the St. Elias Festival and all is quiet. The sun is out. the temperatures are cool. The day looks promising. It’s a good day for a recliner with the windows open or a rocker on a porch. I find myself in that wonderful and peculiar position of having absolutely no ambition, a quite enjoyable state of afairs.

Yes, tomorrow I’ll be at work bright and shiny but as for today I’m striving for as little physical movement as possible.

today, cool and cloudy, good for work but not for festivals. Tomorrow promises to be partly cloudy and in the middle 70’s farenheit so I hope the people feel like coming out.

Lots of moving and grunt work today, a small group of people taking on a big task. People have different feelings about festivals but I am always amazed at how much work can be done by a relatively small group of people. St. Elias can be amazing sometimes!

Speaking of work, I’d better get at it. No need to burn daylight when there are things to do.

or does the idea of spending more money to keep from going bankrupt seem odd? I’m convinced that only a person who has spent the greater part of their lives in the government coccoon could think that made sense.

I’m on Twitter. Figured it was something interesting to do. Look for TravelingPriest.

So now what did I get myself into?

the overload coming, the piling on of events, people’s needs, and the tasks of life, most small in and of themselves but cumulatively back breaking. The weight is manifested as mood, fatigue, and the sense of being overwhelmed. Sometimes your body is stooped by it all but more often your soul is hunched under the duress.

The eyes give it all away, a tired and far away look few are skilled enough to perpetually hide. Walk down the street and look for people in unguarded moments and you will know. Look at yourself in the mirror and you will know as well. There are burdens out there, burdens in there, the weight of the world accumulated in a lifetime of the chase. Every wrinkle, every gray hair, every bit of weariness, they all mark the path most taken in a world that has forgotten heaven.

The unwise, in coming to terms with all of this, see the answer on the horizon, some mystic future when they will have whatever it is they perceive will remove this load or at least the resources to pay someone to handle it for them. In the present they anesthetize to endure, one more drink, one more lover, one more step up at the office.

The wise will understand that there is a call in all of this, a call not to anesthetize themselves in the hope of some future relief but rather to shed the burden itself because so much of it is unnecessary, something we have convinced ourselves into carrying, something we even believe to mark personal success. In the pain of life’s burdens is a call to first things, first principles, the essence of what it means to be human.

I’m hearing the call.

this time from Rod Dreher.

from Cal Thomas.

helps lessen physical pain. Well I’ll be $%#^&*(@!

Of course aspirin also works and doesn’t make you look like an idiot. By the way am I the only person out there wondering where they found the money for this study?

Somewhere along the river road this weekend the odometer should roll over 100,000 miles.

Enough said.