Against Nothingness

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 ...