Category: Spiritual Journey

Music / Spiritual Journey

Caged

VinceLeave a comment

Radio listeners in early 1971 were treated to something rare for that time — a song that dealt with adult relationships like an adult. The song began with just a piano and a woman’s almost wispy voice singing of her parent’s in-home estrangement and how it had impacted her. It was remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because the woman singing was only twenty-six.

My father sits at night with no lights on, his cigarette glows in the dark
The living room is still, I walk by, no remark
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where my mother reads her magazines
I hear her call sweet dreams, but I forgot how to dream

After a chorus of sounding less than thrilled at her boyfriend’s proposal, she goes on to sing of all her friends from college and their equally dismal married lives.

Justice / Spiritual Journey

Next to Tinseltown

VinceLeave a comment

When I was five or six, we lived in a rent house. I can recall two things about the house: one of the windows had a very long hose coming out of it from the washing maching down to the lawn, and our next-door-neighbor liked to work on his cars and I liked to sit on the engine and “help” him. (This is the closest I’ve ever been to working on a car.)

When I was thirteen, we lived in a different rent house, in a different state. I remember two things about the house: my bedroom was in the basement (which I loved) and the big open room next to my bedroom seemed big enough to play racquetball in.

Spiritual Journey

The New Guy

VinceLeave a comment

A new hire at Apple was announced today.

Given that Apple has over a hundred thousand employees, a new hire there usually doesn’t qualify as news. However, this one did. It wasn’t, of course, Apple who did the announcing, but the various media outlets who make a living from following Apple. Unlike most Apple “news,” which is typically a wild rumor in a very thin “it might be true!” wrapper, this news came straight from the horses mouth, i.e. from the new hire himself.

His name is Jonathan Zdziarski, and, although you can be forgiven for not recognizing (or being able to pronounce) his name, he is justifiably famous in the Apple universe, as he is perhaps the best and most well-known expert in iOS digital forensics and security.

Spiritual Journey

Losing Weight

VinceLeave a comment

When my wife and I saw Arrival, she thought it was “ok” and I loved it.1 As we were discussing our respective views on the way home, she asked me why I loved it. Now, ordinarily, asking a man why he feels something is an exercise in futility. I, however, am very in touch with my feelings2 and had no trouble coming up with the answer.

Because it was a beautiful story, beautifully filmed, but most importantly, it had weight. Is love worth the pain? Would we make the same decisions if we knew those decisions would lead to tragedy?

Current Events / Spiritual Journey

Perspective

VinceLeave a comment

As you may remember, our daughter and family live in Cambodia. She teaches in a Christian school there, and she recently had occasion to need some rice for a class project. She asked her teaching assistant, a native Khmer woman, to go buy her some rice. “Get the cheapest rice you can, I’m not going to cook it, just use it for class,” she said, as she gave the TA some money to buy it with.

The TA came back with the rice, but almost fell over herself apologizing. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Phifer, I could not get the cheap rice, I looked everywhere, I had to spend 1800 riel to get a kilogram1 of rice.” She was unhappy with having to spend that much of Ashley’s money, and she was expecting Ashley to be unhappy, too.