Monster Meditation: Psalm 3

¹ O Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!

² Many are saying of me,
"God will not deliver him."
Selah

³ But you are a shield around me, O Lord;
you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.

⁴ To the Lord I cry aloud,
and he answers me from his holy hill.
Selah

⁵ I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.

⁶ I will not fear the tens of thousands
drawn up against me on every side.

⁷ Arise, O Lord!
Deliver me, O my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.

⁸ From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.
Selah

I'm thrilled to not have tens of thousands of enemies chasing me down and craving my demise. This psalm, because of the pursuit (this is David running from the forces of his own son, Absalom), carries a hefty load of power. The first two verses sound frantic, or maybe just David struck with the gravity of the situation. But he moves quickly to his hope and salvation. Verse three's comparison to God as a shield is all sorts of cool. I don't picture it so much as a typical shield from movies or from Warcraft, but more like a shield from Diddy Kong Racing--a brightly colored, swirling number of rays that allow no harm to come to you and knock enemies back if they touch it. This shield, for David, is so trustworthy, so sturdy, that despite the masses that gather to hunt him down, he can sleep peacefully. I don't know that I have that much faith or not. I suppose I'm blessed to have not had to test it in such dire circumstances. Either way, this faith and assurance is remarkable.

Verse seven seems to get violent, and I wasn't entirely sure how to receive it. It makes me think of the curb-stomp in American History X (what with the breaking teeth and all). Then the idea settled on me--God means business. However people want to paint God, the fact will remain that God does not tolerate rebellion. Nowadays, we wait for Christ's coming and the end of the thousand years for the obliteration of evil. But God also watches out for those who are true to Him (as said in Psalm 1). I don't think it makes God out to be any more harsh, but rather protective. Like a parent, He will do what he must to protect His children. Unfortunately, Satan often has so much of a hold, such an implantation of hate stuck into so many, the only way to protect people from the clutches of evil will be to eliminate those that are evil.

WoW II

Last Friday, my wife came home and had a hankering for some MMORPG action. We hadn't played World of Warcraft sine January, and truly, I was convinced that I'd not play it again, that I'd have the willpower to resist the urge. 

Alas.

With her reopening her account, I've tried to avoid contact with with the life-sucking force that is WoW. But I've found that, really, I just want to be around my wife while she plays. In the months without WoW, we have spent more time watching TV and movies, playing Catan (an equally powerful life-sucker), or playing video games in the basement (separate TVs, but the same room at least). So I fear that I will succumb to the siren call of Warcraft once again. As soon as I get my PC back from my computer-savvy friend, I'm sure I'll hop online and begin the lengthy process of downloading who knows how many patches that have come out since January.

It's saddens me a bit to know that I am willingly going to plunge back into the Warcraft World, but with Star Wars: The Old Republic on its way, I know that I wouldn't be holding out for much longer anyhow. Fair well, analog world.

Should Have Been Updating

Usually, if I don't update, it's because nothing is going on. In the last week, however, my life is packed full of stuff, and all along the way I was thinking, "I need to blog this." Mostly it all boils down to my fear that my laptop (the one from work) will die soon. I don't know how old it is, but I've seen a lot of people I work with shriek with rage as one by one, their older work laptops flicker out. So I've been trying to not use it much this week and instead wait for my wife to come home with her much nicer, much newer laptop on which I feel safe.

By far the coolest and most important thing I've been involved with since last week was my church's community outreach on Sunday. We connected with Lincoln's city mission and sponsored a day at the park for parent's and kids who don't get the opportunity to run around and forget about life. To watch it was like watching a good sunrise. Kids were having a blast, adults were having a good time, and a billion hot dogs were eaten. My favorite moment was a three or four-year-old who dropped an egg during an egg toss. His faced scrunched, his fists balled, and he stomped the hell out of that egg. Yolk flew and splattered. Then he smiled the biggest smile.

I also had some thoughts about stupid people that might make a quality reflection, my wife started her World of Warcraft account again (making me want to follow her lead), and my brother went to Guam yesterday. So, because I've heard that people have often enjoyed my typically short entries, I'll leave you with this and get back to these other things tomorrow.

Tech-Savy

So, for being Summer, I'm amazed at how busy I am. It's probably because last Summer was centered entirely on World of Warcraft, but I honestly feel quite busy so far. I've been taking a class through the university that focuses on ways to utilize technology in a writing class. It is awesome. When I think of any of the classes I've had that are supposed to enhance my teaching and classroom activities, I kind of want to throw up--they've just all been so horrid. This, however, is just plain fun. We've been dinking around with podcasting, iMovie, Comic Life, Wordle, wikis, nings, blogs, Twitter. The list goes on. It's made me realized what a nerd I truly am. Not just a Star Wars, video game kind of nerd, but a Dexter's Lab kind of nerd. I'm seriously just loving everything we've gone over.

This is the last week of the class, so I'm hoping that things calm down a bit more for me. I did my final presentation yesterday, so already, I feel like I have more time (hence my return to the blogging). Unfortunately, I have to take another class in about two weeks. And after this tech class, I fear that the next will be disappointing.

Gasp!

Yipes! Life has been incredibly busy. New semester leaves my head spinning with resolutions and the like, leaving little time to do a whole lot else. Trying to keep up on grades and the like is nutty, writing is also nutty since I have been trying to keep up on grades, I preach next week at my church, a movie-fest to clean for this weekend, trying to learn how to speed read so I can more efficiently do all sorts of reading related activities...the list goes on--for a little while.

Sorry to have not been writing. Hopefully, I'll cope with my responsibilities and organize more.

On the good news, I've not played WoW in over a week and I'm feeling fine. I say that I may quit altogether for a good chunk, but my wife still wants to play. Alas...addictions.

Monday begins a new week, and hopefully a more productive one.

Colonel Pickering and the X-Men

Over the weekend, I went to Colorado to see my youngest brother perform in My Fair Lady. It was awesome. He not only did a great job, but did all he could to steal the show. And steal it he did. The thing that threw me off was that a lot of his antics were not cleared with the play's director. Gutsy. But for this show, it worked well. The best part, is that he dedicated his performance to my other brothers and me.

However, the good times were slowed as I was battling a cold for most of the weekend. Grr. It's still hanging on, but I hope to be rid of it by tomorrow. If not, then life will be quite irritating.

Wrath of the Lich King looks awesome, but I have yet to really play it. I got on last night expecting more people online, but was all alone. So I dropped it and moved on to my newest obsession: X-Men the animated series. This gem of the mid-nineties has been great entertainment and fed my nerd-hunger for many hours last night. So good.

Friendly Times

This weekend, my wife and I went to Missouri to see a what I can only call a friend of the highest quality. She's awesome. And I think what makes it great is that we don't stay in touch, but when we come together, we have endless amounts of material to discuss and laugh about. Life was good.

Every year, she has a get together call "The Singe" during which a bonfire is made that scorches your soul. I had never seen such a thing. The wood stack was taller than me before we lit it, and flames licked over twenty feet in the air.

In general, fire is awesome. With this fire, I loved it even more as I could see the purple chasing the orange through the wood until the orange jumped into sparks and embers. I was in a trance for a greater part of the evening.

When getting home, I logged on to WoW to see if my brothers were on. Zach was, of course, and he asked if I wanted to run around with his guild after the expansion comes out on Thursday. I said it sounded great. Then he told me that it would be a "time commitment." I have no trouble with commitment, but I had to ask how severe this would be. Four nights a week from 7-11. Yipes. Since I've been trying to cut back on my gaming in general, this seemed like a bad idea. And now, I'm convinced it is. Not looking forward to telling him, "Love to, but I'm trying to live."

Cursed Practice

So I went a-writing yesterday and it was pretty sweet except for the fact that I couldn't remember where I left off in my book. I don't know how long it has been since I wrote about the misadventures of my character, Cid, but I had to reread three chapters just to remember what things were like in his world. No good.

I bellow at my students often enough about the importance of practicing one's writing. And though I try to keep this up to not lose touch with the writer within, I don't write near as much. It's probably Warcraft's fault...that game ruins lives.

No excuses, though. Only explanations. I need to keep up. I must. The lives of my characters depend on it.