Archive for the 'Faith' Category

Lent Day 9

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Chalupa
on February 15, 2008
in Lent 2008, Lifting and Liz
. 0 Comments

So I haven’t been updating everyday with Lent stuff.  I’m sure nobody cared.  Things are going pretty well.  I’ve been getting the reading in.  Can’t say I’m really pondering or meditating on it.  I’ve pretty much just been reading it and thinking, “hmmmm” to myself.  The exercise thing has been great.  It feels good just to be semi-active again.  I don’t think I’m anywhere close to doing the pull-ups yet, but I’m working on it.  Liz says my arms are starting to get a little bigger like they used to be.

Oh, and if you’re in the mood for something smart and funny, check out this site.  It’s a blog called The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus.  Liz alerted me to it.  Pretty funny stuff.

Lent Day 2

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Chalupa
on February 7, 2008
in Faith, Lent 2008 and Lifting
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So the Lent thing is going pretty well.  I already have 2 days of lifting and cardio under my belt.  I used to be a pretty hard-core lifting kind of person.  For a long time people would always start to work out with me and then quit saying I was pushing them too hard.  Honestly, I didn’t really push them to do anything, except for Crickit, they were just trying to do what I was doing.  I also used to be kinda strong and at times took pride in it.  Pride comes before the fall, right?  I’m not going to say bad things happened to me or anything.  I will say I’ve had a lot of asthma problems in the past two years though.  Problems that resulted from multiple factors.  Because of this I’ve gained some weight, can’t bench over 300 anymore and my arms aren’t so big that my hand can’t even begin to stretch across my biceps .  That’s ok though.

When I was in high school we were trying to really beef up all the time for football.  There really was a reason to try and get big as fast as possible.  We were getting pummeled by people.  In college I realized I needed to work more on stamina and toning because even though I could build up a lot of mass in 3 weeks, I lost it all if I took a 1 week break.  Eventually I had a routine where I would do 9 exercises + abs and cardio three days a week.  My sets ranged from 3×15 to 4×5.  This was also really helpful to my knees and shoulders with their chronic tendinitis due to football stuff.  There is no way I could even begin to do that kind of stuff anymore.  In fact, last night my calves started cramping up on me big time because my body’s not used to being pushed like in the past.

Now in my “old age” I’m just trying to be healthy.  I know my lungs aren’t invincible.  I know my cardiovascular health is more important.  I’m also focusing on some different things.  Right now I’m working less on big weights and more on lifting, pushing and pulling my own weight.  I’m focusing more on things like dips, situps, pushups, and chin-ups.  My main goal is to finally start doing pull-ups - those things Arnold Schwarzenegger declared I should be able to do in the 80s to achieve the Presidential Fitness Award.  I was never able to really do one on my own.  So starting this week I’ve been doing sets of five pathetic chin-ups in my quest for the ever elusive pull-up.  Hopefully it’ll be easier to attain then the elusive North American Yeti.

The Bible reading has been good too.  I’ve just been checking out and pondering the daily passages listed on my church’s Lent Blog.  Gives me something to think and ponder about.

The Lenten Season

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Chalupa
on February 5, 2008
in Faith and Lent 2008
. 0 Comments

Lent. It’s one of those things I never really paid attention to as a child. I remember Catholic friends not being able to eat meat and there would be copious amounts of fish integrated into the school lunches. There was also something about Ash Wednesday and people would show up with black stuff on their faces. This all had to do with the upcoming Easter holiday.

In the past couple years I’ve thought more about Lent and what it means. It’s something I’ve also tried to participate in to one degree or another. Usually people give things up like smoking, eating certain foods, swearing, watching TV, eating out, etc, etc. Many times I’ve perceived people giving up things that don’t mean that much to them. Is that really the purpose of Lent? As I understand it, Lent is a time to sorta get your priorities back in line; depriving yourself of something distracting in order to focus more on what you should be focusing. Maybe Reese’s cups and ice cream are a big distraction for some people…not so much for me.

Last year I decided I needed to give up anger. I wouldn’t say I’m constantly angry, it’s just easy for me to flare up some times about things that don’t really matter. People taking 5 min to decide what they want on their sandwich at Subway or drivers not performing to my standards don’t necessarily warrant an increase in blood pressure and certain words to leaving my mouth. That was something I could easily do without.

That worked out pretty well, but then afterwards I kinda forgot all about it. This year I though it might be a better use of my time to focus on something positive. I’m a bit of a programmer and think about most things logically. Often I come up with worst-case scenarios for just about everything in life when making decisions. I don’t need to always be focusing on the negative in everything. This year I’ve decided I need to do something positive during the season instead of finding something to stop.

My two ideas right now are reading my Bible everyday and trying to get some exercise five days/week. They are both things I used to be pretty good about, and need to get back into the habit. Luckily, my church has setup a Lent Blog with daily passages so I’m covered for idea #1. As far as the exercising goes, I’ve put on about 20 pounds in the past two years of intermittent asthma problems. Yeah, I have an excuse for not exercising throughout a lot of that, but there’s no reason I can’t get out and take a walk, ride the bike at the gym or hit the weights almost every day. Besides getting back into shape, being healthy is just good in general. It also puts me in a better mood and some of my clothes fit better. Bonuses all around.

The plan is to try and document the process this year. Lent is 40 days, but instead of being 1 1/3 months, it’s actually 2 months. Think of it more like 40 business days. It’s like when you order something online thinking it’ll be here on Monday and then realize that’s shipping in “2 business days,” not two actual days.

Happiness Part 2

Published
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Chalupa
on October 3, 2007
in Books, Faith and Life
. 0 Comments

So I’ve been told it sounded like I’m totally unhappy with my life here.  I re-read it and can see how that could be taken.  That wasn’t really my point of writing that, and I’m pretty happy with life.  What I was alluding to, or trying to address was general unhappiness that I see around me.  I’m also not a Stepford Wife, in that even though I’m happy with life, I’m not happy every second of every day I’m alive.  Sometimes when I am unhappy I ask myself retrospectively, “What’s your deal?” because I do have a lot of good things going for me.

In other news, I got a couple new Lebowski books.  The first would be the new book by the BBC Film Institute and the other would be the Coen interviews from the Conversations with Filmmakers Series.  They both look pretty promising and I’ll definitely post a review after I’m done with them.

Happiness

Published
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Chalupa
on September 20, 2007
in Faith and Life
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Tonight in our small group we talked a bit about happiness and learning from/living in/dealing with your past.  A lot of interesting things were said.  I think happiness is a weird thing.  For some it seems to be as easy as anything and for others it’s as elusive as a North American yeti.  Why is that so?  Why is it so easy for some to be content with life and others aren’t able to find it?

I don’t really have these kinds of life answers, but I have a few theories.  One thought/idea that was mentioned is that happiness just comes with age and maturity.  Some older or elderly people just seem to be happy and content.  When that was said, I immediately thought of certain bitter old people that have just been crabby for years.  Does this mean they aren’t mature?  I really feel wise, content and cool old people don’t just magically become that at the age of 65.

Some people also have different outlooks on life.  Some people are always pining for the past.  Things were always better in the “good old days” or when they were younger.  Other people live so much in the moment they don’t make good long-term decisions.  Other people live so much for the future that they don’t learn to appreciate or take advantage of the now.  So how should we live?  This is easier to say than do, but like with everything, I think moderation is the goal to strive for.  We need to learn from our past; we need to enjoy the present; we need to plan for our future.

Personally I can look back on a lot of situations where I wasn’t happy and there were two easy solutions.  I’m not saying these apply to every situation, but in most instances these could have fixed my problems.

The first would be my attitude.  Sometimes I just have a bad attitude.  Ryan and I were talking about when we were kids and our mothers would always get on us about our attitudes.  It’s only as adults that we both understand this concept.  I can’t even begin to count the times, situations, events, etc where I just had a bad attitude and wasn’t having a good time, wasn’t liking my lot in life, wasn’t enjoying a situation, got worked up, etc because I had a bad attitude.  In many situations things could have been a lot better if I had just chilled out.

The second would be making a decision or just doing something.  Sometimes there was something I could have very easily, or not so easily, done to rectify the situation.  These can include talking to somebody to clear up a misunderstanding or doing something out of my “comfort zone” to branch out.  There are even certain situations where I needed to stop or not do something.  Maybe I was making bad decisions or being stupid.  I can look back and see times where I’ve done these kinds of things knowingly and unknowingly.  Some of this can be avoided by learning from our mistakes.

So what am I trying to say here?  I think anybody can be happy if they want to be.  I have it so easy living in the United States.  I have a full time job with health benefits.  I can pay my bills.  I have more than enough food to eat every day.  I even have extra money to buy stuff, go places and do things.  I have friends and family that love and support me.  I have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want.  So why am I unhappy with all my stuff filling my two-bedroom apartment, my freedoms, my social life, and my financial stability?

I don’t really have a fix-all answer for that.  Why can’t we just be happy with our allotment in life?  I know there’s lots of people out there and they don’t even have one of the good things going for them I mentioned above.  Yet they’re still happy.  Maybe not all the time, those people are just creepy, but they’re still happy.  They’re content with life….something to strive for I guess.

Shredding up your past

Published
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Chalupa
on July 2, 2007
in Faith and Life
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Yesterday at church Matt had us write down something in our lives we’ve been hiding from people and/or something that’s been kinda just weighing us down.  Then we put those pieces of paper into a paper shredder.  There were three of them all going at once.  Kind of noisy.  Kind of uplifting.  Thinking about it afterwards I thought it was pretty cool.  I’ve been in services before where they ask you to write down something on a piece of paper and then nail it to a cross.  I’ve never really been into that.  I know the symbolism of it is important and everything.  Shredding up something that I need to let go of or start changing in my life just struck a chord within me.  It was, in a sense, a new beginning or a starting point.  I’d just like to say, “Way to go” to Matt or Adam or whoever it was that came up with it.  I really liked it.

President Chavez is the devil?

Published
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Chalupa
on December 5, 2006
in Faith, News and Politics
. 0 Comments

I know that Venezuela is part of the “Axis of Evil” as our government has declared. Obviously with somebody like Chavez in charge who is against the United States of America. However, sometimes I find myself against the United States of America concerning some of our actions and policies as a nation.

I remember during the last election some of my friends voted for John Kerry because of his social policies. As a christian, I feel the need to help the poor and needy. Bush’s administration doesn’t seem to see that as a high priority. I think the devastation in Louisiana was a good example of that. Now here is a leader of an “evil nation” giving discounted heating oil to people who need it in our country. Some critics are saying that Chavez is just trying to stick it to Bush. This may be so, however, I do know that God uses people of all types to do his will. Just because it’s president Chavez, doesn’t mean that God can’t use him to help the poor and needy. God used the Pharoah of Egypt to help the Hebrew nation get to the Promised Land. God used a prostitute to help the Israelites defeat the city of Jericho. God used King David, a murderer and adulterer, to make Israel a mighty nation. The list could go on and on and on.

Another, more modern, example could be art today. Some people label things in culture as “christian” or “secular”. Personally, I hate these terms. People think that “christian” music, books, movies and art are better for some reason than their “secular” counterparts. It’s as if anything with a “christian” label is good and everything else is trash. I couldn’t disagree more. Why can’t truth be found in everything? If God truly is God, than why can’t He use people to do the good He wants?

Just something to think about.

Chavez uses petro-dollars to help the poor - in America

Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service Published: Tuesday, December 05, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - Hugo Chavez coasted to another six-year term as Venezuela’s president on the strength of petro-dollars and promises to spread more of his country’s oil wealth to the poor.But as Chavez struggles to alleviate poverty for eight million of his own citizens, the 52-year-old leftist leader is using his oil riches in an unlikely way - by paying the winter heating bills for hundreds of thousands of underprivileged Americans.Read the rest of the article here at Canada.com

“Religion is for people afraid of hell; spirituality is for people who have been there.”

Published
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Chalupa
on September 25, 2006
in Faith and Life
. 0 Comments

That’s a quote I read a while back in Ann Lamott’s book Traveling Mercies. It made total sense to me. Everybody I can think of, who I consider to be spiritual, has gone through something tough of one sort or another. Some have gone through multiple trials and hardships. Once I made the observation that all of my good friends who I consider to be deep, well-rooted people have all gone through something tough. Sure it wasn’t easy, but these people have all come through on the other side as better people. That’s not to say they made it through unscathed, but they did make it through. I think there’s something to be said for weathering a storm. Nobody ever likes going through these kinds of situations, but I know the ones I’ve experienced have definitely shaped me into the person I am today.

More on Israel

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 23, 2006
in Faith, News and Politics
. 0 Comments

I just read Joshua 23. I think you can definitely take some positives and negatives out of this with the current situation. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

Golden Globes

Published
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Chalupa
on January 18, 2006
in Faith, Life, Movies, Politics and Rambling
. 21 Comments

I didn’t actually watch the Golden Globes this year; I was too busy watching Chumscrubber. I have, however, read a lot about it on the web and have heard various things from other sources. I’m a bit saddened and disappointed to hear lots of talk about the “Gay Globes” and “No Christian Hoorays for Hollywood“. I don’t agree with the way people are treating these films.

I consider myself a christian. Sometimes I’m proud of that and other times not. Those “not” times are usually a direct result of seeing the negative effects my fellow “christians” have had on others. Because of this, I sometimes try not to advertise some of my beliefs. I’d rather just come off as a ‘normal’ person instead of being judged right from the start for others’ actions.

So what’s wrong with a movie that contains some homo-sexual content? Are we afraid our kids might see this? That could be a valid concern, however, most movies containing this content are rated R. So if little kids are seeing them that means an adult took them or they somehow snuck in. Let’s just assume kids won’t see them because parents are responsible.

Are we mad about these films because they are an abomination? Last I checked the “Seven Deadly Sins” are pride, avarice/greed, envy, wrath/anger, lust, gluttony and slothfulness. I don’t see homosexuality in that list. Now I won’t say that the Bible promotes this, but it’s not one of the ‘big ones’ that people like to always point out.

Do people think that these movies are just going to be crap? That could be a possible opinion. What I think is a good movie and what anybody else think is a good movie aren’t always going to agree. For example, I enjoy dramas. For some reason dramas tend to be one of the least attended movie genres. Maybe this is because they’re ’slow and boring’ or maybe this is because some ‘gay’ movies are dramas. Brokeback Mountain is considered a drama, and a romance. Transamerica is considered a drama, adventure and comedy. Capote is a drama and a biography. So you might say the common thread is drama. So do all dramas suck? I’d have to disagree with that one personally. Maybe you don’t agree with the people that give out the awards. Maybe new types of awards need to be created. Maybe you’re just a philistine and need to acquire better taste.

Another possibility could be people are afraid of these movies. I’ll admit I used to be a bit homophobic in my younger days. I think that was a product of culture and tradition. Do I have a problem with these people today? Not really. I like to think I’ve really grown up in that area of my life in the past seven years or so. These are people just like everybody else. Why are some so opposed? If they’re reason is that these people are doing something wrong does this mean the opposed are perfect and do no wrong themselves? I’d be careful claiming that reason.

Ok, so lets see what we got here for reasons:

  • Indecent content being shown to minors - They shouldn’t be seeing it anyways
  • Abomination - Who gave it that classification?
  • Crappy movies - Personal opinion
  • Afraid - Personal problem

If you ask me, I’m not seeing any really good reasons here. Oh wait, here’s one. People are just mean, cruel, unprofessional and immature sometimes. Could that possibly be a reason? Please comment if you have any thoughts/opinions/ideas on this one.