The Lost Art of Patience Through Penmanship.

Snail-mail: We have all heard the term.  This concept of the mail being a subpar way of communication certainly came about during the growth of the readily available telephone, internet, email, file sharing, Facebooking, Dropboxing, and finally text messaging.  We have discovered that we don't have to wait to hear back from our friends, furthermore we don't even have to risk the rejection of reaching out by just watching what is happening in one another's lives (via Facebook and Twitter and blogs like this one).  You wouldn't even have to call me and ask me how my life is, if I put all of my information about my marriage, my church, my walk with God, what kind of music I'm listening to and what kind of vacation I would like to take.  I'm not excusing myself from being a person who loves to gather information about you through these means, but I have noticed that sometimes I feel like this excuses me from being personally connected to you through means other than through the screen I'm typing this from.

Mail is an astounding thing, isn't it? We write a letter, put a 40something cent stamp on it, and off it goes to our friends or family. BUT there is risk involved in sending a letter-- what if we pour our hearts out on to the pages in our shaky hand and the response we get is all about the very surface things we can see on Facebook? What if the recipient doesn't want to write a letter back?  I for one realize that I will avoid contact sometimes because I'm unsure of how the interchange will play out. I know this is not healthy. NO I won't allow this fear to keep me from my relationships. Therefore, I have cause to believe that I must try and combat this. But in thinking through this, I realize that there is much more to writing a letter we can learn from it.  

Snail-mail is slow, hence the name. It requires patience. Let's look into this patience and how much we can gain from simply sitting down and penning a letter to a friend.

Writing by hand takes care and thought. 
You see it in classrooms across the country, pens and paper are being replaced by tape recorders, keyboards, iPads and other forms of technology that make things quicker and supposedly better. Yes, it is much quicker to type out the words that we are listening too, and for some of us (myself included) much much easier to read and organize.  When you write in pen you have to be sure what you're writing you mean, or else you could have to start over again.  We can learn patience and care for the weight of our words through hand writing letters.  How many times have you written something on twitter and Facebook that you simply wish you hadn't said, or in a text message for that matter?  Realized that the person (political leader, friend, or acquaintance) you had just spend 140 characters berating or judging was just as sinful and broken as you were and really needed to seek forgiveness.  But forgiveness is hard when your words have been seen by your friends and family, also when the words have now been etched in the internet (I have a clue for you, even if you delete your post, the words are still out there somewhere).  I haven't written this to condemn words on social networks, but simply to say, maybe a bit of person to person handwriting will help us remember that we are indeed speaking to people and that our words carry tremendous weight.  See James 3:3-12 where the author speaks of our tongues being capable of great influence, both for good and bad. He compares the tongue to a spark that can set an entire forest ablaze. Therefore, we must remember how powerful words are and mean what we say. I think that taking time to write our words we can learn to tame them to be better used for encouraging one another.  This is reason number one why I want to begin pen-pal relationships with friends.

Using Snail-mail requires time and social energy to buy stamps.
So now that we're writing these letters, we need to make sure that we have enough postage to get them across the country to our peeps!  There is a certain huge lesson we can learn from buying stamps.  Going to the post office requires a huge amount of patience. You've been there before thinking: "OK I just need to make sure I have the right postage for this birthday card, and for this other small package. This shouldn't take too long right?" We are in a world now where waiting isn't something we're used to. So when we're at Starbucks or the post office, or Disney World we become kind of frustrated waiting in line. With our smartphone society we have become very good at killing time: Angry Birds, YouTube, Words With Friends, and Social Networking have become our new version of conversation.  We still complain when we have to wait in line even though we have the distractions we do. I want to urge myself to not pull out my iPhone whenever I am in line, I want to be able to observe the world we have around us, including the people who are in line or working at the particular establishment.  It's really hard to know how you can care for someone else if you're busy distracting yourself from your surroundings.  For all I know the person next to us could be someone we know (I'm guilty of this at the Gym especially), they could also be someone who is just crying for some interaction--I can't reach out to them if I'm in my "don't-bother-me-I'm-playing-candy-crush" mode!  So if we spend the time to wait in the line, and actually wait we will be shown many things.  We could be encouraged by the conversations we overhear, we can also hear other conversations that would bring us to prayer for someone who is hurting.

Abram got a change of name out of waiting (on God), and under his new name Abraham he was granted the Blessing of God to his family--which later became the nation of Israel. To be fair, Abraham had struggled (like we often do) with this concept of waiting.
Additionally the folks at the post office are doing their best and if we get agitated by the timeliness of their service (to us, mind you) we might become a bad customer and make their job harder for them to do with a smile on their face.  Patience can allow us to get to the counter to buy stamps and offer them the best of us, instead of the worst. A word about the kiosks:  you cant get really cool stamps like the Jimi Hendrix stamps I saw my bro with the other day. Lets think about it this way, we are relational beings: if we avoid relating to people we can cause damage to our nature, you never know having a little conversation with the post officer could make your day and you could impact their day for the better.  This is the biggest reason why I would love to write letters to you, friends and family.

Why wait?
The answer lies in our hearts. You know you love to read letters from people, the handwriting tells you how they're doing, the wrinkles on the page tell you that they had spent some time writing this, the scratched out words show that they cared to make the sentences proper.  You had no clue they were going to send you a letter, but it was such a blessing when you got it.  Lets pick up a pen and make an effort to enjoy waiting, share what is happening in your life--more than what is on your favorite social network. My generation is becoming known as the "I want it now" generation, this is problematic to me, because we also have such great ideas of how we wish the world could be shaped.  But we have to learn to wait on the Lord and others so that we can remember that our opinions count just as much as others'.

The Light is Coming

So I was driving home from my company's Christmas party and I noticed the Christmas lights illuminating the owner's yards, front porches, and entire properties... The amount of light and community feel this brought to all the neighborhoods was both beautiful and warming.

When I returned home I decided it was time for a good relaxing smoke of my pipe and some time alone (I sometimes do this as a time to get alone and just consider the truths of life in this world).  As I was smoking my pipe, I noticed the neighbors in the back yard. I have three or four neighbors who have lights strung up on their houses and the trees in their yards. I thought to myself about how beautiful the lights were and how appreciative I was that they would share this beauty with the neighborhood.

I considered our conversations at my church through the advent season; about us being a people who wait for a gift like Christ, about the generosity of a father who gives his son (and this world) to a wretched people like us! What about these people with their yards all ablaze with lights, inflatable snowmen, inflatable Santas, and singing about jingle bells??!! I was thinking about how beautiful their light displays were, thinking about how ugly the light display I created was!

Then the Father hit me with a realization. "Do these people know that there is a meaning behind putting lights on your house because of Christmas (the coming of Christ)?" Then I thought to myself, "Do I know of (or can think of a meaning) behind putting lights out for Christmas? Or even for lighting candles for this holiday?

God hit me with this one. Jesus Christ was meant to be a light. God sent him to be an example for those of us who are prone to sinning. We know this too (as believers in Christ, at least), that we are to be a light to the world. But, I think in the same instance that Christ was meant to be a light to any who would see it. Jesus came to be an example, to be a representation of God's promise to us.  He was also a fulfillment of God's promise to us, for us to have a King and a savior.

But what does this all mean with Christmas lights? Well, I think this means that especially during this time of year (the Advent, the coming of Christ, the fulfilling of a promise) that we are believers in a promise! We need to be reminded that we are loved by the creator of all which is around us and who is around us!  The people whom God has surrounded us by are a very important reason behind our belief. If we believe in Christ and do not seem to care about them or their feelings, we fail. Jesus would go to the people who were considered the worst kind of people and he would try to understand their pain. Who are we to say they don't belong or aren't worth a glance? The most important question these lights made me ask was "Do these people even know why they lights on their houses this time of year?" Of course this question led me to ask this question of the Internet (AKA I did research, imagine that); My research shows that Christmas lights were originally meant to light up the Christmas tree a few minutes for a couple of nights before Christmas day and the reasoning wasn't mentioned during the article. However, outdoor lights were started "as a tradition" and "as a marketing campaign" by someone in Thomas Edison's camp to get people to buy more light bulbs "this season."  You don't have to take my word for it, I can give reference if you request it. The question this asks of me is "Are we really putting lights up out side our houses because of Edison and the magical incandescent bulb, when all of this amazing 'Jesus' stuff is going on???"  It would seem (I'm afraid) that this is the case.

When I stood in my backyard with my pipe in my mouth, I wondered whether or not those lights were symbols of the Love of God and the Light of Christ. I am putting money on the fact that they represented the 'Lectricity of Edison and the Lust of goods instead.

I was encouraged, however, that there are so many people who are celebrating a holiday that was created for the Son of God and was wondering how easy it would be for that conversation to happen. "So what do your Christmas lights mean to you, neighbor Jim?" I am just curious how those conversations can go? Do we have a place to say something? Am I out of place assuming that my neighbors have a fetish for commercial lighting companies? Or that they are lighting their house for the light that Christ is? Or for the reminder that we should be a light?

Lets remember that this Christmas Christ is coming. He is coming as a promise to us from his and our Father, who is in heaven. Let's be encouraged by his faithfulness and his love to send someone he loves to suffer our suffering, to feel our pain and for us to experience his Love. Merry Christmas readers, He loves us Jesus and Christmas are a symbol of this to us!

Be yourself, free yourself.

Why are we so worried about what people think?  In the long run does it really matter? I would hope that if i really wanted to say something that was on my heart that they would not reject me if it was wrong or misguided. Unfortunately, for whatever reason we all have a hard time putting ourselves out there... I have a horrible problem with this. Most of you know me pretty well (if you don't, thanks for reading!). If i have met you, you probably thought I was either a mute, or that i didn't like you in the beginning.   I can attribute this to my inability to be myself towards new people. I tend to test out the waters with new people, something i see as a character problem on my part, i will be very quiet and reserved often not involved.  I am afraid of saying something wrong or offensive.  I am afraid of "being that guy" or of small talk, and most importantly i am afraid of showing too much interest. Why? I have no clue why I do this to my acquaintances.  If i have the chance to get to know someone in private i wont have a problem with it at all.

Now, to understand the reasoning behind all of this and to get to the "Dalton, why are you writing this right now" portion. Today in my small group we talked about silence, and how sometimes we say something to break the silence but we don't say the thing that needs to be said.  This brought me to the point where i was like "hey sometimes i don't say anything when something needs to be said, and i am OK with that" (but shouldn't be).  This must be rooted in my dis-trust in both people and God.

In my distrust of people because i fear how they will look at me for saying something or making a decision.  I have no clue where that distrust comes from or why i haven't learned to trust my good friends enough to really open up. I lately have felt alot of things going on in my life, but i really haven't opened up my heart to my buddies or been willing to share. Even with people i have shared with and who have shared with me in the past. Just today this started bothering me (which brings me to write this, and "live on the edge" a little).  I haven't really shared this blog with many people because i have been afraid of what people would think about my thoughts on God or what they would say about my writing skills (not quite college level most of the time).  Today I say, bring it.  I hope my blog helps you think and helps us have an open dialogue to talk about life with one another.   It's time i put more trust in my friends and family, and know that they'll (you'll) be there for me in thick and thin, good writing and bad.

It seems that I can trace a great deal of my issues back to not putting my full faith in the work God did/is doing/will do, in my life. How can this be? Is this tied in with my distrust in humans? Is it tied in with my high opinion of myself and my ability to "do things on my own"? To me: its gotta be all of the above. I have a tattoo that is pretty much a giant (formally painful) reminder to rely on Him and why (because he gave His offspring for us and hasn't stopped raining down mercy and grace).  Yet still sometimes i can stare at the suitcase and footprints (representing laying down my burdens) on my arm to help myself get out of the Yuck feeling i have in my stomach and my thick skull still has a hard time wrapping up my burden (anxiety, stress, fear... what have you). All i need to do is go to God and ask him to help my fear of rejection and know that He'll care for me, even if i get rejected to know that his comfort is so great.

Food for thought, if our eyes are on the cross how can we feel silly lookin' when we don't even know that we look silly because we are so focused on Him? I think the answer is that we will be different and perhaps bizarre but much more relaxed and loving.

The Delivery Driver Who Saves the Day

So, I work in a warehouse.

As you may, or may not know these places are generally dirty, hot, sweaty, depressing places where people are generally pinched into daily deadlines.  This place is no different. We run an Internet company and ship thousands of pieces a week with just a handful of people. Incoming, we have roughly the same amount of inventory. As you can imagine things get a bit tense from time to time. We all have good relationships with one another but things like this happen when you are under a crunch and its 85 degrees inside. "Woe is me" right? Nope! I love my job and the people I work with. But this is not a tale about them or me for that matter.

When we ship packages from the warehouse, drivers come to our dock and pick them up from us.  We share some words with them as we build relationships with them. It's always great to see them. One man in particular has had a positive affect on the morale at work. Every day at pretty much the same time his rugged, white panel truck backs up the driveway to the door.  The drivers side door pops open, he jumps out, and Spanish speaking radio pours out after him. He wears a smile from one ear to another, I figure he must be about 5'6".

"Heeeeey friend" he says.
"Hey man!" I respond.
"Are you good man?"  He is always showing this smile. He has a genuine happiness about him, it is so infectious. We usually trade stories from the day and do our normal business with the shipment. After no more than five minutes we say goodbye and he is on his way.  His name is Juan. I can only imagine that he must be having a rough go at it from time to time. But he never shows it to us. He's seen us at some of our worst. By the time he gets to our door we have been through the gauntlet usually and we are racing the clock. Paper cuts, tired eyes, and weary souls, we greet his attitude with open arms.

One day when Juan left, my friend Kenny asked me this:

"Do you notice something about him?"
"Yes, yes I do" I replied.
"Every time he leaves I can't stay upset or stressed, I just feel like everything is gonna be alright"
"I agree, too bad he doesn't get here first thing in the morning to get us started on the right foot!"

I have been thinking about this for a couple of weeks. Juan has been visiting our warehouse every day for about a month now and he hasn't failed to lighten the mood yet. We all look forward to it now.

Now that story time is over, on to brass tacks.... How do people react to us?  What is the taste left in their mouths when we depart? Are they asking what is so special about us? Or are they saying, "Wow another person who is too busy/too tired/too bored/too self-interested/too pessimistic?"  Or is it important to show your stripes? Is it important to let people know that you are hurting, sad, lonely, or agitated?

I know that I would like to be the kind of person who people go, "wow this guy is drinking some kind of Kool-aid to be this joyful, free, and caring! I want some of that!"

I want to believe that Juan is on Jesus-crack. I want to believe that he is high-on-life, and is really this happy all the time, while he is "considering the ravens," [Luke 12:24-26] since they don't worry about what they will eat or drink and they live for today. Nobody can be that happy all the time, is it part of being separated from the Lord that we are meant to struggle through our life at times?  I am kind of ranting at this point. But, I created this blog to get all the tangled wires out. So, I continue....

If I am to believe that we will see trials, which we do; then do I share my lamentations with people who might be needing a smile, a friend, somebody to help them through the day? Should I be a "Juan" for those people? I think maybe yes i should try, but it would all be in vain if it's not backed by love. This brings it all back to myself.  The water tower of care is not a water tower if it is not filled with love, without that love it is just a shell. The internal work is the key.  The faith in knowing that God will provide (like he does for the ravens) will free my heart and soul to be what He wants me to be in the world.  It's amazing how often Jesus talked about this moment and how important it is to be present.

Forcing myself to be kind wouldn't be prudent, although being a curmudgeon wouldn't be great either. Putting my trust in what He has seems to be the best way to become liberated and see more of the joy his kingdom has in store! Go to him first and the fruits of the spirit will fall into place, I heard that once (maybe more) and it seems fitting here. That is all.

What is this The End?

The date is March 23, 2012. 

Its been a rough month, things are kinda crazy for me now. I cannot believe the people who have left my existence. They haven't departed from my life on bad terms, the nature of life in this case has steered them out of my sight. One is a girl I was dating from 1300 miles away, if you could believe that. The other is my oldest living relative. She passed at age ninety-six. I am not bitter or angry that the girl decided to break it off, these kind of relationships are difficult but that is for another time. Heaven knows I asked a great deal of questions about these edits to my life. Had all of this occurred a year prior I would have handled it quite differently (see: anger, depression, self doubt, whisky, and so-on).  The events of this night put my life into a different arrangement and fear now rules....

The rain is coming down at a pace that can be described as less than pouring but not much more than a sprinkle. My clothes are sticking to the fake leather seats of my car since i got rained on. The windows of the coupe my coupe are beginning to fog up, starting where the droplet sit, indicating that the temperature is cooling off quickly. 

 I have the music turned up loud, and when I say loud i mean that its so loud I can't hear myself think and that is the idea. My mind tends to run rampant in the car if I don't do this "thought-deafening" drowning out the thoughts actually does bring me some form of clarity about whatever is ailing me emotionally.  

As I drive down the dark road MUTEMATH is pumping through the speakers, the pace encourages me to speed up. Quick note: it would be nearly impossible to do the speed limit while listening to this band. My head is cleared up now, I am enjoying the return to my parent's suburban home and observing all that is around me.  Buds on the trees displaying that pale green that they do in spring. Some flowers have fallen to the streets from the hail earlier. Also on the road I notice the glaze of liquid trickling from the high points to the gutters on the sides. 

It looks like a wavy, black mirror and distracts me for a good portion of my ride home. Street lamps, stop lights, and other cars' headlights cast what seems like shadows on the black asphalt mirror.  The light redirects to me in streams  that look like they could be light emitting themselves and last about two hundred yards. I follow the green stream up from the hood of my car to it's source just as I am about to cross under the light. What i see when I pass the light and am still looking up towards the light is what I didn't want to see.

Just above the trees and off to the left I spot a tower of some sort. This tower is no ordinary tower, nor have I ever seen anything similar to that near here.   The details are hard to make out because the rain is making the air grey and they sky is overcast.  The sky is brighter than it should be, lights from downtown must be reflecting off of the clouds. Thanks to the city clouds I can make out the shape of the structure as if it was set out on a enormous light table. 

This is a tower. It must be at least 200 feet tall or 20 stories, certainly bigger than anything we have around here. From my perspective it looks bigger than the mountains, but i know it is not. The main structure is either round or triangular.  Off of the center pillar there are three feet or maybe they are buttresses extending a third of the way up. The pillar continues up until there is only about maybe 20 feet to the top, then on the very top of the structure it looks to be a giant daisy shape.  Several extensions branch out like petals from the "stem" they extend to about the same diameter as the buttresses.  The petals look flimsy and fragile almost like real petals, but looking at the rest of the structure I am certain they are very strong if they are to be of any importance. 

What could the purpose of this thing be? And why keep its construction a secret? 

By this time I am one of the only people on the road. The vehicle curves right to make it's way to my house. The rain is till coming down just a little harder now. I pull the car into the gravel pad next to the house.  While walking up the sidewalk to my front door I notice that there is now a light being pushed out from where the tower's petals are.  This light seems to be pulsing with higher and higher frequency until it appears to be on full power, the light is quite bright, but not bright like a flashlight, its bright like white.  I pull my keys out and fumble for the deadbolt one. "Got it!" I think as i pinch the metal between my fingers. I look to the sky once more.  This device is now shooting light from the petals up to the very top of the tower. which is now glowing like amber and reflecting the light skyward.  The color of the reflected light can only be described as burgundy.  Something about this light was also very strange, it was pumping as if by a heart.  Is this some kind of artery? 

Not much more than two seconds after the arterial light started the rain changed color. Emerald droplets fell from the sky.  I watch in astonishment and awe. As the beauty of the rain fades, the horror of it quickly takes hold.  The rain is melting everything except for the houses. The tree in the front yard is disintegrating from the top down even the rocks buffering the tree from the grass are turning to pebbles. I look right to the gravel slab, yep, my car is slowly disappearing.  The squirrels in the tree are the same, i am standing under the covering on the porch but they are exposed and dripping away, poor things.  This rain must have be some kind of a turpentine rain, dissolving the outside world and leaving us with bedrock and houses.

Clearly somebody wants us to be living in a different way. They want us to re-prioritize our lives. I hope we have a good stockpile of food because undoubtedly this will have ruined any chances for anybody to produce food. 


The sun is making its first appearance the next morning, the rain has run away. Bedrock, houses and people inside the houses are all that remain when I peer through the blinds of the front door. We will have to learn how to be a community of people who work together now. This neighborhood wasn't built by individual families, but it could fall by individual families. And that's when I realize,  COMMUNITY, that is what this was about, the desired result of the tower is for people to learn how to do what we were built for: relating on a personal level. 


Maybe I can be thankful for this after-all; its terrifying, its ludicrous, its Turpentine Rain..... 

Where to start? Presidential style promises, hopeful outlooks.

So I determined I would start a blog. My ideas and thoughts tend to overrun me from time to time. This is the purpose of this blog: to get these things out of my head. If y'all wanna read it, then so be it. Otherwise, maybe eventually I'll be confident enough in my storytelling and writing to be willing to share this outwardly.

The basic idea of this is simple. I will be posting in no regular time frame. My thoughts will hopefully be inspired and guided by God. There will be photographs, short stories, and traditional style (this-is-my-life) sort of posts. I hope that my journey through the caves of my mind can be an experience of growth for you as well as it is for me.

God has been nagging me at this for a while. Somehow I guess micro blogging (via twitter) was not the type of expression he is building me up for. Perhaps I am doing this solely on my own, wanting a different kind of adventure (I have never been much of a writer). I would love for my stories, near-stories, thoughts, and experiences to bring praise to the Lord. It being most important to realize that he owns the full rights to my stories. He gave me breath, He gave me my experiences, my troubles, my victories, my love, my regrets, and my savior.

lets get this show on the dusty, twisty, narrow, road shall we?