Kaneroad.net

Due to some server issues I am having trouble loading all the images from my Kidder Creek rafting trip online. For now click here to see the photos.

In the mountains east of us lies a beautiful little town of three rivers. The town itself is very alluring, being in the sierra foothills, with a river running through it but the best part of it all is a trailhead in the mountains to the south, along the south fork Kaweah river, where the wild spirit of man is set free.

There my feet will dance in the soft cool dirt. I’ll roll in the nettles and perch on the flower peddles and be leap with glee.

Before we believe the definitions laid before us, an examination should be performed to verify the validity of that definition, otherwise we run the risk of following blindly. Our acceptance of these definitions are often subconscious and we do not realize how deeply they affect us. Success it seems, more often than not, is equated with money, social acceptance, comfortability and ease. These can all carry strong tendencies to corrupt and destroy.  I would like to cast a new perspective on the definition of Success.

Success is the perseverance to press on regardless of failures, to stand up for what is right in the face of overwhelming adversity.  Success is a lifestyle where by we live successfully in who we are, not in what we do or what we accomplish. We adhere to what we believe is right and true.

“A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, o priests, that despise my name. And ye say wherein have we despised thy name” Malachi 1:6

“Honor thy father and mother”, an ancient commandment rooted deep in the biblical mandates of the old testament, often redefined under the pretext of cultural relativity, is an issue of great emotional discussion among Christian youth around the world. What does it mean to honor thy father and mother? How do we reconcile ourselves with the biblical mandate to honor Dad in a culture where, “parents don’t understand”?

I was taught that at eighteen I was autonomous. I was taught to leave home and make my own life. I was taught that parents were intrusive, that families suffocate and by eighteen you should be eager to leave and, “live your own life”. Interestingly enough, this I learned from western culture.

There is a recent film which has challenge my outlook on the role of family tremendously. This film follows the story of several Christian young women and their choice to live at home serve their fathers and remain under his authority until marriage. The film is called Return of the Daughters, by two sisters, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin and you can read more about them at www.visionarydaughters.com.

Check out the Trailer here

I recognize this film is targeted to young women. However, these are transcendent principles and apply to men and women.

Things I’m unlearning:

Life = pursuit of happiness

Happiness = education, success, independence, social acceptance.

Success = well paying job with security and benefits.

Independence = Non- dependent. Usually implies a leave taking of home and rejection of parental authority and influence beginning at birth and legal at 18. Its often summed up in phrases such as “be your own person”, often justified with phrases such as “they don’t understand”. Individualism

Education = credits, coursework and college degree’s

Social acceptance = Culturally compliant, stay within the comfort zone of society.

From infancy you are taught, as you grow, you learn and by the age of five you’ve adapted a plethora of assumptions and ideas about how people relate, what is right or wrong, and why you exist at all. The majority of these assumptions, being subconscious, are not taught to us directly but are our own presuppositions and conclusions that we ourselves have drawn from the world around us. Even at the age of five, as we mold our own actions to those around us according to our known boundaries, we make moral conclusions, social conclusion, economical conclusions… all of which mold and shape us.

A presupposition can do one or both of two things. First, it broadens our perspective because each presupposition leads to multitudes of other presuppositions. Second, it blinds us. A presupposition which is not true will cloud our vision of the truth. Everything we see, perceive or presuppose will be perceived through that false lens. Jesus say’s that whoever wishes to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Christ sake will gain it. See, we can’t take Christ and mold him to our own sinful presuppositions. We must rid ourselves of our sinful ideologies so that we can see and hear Christ through a lens not clouded by our selfishness. In essence, we must unlearn what is false.

Blarney Roses in this blog are defined as those wonderful, rose-like, sweet tasting, persuasive ideals that in the end bring heart ache, ruin and sorrow.

This blog is a documentary of my un-schooling of the false teachings that I learned in my early years, and my walk with the Lord as he leads me on.

Daniel