the light does the darkness most fear

Some odd number of years ago I discovered my foolishness and a severe flaw. Ever since a child I've under-estimated the powers of darkness. At some point in my childhood I had convinced myself through the inner workings of my own pride that I was perfectly capable of resisting temptations and the devil himself. I had no fear. I had no anxieties. I had not a clue.

Lucifer, the morning star, enjoys it when we under-estimate. He relishes on our thinking of him as an allegorical personification. He is more than pleased when we regard him as mythology or his name as a planetary body. He loves it even more when we deny his existence altogether. Lucifer is not fun and games. He is not to be taken lightly and shrugged off as a non-threatening entity. He is alive today. He is as real as the air you breathe. He roams the earth like a starving lion, waiting to devour. He deceived a third of God's angels. He deceived God's earthly creatures, Adam and Even. And he had certainly deceived me.
But there is hope...

Keep your guard.
Do not play his games.
Do not accept his lies.
Do not fall for his illusions.
Resist him and he will flee.

...I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

i need a new sleeping bag

to sleep in a sleeping bag
every single night
is more like a big rag
covering you up tight

here we go again.

The cycle never seems to come to an end. Project after
project. Revolution after revolution. Day after day.
Night after night. Maybe working harder and faster
would eliminate these crunch times, perhaps?

No body and no mind is cut out for such demands. My
body is already showing signs of wear and tear. How
many more until my mind begins to fade - or has it
already begun?

Regardless, for now, I am here, again, working on a
Sunday evening...with a bottle of Shiner Bock and a
liter of spring water to sail me through the day, I
mean night.

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opened.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself; is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13.

It is such a deep and beautiful morning. A clear morning sky and the showering warmth of healing sun both work together to encompass my terrace as I lie on my sun-bleached Jamaican hammock.

Being a slow learner, twenty seven years have passed for my understanding the evils, the grave sins, of pride, envy, and jealousy. My heart, as if it were a late blooming flower, finally senses the sun. It finally seems to feel the nourishment offered by rain and mildew. Waking from its slumber that is long overdue, my spiritual heart is opening slowly, and it wants to respond. I can see the value of the sins - it is a devastating one. For such things do not come from love. No, not at all. Not by any means.

Twenty seven years it takes me to realize and accept the fact that I am so full of these undesirable and deprecating sins.

stark contrasts

When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then "a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection" is really a God, and their view is thus identical to the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind "strives" or has "purpose"?
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

As I read through this I just had to read it again, and again. The fact of the matter is that this passage has The Best explanation for my reoccuring nightmares during my childhood. Although the correlation is weak and vague it provokes my forgotten nightmares from the deep crevishes of my imagination. The nightmares were only two. They were elegant in nature yet unimaginably extreme.

Imagine a white room with no apparant boundaries. Suddenly a shrouded woman dressed in ragged winter clothes carrying a large bundle of baby trees, like large dead sticks, carrying them with both arms to one side. The sticks are very long, sometimes as long as full grown tree. Everything about her dark and dirty clothing is semi-vivid, not exatly real, but detailed to the dirt and bark of the trees. You do not see her face, nor do you see her from the front, but you always always see a glimpse of her as she leaves the white room, carrying dead baby trees. Suddenly it strikes you that she is gone, you are left alone in an endless universe of clean bright whiteness, and the dream comes to an end.

Imagine a waterfall, as large and as powerful and as loud as you can imagine, like standing three feet in front of Niagra Falls. Suddenly the water stops to a halt. And like a slightly leaky faucet, a droplet is clearly seen and clearly heard. Sometimes it would be vice-versa - leaky faucet to raging water fall. And the dream comes to an end.

day and night
oil and water
good and evil
...

Adventure hunting begins.

So I made an investment - a GPS (global positioning system).
With this device I reckon I be driving and hiking more often than my norm, in pursuit of that hidden treasure, and eventually encrypting custom riddles and stashing my own memories.

seeking

Athens SCUBA park, in Athens, Tx, looks to be an
interesting lake as far as diving is concerned. It is
a man-made lake converted from an old quarry site. No
fish exists, from what I understand, but there are
literally tons and tons of sunken objects, including a
jet airplane , a Volkswagon beetle, and a bus, and
that's just to name a few.

So I find myself in need of a dive partner (to be on
the safe side). Fortunately Dallas has several SCUBA clubs/organizations.

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Sights on New Zealand.

My original targeted-destination is coming back in scope. I know nothing of the schedule, but I should, no, I must, begin "formal" training as if this trip were written in stone. Training is a must if I expect to perform feats of courage during "black water rafting", or when traversing through the inner entrails of a glacier, or doing something more common, like sea kayaking, snorkling with seals, or swimming with giant fish. These are all physical, attacking and challenging only the fleshly components of my body. But what about mind, character, and spirit, the components of the soul? Amazingly (miraculously) my Creator is already on it, and much of it without my being aware. Indispensable are the traits I speak of. But there is much to be done. Much work is needed, much more, much much more....

Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly; I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.
- The Silver Chair, ch. 2.

For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is
profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that
now is, and of that which is to come.
- 1 Timothy 4:8

A world apart.

The few hour of riding a jeep over and through the vast wilderness countryside came to an end. With my own two feet I approach the grassy and sparsely brushed hilltop, the invisible border of Tanzania. Suddenly, yet at the same time subtly, this amazing and uncontainable valley, endless and bountiful, untouched and untamed, my eyes witnessed for the first. As an added bonus, living rays of sunshine sprayed down on the valley and painted scattered patches of moving cloud-shadows in their various shapes and sizes. And then came the oh-so-familiar fear of this moment being the last my soul will know to enjoy.

The jeep stopped one more time, but this time next to a dried river-bed as wide as two school buses measure long. Though still suffering from the stomach pains, I found strength to walk out of the jeep, all on my own. In my unwashed dirty clothes that I've been wearing for a week, I found my footing towards the center of the river-bed bottom. Of mostly pure sand and small pebbles is the river-bed's composition with scattered pools of remnant mud-water. As I reached my destination that I had set in my mind, a mound of damp-dry patchy sand, I notice how light-footed my steps are even though my entire body is that of a heavy-footed clumsy boy drained of his fluids and nutrients. But I really didn't mind, nor did I truly care, for about 400-500 ft before me, a raging herd of Wilderbeasts, along with a few spots of Zebras, was already in full motion of crossing. My senses were overhwelmed yet not over-powered. Smokes of waked dust accompanied the herd in the ever-so-clear distance, and so did the cladder of a thousand thundering footsteps. And again...the familiar fear taunts and tantalizes me.

NAUI certified and ready to explore the depths of the seas

The National Association of Underwater Instructors, NAUI, is the oldest diver certification agencies (founded in 1960) and is one of the most respected SCUBA certification agencies in the world. It is the most thorough of among dive certifications and routinely exceeds diving standards.

As of July 5, 2005 I am NAUI certified for open-water SCUBA diving.

(From left-right, top-bottom)
Holding on at a depth of 20ft, Look out it's a shark!, Taking a break between dives (aka. surface time), Diving in feet first from the dock (aka. giant stride), Look it's a sunken ship!