a near perfect filler and doesn't take long to explain. 2. Dinosaur Island Absolutely the most fun I've had with a worker placement in quite a while. Not for those new to board games necessarily, but the bright colors and fun graphics will attract some people...