Tuesday, December 30, 2008

social lite (republish)

i wrote this ad for caffeine rarely works awhile back... i figured i'd dig it up and publish it again until i resume writing january 2nd. enjoy!
new! lo carb interaction! a revolution in avoiding deep, interesting and fattening conversations! try SOCIAL LITE!!!! a one month supply is only 39.99!!! this otc medication helps you keep your eyes from focusing, enables your hearing to diminish and reduces brain activity! (this is only for those people who wish to reduce their interaction with friends, relatives and co workers because of hidden fears, resentment or other physiological social inhibitors. ) why face reality when you have SOCIAL LITE!!!! call 1- 888-SHUT-UP now to order your free sample!!!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

tis the season

from all of us here at the caffeine rarely works world headquarters to you and yours- have a wonderful christmas and a great start to the new year!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

ripening

yesterday was my 25th birthday. it's a wierd feeling, turning a quarter century old. with this in mind, i spent this morning contemplating where i am at in life.
not only am i 25 years old, i am an uncle to an awesome 3 year old nephew. i have been married for two and a half years to my beautiful wife and my first child is due to be born this coming in april. i was born south of boston and now live east of orlando. i wanted to be a pilot when i was 10 and today i play music and work in a corporate office.
i'm ripening. that's what i arrived on today.
i remember watching mom's tomatoes grow in her little garden; complete with marigolds to ward off the maurading ant armies. the tomatoes would arrive on the vine tiny and green (one time i tried to eat one and i will never try that again!) and over the course of several days, their shade would slowly progress from green to yellow and from yellow to red. i used to get impatient waiting for them to be ripe; wondering why they didnt just emerge as ready-to-eat tomatoes just waiting to be placed on a salad. but just as any life on earth takes time to mature, those tiny green tomatoes needed time to develop and ripen before they were ready to be used.
i'm ripening. 25 years ago, i arrived; a tiny green bud on a vine. i wasn't ready to fall in love or dream about being a pilot, i was crying and cold and missing my mother's womb. i had a long way to go cus it takes time to ripen. 15 years ago, watching jet contrails stream overhead, wondering what being in a cloud was like; the greenish hue began to slowly give away to yellow. 10 years ago, dealing with teen age awkwardness, i didnt notice the faint red spots beginning to show in all the yellow and green. and i kept on ripening...
i think that yesterday, though, was the day i noticed just how much red is really showing...

Thursday, December 11, 2008

unsaved money

there is currently a billboard up around town emblazoned with the following "quote": "save money, and money will save you."
money will save you. interesting statement. every time i go out and purposefully spend money- i look for deals and never pay full price for anything- i try to save money. despite that its still tight times for the conti household and money sure aint growing on trees. if there was ever a time for all that money i saved to now save me- now is the time! but money has not saved me. why is this?
1 Timothy 6:10 states why. "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." And that is why money won't be saving me anytime soon. It's really quite hard to imagine "a root of all sorts of evil" SAVING me! i believe that in the heart of most men lies the desire to want to be pulled from the circumstances they are caught in and be rescued. so why would we believe that evil could save us?
faith. it's a hard pill to swallow. it's very easy to look at a one dollar bill and know that it exists and that it can provide what it promises to provide. God, on the other hand, lies beyond our grasp and view; asking us to trust that He will provide what He promised He will provide and we must rely on faith, not sight. and thusly i believe faith is the differential between our trust in money or God. after all the verse above clearly states that money will sometimes cause some to leave the faith. faith: the evidence of things unseen. therein begins our struggle.
in these economic times there is a battle between money and faith that we must make ourselves aware of. we look at our checkbooks and wallets and beg the stock market to surge and a new president to bailout our drowning economic system. we look at what we have and wish for just to survive. we look at what we can see and it destroys our hope. we stampede store workers just to save money so it will save us. we apply for more and more credit cards to give the appearance that money can save us. we exhaust the resources we can see, desperately begging money to save us and come up short even still. we have fallen away from faith.
faith. why does God go so far as to say "Blessed are you poor, because the Kingdom of God is yours." (Luke 6:20)? because the rich have already established their god and their kingdom of money. they have no need for what they cant see. Jesus states: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God". those engorged in the love of money (see my previous blog "a love of money") have no use for faith because what they can see is what they choose to believe in.
God tells David: "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and all it contains.". (Psalm 50:10-12) Basically God is telling us He owns the world. That He is far richer than any one man. The world is His. all we need to do to tap into His endless provision is believe in Him. That He is our saviour. How do we do this? through faith.
faith. the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. our love of money will not save us. it's a stormy downdraft that will rip us from the sky and slam us into the ground, destroying us. just like birds that leap from trees limbs, trusting that the unseen air will lift them up- we can leave the ground behind and soar if we trust in the plan of our unseen Saviour.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

url

i've been quite active online lately and have run into a few great blogs. i love to find bloggers that are in the world but not of the world, if you catch my drift.
links are not linked 1. because i might be lazy and 2. the lost art of copy and paste may die.

sports with a proper twist: www.prayersforblowouts.com

my father in law's gifted insights are at: www.glimmerman55.blogspot.com

do you like what they like? find out: stuffchristianslike.blogspot.com

go deeper: www.97secondswithgod.blogspot.com


and if anyone out there has twitter- im on twitter now! www.twitter.com/analoguepilot
follow me if you'd like up to the minute insights from yours truly!