Daily Examen 2/01/10

Posted February 1, 2010 by dondunbar3
Categories: Church

“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing distress you, for after all fades away, only God is constant. Be patient and let God in your heart, He will sustain you.”

Another great hymn that started the podcast this morning, based on the Prayer of St Theresa.

I googles her. She believed that it all starts with prayer. That even in tomes of siritual drought, one must continue to pray. I was amazed at the amount written about her. There was even an order of Teresian Carmalite nuns.

The reading today was from Samuel. King David and his soldiers come to a house and the owner curses David and throws rocks at him. David refused to have his soldiers behead the man. His reasoning was perhaps the man had been following the will of God and it had led him to throw stones.

I am not sure that I can always look at a situation this way. Yes everyone is a Child of God, and God does move in mysterious ways.

Does God use every moment in my life as a teaching moment? Can I look for the message he is sending among the stones and curses I encounter?

At least I can try to be patient, to let him into my heart, to rejoice that when all fades away, that he will sustain me.

Diet and Exercise 1/30/10 & 2/1/10

Posted January 30, 2010 by dondunbar3
Categories: Diet & Exercise

Saturday 1/30/10 back on treadmill today. Average 3.5 mph grade varied but most 10% and burned 886 calories. Ankle sore.

The good news, on Saturday I weighed in on the club scale 252 pounds and the good news is that the club scale matches kitchen scale total and showed that I have lost 14 pounds since starting this endeavor. I was worried at Thursday am weekly weigh in with only 1 pound lost since the previous week, but when I got on the kitchen scale Friday morning and saw that I has lost another 1.5 pound loss, keeping me on my 2.5 lbs/week goal.

My goal has a planned calorie intake along with level of exercise. I may have overestimated the amount of exercise I get when I don’t go to the club. I reset daily calorie goals on livestrong.com to 1800 calories per day decreasing from 2000 calories per day. It is challenging but doable. The rate drops anyway as my weight does.

It calls form more menu watching and looking for more opportunities to get some exercise in. I tend to look at the menu more and google a lot of nutrition data, estimating servings etc. It appears to be working.

Monday was a treadmill day. 4 miles in 73 minutes. Inclines ranged from 3 to 10 and back down at 3.5 mph. I like having negative calories before dinner.

Daily Examen 1/29/10

Posted January 29, 2010 by dondunbar3
Categories: Church

Today’s reading from Mark is another parable. This one was about the mustard seed. The thing that struck me more than the parable is that Christ continued to spread the word through parables but He provided explanation to the Disciples.

I guess that there are always things that are going to be known by some while the rest of us wade throught the mystery. But isn’t acceptance of mystery faith? Don’t we proclaim the Holy Mysteries ” Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”. Aren’t we called to the table in communion with our fellow Christians to share in Holy Mysteries made flesh?

There is a folk singer Iris DeMent who wrote a song “Let the Mystery Be. “

Perhaps Christ wants us to work towards understanding the mystery through prayer, through study, through experinces. It is something to work on. And we should realize that the journey is important, that we should have faith, and we should let the mystery be.

Daily Examen 1/28/10

Posted January 28, 2010 by dondunbar3
Categories: Church

In our darkness be the fire that never goes out.

Well there is a learning curve. I worked on this one at lunch and lost it.

My thoughts were on how comforting a fire is and that we alway make room for someone else to join us. The same practice should hold true for the eternal fire in our darkness.