Against Nothingness

The Soundtrack of my Life I love music. It's beautiful. I really do just love music, pretty much all kinds. I used to say I like everything but rap and opera... then I found some rap I liked, and it wasn't too long after that when I began to find myself enjoying the occasional Opera track as well. Now I just like music. My taste in music doesn't run along the easy lines of genre, artist, or type. Instead it runs with emotional connection. I have watched a lot of shows in my life, and one of the ways you can tell wether or not I like a show, if I really connect with it or feel touched by it, is if I get the music for it. This isn't a perfect method to gauge the effect of any given video input on me, as it also requires that the show has good enough music to listen to without the accompanying video, which isn't as common as you might hope for, but its a good guideline. Its one of the reasons I love anime so much, at least some of them, and I know I enjoy shows...

Dreams of Sacrifice, Sacrifice of Dreams I often have trouble with bible verses like "Don't worry about tomorrow" or with the general idea that God will provide for us. Its not that I don't believe these things, I do, but its hard to really put my faith there, to act like it, to trust and to leave my life in that terribly uncertain place that follows. I suppose that in reality it isn't an uncertain place at all. But no matter what is said, by me or others, it is one of the most difficult areas of my life and Christian faith. There's always something; I need to have a secure future and thus ignore my calling and take the wrong stuff for a semester of university. I know the experience has been turned to good in the end, I praise the Lord for that. But the worries don't go away, or they haven't yet. I remember worrying so much about financial stuff before my marriage. My wife had trouble finding a job, and I definitely didn't have any money, already b...

Time for that infamous feature of most blogs, the catchup post. Life continues to be good over here in S. Korea. I still have no accounts for showing photos or anything, and have been to lazy to really look into anything much. I have been looking into buying an MP3 player and have narrowed my choices down to two IRiver's, the H10 and H320 models. The idea would be to record university lectures as well as listen to music, but we will see how it all works out. I have been trying to make better use of my free time of late, not playing so many computer games and watching so much anime, and it has been very good for me. Every day that goes by brings me closer to returning home, and I am looking forward to it. Family, friends, a familary environment, the uneviable con of once again being able to understand everyone around me (and will understand me too....). I know it sounds wierd but its kind of nice when most of the people around you don't understand you and you don't unde...

quick note: Heard of "Broken Saints"? Amazing comic, done in flash (so I think it is better than a normal comic, it has music and stuff :), I haven't finished yet (only on ch. 4 so don't spoil anything for me). Apparently its 12 hours long. Its worth checking out: their website: www.brokensaints.com Comic available at: http://www.newgrounds.com/collections/brokensaints.html

In Response to Anthony and Aaron First off, as you can see Aaron, you did not comment as other :) Anthony I am surprised that someone who believes in the total constructedness of sexual identity seems to fail to apply the same concept, at least in some degree, to your idea of love. I guess my problem with the whole thrusting of the concept of desire into love is that it, in my mind, seems to rely heavily on very modern day concepts of love, and even relationships. I believe there is good reason that 1 Cor. 13 has been given to us, among other biblical texts, as guides to love. As is oft noted by those who defend homosexuality within the debate in the church, ideas were not the same then as they are now. Its great that you can say the feelings you have for your boyfriends are often the same as those you have for God, this despite the fact that you insist on rejecting the very idea of a relationship with God. It is also natural, in my opinion, and especially so if, at least in the abstra...

I recently began reading "The Way Forward? : Christian voices on Homosexuality and the Church." It has been very interesting, to say the least. It is a collection of articles by various authors, from differing positions. So far they have all been pro-homosexuality; some of them I have found very interesting, others very weak, and some so wishy-washy in the air that I wondered how they got into the volume. The last one I read had a quote from a brazilian theology, Maria Clara, which I don't quite follow. "If Christians wish to assert that God is love then, in the beginning God can only be object of desire - not of necessity nor of rationality. Theology - which seeks to be reflection and talk about God and God's word - must therefore be moved and permeated in its entirety by the flame of desire... Born of desire, theology exists as theology only if it is upheld and supported by desire." Now, I am well aware of the mysticial tradition within Christianity, bu...

Trips and Propaganda It's been awhile since I last posted. My mom came out to visit us in S. Korea, which was wonderful. She left today, after being here for 1.5 weeks. We already miss her, and having her here and leaving has awoken in both Kristina and I a very strong desire to come home. We did lots while she was here. We went to Gyongju and Seoul and the DMZ tour, and did lots of games and good times. We have had the use of Kristina's brothers digital camera, and we bought our own while we were in Seoul, so if anyone wants to see pictures, of our trips, or just Korea and our apartment and stuff, let me know. I will try to figure out how to put them up here, or get on of the picture account thingies....? anyway, I will probably be putting up pictures sooner or later. Gyongju was the capital of one of the three kingdoms that made up Korea at the time (the Silla Kingdom) for 1000 years, from approx. 0 to 1000. We kind of got historied out there, we saw sooo much stuff. ...