How, Where, When?

(long over due draft form august)
You know when you go to a new restaurant and you think you've found what option/combo/ or whatever's best for you? You order and hope to goodness that it will rock your socks... or flops? The meal comes and your's isn't what you had hoped? Everyone else's seems sooo appetizing? Then you think"..daaaang. how did they know that would work out? Theirs' looks sooo good! Maybe I'll try that next time... or not. Oh well i guess this will due...."

This is what came to mind when thinking of how to explain what I've been feeling... for most of my life, especially in the past two weeks. I've prayed over and given a lot of thought to what I should and want to do with my life. How I could use my talents and how God might want me to use them for him... and i have only been able to view it through one application, art. I'm not sure how it will come about. my life starting... a career starting including art.

I've grown comfortable with the idea of teaching art. Yay! I think ??? Then come the runners up now that the "what" may have finally been answered.... how, when, and where. While randomly talking to some folks about their six month to 5-yr plans I always think, "man, that's cool, but is it for me?" How do we distinguish between a good path and our proper paths?

I know that I've been blessed in many ways but now I want to harness those gifts and find tune them with some skill or.... I Don't even know if that makes sense or if that's how it works. Garrrr!

I have a funny feeling that I won't find out for a while. This waiting business is rrrough! Grrrrr! Another uneasy feeling I get is that I will be over influenced by my mother, missing the opportunity of a lifetime only because I didn't want to disappoint her. How can I live my own life for God and not some idea of how others think I should.

How, Where, When?

Beyond Just Lions and Tiger and Bears and Why

So I told a friend the other day I had to lay off the Harry Potter stuff cuz i get too engrossed and it's a bit too shifty for me anymore. I had the book for like two months and only got as far as 30 pages. I knew it was time to let it go. then I told the same homie that i would only listen if it fell in my lap and that I wasnt' trying to seek it out anymore.

Low and behold, the next week the 6th Harry Potter book fell in my lap, cd styles. it was so easy and sooooo very interesting. i just couldn't understand how someone could write soooo vividly. the fluidity of her thoughts captured on paper began to perplex me. the originality was off the charts! I began to wonder if her, J.K. Tolken's, research took her through much of real history of withces and wiccah. I let my thoughts rest and just continued to enjoy it all. I finished today thinking, "Dang that stuff is crazy!", followed by wondering if she was in wiccah herself or what??

So today I got an email from my bro saying "this is worth reading". It was about the new movie the Golden Compass. The email was attached with a link to some site that brought something to light that I've been thinking about quite a bit. I know better than to believe everything I read but this comfirmed my theory. Maybe you guys already know about this but i was like, "Dang! I may finally have to let this go."

The article said that the author, Phillip Pullman, of said novel to film was written in response to the C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy. There's also something about him hating C.S. and Christianity and his goal was to kill God inthe mind of children. And then it clicked!

The rise of magic, vampires, superheroes and what-not has recently taken a more innocent role. whether the target audience is youth or adults. I just noticed that there is no higher power involved other than the superheroes themselves and that it always works out as long as you have each other. Though the Pullman goal maybe to directly affect the realtionships of children with God that doesn't mean all of these authors feel this way right??? ( enter incredulous sigh or kissing of the teeth here). NOT everyone is on the same page but are they still ending up in the same direction?

I guess I'm seeing more clearly why parents prefer not to have they're kids so engrossed in this stuff.
can it really kill God for kid? will they hope to replace God with the things they find in books. is it enought to just explain to them that God is real though he presents himself differently.

I guess many find solace in the fact that these shows and books all seem to have the overall themes which parallel love and the good guy always wins in the end or should...but it's a bit deeper than that. what I've been facing lately is, "what would a life be without God be?" and "why am i spending soo much time in these worlds were God is only mentioned out of fear". I haven't quite acted on these thoughts yet but maybe I should. dunno guess that's what blogging is all about. just getting it out. and dealing with it at some point.

this may seem foolish to most but i suppose this is a way of me lining up my ducks in my realtionship with God...and dealing with the fact that i may have to give up aaall my favorite shows...guess these are the breaks.

to make things clear. this is just my opinion and maybe even stumbling block and i'm not suggesting anyone else do anything.