Murmurs from the Mundane: An Introduction

I had a conversation with myself not too long ago. To anyone aside from me, that would sound quite weird. I don’t do these sort of things because I’m some sort of über loner, or because I have nothing better to do. I like talking to myself, partly because I’m a very private person, and so questioning certain aspects of life by oneself remains hidden behind…well…whatever people who talk to themselves hide behind.

I also like talking to myself because I’m not really a confrontational person. As much as I love to stick up for what I believe in, I must admit I don’t like the whole perception of confrontation. You’d never think it; I mean, I can be vocal about topics and beliefs I hold true to, but rarely will I get physical in anything. Talking to myself means I can eliminate that whole aspect of my social skills.

But out of all the reasons why I converse with my own being is because you can’t get interrupted. I know that you can lose a train of thought and you might consider that an interruption, but an interruption to me is someone outside of myself butting in on a conversation while I’m full swing…

At least, I thought I could be uninterrupted…

The topic for the conversation was what to do for the summer. I had a few pre-made activities to partake in, but for the majority of what was set to be one of the greatest summers ever, I had gotten relatively little to do. I was getting into a good bit of banter with myself about different books that could keep me occupied for those lazy days in the summer…

And then Dad showed up.

I should explain. While I am stuck in the back-end of nowhere for most of the time with my family, including my dad, my other Dad is everywhere I go. Creepy sounding I admit, but that’s the kind of guy…I mean, God that He is.

Anyway, Dad decided to drop in unannounced into this conundrum I had dug myself into. Whenever Dad shares His two cents on a matter, it’s always worth listening to. He didn’t say a whole lot, verbally anyway. He rarely does, to me anyway. Rather, He tends to plant ideas which could only come from someone outside of myself. And that idea spawned this series. All He “said” was this;

“What have you forgotten?”

Another thing which is pretty obvious from the above statement is that a lot of what He says can be, on occasion, quite hard to understand. Mind you, I guess He wouldn’t be revered as having a great mystery about Him without something like this cropping up.

But it’s an interesting little statement isn’t? I mean, it could be taken on so many different levels. He could be reminding me had I forgotten that dinner was ready an hour ago and was probably gone cold, or I could’ve forgotten why I stopped watching the curse-ridden show that it Glee…OK, the last one will never be forgotten, but I needed something to fill the space.

But I think what Dad was reminding me about were the things that we take for granted in this life. I’m sure all of you have heard the little tale of a group of friends and myself getting jumped during the summer of 2010. If not, it’s bound to be bouncing around the internet somewhere. And the one thing that I took away from that evening was how precious and fragile this life is. There’s so much stuff we’ve been given that we often overlook them, or in my case, completely forget about them. This very life, the life we’re living is a gracious gift given by the only one who can give it;

“If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

- Romans 5:17

And so this book is devoted to reclaim these forgotten items. In this book, I’ll take a look through the different aspects of life which have been given to us, and yet which we need reminding of their power, presence and purpose in our lives.

This is going to be a good one guys…