This is change

Do you know what that is? That is a graphical representation of my weight log from the past three weeks. I don't record it everyday, that's why there's not 21 dots. But basically, that is what my focus has been on for the last couple of weeks. As you can see by the graph, it is very frustrating. One day I'll go up, and one day I'll go down. Today I went down, so I felt like making a post about it. woot woot.

I'm really not too excited about losing weight anymore. I'm starting to get into the habit of working out, which is great, but I'm just not excited about dieting. And that totally sucks because I really need to focus on dieting and self-control. I worked out a lot in High School, so I can handle going to the gym. But dieting...I suck at. Every spike on that graph, is after a night eating out. As you can see, I tend to eat out often. In fact, the two largest spikes...the last two weekends. Go figure.

This is my weight loss goal. As you can see, I'm not exactly following my plan :) To be fair, I set a pretty steep goal to begin with. I want to lose 5lbs a week. As you can see, I haven't. Right now, I'm averaging about 3.29 lbs a week. Not that I can keep track of it or anything.



* All numeric representations of current weight, previous weight, or future weight have been omitted to protect the innocent...and me :)

Never enough time...

Why is it I never have enough time? I do my best to stay organized. I keep calendars, I take notes, I set reminders, I write to do lists...and yet there's never enough time.

Every time my mom comes to town we fight about spending time with each other. She thinks its because I never "make" time for her when she comes. I think its because she tells me a week before she comes and I already have stuff planned. I know that sounds terrible, to not make time for your mom, but it is always major things that I can't change.

If I don't already have something major planned, there's always something minor planned. For example, I already have plans for the next three weekends. Not stuff for the whole weekend, but something is going on at least one night.

My mom is coming to town in a few weeks. Jack is coming to town the same weekend. They both will demand my attention. All I want to do is sleep.

I guess it is a blessing. There are a lot of people who care about me.

I wish I had time (and money) to go to London. It seems like a neat place.

Meditation, Part 3

I will now answer the question of what to do, essentially "how", to start meditating. You may have been hoping for some ancient chant, a zen-like monologue that will cleanse your spirit and highlight your soul, unfortunately for us all there is no such magic.

The way I meditate is simple. It can be summed up in one word...remember. I simply sit down and I begin to remember what God has done in my life.

Raj told me the easiest way to start meditating was to sit down and remember the most powerful moment in your spiritual life. He suggested that you start by remembering as many details as you can; where you were, who you were with, how you were sitting, what you were doing, what were you praying, the events that led up to that moment. After remembering the details, begin to remember the feeling, the emotion: Were you happy, were you sad, were you at rock bottom, did God comfort you?

Stay in that moment as long as you possibly can. Trying to remember the details helps you focus your mind, and once you are focused start to reflect on the glory of God at that moment. Do your best to stay focused. Cut out as much of the physical world as possible, so it can truly be just you and God. If your mind starts to wander, try to move onto another significant moment. If you can't quickly transition to another memory, then try to reflect on God. Always speak to Him and expect Him to speak back. Go into this with an open mind, and expect Him to meet you there. Focus on His presence. Try to feel His comforting hand. You might even transition into praising the Lord, and go with that.

When you're mind starts to wander too much, when you loose concentration, when you are thinking more about how hungry you are or how much your butt hurts...then its over. There's no point in forcing it. If you force it you'll just be bored, and you'll develop a distaste for meditation. You may only be able to meditate for 5 minutes. I usually only meditate for about 10. That's why we have to practice. Remember our talk yesterday? Just go with the flow, and give it another shot tomorrow.

That's it. No more excuses not to try right.

Last Disclaimer: I wanted to add, again, that I am a complete meditation noob. All of the things I shared here are based on my experiences since a few weeks back, and based on my short Indian friend. I just wanted to share with you because it has touched me. I just feel that it is relevant because I'm learning these techniques from a different culture, and I'm learning that it really works. Raj made the comment that Hindu gurus have been teaching these techniques to people for thousands of years, so there must be some Truth behind them. After trying for myself, I believe he is right.

Although there is some danger involved. The Bible says quite frankly that we should be mindful at all times. What that is saying to me is that we should not train ourselves to be "empty-minded". Thanks to Joey for pointing this out to me :) In other cultures, the purpose of meditation is often to clear your mind, to be at peace, to be in a tranquil state. As Christians, the purpose of meditation should never be to reach the state of an empty mind. I feel strongly that meditation is just a platform to reach God on a deeper level. Of course we should pray all of the time, but I felt I needed a way to have focused concentration and communion with Him. And I think I've found some great ways of doing that through meditation.

The big point here...is that we need to PRAY. Seriously PRAY. How often do we PRAY? Get it...

Well that's it. All that I know about meditation. If I reach any new levels of spiritual enlightenment I'll let you know :) I'm really hoping to have an experience like Ace Ventura where I reach a plane of floating on clouds and the Dali Lama is there to help me sort out my problems :P

Peace and Grace, Zane

Meditation, Part 2

In this post, I would like to address two things that Jenny brought up in her comments from yesterday's post. First of all, I want to talk about posture for meditating. Secondly I want to talk about "public" meditation, and using "tools" during meditation.

One of the things that my Hindu guide was extremely stern on was posture. He made it absolutely clear how I should sit and where I should sit. I spoke about the importance of sitting on the floor yesterday. I'm not sure what all of the benefits of sitting on the floor during meditation are, but Raj was insistent that I sit on the floor. He also noted, that if for some reason I was physically incapable of sitting on the floor, I should sit as close to the floor as possible.

He also described posture to me. During meditation your legs need to be relaxed. Now this means that they could be in front of you, but sitting in the crossed position (we called this Indian-style, how ironic this seems to me now) will allow the most blood flow and will also encourage the proper back position. Your back should not be slouched. You should be sitting as up-right as possible. You should also be prepared to sit for a long time. Sitting upright in Indian-style can put strain on your lower back and legs. To relieve some of this strain I suggest sitting with your butt on a blanket or board, to open up the blood flow a little more. Your arms should simply be sitting on your legs in a resting position. No funky finger/hand signals are required :)

Now if you are anything like me, this isn't the most comfortable position. What I find the most amazing about the meditation posture, is how it encourages a healthy body. I have found that my lower back gets tired and sore very quickly. This is most likely due to the excessive weight on the front side pulling me down, in order to compensate my back has to do twice as much work to hold myself upright. Damn gravity!

I try to maintain a good posture as long as I can. When I get tired I try to shift a little to be more comfortable, but ultimately my discomfort breaks my concentration and ends the session. The point; keep practicing, get in better shape, and live to meditate again.

Remember, the point of good posture is to unify your body with your mind and spirit. Your mind should be as free from distraction as possible, and that includes your flesh. Can I get a woot woot from the Christians in the house?

Now on to meditating in public. Learning this simple fact was very humbling. I shared this briefly in my first post on meditation. The fact is, my mind is incapable of meditating in public. I am simply too immature and ill-equipped. When I first heard that, I was arrogant. However, after trying meditation I have realized that it does take practice to fine-tune your mind for concentration. There is really no other way to say it than that.

We must practice and dedicate ourselves to be mentally capable of removing the distractions of a public setting.

The same rule applies to tools such as prayer beads, incense, etc. We don't want the tools to take precedence over the experience with God. There are tons of these things that can make our experience richer, however we have to be prepared first. Personally, I am not quite there. But that's a blessing, because it will give me more time to think of my prayer for the prayer beads.

Again, I just want to remind you I am not an expert. I am only speaking about what I've tried and what Raj told me. All of the things Raj told me I cite, so unless I say...Raj told me...then I'm just speaking from experience. Hopefully by the end of the work day I'll write a post about the thought process of meditating. That should be my final meditation post.

Peace and Grace, Zane

Meditation, Part 1

I am ready to share some of my experiences with you. I believe I should start with a personal note. If you learn anything from these posts, my hope is that the overall message would be a Gospel message. I recognize that I may reference Hinduism as my guiding force, but the overall Truth to me is that Christ is real. My ultimate mentor, my ultimate hope, my reason for belief, and the purpose of my spiritual quest is to grow closer to God. I believe that gaining direct access to God can only be accomplished because of Christ's sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit. With that in mind, understand that I believe there is a great deal about spiritual journey, self-discovery, and discipline that we can learn from other cultures. In my life, there are some very cool and very honest Hindus that have taught me these methods of meditation. If you want to debate universal truth, the Hindu religion, or just want to be a "stick in the mud", don't respond here...I don't want to partake in any of that.

On to the meat. Meditation has become a very powerful part of my prayer life. The days that I take the time to properly meditate I feel refreshed and overjoyed by connecting with the creator. I want this to be interactive and fun. If you have any questions please ask. If I don't know the answer I would love to ask Raj or Ramya or Sayli about it, and let them be the teacher.

The first thing I want to tell you about it is the "sacred" parts of meditation. After several conversations with Raj I began to realize that there are very few sacred parts of my life. I don't even understand the meaning of sacred very well, but with his (Raj's) help I am learn that there are parts of my life that should be totally separate from one another. For example, praying and driving to work should be kept separate. I can't exactly concentrate on driving if I'm speaking to God, and I can't exactly search deep within myself if I'm driving. I'm either going to wreck my car or have a shallow prayer. How about this, reading the Bible and using the restroom don't exactly mix. I have often found myself guilty of this. Sure I can read the Bible in that spare time, but I either lose the deep meaning of the Holy Word or I don't get the full enjoyment out of that private time. Now you may be thinking "Zane there is nothing wrong with either of those things". And if you are thinking that, you are right. There is nothing sinful about that. But I believe you are getting the short end of the stick if you supplement your private time with God with private time with God and another activity. We need to have time in our day that is solely dedicated to God and our heart's desire for Him. By focusing your entire mind, body, and spirit on Him you can gain significantly more than when you are multi-tasking. Does that make sense?

Through proper meditation, you are providing God a platform where only He and you are the center of attention. There are essential parts of meditation that should not be compromised. By following these steps you are making your meditation time sacred. That is to say, you are making this place in your life set apart solely for God.

Here are the first steps:

• Find a place in your house where you can sit on the floor
  
• This place in your house should be distraction free, ie. no television, no books/magazines (other than the Bible), no children, no pets. It should be the equivalent of what Christ taught when he said, go to the closet, shut the door, and then pray
• If you are serious about meditation, then this place in your house should only be used for meditation. In other words, it should not be your office where you also work, it should not be your bedroom where you also sleep. If you don't have a lot of spare space, you should find a little used corner in your house where the only thing you do in that corner is pray/meditate.
• After you've found your spot, find some meditation clothes. Find a set of clothes that are just plain (mine are pajamas) and set them aside for meditation. You will only wear those clothes when you meditate/pray. Put them on before you begin, take them off when you are finished. Simple right.

The special place in your house, the floor, the clothes, all of these things are to help you make this experience sacred. Meditation doesn't begin when you sit down, it begins by mentally preparing yourself to experience God. When you expect great things, great things happen. These techniques are not meant to be religious or restrictive, they are meant to help you get your mind ready and free from distraction before you begin. By creating this routine, you are actually training your mind to focus. This will become a special process by which you reach out to God and He responds. Putting on the clothes, sitting in your spot will tell you its time to get serious, its time to communicate. Its like when you smell something cooking, you're telling your stomach...hey you are about to get some food, get ready.

After you've finished completing those tasks, then check back on the blog. I will hopefully have the next steps outlined. I would go deeper, but I'm tired of typing.

Peace and Grace, Zane

Chinese Censorship

Is anyone else bothered by Chinese censorship?

If you haven't read that article, or one of the many others similar to it, the Chinese government is beginning to "crack down" on the morality of the country. It seems the censorship is an effort to "clean up" the country prior to the Olympics coming to town. It is just scary. Thoughts?

Rooster ?(tail)

This is a roostertail.


And so is this.

Facebook Privacy

I am really getting tired of Facebook. I resisted the urge to create an account for a very long time, but about six months ago gave in. For the most part, I've been extremely impressed with Facebook's amazing site, and yet appalled and bored with it. (I will get to the appalled part later) For one, Facebook's tools such as face recognition, search capabilities, and photo albums are very impressive from a technology standpoint. They have some very clever software engineer's working for them. As a web programmer myself, I am very impressed.

On the other hand, the whole Facebook as an operating system is kind of stupid. I mean seriously, would someone please develop an application that is actually worth a damn. I get ten emails a day telling me I've been poked, or someone likes me, or I'm a favorite, or rate my videos, or compare music taste, or take this movie quiz, or join the warriors of the revolution group, or lastly someone has thrown a sheep at me. And seriously, I already have a wall I don't want an advanced wall, or super advanced wall, or picture/video wall. What the crap. Are they serious? Do people actually find entertainment value out that crap? If you do, please tell me. But personally, I get tired of wading through all the bunk messages trying to find someone who is actually trying to connect with me.

And then there is the appalling factor... Facebook has some serious privacy issues on their hands. I guarentee someone in 2008 will sue the crap out of Facebook. First of all, the cyber-stalking feature is cool, and I'm glad that they allow you to set which information share and which not to. However, do you remember when it was released, you had no control over it. After thousands of their users complained, and many threatened legal action, they finally added the ability to manage your information. Now, they've come out with a clever way to sell you personal information to advertisers. Their beacon system actually tracks your internet usage so that they can turn around and sell it to advertisers. To their defense, a lot of the websites you go to "sells" your information. But it seems Facebook has gone from a cool social networking site to a bunch of money hungry suits who are willing to compromise their user's privacy in order to make some change.

To make matters worse, I read an article today that says you can't delete your account. So basically, I'm tired of getting emails from advertisers selling me something that Facebook tracked me looking at, and I want to cancel my account. No can do. Better luck next time. What the mess.

Now I know what you're thinking. Myspace isn't much better. Well, yes they are. You can cancel your account. You don't have to put up with a bunch of useless features. You can actually make your page look like you want it. And on top of that, they don't track your usage. Sure they put up some annoying advertisements, but what website doesn't? They are not turning around and selling your email address every time you click on Old Navy.

Meditation

I have started meditating. Is that weird?

This all started because I've been reading a book called "Eat, Pray, Love". In the book, she talks about people using prayer beads. The idea of prayer beads really intrigues me. After all, Catholics learned the technique of using prayer beads from Hindi Gurus and then translated the meaning into Christianity. I thought it would be awesome to have some beads where each individual bead means something to pray for. Well it is a good idea, and I sought out Raj so that he could teach me the ancient ways to praying with beads. I would be his padawan and he would be my Jedi master.

Well to be blunt, Raj told me I was too immature to use prayer beads. When he said that, I got a bit of an arrogant spirit and thought to myself "how the heck would you know, I pray every day". But after following his advice, I really am too immature to use the prayers beads. In his wisdom, Raj told me that beads would simply become a an anchor to hold me back. He told me that it takes a great deal of concentration to focus on God rather than the beads, and that it would take some practice before I was ready for beads. Retrospectively, he was totally right.

Instead, Raj spoke with me about meditation and the power that is has. Raj taught me that meditation is a tool used to find peace with God, and in my context (Christianity) it could be a powerful tool of experiencing God. So I took some notes, listened to Raj's advice, and started meditating. It has truly been amazing. It has helped me pray with more purpose, and it has helped me to remember the times that God has impacted me most.

I've really cherished speaking with Raj about this. He is a great friend. He is absolutely unbiased and nonjudgmental, something all Christians should learn.

I feel like I could go on and on about meditating, but I don't want to convolute the message here. If you want to know how to meditate, the tips my Hindi friend has taught me, or my experience I'd love to tell you.

Have you met Toms?

I just wanted to remind you of Toms Shoes. If you haven't been to the website or read anything about the company Toms stands for "Shoes for Tomorrow". The company makes shoes (which are stylish and comfortable btw) and for each pair sold they give a pair to a person in need. The Toms crew just got back from a shoe drop in Africa. You can go to their website to read more about the shoes, the company, and the Africa trip.

Don't you think its time the Church realizes our responsibility to our brothers in need?

Peace and Grace, Zane

Also note, the Bible study last night was excellent. It felt so warm and familiar; a feeling I've longed for. If you have the opportunity go check it out.

monday...

I strongly dislike Mondays. I would say that I hate Mondays, but I'm trying to stay as positive as I can. I don't want to make "hate" a goto word when I'm trying to describe something else. If I say hate, I want it to be like...whoa, Zane really doesn't like that to the point where he hates it. You know what I mean?

I created a blog today. In all honesty, I created this blog for two reasons. One, because Jenny uses her blog and I want to be able to respond. Two, Mike created a blog for the church, and I wanted to be able to respond.

But now that I'm back on the blogging circuit, I'm reminded of my time blogging for livejournal, and the occasional blog on myspace. I do enjoy blogging, as long as people read it.

I would just write in my prayer journal if I didn't want people to read it, so the only way this blog will get any traction is if people read it.