I'm Ba-ack!

Ok, this post is based on the potentially flawed and pride-induced assumption that someone out there reads this blog regularly and has missed it these past several weeks. But i guess it's possible so i'll run with it.

Probably not a day passes that i don't think of something i could blog about, but i'm not always at a computer at the time. But, even when i get to a computer, i usually have something else that is both urgent and important to do. So for a while i limited myself to blogging only on my day off. That worked great for a few weeks. Then i discovered that my apartment looks much better if i clean it on my day off instead of blogging and other computer stuff. Then i discovered that cleaning my house takes all day and still doesn't get finished.

So, for the past few weeks my house has been much cleaner but the blog has been neglected. I guess it was worth it. But now i have a few minutes to blog about some of the things that have been simmering during that time, and to reassure my hypothetical regular readers that i do still exist and i don't intend to neglect the blog forever.

So what's been going on in my head?

• I read (for a class) Steve DeNeff's book Whatever Became of Holiness, which i highly reccommend to any Christian who seeks to follow God with his or her whole heart. I'm not sure if anyone's ever heard of this book outside of the Wesleyan denomination, but it is incredible. If you're anything like me it will make you seriously stop and think about where you are in your Christian life, and it will make you thirst for more.
  
• I've been pondering why our American culture has so many areas where direct communication is inappropriate. This makes it very difficult, it seems, to establish honest, open relationships or to address and solve many problems.
  
• I've wondered whether gardening is a spiritual exercise or just a hobby.
  
• I've discovered that blogging makes you especially succeptible to pride. You only blog if you assume that someone else will want to read what you say. Often you blog because you think other people would be better off if they would read what you have to say. And after you've been blogging for a while you start to wonder if it could lead to a career as an author. Even if you didn't have any desire to be an author before - you can end up fancying you'll be the next Donald Miller.
  
• I've wondered if buying an MP3 player would be an act of spiritual discipline because it would allow me to listen to Christian music that i enjoy in my car (as opposed to the radio options of oft-questionable secular music or christian radio that annoys me), or if it would be yet another frivolous purchase in the face of world hunger.
  
• I've wondered if buying a nice, new, leatherbound Bible would be an act of worship (since a nice Bible honors the sacredness of the Scriptures), or if it would be frivolous (see above) or prideful (look at me, i'm such a nice Christian, i have this nice pretty Bible).
  
• I've wondered whether keeping my house clean is a spiritual discipline or a distraction from seeking God and His kingdom.