Faith-Based Blog a blog about faith from a believer with bandwidth

Traveling a Little Bit Heavier

Amazon shipment dropped on my desk a day earlier than anticipated. That's surely one of life's little unexpected pleasures.

I've had a bit of pent-up energy over the last two days to do two things in my free time: crack open Galatians a bit more to do the handwritten thing with it; and find some time to get the fingers back in shape for the new guitar. I've been better at the latter than the former. I remember back in the day when I played roller hockey while I was working way too many hours in retail management. I'd go home dead tired, trudging through a 20-mile trek home. But on nights where there was an over-30 pickup game scheduled, I'd be totally recharged as soon as I loaded my equipment into the car to make another 20-mile trek even further north to play maybe 2 hours worth of roller hockey. Usually, this meant feeling like I was near death as I drove home at 9pm, only to return home from funtime around midnight ... totally ready to do anything.

Having the new guitar around is a bit like that. I spent a mere two hours with it last night doing drills and a few easy tunes. Could have spent two more if it wasn't too late to bug the neighbors with my infernal racket. The fingers hurt like crazy, but it's the kind of hurt you don't mind playing through. The "music" is sometimes dreadful (note to self: metronome ... soon!). But the experience is fun and rewarding. Probably doesn't hurt that it's a pretty sweet guitar that's more fun to play than any other guitar that I've had in my hands.

As things stand with that handwritten thing, there's some set-aside time on Saturday but I still need to force the habit a bit on the weekdays. That said, diving into Eugene Peterson's commentary on Galatians is a nice enticement. Similarly, I've belatedly noticed that Rich Nathan (of Vineyard Columbus) is preaching through Galatians. Obviously, I've been a bit behind in catching up on his sermons. But I made it through two of the five posted online in one day's span. All that to say that there's a bit of hope that I'll be highlighting a bit of commentary here on the blog from either Peterson and/or Nathan as I look for more quality time to spend with ink and paper.

That is, if the 12-hour workday doesn't wear me down first ;-)

SIDENOTE: The Internet Monk has two parts of a review up of Peterson's "Practice Resurrection" by guest-blogger, Chaplain Mike. I'm hoping to save the book for reading after "Traveling Light" in the hope that it serves as motivation for me to breeze through the first book. We'll see how that goes.