Goodnight
Goodnight Mister, Goodnight Misses.
Goodnight Tweeters, Hugs and Kisses.
I’ll catch you later, I’ll talk to you soon
I’ll make a lame joke about big buffoons.
Goodnight to the stars of ages gone by
I think of you all, when I look at the sky
Goodnight little Gretl, I bid you adieu
May all your big dreams one day come true
Goodnight beautiful Liesl and whatever it brings
Just keep thinking about all your favorite things
Goodnight young Mary and George too,
Did you ever figure out how to lasso the moon?
Goodnight father Abraham, wherever you may be
And goodnight to the star that was lit just for me
I’ll take you with me, long into the night
Where deep calls to deep until dark turns to light
Goodbye to today, it is now in the past
But no less a part of me that always will last
Goodnight to the giver of all good things
And the 9 million bicyclists across Beijing.
Snobs
I posted a blog about Susan Boyle a while back and pondered the question as what would have happened had she been just okay or not very good. I said some things in that post that haven’t sat well with me and I’ve since felt the need to change my tune.
More specifically, I wrote about snobby people and the snobby girl in the video at 1:24. My exact words were “I look down upon that girl almost as much as she looked down upon Susan.” Along that same line, the post had an underlying theme of getting back at jerks.
While snobby people hit on a nerve that angers me more than just about anything else, my words reflected a heart that was not in the right place.
A quote by Frederick Buechner sums it up well:
Snobs are people who look down on other people, but that does not justify our looking down on them. Who can say what dark fears of being inferior lurk behind their superior airs or what they suffer in private for the slights they dish out in public.
Don’t look down on them for looking down on us. Look at them, instead, as friends we don’t know yet and who don’t yet know what they are missing in not knowing us.
Here is one another quote that has some things to say about conceit and how to deal with conceited people:
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse… Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:14-21
This is an area that only the grace of God can help me with. A place where I have a long way to grow.
Driving without Headlights
I don’t know what you do up here in Northern Indiana. Where I came from, on Friday nights, we used to get in our Dads’ trucks cause they used to build those trucks so that you could run over anything and it wouldn’t hurt them. You know, the old gravel roads, they just ran straight for miles and miles and miles. You never had to turn your car because you were always going in one direction until you wanted to go in another direction and then you had to wait until you came to a road to make a turn and then you’d make the turn and go straight in that direction for a long ways.
It was pretty easy driving, so what we always liked to do is go out as far in the country as we could get to where there weren’t any houses or anything that we could find. Then, you’d go as just about as fast as you dared going and you’re turn the lights out. Then the truck, in the middle of the night… It wasn’t a real smart thing to do. But luckily, they built those trucks real sturdily. And our dads always just thought they were getting beat up out in the field. They didn’t know it was in someone else’s field.
So one time I was driving from Philadelphia to Miami, Florida. I was going down Interstate 95 through Maryland, which I don’t ordinary think of as being a beatuiful part of the world. But it’s shocking how beautiful Maryland is. Of course, it was about 2 o’clock in the morning and it was a full moon and so just about any place is pretty at 2 in the morning with a full moon if you’re all by yourself.
And I started thinking about we used to do that when we were kids. How we used to turns those lights out and drive a little bit too fast on gravel roads. And I wondered if I could still see by moonlight like I could when I was younger. So, I looked around and made sure there weren’t any cars and clicked them off right there in Maryland. Only this time, I didn’t drive too fast because I wasn’t quite so young anymore. I had gotten in the habit of trying to soak up things instead of speed by them.
Looking at Maryland I began to think of just the goodness that I was not blind. Sometimes you have to go to Maryland to remember what a joy it is to see. But then I began to think about even if I was in the middle of Brooklyn -- with that moon -- if there was a power shortage and there weren’t any lights to interrupt -- probably even Brooklyn would be pretty with that moon. I remembered how it used to look when you’d drive in the spring and the corn was just starting to come up and the rows were real short.
You know, sometimes we think that everything is changing. But I’ll tell you what -- the same moon is up there tonight. The same stars that Abraham saw -- they’re all up there. The same God that put them there and made them shine, He’s still there too. And I don’t know what life has for you. I don’t know what life has for me. But I know this: I know that God is good and I know that God does not lie. I know that God has given us the gift of our lives. Sometimes we wish He would have given us someone else’s life. But He chose to give you your life. Don’t despair of it.
Rich Mullins
As the years go by…
As another NBA season comes to a close, here is a great video of NBA superstars through the years. I love this just as much now as it did when I originally saw it back in 1997. I don’t know what it is, but set just about anything to music and it becomes about 15x more emotional. I miss Larry and Magic and forgot how good Isaiah was. I love Clyde’s finger roll and Kareem’s sky hook. I love the winking, smiling, handshakes, hustle, upfakes, bankshots, crossovers, swishes, fist pumps, teamwork and passion. I love it all.
And oh how the years go by
And oh how the love brings tears to my eyes
All through the changes the soul never dies
We fight, we laugh, we cry
As the years go by…
Thoughts in the Dark
It’s 4:16 in the morning. It’s 4:17 now. There are some early birds chirping and the sound of a car that just drove by. I’m always curious as to where a person needs to be at 4 in the morning. It’s a sort of cuspy time where people who stay out late have just gone to bed and people who wake up early are still asleep. I think about the driver and wonder if this would be considered a late night or early morning.
I guess it would be considered a late night for me. It always seems to take me a little longer to unwind than everybody else. I remember a girl in college who used to say that life was going at 80 miles per hour and she could only do 60. I feel that way sometimes. There is so much that happens in one day. So much to think about. So much my mind wants to get settled.
I knew some kids at the Middle School who liked to sit alone in a dark room. There, in the dark, they didn’t need to worry about how they were coming across in social interactions or whether someone might hurt them. There, they could just be. Life moved slower in that dark room and they didn’t need any more stimulation. They already had enough inside.
We had a going away party for Jon tonight. Jon is a good guy in the truest sense of the word. He genuinely cares about others. He puts others first. It’s strange to me that Jon is going to be leaving. It’s like I’m always shifting from thinking that things will never change to trying to keep up when things do change. It’s like working at a restaurant and having nothing to do for 3 hours and then getting slammed at lunchtime and then going back to nothing again. The uneven flo is just so weird.
* * *
I’m sort of suspicious when it comes to people who make their bed every day. If it’s just going to get messed up again, I really don’t see the point. It’s not that my room is messy, it’s just that the other parts of the room don’t need to be attended to every morning.
I think haircuts are much different than making the bed. You get to enjoy haircuts for at least 2 weeks until your hair starts looking not so great again. You only get to enjoy a bed that is maid for about 15 minutes. I say 15 minutes because you usually leave your room after you make your bed and don’t see it again until late at night. Every now and then, though, I do make the bed. I don’t do the best job, but I will admit that it makes my life feel a little more in order. Besides that, it looks really pretty. It doesn’t look as pretty as a fresh haircut, but it still looks pretty good.
I had a pretty good time at the party tonight. I made some jokes and some people laughed. I had some good conversations. I ate some food that tasted really good, including what was probably the best cupcake of my life. There were people who were happy to see me and friends I hadn’t seen for a long time. There seemed to be a lot of hugging tonight. I have to admit that it felt really good to be hugged. It’s something you miss out on when you’re by yourself in a dark room.
It’s getting closer to morning now. It’s not so dark outside and the birds are getting louder. As a matter of fact, I just heard another car. I wonder what is going to happen today. I wonder if I will run into any old friends or make any new ones. I wonder about the point to making your bed or moving away or going to parties. I wonder what the point is to anything.
I just heard yet another car. I wonder where that person is going.
A Million Miles and a Thousand Directions
Dear Friends, Loved Ones and Everybody Else:
I wanted to keep you all informed about some exciting developments at marklamberti.com. First of all, I totally overhauled my blog/website and fully integrated the whole thing to make it an official blebsite. It is, by far, the best my blebsite has ever looked and it is possible that I am a little over-the-top excited about this. To give you some history, though, the site was made in the summer of 1997 from the most humble of origins. I never thought it would get to this point and look so nice! Now, you may wonder why I am telling you all this stuff about my website if you are already at my website. I tell you this, dear reader, because you may be a dear subscriber. Google reader is terrific, but even more terrific is the new design*.
If you are, indeed, reading this in a reader, let me allow for some great links to check out some of the new/redesigned content.
Here is what put marklamberti.com** on the map: Ramblings
Here is the most unique and underrated portion of the website: Conversations
Here is a special goodbye: Farewell
Oh! Be sure to check out the sidebar for many features as well! It looks so nice! I never knew what widgets were or what affect they could have on my life. If they were women, I would, indeed, marry them. Either way, they’ve changed my life.
In non-blebsite related news, Donald Miller posted a link to the first three chapters of his new book and asked for comments. Now, even though he has no idea who I am, I consider us to be great friends. As a matter of fact, he even (mistakenly?) accepted my friend request on facebook for about a day and a half. Irrespective of all this (notice I didn’t say “irregardless”), Donny (I can call him that because we are make-believe friends) has one of the sharpest minds and is one of the most interesting writers out there. His books are a real treat for the mind (and heart).
Anyway, Donny wanted feedback and I gave it to him. Now, Donny has been responding to some of his commentators. I am so curious to see if Donny will respond to anything I wrote. If he does, it will be a dream (our friendship) come true (our friendship). Check out all the action at this page: Thoughts on the First Three Chapters and be sure to check out comment #42!
*I didn’t actually design the new design. A guy named “Chris Wallace” did. There is a link to his site at the bottom of the site.
**Formerly AOL Homepage. I think they died when I moved my site to Angelfire.
She wanted a pair of shoes
I recently saw this on the blog of a guy named Brad Ruggles. It is a quote from a book called “The Holy Wild” by Mark Buchanon. I thought it was worth posting here.
“Oh, brothers and sisters, I love Jesus so much,” she said.
“Tell us, sister! Tell us!” the Ugandans shouted back.
“Oh, I love Him so much, I don’t know where to begin. He is so good to me. Where do I begin to tell you how good He is to me?”
“Begin there, sister! Begin right there!”
“Oh,” she said, “He is so good. I praise Him all the time for how good He is. For three months, I prayed to Him for shoes, And look!” And with that the woman cocked up her leg so that we could see one foot. One very ordinary shoe covered it, “He gave me shoes.”
The Ugandans went wild. They clapped, they cheered, they whistled, they yelled.
But not me. I was devastated. I sat there broken and grieving. In an instant, God snapped me out of my self-pity and plunged me into repentance. In all my life, I had not once prayed for shoes. It never even crossed my mind. And in all my life, I had not even once thanked God for the many, many shoes I had.