The Beauty of God

Insight of the day.

If for me beauty is best exemplifed in the feminine form, to talk about the beauty of God and to image-ine that as woman changes the ethics of relationship.

To objectify a woman, to lust after beauty, even my wife, places her in the position of the true beauty that I wish to see, God.

So for my misogynist friends who can't see God in the femine form and see it as dangerous.  I think the femine image of God does deepen and clarify my reading of scriptures and demands more ethical rigor of me.

Lust for me, even lust of a spouse, is sinful if replaces the heart's true desire union with God with another less than God.

In

We are in the house now.

That is great, but there are moments like today where I get extremely frustrated.  The crux of the issue is that I took about five hours this week to clean up the old house.  I worked a couple of hours on Monday.  Tuesday Amy and I went over about an hour into the work we were interrupted by the electrician to fix a circuit in our new home.  Then today to finish the job, I spent a couple hours doing it.

Today was the day when I wanted my instant gratification.  I wanted the rest of the family to chip in.  It was a day to grow a resentment.  I brought the last junk to our new house and told Amy, "I am just done.  I am done doing house stuff for the rest of the week.  I need to work and Saturday night we are going to Brewbakers." (Brewbakers my favorite restaurant.)

My expectations were not realistic.  We had spent the last four weeks of our lives there without having a weekend clean up.  So the house was filthy.  The floors dirty.  The backyard needed me to get the boys stuff out.  The garage had not been cleaned in months. Amy and the boys are not useful.  It is my mess, so I feel I am obligated to clean it up.  So, I do it and when it does not happen instantaneously...I get resentful.

Solution...do the right thing.  Focus on work this week and that will stop resentment. Right actions make right thinking they say in 12 step.  So, I am back to work.

Moving homes

Amy and I bought a house through a foreclosure auction this year.  It began in January and has brought us to this moment.  There has been a great amount of anxiety and worry through this process.  Anything to do with money is a worry today it seems.

 While reading the Psalms, I was reminded that perhaps this house is a blessing.  God giving me a great gift.  I don't look at life that way too much, ask my friends, they know my temperment.  I am cautious, because in my personal life has been strewn with failures.  At least those failures are etched into my memory deeper than the acheivements.  Through all this God keeps pushing me and telling me of the good in this world and the good in me.  Too often I won't listen to that.  I pray God never tires of me.

A new house, perhaps I need to trust God in the midst of this horrorific economic storm. 

"God make this house a tool for your doing good in the world and while you are at it, me too."

12 years of capital

 

About 12 years ago, Amy and I began investing in the stock market.  We are not big players, but we consciously made a decision to max out the 401(k) and take extra money to invest in stock and mutual funds. Today the market is where it was when we started.  Three lessons learned.

1.) The market does not always go up.  There is this talk that the market will always go up, as if America has a God given right to expanding markets.  This flies in the face of free market capitalism and competition.  There are no guarantees and there is always risk.

2.) Buy and Hold is a wrong strategy.  There is a buying strategy and an exit strategy.  When investing need to have both in mind. Mutual funds make it very hard to think that way, where individual stocks are easy to exit out of.

3.) When a sword drops don't try to catch it, run.  We have Citigroup in our personal stock portfolio.  We bought at the high and we bought half way down and now we have nothing.  Losing a little is better than losing a lot.

These are hard truths that I always knew, but the banks and wall street sell these myths.  Be smart with your money, because it is a tool for doing good in the world.