Trying to follow

Well, it looks like we’ll be on the road for the next nine days or so. Some exciting stuff, visiting friends and family, attending the CCDA conference and taking one last getaway before we start ‘real’ life up here in Minneapolis. I’m not going to try and post every day while I’m gone, though if I have a chance I’ll put something up. I’m really enjoying the housing conversations and I’m thinking about it quite a bit.

Look forward to chatting more when I get back about October 14th.

p.s.  It’s my birthday on October 7th. The thing I like most for people to do on my birthday is to do something on behalf of me. If I’ve had any sort of impact or influence on you at all, then step out of your box and do something radical in that regard, and if you want, tell me about it. Give away something, bike to work, write a letter, stop shopping, pay off your mortgage, or just smile.

Alright folks, today officially marks the end to my blogging break here at Trying to Follow. I wish I had some grand insights to share with you about my experience, but I don’t really. Mainly, we’ve gone through some major transitions lately (baby, moving, job and home searching) and so I figured a break from this would help me to sort of focus on those other things. I did make some cool post banners though.

I had a plan to continue to write daily, in hopes that I could begin to build an honest collection of thoughts on faith. I figured this would be a good thing to do for a couple reasons. One, writing down your beliefs is good practice in general. Two, with a new child and the responsibility of parenting, I figured collecting my thoughts would better prepare me for intentionally instilling my values in my children. Three, not that I have all the answers, but having been on a faith journey for a significant part of my current life, my thoughts might prove useful to others on their journey. I say all that, and yet I failed miserably at doing that consistent writing and only really got started about a week ago. I’m still plugging along, but I needed to start writing here again as an outlet for all the other thoughts banging around in my mind.

I mentioned trying to change the format of this blog, but I’m not sure that I will yet. At the moment, this is simply my personal blog that serves as an outlet for me to write and dialog with others about a wide range of topics. I do think this will become a bit more ‘faith’ oriented in nature as I’m really making an effort to flesh out what I believe in a way that makes sense to others. That isn’t to say that you need to be on the same ‘faith’ journey as me, I would really appreciate the dialog from others who don’t share my faith beliefs. I think what I might do, especially when I cover topics that might not seem related to my belief system, I’ll try and add a little blurb that makes explicit what Bible verses or values compel me to care about this issue or that. If I start slacking on doing that, just ask me and I’ll respond.

Asides: Just a quick note of some additions. Be sure to check out my ‘Who I Read‘ page. It’s a long list but I subscribe to every one of those websites and I highly recommend most of them. If your not on there let me know and I’ll add you. Also, I’m going to take down Comment Love for a little while. I’ll keep you updated on our donations, but I don’t think it was really helping facilitate further conversation. Also, I’m adding my YouTube channel to the sidebar and I’ll be posting more ‘asides’ exclusively at the website, not on the feed. Alright, peace.

I was walking to a training for work a while ago. As I was walking a car pulled down a driveway I was crossing and in it sat two Sisters dressed in traditional garb. Immediately, almost instinctively, I had this moment of reverence. I think I almost put my hand to my heart or up to salute, I’m not really sure, all I know is I felt this need to show some sort of respect or honor, as if a King was passing.
A couple days later Mindy and I were driving on the highway and passed another vehicle with four Sisters in it. Again, I felt this sense of reverence and need to show honor. Mindy and I talked about it for a little bit and she helped me decipher a little why we feel so much respect and admiration for nuns.

The commitment to their faith, is almost unrivaled in our culture. Even on my most devote day of religious commitment I seem half-hearted compared to the lifelong commitment these honorable women have put forth. Were does that commitment come from? Why are there so few examples of it in our culture? I really do feel a level of reverence for nuns and monks. I think it should be mandatory to salute them when they come by, or something of that nature.

Maybe I can glean some wisdom from some nuns who blog,
A Nun’s Life and Crossing,

If you haven’t noticed or known already, there’s quite a few changes going on at my house. For those who know me well, and those who don’t here’s a brief update/insight into Ariah’s Life and Blog these days.

In less then one month our little household community will begin to disband. It’s been an exciting year, and a life changing one. I’ve spent the last ten months in a house hold with 8 other people, two of them young children. It’s been an incredible time and I think it has shaped and changed each of our futures in dramatic ways. I’m sorry I haven’t blogged more about the experience, I think it’s a hard task to write on when your in the midst of it. I think I might interview all our housemates on how this experience has effected and changed them and post those as podcasts…

And the big change for me is coming any day with the birth of our first baby. I’ve had the last week off or work to clean and prepare the house, tend to my wife’s needs and try and wrap my mind around the idea that I’ll be a father. I’ve done okay at the first two, but conceiving of holding my child in a few days is hard to grasp. I have been adjusting to the fact that my life will never be the same, I’m really soaking in the transition that this moment in time is.

And, I guess sort of a reflection of the outward changes going on in my life, I’m sort of in a transitional stage with Trying to Follow and my writings, hobbies and interest. Not sure what that means for this blog at the moment yet. I’ve thought about pursuing different avenues of blogging, writing, podcasting and more. I love to write so I don’t plan on that going away, just morphing into something different. I might not write as much (as you’ve already seen), or I might write more. I just added the Asides, minipost that don’t hold as much expectation to be profound, which you won’t find in the RSS or emails, you’ll have to come to the site to get them. I’m also going to be doing a podcasting segment with Josh Brown for the Nick and Josh Podcast, I’ll link to it when it’s up and running. Oh, and if you haven’t subscribed to my blog let, please do so.

So, we’ll see if any new changes come this way, but for now, enjoy your weekend. Hopefully I’ll have a baby by the end of mine.