cool story

I've been reading through the bible again, its going slower then I would like. Between Monday and today I've read and reread the book of Numbers. I think my favorite story is that of Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Arron the high priest.

It comes in the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers. In the previous chapter Ballam son of Beor had not of his own volition blessed the children of Israel then in an attempt to appease the wrath of Balak the king of Moab he told them that despite the fact that he cant curse the children of Israel he does know that if Moab can get Israel to sin then God will turn away from them. So he counsels the Moabites to have their beautiful women go and seduce the men of Israel and get them to worship Baal. This plan proved so drasticly succesful that God sent a plague among the Israelites and told Moses in verse four". ⁴And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel."

This blatant disregard for God's holy law was so outrageous to God that he commanded this, what we would consider harsh punishment. As the lawlessness increased so did the plague untill one day one of the Israelites, Zimri took a Moabitess Cozbi into the camp of Israel before Moses and the tent of meeting. Now Phinehas seeing this blatant disrespect for the Lord and Savuior of Israel took it upon himself to personally follow the two into their tent and spit them both through the belly upon a spear. Its important to understand that Phinehas was a young man and one who had no official position and was not one of the seventy elders that Moses had in verse five given permission to kill law offenders. The scriptures don't say how old Phinehas was but he couldn't have been much older then twenty at the oldest. He was probably seventeen or eighteen right around the age where kids like us are trying to figure out whether you turn the key to the left or right to start the car.

Think what you all want, but in my opinion not only is this story a reflection of what a godly upbringing but its also a challenge to me and to you that says "how much can God ask of us before we quit on Him"

I apologize for all the mispellings and grammatical errors in this post. just deal with it

Friendship

Overall I'm finding relationships to be far more complicated and
difficult than they should be. This is going to sound really morbid and
controversial but I think you all can deal with it. My opinion right now is that people
have their uses but overall people are overrated and put into
positions that God was meant to fill
.
*waits for the gasps to quit down* yes, yes, I know, but the
question that brought me to that conclusion is "what can we get from
people that we are supposed to get from God?" Virtually everything
that people look for in a friend is something God already wants to
give them, just people are easier to get what we want out of so we
naturally turn to people rather than God.
Example's being comradeship, comfort, joy, peace, identity ect. All
these things God is waiting to give us and I dont see why I would want
to get those out of some friend, opposed to getting it out of the
creator of the universe.

I'm not saying we should all go be hermits somewhere and live to
understand God. People have their purpose. We are, because of our love
for God, want to help other people. That I think is the ultimate
purpose of friendship, to help other people. So when I have a problem
I should be able to come to one of you and tell you and I should find
a person who is willing to help me. That in my opinion is what
friendship is all about. Not about getting comfort or someone to have
fun with but to have someone who can get me back on track with God so I
can get comfort from Him, the source of it.

Hope that made sense it was written in a hurry

For lack of something better

Here are some cool pictures I took from our yard on a evening walk. Who needs the northern lights?

What shall I do?

You all can help me if you wish, I finished reading Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion and wrote all the papers and stuff that I needed to about them. I need some new book to start on that has some relationship to Church History, I'm thinking either City of God or Confessions by Augustine, Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, or John Bunyan's, Holy War
any help with would be most appreciated

Halloween

I think its horrible that you could ask nearly every person in america from the age of five to twenty-five and they would know automatically what Halloween is but you could ask them about St Patricks or some other less well known holiday and all they could tell is that "umm I think we get off of school that day".

That being said I'll tell you all about my Halloween and how I spent the "spookiest night of the year" Me and Jordan (13) Joshua (17) and Daniel (21) had been invited to go to my eldest brothers (25) house in New Jersey. Our second eldest brother, Joel (23) came along with his wife and we planned on spending the weekend. We left Friday night well equipped with three travel mugs of coffee, Josh's ipod hooked up to the radio and Jordan's black market supply of prehalloween candy. The three and a half hour ride went very quickly. You know your tired when you can fall asleep sitting upright, drinking a cup of coffee with Breaking Benjamin playing in the background. We all woke up when we were about ten minutes and arrived around ten oclock I think. David and his wife set us up in one of the rooms in their five room apartmeant. Not being able to resist, we played Call of Duty 4 and Halo 2 till about one oclock and then the weaker ones slowly dropped off to sleep.

The next day we got up late, (about 8:00) walked down the street to get bagels and coffee. After a leisurely breakfast we went to the park and passed the frisbee and football for a few hours. That night (halloween night) we played cards and watched Monsters vs Aliens continually being interuupted by the blasted tricker treaters.

Me at the park making an incredible catch

Calvin

I've convinced my mom to let me do Church History as a class. So I'm reading books of my choosing and mom just has me write papers about them. Right now I'm reading Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion. Its awesome but really hard to understand and it takes forever to read. Forever meaning I can barely read twenty pages in an hour. His theology as near as I can tell is "play it safe" So all the "gray areas" of Christianity like dancing, secular music, drinking ect. He says "If they don't directly glorify God even though they may not be harmful they are not helpful and therefore are of no purpose." So he removes them from the church and you can judge for yourself whether the society he built at Geneva was good or not.

My favorite thing about him is that he not only writes this eleven hundred page volume as merely an introduction for new beleivers before they start reading the bible but he begans it with "God as the creator instead of the redeemer" He devotes the first two hundred plus pages to discussing God as a creator and the duty that humanity in general owes to its Creator and then he discourses on the redeeming quality of Jesus. So often in our modern culture were like Oh a good God who will save us and forgive us our sins and if we go to church and pay offering we can still do pretty much what we want and I love Calvin because his doctrine stands up to this modern heresy spits it in the face and shows its illogicality.

sshhh I'm asleep

This blog is not dead its just sleeping and it will awaken with a roar that will shake the foundations of the world.

A lesson on patiences

From the chronlogies of Caleb's adventures.

Story I: Wednesday is trash day where I live. If you've ever been to my house you know that my driveway is a pretty steep descent and if you haven't well you'll just have to believe me *chuckles*. So I was carrying out a bag of trash from our kitchen just before seven in the morning and I was sorta rushing caue it was cold and my bare feet were hurting cause of the dew. Now their is a very large and expnasive oak tree in our front yard, I think I showed a picture of it in an earlier post. Now this tree's extensive folliage covers a good portion of our upper driveway. As I was walking toward the trash can with my feet cold and my mind wandering back to my warm bed with a cup of tea and The Institues of Christian Religion by Calvin I literally didn't throw caution to the wind and as I passed under the leafy vestige a gust of wind shook the leafy folliage and down from the branches rained down a barrage of seasonal acorns. Pelting me with nuts on my precious brain box. As I tried to take shelter in the garage I once again made a fatal mistake and forgot to look where I was going. I soon heard the unmistakable *spelch* and the horrible feel of a big fat slimy slug being squesshed up againt my heel.

So remember to look where your going and watch out for oak trees they kinda sneak up on your sometimes.

The trash eater

Picture this: its a sunny afternoon the low 70's about 3:30 PM. I'm outside, sitting on a blanket, with my back againts a tree, my sword at my side, studying Latin. I've been out their for about an hour getting kinda bored but not even close to being finished, naturally getting annoyed at our cat who continually tries to get into my lap.Bugs and birds are noisemaking neibors are making whatever hubbub neibors make, cars are going along the street. All of my family is gone on various missions except for me and my two youngest siblings (7 year old twins). Their playing around outside. Than the birds and bugs go silent, our cat scurries away into the garage. I get up and look around and who should come out of the trees but our a lumbering black bear. He was a bit smaller than normal but standing at leasat five feet tall. A hungry male looking for a well stocked trash can. This is the time they normally start coming out more than usual because they start fattening themselves up for hibernation.















This isn't today's visitor but its one we say earlier this year and he looks small but he's big enough to hurt. So when I realize who our visitor was what else would I do but push my younger sibs in the path of the oncoming beastie and flee to my bed where I could hide under my covers.

Not really, since according to Connecticut law were not allowed to touch the bear unless its already attacked us I grabbed my books my sword my sibs and went inside the house were I tried unssucesfully to find my brothers camera. So you are forced to simply beleive my accounts of the tail or tale or whatever it is.

Piano

There it is our illustrious antique piece of scrap wood. Out of which pours more artistry and genius than out of Galileo himself. The piano. I think its the most well used piano in the world. I normally play it when I wake up in the morning around six and me or my older brother will normally be playing pretty late into the night like ten or eleven and theirs four siblings that play in between. The bottom D A and G dont even work so it gets annoying if your playing a song that goes all over the place and than the notes dont even work.

I have to admit piano has been growing on me. I didn't like it at all when I started last fall but now tis getting to be pretty fun. Here is a sample of one of the songs I'm learning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxmcXQp3mqE

The Lagan Estate

I'm not exactly sure how to place the different pictures so this might be a confusing post.

This morning I was up around 6:00 which is normal however unlike usual I decided to procrastinate from doing school and take some pictures of my house and the glorious landscape to which I can awake every morning of which you will all soon be jealous.




A sunrise, shimmering through the trees casting its brilliant rays in a wonderful array of glimmering artistry.















One of my favorite trees on our property.
For ages past my siblings and myself
have spent hours on the rope, either
hiding from parents or just having
an afternoon of fun.
Oh for the days when a tree and a piece of rope
and a tree branch could satisfy me for hours at a time.
















You cant see the whole tree but its a mighty oak that
rears up its head high and proud above not only the
surrounding forest but also our house.















My personal favorite tree, the weeping willow.
Now this one may be small and scraggly looking but
its the only willow for at least a mile around our
and perhaps more and that makes it special.

















Shrouded by misty clouds in the early hours of the morning,
The full moon sheds light on the bloody carnage that was
left by the werewolves and vampires that duked it out
in our front lawn that evening.

















The Lagan Manor.















This is a really cool swamp. Its at the bottom of our driveway but even though its not in bloom I decided to post a picture of it.

















Another sunrise
















Long ago in the mists of Lagan history, dug with the sweat and blood of 7-11 year olds. It is Moria or Khazad-Dum in the ancient tongue. Built as a defensive work against the the Moors (not the ancient Muslim nation from Northern Africa, but its actually our neighbors,) who lives to our north. Its wealth was not in its gold or silver but in the mud balls which we harvested in abundance from its depths.

My Testimony

In my testimony I tried as best as I was able in a page and a half to summarize my life, my failures, God's victories and how He brought me to know Him. I tried to be as transparent as possible hope it doesn't sound to prideful or hypocritical.

Three Quarters of a score and eleven days ago God brought forth on this planet a certain child. From then untill now that child has been growing and maturing till he stands before you now as a young man who by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus stands ready to be baptized into the family of God. As a child brought up in the church and by a God fearing family It is hard for me to discern between when I was saved and when I was just living by the rules my family had taught me. I said "the prayer" when I was six and this assurance whether false or not gave me the peace of mind to live the carefree life that most children can enjoy when God has blessed them with a loving family and material positions. When I was ten I allowed the devil to teach me to lust. This lust grew into a desire and from a desire into an addiction including everything that goes along with an addiction. The lifestyle of sin that I led went on for three years. I accepted from the devil an uncanny ability to lie with a straight face and to subdue my emotions. To hide my emotions enabled me to forget all about the many things God had done for me, which allowed me to live for the pleasures of the world.

Here is where I would like to say how God came down from heaven and showed me a vision of what I was and how I was abandoning the mercy that he offers and was willingly walking into darkness but that is not my story. Just around my thirteenth birthday through a combination of multiple things I was showed the error of my ways. Not through any physical manifestation of our awesome God but through God slowly, piece by piece tearing down the walls I had built around my man made hellhole and pouring His grace and His mercy in. When I had realized the utter fool and the enormous insult I was paying to God and the horrible extent of my vanity and the huge amounts of mercy God was showing me by not roasting me where I stood as he did to Sodom and Gomorrah. When I realized how truly holy God was and how the mere fact that he was interested in me and willing sent his son to wash away my uncleanliness, to have the God of the universe who has the power to point his finger and send constellations into the sky to have that God as my savior was a truly life changing revelation. I needed something to symbolize the deliverance I had experienced.Being the militaristic history lover that I am I decided to create an order of Knights. I dubbed myself Sir Caleb Lagan knight of the Crescent Moon. From that day till now God has been working a miracle in my life. Slowly battering away the walls of deceit I built around myself and replacing them with ones of purity and reverence.

God alone was capable of the miraculous transformation that resurrected my soul. To Him I owe everything and for that reason I'm before you now ready to be baptized and grateful for all who have played their part in teaching me the ways of godliness and proud to say that I'm cleansed of my past, being prepared for the future..

Yet the devil pours forth his shadowy host,
I must stand my ground despite the cost
All heavens in arms is beside me
Christ Jesus is enthroned inside me
With God's Holy word
And a great glimmering sword
I would conquer the world
In the name of the Lord

The Poem is also my first poem in the Epic Warfare blogger game. Its worth ten points.

*sighs and scowls*

I'm not exactly sure why I feel so anxious but somethings going on and I'm not sure exactly what it is or how it will turn out so I'm feeling all high strung. However I don't want to dwell on my own emotions cause you wont find those interesting
Sooo... I know its been awhile, I might as well fill you all in on whats been happening in and around the Lagan household recently. Its been a pretty hectic last week or two. Firstly school starting up officially, including Latin and some other new classes which is hectic all by itself. Than we have a missionary family living with us till January which is fun but its different. This past weekend my family went on a church retreat for the first time in seven years. My church has gone to the same place for the past 23 years so it was nice to go back and visit all the old places that I distantly remember from when I was 8. Me and my younger brother both got baptized there which was exciting but kinda weird. I got hugged by more people than I have in my entire life. Plus their were a few of those old ladies, now don't get me wrong I love them and their the nicest people you could ever want to meet but, they come up and sorta grip you on the solders and are like
"I remember when you were just a little tyke and I remember how at some party or something when they put out all the food you skipped all the desserts and took some carrots and broccoli and ate that, and I turned to your mom and right than I knew it and I told your mom, Wenda I said that boy is gonna be special. and see I was right wasn't I?" (no joke)
So I'm standing their trying to recall the name of this dear old lady who obviously has been affiliated with my family for the past five decades and I cant come up with her name.
Than their were the people who didn't get the chance to give me a hug right after the baptism, who in the middle of that day or the next would come up and give you the biggest hug from behind when your just talking to some people or playing cards. Than your trying to remember their name and it ends up in a big debacle. lol its an odd experience let me assure you.

This is awesome I just figured out how to change the font color. or as most of you would say *clears throat* "WEWT!!"

Mission: Josh's Bed Code named: Kaboom

An excerpt from the Lagan archives.

Two days ago I was sitting on the couch at about eight thirty in the morning. We had gotten up at five that morning to see my sister off to college and so everyone was taking it easy that morning. The house was quit and I was just sitting their thinking than I hear "voom weeeh foom!!!" and throughout the house resounds the "bam bam boom!!" of my four younger siblings running from the basement making space ship noises.To as chance would have it, right next to the couch where I was sitting. Carrying along with them their four cardboard box spaceships. Taking a black marker they began drawing all manner of buttons, dials, robots, soda fountains, food making machines, hot tubs, and indoor pools inside their boxes. They proceed to hold a space battle with the alien army from Gubgub. Than my mom came downstairs , she said "I need some brave space pilots to go blow up Josh's bed" (my older brother)
Jordan said, "approaching galaxy, Josh's Bed. *all four make landing noises* *all four jump out of their boxes* "This will be a ground mission boys." says newly proclaimed Gold Leader, Jordan.
Once again the Bam Boom Stomp Bang of four pairs of bare feet running upstairs. Slowly gets fainter as they get to the far end of the house. I hear a distant cry "BONZI!!" Ezra begans a countdown as all four sprint out of the room and jump from the top of our stairs "Three two one, explosion sound effect, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM" as all four jump from the top of our stairs landing with a thud. They trot back to their ships slapping each other on the back and doing beaf (a secret handshake that's pronounced the same as beef). Josh came downstairs a few minutes later. "Mission Success" Says Nathan and off they zoom at hyper speed to sector 4q

Two big posts

My title very neatly summarizes my post. Sorry for not posting in awhile but I've been busy. Actually yes I have been busy so quit judging me.

So my two big posts coming up are duuuun dundun du... Number one I'll be posting about why I call myself Sir Lagan and the order of knighthood to which I belong and all the specifics that I am allowed to talk to you about, about said knighthood.

Number two, I've been reading on and off, more off than on but I have been reading the Three Musketeers series of which I am a big fan. Well, finally after three thousand plus pages I have gotten to the climax of this one of a kind epic. I came across probably one of the coolest parts in any book I've ever read. I'll be posting two of the coolest dialogues in any book you'll ever come across.

As an added bonus I'll probably post my testimony. Since I'm getting baptized in a few weeks I don't suppose I have any excuse not to. So now wait in anxcious anticipation for whichever of the beforementioned topics I wish to post on first.

"Darkness Rising"

So I promised I would make an attempt at justifying my reasons for the dark and ominous title "Darkness Rising". For those of you who don't really care it will be enough for you to know that I think the world is getting gradually worse and not better so you can stop reading now if you want.

For those who care to listen to what I think seems logical you can hang around for one or two more paragraphs.

Firstly I am willing to concede alot of what I say is probably not a true world perspective but an "american" perseptive. As I see it things seemling appear better and brighter than they were three hundred four hundred a thousand years ago. However in my humble opinion it appears that something is festering deep within all the false brightness. Most of the food orginizations and aid orginizations and medical aid corperations and most other minsitries not missions mind you but "ministires" are all done in the name of humans. They all preach the ideals of a humanistic society that tells humans we can create a utopia on earth without the aid of a supreme higher being. This mindset will prove the downfall of all that they have been working to attain and the longer they continue this course without their false beleifs being contradicted by facts the greater will be the fall.


As for me I would rather have all the atrocoties of the past without a false philosophy that is able to help prevent the atrocoties for a time but will inevitably fail and only bring about worse trouble than what was before.

I know that probably made no sense whatsoever so if you actually cared enough to read that and are more curious about my opinion you can send me an email and I can try to explain myself more clearly.

Wow!!!!

I got four new followers since I went on vacation a short week ago, although it seemed like an eternity. To what I owe this great honor I know not but I hope you all enjoy my posts. I don't have time to post now seeing as how we just got back and my van is a mess and my room is a mess and I shouldn't be on the computer. With luck I'll post tonight or tomorrow.

Back-packing

I just need to post something so I'll tell you about my recent trip into the forests of New England. I just returned from backpacking. For those of you who for some weird reason dont know what that is I'll explain. Its basically a multiple day hike and you camp on the side of the trailw when darkness comes. Since your going camping you have to carry a bunch of stuff so all the packs are really heavy. My advice for all you readers is dont go, unless of course you like walking mile upon mile endlessly only to reach summits without good views and to go back down again to a mosquito infested valley than you do it over again. At least that was my experience. I'd never gone before and this excursion proved a disaster for myself. Not only did I not bring any change of clothes I also brought the wrong type of shoes so my feet have big blisters and cuts on them. The swarms of mosqitos kept us all awake till 2:00 A.M. and they forced me to abandon our lean to and sleep out in the woods.

So take what you will, forthwith I'm not a fan of backpacking. I should be able to get some picture of the trip soon to give you all a taste of what it was like.

to all of my four readers

Seeing as how you are all so anxious to read my next post I'll hold you in suspense for another two days because I'm going backpacking tomorrow and wont be able to post till Monday. Hopefully I'll bring back some picture if I can acquire a camera. Now wallow in your loathsome mire of suspense while I frolic about the woods of New England.

Poetry

I thin Poerty is wonderful. I cant really see a bad side to it. And it is a wonderful exercise of the mind and a great way of expressing one's thoughts. G. K. Chesterton has a cool quot about poets in his book Orthodoxy "The Poet only seeks to get his head in the heavens the logician seeks to get the heavens into his head and it is his head that splits." For me Poetry takes huge amounts of inspiration because I have no skill whatsoever in the field. I've probably written two to three poems and this one is my best. I don't know if I can call it a poem because I don't know the proper rules or edicit of poetry so I don't know if I followed them.

Think what you will, I thought it was cool. Dundundun!!!

Christ Jesus is mighty King
His deeds the Minstrels joyously sing
His realm is fair
His reign is long
Greater than a king of old
His love for man will never grow cold
His will is strong
His mind is keen
His Thorny crown afar is seen
The great and valiant before him seem to be nothing more than wisps of steam
The countless sins of human kinds are forgiven in his kindly eyes

Yet long ago he was taken away to Golgotha on Calvary
There the hosts of evil stood to mock and scorn the trodden Lord
God Almighty upon him laid the eternal sin of Adam's race
Crucified on a blessed tree
The angelic face turned in misery
And holy tears he shed for me

A king who fought a cunning foe
Tall and terrible he could not to be bought
In mercy and grace he sacrificed all
So with courage and hope we might find what we sought

Few now remember
Few tell the tale
Of our unbroken savior
The enemies despair
With no hope of salvation
Or an Easter to come
He put on His armor
Went forth to the war
And died there in valor
With a glimmering helm
And unbroken sword

I lay no claim that this poem or whatever you want to call it is theologically correct.
Now feel free to continue to laugh at my attempt but I thought you might find it thought provoking. The question that came to me after I wrote this was "did Jesus know that he was going to be saved and raised up to the right hand of God after he went to Hell, bearing on his shoulders the entire wait of humanities sin's?" I don't want to do a debate but your opinions if you want to share them would be most interesting, or just say what you thought of the poem, fair or foul I don't care.

Here goes nothing

Well I finally got disciplined enough to start a blog or I was bored and had nothing else to do at 11:00 Friday night. All of you have to tell your friends to tell their friend to tell their friends to come and become followers because the more people I have as followers the more I'll post. I am as anxious as all of you are to see how this thing turns out. Whether enough interesting stuff will happen to be able to keep it going. However that's in the future what matters now is what this post will be about. ummmm..

I suppose I should introduce myself for all of you who dont know me yet. I've never done this before so you'll have to just be a bit bored while your read this.

I am right in the middle of ten children. I have four older brothers and one older sister. Three younger brothers and one younger sister. I'm fourteen and am a Christian. I love tea and chocolate and coffee and music and reading and weaponry and frisbee and cold winter nights and thunder storms and cheese and wine after a tiring day. I decorate my room with my collection of swords and other oddities I have obtained. My music tastes change sporadically from hard rock to easy listening depending on my mood. I like bands like Within Temptation, Hurt, Seether, Breaking Benjamin, Nickleback, Celtic Women, Josh Groban Trans-Siberian Orchestra and alot of other random songs from different soundtracks and random bands. I don't like country, rap or jazz.

I've been drinking/brewing coffee since I was eight and caffeine has ceased to affect me.

I like to read although I don't have much time to do it. I mostly read the classics. When I have a large amount of free time I'll read church history or apologetic. I play frisbee all the time mostly with my family and friends but I've played one season on a real team and will most likely do it again this upcoming year. Schools is horribly annoying and a dreadful nuisance with the exception of Latin which I like. As you probably already figured out my grammar and punctuation is horrible but I don't really care so I will quot an extremely wise man and say "tough beans!!!"

That's pretty much all anyone would want to know about me hope I didn't bore any of you away.


Teaser for my next post: I wrote a poem, no really I actually did and I'll probably post it tomorrow or Monday, its my first one so it doesn't really follow any of the proper rules of poetry but I thought it sounded cool and it seemed to have a good rhythm to it.

Oh and I'll probably post sometime soon about the reason for my ominous and depressing title.