Hired!!!!

This morning I was hired by the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. I cannot tell you what a privilege it was to get that phone call this morning. The story is long...and will have to wait for another post...

Love ( s )

I just finished reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. Interestingly enough, I am also studying 1st John which is, in a great part, about love. Here is one of my favorite quotes from Lewis.

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; aviod all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

He continues later...

"God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He e creates the universe, already forseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffoctaion as the body droops, the repeasted torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. ...This is Love Himself, the inventor of all loves. - C.S. Lewis

Where will my love lie? Will I attempt to protect my heart by burying it in a "casket of my own selfishness" or will make myself vulnerable to hurt and pain as I share the love God has shown me?

"...if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another..."
1 John 4:11

:-)

"I'm always getting interupted!!
I guess my brilliance will have to wait." -J.K.

tiny one

Tiny
Grey
Limp (rag doll)
Pump
Motionless
Trying hard
Too easy
Pump
Chaos
Where are the tools?
What is the dose?
pumping...always pumping
Harder than I thought...
No, not harder, more tiring.
Shock
Hoping
Knowing
Keep going, keep going
Do you want a break?
pump, pump...faster
forearms tired
can i really be breaking a sweat?
tiny, so tiny
still grey
everything is changing
losing hope
pumping, pump, pumping
"let me do that for you"
thinking i should go, finding out there are only a few minutes left...
...to try
"let me go again"
pump, pump, pump
eyes closed
still motionless
still grey
still tiny

extreme ways...

seen so much

in so many places,

so many heartaches,

so many faces,

you wouldn't even believe.

i would stand in line for this.

-Moby

c l o s e r . . .

This morning I turned in my preliminary background packet to the LAFD.

One step closer to wearing the badge...

(back to pushups)

My new hot rod...

Last shift my partner and I moved into a new station built to cover the north end of the city. We were busy all night and got little sleep. After our reliefs showed up we both slept for a few hours at the station before heading home. My partner left, and I stayed behind to get some administrative responsibilites taken care of. Another employee of the company was there doing some finishing touches on the paint job. After I finished up my work I told him I would see him later and packed up my truck to leave.

I got in the driver seat and turned the key. To my amazement, what had been a quiet running engine just the day before now sounded like a hot-rod. The first thought that ran through my head was "what kind of piece of trash truck did I buy?" (I have only had the truck for about 3 weeks). I popped the hood and looked at the engine. Nothing seemed out of place. I walked around the truck thinking the whole time that the noise it was making sounded similar to the sound my Camry made when the muffler went. I noted that the exhaust pipe was still there and didn't look damaged, so I walked to the side of the truck and dropped to the pavement to look underneath the car.

As my eyes adjusted to the light I found that a huge piece of the pipe that connects the catalytic converter and the muffler was missing. My first thought was..."how could I miss that falling off?" Then I noticed the nuts and bolts that had been holding it to the frame of the truck lying on the parking lot.

Yup...my catalytic converter and part of the connecting pipe was gone, jacked, stolen.

As I drove to the repair shop I smiled thinking about the story I would have to tell a police officer if I got pulled over for making too much noise...

"Um, yes officer, I know it sounds like I had a muffler job done, but you see, $400 worth of parts was just stolen off my vehicle and I'm on my way to get it fixed now."

Never a dull moment working in the City of Champions.