Against Nothingness

All my finals are over!!! They were over yesterday, and the last two went well. Today I get to go back home to Calgary!! Yes, if any of you were wondering, I am very glad this semester is over. Good to be on a break, see my family, later in the holidays I get to see Chapter, and so on :) I am still going to attempt to blog, at least from Calgary, but we will see how much of that actually happens. It finally feels like Christmas season, now that I am done finals and all. So, Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I would comment on the capture of Sadaam, except that I have nothing to say. In some ways it was almost inevitable, in others it was almost impossible; I guess we know which one it was now. Inevitable after the fact is meaningless though. Thank's to PinkMoose for blogging about it, otherwise who knows when I would have found out about this historic and momentous occasion? So instead of extended comments on that, here is a song I like, and I like the lyrics to: A New Desert Life By Further Seems Forever This is where the water becomes shallow. And nothing here is quite as deep As you hoped it would be. You wish the lines were drawn a little clearer. The tides have turned This drought will burn And everything is falling out of place. And drying in the sun Shriveling and shrinking The hides are turning brown Wrinkling and stinging. As you bury yourself Deep in the dust Of the sandiest grave you can find It's a new desert life. To be reborn

So, my last two exams. Two left. One tommorow one monday. My exam on tuesday went very well, better than I had hoped. My exam today was as I expected, I think I did fine, but I know I didn't do great.

Ok, I don't know about you guys, but something about this makes me incredibly nervous. No, actually, the right word is nauseous. You can read a good article about it here . I will now, with great effort, prevent a rant from coming out. Rants are not conducive to studying and follow right along with tendency of exam stress to focus your brain on anything but exams.

"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked how men expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet he restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a

A Confession of a Moment Walking to school yesterday, I was awakened by a sound. It was the sound of creaking. I looked around, and realized that the sound was from a distant gate, across a field, swinging in the wind. It suddenly seemed very quiet. There were no people around, no cars, no bikes. I looked up, and right above me was the line separating the clouds from the clear blue sky. Yet only a long and deep stare penetrated to see that line, somehow the light and those gray clouds interacted to make the blue sky look gray to. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm either. It was that midwinter, below zero, average temperature, which feels so normal once you adjust to the cold. It was windy, but the wind did not bite or cut. It was more like being hit with a fan than a sword. Just enough to whitewash all the normal background noise of the city; the traffic on the main roads and the construction at the university. And all those things that I normally thought of

First final done. It went well, but my hand hurts. Writing for two and half hours is not something I am accustomed to, especially since I am used to typing my notes.

My first final is tonight. My Religion and Literature final. I am not sure how ready I feel because I am not sure what the test is goign to be like.. its just 4 general short answers and one general essay question, supposedly general enough that we can refer to any work we want to from the class, and we can even bring those works into class. Thats what actually makes me nervous... Yep, you can bring your text books to class; you can almost hear the teacher chuckle under her breath at that point. It doesn't help that she says it as if she were handing a man a sheet as he was about to jump off a cliff. It'll be good though After tonight, my next final is the tuesday, the 9th. Then the 11th, 12th, and 15th. Then I am done. Needless to say, I probably won't be writing lots in the next two weeks. Then its Christmas holidays! Sweet.

The last day and a half or so have been amazing. On Friday night I left immediately after Shine, and spent a good part of the evening talking with Chapter. So good. After that, I got into a long conversation with three friends about Crusade. That was also good. Saturday my parents came up to visit, which was good since I don't get to see them nearly as much as I would like to. In all fairness, thats probably my fault. In any case, it was fun :) We went to the olive garden for lunch, my first time there. It was good. I also tried Sangria for the first time that lunch, and I liked it to. Then we watched "The Emporers New Groove", which is one of my favorite movies. Hilarious. Last night was the Campus for Christ Christmas Banquet for our campus. Such fun. At my table we largely just acted like big kids all night; the fact that we were all in suits and dresses (or equivalent levels of la-de-da dressiness) only adding to the hilarity. We managed to hit

Tensions: The Pain of Honesty and the Gentleness of Love This is at least partially me venting :) Sometimes we have this idea, that we should never cause any pain with our words. As Christians we back this idea up with appeals to various verses, usually exhorting us to tell the truth in love. We interpret that to mean that we say the most we can without causing pain... of course, there really is a lot of pain involved with honesty, and so we usually end up being half honest, sacrificing the Chrisitan value of truth for what we call teh Christian value of love or gentleness. Kierkegaard draws an analogy of a man who wants to be a millionaire, he is workign towards it, but as of yet he has 2 dollars. Do we do him any favors by calling him a millionaire? If he calls himself a millionare would be correct in telling him he is at least over confident, if not outright delusional? It is certainly no slander to tell this man, if all he has is 2 dollars, that he is a bit of a poor man

Today I woke up braindead. It is not uncommon for me to go to sleep in that condition I euphamistically call braindead, but waking up like that doesn't happen to often. I realized that basically for the last four weeks I have been doing non-stop research and writing, producing over 40 pages of essays, as well as keeping up with all the normal stuff I do, or most of it. Throw in a few very long meetings this week, and voila, fried morning TheLogo, a pleasant light brown color and a little extra crunch. Seriously, I feel like I am mostly done this semester, and I am saying that with the full awareness that I have five finals left to write. Finals look like nothing compared to essays right now, though that opinion might change as I write some fo them. But, at least my teachers limit me to one or two books plus notes... when I write an essay there is no such limitation. Its kind of wierd, this is my second last semester. It has gone by so quickly, as all semesters do, b

In Religous Studies and Christian?!?! Impossible! I have lost track of how many people are surprised that I am a Christian, and at the same time in religous studies at a secular university. I'm going to be honest here, I used to get this warm fuzzy feeling... "So what are you taking at University?" "Religous studies" this response varies, but the gist is: "Wow, and your still a Christian?" "Thats pretty impressive that your still a believer" Yep, that warm fuzzy feeling is called pride. I would like to say that I don't get that anymore, but that wouldn't be true. I fight it, and sometimes I don't get it, but its still there. Honestly, it can be hard not to be when you start getting that response from pastors and proffessor's. Still, it's not right and I know it. Pray for me on that account. But lately, a new feeling has been mixed in when I get into that kind of conversation. Its a quesy feeling, a ki

I realized that I never mentioned how my project went. Well, it went well. We decided to do the whole thing kind of like a poetry reading; some of it was a little disjointed, and most of the people in our class have never or rarely done any kind of public speaking, but it went well. One other group really showed everyone up though; it was the group that did their presentation on Rumi's poetry. They read one of his poems, with music in the background, and a slide show to go with it that included much mocking of Canadian politics. Despite this, the rest of their presentation wasn't amazing or anything. I think I finally broke through the wall on my WWII propaganda essay; I think that some parts of the problem I faced was that the Nazi regime dealt with three distinct religions in three distinct ways, the fact that its all great on paper and in theory, but that this war was real, whatever you say about how Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats and to manipulate the people,

Rant: Liberty, Freedom, and Hearing Different Voices I wasn't around when the gags started coming off. I wasn't around when men allowed the heretics to start speaking in the hopes that we might learn, that in giving liberty to those previously imprisoned freedom and learning themselves might be re-invigorated. I have always thought they had noble intentions. In the name of truth, of peace, of love, or whatever, they, whoever they are, did what they did. But I look at where I am today, and I wonder what really happened. The actions of one day are built on the philosophy's of the last, and yet we are a world that will praise a man for his philosophys and imprison him when he carries them out. Perhaps a more apt analogy is this: We saw that several voices were locked in a high tower, unable to escape, the only windows were the arrow slits in the lower portion of the tower. Upon seeing this, or moral disgust rose, and we proclaimed that we must all be free, they

I'm finished preparing my group project, we do it tonight, and once again I am back at my essay on religious propaganda in WWII Germany. That essay is turnign out to be more frustrating than I expected... I just can't stay focused. I read about what was happening back then, and I start thinking about so many other things, which are good and important, but have nothing to do with my essay. Timeline I bought "Timeline" by Micheal Crichton about 2 weeks ago, and I just finished it the other day. The book isn't nearly as subtle in its plot or characters as many of his earlier books; several parts of it follow what are becoming recognizable patterns in Crichton, with variations, yes, but not entirely new. It seems the book was almost written to be a movie, and no surprise, the movie is being released on the 26th of this month (after massive delays). Nonetheless, the book was excellent. Crichton does not fail to deliver what, in my opinion, is the best pa

I'm back. As expected, and as usual upon returning from Vancouver, I am super busy. My group project on Gary Snyder's "Smokey the Bear Sutra" is tommorow night, then I have two more essays to do/finish. This is a quick update, nothing more, have a great day.

I am in Vancouver!!!! Chapter is right beside me. I know I hadn't mentioned this trip, but I am in vancouver this weekend; were going to a conference thing for engaged and married couples. Its sooo good to be here, with Chapter. Anyway, have a great week, I likely won't post again until monday or tuesday.

Today's Jumbled Brain Fart Postmodernity looks at modernity and proclaims it flawed; your claims to truth, your foundations, they are manipulative power ploys. Foundations don't work. As for language, it cannot refer beyond itself; reality, therefore, is nothing but a fictive construct. I respond to postmodernism that you have made everythign meaningless, nothing makes sense because there is nothing to make sense of. You trivialize the pain, the loneliness, and the ostracization of all those you claim to protect. Suffering from a fear of Descartes you open the door once again to Descartes fear. I do not offer this criticism as someone who considers himself "modern" in the philosophical sense, or any sense. I find it interesting that both modernity and postmodernity seem to destroy that which they find most important. Seeking foundations modernity has turned to manipulation, attempting to create a self-perpetuating system which would consistently dest

Its been an exciting last few days, if I can call it that. I spent almost the entirety, and then some, of thursday night at ER, stupidly thinking I might have appendicitis. Turns out it was a hernia (No, before then I did NOT know where my appendix was, thank you very much!). I didn't even get to see a doctor, the pain went away, and I went home. I went to a clinic on Friday and found out its a really minor hernia which may yet heal on its own... fun times. Then Friday was good, though a long day. I went to SHINE which is our CCC weekly meeting at the UofA; It was a matrix theme, people dressed up, the speaker spoke on God and the Matrix, there was much mocking of Keanu Reeves, and so on. Then, I went to the new Matrix movie on friday night, but due to the incredible mass of people at the theatre, we had to go to the latest show (11:00) despite being over an hour early for the earlier show we wanted to go to. There have been many mixed reviews about the new Matrix mov

So I finished editing one of my essay's on tuesday night, the one that is due today, my bioethics essay. I returned the books that I had out for it yesterday, and I picked up more books for my next essays. It seems that the piles just keep growing. One of my essays, the next one I have started working on, for my Religion and Literature class, is turning out to be very interesting. I am writing on the church, the occult, and literature surrounding both within Nazi Germany. I have started reading a book, published in 1943, by the man who was the American Chaplain in Germany before the war. Quite a read (in a good, and yet so terrible, way).... Its called "It's Your Souls We Want". He shares this poem, published in a Berlin Newspaper in 1939: We have captured all the positions And on the heights we have planted The banners of our revolution. You had imagined That that was all That we wanted. We want more. We want all! Your hearts are our goal,

I just read a good story online. Its called " The Imp and The Crust " by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy is an excellent author, despite the fact that some of his writings are considered "classics", and this story in particular brings up some good issues. Check it out.

Yaaah! My books are here. For those of you who read my post on Wright, you will know what I am talking about. Of course, a lot of my "other" books are here to, that is library books. I did research for several essays yesterday, and was very lucky to get a ride home from a friend instead of having to carry my 40lb bag home on my 30 min walk. 4 more weeks of school... not even full weeks, 3 more essays, 2 essays to edit, and one group project left. We get a 4 day weekend this weekend, and its going to be packed. Read lots, write an essay, repeat. Thanks for the comments on my last post :) My Auntie Gwen, my Grandma, and 2 of my cousins are going to a Don Williams concert in Saskatoon tonight, have fun guys :) Off to school now, have a great day people.

Don Williams and I through the Ages I realized I hadn't, in my busy-ness, put much of a personal nature up here lately. Some rants, some thoughts, thats it. This weekend was good, I finished my incredibly frustrating bioethics essay on saturday. I talked with Chapter, though never enough. And my Mom came up today. She took me out for a nice dinner, and to a Don Williams concert. At least some of you probably have no idea who Don Williams is. He is a country singer, old fashioned, good country (for those of you who think no such thing exists, think again!). He was big back in the day, like 20 years ago, or even 15-12 yrs ago. He is also known as the "Gentle Giant". He has a voice so deep that even from the second balcony you can feel it rattle in your chest. He started to lose his popularity when music videos became the thing, because he refused to do them. He believes that part of listening to music is making your own pictures, some of your own story, so

Developing a Faith big enough for the World It is a frightening thing, from the perspective of a man such as myself with a background of protestant separation of religion and politics, and the comfortably personalized and individualized, and thus reduced, version of the Gospel, to watch as my faith grows and becomes inextricably connected with social, political, and global issues. It is a frightening thing, from the perspective of a man such as myself with a white middle class North American background, to watch as my views of money, of life, and what it really means to have a good life change so drastically. Is the full gospel of Jesus Christ really that he died, took my sins away on the cross so that I could be saved? Does it not include that, important as it is, but also much, much more? Doesn't the gospel proclaim that Jesus lived (we always have an answer to why Jesus died, but besides to give us some good moral teachings, why did he live?), died on the cross, ro

A few things quickly. Chapter has been real sick lately, and she is starting to feel better, thank the Lord. The doctor's told her she has strep throat (spelling? probably wrong), but the symptoms don't match. In any case, she is getting better. The ETS has released all the documents from the Oct. 3rd meeting. The results, briefly: They voted 9-0 that the chages be dropped towards Pinnock, and 7-2 that the charges stay for Sanders. I will comment more later, but as of yet I haven't had time to read the stuff. A good article, which Pinkmoose reffered me to, is here . I haven't read it all, but what I have read is worth thinking about. The article is entitled " Bush and the Divine ". Lastly, I have suddenly gotten super busy... Hence only one update yesterday and one today, lol.

Ok, so I am wierd. This morning I started writing some stuff, but I didn't get to finish. So I emailed it to myself and now I finished it at school. So here it is, again, it gets into some stuff that may not be of interest to everyone. Fair warning issued, enjoy. Note: I have extensive quotations below from N.T. Wrights "Jesus and the Victory of God" as well as one of his sermons. I have not included footnotes or anything, but if anyone wants to know where to find this stuff, just ask in the comment section or email. Jesus and the Victory of God: Questions evoked by Wright and life Yesterday I finished reading N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God”. As I read through it, watching Wright one by one interpret sayings and parables in a way I have never thought of, nor seen, but which makes so much sense of so many things, I started to wonder. Wright puts Jesus into his day, and makes him radically relevant to his time and place. Jesus becomes politica

"It is a conceit of postmodernists that they are charged with survival on behalf of a humanity whose gods they alone have declared dead... What is degenerate about much postmodern celebration is that it lacks any religious sense of space and time... In practice, the footings of postmodernism are sunk in fast food, information desks... and indifferent elevators that marry time and money to the second. The postmodern celebrants of the irreal, of the screen and its simulcra, ought to be understood as religious maniacs, or as iconoclasts breaking the gods, and not at all as sophisticates of modern science or art." John O'Neill The Poverty of Postmodernism

Its our first big snow today. I don't know how I feel about it. Biking home in the snow sucked, and not being able to bike much more until spring isn't going to be fun. On the other hand, I like the snow. I like to watch it fall. It always amazes me when I hear of people, or meet people (cause I have), who have never seen snow. Who won't believe you when you describe it to them. Snow makes me feel fortunate, it reminds of all I have to be thankful for.

Breaking the Rules of School Today, in the middle of class, I cried. I wasn't the only one though, fully one half of my class of 18 people were crying. Today the rules of school were broken in the middle of my Christianity and Social Activism class. There is some kind of unwritten rule that education in the university doesn't get personal; your hands don't get dirty, your faces don't get wet, and your heart doesn't even get brushed. Later on in class, we, the students, were challenged!! Challenged in the sense of actually being encouraged to do something, and exhorted to change things. This is another no no. You can't ask a university student to DO something. Oh sure, you can get them to write an essay or an exam, maybe do some lab work. But you can't ask them to do anything meaningful because that might insult someone's value system. How could this happen? How were the rules of school subverted in the middle of that UofA classroom? Th

I had a good bad weekend. It was fun, and I got to do some hanging out. I helped our fourth, Superman, move in. So its me, Superman, the Big T, and That Guy, in our house now. But I got no work done. I tried to work on sunday and I just couldn't do it. Chapter on the other hand had an excitement filled weekend of chaos. She is a youth sponsor at her church and they went to an alliance youth conference this weekend. Chapter had never been to one before, and was a little bit unprepared for the amount of chaos that is involved in such things. Kids skateboarding in church hallways, doing the macarena in the aisle on the bus, etc. She got used to it and had fun still. My random music on winamp just started playing REM "Its the end of the world as we know it". That combined with John's comment on my last post, and a few books I am reading, just now started me thinking. The world is changing a lot. No one seems to quite know how, the growing mountain of co

What follows are some comments on a specific issue, which I suspect may not be of interest to many of you. I write this for my sake as much as anyone else's; I still hope those of you who read it enjoy it, but I thought fair warning was in order. Pinnock, Sanders, Nicole and the ETS (for full details and articles that I have read regarding what I am writing, refer to this ETS page . Today I found out from a friend that there is currently a membership challenge process going on within the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) with regards to Clark Pinnock and John Sanders. Let me start off by saying that those are two academic theologians whom I have great respect for. There are a few people on that list, but not a lot. The list is not entirely composed of those I agree with; I disagree in a lot of ways with John Piper, but I very much respect him. I disagree also with some of what both Pinnock and Sanders say, though less so than with Piper. That list is also li

We had a guys poker night last night, it was sweet. We got two tables going, one of four and one of five. Five dollar buy in, so this is cheap poker were talking about here. Of those nine people, 3 lost all their money, 3 ended up down but with stuff left, and 3 ended up winning some. I did pretty good, i was down 7 and came back to being down only 1.50. But my friend steve did amazing. He came back from being down 6 to being up 25, which is a record win at our guys poker nights. HomieBear if you are reading this, you shoulda been there. In other news, lightning struck the Gibson Passion shoot , again! I follow in the wise footsteps of the pink moose, and offer no comment on that one, though many jokes spring to mind. And finally, the fourth member of our household should be moving in sometime today. Very cool.

Just a Regular Happy Sand Man I read a lot. First line in my description. I think a lot, yep, its true. I was reading and thinking today, and I came across three stories I want to share. They are from the sayings of the Desert Fathers, all about a man named Abba Agathon. Historical? who knows, possibly, even probably. Thats not the point though. It was said of him that, coming to the town one day to sell his wares, he encountered a sick traveller lying in the public place without anyone to look after him. The old man rented a cell and lived with him there, working with his hands to pay the rent and spending the rest of his money on the sick man's needs. He stayed there four months till the sick man was restored to health. Then he returned in peace to his cell. Going to town one day to sell some small articles, Abba Agathon met a cripple on the roadside, paralysed in his legs, who asked him where he was going. Abba Agathon replied, 'To town, to sell some thin

Storming Through My Final Midterm 7:14, and all of the appliances in my room waited with glee. The coming moment would be marvelous. "You ready?" Asked the palm pilot. "Oh yeah!" replied the alarm clock, a little to much glee in his voice. The computer, the voice of reason, chimed in with "I don't know if he meant to turn the volume all the way up last night guys, maybe we shouldn't do this..." But it was to late. "ENGH ENGH ENGH ENGH ENGH!!!" the alarm clock shouted, almost giggling at the same time. In a blind panic, I awoke. Sometimes when I awake to that stupid buzzing noise, yeah you can all hear it, I think I have a sadistic masochistic streak in me. This mornign when I awoke to that alarm clock, I couldn't think anything except "shut it off shut it off shut it off", like a mantra it rang in my head. But I couldn't find the button... never fear there's always the plug. I reached, and pulle

This morning I found out that the word "internet" first came into use the same year that I was born, 1982. Cool coincidence. How did I find this out? By rewatching a flash music vidoe called " Internet Killed the Video Star " by Broad Band. Which is another funny little music thing. "Came from the cold war, now its one global store" (while these lyrics are being played the have two guys (world leaders perhaps? lol) giving each other the finger, with the bold words COLDWAR in the background, and then it changes to the same to guys, in winter gear, smiling, with the words COLWARDROBE instead. Yep, American Capitalism won the day... of course the Russians taking the bad advice of america led to its economic downfall, and while this was going on, America was given multiple chances of mutual disarmament with Russia, but they refused every time. They knew that the "Russian Bear" was entering its death throws, why disarm? Of course, today, the U

Happpy Day! My little big brother has started a blog of his own. You may have noticed that my list of places worth a fly by blurring is growing, or you may not have. Obviously I consider all those places cool and good places to check out, though they definitely focus on my interests. This new link, to my brothers blog, I not only consider worth listing, but also worth mentioning. I am sure his site will change over time, but he has his first posts up. It is called "What Was That?" which is its name in the link list. Check it out

Outside The Inbox: songs inspired by SPAM is now available for free online!! Thats right, a free cd, by various artists, full of songs inspired by subject lines from spam. Its actually a pretty decent CD, I don't like all the songs, but some of them are pretty funny. I liked "You Are Being Watched" by Supercar "Never trust your cookie jar, cause cookies are all spies...." lol I haven't listened to them all, but I am quite enjoying it. Worth checkign out. Huge variety of styles, as well as varying levels of interaction with the actual subject of SPAM. "Erik Someone wants to date you.. so we told them you didn't know how to drive." (from "Erik Someone Wants to date you" by Brad Sucks ) enough, i have studying to do. Hilarious stuff, check it out. I will listen to the rest as I study.

The Night of the MAO's "My brother is watching CSI, and its backwards, and you have to decipher it." Chapter, on MAO's. My Fiancee, Chapter, gets headaches. She has an incredibly high threshold for pain, and so normally, while they are not good, they are bearable in some sense. She has advil and tylenol, but if the headache is light enough that she only needs those, she usually just grits her teeth and gets through it. Then she has a permanent prescription of T3's. These she affectionately calls "Skittles". It doesn't happen super often that she needs to take them, it happens enough though. But every once in a while, Chapter gets headaches that stare T3's in the face and laugh. Demoralized, the pills skitter through her body with little to no effect, except to sometimes make Chapter sick. For headaches like these, Chapter pulls out the Big Daddy of all headache pain killers. MAO's MAO = Medically Administered Opiate

Some have noticed that I mentioned having more hope since some stuff happened, but that that hope doesn't seem very evident here. This is true, but only partially. Of my last blogs that have been more than "here is what is going on" two have been retellings of where I have come from. In all honesty, I have come from a place of little hope (not no hope, but less). So, I guess I am saying, its coming. Still haven't figured out why I am rehashing some of this stuff, but I am. As to the other one, well that one was a wierd post. It was trying to express a feeling that I didn't know how to explain... probably sounded worse than it was. Here are some good lyrics: "William" by Relient K My life’s been torn apart, stripped down and going nowhere. I don’t know where to start, and where to go from there. It gets tough, to follow your will. I get scared, that I might take a spill. Me and faith, we argue a lot. If my will will be your will or

I realized that my post from sunday at 12:30ish was a part of my story. I feel like I should write more of it, who knows why. But I am not going to write it all from the same perspective, or with the same style. I kind of doubt I am going to put it together either. Maybe I am writing it just cause I can, who knows. Another Part of My Story: Part 1.? (prose this time) I met a man, an amazing man. His name was Jesus. For a time I followed him. But I, as everyone does, turned away. I got lost, again. Jesus found me, again. I was so excited. Being away sucked. Nothing was the same without this man. "I want to show you something, follow me." Jesus said. And so I did. I followed him up a steep rise, and I was so excited I ran. When we reached the top, we stood, overlooking a cliff. There was no where else to go but back the way we came or over the edge. "You want me to jump Lord?" "Yes, but..." And I cut Him off. "I can do th

A third midterm done, and quite to my surprise, done well. Once again they asked the questions I knew the answers to. Thanks to all those who have been praying for me, the Lord is answering. One more test to go.

Woah! check this out!! It can read minds! Lol, ok, I know how this thing works. Can you figure it out?

Tuesday morning. The day of my third midterm. Bioethics today; while an interesting subject, the test doesn't look like it will be fun. Oh well, I think I am ready.

A Part of My Story: Part 1 Somewhere along the line, I got confused. I began to think that walking by faith would remove the vagueness and ambiguities, when in fact it calls me to live in them. I desired much less a mandate that required faith, and much more a guarantee so that in fact faith was never really neccessary. And so I started to live by "the faith" instead of by faith. Somewhere along the line, I got confused. I began to put my hope in my guarantee of salvation, in the afterlife, and I stopped having hope for this world, for this life. I accepted the fact that the world was going to hell in a handbasket, and rationalized that that was neccessary so that Jesus would return. I forgot that Jesus came to heal the world, to offer springs of living water in the midst of this desert existence. And so my hope gradually left the person of Jesus Christ and moved to having hope in the right doctrines. Somewhere along the line, I got confused. Love become se

Sometimes I get gripped by this feeling. I can't describe it. Its like being sad, joyful, thankful, tired and fully aware at the same time. It happens in those rare moments when something touches you deeply; but it also happens at times for no reason. I spent the whole day studying, and talking with Chapter. Both good, one obviously more fun than the other; but at the end of the day, I just need to relax. So I played chess with Chapter, then I played some other internet flash games, I read, and as I was heading to bed I decided to put on some music from a few anime's. Sometimes i listen to music because I am in a certain mood; other times music puts me in a certain mood. Perhaps the best way to describe this mood would be sober solitude. "We couldn't say them, so now we just pray them. Words that we couldn't say. Someday maybe we'll make it right, until that day, long endless nights. Words that we couldn't say." Ha-a-le-lu-yah. The

In a culture of convenience true love, deep passion, a large vision or sense of mission, and much more go against the grain. Not only that, but seeking these things is costly. True love gives beyond convenience, but good luck getting anyone to do that for you. Of course, its easy enough to point the finger, but I do at least as much as anyone. It is discouraging to try to give of yourself in love, because having a larger vision of love means that you see many others not giving to you in love, I get frustrated and want to give back what I am getting, or I get angry. Turning the other cheek is never easy. I see lack of integrity in many people's actions, and it makes it hard. But that isn't the hardest thing, I see all this in myself more than I see it in others, and am faced with how much I lack. Sometimes I wish I could just remain ignorant, satisfied with a lower standard for myself. I realize that all my indictments, of the church, of those around me, are indictments