:: sweettalk ::

:: Saturday, March 18, 2006 ::

emptiness

God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy Will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will always.

Oh, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would always be with me, and that You would keep me from evil.

Thank You for keeping me sober today. Amen.

Nature abhors a vacuum. -- French monk, humanist, satirist, physician. Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book 1, Ch. 5

There was emptiness more profound than the void between the stars, for which there was no here and there and before and after, and yet out of that void the entire plenum of existence sprang forth. -- Heinz R Pagels, Executive Director, New York Academy of Sciences, Vogue January 1986

the gap of today filling itself
as emptiness is distributed
in the idea of what time it is
when that time is already past
-- John Ashbery, U.S. poet, critic. “As You Came from the Holy Land”

Yesterday was a very blah day. Boredom wears me out. I am so glad that I may be leaving at the end of next month. I need to be grateful that I have a job or, at least, a paycheck. I feel like I am on the brink of something new. I'm just waiting to see what that is.

Last night, I went to the six o'clock AA meeting and then to dinner at Black-Eyed Pea with a bunch of the guys. This morning, I'm going to a Bread for the World workshop, but I'm going to eat breakfast at Lucky's first.

Emptiness is the first condition of a miracle. I will focus on emptiness today.

:: Kyle 4:56 AM 4 comments
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:: Friday, March 17, 2006 ::

imperfection

God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy Will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will always.

Oh, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would always be with me, and that You would keep me from evil.

Thank You for keeping me sober today. Amen.

For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. -- Mark 12:44

Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature, and we are but too willing to ease ourselves of it, or at least to lighten it as much as we can. - Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield, letter, November 7, 1765

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalise them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them. -- Salvador Dali, Diary of a Genius, entry for June 30, 1952

It has been so long since I have written. I feel a need to do so again. So much has changed, but I'll get into that later. Today, I am learning to live without doing things perfectly, to live with and deal with my mistakes. After a prosperity workshop at church in January, I began tithing. Since then, I have witnessed this oncoming wash of red ink that finally arrived yesterday. I did not have enough in my bank account to make my mortgage payment. I have faith it will all work out, but in the meantime, I am learning to live with the uncertainty of it all. My sponsor Juana suggested I call Rev. Ed at church. I did, and we discussed it. I need to practice the same attitute in paying my bills that I do in tithing.

Thank you, God. This is an adventure.

:: Kyle 6:06 AM 3 comments
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:: Thursday, August 05, 2004 ::

dream

God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy Will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will always.

Oh, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would always be with me, and that You would keep me from evil.

Thank You for keeping me sober today. Amen.

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals, while they slumber on their beds, then he opens their ears, and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn them aside from their deeds, and keep them from pride, to spare their souls from the Pit, their lives from traversing the River. -- Bible: Hebrew, Job 33:15-18

To dream magnificently is not a gift given to all men, and even for those who possess it, it runs a strong risk of being progressively diminished by the ever-growing dissipation of modern life and by the restlessness engendered by material progress. The ability to dream is a divine and mysterious ability; because it is through dreams that man communicates with the shadowy world which surrounds him. But this power needs solitude to develop freely; the more one concentrates, the more one is likely to dream fully, deeply. -- Charles Baudelaire, Artificial Paradise

Dream is not a revelation. If a dream affords the dreamer some light on himself, it is not the person with closed eyes who makes the discovery but the person with open eyes lucid enough to fit thoughts together. Dream—a scintillating mirage surrounded by shadows—is essentially poetry. -- Michel Leiris, Quoted in Roger Shattuck, Nights as Day, Days as Nights, Introduction

Just another day with my nose at the grindstone. Yesterday, I analyzed the CABS accounts and found that we had underaccrued in some months and overaccrued in others. I made some correcting entried before Cosmos had to close the books for the period. I was definitely ready to leave by five o'clock.

I battled the traffic on Northwest Highway to go get my haircut after work. I was late, of course. Fortunately, David was still working on the client before me. He does metalwork in addition to cutting hair and playing the bass, and we had an enjoyable conversation about the doors I'd like to have made for my condo and about the work of other artists Michele Oka Doner and David Paul Bacharach.

Aftwerwords, I drove through the east side of campus at my alma mater SMU to see all the buildings that have gone up. I took the long way home down Greenville Avenue to get a frappucino at Starbucks and to look for the antique shops about which my friend Charlie had told me. Once home, I got to work counting the money for Lambda. It only took about an hour and a half to empty all the deposit envelopes. Hopefully, I can finish all that tonight. Yesterday, I also ordered QuickBooks for Lambda as I had promised I would donate the program when I converted their books to it last fall. Thank God this is my last month as Treasurer. It has definitely been a rewarding experience, but it takes far more time than I had expected.

On another front, everything seems to be pointing toward me applying for the Economic Development Analyst position at the City of Dallas. The thought comes up in articles I read, dinner with my parents, everything. I'm anxious about applying and making the change, but I need to take some action. God, please give me the courage and strength to do what You would have me do.

:: Kyle 5:45 AM 3 comments
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