Rapids on The Great River

Yesterday, I found out that my boss, mentor, and friend Bob was "let go" from our job. While I'm convinced that he will fight and come out on top, I'm disgusted and shocked at the circumstances behind his departure. The owners of the company had gone behind his back, interviewed and hired a replacement, and didn't tell him until yesterday, the day after we had stayed late at work to get a big job done for a potential big stream of steady work. They lied, they used, and they asserted their "power" based on a disagreement where they were actually proved to be in the wrong.

In the meantime, I got up this morning with ideas of climbing in my head, but the lack of partners led me to start fishing for applications in other career paths. It also led me to make a journey to the hospital to see Lyss's baby boy Malcolm Reynold. He's growing immensely, passing the three pound mark. He's starting to make little noises, smiles, and sad faces. I'm thankful for the opportunities I get to see him, as they're more than just innocent: they help me to remember the time I had with my own son, Tiberius, who was born and spent the first part of his own life under very similar experiences.

The Great River of Life is an interesting place. It starts off as a tiny mountain stream and ends in the Great Ocean of Heaven. Our own rivers are unique to us alone. Some are long and some are short. Some are tranquil and some are treacherous. Some are designed to feed crops and others are designed to carve immense natural cathedrals through the wilderness. The more I have these huge experiences in my life, the more I realize that I need to accept whatever direction my own river is pointing me. Swimming against the current is pointless and will kill me far too early. I'm learning to embrace change, to see awkward situations as opportunities to grow. I'm riding this river to it's conclusion, and, with any luck, I'll make it to the sea.

Indiana Jones

Tonight I watched the last two Indiana Jones movies. The first of the two, The Last Crusade, really impacted me as a kid. I remember having my parents buy me little notebooks that I could pretend were my own "grail diaries". I'd wear khaki pants and hiking books. My house had bricks outside the side door, and I would walk, carefully, from brick to brick, imagining that I was spelling the word "Jehovah" (even though we all know that, in Latin, "Jehovah" is spelled with an "I"). I would have loved to have travelled the world in search of ancient artifacts and adventure. However, I think I missed my calling.

I love writing. I love finding moving stories and having inspirational experiences and sharing them with people.  When I'm not writing about movies and burgers, I seem to create things that impress even myself.

Maybe I missed my calling in that I'm supposed to be a starving artist of sorts, going from place to place, looking for work and adventure and things to write about. Maybe I'm even supposed to get a job writing. I watched a movie the other night (I forget which movie), and one of the characters made a reference to the River of Destiny. The reference was that we're supposed to embrace what we are destined to be, or else we find ourselves swimming against the current, wasting all of our energy on fruitless endeavors.

With all of the upheaval at work on Friday afternoon and the cloud that will be hanging over things tomorrow, maybe it's my sign that I have been fighting the current long enough. Maybe it's time to go and actually do the things I've wanted to do, to live in a BattleWagon and actually travel to new and exciting places.  I can't resist the current.