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Favorite Comment: Fixer ChronicWanderer says, “A sink of omission.”

Wednesday

PRaP 10-21-2009

“Puzzling Isn’t It?”

Puzzles come in a variety of shapes and sizes and they even have 3d puzzles now which are so cool!  Once you have completed your puzzle you either take it apart and do it again or you glaze it over with puzzle glue and make it a permanent picture board.  Puzzles can be as easy as 4 simple pieces or as difficult as 10,000 pieces none the less they are puzzling.  The thing about a puzzle is that if there is only one piece missing the puzzle is ruined and cannot be completed it is an incomplete puzzle destined to be an incomplete work never to be finished.  You know life is like that.  I bet you saw that coming like from a mile away, didn’t you?  Life can be difficult for some and east for others and some of us take life and take it apart and put it back together again and some glaze it over with goo to make one thing stick permanently yet there are some lives that just can’t find that corner piece and get frustrated and give up.  But there are some lives that are just missing that one piece to be completed and they just can’t find it and just don’t know where to look.  I bet you saw that coming to, right?  I got a secret that I want to share with those of you that don’t have a clue what I am talking about.  I know the Puzzle Maker, the Creator of all puzzles we call life.  He has the missing piece.  You what else?  He wants you to come and get it from Him.  You see He sent His Son to give it to you but you didn’t see Him.  So He sent His Son again to talk to you but you didn’t listen to Him.  He came over to share the puzzle with you but you wouldn’t open the door for Him.  He wants to sit with you and talk about your puzzle and give you the missing piece that you have been missing for all these years but you have to open the door to your heart and let Him in.  The Puzzle Maker is Jesus Christ and He carries the missing pieces to everyone’s puzzle.  All you have to do is ask Him in and tell Him you are sorry for the things you have done wrong and that hurt others.  Really it is that simple, like a 4 piece puzzle all corners, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and you.  There now the puzzle is complete.  It’s up to you what you do with the completed puzzle.  I recommend you share it like I have shared this with you each and every day.

Hebrews 13

Key Verse:

Hebrews 13:16

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
Hebrews 13:15-17 (in Context) Hebrews 13 (Whole Chapter)

Jesus Bless,

Pastor Steve

Brave.

I’m bored of brave.  These past 15 months have all been about ‘brave.’

I roll it round my mouth ’til it’s just sound:

 B B B Ba Ba Babababababa. B for baby.  Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Like an engine spluttering; a kitten purring; or perhaps a drumroll. Drumroll please: brrrrrrave lady, coming through! A. A. A . A. A. A.  Av. Ave. Ava. Ava. Brave when she scrapes a knee. Brave when she consents to have her hair washed. Brave when she splats her ice cream on the pavement  outside the shop. Brave when she defies her mama in the great bedtime battle of 2009.

Here I am, in my Brave New World. I love a good Shakespeare reference. I should be like Miranda: amazed, enthralled, overwhelmed: ‘O brave new world, That has such people in’t’. And I am. I see us. I see the pictures. I see how lucky we are. The little family. Adoring father, blissful mother, chubby-cheeked cherub children.

But then I feel the tug, the grip, the yearning. I think of my parallel life. The other path. The Back to the Future dilemma. Would I change it if I could? If 88mph and some stolen plutonium were all it took, would I save her now? I couldn’t. I choose Moe. My horrible hypothetical. My impossible fantasy. I betray Iris over and over again. It’s the *New* new normal.  So much joy; so much guilt.

 Spiritually no piece of human beings can be missing, no matter what, for every one of us is a god in spirit.

But almost everyone has a piece/pieces missing from  him/her self emotionally, mentally and physically.

 Even if a piece or pieces of you body is/are missing, you can still maintain wholeness of your self emotionally and mentally, by enhancing yourself mentally and emotionally, moreover spiritually.

But if a piece or pieces of your emotional self and/or mental self is/are missing, caused by physical illnesses, mental shocks, and/or traumas, it could be rather difficult for you to function totally or express yourself fully, in spite of the fact that your spiritual self does its best to sustain you doing so.

As you have the most authority and power concerning with yourself, the best way to retrieve your missing pieces is to do it by yourself.

Steps to retrieve missing pieces by yourself are as follows:

First check if there would be any piece/pieces missing from your self. Go into a sacred place within you, such as an inner garden.

1. Ask a god within you three times, to show him/herself by a symbol such as a color, smell, feeling, texture, sound, atmosphere or a shape, geometric pattern, a numeric character, even by a name.

2. Ask the god within you to let you know if any piece or pieces have been missing.

You can use a pendulum or a looped string with a weight such as a ring or car key to communicate with your god within. Ask him/her to let the pendulum you’re holding rotate clockwise if there would be any pieces missing from yourself. If not, counterclockwise.

3. If you’d be known some pieces have been missing from you, ask the god to show you a piece which needs to be retrieved first, by a symbol.

4. Taking in the symbol of your missing piece back to where it should be located.

An easy way is to put the symbol between your hands and swallow it down, with big sound of inhaling breath, as many times as you feel it back to you, generally until the symbol disappears between your hands.

Then breathe deeply and slowly at least four times, and the missing piece will be back to its place in your self.

5. Declare and appreciate that the missing piece is back to your self.

 The rest of your missing pieces will be back to you by doing the steps above, one by one.

You don’t need to know where your missing pieces have been or the meanings of their symbols. All that you need to know is you have retrieved your missing pieces all right.

You can retrieve your missing pieces as often as you wish. At each time, different symbols of your missing pieces would be shown by a god within you. When you feel you’re functioning totally and expressing yourself fully, you have no missing pieces any more.

An example: retrieving missing pieces of myself.

I directed my attention to the inner garden and breathed deeply and slowly four times. A fountain with water splashing from its top appeared in my mind.

I noticed it was a symbol of my god within (a symbol of a god within changes as needed). I carefully listened to the sound of fountain water, which was telling  me that seven pieces had been missing from my self at that time.

Then I asked my god within to show me a symbol of a missing piece to be retrieved first. A big lion head was shown.

I put it between my hands and swallowed it. Putting my hands on the navel, I said “I appreciate this piece is back to me.”

 The second symbol was an amplifier of a phonograph something like a picture below.

The third symbol was a stone bridge. The fourth symbol was a big diamond ring. The fifth was a huge bonfire. The sixth was a straw-thatched cottage. The last symbol was a series of organic evolution.

 The last symbol was hard to swallow, but when it was (actually they were) back to me, I felt released.

PS: In my case, symbols of my missing pieces were visionary images at that time, but they can be varied according to the way of your god within shows  in your mind.

“Because the world is hungry,
go with bread.
Because the world is filled with strife,
go with peace.
Because the world is filled with deceptions and lies,
go with truth.
Because the world would die without,
go with the love of God.”

Source: http://www.actsweb.org/weekend_encounter.php#2

Are you there, God? It’s me Candy~

I feel like a puzzle piece….

maybe an important “corner” piece
or
maybe the one that is lost under the couch

each PIECE makes the puzzle complete.

Puzzle Pieces~

Life feels like an unfinished puzzle….

each day makes me work at the full picture
always looking at the next piece

some days seem that my piece is impossible to place

Shel Silverstein is one of my favorite authors.
He had an incredible talent in writing and understanding life!

It was missing a piece.
And it was not happy.
So it set off in search of its missing piece.
And as it rolled it sang this song -Oh I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece Hi-dee-ho, here I go,
Lookin’ for my missin’ piece.

(the ending is amazing!)

Thank you GOD for making me part of your puzzle~

candy

It’s my first day back work after Shaam’s surgery. I know I’m just physically here today… but I’m trying my best to earn my bread. Literally.

Vast majority of my heart is at home- trying to figure out what Shaam is doing at any given moment; another chunk is at Yarrambat- where Sherkhan’s cat boarding is- I wonder what he, too, is doing now. I hope they are not too distressed. I like to believe both my boys would have preferred if I were with them.

I sometimes totally hate the fact that we have to work so hard in this world to be able to just ‘live’. But what’s the use of complaining about it anyway? Not that I will suddenly discover a choice by complaining! And as my mum would say (to my utter annoyance ) that I need to be grateful that I have a job that pays for food, medicine and cat boarding… many people have it way worse.

I sometimes wonder why I never found it so easy to find reasons to be ‘content’. Why do I feel like looking for all the missing pieces… sometimes purely based on a hunch that there may be pieces missing… and I look for things that many keep trying to convince me don’t exist.

How can I tell you what I look for when even I don’t really know what it is, only that it exists- somewhere in this big big world? May be I won’t have to look that far and it exists right inside of me. Who knows, I’m still looking. May be someday I’ll find it too.

I think I was born with a heart of a nomad…

…. or a butterfly.

What a great episode! So this post is basically what I think are the most important pieces of information that I remember from just the first viewing…

• Flight 316 has to recreate as many elements from Flight 815 as possible
• Including John Locke as a “proxy”
• Which requires Jack to give something of his father’s to Locke
• Turns out to be Christian’s dress shoes found among Jack’s grandfather’s belongings
• Which explains why Christian wears white tennis shoes on the island
• Jack picks up Locke from Jill at the butcher’s
• He puts Christian’s shoes on Locke, adn returns the note still having not read it

• The island is “always moving” in an “apparently random” manner
• Which led to Dharma building their (presumably) first Station called the Lamp Post
• Which is built on top of a pocket of electromagnetic energy
• One of many around the globe
• But Dharma is only interested in one, the Island
• The Island can’t be located by “where it should be” but “where it’s going”
• And where it’s going in 36 hours is along the path of flight 316 from LA to Guam

• Somehow, the O6 (minus Aaron) all get on the flight
• Hurley freaks out that Ben is going with them, and has a guitar for some reason
• And a flight attendant gives Jack Locke’s note which security found on Locke on inspection
• Lapidus is their pilot, “We’re not going to Guam, are we?”
• Jack asks Ben how he can read
• Ben replies, “My mother taught me”
• Eventually Jack reads Locke’s note “I wish you would have believed (me?)
• The plan works, for Kate Jack and Hurley as far as we know
• But there’s a catch, they have travelled through time landing in the Dharma era
• Where/when at least Jin is as well, who is a Dharma worker??

• Somewhere in there Kate and Jack spend the night together.

So many answers, but also so many new questions:

• What happened to Aaron?
• What was Ben doing that got him all roughed up?
• Why did Sayid and Hurley decide to get on the flight?
• Who is the woman Sayid is with?
• Did anyone else besides Kate, Jack and Hurley survive the (crash?)?
• Did the plane crash, or what’s the deal with that?
• Has the island stopped flashing?

I will address those questions and any more I think of in an upcoming theory post…

And finally, some storytelling elements that really stood out to me:

• Opening scene mimicked S1E1 (which also repeated at the end of this episode*)
• White tennis shoes, which also appeared in the opening scene of S1E1
• Reveal of Jin as a Dharma worker (and bringing in the shiny Dharma van)
• Desmond telling Jack to ignore Eloise (similar to Sayid telling Hurley to not listen to Ben)

*In all, this sequence (if you include Missing Pieces) has been shown 4 times now. (S1E1, MPE13, twice in S5E6)

That’s all I’ve got, until next post…

Arianna Huffington was recently on The Daily Show and talked about blogging. She said that everyone should blog about whatever they want, whenever they want. I thought this was a good idea. Now y’all are lucky, because I’m going to blog about whatever I want, whenever I want, and if you know me personally, I’ll bug you about reading my blog and when you don’t, I’ll act offended, forcing you to read my blog. So in the end, everyone wins. I’m really doing the world a favor.

Right now I want to talk about LOST. If you’ve never watched LOST, the following video does a great job summing up four seasons in just under five minutes:

Santa brought me Season 4 for Christmas and my favorite part of the DVD extras is this extra scene that takes place in Season 1:

You can watch all of LOST: Missing Pieces here. If you are a fan of the show and you haven’t seen the Missing Pieces yet, they are very interesting and informative.

Season 5 of LOST premiers on January 21st, 2009. At 9pm! On ABC! For those of us that don’t like waiting half a year for the next season, the geniuses at the show devise little games for us to play to keep us happy. This year they ran out of money, as explained by Damon and Carlton:

I actually prefer listening to them talk about the show than playing a game, anyway. I’m not exaggerating when I say that what they have to say about the show is just as fun as watching the show.

Another one of my favorite extras on the Season 4 DVD is Course of the Future: The Definitive Flash Forwards, which lays out all the flash-forwards on the show in chronological order. I had an idea of the order of events but actually seeing it makes it much clearer in my brain. *taps forehead* Damon and Carlton are visited by their future selves in the following video (and it’s adorable):

I also got a Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas and I’m still waiting to register. I’m a bit miffed.

And my Brain Age is 55!

Story of the day:  You are a piece of the puzzle

     Our pastor in Ohio had pieces of a puzzle distributed throughout the church.  He used these pieces to describe how all the pieces represent a bigger picture, a complete picture.  As I was reading, I came across an illustration of this puzzle that I think does a great job in describing the unity of a church.  Mr. Green writes:  “As members of the body of Christ, we can be compared to pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.  Each piece has protrusions and indentations.  The protrusions represent our strengths (gifts, talents, abilities), and the indentations represent our weaknesses (faults, limitations, shortcomings, undeveloped areas.)  The beautiful thing is that the pieces complement one another and produce a beautiful whole.

     Just as each piece of a puzzle is important, so each member of the body of Christ is important and can minister to the other member of the body.

     Just as, when one piece is missing from the puzzle, its absence is very obvious and damages the picture, so also is the whole weakened when we are absent from the body of Christ.

     Just as, when each piece of a puzzle is in place, any one piece is not conspicuous but blends in to form the whole picture, so it should be in the body of Christ.”

Quote of the day:  J. B. Priestly

“None of us is as smart as all of us.”

Bible verse of the day:  Mark 3:24

“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for each member of the body of Christ.  Thank You for equipping us all with unique gifts, talents, and abilities.  It is each of these things that makes up who we are as people and when we blend with others, the picture that we create together is so much more beautiful.  Father, there are so many churches out there that are missing their pieces to the puzzle, for whatever reason.  I pray that they put aside any differences that they may have and work together to complete the finished product.  How beautiful it is to see a church work together for the greatness of Your Kingdom.  The light that can shine and can be seen from all over.  Father, my prayer today is for unity within the church as a whole.  May we come together, just like a puzzle, and may the picture of unity be seen by all.  I thank You for this day!

In Jesus Name I pray,

Amen

Are you sure you want to know?

This is the letter I began, and had to discard. I did not send it because I could not reread it. There will only be more and more and more. Words………………..You see?

So. I left it. Just in case I dreamt that I wrote it at all.

It really does not tell you any facts of the time we speak of, doesn’t really fill you in on the missing pieces of just who exactly he is.

Nor of myself.

I won’t reread it.

I did not write it with form in mind. After a while, not even with your best interests in mind. Only what is there, or was, in my own mind.

Is this helpful to you? I feel not, but you are probably a strange girl anyway, and who am I to imagine what is needed?

I only survived the catastrophies in my own life by immersing myself in the stark and brutal pain and truth and ugliness of whatever Hell it was, whichever time and whatever came. So much. And why that alone didn’t kill me, I don’t know! It’s not what’s probably needed. But at least when I am done, I am done, eh?

The letter I started to you is as follows–

my heart has never been broken.

sure, it`s been stepped on, even stomped on ocassionally.

it`s been smacked around a little.

ripped in a few places, torn in a lot.

there`s even a few claw marks and a few bits missing.

it`s slightly lopsided and very fragile looking, with all the bruises and initials carved in like an old school desk

it`s a little bit squished and it hurts sometimes, but it`s beautiful.

and no one can ever break that. <3

Jordan Belfi has just finished appearing opposite Raine Wilson in Samah Tokmachi’s dark-comedy short,Missing Pieces.

Jordan stars as David Ostermann, a man who so is deathly afraid of getting testicular cancer that he’s gone to Tijuana to have himself castrated! Through his relationships with his aging father, the women in his life and his balding, chain-smoking, porn addict best friend Brandon (Rainn Wilson), David discovers the consequences of his past choices, as well as the possibility of new ones.

Missing Pieces recently won for best short film at the NOW FILM FESTIVAL, and SANTA FE FILM FESTIVAL. It was also an official selection at: PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL  SHORT FESTIVAL, LA SHORTS FESTIVAL, and CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL.

Check out the trailer below:

Official Film Website:

http://www.missingpiecesmovie.com