Blue Screens and Birds

This past week I was out the door by 0445 every morning.

Once to be at work and the other days to go for a walk. Took the dog one morning but she was so tired she refused to go the rest of the week.

Two things struck me as the week went on. The first was that the birds were singing loudly that early in the morning. It was beautiful. No dogs running loose (although there was a strange noise in the bushes down by the creek), not much traffic and no one else out walking.

Just me and the birds.

But I saw something else. In many houses there was this weird blue glow from behind drawn curtains. Could have been televisions, could have been computer screens left on all night. One house had the curtains wide open so that I could see what the big screen TV was playing (ESPN Sportscenter). Didn't see anyone around watching.

So what does this mean?

I don't know. But the contrast was startling. The birds singing was sharp contrast to the glow of the blue screens behind drawn curtains.

Now I have to be honest. I checked the weather before heading out and our curtains are drawn at night and a couple of days this week I couldn't sleep so I had the TV on.

But the birds remind me that I need to spend more time outside, looking for life going on all around me and not inside waiting for someones ideas of life to be presented to me.

Tightly Wound

So yesterday I was reading my Bible and praying and the words: "tightly wound" kept coming to mind. Over and over.

I came to the conclusion that I was wound so tightly about myself that I wasn't hearing God. I was letting the stress get to me. Not enough sleep. Weight creeping up. No motivation to do anything. Work pressures. Family visits. Trying to be (get) in shape. Trying to please men. Worrying about things that I can't even remotely control.

So I have started to unwind. Took a nap at 5PM and went to bed at 930.
Still got up at 405 this morning and off to work at 440. Still went to Bible Study ( took my Dad). Still had a ton of e-mails and phone calls to deal with. Turned it all over to God because I can't possibly deal with it all myself.

You see, I have to be a God pleaser and not a man pleaser. Don't get me wrong, I can not deliberately set out to offend men, for this displeases God. But I must always attempt to please God first and foremost and seek his will for me and my life.

If I worry first about pleasing God the rest will fall into place.

Oh, I was tired tonight. I still went for a run to break the carbon loose.
But I don't have to go into work quite so early tomorrow.

Might just get the dog out for a walk before the sun comes up.

That would be a good unwinding...

Silence

Yesterday I was tired of noise.

So I turned stuff off. I didn't have the radio on as I went to and from Bible study in the morning.
I kept the radio off all day at work.
Didn't play music through the computer.
Kept the radio off when doing errands at lunch.
Turned down the ringer on my phone. I could still hear it and I did answer it but it wasn't near as loud. Kind of nice.
I did turn on the radio for a bit in the car as I drove to ref a soccer match since the skies were black and ominous looking. But I found it distracting.

It was...pleasant.

Found myself thinking for a change (I know, something new for me).
But without all the noise I heard more than I usually do.

I wasn't quiet by any stretch of the imagination.
If anything, I noticed just how much noise is going on around me all the time.

But I think that I heard more when I didn't try to fill up the quiet with noise...

Dry Spell

I've had several people ask me when I was going to have a new entry.
OK, it was really two people so not quite several but more than one.

Lots has happened but nothing has made it to the keyboard and to the blog.
It has been a dry spell.

I have had good intentions to sit down and put something down but just didn't make it. Excuses are plentiful. Too tired, too late, too burnt out, too uninspired, too distracted, too busy, too, too, too.

Excuses are just that excuses and they come in handy when we don't want to do something that we should do. And I like working on this blog.

But I have other dry spells in my life recently: not reading the Bible enough, not spending enough time in prayer, not getting enough sleep, not returning calls promptly at work.

Wow! That's a convicting list and I am sure that I could come up with some more things I am not doing right now that I should be doing if I thought about it for half a minute.

I can use the excuse that I am reffing high school soccer but there is that word again: excuse.

But that is winding down. Tonight I had one game that was done early. Next week the playoffs begin. And I should be done by the middle of the week.

Wonder what excuse I can use then...