Wanderings – Page 60 – The Life and Times of Joe Suttle

Repetition

joe June 9, 2008 Faith

Some would say it is the root of all evil. Others would say it is “evil”. I just know that when you do something over and over, it is usually called a habit – then it becomes an addiction. You know, you have to do it.

Well, actors and musicians and dancers repeat their lines/words/music/steps over and over and over. How do you think the best basketball players keep making those shots (even if you don’t want them to)? It is because they keep practicing the thing(s) they want to get better at. For you english teachers, or other such, that was a “bad” sentence. Even they (the english teachers) repeat the rules of grammar and sentence structure.

Repetition can be either good or bad – it depends on what you are repeating, and what standard you apply to the thing you are doing. We would probably say that someone who repeatedly does their exercise (run, walk, whatever) is doing a good thing for themselves physically. The person who repeats at something bad (“now he’s quit talking and gone to meddling”) gets our “dander” up.

Doing something “good” over and over gets us in the habit of doing the right or better thing.

I think that you get the picture. My mind was stirred up when Dr. Gil’s devotional last week was on spending time “repeatedly” reading the Bible and praying. He was in Proverbs 4:21, and as Gil says Solomon is reminding us that we have to repeat important stuff over and over, or else we will forget what we should be doing and drift back to our old style of living.

That may be something that we don’t want to hear, but think about it – how’s your piano playing lately; or your golf game; or your ??? I know that I want to get better at some things in life – time to get back to doing what I need to be doing. How about you? What do you want better?

Firstly

joe June 2, 2008 Faith, General

It’s a beautiful day outside! Sunshine with a little wind. Don’t really see any clouds in the sky, but am looking forward to getting some things done outside. Take the boys somewhere to maybe skateboard, and maybe a little kiting (that’s flying kits, not doing the thing with the checkbook). The wind will make for some adventurous flying.

First, we have to find all the kites. They are “somewhere” in the garage. Somewhere means moving things around to get to them, but they should be in close proximity to each other. Then again, if anyone took them down between when they got put up and now, the might not be. Someone once asked me “why is it that everything you look for, you always find the last place you look?” Can’t figure that out, but have tried the obvious…

Why is it that the “last place to look” is so hard to think of? If the “last place” was searched first, then lost things would not be lost as long.

Never have found my lost clothes in with my wife’s, even though that’s the last place I’d expect to find any of my clothes.

Have found things in the dark recesses of my closet or the garage. Somehow, they seem to fall off shelves, hangers or hooks and drop behind something else. Last time I moved a bunch of stuff around in the garage (read “cleaning”), found a tool that had been missing for three years. There it was, hiding in the dark behind and under a shelf. Of course, another tool had been purchased to replace the “lost” one. Even found a book that I had bought and never read.

When the lost gets found, it usually makes us happy – in fact it changes our mood. We get happier, treat others differently – it’s like we are different people.

Interesting parallel to how God must feel when we get “unlost” or “found”. If we can feel that good about things, imagine how He must feel about people. People he wants to see and talk to – walk with…

Light and Dark

joe May 30, 2008 Faith, General

Those two almost made me crash the other morning. Did some work during the night on one of those phone systems. Customer won’t let us do many things during the day because it might effect service. So, after finishing work, came roaring home as the sun was just twinkling in the East. Grabbed my two computer cases and opened the door.

First thought was to get to the alarm and shut it off. Much to the chagrin of my shins, there was a fold-up chair just inside the door. Having driven in the dark, walking to the door with it’s porch light burning bright (or is that an entry light?) my eyes were not very “dark sensitive”.

“Ouch!” “What in the world?” My brain was so focused on getting to the alarm that it took a few seconds for my brain to adjust to the dark and know that feel was that chair.

No, I’m not going to retaliate with a clothsline stretched across the hall. It’s just that when things are not where you expect them, they cause you to stumble. If I had looked inside, more at floor level when I opened the door, the porch light would have let me see the chair. Instead, I had looked around the room rather quickly and seen that all the boys were sleeping and the TV was turned off.

The rest of life is kind of like that. We need to look (watch) where we walk (go) so we don’t step in or into something that should not be there. Things “pop up” in our lives that we don’t know about in advance. If we see them coming, we can do something about them – change directions, make plans to “leap tall buildings”, etc. So…get a little light and keep your eyes open.