Mindscape of Chris Judd

In the last few days various readings and audiobooks have all touched at some point on Moses seeing the back of God instead of His Face… Why did he look at the back and not face-to-face? As the Bible explains it was because Moses could not survive it… And yet even with the fleeting glimpses of God and His Glory from the back, he came down with his own face glowing/shining!

Can people tell that we have the living God shining thru US??

I am reminded of the missions trips I took to Chennai, India a few years ago. I went knowing that God wanted to use my skills and talents to help a Bible school with their technology, but didn’t know how it would impact both sides… I went with a team of folks that had goals of visiting orphanages and schools, setting up medical camps, teaching classes, and so on.

I’ll dig up some journal entries about the trips and post those later, but to the point, as I took some time away from my tasks to help the other teams in medical camps, the non-medical ones (like me) would sit and pray with every person that came thru the camp. For many it was the 1st time they heard the name “Jesus”… what struck me the most, which is what ties the thought back to the title, is that you could SEE by simply looking at a person’s face if they were a believer, a brother/sister in Christ… THEY GLOWED! The others that were not, were solemn, pitiful looking, sad… That “shiney” aspect is dimmed here in America… we’ve got too much vying for our attention… We also have a tendency to reorganize the message of the Church as Christ intended… It is harder to look at another person here and see it as obvious…

Oh, to be that light, to be a “shiney”

Here is a link to a decent article on ZD-Net about the death of optical media/drives, or at least the slowing acceptance and use compared to external hard drives and cheap thumb drives….

I stopped using CD/DVD media as a backup method many years ago when I attempted to actually USE them again and read data off, and couldn’t… Many many hours later and trying different drives and cleaning cloths, and tricks like putting a blank label to increase reflectivity, and even lightly ironing – got 90% of the data back…. Turns out the Library of Congress is discovering the same thing… it does not “last” as long as one might think, and certainly not as long as the manufacturers promised (10 years I think was one such “promise”) – this is all referring to the consumer “burned” kind versus the pressed commercial kinds… The reason has to do with the layers and the separation of the actual data layer from the plastic substrate…

Anyway, check out the post here

Following the Biblical “to everything there is a season” passage in Ecclesiastes, I have FINALLY ‘cast away the stone’…. Praise GOD!

It was a jagged. gnarly, mean looking little beasty, about 6mm in size…. it’s at the lab now to get analyzed and will review with the Doc to see how to alter the diet some… I *REALLY* don’t want to go thru that again…. oooouuuuch! Happened a few days ago, we’ve named it “spike”. I think the combination of the massive amounts of fresh lemons and the final cocktail of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil as a chaser one evening greased it up and did the trick. It was like drinking salad dressing, without the yummy bacon flavoring. If that didn’t work, I was ready to try the “Samuel Adams” or “Miller Genuine Draft” route so many recommended… blech…

Plus side, tho I don’t recommend it, is I lost a lot of weight… now to keep it off. Going to watch what I eat more, drink lots more water, less tea – all that good stuff.

So long “Spike”, glad it’s over…

Well, in spite of the twist on the title of this point – yeah, it might be nice to experience “better living thru chemistry” – the “stones” are real… Kidney Stones…. going on 2 weeks (as of today, actually)… I’ve got some meds but they just dull the pain…

I’ve had a lot of people ask what it feels like, express their symapthy and even more that have said they have had them and agree with the “worst pain ever – more than child birth” statement. I’ve drank so much water last few weeks I shudder to think what the water bill is going to be . Tried the lemons, grapes, cranberry, etc methods to help either soften the stone, or disolve it, but so far, it’s a stubborn beasty and it’s hanging on tight…

The alarm that goes off on the iPhone every 4 hours to tell me to take another pill has become such a routine, that we’ve made a song out of the alarm tone…. something like “it’s time to… take Chris’ happy pill…..” (those with an iPhone, play the xylophone tone and sing along!)

Spencer is not happy to learn that my Dad has had them (quite a few times), and with me now, that the prospect that he’s next are not appealing… Especially when once he asked, I started explaining what they are and just how they hurt… he doubled over in sympathy pains. Like when guys watch those “funniest home video shows” that inevitably involve some poor guy getting punched/smacked/hit in the groin – every man twinges a little bit in sympathy…

So… alarm is going off, time to take a happy pill… later all!