Movies

Movies are fun. I think I have gone to at least fifty movies in theaters over the past four years and I doubt that I would trade them (with the exception of a couple). I would like to publicly thank anyone and everyone who has gone to a movie with me. In particular Jeff and Ruben, I love you guys and watching movies together has been such a positive, important part of my maturation over the past four years.

Film is a very unique medium of communication. It is highly relational which appeals to my po-mo nature. You interact with characters much like you interact with people in everyday life; through sight and sound together. I like this especially because I think it is here that Truth is given real feet. It is one thing to read about the principles that are a part of following Jesus, it is something completely different to watch and learn from someone else living out their ideals in fictional contexts. Thank you film!

Insulated

I have really like being at Grace University. In theory, we choose our respective universities because they offer some teaching or a teacher that we would like to follow after. Christian universities are supposed to offer courses under the authority and teaching of Jesus, and I've felt that here.

Now I worry about insulation.

Not the "Grace bubble", because that has never bothered me. I worry about the fact that Jesus' working in my life, His work of ridding me of some of the sins that I suffered from and really didn't want, might create a lifestyle of following Him that is removed and calloused towards those things He saved me from.

We are called to be free from sin, but not to be calloused towards the real, seductive, and controlling power it has in this world.

I worry that the Jesus that I've been learning about and following might be somewhat irrelevant when taken away from conversations about eschatology and Lordship and inserted into the real, experiential conversations about lust, deceit, and greed. I doubt Jesus was tempted by cessation of spiritual gifts and traditional dispensationalism. He was human because He was tempted by pride, comfort, and maybe impatience.

What does it say about God when I take classes devoted to thinking about Him and what we talk about in class has almost no relevance when I am alone with my beautiful girlfriend at night or when I am offered another drink at a party with friends?

Jesus is Lord of my sexuality and of my pleasures and loves. I pray for humility and love as He might use me to fight sin one choice at a time, one person at a time.

Improvising

Getting better at the drum set is a long and arduous process if all you do is improvise. When I just play, I'm not expanding my musical horizons and growing. I am working off of what I have learned and synthesizing those experiences. Is that bad? No, in fact it is often times a very enjoyable experience. But it is not helpful if you want to grow.

When you are talking you are not listening. When I am writing on this blog I am not reading other people's ideas. I think that is one of the reasons why it is so unnatural right now.

Conceptual illusions

Check out this leaflet that was used in a Senate campaign in 1950 that supposedly worked.

Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extravert? Not only that, but this man is relably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper before his marriage habitually practiced celivacy (AARP Bulletin, 1989, p. 14, 16)

Now THAT'S funny.

Chapters

Is graduation really worth the extra emotional baggage?

It's like when people ask you if you feel old on your birthday. I feel one day older than yesterday, age comes with maturity, and maturity isn't a matter of days but instead of experiences, of failures and learning. So on my birthday do I feel older? No.

A chapter is ending in my life? Not so much, waking up the day after commencement will feel like waking up the day before. We are a culture obsessed with milestones and birthday celebrations. All about the starting gun and the finish line. The race is in the journey isn't it?

A good sprinter also practices getting out of the blocks and leaning in for a finish. I suppose I just don't want to deal with farewell. So I guess I should start saying it now, "farewell".

i thank you god for this most amazing day, just awesome

i thank you God for most this amazing... (65)

e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes  (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)  how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any--lifted from the no of all nothing--human merely being doubt unimaginable You?  (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

"For this (willful submission) is not politics, but music; not equality, but harmony; not justice, but love" Peter Freeft

Submission to authority

"For this is the will of God, that but doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." 1 Peter 2.15

Why do we complain about politics? Almost every class I have here at Grace University includes at least one student testing the political waters and making a rude comment toward a governmental policy seeing if anyone will be frustrated. Haven't you felt this?

After meeting another follower of Christ it seems inevitable that the political persuasion of the other will come through when he/she makes a cynical, sarcastic comment and you'll be left with the dilemma, laugh to diffuse the situation or allow a little silent space that openly acknowledges disagreement.

If one more Grace undergrad (fill in the blank that's not physical science) major makes a stupid comment regarding global warming (a subject I doubt we know the first thing about) I might just break.

"For this is the will of God, that but doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." 1 Peter 2.15

DO GOOD! We aren't even asked just to ignore people we disagree with we are to do good to them. This is more obvious when those "other" people are present but what about when they are in Washington D.C.? Do good to people who believe in the current health care reform. Disagree with them, maybe (probably). Complain about them, never.

I say this publicly because it is not Jesus' will that we go about these things alone. Jesus wants His people to move in these ways together. To change a stagnant, rebellious, rough political climate that we experience in America today maybe instead of coming to more brilliant conclusions regarding economic policy we should do good. Stop complaining. Maybe the problem isn't democratic vs republican economic policy but sin vs Jesus.

If the problem is sin vs Jesus, as we are complaining, sarcastic, cynical and all together rude Christians are fighting against Jesus in the political sphere. Am I being unfair?

A post from a mobile phone? What will they think up next?

Why blog?

This is a tough question. To know that someone might refer to me one day as a "blogger" gives an eerie picture of the future me sitting at the computer feverishly writing conspiracy theories with a bowl of Cheetos puffs teetering precariously on the plateau of my shirtless stomach.

Is this an inevitability?
(Not if I ever want to go on a date again)

What is a post? A public statement written at a convenient time in a convenient place in a non-personal medium for voluntary readers in similar convenient situations. Those readers can respond, the writer can take suggestions, and the world can see dialogue.

I wonder, if early church heretics could have blogged early in their Christian development, could they have been steered aright?

This heretic is hoping for as much.

Prayer...ish

So we had a "Day of Prayer" at Grace University where classes (and sleep) were voluntarily called off to pray. Paul instructs to lead a life of ceaseless prayer.

Problem: if everyday were that sort of a "Day of Prayer", we'd be narcoleptic monks.

Am I saying the day of prayer is bad? No way, Jose. But I think we need to have a working definition of prayer that may help us measure our prayer life against Scripture's demands. If a god demands a sleepless shut-in, (s)he's going to have to look for someone else.

How can we lead a life of ceaseless prayer?

What do you think?

Oh no

This can't be happening to me.

A forum for me to express my thoughts.

God help us all.