therapy

--This post was written on 1-17-10--

Dear Friend,

Is your life busy right now?? Recently it seems like free weekends are hard to come by. Not just for my family, but it seems like this goes for just about everyone I know. Dealing with this “business” is for another conversation. Regardless, we all have various forms of therapy. What I mean by this is when life gets stressful, and you just need to get away, where do you go? What do you do? For example, my wife will often go to one of her favorite stores and browse the aisles looking at clothes. All she has to tell me is where she is going, and I know that she just needs to get away for a little bit.

My therapy comes from the aisles of Barnes and Noble. For the past 7 years, I have constantly been in school -- working my way through college, then working on my masters, and in just weeks, I will begin working on another masters. It seems like I have constantly been reading books, articles, and papers that have been assigned to me. So I long for those moments at Barnes and Noble, moments when I pick out books that I would read if I had the time or the opportunity.

Barnes and Noble is huge, and the store has these nooks marked off. Some of these nooks are filled with pages of Biographies, History, Religion, Cooking, etc, etc. So I make my way through all the various nooks and crannies picking out books that I would like to read. I always tell myself that I can’t buy any of the books, but normally I convince myself that I have to at least purchase one or two. Then I have a rule, no books can go on my bookshelf unless I have either read it or it is a reference book of some kind. So at the foot of my bookshelf are stacks of books that I hope to read one day. This is my therapy.

So whenever I have a week off for spring break or a couple weeks for summer, I normally pick up a few of the books off the floor and try and finish them before the next semester begins.

This past December I finished my time at Phoenix Seminary, and I knew that I had a two-month break before I started at Talbot Theology Seminary. TWO MONTHS!! During this time, Lolly and I have been getting things in order to move to California, and we also just got back from our honeymoon yesterday. But during this time off, I have had the opportunity to read some books that normally only see the toes on my feet as I look for a dictionary of some kind.

As Lolly and I were flying home yesterday, I began to wonder if anyone else had read the same books that I had read the past couple months. And then I got to thinking about how fun it would be if we got together and had some coffee or tea and spoke about the book.

I am assuming a lot here…biggest assumption being that you would even want to join me for a discussion. I am putting myself out here because I value what other people think. And if you have read the book, I think it would be interesting to hear what my friends thought of the book. Here is what I am going to do. I am going to list most of what I have read these past couple months, and if you would like to get together, contact me through an email. And even if you don’t live in Arizona, that’s no problem because neither will I beginning on January 22nd. Likewise, if you don’t live in Fullerton California, we could talk on the phone, through email, skype, iChat…

…Books (in no particular order)
1. Lone Survivor
by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson

2. The Real Benjamin Franklin
by Andrew M. Allison

3. The 5000 Year Leap
by W. Cleon Skousen

4. Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus
by Brad H. Young

5. Follow Me to Freedom: Leading and Following As an Ordinary Radical
by Shane Claiborne, John Perkins

6. The Justice Project
by Brian McLaren, Elisa Padilla, Seeber Ashley Bunting

7. Going Rogue
By Sarah Palin

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

My friends, I hope that this blog message finds you well. I have missed writing to you a great deal. This year has shaped into one of the busiest years of my life thus far. I am getting married this November (who is inside and out the most beautiful woman), graduating from graduate school in December, and my soon-to-be wife and I will be moving to L.A. where I will begin another masters. Within all of these great adventures there has been (...and will be) so many moments of success and failure along the way that I have wanted to write about but haven’t had the time. But I think I have found a solution…for this season of my life I am going to be leaving this blog (I look forward to the day that I can write on this blog again) and begin microblogging on twitter. You can find me @KDiRoberts.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

I wrote a blog not to long ago, it was around the time of the election and some people were hanging effigies of the political candidates that we were about to vote on as to who would lead this country. This particular blog really brought out some emotions of the people who commented, and my real purpose in even writing about racism was to say that it doesn’t matter if you hang an effigy of a black or white person…it is wrong either way.

Just us a couple of days ago I was watching the Bill Maher show on HBO. Although I disagree with about everything he says, I still like to watch and hear what he has to say. On this panel you have a liberal and conservative talking with Bill Maher.

There are different segments of this dialogue on YouTube, but the one I have posted here is the opening 10 minutes. There is bad language in it so keep that in mind, and I guess as you watch the interview keep racism in mind. And watch both of their body languages and listen to their voices because I think racism comes out in a subtle but powerful way.



I think that it is plain to see, but I want you to tell me who you think is racist in this dialogue.

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

lepers in Hawaii

Two years ago I had the privilege to fly in a helicopter from Maui to the island of Molokai. Our pilot took us over this remote peninsula and told us that what we were looking at was one of the only active leprosy colonies in the world.



This is Lolly (my fiance) and I on the helicopter.



Just to the right of this huge rock is where the leper colony is.

He told us that people were able to visit the colony but that you were asked not to take pictures. The pilot even took us low enough to see the chapel where the priest lived and also where they had church.

Just today I found this article talking about how Rev. Damien de Veuster was going to be canonized as a Saint because of his work with the lepers in Molokai.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

Question

If you could blot out bad memories...would you? Read here.

I think the Bible has some thoughtful words concerning "bad memories."

The Bible says, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

...I Love Jesus But I Drink A Little

I found this video on a friends facebook. I watched it and thought that I would be doing laughter an injustice not to put this on my blog. I love Ellen DeGeneres. I don't have time to watch her show, but whenever I see clips of her show, laughter normally follows.

Have fun and laugh a little...or a lot.



heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

This is a video of Helen Thomas.

Here is some background on her…thanks to Wikipedia.

“Helen Thomas (born August 4, 1920) is an American news service reporter, a Hearst Newspapers columnist, and member of the White House Press Corps. She served for fifty-seven years as a correspondent and, later, White House bureau chief for United Press International (UPI). Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She has written four books; her latest is Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.”



And some people think the media isn’t really that biased. This is a great video, and I think, puts things into a great perspective with regards to the media. Make sure you at least get to minute mark 3:15 and listen from there.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts