welcome to the wilderness

Josue esta en Mexico la semana proxima,

2009-03-30T23:19:00.000-07:00

that’s right I am leaving in seven hours to a little town called Vicente Guerrero about 3 hours south of Ensenada. I am going as a leader for a group of students and adults from Apple Valley Christian School traveling to a mission/orphanage called Foundation for His Ministries. ( http://www.ffhm.org/ ) I started going my sophomore year in high school in 2000 and have been 8ish times since then. The greatest part is the continued relationship that I am able to have with the kids and full time staff there, one of the girls even being a child that my parents sponsor. I am excited to see what God has been doing down there and am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to be able to be a small part of it.

Preparing for this trip had me self reflecting and a couple nights ago had a thought. If someone were to ask me what I thought about God or Jesus or following Christ what would my answer be? I’m sure I could come up with some good answers. Probably something deep, thought provoking and dripping with great theological terms and other big words to make myself very spiritual and very in tune. Or even something small, short and profound. I’m sure all Christians and non-Christian would have great answers, even just simple worlds that would somewhat begin to describe the magnitude of how we feel about God and what He has done for us.
However, I then realized that really our lives are an actual depiction of what we think of God. I don’t have to say a word, my witness, my argument, my frail attempt to describe God; to tell of who and what he is to me is being said every second of every day.

What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? That we live our lives in response to what He has done for us.

No wonder people look at the “Church”, at me, and laugh at us sinking, gasping for air in our own hypocrisy. Peoples whose body and mind are as disjointed as mine, outside of religion, are locked up as mentally insane. I understand completely why we, why I, live so disjointed, because it is so much easier. And we believe that what is easy and quick is more fun right? (or at least we have time for more important things). What would it look like if I, if we the Church, bridged and closed the disconnect? All I know is that the world would be a different place.

So here I am left with a decision to make, do I continue in my mind/body disconnect or do I make the changes that need to be made, and live as a reflection of what Christ has done for me. I pray that we all find the strength to do what is difficult and live, breath and sleep in the grace and mercy of a Father who desperately loves us.

Blessings for you all - see you in a week.

..weird dream from the edge of insanity.

2009-03-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

I had the weirdest dream last night. One of those dreams where you have to get up and write stuff down because it is so weird. I think I may have come up with a new philosophy last night.

So in the dream me and Andy (the same Andy from this group) made a "Iron Man" type machine for Jared (same Jared in this group) so here is where it gets weird and you may get lost.

The idea is that the humanity is made up of two separate consciousnesses. You have the body's subconscious and the mind's subconscious. They are subconscious because in most humans they remain separate and unaware of the presence of the other, coexisting in a balance. However, self realization, enlightenment, the Buddhist kind of self understanding, is acknowledging the presence of both subconscious's. Also in all humans the mind subconscious always has power over the body subconscious. Tracking???

Ok well in the dream I discovered this idea, however the problem we ran into is that we did not take into consideration the influence of Artificial Intelligence into the balance of the two subconscious's. The machine that we built for Jared had Artificial Intelligence built into it. What happened is that the AI in the machine took over the bodies subconscious and realized the control that the mind had over it. In reaction and rebellion the bodies subconscious took over, however once this happened the bodies subconscious realized that all in the world is meaningless and set about to terminate itself.

Jared's mind consciousness no longer had control over his bodies consciousness and the machine blew up; Jared, the lab, half the mountian we were on, and the whole team all blown to bits. The last thing I heard before we all blew up was Andy yelling that we had to return to the Source before it was too late and it all ended.

So weird, right??? I think I might be losing my mind. Or, I have an idea for a great movie.

2009. a year of transitions

2009-03-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Yes I know its March, and yes I realize that this is my first posting for the year. However I'm over it and that is that. 2009 started as a friend put it, "No Regrets" but quickly turned into a year of transitions.
First - I got accepted to USC's masters in PA (physician assistant) program. I am very excited and it still has not fully sunk in. I will be starting Aug 18th and have a ton of stuff to do between now and then; finding housing, filling out forms, ect. The whole process can be a blog in itself - me learning patience, relying on God and realizing the magnitude of the faithfulness of God.
Second I will be going to Bangladesh for six weeks in June with a group from APU. We will be working at a Mother Teresa House for the Destitute and Dying. We will be providing end of life care, wound care, and just loving on people. I am very excited and am expecting to be broken in a completly new way. We will also be working with and building relationships with a organization that sells local crafts free-trade.
Third, I have moved back home and am living in the desert with my family. It has been such a blessing to live with my family again and not having any rent has been a blessing too.

So far 2009 has taught me to be flexable, to take the days as they come and to live with what I call open hands.

I am hoping to be writing more on here and also check out my "small group" blog at tangenttaco.blogspot.com you can also click on it on the right side of the screen.

Past 2 weeks: Music, Hollywood, Friends, Wedding, Hospital

2008-07-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Wow... I'm just starting to catch my breath. The past two weeks have been so packed full of fun times. Heres an overview.

Trip 1 to Hollywood. Echobody at the Key Club

10:00 at night - hey guys wanna go to my friends show in Hollywood? Oh yeah and we needed to be in Hollywood about 20 minutes ago.

Mark, Hiroko, Ashley and I all planned on going to the Key Club in Hollywood to see my friend, Andy Moore and his band Echobody play. (They are now on iTUNES so check them out!) However due to a late decision to go and bad traffic we arrived after they had just finished playing. A big bummer, but we did get to see the Knights of Monte Cristo a group of guys that I would deem nothing more than a cruise ship, covers band. We still had a good time and ended the night with some grub from Tommy's.

Who are these guys??? They are the knights of monte cristo

Last wedding of the summer

I went with my family to the wedding of a good family friend of ours wedding in the High Desert. It was of course beautiful, at a club on a golf course with a lot of good friends from high school that I have not seen in 4+ years. Great time with the family and long time friends.

The Rodgers Kids dancing the Wedding

Trip to the River house

Went with the family to the River house for some family fun, boating and good times. Have some great desert rain storms, lots of wakeboarding, and watching the tour di France.

Some pictures I took of a sunset in the backyard and Rain while on the River

2nd Trip to Hollywood - Viper Room to see I O Echo and The Secret Machines

This second trip to Hollywood in two weeks was a much better trip with Andy, Brian and Tim Moore, Jared and Aaron. We drove down to Hollywood the day after a graduation party for Tim to see The Secret Machines. This was my second time seeing them, and I was still impressed. They put on a great show with music that is meant to be seen live. With only 3 members they make so much noise, with great musical and lyrical writing. They have a great way of taking great rock sound from the 70's and mixing it with the intensity and newness of Indy rock today. I O Echo the opener was great as well with a crazy chick as their lead singer, they had high intensity music with a Indy rock/dance feel to it. I also learned my lesson to not buy drinks in Hollywood as I paid 25 bucks for 2 drinks - ouch!

Legendary Viper Room and The Secret Machines

Hospital

I just finished a turn around and double shift for this week. Turn around meaning that I worked until 12 at night and then came back at 6:30 the following morning, and double meaning that I worked two, 8 hour shifts back to back. In 30 hours I was at the hospital for 24 of them. Talk about resident hours. Still love my job and am thankful for the hours to work!

The Fountain

2008-07-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

I recently saw one of the weirdest movies I have seen in a long time and it was fantastic! The movie was The Fountain (2006) directed by Darren Aronofsky (the same director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream) and staring Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman. I saw the movie with Mark and Hiroko when I went over to their house for dinner the other night. Even thought the movie came out in 2006 I had never heard of it. However this science-fiction/metaphysical, love story made us all stop and think for a while. The premise of the film is a love story between two people in 3 different times, and ones man quest for immortality/a life forever with his love. This movie is packed with themes from Christianity, eastern religions, Aztec mythology, symbolism; just a big pot of science, fiction, religion, philosophy, and the arts. A large part of the film also deals with the concept of time, life and death, enlightenment, and a way to transcend the physical to reach the eternal. The director has been quoted, saying about the plot of the movie, that it is,

"very much like a Rubik's cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end".*

Both visually stunning and thought provoking, I thoroughly enjoyed this move. I look forward to seeing Aronofsky's previous films as well now.

* "Director Darren Aronofsky: A 'Fountain' Quest Fulfilled", Washington Post (2006-11-24). Retrieved on 2008 July 10.

the inception

2008-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

so here it is a start of a new blog. Not that there wasn't enough blogs out there already. I figure this is probably more for me than anyone else but we'll see if i keep up on it.

I am currently at Classic Coffee in Glendora, a great little independent coffee shop downtown. Its currently 92 degrees outside, meaning that it is that hot or hotter in our house - due to lack of air conditioning. I am taking a break from working on my applications for PA school and NP school and hope to have them completed by the end of the week. The plan here is to apply for a couple different options and then see what happens.

So back to figuring this blog out - we'll see how it turns out!