The Fifth Mountain

I've started reading a book called "The Fifth Mountain." It is by one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho, a brazilian, international bestseller. He's the guy who wrote the Alchemist, a book, to put it simply, about following your dreams. This book is a retelling of the Elijah story, and he has a little forward in the book talking about events of his own life, challenges that appeared to be setbacks, hardships that could discourage one from achieving their end, but which are really steps along the way. He sets Elijah up as a man who was meant to be a prophet of God and wanted to just be a carpenter instead. His life is interrupted by dreams and visions and voices in his head. God tells him to send a message to the king, and he does so thinking that after his task is done, he can just go back to his normal life. But instead, the act triggers a slaughter by the wicked queen Jezebel against all those loyal to the true God. It is a simple, but intelligent interpretation and I really find it compelling. I would suggest reading it, along with the Alchemist, to anyone interested in these ideas. I feel really good about reading it at this stage in my life, while I am in the middle of pursuing the life I was "meant" to live.

I like how my finances keep working out. I keep worrying about them, not to the point of fretting, but enough that it sometimes becomes burdensome and I need to pray hard and remember that everything is going to work out right, and it does. I had a tooth problem, and I had to get a root canal done. This was at a time when I was just beginning to build back up my dwindled savings, and I had to pay for that. Then I found out that I would have to pay a whole bunch more for a crown on that same tooth. But when I went to the dentist for the crown, he looked at it and said he thought it would be fine if he jsut put a filling in it instead, and I did that and it saved me like 600 bucks. Big load off my chest there. Perhaps more clear an example to me of how things just keep working out just right was last week at work. I was working on Friday lunch and I happened to have no rehearsal that night, and Cassie happened to be busy, and a girl happened to call me and ask if I wanted to pick up a shift that night, so it worked out perfectly and I did. I made some extra money, and it worked out just right, because last night and today were extremely slow and I hardly made a fraction of what I expected to make. It's not that I would be fretting or scared, but I'm just impressed how the details fall into place.

I'm going to Brazil in June, and I'll be gone for ten days. It's just for fun - Cassie has a friend down there and we're going to go visit her. I'm excited. I'm really glad that Cassie motivates me to do things I love but might not otherwise do. It really is a blessing to me.