balance.

February 20th, 2010 § 0

in con­ver­sa­tion with my girl­friend dur­ing a car ride to a local eatery, the topic of emo­tion & logic came about. in an attempt to be more con­tem­pla­tive indi­vid­u­als, we explored this; your wel­come, socrates. LOL

emo­tion & reason

emo­tion can be a very con­vinc­ing agent. both social and cor­po­rate media under­stand this just about as well as any­body does. when the magic made the finals in ’09 own­er­ship spent well over 10mill in lux­ury tax in ros­ter changes in excite­ment of cre­at­ing a dynasty that breeds cham­pi­onships, an excite­ment that led to sell­ing out sea­son tick­ets the fol­low­ing year. or when feb­ru­ary 14 comes around, soci­ety sells the emo­tion of ‘love’ and ‘romance’ in the air, an excite­ment that causes many men to go broke (just kid­ding). emo­tion though at times can lead peo­ple to pas­sions that are not well directed. ‘snap­ping’ or ‘blowing-up’ at an indi­vid­ual is emo­tion in its full-on pas­sion­ate form, it lacks the acknowl­edge­ment in that moment because it is dri­ven by emo­tion alone. the thing about emo­tion is that it is short term. it acts on impulses. it acts on desires. it acts on now.

rea­son on the other hand, is smart. it ana­lyzes. it knows its not the end of the world, or if it is, its prob­a­bly true LOL. rea­son allows for cities to be built. orga­ni­za­tions to be ran. when the magic made the finals in ’09 own­er­ship brought in vince carter to deliver a clutch time shot maker to bury the celtics, cavs and lak­ers (in that order). it did so because it felt it was the best chance of win­ning. log­i­cally, it makes sense, it is also a fact they most cer­tainly will. rea­son, as with emo­tion, can be erro­neous. a busi­ness­man who seeks only profit will never invest in the good of soci­ety if invest­ments in other indus­tries yield a more prof­itable account. in this sense, rea­son in its full-on log­i­cal form can­not see what’s to his left, or to his right, but only means to an end. rea­son seeks long term. rea­son sees facts.

heart & mind

emo­tion is the expres­sion of the heart. rea­son is the seek­ing of truth. emo­tion seeks to Love. rea­son seeks to Know. these two enti­ties of are not called to be received in a dom­i­na­tion of one over the other, for we know the pit­falls of each. but in a har­mony to please God. Eros seek­ing Agape. the Word being fath­omed. this is the great­est and most impor­tant request of Christ of us: Mt 22:37–38.

‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.

under­stand­ing how much empha­sis and care­ful detail Jesus put into His words when He spoke, i love how this piece of scrip­ture doesnt say to love with ONLY your mind, or with ONLY your heart. the empha­sis on the bal­ance of these two, not plac­ing one over the other reveals to us; actions lead only by heart alone, or by mind alone, does not bring our utmost to Him.

for this lenten sea­son i hope to be a more bal­anced indi­vid­ual. not so much emo­tion so when i fail a fast i don’t lose sight of the rea­son for the sea­son. or too much logic where i ratio­nal­ize or even lose touch of the heart of lent. but a bal­ance of when i fail on one, the other would keep me bal­anced. that through any chal­lenge gone bad, i could lean on my foothold of my mind for God, and my heart for God.

bring nothing to the desert.

February 17th, 2010 § 0

im not gonna lie. ive been hav­ing a hard time deter­min­ing what to fast this year LOL. as minis­cule and triv­ial as that sounds, there’s already a les­son Gods try­ing to get at me.

the more excuses i make for not giv­ing some­thing up, the big­ger the rea­son i have to give it up. in con­ver­sa­tion with a friend it dawned on us; lent isnt about giv­ing up whats con­ve­nient, its not even about a time for oppor­tu­ni­ties to bet­ter your self (because lets face it, if you were really wait­ing for lent to make your self bet­ter you suck). it’s first real­iz­ing how filled our desires are with wordly things, shed­ding light as to how our desires no longer yearn for heaven, but for com­fort. then when we finally do get to that state of empti­ness, star­va­tion & des­per­a­tion are we united in Christ’s suffering.

God + me + des­o­la­tion = Lent.
Lord give us the endurance to be mind­ful of You.

it’s about to be that time again..

February 16th, 2010 § 0

40 days, and 40 nights.

along with what­ever fast i can come up with for lent this year. im gonna try to make it a point to be more reflec­tive. hope i can keep up with it. i think it’d be cool to look back at just how puri­fy­ing lent can be.

affirmhood.

February 11th, 2010 § 0

while in gainesville the other day i was able to catch up with a good friend at a pan­era. in catch­ing up we talk about life, reli­gion, and most per­plex­ingly, girl­friends. LOL

while its no secret that men have a defi­ciency in being sen­si­tive, detailed and all things women related; it should come with no sur­prise that inevitably, dis­agree­ments hap­pen and some­times arguments.

what i loved about dis­cours­ing with a fel­low brother in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion (not to men­tion at one point sim­i­lar cir­cum­stance), is that the more we shared of the ‘prob­lems’ in our respec­tive rela­tion­ships, the more we real­ized that they weren’t really prob­lems; just the dif­fer­ences between man and woman being real­ized. in talk­ing it out we also refer to other sis­ters’ advice in under­stand­ing the things girls find dis­turb­ing, and guys find illog­i­cal. piec­ing together the puz­zle we real­ize our often thought griev­ances were in real­ity gaps in under­stand­ing of the sexes. & through our sim­i­lar­i­ties in chal­lenges; affir­ma­tion, brother to brother.

i think that in know­ing that youre not alone in some­thing, gives a sense of com­fort that youre not some­where God doesnt want you. & for some peo­ple, that youre not an out­cast in a world that is ‘per­fect’. broth­er­hood. sis­ter­hood. God’s tools to affirm us that He is def­i­nitely present around us, through us, in us.

dinner: ribs

February 9th, 2010 § 0

quite pos­si­bly one of the top 5 din­ner entrees pre­pared for a meal. cour­tesy of my awe­some girl­friend; kim­berly anne ambayec ~ my stom­ach salutes you.

» Read the rest of this entry «

anyway.

February 9th, 2010 § 0

peo­ple are unrea­son­able, illog­i­cal, and self-centered,
love them any­way
if you do good, peo­ple will accuse you of
self­ish, ulte­rior motives,
do good any­way
if you are suc­cess­ful,
you win false friends and true ene­mies,
suc­ceed any­way
the good you do will be for­got­ten tomor­row,
do good any­way
hon­esty and frank­ness make you vul­ner­a­ble,
be hon­est and frank any­way
what you spent years build­ing may be
destroyed overnight,
build any­way
peo­ple really need help
but may attack you if you help them,
help peo­ple any­way
give the world the best you have
and you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
give the world the best you’ve got any­way. » Read the rest of this entry «

Reflex!

February 6th, 2010 § 1

annnd silence.

God is Good? All the Time!!!

And the crowd goes wild. It’s a change for me being at a dis­cov­ery camp, being so old that I don’t know how to relate to the youth. But even with all the years of dif­fer­ence. The one thing, gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion, that remains the com­mon denom­i­na­tor: God is revered, God
is sought, God is Love.

Los Cabos

February 5th, 2010 § 1

i must admit i wasn’t really excited to go to cabos apart from being there for char­lie and melita’s wed­ding. but as it turns out, it wasn’t half bad + noth­ing short of amaz­ing. the peso to dol­lar ratio was only 12:1, and it doesnt help that most every­thing in tourist-infested cabos was expen­sive to begin with. but man, you cant beat the view, the food, or the com­pany. top 10 high­lights from the trip:

» Read the rest of this entry «

complete.

February 4th, 2010 § 1

no more. fin­ished. compleanos.

my web­site edit­ing is com­plete. enough time wasted in front of the com­puter try­ing to make my blog who only one per­son reads any­way (hi kim =).

GO GATORS! stay­ing true to annual tra­di­tions. a post of con­grat­ul­tions to my Florida Gators. (im an hon­orary mem­ber since my girl­friend goes there). an insanely great class com­ing in. the next 4 years looks good urban. well done.
» Read the rest of this entry «

friendster.

February 2nd, 2010 § 0

you would think i JUST wrote this. but you couldnt be more wrong. you could try, but you’d be wrong.

I want to meet a girl that watches the his­tory chan­nel, has a hard time choos­ing between foot­ball and bas­ket­ball as her favorite. can play gui­tar and sing, but doesnt have to sing well, but sounds cute when she does. bonus points for snorts dur­ing laugh­ter and love for sugared-spam with rice. Answers my weird sce­nario ques­tions with thought, asks what about you;. some­one funny mean and nice all at once. Fam­ily ori­ented with a Pas­sion for God.

Friend­ster — Fer­nan Caparas… 2003