Against Nothingness

A Call to Faithfulness It is likely the Roman Empire as a whole, and the majority of the people in it, took absolutely no notice of the crucifixion of yet another trio of political revolutionaries. That one of them would, in name, spirit, and fact, far outlast the empire itself could scarcely have entered the mind of anyone but His most devout followers. Still less would this empire or its people have noticed the clamor of those same followers three days later, as they shouted “He is risen!!!” Yet, in 300 years, the emperor himself would bow before this crucified criminal. It took years for the followers of this executed man to become big enough to even be a target for persecution by Rome, which was hardly a large matter if we remember how many other rebellions Rome crushed around this time, including the destruction of the Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Historically, this all seems very fast. And, indeed, it is. A group of people were formed, grew, took o...

My Supreme Arrogance I recently read through James. I was struck by a particular section (4:13-17): 13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money." 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin. I can tell you exactly why it struck me, and it wasn’t a profound thought, a deep realization, or a piece of some puzzle that clicked together in my head. No, it was simply this: I am, right now, in S. Korea, with my wife Kristina, teaching English for a year. Did you catch that? I was just such a person as these verses describe, and not just in my assumption...

Simple Plan - Crazy Tell me what's wrong with society When everywhere I look, I see Young girls dying to be on TV They won't stop till they've reached their dreams Diet pills, surgery Photoshopped pictures in magazines Telling them how they should be It doesn't make sense to me Is everybody going crazy? Is anybody gonna save me? Can anybody tell me what's going on? Tell me what's going on? If you open your eyes You'll see that something is wrong I guess things are not how they used to be There's no more normal families Parents act like enemies Making kids feel like it's World War III No one cares, no one's there I guess we're all just too damn busy And money's our first priority It doesn't make sense to me Is everybody going crazy? Is anybody gonna save me? Can anybody tell me what's going on? Tell me what's going on? If you open your eyes You'll see that something is wrong Is everybody going crazy? Is everybody going cra...

Tootie Frootie the Turtle Tootie Frootie the turtle was afraid of water. It happened that when he was very young he fell into a can of orange paint, which had never really come of, and that was the origin of his fear of water. Though a sea turtle, Tootie Frootie found that he could live happily at a pond, a little ways inland from where he had been born. He could enter the water to wading height, eat fish and minnows, and lived well. This continued until one fateful day when the pond was developed for a luxury resort. Upon finding the strange orange sea turtle that lived in a pond, the hotel made Tootie Frootie their mascot. While not as satisfying as his pond life had been, Tootie Frootie was comfortable in his new role. He was well fed, and didn’t have to go in any water. Still, a life of captivity, no matter how good, was something he could only handle for so long. So he embarked on a fast action, daring 3 year escape. During the course of his escape, the orange paint was was...

Penny the Penguin Penny the penguin was a penguin who could fly. Not very well mind you, but some. Through freak genetic mutations he had been born with larger wings than most penguins, and a lighter body. All of the other penguins made fun of Penny and laughed at him when he tried to fly. He was far from graceful, and it just wasn’t something penguins were supposed to do anyway. So, for a long time Penny didn’t fly. One day, as the large penguin family was trekking across some ice, disaster struck. A strong current came from nowhere, tearing the ice apart, and three baby penguins were swept away from everyone else. The mothers tried to swim to them, but they couldn’t make it. Penny realized that the only way they could be saved was if he flew to them. And so he did. Or he tried. Unfortunately, because he had flown so little, he was even worse than normal, and he couldn’t make it either. The penguin family watched sadly as the babies quickly floated away. Penny wa...

Animal Stories My wife frequently gets headaches. Bad ones. A long time ago, when this blog was new, I posted a narrative about my wife on MAO's (read the post if you want to know. And she wasn't my wife back then either). Anyway, now that we are married, I make random attempts to help her avoid drug use to get through the headaches. Among other things, I make up stories to tell her. First off, we make this together, in some way or another. Secondly, we both have odd senses of humor. For example: Kristina, who will, among other things, be a nearly perfect mother, likes dead baby jokes. So this is the first of, so far, four animal stories that I will be posting on here that have arisen from these attempts to avoid habitual... medicinal... drug use. Alfie the Elephant Who Eats Little Children Alfie was an elephant, in most ways like any other Elephant. The major difference was that he was purple, and that he ate little children. He lived in a zoo, housed carefull...