Protected: Highlights of 2011: October to December

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Protected: Highlights of 2011: July to September

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Protected: Highlights of 2011: April to June

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Protected: Highlights of 2011: January – March

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Meditate on our own life

From Spiritual Direction and Meditation, by Thomas Merton
“…the real function of meditation is to enable us to realize and actualize in our own experience the fundamental truths of our faith. But there are other subjects for meditation. Our own life, our own experience, our own duties and difficulties, naturally enter into our meditations. Actually, a lot of ‘distractions’ would vanish if we realized that we are not bound at all times to ignore the practical problems of our life when we are at prayer. On the contrary, sometimes these problems actually ought to be the subject of meditation. After all, we have to meditate on our vocation, on our response to God’s will in our regard, on our charity towards other people, on our fidelity to grace. This enters into our meditations on Christ and His life; for He desires and intends to live in us. The Christ-life has, as its most important aspect for each of us, His actual presence and activity in our own lives. Meditation that ignores this truth easily tends to be aimless and confused.”

 

Look far into the future

When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it.

Grandmother of Sasha Aickin, VP Engineering, Redfin–quoted by Guy Kawasaki, Enchantment, p174.

 

God learns new things every day

It is true you are never too old to learn anything. God has been here for thousands of years. Even though He is very old, He learns a lot of new things every day. It is like doing a school project. God’s project is us. We have to do research for a school project. He also learns new things like we learn new things when doing a school project. For instance, He learns different things we are doing that He probably didn’t know we would do before–because He is interested in our lives.

Paraphrased quote from nine-year old daughter before bedtime.

 

Jevons Paradox

technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource

William Stanley Jevons, 1865

What if that resource is time, of which we have a finite amount? Time does not really exist on its own, but is really an abstraction of each person’s life.

 

Companionable Silence

In her prize-winning book, The Incredible Journey Sheila Burnford uses the term “companionable silence” to describe the hours spent in a canoe between two brothers during their annual vacation; and the time a father and son spends walking along a forest trail.

Is companionable silence lost forever to the generation growing up with social networks and cyber-relationships? What replaces companionable silence in the online world?

 

Blackburnian Warbler in Burnaby, British Columbia

A Blackburnian Warbler was spotted in the forest trail north of Sears at 2820 Underhill Ave, Burnaby, BC V5A 0A2 on Sunday, 12 June 2011 at around 8.45am. It was an adult male in bright orange breeding plumage. The Blackburnian Warbler is common in eastern Canada but very rarely makes it as far west as British Columbia.