Category Archives: hope

The Rambling Road: 2018 goes out a lot better than it came in

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With the year drawing to a close, I would be remiss if I did not revisit where I find myself now after the past couple–and really the past few–years of illness and struggle.

One of the most important health changes I have ever experienced happened in the form of starting a mild anti-depressant at the end of September. The changed I experienced upon beginning that medication is real and enduring and has enabled nearly everything else that has happened since then.

The biggest subsequent change has been to dedicate myself to a series of dietary and exercise changes in the hope of wrestling my life back from my health. I have virtually given up process sugars, modern grains, and processed foods. I have begun an intermittent fasting regimen. I have starting moving more than I have in years.

Specifically, I am walking and using a bike trainer, and plan to start running and attending a yoga class after the first of the year. If those efforts go well, I plan to start trail hiking and purchase an e-bike for longer-distance rides sometime in the next year.

I have begun using light therapy as part of a daily program that involves waking up using light instead of sound and also using a therapy panel as part of my daily routine. The effect this has had on my mood and energy level cannot be understated.

Perhaps most importantly, I am confident that I can do the things I plan for the first time in a really long time. I am hopeful for the new year, and those are strange words coming out of my mouth.

More will follow.

DLH

Read more at my The Rambling Road weblog…

The Rambling Road: 2018 goes out a lot better than it came in

Posted on by

With the year drawing to a close, I would be remiss if I did not revisit where I find myself now after the past couple–and really the past few–years of illness and struggle.

One of the most important health changes I have ever experienced happened in the form of starting a mild anti-depressant at the end of September. The changed I experienced upon beginning that medication is real and enduring and has enabled nearly everything else that has happened since then.

The biggest subsequent change has been to dedicate myself to a series of dietary and exercise changes in the hope of wrestling my life back from my health. I have virtually given up process sugars, modern grains, and processed foods. I have begun an intermittent fasting regimen. I have starting moving more than I have in years.

Specifically, I am walking and using a bike trainer, and plan to start running and attending a yoga class after the first of the year. If those efforts go well, I plan to start trail hiking and purchase an e-bike for longer-distance rides sometime in the next year.

I have begun using light therapy as part of a daily program that involves waking up using light instead of sound and also using a therapy panel as part of my daily routine. The effect this has had on my mood and energy level cannot be understated.

Perhaps most importantly, I am confident that I can do the things I plan for the first time in a really long time. I am hopeful for the new year, and those are strange words coming out of my mouth.

More will follow.

DLH

Read more at my The Rambling Road weblog…

The Rambling Road: Checkpoint

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Today turned out to be a pretty good day, despite the fact I’m tired and a little sore now.

The day started with my second quality walk in as many days. It was a lot colder this morning than yesterday, so my pace was much faster, resulting in a higher heart rate. Other than some muscle fatigue toward the end, I tolerated it well, and that gives me hope I’ve turned a corner.

This afternoon, I had my second follow-on appointment since I was in the hospital. We went over the results of my blood draw from Friday, and most of my numbers look really good for someone who was so recently sick. There are a couple of things we’re going to keep an eye on, but I don’t have to go back for a month, so that’s a good sign.

Finally, Keba and I wandered around our local Kroger while they filled a new prescription I’m starting to replace an old one. It ended up being a second walk for the day, leaving me tired and sore but contented.

As impatient and restless as I have been about recovering, I’m surprised and pleased with the sudden progress I seem to be making over the past few days. Now, the task is for me to restrain my enthusiasm so as not to overdo it.

DLH

Read more at my The Rambling Road weblog…

Taking the plunge!

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While my wife and I have been living and working on Innisfree for the last three and a half years, it has always been something of a part-time job until now. Late last year, we paid off the last of our outstanding debt and as a result, we have decided to have both of us working on the farm as our primary occupation.

While this may sound idyllic, the fact is that it is a leap of faith and a huge risk. Even in the best of circumstances, farming is not a high paying occupation, and the cost of living modern life is higher than most people realize. Nevertheless, it is a risk we are willing and able to take.

Here’s to hoping and to the future!

DLH

Merry Christmas

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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life,a and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” John 1:1-5, 14, 16-18 ESV

Philosophy: Finding your own way

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It has been an interesting experience for me over the past couple of years as I have come to realize that the place and undertakings I have arrived at seem to have been somehow intended for me all along. This may seem like a grandiose thing to say, but I can assure you that my two-year-so-far-adventure into things as diverse as farming and coffee roasting fulfill me more than my entire twenty year career as an IT professional.

It also turns out that the things I am undertaking now are among the hardest, most frustrating, and most demanding things I have ever done. Yet, they are worth it because they make me grow, and I have come to realize that if one is not growing, one is dying.

The world sells us a consistent lie: that the object of life’s effort is to accumulate enough so that we can rest on the laurels of what we have already done… and wait to die. What I have discovered over the past two years is how deep and all pervasive this lie turns out to be and how destructive it is to the human soul.

What I have come to realize is how important the Biblical formula of suffering producing character producing hope is to crafting us all as individuals. Without suffering, there is no character, and without character, there is no realization of hope. Yes, life can be damned frustrating and even deeply tragic at times, but every one of those frustrations and tragedies serve to make us into something more than what we were before they happened.

The secret then, I think, is to keep our heads up and to be constantly looking for our way through the things that tend to want to ensnare us at the moment. It will not usually be easy, and sometimes it may be downright crushing, but if we persevere, it will always be worth it.

DLH

Read more at my Philosophy weblog…

Christmas Eve 2010

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For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25, NIV, via Biblegateway.com

Peace. Hope. Love.

Those are the words, among others, that people use in their celebration of Christmas. We join in a universal longing for the end of strife among ourselves, among our nations, and with our God. We celebrate peace, hope, and love because that is what the nativity story says, and we want to believe it with all of our hearts.

But there is something more to this story of a baby, born of a virgin mother, announced by angels, and laid in a manger:

Atonement. Sacrifice. Death.

You see, baby Jesus was not just any baby, he was the answer to the pressing question of how we achieve peace, hope, and love. He was the one, born into the world at just the right time, while we were yet sinners, to pay the price no human could pay since that fateful day when Adam and Eve violated God’s first covenant with them. Jesus was born in a shadow, the shadow of the cross on which he would die.

Yet even that is not the end of the story, for in the life of this man whose birth we celebrate more than 2,000 years after it happened is an even greater promise:

Justification. Salvation. Eternity.

It is Jesus, laid in a manger at his birth and murdered on a cross in the prime of his life, who also defeated death and the power Satan exercised over us when we fell from God’s grace. It was Jesus who died the sacrificial death, finishing all that had to be finished, and who rose through the glorious power of God as the first fruits of who trust in God’s promises.

If you celebrate Christ’s Mass, it is this reality that you must face: peace, hope, and love with God , paid for with the blood of his only Son, and guaranteed to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

There is no other reason for this celebration because there is no other cause for hope.

Lord Jesus, come quickly to fulfill that hope for those who believe.

Amen

DLH