Pleasant surprises...

I've heard that sometimes our "dis" appointments are "His" appointments.

I was recently saddened by the loss of my racquetball partner, Vicci. Nothing serious. She moved to Moscow, Idaho to take a new job. But we've been playing racquetball once, sometimes twice a week for three years. We had fun. We worked off calories and enjoyed it. But it's over. Wah! That was a month ago.

In my "sorrow" I've been looking around for someone else to play with, and last week I got an e-mail invite to go to my high school's homecoming football game. I jumped at the chance because one of my favorite classmates, Tim, was organizing the "event."

As I was driving to the game last Thursday, I recalled that Tim had been pretty athletic and had even played quite a bit of handball, back in the day. So during the game I talked some smack and floated the idea with Tim. I followed it up with an e-mail, and we played today.

It was fun! We both worked off some calories. No one got mad. We might do it again.

Losses and crosses often bring with them dark hours, but... in our disappointments, we usually find that God has His appointments. (And if losing a racquetball partner is my biggest "problem," then life is good!) My loss is very minor, but it mattered to me, so I've been on the look out... And now, things are looking up!

Why blog?

Why spend time blogging? Why ponder? Isn't that the job of philosophers?

A professor of philosophy (Dykstra) once said, "There should be no philosophy department, but a philosopher in every department."

Philosophers ponder the big questions like "why?" (Just like little children.) In school we spend the majority of our time learning the answers to who, what, where, when, and how. The big question of "why" is often left for PhD students to ponder.

For example, in becoming a teacher I was asked in an introductory education class to write on the topic, "What is your philosophy of education?" I was never asked again.

So much of our learning is piece-meal and disconnected because we lack a unifying schema. Unifying world-views or paradigms come when we dig a bit deeper. When we ask, "Why?" When we ponder. Or perhaps, when we blog!

Blog on!

Goal setting (problem definition)

Instead of hogging all of Joanna's comment space, here's an "independent" thought of my own.

I was reading The One Minute Teacher this last summer and created an interesting paraphrase regarding setting a goal. Often I find myself wondering how to spend my time, focus my energies, or just overcome lethargy... This helped...

Use your head and heart to find out what would make you feel good about yourself.

That's the seed of a goal: big or small.

Most of my present musings...

are currently in response to Joanna's thoughts at

http://fromtheheartofjoanna.blogspot.com/

She just started her blog, so check it out.

This is just to say...

hello.

I'm here.

Now I can comment on Joanna's blog!