If you were referred to my blog from a reference site like the wonderful MormonLink.com, then I apologize that you have found me in hibernation. I would love to share and talk and even make available any past posts that you might be looking for, just drop me an email at lifelongguy@gmail.com.
Some have asked where I am at now. As a quick update I have officially and formally resigned from the church, I am still a father, a husband, a neighbor, a friend, a runner, an employee, a coworker... basically I am now still all the good and bad things I was before I left the church, (hopefully working on fixing the bad and doing more good.) I am happy, or at least as happy as we all are in a life that contains days of thrills and days of challenges but I am also now free of antidepressant medications, free of anti anxiety meds, stressed about the same things you are stressed about, but without a huge amount of undo guilt and mythical worry.
So, again, sorry you found a single page instead of other content you might have been referred to.
(Feb 25, 2013)
Gonna put this baby into archive mode now. The past week has been too full of drama and emotion and hurt to keep worrying about any cathartic value this blog provides me, gonna turn it off and move on. I rarely post anymore anyway, so one less thing on the checklist to worry about.
The blog has been a place full of crazy bad writing, emotional drivel, spur of the moment celebrations and outbursts... it's been a place to dump feelings when there was no other safe palce to dump them. And in the end it would have been safer to write, save-as-draft, and never publish. Alas, life is full of silly choices we often times regret later.
But don't get me wrong, I don't regret the blog in general terms. Only that many who read it should have made the choice to look away rather than read and be offended. And who can regret the many, many friends I found through this blog and the kind comments from many, the support offered... I am flattered and proud to know so many good people who can relate to the journey.
The balance of what I will leave here is a post from 2011 which is something I am still proud to share.
Peace.
----------------------------
May 04, 2013. A favorite video, unless you get caught up on the definition and proof of a "soul", in which case you might miss the bigger picture.
----------------------------
When my body is in motion my mind is focused and I feel a stillness within that is betrayed by my outward appearance. When I run I allow myself thought that I don't find time for elsewhere, my attention deficits are arrested and my drive to multitask is tamed. To run is to engage one of the more primal instincts but when removed from the usual drive of the "four F's": Feed, Fight, Flee, *hump* - the goal is less obvious and the impetus self provided. The mind is free to wander and meditate.
Daydreaming while running does sound dangerous, I admit, but the rhythmic footsteps are hypnotic, autonomic almost. Running is natural and takes less consciousness than most other activities yet at the same time the heart is pumping and endorphins injected into the bloodstream as muscles and bones and lungs work in harmony.
It seems that I become more conscious of everything. Wind and weather are acutely measured every second as are the sensations of sweat and muscle ache, the pain of an injured joint or need for water or oxygen. Eyes are focused on the road being travelled but not as a primary endeavor that overwhelms the brain - some super-sensory intuition lets visual perceptions become almost passive. Sounds and smells also register and cause reaction, or trigger memories in some cases. A coal fire, for example, will take me back to the age of nine in an instant and I will be at my grandparent's home on Thanksgiving, that same odor part of that beautiful memory. And despite the heightened sensory awareness, the mind is still quiet and able to processes at a higher lever, to dwell on non-primary concerns or get lost on threads of thought that would otherwise be thrown to the side, discarded tangential excess in the daily routine of life.
Even with music plugged into my ears I can find my mind exercising thoughts on a different level. To move, to be feel alive, and to allow the leisure of secondary thought that creates a private space for contemplation.
Call it prayer, for that is oftentimes what I wish prayer to feel like.
It's in this reserved space that I feel moved by the way my body can function. It's here that I sense beauty of the landscape I am within. I feel united in the world, one with the ever changing environment around me, an integral part of a bigger place in which I am both trivial and essential. This is where I find God, whatever or whomever that may be. When the song in my ear is the perfect compliment to the energy of my run, my body having automatically adjusted to the beat of the music and world seemingly in synch as well. When lactic acid burns in my legs and my lungs gasp for more air, I realize how alive I am and what a miracle it is to be able to run, in this place, at this exact moment. It's then that I know my place, sense my role, feel my significance. At the top of a hill, exhausted and delighted at the view, knowing an exhilarating descent is ahead, I catch my breath and appreciate that the present is amazing and yet the best is yet to come. Achievement and solitude and overwhelming self-awareness.
Whatever divinity may or may not be, the essence of such a concept is in those places and at those times, in the way I define and know God that need not be the same way you or anyone else defines God. God is there in a way I never experienced when looking in a church or in a temple, because finding God is personal and private and unique - not homogenized or correlated, not packaged for mass consumption. God is in those places regardless of my faith, religion, or adherence to orthodoxy - in spite of my mistakes or shortcomings - even withstanding my tithes paid or not, scripture read or not, mantra prayers repetitively uttered or not. God is there, a God that does not judge your God and does not rule through fear.
I let go of guilt, I don't give heed to fear and I don't suffer that I should suffer, I simply enjoy the moment I have, God and I alone.
It seems that I become more conscious of everything. Wind and weather are acutely measured every second as are the sensations of sweat and muscle ache, the pain of an injured joint or need for water or oxygen. Eyes are focused on the road being travelled but not as a primary endeavor that overwhelms the brain - some super-sensory intuition lets visual perceptions become almost passive. Sounds and smells also register and cause reaction, or trigger memories in some cases. A coal fire, for example, will take me back to the age of nine in an instant and I will be at my grandparent's home on Thanksgiving, that same odor part of that beautiful memory. And despite the heightened sensory awareness, the mind is still quiet and able to processes at a higher lever, to dwell on non-primary concerns or get lost on threads of thought that would otherwise be thrown to the side, discarded tangential excess in the daily routine of life.
Even with music plugged into my ears I can find my mind exercising thoughts on a different level. To move, to be feel alive, and to allow the leisure of secondary thought that creates a private space for contemplation.
Call it prayer, for that is oftentimes what I wish prayer to feel like.
It's in this reserved space that I feel moved by the way my body can function. It's here that I sense beauty of the landscape I am within. I feel united in the world, one with the ever changing environment around me, an integral part of a bigger place in which I am both trivial and essential. This is where I find God, whatever or whomever that may be. When the song in my ear is the perfect compliment to the energy of my run, my body having automatically adjusted to the beat of the music and world seemingly in synch as well. When lactic acid burns in my legs and my lungs gasp for more air, I realize how alive I am and what a miracle it is to be able to run, in this place, at this exact moment. It's then that I know my place, sense my role, feel my significance. At the top of a hill, exhausted and delighted at the view, knowing an exhilarating descent is ahead, I catch my breath and appreciate that the present is amazing and yet the best is yet to come. Achievement and solitude and overwhelming self-awareness.
Whatever divinity may or may not be, the essence of such a concept is in those places and at those times, in the way I define and know God that need not be the same way you or anyone else defines God. God is there in a way I never experienced when looking in a church or in a temple, because finding God is personal and private and unique - not homogenized or correlated, not packaged for mass consumption. God is in those places regardless of my faith, religion, or adherence to orthodoxy - in spite of my mistakes or shortcomings - even withstanding my tithes paid or not, scripture read or not, mantra prayers repetitively uttered or not. God is there, a God that does not judge your God and does not rule through fear.
I let go of guilt, I don't give heed to fear and I don't suffer that I should suffer, I simply enjoy the moment I have, God and I alone.
 |
| Halfway point running Israel Canyon, Lake Mountain west of Utah Lake. |
