Such is life

A Short Response

2012-01-20T05:33:00.003+01:00

I am writing a new post in response to the comment Mary replied with to my November 29th post.

I feel bad because I'm going to write so little in comparison to what Mary wrote and its obvious she put alot of thought and research into what she said, something I don't do enough of. Fortunately I'm not going to disagree very much so we won't have to fight.

So, my question in response to all Mary's well thought ought responses is, "why do we still sin after we are saved?" I agree with you that in the eyes of God we totally pure, Christ's sacrifice literally destroyed the consequences of our sin for those who accept Him as Lord. Yet sin, still reigns within many parts of us. St Paul writes in II Corinthians 3:18 "And we all with unveiled face , beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Christ died and saves us, making us see the Glory of God then we progress by stages into the image of God who having purified our inner soul(guaranteeing eternal salvation) then proceeds outward perfecting all our thoughts, actions, motives, emotions and desires from his initial stronghold in our heart.

So perhaps I worded my original post wrong but I do believe that the Christian has a responsibility to live the life God has given them. We were once dead in our Sin and Christ has given us life, we must now walk in life neither forsaking Christ nor ignoring the commands He's given us and the life He's entrusted to us.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[b] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:1-10

I hope this answers everything you commented on. In my earlier post I wasn't trying to say we can eradicate sin on our own, I wasn't trying to say that apart from Christ we can do anything good for in me and my flesh is no good thing. Let me know what you think and where I messed up again.

Thoughts on the Jesus Prayer

2012-01-08T06:53:00.001+01:00

"Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner"

It’s amazing the depth and meaningwhich can be incorporated into one small phrase. It takes two seconds to saybut could be contemplated on for months and not properly understood. PersonallyI have been amazed at the intricate detail in this simple prayer. I believe,that just as a botanist can spend hours admiring the blossoms of a perfectflower, we as spiritual beings ought to enjoy the beauty of a well orderedprayer. I divided the prayer into three parts. (Lord) (Jesus Christ Son of God)(have mercy on me a sinner).

We beginwith “Lord” for it is first and foremost the role of Him to whom we pray. BeingLord is God’s function more then anything else. Some say He is our friend but Heis not a friend until He is our Lord. Others say He is our Savior but He is notour Savior until He is our Lord. We know not His help until we recognize Him asLord and so before we make any sort of request or plea we must remind ourselveswhose presence we are in. We are not merely asking a favor from a friend orpaying for a snack from a vending machine. In true prayer we stand before theLord of glory who was, and is, and is to come with fire and sword to judge theliving and the dead. Having begun with Lord, and being reminded of ourlowliness before Him we proceed onward.

“JesusChrist Son of God” What title can compare to such a one as this? These are thecredentials of our Lord. We desire this Lord and love Him not because He is Himin whom all power abides. No we serve Him because He is Jesus Christ Son ofGod. We say Jesus, meaning “Yahweh saves” that we might not forget what type ofGod we serve. The Lord who we plead before, is not merely a ruler though Herules, He is not a power hungry dictator for He needs no nothing, neither powernor us. So we call Him Jesus for He saves. Christ is the “Messiah” the promisedone. He is not a mass produced product. Christ is unlike any being in thecosmos. The God Man, He bore our sin yet was perfect and conquered death, sinand judgment so we might come before Him and pray. “Son of God” gives Jesus authority. We prayto Him for he has power from the Father and can thus answer our prayers. We donot pray to Mary or our parents or Saints believing they in themselves doanything for us beyond praying themselves on our behalf to God who is one withthe Son. Thus we are not elevating an unworthy person when we call Jesus ChristSon of God, Lord we are merely in word giving him the honor He has more thenmerited and which we can only acknowledge and never repay.

If wehave heeded all that’s been before then we are now ready to humbly make ourrequest. Note that we ask not for any specific thing, for that would assume weknow what we need. Rather then arrogantly asserting our own foolishness on thedivine we recognize His sovereignty andwisdom by simply asking for His unmerited, undeserved gift of whatever He deemsfit for us. Then, lest we retain any vestige of the spirit of pride we condemnourselves as “sinner”. Indeed a proper term for all of us. This label is toremind us that we are not bartering with the Lord. It is not as though the Lordneeds our lives and so He grants us mercy in exchange for servitude. It is onlybecause of His infinite love that we might even enter God’s presence. To forgetthis, to think we are something other then sinners is to spit on the mercy He’salready poured out on us at Golgotha. May we never be guilty of such disrespect.May God only ever be honored.

This is my desk after I finished cleaning my room after Christmas.

2011-11-29T21:35:00.001+01:00

Humans are fascinating. Oftentimes their complexities can be overwhelming and as a result most people tend not to think too much about them….I guess most people just don’t think. *kicks a tv* Regardless, humans have some very interesting characteristics which can explain why they tend to act the way they do. Humans have both a spiritual side and a physical side. Their spiritual side includes the will, the mind, and the soul/spirit which are NOT the same thing. Their physical side includes the flesh (body) and the passions (hunger, need for sleep, and need for love….) We also have a heart which is somehow both. I don’t understand it yet. (Jeremiah 17:9)

Understanding all these parts of the person is very interesting but explaining them all would be quite tedious. I’ll get to the point and for anyone who actually reads this and has questions we can have a good conversation about what all the human components are. What is most important to understand is that the spiritual is more powerful then the physical. The physical is tied to decay, it is irrevocably cursed by God because of sin, this will not change until the second coming of Christ. Romans 8:20-23 An animal can not help being bound, to the physical world, it can not help being a victim of its passions and environment. So a dog that kills its owner because of harsh treatment should be pitied and loved because it was raised poorly and had no choice in the matter. A human because he has a spiritual side which can overpower the physical passions must be held accountable for his actions, he can never blame his circumstances nor environment. When humans blame other things for being responsible for their actions they lower themselves to the level of animals and degrades themselves and the human race.

As Christians a large part of our lives is to be spent eradicating sin. By sin I mean the distance between ourselves and God. God is everywhere. This is true, but until you know He’s there you He might as well not be there because its not going to help you at all if you don’t know He’s there. God is not physical being He is spiritual so I’m not talking about simply physical distance. There is spiritual distance between ourselves and God which must be traversed for us to truly rest in Him. As pagans we had no hope of traversing the gap, it was quite impossible. Christ’s sacrifice guaranteed the souls of those who believe an eternity in heaven and his blood made a road which we can travel on which will lead us to God. The road has many names, Godliness, Righteousness, Love, Perfection, Goodness.

To draw near to God we must bring all our components. If we wish to eradicate sin and to rest in the peace of God all of our faculties must be equally in pursuit of God. Often Christians make the mistake of cutting out the fruit of sin without ever taking out the root. A person who truly wants to walk the road of Godliness can not continually be stomping out all the outgrowths of sin saying, “I’m going to honor my parents, I’m going to respect my girls, I’m going to get good grades, I’m going to stop cursing, I’m going to stop drinking….” This will wear a person down, make them discouraged and they won’t experience the peace Christ did. The problem is that this person is just dealing the results of his sin, he’s just trying to fix what happens because he’s so far away from God. What He has to do is start asking the deeper questions of, “why do I dishonor my parents, why do I drink, why do I get bad grades?”

The problem usually resides in the spiritual side of a person. It is the more powerful side of a person and most people don’t even know its there or if they do they rarely access it. Its hard to change all of a sudden from being a sensual person who learns with one’s eyes and thinks with one’s feelings. But it must be understood that change comes by changing the heart not by changing the action. It is possible to stop drinking but the inner problem that forced that person to alcohol in the first place will soon enough find another avenue to vent its anger. A true disciple of Christ will discipline all parts of his person, not just the part doing the sinning. A person who wishes to destroy sin in his life by the power of God must allow God to control His mind for the mind creates one’s thoughts; his body because it is the throne of the passions; his will determines his actions; his soul because the soul decides one nature; the spirit because the spirit is one’s character and his emotions because they decide his feelings. A diligent disciple then would create a lifestyle in which each of his parts is properly disciplined. Christians are rarely taught today that their is more to them then what they can feel. They are not taught that the unseen determine what happens in the seen world and that disciplining their spirit is far more important then learning about the dangers of drugs and the rules of dating. *kicks the tv again*

Comment away, let me know what you think on the text or the music, I've started listening to Nightwish again, I haven't really listened to them since Junior High.

2011-11-18T21:38:00.001+01:00

Perhaps the most relevant task for any human is to know God to the greatest extent that their circumstances allow. Mind, I don't mean you ought to know all the theological proofs for God's existence, although those are very useful, whats far more important and more practical is the knowing of God Himself. Knowing Him like you would know a person.

I've been struck recently with how much I know about God compared to how little I actually know Him. Ravi Zacharias say's "the best way to know God exists is to actually meet with Him every morning and interact with the Living God." No amount of logical proof is more beneficial then a real life experience with the Divine. Don't believe me, well then meet with Him every morning, you'll find out soon enough the glory of a relationship with the Almighty. :) The more I've thought about it, the more I believe that you really can't do anything sensible without God. The fields of science, mathematics, philosophy, ethics and theology to rest upon God existence. If God didn't exist then all those fields of study are based on illogical assumptions.

I want to publicly praise God for blessing me this past week and helping me get to know Him a bit better. You may laugh after your done reading and say, "well, Caleb, you were just lucky" that is fine because I may just have gotten lucky. Wednesday was my day to take my driving test to get my license. I was nervous, I had already failed once, I didn't want to fail again and I was more upset at having already failed then I can ever remember being. I prayed to God that morning for two things, first that He would orchestrate it so that the parking lot which I'd have to park in would be relatively empty. This He did and so backing up wasn't nearly as nerve racking as it could have been. Second I prayed and asked for a nice test instructor. God allowed this also, I got a shortish plumpish baldish man named Hosea, who despite his name was not Mexican and was not munching on a tacco. An extra bonus was that God allowed it to rain, not only do I love the rain but I also drive better in the rain and the dark so I felt more comfortable during the test.

So, making a short story, even shorter, I passed with no x's on my sheet. I set a record at the DMV, "the place were happiness goes to die" and within one hour of getting there I had waited through three lines, passed my test and with license in hand was walking out the door. In my experience God tends to act just on the edge of the rational. It is certainly possible that God could have just made a license materialize in my wallet one day but I think He prefers to work through His creation, He likes to see us take pleasure in doing His will and braving scary things for His glory. So my story doesn't prove anything, I'm not saying God will always answer your prayer in the affirmative and help you pass your driving test nor am I saying that God never does totally impossible, irrational things just because He can. The moral of the story is to get in touch with God, not on just an intellectual level but on a spiritual level. Once we are willing to do that it seems God is very willing to bless us and help us in our times of trouble.

Obeservations from a week without power.

2011-11-10T15:15:00.001+01:00

The past two weeks have been fascinating. Eight days and one hour without heat, water, electricity and internet forces one to make adjustments to one's lfiestyle. I learned alot from being so long without power, here's a list.

I. Experiation dates on food are relative
II. Its possible to cook frozen fish sticks over a candle
III. Melted ice cream does not refreeze
IV. One gallon of snow melts into only a quarter that amount of water.
V. It is possible to stay clean using only handsanatizer and toothpaste
VI. Reading by candlelight is much cooler then artifiial light.
VII. Scarves are super cool and warm.
VIII. Transformers are filled with toxic ooze
IX. Dropping said transformer on brother is unadvized
X. Stealing transformers can result in one month in prison or a fifteen thosuand dollar fine. If they catch you :).
XI. The average Simsburian doesn't trust unwashed, unshaved teenagers walking the streets with axes and chainsaws looking for work.

I would have put pictures with this but I am writing at school because we still don't have internet at the house.

The Way of Humanity

2011-10-19T04:48:00.000+02:00

All history is mans attempt to save himself from discomfort. If this be true then salvation for most of humanity means total comfort or mindless bliss. Throughout history their have been four primary methods humans have used to attain this salvation.

I. Religion (god exists and we should try to find bliss in the supernatural)

Supporters: Judiams, Christianity, Islam, paganism

II. Humanism (salvation comes through creating the "superman"who will conquer poverty, war, disease through technology and education)

Supporters: Platonism, Fascism, Communism, Utopianism

III. Naturalism (Bliss can be found in conforming to nature, to work with andbenefit that which is growing around you)

Supporters: Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Naturalism.

IV. Nihilism (salvationis nothing, humanity is nothing, nothing is nothing and killing my girlfriendis no different then bringing her flower…or at least you can’t prove that itsnot.

Supporters: Existentialism, Postmodernism

Western history has progressed through these phases withminor exceptions and set backs in the following order, Religion > Humanism> Naturalism > Nihilism. I view this progression as one of decline. Humanitysought to find happiness in various supernatural deities but the gods werefound to demanding and unsatisfactory, so we declined to seeking salvation in ourselves. When we tried to find happiness injumanity it proved futile. Not only couldn’t we make ourselves happy but wealso couldn’t even understand why we were unhappy in the first place. Once you remove the supernatural from a worldview it is utterly impossible to give any sort of rationalanswer for were we came from and why we are the way we are. Hence the widespread skepticism of today. Naturecould not satisfy our lust for pleasure either…it was too cruel...to unfeelingfor us so we gave it up. Now, we know that we know nothing and gain a sicksense of satisfaction from knowing that we know nothing.. School teaches us that when nothing iseverything, then anything is relative and the best way live is by the socialnorms. In the common tongue this means, “beas happy as you can by hurting as few people as you can.”

This is where we are today, or at least where much of theworld is today. It’s mindset which representsthe grounds at the bottom of the coffee cup or the crust of a piece of pizza and I cringe thinking about wherehumanity might digress to from here. We have a self destructive mentality because it has ceased to believe that anything ought to be achieved or changed. The results of living a worldview like this will bring about alife much like the life of a star. Stars emit energy through nuclear fusion.They convert their own innards into energy which emits itself in light and heat. Stars bust when they have nothing left to fuse and they collapse becausethey have literally eaten themselves from the inside out. A worldview that is totally self focusedseeks salvation from itself and once the person has exhausted all theirresources they either give up or explode. Usually this explosion really hurtseveryone, not just the person exploding. Is this not where we live? Haven’tmost of us suffered or been hurt by some person who has lived this way, foundit impossible and exploded leaving scars, broken relationships and hurtfeelings?

So what is the answer? It is not in fixing the worldview; itrests in fixing the desire. Throughout history manhas tried every conceivable invention to get comfort but all have failed. Theproblem is not in the method the problem is in the purpose. Humanity is lostand the world is spiraling into chaos because comfort is not what we were meantto pursue. Man was lost from the start and to find true anything we must goback to the Beginning. It is in the council chambers of God wherecreation was planned in which we find true meaning. We don’tfind happiness or comfort by pursuing happiness as humanity has done throughout all of history. We find true comfort when we pursue God and only a life spent in complete slavery to Him can we ever find rest.

I’ve digressed significantly from my original point. Essentially this post is meant to say that all of history has been mans attempt at happiness. Our desire for happiness has taken society as a whole further and further away from God. The common ideas of toleration, and relative truth popular today represent the furthest mainstream philosophical step away from God history has yet seen. Comment with disagreements because this is mostly conjecture based on my understanding of history.

Nobility

2011-10-13T06:10:00.001+02:00

I apologize very much for not blogging recently. I'm working on some posts, one about Predestination and another about the value system of a Christian, both are sitting half written on my desk upstairs and they need only an afternoon of solid work to be completed. Because I don't want to feel so guilty for not posting and because I don't want all my readers to leave, I will post just to give you something to think about. Hopefully this will produce more then simply an, "oh that's cute" which too often occurs in this bleak society. Have fun with this one. :)

True worth is in being, not seeming,—
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good—not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,

There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
We get back our mete as we measure—
We cannot do wrong and feel right,
Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure,
For justice avenges each slight.
The air for the wing of the sparrow,
The bush for the robin and wren,
But always the path that is narrow
And straight, for the children of men.

'Tis not in the pages of story
The heart of its ills to beguile,
Though he who makes courtship to glory
Gives all that he hath for her smile.
For when from her heights he has won her,
Alas! it is only to prove
That nothing's so sacred as honor,
And nothing so loyal as love!

We cannot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses
Helps more than the thing which it gets.
For good lieth not in pursuing,
Nor gaining of great nor of small,
But just in the doing, and doing
As we would be done by, is all.

Through envy, through malice, through hating,
Against the world, ,early and late.
No jot of our courage abating
Our part is to work and to wait
And slight is the sting of his trouble
Whose winnings are less than his worth.
For he who is honest is noble
Whatever his fortunes or birth.

Flirting

2011-09-13T04:51:00.001+02:00

"Flirting isa cheap way to make a friendship. It makes you feel closer to a person fasterbut the relationship is not as deep as a real friendship built upon shared experienceand good conversation. So its a faster way to make friends and a quicker way tolose them. It has its purpose but its purpose is not making friends"

This is my niece and she's about the coolest niece I've ever had.

The point of this post is not to make some sort of moraljudgment on the actions which most people associate with flirting. Things suchas touching, teasing and other forms of non intentional, pleasure basedinteraction are not what troubles me. All those things have their place and socan be used either in that place and so be “right” or out of place and so be“wrong. The actions themselves are just actions and to judge them would beimpossible. I leave those decisions to God and the person to work out betweenthemselves. What I would like to do is look past those physical actions and seeinside the heart problem that leads to flirting and then further to moreundesirable ends. So lets begin at the beginning, a logical place to start.

God desire or what God pleases is always good. Morality issubject to God’s desires and so morality, right and wrong, good and evil are aschangeable as the desires of God.. Goodness is always what God likes and evilis always what God dislikes. Mathematically this means. Goodness = God’spleasure. Evil = That which angers God

Another fact is that we are made in God’s image that meanswe have many of the same traits of God. One of the most powerful traits whichwe have from that image is to want what pleases us. God wants what pleases Himbut He is wise enough to know what is helpful to Himself and what isn’t. Wehave inherited this desire to please ourselves but we haven’t inherited thewisdom which is necessary to satisfy it. This is why God tells us to trust Him,so that He can orchestrate what is best for us, which is the same as whatpleases Him which as the same as good. That may be hard to follow, butbasically I’m saying that humans have anatural desire to do what is best for themselves, this desire we inherited fromthe image of God BUT because of the fall we have forgotten that what is bestfor ourselves is actually to do what God says. This is the reason we have sucha great disturbance in the world. We have billions of people trying to satisfythis healthy desire but they are lacking the necessary wisdom and humilitywhich tells us to submit to God.

With billions of people not satisfying their primary desireit is natural to assume that problematic confusion and conflict would arise.The confusion and conflict leads to people being lost, they lose track ofthemselves, their purpose, their origin and their destiny. Without thefundamental questions of life being answered people wander lost in a world fullof danger. Now people have a desire to do what is best for themselves butwithout knowing who they, why they are here, or where they are going they havelost all ability to know what is actually best for them. Imagine a runner in arace who doesn’t know the start line or the end line. Imagine that then add toit the fact that the runner thinks he’s a swimmer. This person will surely notwin the race. This is exactly the state of most people today and even manyChristians who “know” the answers but never realized their significance are inthe same quandary. So then the majority of people are merely seeking what ismost pleasing to themselves. This is because we have a desire which tells us toseek what’s best for us and we inhabit a culture and a society that tells usthat what is best for us is what is pleasing to us the majority of people aremerely seeking what is pleasing to themselves. Hopefully you understand a bitmore about current human nature. With this understanding we can now understandflirting.

To flirt means to take something serious and play with it.In human relationships it means to make light of a relationship basically toplay with a person. Flirting is simply aword which people associate with certain actions, playful actions. Theseactions are either meant as seductive or loving depending on your motive. Thisis why I can not say what most people call flirting is right or wrong. Mostpeople can’t tell the different between a friend who uses flirting to cheersomeone up out of love and a person who merely wants attention or someone totouch them and uses flirting as a seductive tool. It is not right to judgeaction rather we must judge motive. The motives for flirting are rarelysomething someone else can figure out from the outside, its something internal.It’s a question of whether you would be able to look God in the eye and say Idid what I did out of love for you.

So the point is not to say “flirting is wrong” but it‘s to understandwhy people flirt. If you flirt because you are the sort of person I describedearlier, one who does not know himself and just wants purpose and meaning thennot merely flirting but everything you are doing is wrong and damaging toyourself, as well as those around you. If you are a Christian, who knows your identityin Christ and knows himself well enough to know how to love others by lovingChrist then you can flirt, just as long as it is helping the person you aredoing it with.

All things are lawful for me," but not all things arehelpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslavedby anything

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

Application: Let us evaluateourselves and seek God’s mercy. Most people are so caught up in the habit offlirting or of playing with serious things that they don’t even realize what they are doing or why they do it. This is another problem which comes fromnot knowing ourselves and from not practicing intentional self evaluation. Commentsare much appreciated. I’m new to a world where flirting is common and most ofwhat I write is based on thinking not experience.

Thoughts From Spending a Night on the Trampoline

2011-09-04T07:08:00.004+02:00

What if God doesn't care about YOU? *gasp* What if He loves the world but He only loves you to the degree that you incorporate yourself into His plan for the universe at large? A scary notion it is true but one I think you would be hard put to prove wrong. I've been thinking alot about God recently, making my way along that endless ray of beauty, attempting to insure that the God I place my trust in is actually the God which exists and is not a god I created for myself to suit my fancy and my worldview. It is this journey which makes me ask questions like I posed at the beginning.

So during my meditations of God I've realized something. This something is simply phrased not so simply applied. It is this:

That forgiveness of God is not so hard to get but unless you have Godliness being forgiven isn’t worth much. We often talk about the gospel and about God's grace but only in respect to their forgiving power; never in respect to their ability to change the very nature of who we are and how we act. I have never heard a preacher say, "accept the gospel so that you can stop hating your parents and stop being peer pressured and stop displeasing the God who creates Hurricanes." What we here is "accept the gospel so that you can be forgiven for hating your parents, for being peer pressured and for displeasing God."

The problem is not in one statement being false is that in separating them and only talking about one side of the gospel we remove the supports and our theology begins to crumble when applied to real life. If the only purpose for the Jesus coming to earth is to forgive us of our sins then I have no need to do anything else but sit passively and be forgiven. When the "impregnable" forces of selfish desire, passion and pride assail my soul why should I not let them carry me along in a rush of good feeling? I have no reason to resist and even if I wanted to resist I couldn't because all I've ever been taught is that the blood of Christ forgives me of sins. Herein lies the problem and herein is a primary reason for our weakness as churches, families and individuals. We don’t understand that godliness which is the being the character of God is so very essential. For some silly reason we think the only think important in life is to be happy. For secular people we see this in all the selfish means people use to acquire self worth and happiness. Christians, are also focused on being happy so they talk about being forgiven. They say, “we have to suffer through this life, obeying all sorts of rules but it will be ok because when we die we are going to heaven” Christians wonder why people call them hypocrites.

Well I was telling God all this yesterday. Basically God said, "yeah you can do that if you want, I will forgive you when you come back to me BUT if you continue to live in sin I will not help you as you walk through life. If you(Caleb) believe that you can do your life better on your own, then you run it as you like and the blood of my son will wash away your sins on judgment day." The point is that we have a backwards view of life in general. If we can step back for a moment and step out of a worldview which tells us, “the purpose of your existence is your own happiness” and see that what our purpose ought to be is, “to see the kingdom of God fulfilled” then we will be able to make sense out of Jesus’ which before made no sense.

I look at history, watch the news, observe the modern theories of worldly philosophers and feel like I’m eating raw tofu wrapped in slugs. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to here a well respected, doctors and professors proclaiming evolution which at its core means, that one drop of my own fat must be dearer to me then the accumulated lives of tens of thousands of my fellow primates.

Life without God is just not worth living. If you don't live for God you have to ignore things to be happy or be depressed because their is absolutely nothing you can do about the child who dies every two minutes because of starvation or about the millions of people around the world who live their lives in slums, garbage dumps and communes without any hope of being freed from their unofficial slavery. So maybe it is easy to be forgiven of our sins. Perhaps its true that we can get away with an awful lot without anyone ever finding out but doesn’t it all seem like such a waste when you compare the greatest life ever lived by any non Christian, compare that life to the idea of spending a life in service to a God who can point his finger and send constellations into the sky. Would we rather serve ourselves assuming everything we did went right or would it be better for us to sacrifice our lives and serve a God of power and might, who makes the earth shake and the mountains tremble, waters the earth and grants the stars their light.

Mumblings

2011-08-27T06:16:00.003+02:00

Humans seem to have this tendency to blame things on others. Please correct me, if this is an illegitimate statement but I don’t find many people who are willing to admit that they are faulty I hardly know if I could myself. Indeed if pressed myself I would know I’m faulty, who wouldn’t? But I would never be able to honestly admit the depths of my pride without a self righteous contempt of all “those others” who won’t admit to being as bad as me. It’s really a pitiful state to be in, knowing you’re awful but being unable to admit the thing because admitting it would only bring you lower. Oh dear, I’ll return to my mumblings…*thinks*.... Now many people are very willing to admit that they fail and they are willing to admit their faults but they aren’t willing to talk about how they themselves are to blame. Examples that prove this are numerous. A child steals a cookie gets caught and will admit that he took the cookie but offers the excuse that he was hungry or that his mom “said” he could have one. A teen murders his peer and admits to doing it but blames his anger or even his peer’s actions. An adult cheats on his taxes and may admit he cheated but blames the government and says the taxes are too high.

Encase you didn't guess this already the pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with what I write.

In each circumstance the person at fault admitted their fault but never admitted that they were to blame, they never admitted a fault with them just something wrong which they did. For most people a cheating parent is not a cheat himself he is just a parent who cheats. A child who steals is not a thief only a stealing child and a murdering teen is not a murderer simply a victim of his emotions and upbringing. That is really it…we like to be victims and it has become totally engrained into our nature. Not engrained rather it has been born into us. Can you imagine a kid upon being reprimanded for stealing a cookie saying, “yes I am a thief, I’m sorry for being a thief” No! that would sounds crazy to our ears, what we hear is, “I’m sorry I took the cookie” or, “I’m sorry you caught me, I won’t let it happen again” We have become accustomed to making excuses and pointing blame at everyone except for ourselves. This tendency of course goes back to our sin nature, to the Fall and it remains the norm today because of humanities unwillingness to control this great cosmos, so the rule of it has fallen to more base creatures, the devil and his minions.

Here now is another problem, not only do we humans want to be victims but to stay victims and have that victimized feeling of self pity which we all know and love we must relinquish our lordship over this world which God granted to humanity and pass it over to The Prince of This World, who waits eagerly to accept it. This sacrificing of our freedom is the price we all pay, when we don’t take responsibility for our actions, when we blame what we do, feel, think and say on anything other then our own self; we give up control of ourselves to whatever it is we are blaming. The teen who blames anger for his actions is actually admitting to being under the dominion of anger. Whenever we allow ourselves to act outside the bounds of God’s will we have submitted to what is unchristian and admitted for all to see that we care more for that thing then we do for God. Isn’t that terrible? Every time I allow myself to fall into laziness I am admitting that I care more for my comfort then God. Will comfort last? Will the results of idle past time and vain hobbies last one minute under the fires of God’s judgment? I hardly know where I am heading with this post; it is indeed mumblings which I hope some reader wiser then I can glean some moral or lesson from and be kind enough to post it in a comment. Best of luck to you wiser person wherever you may be. As for the rest of us lets not be victims, rather lets take up with courage and confidence whatever position of command God has given us. May we govern and govern well that sphere of this world which God created “very good” and which man has allowed to slip into the chaos which we see it dominated by today.

Simplicity

2011-08-16T20:42:00.004+02:00

I am a staunch supporter of the idea that life is simpler then we make it out to be. I believe that if common sense were a bit more common we'd have a far superior race of people today. There is this tendency for humanity to take the easiest road to get places. Now sometimes this is good because it has made people invent many useful and convenient tools to satisfy their innate laziness. However its negative side is far more harmful. Our desire to do things the easy way, keeps us from doing the right thing because the right thing is often harder. Leonard Ravenhill rightly says, "you don't have to do anything to displease God, there is only one way to heaven there are a million ways to Hell" If we just continue living our lives, coasting along then we'll never come to a proper relationship with God. We are unwilling to do the simple thing because it seems harder and we make things much more complicated then they have to be in order to justify not acting properly.

Lets take the example of Jesus. He never wrote a book and he had no higher education but at the age of twelve he was debating with the most intellectual men of his day. I do not believe that Jesus had any sort of supernatural wisdom booster pack we humans do not also have access to. That means that whatever Jesus was at twelve we also could and probably should be. We must ask then, how did this boy of twelve with minimal education become so intelligent? The answer, is...simple ;). The important things in life are generally the simplest. It is our pride, our arrogance and all the other garbage that we pick up as we grow up which makes discoursing about the serious things of life so difficult and so complicated. Throughout history it was rarely a problem for people to believe that god created the world. The simplest explanation to something existing is that something created it but in today schools we are willing to except unnecessarily complicated formulas that make no sense. Why? because to acknowledge the sensible, simple, explanation for the universe existing would mean that we are created beings, responsible to a higher power. This is something which no freedom loving individual will admit.

This question of creation is the crux of one's worldview and from it springs the answers to all other questions. For someone who is unwilling to accept the idea that we are indeed created their worldview only gets increasingly complex as they try to explain away good and evil, the problem of destiny, people's guilt, the deterioration of the earth and of course spiritual phenomenons or miracles. Exactly the opposite for someone who submits to the simple explanation that fits into reality. Answer to all those problems rather then becoming increasingly complex become simpler and the answers fit neatly into a well ordered worldview.

So Jesus was able to talk and discuss eloquently about the intellectual topics of his day, not because he had some divinely enhanced mind and not because he had studied for years in the best schools of his era rather he had spent his life in love to those around him. In observing the world and inviting God to interact in everything He did. Because He was willing to accept the simplest solutions that did not contradict reality. This to ought to be our goal, not that we should dispense with all formal education but we must not allow ourselves to think that our most important learning takes place in the classroom. Learning about the nature of God, the nature of ourselves, the nature of people, the nature of the universe and all other important questions will rarely be answered in a lecture hall but the answers come from humble observation of God, people, ourselves and the universe in which we live.

Love

2011-07-30T19:46:00.004+02:00

What is Love?

Is it This?.......Perhaps not

Rather I would say...

Love is not a thing but it is an idea.

Love is not any specific action but it is a condition or a state of being

Love is selfless

Love is the ability of one’s mind (thoughts), emotions, (feelings) and will (choice) to do all things in the best interest of the object of one’s love.

Love is very complex and has many faces. At its very heart love is selflessness. Love is not limited to any specific actions or thoughts but no loving thought or action would put me first. Love must look out for the better interest of the object loved not the lover. That being said I think there is a practical level of love and an ideal level of love.

Ideal love is when love has totally enraptured a person making their entire being loving. Ideal love is when a persons thoughts, feelings, actions have all been trained and disciplined to look out for the beloveds best interests instinctively. In ideal love there is no longer a conflict between loving someone or not, we will simply love them as Jesus did.

Practical love is what most people have, it is when someone is still divided between love and other things. Love may be in control of their desire so they may always want to help other people but their mind is still thinking only of themselves. Or perhaps they think they ought to help other people but they still hate the person and so they can not love them. Herein lies the complexity of love and all the different types of love. There are infinite possibilities for where love can be and how powerful its presence is in a person. And it becomes even more complicated when we have conflicting loves which is why loving God is the only thing worth doing because in loving God we will grow more like Him and in growing like Him we will automatically act in the best interest of all who we interact with. Our desires then shouldn’t be too love everyone rather it should be to love God if we can do that then loving others will be easy.

So that is love, an idea which can in its simplest form means to be looking out for the best interest of the beloved. It is neither tangible nor limited to any simple set of feelings thoughts or actions. It must be planted in us, nurtured and allowed to grow until it encompasses our being. It is not something we posses instinctively and it is not something which will just come about from being in the proper circumstances at the right time. It is hard and with all good things must be actively chosen until it becomes habitual.

Some of the things I've done today.

2011-07-19T19:30:00.005+02:00

I thought you might find interesting some of my actives so far today. My daily sentence this morning was to dig up all the rocks surrounding this pipe, carry them halfway across the yard and spread them. I was tired afterwards.

So I decided to vent my frustration on a stump. Partly because stumps can't fight back and partly because this particular stump pokes its annoying head out the middle of our lawn and gets in the way of the mower. You would be wondering now, how uprooting a stump is a good cure for frustation, normally such a task is really hard work and not something someone does for pleasure. I went about it a different way. This way......I built a fire over the stump and burned its roots off. Sitting by the fire, waiting for it to burn down I had another idea. While in Vermont this past weekend I ran across some free books.. Some scientists have tired to prove that reading in and of itself is educational and helpful to the development of children. I strongly disagree and show my disagreement by burning books which do not deserve to be books. Jordan and I decided that before burning the books we ought to dishonor them.

Then we fed them to the flames.

No Gossip girl we do not love you.

Let all such vileness be purged from the land so that the land may flourish and produce great harvests.

Thoughts on "Love Wins"

2011-07-05T04:38:00.008+02:00

I apologize for this post because it is not well planned and will probably be more critical then I want it to sound. I recently read Rob Bell's new book called Love Wins and the following are my thoughts after reading it.

I think Rob Bell failed greatly in his theology, in his understanding of God, love, heaven and @#!*% . He has tried and failed to poke holes in an essential doctrine which has been generally accepted as orthodox since the days of Gregory the Great.
Their are four primary points of the book.
First, Rob attempts to show that love wins.
"Love is what God is, love is why Jesus came and love is why he continues to come year after year to persons after persons. Love is why I've written this book,. and love is what I want to leave you with. May you experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been yours all along. May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about. And may you know deep in your bones that love wins.

Second, that God's primary purpose is to see that all of his creation comes into a perfect relationship with Him and so live a life of joy, hope, mercy, peace and happiness.
This is not specifically stated because its humanism and Rob would lose his audience if he actually said it but its assumed throughout the book.

Third, he attempts to show that @#!*% as a physical location of eternal torment does not exist.
" @#!*% is what we create ourselves when we reject God, it is not a literal place where we go after we die."

Fourth, he tries to show that heaven is not somewhere else but is here on earth inside of us by the power and grace of Jesus Christ.
"So how do I answer questions about heaven? How would I summarize all that Jesus teaches? There's heaven now somewhere else. There's heaven here sometime else. And then there's Jesus invitation to heaven here and now in this moment in this place."

Those four things are the main points of his book.

As far as showing that love wins Rob does not define love. I looked for a definition of love in his book and these are the closest things I could find:

"its right to point out that love by it's very nature is freedom. For there to be love there has to be the option both now and then to not love." and he says later "God is love, And love is a relationship. This relationship is one of joy and it can't be contained."

Both these definitions are faulty, unbiblical and unhelpful. For if you are in love you are hardly free to simply not love the object of your love. It is also untrue that love is necessarily a relationship. I can love a girl who has no knowledge of my love and so their would be no relationship. I did not find anywhere else in the book a definition of love.

Second point is just as easily refuted. This is Rob's logic.
God most important desire is to see all men saved
If all men are not saved God is a failure
God is not a failure
Therefore all men must somehow be saved
The fallacy is in the first premise. Rob never proves that the purpose of God's existence is to see all men saved. God has other plans and purposes of his own beyond the salvation of every human. Even if Rob is right and God exists simply for the benefit of his creation (humanism and heresy) he never is willing to say this outright because he knows nobody would believe him.

The third and fourth points can be handled together. They both touch on the same issue of what happens after we die. The book closes with these lines and I think they summarize Rob's views of heaven and @#!*% .

"The only thing left to do is trust. Everybody is already at the party. Heaven and @#!*% , Here, Now, Around us, Upon us, Within us."

Rob says that the world is one big "party" we can have either heaven or @#!*% based on how we choose to live our life and whether we will accept Jesus. By having heaven he means those who accept God's grace and live in his commandments will experience God's fullness and be the kind loving merciful people we all want to be. The same is true for @#!*% according to Rob Bell. We can have @#!*% here because @#!*% is simply the absence of God so those who refuse to live by God's rules are already living in @#!*% .

The problems with this idea are many. First, Rob never says what happens after a human dies. A reader of his book would have to assume that when we die we somehow come back to earth again in some form of Christianized reincarnation but Rob can never say this because their is no basis for it in either church tradition or the Bible. Second if @#!*% is just something that exists within ourselves then somehow someone must explain away all the passages in which biblical authors talk about @#!*% . Third Most of The Revelation along with the many smaller passages throughout the Bible which talk about Jesus returning amidst destruction and plagues to purge the world by fire and sword must be explained away. Fourth. All of the Christians who spent their lives waiting for the day of glory when Christ would return and all sin would be destroyed and Christ would begin the heavenly reign which would include Peter and Paul had a false belief about heaven.

So those are the four points that I thought Rob had to say in his new book. I did not agree with any of them and was sad that a man with such wisdom could sink to such a low level of intellectualism. The book is riddled with either or fallacies such as this one, ""is history tragic?
Have billions of people been created only to spend eternity in conscious punishment and torment, suffering infinitely for the finite sins they committed in the few years they spent on earth?
Is our future uncertain? Or will God take care of us?" or this one, "Are we safe? Are we secure? Or are we on our own?" The idea being that God is either a tyrant who hates us all and created us to send us to torment or he is a loving God who could not bear to see his creation suffer. Their is of course a third option but the fallacy tries to hide it. Their is also lots of assumptive language and taking the bible out of context.

I have not written this post because I do not like Rob Bell. I've written it because the ideas presented in Love Wins have much deeper consequences then what would appear on the surface. Anytime someone tries to poke holes in a 2000 year old belief you ought to be very very careful and the person doing the question has a responsibility to take a clear stance, define his terms, list his evidence and to analyze all of the results which would happen if someone took the new belief to heart. Rob Bell does not do this and so even if his ideas were correct I still wouldn't trust him because he does not prove them. If you are reading this and in the back of your mind happily saying, "yes, I knew Rob was wrong", well you should still read the book. The questions he raises are very important and everyone should be able to have answers at their finger tips because just believing something that is right is not helpful unless you know why you are right.

So if you haven't read the book, read it, learn from it and learn to defend what is right true.

That is all, Happy 4th of July.

A Life Spent in Dualism

2011-07-02T17:30:00.004+02:00

Christians are caught today in a life of dualism, a life spent divided between the sacred and the secular. We compartmentalize and divorce the one from the other. To the sacred we assign such actions as, prayer, reading the bible, preaching the gospel, spiritual conversation, church attendance ect.. Secular tasks are all those other things which are necessary such as eating, drinking, sleeping, education, career/job, most books, entertainment, the majority of friendships, the majority of conversations ect. People who do more of the sacred things are generally considered more pious. Once we have separated life into two camps, the secular and sacred we then consciously by our own choosing or subconsciously by the will of our culture and environment assign certain actives to each camp. We do secular tasks either because they feel good and aren't strictly forbidden (entertainment, video games, movies, smoking, drinking alcohol, knitting, reading, void conversations and void friendships) or because such secular tasks are necessary (eating, drinking, sleeping, education, conversations with no intent.)

Living life in this state of continual choice between secular and sacred is horrible, constantly having to ask yourself, "how much time do I have for God today?", "can I afford to read my bible all day and perhaps not get a good grade?" "can I trust God with my friendships and spend the day praying to him rather then texting and emailing?" Questions like these constantly plague the lives of people who want to please God but are stuck in a lifestyle in which they have to choose between secular and sacred. When they choose to do a secular think they are often beset by guilt because they know they could be using their time better. When they choose to do a spiritual thing they find it boring and tedious because the secular things are so much more enjoyable and satisfying,.

So, what would happen if Christians started viewing everything as sacred. Paul says, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." He takes us automaticly to the lowest level of secular activity, eating and drinking and says even that can be done for God's glory. Now if eating and drinking can be glorifying to God can not also other things which we often fear to do because of guilt or shame? Things such as playing Frisbee, knitting, reading. Please understand, I AM NOT saying this so as to allow you all to engage in all manner of vain devilry and so waste your life away in a sham show which claims to glorify God. But the real point of this post is to say that it is not the action which one does which is either secular or sacred, rather it is the intent with which you go into that action. A godly man playing Frisbee glorifies God more then an atheist reading his bible. Because its not about the action which occurs but the man who goes into the action and the worship which goes on in the man who is doing in the action.

Practically what does all this mean? I think it means that we need to stop allowing ourselves to do things simply because they aren't wrong. Just because we can morally justify a course of action does not mean it's the thing we ought to do. I think we need to start asking ourselves honestly whether we believe we can glorify God in whatever task we are wanting to do. If someone can consciously worship God while dancing at a club then dance the night away. If they have to forget God while they dance and give themselves over to fleshly pleasure to have a good time then they have forgotten God and so shame themselves and Him who they represent.

The greatest pleasure, motivation and joy come from dwelling on God and so to participate in any activity and experience the best results one ought to be constantly thinking about God. When we play a sport we should dwell on God because he gave us our bodies to play and so gain power to play harder When we paint we should dwell on God because he gave our minds power to imagine beauty and so gain insight to paint better. When we study we should study with all our being because God gave us a mind to learn and we have a duty to learn as much as God will allow us. There is never a time, place or activity which God does not desire to engage in with us and so make that time, place and activity better. We limit God to certain areas of our life which we call sacred. Anytime we limit God we hurt ourselves and anytime we don't limit God He will change us. And this is the challenge from this post, if we dwell on God constantly and free God to interact with us in all that we do then He will most certainly show what things are a waste of our time and either with a kind word and a leading hand or a surgeons knife and a blacksmiths fire He will remove those things from our life. So the question is are we willing to do this, to make a sacrifice of our things we are used to and allow God to engage with us always?

The Most Popular Mystery

2011-06-07T01:38:00.003+02:00

Sin is the greatest mystery. Everyone loves mysteries but sin is particularly unique. Sin is the only mystery which nobody has ever resolved. Nobody has gone into sin and come back again satisfied. This makes the pursuit of sin all the more tempting. Sin is easy and promises satisfaction so people assume you can find satisfaction here if you just do it properly. It doesn't make sense, it isn't rational but because nobody has even done it people are ever willing to hrl themselves into the dark abyss simply because In our society mysterious always have some form of end to them, they are never entirely meaningless. They may not end happily but they are resolved somehow. Sin however is never resolved, Christians know that sin is meaninglessness. Sin is the antithesis of God so to the degree that God is purposeful and does what he does with an intent so sin, as God's opposite, is entirely purposeless and never comes to a conclusion. This makes it all the more mysterious and all the more tempting for humans who are born with a good desire to not settle for the mundane.

I think more people act in sin then in righteousness because righteousness has already been lived and found satisfying. People are not interested in doing what has already been done, the want something easy that will allow them to look and feel great without the help of anyone else. Sin happens to be easy but it is also new and individual for each person. It is "comfortable" for a time and gives a brief sense meaning which nothing else can give. You become your own master and live "free". Sin loves to promise things it can't provide. It knows exactly what each human wants and extends the mystery to that specific part of each individual. So the mystery of sin is extremely tempting because it is like no other mystery on earth. For someone to embrace the mystery they must be willing to live a double life. Which is what most people do. They can live mostly rational in what they physically do and yet they allow their minds to wander far beyond reality into realms beyond healthy curiosity, realms in which anything is possible. Where they can be good and bad, where ends justify the means, where God can create a stone he can not lift, where love is cheap and can be disregarded like clothing. Such thoughts are indeed mysterious and tempting as well yet they go beyond the realm of reality and rational into a world where God does not exist and "every man does as is right in his own eyes"

For someone to try to resolve the mystery they must bid farewell to reason and live life based on experience. Their sin will allow them to experience an adrenaline rush and for a moment they rise above the clouds and feel their soul pricked with something resembling meaning. Our culture pushes us in the direction of sin by allowing the majority of the mass media to only ever talk about the brief moment of meaning. They do not talk about the heart wrenching crunch as that meaning is torn from every sinner as they plunge back to earth left with only a vain memory of what was. The mass mediea does not talk about the broken men and woman who spend their lives regretting decisions they have made or even worse the people who live sad and depressed without ever realizing that their current feelings are the result of past decisions. We never hear the screams or cries of pain when reality hits the people who chose to pursue a promise of happiness rather then what makes sense and for those who pursue what makes sense there may not be an individual world where you get to choose what is right, but rather you will find beauty in the perfect symmetry of the world which exists.

"Truth>feeling" or "Feeling Alone"

2011-06-03T04:01:00.014+02:00

Something I find very sad is peoples who base too much on their feelings. This is sad because it is very silly and makes people suffer a great deal. The trouble is, feelings don’t last and the person who acts mostly or solely on their feelings will never be able to live consistently. in accordance with any sort of absolute standard. They will never have any sure to believe or trust in. They will live in a continual state of angst even if they don't know why. Acting on feelings is the more lazy approach to life which is why its so popular. People just act on how they feel which leads to relativism and increased license.

Lets compare that to truth and we’ll find that truth is far better. If truth exists then it rises above feelings.Truth is something outside of a person a standard to which the person must live or suffer the consequences of being a liar. If there is such a thing as an absolute truth which is true for everyone at all times in all circumstances then everyone must either conform to that truth or be willing to call themselves a liar and relativist and they must cease to judge anyone for any action which they simply feel is wrong. I believe an absolute truth does exist If an absolute truth outside of my own personal morality did not exist then life would cease to make sense.If an absolute truth did not exist I could just as easily hit an old lady as I could help her across the street and you could no more condemn a man for telling a lie then you could praise a man for being honest. Without an absolute truth everything would be like our feelings, relative, illogical, contradictory and unrealistic. You might as well try to imagine a world in which 2+2=5.

Because a truth does exist humans can grasp that truth and so find a logical motivation for living well even when their feelings tell them to quit. Everyone has days, weeks, months and sometimes years when their feelings tell them to give up, to live selfishly and just be lazy. People in those circumstances can do one of three things. 1.They can choose to be controlled by their feelings and live illogical selfish lives. These are the sorts of people who we see all around us, who do not know what they believe and lack motivation to figure out what they believe. 2. They can form an illogical worldview which motivates them to not be lazy but at some point it fails to explain reality. These sorts of people are the ones who stand very strongly for something but hardly know why they stand for it. or 3, They can seek and embrace a logical view of the world which will give them motivation to live well regardless of what their feelings say and in addition will allow them to have intellectual integrity, which means their intellect will be consistent with reality. These people are the truth seeking Christians who have realized that there is something more important then themselves, Christians who have realized the their own feelings are irrelevant not only to their purpose but also to how they live their lives. God never called anyone to feel a certain way he calls people to live a certain way. So the point is not that feelings are wrong or bad but only that feelings are unhelpful when it comes to deciding how we live our lives. I'm not saying we should try to kill every feeling but we must base our decisions on truth which is not subject to change. If we don't do this and choose to live based on our feelings or really anything else which is subject to change then we fall into the trap of relativism. Feelings ought to be either an energy boost which helps us along in our lives or a barrier to impede us from our goal they MUST NOT dictate our goals for us. That is in essence the problem people allow their feelings to tell them who they are and how to act. We must use our God given intellect to rise above our feelings and use them as the tool they were designed to be.

I'm not entirely sure how to end this. I think the point is clear, if its not then comment and tell me please. One thing before you go, please, please please do not misunderstand this post. I am not saying that feelings are bad. If you think I said that reread the post and realize I did not say that. Oh and the pictures do not relate to anything. They are just cool pictures that I've taken of my yard this summer.

Can An All Powerful God Create A Stone He Can Not Lift?

2011-05-26T01:45:00.008+02:00

I wrote this essay today about this question and why I find it so frustrating.

The question above and others like it are very troubling to me for two reasons, not because it is difficult to answer but because fewer and fewer people seem capable of answering and secondly that this question exists at all as a serious question. This question ought to be in elementary logic courses not in the council chambers and debating halls of universities. The fact that this question exists at all speaks of a deeper intellectual problem festering in the heart and mind of our present culture. In this essay I hope to do two things. First I will answer the question above. Second I shall try to explain the heart issue which has led to this question being asked.

To address the first issue. How to answer above question? The question itself has no answer, at least not as far as a yes/no answer is concerned. The question can not be answered with a yes or no simply because the question itself is nonsensical. Consider yourself as a parents with a sweet innocent six year old girl and she comes up to you and asks if it is possible for Jasmine to have married Jafar? Or Belle to have married Gaston? Or any other of the Disney princesses to have married the villains in their various stories? In one sense you could say yes because the princesses do have a will and so technically it is possible to imagine such movies in which princesses are never rescued and fall in love with their tormentors.

However, this answer would entirely ruin your child's innocence because such a movie would destroy what a Disney movie is. It would destroy the reality which makes Disney movies so popular. Our imaginations are very powerful and so they can conceive of such a hypothetical situation but the moment we think it actually possible we have lost the Disney movie and find ourselves in a movie where nothing is certain and the ideas of good and bad, happy ending and sad ending are entirely out of proportion without any foundation to rest on.

In the same way we could imagine a world in which God would create a stone he can not lift but to believe so would go beyond the realm of the thinkable into the realm of imaginary. "What!" you say, "can't God do anything?" The answer is “no”. God is God and so by definition he can not be not God. He can not do anything. He is limited to Himself who is infinite but He is also real. He can only act within the infiniteness of reality. He can not make 2+2=7 because he can not go beyond the laws of reality which He is. He is not governed by them but is them himself and these laws encompass and exceed the real things of our world.

The problem is actually not a problem with God it is a problem with language. The primary question takes advantage of a non perfect language and uses it to create a nonsensical scenario in which God is subject to the word “all powerful”. We think all-powerful and think it means capable of doing all things when in reality all powerful means having power of all real things. Just because God is all powerful does not mean he can do anythin. God is limited to the realms of truth, reality and goodness. So He is all powerful over anything existent, anything that is real. He can not be boxed into a hypothetical situation which uses finite words trying to describe an infinite God and be expected to perform within a fake situation according to real rules.

So the original question is a bad question because to answer it one must go beyond the realm of reality in which God does not exist where only darkness and vain imagining are. The question assumes a false premise. It assumes all powerful means capable of doing anything our fallen mind can conceive of doing rather then what, “all powerful” really means, “which is to have supreme authority over all reality.” It is like trying to ask the worlds most renowned surgeon if he could perform a complicated brain surgery on a person who has a brain in his foot. Such a question is absurd. Does the doctor have the skill to do such a surgery? Yes, in theory but to take him outside of the realm of reality and still force him to follow the real rules of surgery is inconceivable. Since God is truth and reality itself you can not try to have God act in accordance to Himself in a situation where reality doesn’t apply. God can not create something greater then himself because then he would cease to be God. This does not mean God is not “all powerful” it simply means that God functions inside the realms of truth, reality and goodness.

Since this is already way too long I'll save the other half of the essay for some time later. Hope this helped clear up something. Comments are much appreciated.

Some Thoughts on Lamentations

2011-05-10T12:50:00.003+02:00

Last week I read Lamentations a few times. I found it extraordinary how much one can learn from reading the same thing over and over and over again. I found some things particularly applicable to myself and somethings I thought worth sharing with you all.

I. It is best to pursue God when we are young, Lamentations 3:27.The longer one waits, the further entrenched sin will be in that life and the harder it will be to break old habits. Worst of all, the longer one waits the less time they will have to please God.

II. God is always in the right in any situation He brings about because He is the only one who hasn’t sinned. Lamentations 1:18 and 3:37-39

III.. It is actually possible to so insult the righteousness of God so that He will refuse to hear our prayers and not just allow but take part in afflicting us. Lamentations 3:1-17

IV. The love of the Lord is eternal and those who have the Lord as their portion will be able to endure until God shows his love again. Lamentations 3:24, 40-42 We often pass through trials which are not directly our fault, we suffer for the sins of others. Those who's hope is in the Lord will suffer gladly knowing they lose nothing by suffering and gain an opportunity to please God.

V. There is yet hope. Lamentations 3:22-24 Despite all the evil and darkness which tends to so dominate our perspective of the world. There is still love to be had.

Rooftop Meditations

2011-05-05T00:55:00.002+02:00

The title is a result of the weather. Since spring has come and its starting to turn warm, I've migrated from my room to the rooftop, to do my thinking, where its not stuffy and one can hear the birds or crickets.

Here are some thoughts I had while dwelling our present culture and American society.

There is a misconception which exists today which allows people to believe that their life does not impact the world. People today tend to view life like they watch a movie. This is clearly shown when we look a bit deeper into common habits of people.

Example 1.
How many people comment with pleasure when the news reports about a drug cartel being arrested.
But how many of those same people willingly take their own "medications" to escape the horror of what life would be without them.

Example 2.
How many people are pleased with a prostitution ring is broken up and brought to justice.
But how many of those same people watch porn on a regular basis.

Example 3.
How many people are happy to know that a big business has started a major recycling progrman.
But how many of those same people refuse to make the extra effort and actually recycle their own garbage.

Example 4.
How many people sing praise songs about Christ "finishing" sin on the cross
But how many of those same people don't care a wit about their own sin?

Much of American society have fallen into this mentality of passivity and apathy. People sit through life like we watch a movie, people cheers when good things happen and cry when bad things happen and never think about individual, personal decisions. People deny the possibility that what happens in the movie could impact them or that their standing by and simply watching might impact what happens in the movie. Having neither personal honor nor shame people have attempted to divorce themselves from the reality of this life. They claim every right to life, liberty, laziness and the pursuit of happiness but have entirely forgotten their duty to God, humanity and themselves.

This then is our great misconception, "that the rights we claim do not come with a duty to be fulfilled"

Res Multa

2011-04-26T05:18:00.016+02:00

Sorry, this post has been long in coming. Its not necessarily the most organized post, its a combination of three or four posts which I've attempted and failed to finish over the past three weeks. So I congratulate anyone who actually makes it to the end. Many things have happened in the past weeks. My brother got married to this very cool young woman who you see below. Its really nice having her around. She doesn't ask for much and is very good about doing things herself. So we had parties for Daniel and Kaydrie in Ohio were her family is from and parties in Connecticut for all of Daniels friends. Josh, my brother was home from Greece. We've had people visiting and relatives coming over and birthday parties. "The babies" of my family are turning nine which is weird. So life is weird and is proceeding as normal.

For school my younger siblings have been watching a video documentary by a "genius first class." His name is Francis Schaeffer and the series is called, How Shall We Then Live. Its very good and tries to answer the question, "How are we to live in this world of such complexity and meaninglessness?" A good question and one which everyone ought to be asking themselves.

The premise of the video is this.

Humanism can not produce the necessary purpose and meaning which all humans require.

Francis proceeds from this point to explain the many differing worldviews which have been in conflict with Christianity since the Roman Empire. All the worldviews try to give man purpose and all, ultimately fail and pass away into the sands of time. Christianity believes that mans purpose is to serve Christ and his meaning comes from being a creation of Christ. This has remained constant and continual since the dawn of time.

From the Christians perspective, the world is one big web of lies, some old, some new, some more powerful then others but all lies and only the Christians are free and capable of breaking free from this prison of lies. My brother Ezra asked a very good question when he said "but who says truth is important if another worldview can satisfy me more?" Their are indeed people who can live their whole lives in a "lie" and yet be happy, moral, good people and they don't have to deal with all the questions that Christians do of "am I offending God?" "should I worry about sin?"

If we look at this world, we see people believing lies, lots of lies and living their lives based on lies. These people are believing false realities. False because they are not true at least not true in accordance with biblical truth but they are realities because people really believe them and build their lives upon them.

But who cares? Who cares if one is believing a false reality if that reality is better then the "true" reality? What Ezra does not understand because he hasn't studied enough history is that life is bigger then my own self in my own present time. We have this false view that what I do is my own business and it wont effect other people. History proves this to be wrong. The world we live in is primarily built on apathy. People want to do as little work as possible and have very little motivation or drive except in the pursuit of the satisfaction of their own desires. Inspiring sermons and messages can not arouse us from our state of stupor because our generation is the most recent in a string of generations which have not tried to battle the problems of society. While our situation is it not justifiable it is understandable because for the past four hundred years philosophy, art, literature, and popular entertainment have been largely allied together, officially and non officially to destroy the Christian worldview which in times gone by had been so powerful. Their was a day when a Christian could stand up alone with a bible as his authority and say "your wrong" to the majority. Today someone may stand up but nobody is willing to become uncomfortable and actually figure out whether something is true or not. So until people care about truth, courage to stand up and say what is truth will not help anyone. Rather then confront truth we prefer to live in our false realities which tell us that our feelings are supreme and God's will is for us to feel good all the time.

Not only gold but man must make
A nation great and strong
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long

Brave men who work while others sleep
Who dare while others fly
They build a nations pillars deep
and lift them to the sky

Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long

The reason we don't care for truth and the reason we don't care for honor is because the church has largely failed in its duty.

First we have failed to present real, absolute, orthodox standards of living, which are real and in accoradnce with God's law. This lack of a clear reality has made people seek purpose and meaning outside of the church and outside of Christianity. This is why hypocrisy and laziness are such huge problems. People see no reason to be serious about God because they think they can find purpose elsewhere and the Church isn't saying anything contrary.

Second we have not provided examples of what it means to be a Christian so that men and woman are not left in the dark to pursue meaning. Every church should have hardened veterans of the faith saying confidently, "Christ is your purpose and your meaning and everyone else claiming to have purpose and meaning are liars."

Third we have made our culture believe that church is just another social club. Its a place to fellowship or in modern language "hang out with friends who don't swear". Church ought to be the place we love to come so that we might be built up in the imagine of God and not just because it is a more comfortable atmosphere then our home or school or work.

This is a church in France being fired upon during World War I. Spiritually the church has never ceased to be under attack. All that has changed is the human response to that attack.

Spring

2011-04-12T20:37:00.003+02:00

Well I am back and nobody has given me the pictures of the wedding yet. Those will probably come shortly. I thought I'd post a couple pictures of Spring which we are having here in Connecticut. This morning was the first time it was warm and dry enough to go for a walk barefoot and shirtless. The last of our snow fort melted over the weekend so our yard is now snowless. We had thought we were gonna get an earlier spring but mother nature suprised us with this for April Fools day.

Fortunately it didn't stick but it was surprising nonetheless.

Two days later I went outside and took some pictures.

These are the wind chimes which my sister in law's family gave to my family when they visited us in October. Their pretty sweet because I can here them from my bedroom when I wake up and when I go to sleep.

Here are some cool purple flowers I found while going for a walk in our woods last week.

To reconcile the problem I posed in my last post, I'm just gonna say that the problem arises with a false assumption about what those words mean in the context of the passages that I quoted from. Primarily in the I Corinthians passage.

Purple pwns ftr and Spring is very pleasant.

Newsflash!

2011-04-06T14:22:00.002+02:00

I'm leaving at two tomorrow morning to drive out to Ohio for Daniel's wedding. I'll be back on Sunday. When I come back I'll have lots of cool pictures and hopefully an answer to the following problem.

The Bible says God is love (1 John 4:8)
The Bible say God will hold us accountable for our sins (Revelation 20:12)
The Bible says love keep's no records of wrong (1 Cor. 13:5)
How can God keep no record of wrongs yet hold us accountable for our sins?

The contradiction is obvious, now where is the reconciliation?

Have a Spirit filled weekend,
Farewell

Putting Trial Into Perspective

2011-03-29T06:17:00.001+02:00

As we walk through life often we will find ourselves getting pummeled by all manner of sharp objects and I’ve realized that the problem is not in the sharp objects, rather it’s in our reaction. I’ve known that for awhile but today I had a cool thought that helped put things into better light. When something bad happens what are the general questions or thoughts that we have? When a friend dies? When a family splits up? When parents don’t know how to parent? When siblings don’t know how to love? When boys take advantage of girls? When girls are overly irrational and ruin a good friendship? When a beautiful deer has its life snuffed out by oncoming traffic? When these and other situations happen what are the questions that we struggle with?

How is this fair?
How is this helpful?
How can God ask me to put up with this when it not my fault?
What does God expect me to do?

Now let us place ourselves in the position of Jesus Christ on the cross and think those same thoughts and ask those same questions.

How is this fair. It is not fair yet it will enable millions to be saved
How is this helpful? It is not now but it will be when I rise again
How can God ask me to put up with this when it not my fault? Because I love other people and so will pay for their faults.
What does God expect me to do? To love Him as He loved me.

I think that we far to often get caught up in the emotions of a situation and are unwilling or unable to step outside of our emotions and say “Father God, regardless of how I feel, or what I want, my hearts desire is that not my will but your will be done” We forget that the more ashes their are the more glorious a Phoenix will rise from them. Can you imagine a more horrible, unfair, dark, evil, horrendous deed then the death of the son of God? Can you imagine the party that the demons had when Jesus breathed his last? Can you imagine the shock and despair of the angels who watched their “all powerful” Lord fall victim to the whims of His own creation?

Jesus however put things into perspective and knew where his loyalties lay. He endured the ultimate unfair situation and the ultimate evil NOT because he had some special supernatural gift which helped Him but because he had spent his entire thirty year lifetime preparing for that moment. Every moment of every day he was getting ready for that test. He was not lazy in pursuing God because He knew that one day God would call Him to be the example of Christianity for all the world. The challenge stands for us as well because God calls us daily to represent Christianity to the world, so will we shame God and Christianity or will we stand strong and bring glory? Will we pursue God when life is easy so that in the hard times we will be examples of holiness as Jesus was or will be like the hypocrites who God spits out of his mouth because we are foul to Him?
I praise God that He set the example for us, He commands us to do hard things but He never asks us to feel something which He did not feel Himself.

A Wee Story

2011-03-22T06:35:00.009+01:00

Once upon a time there were two young farmers. Both men were strong and able and had a desire to serve their country. Because a war was raging at the time both men went off to the war. They each found a company to join, and this morning they went forth to battle with high expectations of victory and plunder. Because of their origins and ignorance neither man had armor nor weapons but they hoped they would pick them up during the battle; their companies had never lost a battle. So with expectations high they fell into rank and went off worshiping. Sooner than either man would have liked, they were engaged with the shadowy enemies. Each man found himself cut off from his unit and fighting alone. The shadowy forms rather than killing them circled around the poor men, menacing and intimidating them until they gave up any attempt to fight and lay quivering on the ground at the feet of their enemies. Not until the end of the day when the rest of the company had put to flight the enemies did the poor farmers arise from their deplorable state and slowly make their way back to camp. With guilt and shame ringing in their hearts both men entered the camp. They avoided the eyes of their victorious companions and went straight to their commanding officers to offer their resignations.
Until now both men’s stories have been exactly the same. Here is where similarity stops. The first man arrived at the tent of his colonel and with tears in his eyes told the tall, handsome, perfectly dressed officer all his faults. He poured out to the officer all his failures, his utter inability to battle the enemies and upon bended knee this farmer humbly handed in his resignation and offered to give his service to the nurses and cooks back at camp. With kindly eyes the officer raised up the man and said “your desire to be in this company is more important to me than your failures.” With Shakespearian tongue and Caesarian inspiration the officer raised the man from the ashes and handed the now smiling farmer back his resignation papers. The officer sent the man back to his barracks worshiping afresh, confident of victory and willing again to go forth to the battle. The next day, this man vigorously joined the front ranks of his company. Because of the previous nights encouragement he now felt like he could conquer anything. After he had left his commanders tent he had spent the night in worship of God and dwelling on inspiring thoughts of victory. As the enemy approached, he ran ahead and threw himself into the depths of their ranks feeling as though victory could be gained by bravado alone. The shadowy forms were not impressed and again cut him off from his company, but this time his company had not the time to free him. As soon as he was surrounded, the farmer’s courage faltered, and he fell to his knees and begged for mercy. The previous nights joys and hopes seemed eternities away. His feelings had failed him. The enemy granted no mercy. They slew him. He died a coward, fearing the demons who surrounded him. He died unloved and unprotected by the officer who has promised him so much, who has inspired the feelings that killed him.
Now what of the other man? Well, he went to his officer, a rough looking miniature mountain with a sword like Attila’s in his belt and a shield on his back which Ajax would have envied. Before this imposing figure the second farmer knelt and with fear in his voice he told the commander of his fear and his failure to fight the enemy. He confessed his lack of courage and his ignorance in going to war. As he gave over his resignation to the hand held out to receive it he felt his heart break, for he knew he was handing in his soul. The officer looked over the papers with a slight frown and upon reaching the bottom He scowled a bit and showed the man the last line on the page, which read,

“This day I sell myself eternally to God almighty in return for the promise of His love"
Farmer II

The officer looked at the man kneeling before Him and said, “you are not permitted to leave.” Then turning, He beckoned him to follow. He led the sad farmer to a strange place deep in the woods and said, “learn from me and I will teach you deep and hidden things.” So saying he unslung the shield and sword and began to teach the young man the art of war. He beat him hard, He taught him pain, He wore him to the point of complete abandon. As the training grew more intense the farmer began to love these sessions. He knew that it was the pain of training that would save him from the far greater pain of dishonor, defeat, and death. From the ashes of the farmer’s first defeat there was awoken a passion for learning. From the fire which was dead sprang a life dependent on the training of its Master. Renewed was his blade that was broken. The enemy had been dethroned. Not by a desire, not by a worship session, not by a retreat, not by one good spirit filled experience, but by the presence of God’s refining fire had the farmer been the fire which he had learned to love. Many months later, when the officer sent the farmer out to war again, he went forth equipped with the tools and the knowledge needed to wield the tools and defeat the demons before him. There is no shadow that can defeat a man who has been armed with the weapons of angels and the knowledge of the cherubim.

Moral of the story: I am not sure, decide and tell me what it ought to be.

St Patricks Breast-Plate

2011-03-17T17:09:00.002+01:00

To honor the memory of a departed brother who fought the good fight with gusto and to encourage us in our struggles today I'm posting a prayer of St Patrick.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever.
By power of faith, Christ's incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;*
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the cherubim;
The sweet 'well done' in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors' faith, Apostles' word,
The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart's idolatry,
Against the wizard's evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

To Search For God.

2011-03-16T02:56:00.007+01:00

Often our imagination leads us astray and the god we think exists and the god we try to serve is not God Himself. To many Christians with good intentions and honest piety become frustrated and burn themselves out trying to serve a god they think exists but doesn't. Much of the pain that we suffer does not come because we don't want God but because we aren't willing to do what it takes to find him. The study of God, the God who is there is one which is a MUST for any Christian. If a Christian is a Christ follower then we had better know who Christ is so we don't go following what we think is Christ or what we wish Christ was like and by Christ I mean God all of Him, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In an attempt to understand who God actually is, the real God and not what we would like god to be , some associates and I compiled a list of some of God's attributes. We divided the bible amongst ourselves and took note of what God was like in each of our sections. Following is a short short summary of some of the things that God does/is and what those truths mean for us.

God
is holiness itself. Isaiah 6:3
Judges the wicked. Numerous examples throughout history and Pslams 1:4-5
Hates hypocrisy, sin, falsehood, bloodshed, deceit. Psalms 5:4-6
Loves, righteousness, the world, his followers. Numerous examples throughout history. John 3:16 Psalms 11:7
Owns, the earth and everything in it. Psalms 24:1
Knows and will reveal all. I Corinthians 2:7
Seeks to reconcile us to Himself. II Corinthians 5:19
Cares How we live. Matthew 5:10-48
Works in us. Phillipians 2:13
Promises Salvation to those who live well. Psalms 50:23
Is jealous for us. 1 Corinthians 10:22 Psalm 78:58

Christians are supposed to be reflections of Christ on earth. We should hate what He hates, love what He loves, seek what He seeks, do what He does; in short be of one mind with God almighty.
The list above does not do justice to the character of God. I do not think any list or book or manuscript can. What is important to know though is that God is not unknowable he is just indescribable. God wants us to know Him but he doesn't want us to put Him in a box and come up with a checklist of how to get to know God. We must simply seek Him with humility and the assumption that we are nothing, that we deserve nothing. If we come to Christ's table as beggars He will seat us like kings. If we come expecting to be kings we will be rejected and cast out, which is worse then never going.

So as much as I wish I could have "three short steps to God" or a concise list of God's characteristics the fact remains that no such list exists. Those who have tried to compile one have made God look worse then He is by omitting things. I honestly think that the best way to find God is to go on a search with the assumption that "I am nothing coming before God almighty" then experiment. Use the bible and pray but beyond that their aren't many rules. For some people this will mean sitting in the woods all night for others it will mean fasting three times a week. Some will read the bible in a week. Their is no set method to finding God the only thing that you can be sure of is that it will be painful and worthwhile. More worthwhile then painful but difficult all the same. The rewards of pursuing God with no strings attached are eternal and affect all areas of our lives. The only thing we need to pursue God is reverence. We will understand His love, His peace, His passion faster if we approach it with reverence.

I should stop I'll end with Psalms 103. Verses 11,13,17
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹³ As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—

Notice the fear that is necessary in all three verses. If we do not fear we will not know that God loves us or that he has compassion on is.

Knowing God With Our Spirit

2011-03-04T04:40:00.004+01:00

The spirit is in need of nourishment. I look around and I see many Christians who's live are unfulfilled and they remain unsatisfied because they do not attend properly to the needs of their spirit. God knows how to give good gifts to those who ask Him and what better gift could any of you think of then a spirit unruffled by the storms of life. The peace of God is not a untroubled life. The love of God is not a passionate feeling aroused by beauty in another person. The joy of God is not an emotional high which comes from ideal circumstances. Peace love and joy all come from having one's spirit in communion with God, reveling in the passion of divine understanding. Their is no feeling so sweet, no experience so moving, no motivation so powerful as that which comes from seeing God through the eyes of our spirit and conversing with Him in the tongue's of angels through prayer. Bliss is the perfect word and it is to this state which God is directing His followers. If we would only attend to the needs of our spirit and come to know God with our spirit not just with our minds.

To often we neglect our spirit and try to satisfy its incessant longing for God with things such as tv, music, video games, hobbies, books and even people. I know I'm not saying this as clearly as I could, I wish I was a better writer. Basically I think that once we are saved our spirit longs for God. The only way to satisfy that spiritual longing is to go to God is through prayer, meditation, contemplation, study and thought. We are still human and so can not totally abandon the body for the sake of the spirit but as our spirits gradually ascend into the heavenly realms of joy and peace our bodies, which remain here on earth will mirror what our spirit is experiencing making it possible to no longer need the things which have been our source of satisfaction for so long. To often we settle for things that are not sinful but are still unproductive, they are broken cisterns who's waters run dry long before our thirst is quenched. If we allow our spirits to drink of the well everlasting we will never be thirsty again.

Just to clarify, I still know there is a place for things as movies and such but all these things must come after our spirit is at rest with God. So in essence we should not be sad if those things were to suddenly vanish forever because our spirits will be at rest and when our spirits are at rest in God not much else that happens here on earth matters.

I know in my last post I promised to talk about how girls and boys are supposed to be friends without being girlfriends or boyfriends. While this post doesn’t give a step by step method of having those friendships (because I’m not smart enough to do that) I think it addresses the key issue. Most of the problems that come out of such relationships are because people do not have their spirits at rest in God and so they become distracted by the other person. There is an interesting principle that is peculiar to Christianity which is that the more you pursue what you want the further away it gets and vice versa the more you pursue God the more real become the things you want. This is true partly because as you draw near to God your desires change and also because God is the only one who can give us what we actually want. So by pursuing relationships with the opposite sex for the sake of marriage might appear helpful in reality I think its more helpful to pursue God and let him take care of the marriage part because He knows what we want and He knows what’s best for us.

So those are my thoughts and as I read through it, it they seem very impractical but based on my own experience and on my own pondering it still seems correct. So let me know what you think. If I am correct then we must address the question, is impractically a deciding factor when it comes to doing what’s best? With that question I will leave you to your puzzling and pondering.

*makes some tea and waits around for people to comment*

Something I think very strongly about.

2011-02-24T03:54:00.004+01:00

Following are two poor poor syllogism proving it is wrong to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

I. God made humans to be in communion with him
II. God made humans to be happy
III. If we are not in communion with Him we will be unhappy
IV. Having a boyfriend or girlfriend takes time and energy away from being in communion with God
V. The more time taken away from communing with God the more unhappy we will be.
VI. If we are actively choosing something which would deny us the ability to commune with God we are sinning.

I. God is the only being who can satisfy the desires of a human.
II. He commands us to come and drink of Him so that we might be satisfied.
III. A boy who truly loved a girl would not become her boyfriend because that would only distract her from pursuing God who is the only true relief.

Because I'm falling asleep in my chair I'm just gonna say plain and simple I think boyfriend girlfriend relationships are wrong bad and otherwise unehlfpul. Not even because anything wrong happens in the relationship itself (even though 99.9% of such relationships end in regret remose and hurt people) but because of the time it takes. Humans were made to serve God, to love God and through loving God to love other people. If we truly love other people we would spur them on towards God. We would not hinder them in their race to eternal bliss by getting them all wrapped up in us. This goes for boys and girls. The wives will be made by woman who do not need a man to satisfy them but who has allowed God to satisfy all the emotional needs of her heart. The best husbands will be made by men who already know how to humble themselves before God and serve Him.

Just encase my logic doesn't make sense then talk to any of your highschool friends who have ever had a boyfriend or a girlfriend. See if any of them would be able to say that the relationship was a positive experience and that throughout the whole thing they were growing in their relationship with God. I do not think you will be able to find any.

Next blogpost will try to unravel how, if we can not have boyfriends and girlfriends how are we supposed to treat them.

"Our hearts, Oh Lord, are restless until they find their rest in Thee."

2011-02-12T02:58:00.008+01:00

I've been thinking and interacting alot with the spiritual world lately. I think its a part of our universe that goes unnoticed and unknown which is a horrible pity because in many ways the spiritual world is far more real then the physical world which we observe with our sense. My contemplation has brought me to these conclusions, which you are free to dispute in your comments.

I. Each human has a spirit which is active in the spiritual world.

II. Most human spirits are acting on impulse rather then planned movements making them very vulnerable.

III. Satan wars with God by manipulating people's spirits thus getting people to act in the physical world how he would like them to but washing his hands of it at the same time.
(Here I must explain myself)
It is common knowledge, or should be anyway that the spirit is meant to be in control of the physical. As Christians our actions ought to be a mirrored reflection of our spirit and our spirit ought to be a mirrored reflection of the Holy Spirit which is rooming with our spirit inside our hearts.
According to Romans 8 God purifies our Spirit first by sending His spirit to dwell inside of us. When His spirit is firmly entrenched inside of us then He will kill our fleshly body. Once the flesh is dead He will bring our mortal bodies back to life through the power of His spirit with no trace remaining of our original sin nature. That in short is the process of Sanctification. That being said our spirit is the key player, it never dies and never comes back to life, it is purified through its interaction with and self subjugation to the Holy Spirit which dwells inside us.
Satan knows that the best way he can counteract God's plan for the reunification of humanity with Himself is to hinder our spirit connecting with God's spirit. Since Satan himself is a spirit it is must easier for him then attacking us in the physical world or the world we observe through our senses. This is why we dont see Satan walking around gathering a following and burning churches, he attacks peoples spirits and he can so manipulate them that he can get people like Joseph Stalin who gather their own following and burn churches for Satan. It saves Satan time, resources and effort to manipulate other people to do his dirty work rather then do it himself.

Now how do we counteract Satan's plans to counteract God's plan?

IV. To counteract Satan people must be willing to interact with their spirit and to let their spirit be the one in control of their actions.

V. We must be open with other humans,
(I need to explain again here)
Satan can not beat God in any sort of real contest, he can cheat God he can manipulate people he can slink around but he can never meet God in any sort of pitched battle because he will lose every time.(this proves I'm not a dualist for the record) What Satan can do though is cut people off from God. He gets people isolated, stifles them in their own emotions and misunderstandings which will inhibit them from being a powerful voice for God. It is of prime important that people are willing to be open and honest with each other, primarily about the state of their spirit.
The Puritans had as the cornerstone of their theology a cross diagram. The vertical part of the cross representing one's relationship with God and coinciding with the first and greatest commandment. (Matthew 22:37), the horizontal piece representing our relationship with each other and coinciding with the second greatest commandment. (Matthew 22:39). The point is both of those relationships are essential for God fulfilling his purposes on earth. Not that He needs us specifically but people need to focus on these two items. If someone focuses only on the vertical he will be a holy island which will be of no help to anyone except for that one person. If we focus only on the second we will become polluted by the world.

VI. The Spiritual realm is much more worthy of exploration then anything terrestrial.
Things spiritual last much longer then things earthly and if it is our spirit which is guiding our perception of the physical world then what we experience in the spiritual world will transfer over to the physical world making life better in general.

VII. In the spiritual world we are not subject to our circumstances or our emotions but rather we can rise above both those hindrances and pursue God with praise and adoration.

I apologize for the longevity of this post but I think that too often we get lost amidst the complexities of this earthly life with all its unknowns and misconceptions. We seek solace for our spirits in things earthly rather then allowing our spirits to rest in God. So if nothing else I hope this post might prompt you to reconsider how you spend your time, how you go about combatting Satan and when you are troubled where do you run for help. I hope you will take to heart the words of Augustine who says, "Our hearts(spirits) are restless until they rest in Thee" and to rest in him does not necessarily mean going and knitting a sweater or relaxing in front of the tv but pursuing him through prayer and study.

Some of my favorite books in the world.

The Beginnings of 2011

2011-02-11T04:22:00.008+01:00

I havn't done a none serious post in awhile so for all my readers who are like, "oh will he just shut up with his illogical speculations", this is something you might enjoy. Prior to Christmas 2010 we had had no snow, hardly a sprinkling. Since that time Connecticut has almost beaten our record for most snow in a winter. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself. Here are some of the pictures I've taken over the past two months.

This is just the beginning. Sometime early in January we had a small dusting.

Then kabooom!! We got bombarded.....

....by storm....

...after storm....

...after storm....
..after storm, until the snowplows broke and we had to recruit the local population of garden gnomes (because garden gnomes are the only gnomes dumb enough to be caught) to shovel all our driveways and plow our streets.

After the gnomes had done their work the turkeys came along to sweep the last little bits of dirt and slush away.
left, right, left, right,left, right....."left wheel!!"left, right,left, right, "the humans have seen us, quick!!double time!!" and away they went.

Then we got another storm
The picture is blurry because the tree was shaking because of all the weight of the snow on it, not because it was so cold outside that my hands were shaking.

Since we were stuck inside so much during the storms, we had to come up with clever ways to spend our time.

Ezra conteted himself by making a house of cards in the shape of Edinburgh Castle, then destroying it because he didn't have enough cards to make it life size.

I manned my post up in my room. Reading, writing, studying and trying by will power to transform my Algebra II book into the worlds largest Snickers bar.

It didn't work so I had to go downstairs and make fudge. Which was actually superb which was surprising considering I didn't have enough rum extract to give it its usual potency.

The Problem of Sin.

2011-01-28T23:35:00.004+01:00

So a recent conversation with my pastor has prompted me to think about what exactly ought to be a Christians response to their own sin. Let us assume for the sake of this post that a Christian means someone who has been saved by Jesus and is going to heaven regardless of their actions. I'm not going to get into the whole debate of whether a person can lose their salvation or not because I dont think it is conducive to understanding the problem. The point is their are people who are legitimately Christians (myself and most of you reading this, at least you would say so) and yet we still sin. However our sin is payed for already Jesus said, "it is finished", on the cross implying that the debt which sin creates has been forever payed by Him and Him alone. We can do nothing in regards to that debt. Neither can we make it bigger nor can we make it smaller because it is done away with. Praise God for that.

Now if the debt is paid, what then are we left with? I think here we must redefine what we had previously thought of as sin. Sin by definition is an action contrary to God's will, the action being done a barrier appears between us and God. Combining personal experience with my reading of various Christian fathers throughout history and the Bible I've come to "think" that their are two natures to this barrier which sin creates. The first is all encompassing, totally segregating the sinner from the Father. God may have interaction with that person but the person can not respond. This first barrier is removed and removed forever by Jesus' death on the cross. The removal of this barrier enables the human to be saved and to pursue God. The waves of communication have become open once again. The second barrier is one we humans create after the origonal barrier has been removed. It is created by our sin and the bigger we make it the less and less we are able to communicate with God and interact with Him. Its like as we sin we clog up the ways we would interact with God with filth and muck. This second barrier is removed through the process of Sanctification and it is into this process that I believe falls the use of divinely given tools such as guilt, shame, penance ect.

Everything must be in balance and to blow the use of guilt out of proprotion is to use it for human purposes and not for the glorification of God. Often as Christians we sin and we ignore the sin because God has forgiven it, which He has and but we just wade through it for our Sunday morning church service then we return to create some more sin. Picture a man who wants to get to the end of a tunnel and instead of clearing out all the debris to make the tunnel passable he tries to squeeze his way through. This is a picture of a man who will not look at his sin. The boulders blocking his path to God are His sin and the fact that they are forgiven doesn't lessen the fact that they exist and he continues to make them bigger as he squirms and fights his way to the end of the tunnel. Often time he will give up and content himself with just being closer to the end of the tunnel then he was a month before. So guilt is what enables us to know our sin. To experience it on a deeper level and to understand the utter detestablness(I know thats not a word) of it, so that we can learn to hate our sin just as God hates the sinners "Psalms 5:5". In Proverbs 20:30 the use of the rod is advised as helpful to the soul. I think guilt is one of God's "rods" which he uses to teach us how to more ably follow him.

So basically I think their is more to live then salvation. The fact that Jesus saved us and forgave our sins does not take away the sin itself it makes us no longer held accountable to it. For me, the fact that someone else took what I owed makes me much more willing to serve that individual. So just because my salvation is guaranteed the fact that I still do things that bring tears to the of God makes me burn with shame more so then if my sin was put on my charge instead of His.

Please post your comments, I'm anticipating some disagreement. I hope at the very least this will have provoked some of you to think over things which are not the norm.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

2011-01-26T04:16:00.002+01:00

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

I've often read this passage and puzzled over the seeming paradox which is presents. It sounds all nice and comforting if you take it and read it seperate apart from the rest of the bible. However when we look at the rest of the bible we see that the most godly people, the people who have submitted to Christ's yoke entirely are the one's who seem to have the hardest lives. For examples read Hebrews 11:36-38.

I think the answer to the paradox lies in the word "easy". For something to be easy their must be something else which is hard, or at the very least harder then the thing said to be easy. Now we know Jesus' word to be infallible and so if He says submitting to His authority and rule is easy then we must draw the conclusion that it is easier then something else. "Easy" may not match the definition that we have as fallen creatures but it is easy in comparison to the life of a man who refuses to submit to Christ's authority.

This many of you have heard and if you haven't heard it specifically it makes sense. What for a long time didn't make sense to me was how can I see my life from the viewpoint that Christ had when He said submitting to Him is easier then not. I think the key factor that makes a life like Christ's easy is satisfaction. Think from the perspective of someone who is not willing to submit entirely to Christ. They have nothing. To have any sort of happiness or satisfaction they must make assumptions about life and themselves in which they forfeit their spiritual integrity. They have to constantly live with the knowledge that they have created truth and its only the assumptions they've assumed about life and reality which enable them to experience their fake forms of happiness and joy. These assumptions because they are faulty in nature are the reasons why people fall into depression and anxiety and live unhappy lives in general.

A christian on the other hand has great satisfaction and security in the knowledge that he is "yoked" with Jesus Christ. Compared to the non believer who has yoked himself to the figments of their own imagination. So my conclusion is that the yoke of Christ is not easy, at least not easy in the sense that we would like it to be. It is however easier then a life not under submission but its still a difficult life. Often we expect things of Christ and we misinterpret promises God makes us in the bible and here is one that I have been misunderstanding for along time. Hope this helped some of you as much as it helped me.

Horcruxes

2011-01-09T06:22:00.006+01:00

A Horcrux is an item into one places part or all of one's soul. In the series Harry Potter these items are used by the dark lord to act as insurance against a physical death. In the books they enabled Lord Voldermort to resurrect a weaker version of himself each time his physical body was destroyed. Unlike the Harry Potter series, real Horcrux do not necessarily involve a physical item nor do they insure one againts a physical death. Their is however a parallel that can be drawn from the fictional definition of a horcrux to reality and the real humans soul.

The human soul is a complex and intricate component of the human person. unlike Harry Potter in which someone may split his soul and place part of it in an object as an insurance against physical death the real soul is much more complex. Despite its intricacie the human soul is very often torn apart or placed in things other than its owners not to insure against death but rather to gain a sort of spiritual and emotional life or security. The majority of humans are not satisfied with themselves and so they place their souls in things other than themselves. These things are like guardians of the souls which the humans trust more then they trust themselves. So long as the guardian remain true to their calling the human will remain calm because their soul is at rest in the thing they've chosen to entrust it to. Examples would be things such as relationships, God, church, learning, sports ect ect ect ect.

Why is this important you ask? Well because the majority of human horcruxes I think we make subconsciously. We dont realize we've placed most of our soul into something until that something fails us and we feel like half a person. We lose as much of our personality as we had invested in that item or thing or activity. Just as any investor knows, it is best to research the thing your investing your money in prior to risking your money in it. When one thinks about their soul, their ought to be a intense desire to make sure that we invest it in a "risk free investment".

Its fascinating to me that people will think so intensely about something which they know full well will fade away into memory and will give little or no thought to their spiritual being, their soul and where it is going. Left to itself the human spirit will grow independent and become unruly, forcing us to do things we dont want and which go against our conscience and better judgment. Just as the force of gravity must be continually fought by those who stand upright so also must the natural laziness of the soul to become devoted to things which are not healthy be continually inhibited.

The Purpose of Humility.

2011-01-08T04:54:00.002+01:00

Recently I've began to read Bernard of Clairvaux and his thoughts are fascinating. Truly a man of God and you can tell because he quotes scriputre in some form almost every other sentence. At the beginning he puts a list of things that distinguish pride from humility. It was pretty good for me to dwell a bit on pride. I figured I'd post it, think about it, dwell on it, I found it helpful.

The Steps of Humility and Pride.

Pride
1. Curiosity about what is not one's proper concern.
2. Light-mindedness chatter and exclamation about things which do not matter.
3. Laughing about nothing. Foolish merriment.
4. Boasting and talking too much.
5. Trying to be different claiming special rights.
6. Thinking oneself holier than others.
7. Interfering presumptuously with the affairs of others,
8. Self-justification. Defending one's sinful actions.
9. Insincere confesson.
10. Rebelling against superiors
11. Feeling free to sin.
12. Habitually sinning.
Humility
12. Containment of ones interest which shows itself in a humble bearing and a lowered eyes.
11. Quiet and restrained speech.
10. Reluctance to laugh.
9. Keeping silent unless asked to speak.
8. Regarding oneself as having no special rights in the community.
7. Thinking oneself less holy than others.
6. Thinking oneself unworthy to take initiative.
5. Confessing one's sins.
4. Patience in face of accusation.
3. Submission to superiors.
2. Desiring no freedom to exercise one's will.
1. Constant Watchfulness againts sin.

The Sands of Endlessness

2011-01-02T05:42:00.004+01:00

How is one to make sense of it all. All is vanity and a striving after wind saith the preacher and yet we continue to allow ourselves to feel and hurt and morn over thing that have virtually no significance in the overall perspective of eternity. We all are willing to admit that the majority of the things we spend our time pursuing do not matter much in eternities view. However these things such as grades, friends, presents, birthdays, anniversaries, sporting events are all very real and what give life and purpose to millions upon millions of people all over the world. How has the world come to this state. A state in which the things of this world which do not live beyond a memory have become the force that drives the majority of humanity to eat, work, sleep and live in general. Why have we become so complacent that we are wiling to spend our time and be satisfied by things that can only exist as a memory. We find ourselves wrapped up into these situations that we know are hindering us from pursuing God however they can not be ignored. We wish to bring God into the picture and allow Him to work out the problem for us yet it just seems to make things more complicated and while its comforting in a sense to say "God you now have control over this situations and it's under your control" this does not alleviate the pressure that we must feel because we are still, regardless of who is in charge, key players in the problem.

What are we to do. We can research, We can study, we can diagram and plan as much as Socrates but ultimatly it will all come to naught. Friendships dwindle away unless continually attended to, physique grows lax and weak unless forced int subjugation and made strong through discipline our minds wander into idle thoughts and vain day dreaming unless reality is continually being brought before it. Life in general is taxing and yet God calls us continually to higher and higher levels of purity and intelligence. Plinkys question for today is: If you had an hour in a time machine where would you go. I'd go to eternity where God reigns supreme and His will is being done on earth as it has been done in heaven for eternity past. to be assured that all these struggles and battles are worth it. To know that the hope I rest all my rational, my reason, my efforts and dreams upon is as glorious as the scriptures tell. To make it easier to trudge on through the storm, being cold to the core and having to stop every so often to clean the blood and the sweat from our eyes. The only thing that allows us to continue is hope. Reason fails us when the we come to the chasm of faith. faith without reason can only lead to hope and hope is what we are left with as motivation to serve God.

So the purpose of this post, to show that in reality most things are unprovable and since hope is what we as Christian found our lives upon we must ensure that our hope is properly placed and were not hoping for the wrong thing.

The Peace of God

2010-12-29T01:29:00.006+01:00

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

This is not a biblical command to have peace but I think if we are not taking advantage of this benefit that Christ has left us then we are being awfully foolish. So recently I've been trying to be at peace and when I'm not I try to figure out why. Here are some notes from my journal about what this peace is that isn't the peace of the world but is rather the peace of God.

Peace is a triune unity of the internal components of a person. The mind, soul and spirit must all be united under a common love for God thus enabling a person to have peace despite their external circumstances. The flesh must be dead, the sin nature must be eradicated so our spirit is made pure and our minds must be purified. If all these things are accomplished a person will be able to rest secure knowing his purpose and his Lord. For this to be accomplished the sinful nature must be killed through a divine act of grace and replaced, again by divine grace, by a "spirit of righteousness". A after our sin nature is dead their is still the problem of our fleshly habits, like a an army without its general these passions and desires wander hither and yon through our parts exciting unnatural emotions, making us long for the impossible and allowing us to assume the absurd as factual. These fleshly habits must be conquered and subdued using every weapon in our hevanly arsenal. Things such as penance, self discipline, friendly counsel and study are what will allow us to wage war against the flesh, which is powerful even without the sin nature inside us. By waging war against the flesh a human subjugate his mind to Gods. By allowing Christ to supplant our sin nature and raise a substitute to take its place a human will subjugate his spirit and will to God. The soul like a weak emperor will merely follow the advice of its counselors the spirit and mind meaning that if the spirit and mind are subjugated to God the soul will quickly follow suit. The mind and the spirit will guide the soul and thus will the whole of a human be subjugated to Gods will allowing for the influx of the peace of Christ. This peace does not come from a connection between the inner parts of a person but a subjugation of each individual part to God which results in all the parts of a person being in unity with each other. In this way may one acquire the peace of God, not the peace of the world but the peace that the Godhead has amongst itself, holy and perfect, simple yet elegant, powerful and attractive. We all long for it but it must be sought out.

I believe this is why the early Christian ascetics went to such extremes to purge their bodies of sin. They didn't think that somehow they could earn their way to heaven rather they had an almost fanatical desire to commune with God and they recognized as we need to recognize in our modern era that the thing separating us from God is the flesh. Now unlike the early ascetics commune with God must not be our top priority because if it was we'd all go become hermits. Communion with God however is an essential part of Christianity and if our flesh has not been purged then we are missing out on the "joy" of knowing Christ. If all we know is that we ought to be serving Christ and can not commune with Him because we remain bound to our flesh then we are living a miserable existence and we seek joy in things of the flesh rather then the spirit which leads to living a double life and ultimately to damnation. True peace of God however is devoid of fear and lives in perfect harmony with our Creator. Let us be encouraged to pursue Him and seek His fellowship

Feel free to comment and point out the flaws of my thinking. I really appreciate it when anyone shares their opinion on what I write.

Coming Second in a Fat Man Race

2010-12-21T17:10:00.004+01:00

So when Christmas break came rolling around this year I decided I probably ought to plan something so I dont just sit and waste away the three precious weeks that I have of relative freedom. I needed to do two things 1. Finish City of God 2 Stay on top of latin over the break so I dont forget everything I was supposed o have learned already. I finished City of God really quickly and since Latin doesn't take all day I planned to use the next week for pleasure reading. I felt I had earned a little break after City of God and so I decided to read the Harry Potter series, something I've wanted to do for awhile but because of the frivolous nature of its subject I never took the time to read it. Anyhow, thanks to Mandie Morris and the Simsbury Library I was able to borrow all seven books and finished them in just over a week. Fastest 4000 pages I've ever read, although It doesn't really mean anything important because their are still people who read them faster. Hence the reason for the title of this blog, I raced to read the Harry Potter books which is really easy and so equivalant to a fat man race but i still lost because I didn't even win the race....oh well.

I promised myself while I reading that after i was done I'd write up an opinion of the series. I'll try not to reveal too much of the stories for those who havn't read them yet or are in process of reading. So let us begin.

Worst Characters: Harry Potter
I hated that he was the hero, he was an arrogant, haughty, selfish, greedy little squirt. Never once and I actually looked for this as I read, did he say "I'm sorry" for any of the life threatening situations he dragged his friends into or for any of the problems that he caused. He always tried to justify what he had done or what happened to him by blaming something else, never or very rarely did he ever acknowledge that he was ever at fault. He had no thought for the thoughts or emotions of the girls he dated, he merely wanted them for his own emotional gratification. Lastly he never cared about the rules, his morals were the ends justify the means which obviously doesn't make sense.

Favorite Charcter: Professor Snape
He was the only one who saw Potter for what he was, a little tyke with an ego big enough to match his legend but not his actual personality. Snape was the only one who trusted Dumbelodre to the last even though Dumbeldore didn't tell him everything and even though Snape knew Harry had to be the hero of the story. Snape was in my opinion the real hero of the story.

Other Favotire Character: Luna Lovegood because she was the only girl who didn't need a boy to kiss, she was confident in who she was regardless of what other people thought of her.

Neville Longbottom because when Harry had seemingly died and all hope was lost Voldermot asked him in person to change sides and Neville replied "I'll join you when all Hell freezes over" and proceeded to cut off the snakes head.

The good and bad elements of the book: When I started the series I was warned by a few people that the books were something evil. When one reads fiction he must understand that a good fictional author is one who can totally divorce their work from reality. So while in reality, witches, wizards, werewolves, vampires, warlocks are undeniably evil in this false reality that the author created these beings are good or bad depending on the choices of that individual. When one is willing to make that jump and acknowledge that in the books witches are not evil simply because they are called witches, their is very little that makes the books evil. The code at one point to get into the ministry of magic is 6,4,2,2,4 which is assumed to relate to the satanic number 666 however that is really the only thing I found that one could say is evil. For Christians seeking justification in reading the books I actually found many Christian themes. The idea that love is more powerful then hatred, that blood must be paid to regain life, that loyalty is more important the glory. One could even draw a comparison from Harry Potter to Jesus if one is willing to make a few stretches. Harry Potter the boy who lived the one who would succumb to death to conquer death and returned from what he thought was death to save the world from the evil Voldermort closely resembles the story of Jesus who came to earth and lived to die and then return from the dead to defeat death and conquer Satan.

Ultimatlly I think the books were neither evil nor good. its just like a wand its not the wand that is good or bad its the one who carries it, such is it with books. The series was undoubtlay a waste of time and so I'd only advise reading it if you feel your able to abandon reality for a week or however long it takes you to read it because its a very good story when the reader is not distracted by the cares of reality. Much like an elongated movie, when your done with it you feel like you just woke up from a long nap and have to pick up the threads of life where you left them.

Good Old Plinky.

2010-12-17T05:03:00.003+01:00

So I'm not going to apologize for not posting because I have my reasons, I just hope people haven't stopped checking my blog because of a shortage of posts. Seeing as how I posted fourteen days straight I think I earned myself a little slack. I wasn't going to post today either but today's Plinky question was far to thought provoking. Here it is, *drumroooooooooollllll*

If their was no consequences what is the most evil thing you would do?

A superb question and one that in my younger years I actually devoted considerable hours of daydreaming to. These thoughts normally led to daring exploits such as becoming and expert assassin/inquisitor and being a sort of Robin Hood. Making myself appear that I'm doing good but in reality I would feed off an established system of authority to make myself happy.

Those dreams however are long gone. Realistically if I could choose one evil thing to do and not get caught I'd try to bring about the downfall of some powerful organization that I dont particularly like. Not necessarily because I dont like the task that it is doing I just think the resources that organization uses could be better used elsewhere. Agenices like the DMV *scowls* or society's dedicated to the protection of animals or companies that produce "christian" media for the public to make it more appealing and less threatening. I'd use more violent means then legislation and vent my frustration on such organizations by perhaps killing the last Eight Eyed Purple Glow in the Dark Filipino Butterfly Moth Bug or possibly nudging a bicyclist who thinks he's a car and trys to take up a driving lane.

So now that you all have a glimpse into my dark side and know a bit more about the things I'd delete pretty quick if I had a bit more power and a bit less conscience, I'll go to bed and leave you to wonder what sort of foul deeds you'd commit if God went off watch.

PS. I'm reading the Harry Potter books, hardcore and trying to finish them as quickly as possible...hence my not posting. I've been holding out on a post about the books and the reasons people dislike them until after I've done, so it might be Monday or Tuesday before I get to that.

Christmas Tree Adventure 2010

2010-12-08T04:31:00.008+01:00

Every year for the past year my family leaves my parents at home to make us hot chocolate while the rest of us go on an adventure to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. Over the years we've allowed various outsiders to observe as we participate in this sacred tradition. This year we allowed our good friend Dr. Super Genius Man John Vaz to join us. We figured we could use his extensive medical training to help us when someone was inevitably hurt in the violent games of tag we play each year while looking for the tree.

Here is the genius man himself with my youngest sister.

Nathan is lamenting the absence of a check in the card he just opened.

There we are, all bundled up and ready to go.

So begins the search. Pickings were slim as you can see.

"What about this one?"

"sorry Sarah, to short, plus theirs not enough room for presents underneath."

One hour gone and Daniel is getting tired, all the trees are starting to look the same.
and then we found it. After two hours of a meticulous run through of the entire field we happened upon "the fatty" wide and bulbous and with plenty of room underneath for presents we though we might have found "the one"

taking a second look from the other side.

Some of us were doubting that "Fatty" was the right tree for us so we played a game while we decided. Rules, real simple, catch the little remote control helicopter that Jordan has in his hands, and dont trip and die on all Christmas tree stumps.

Finally after a game of ninja it was decided that Fatty was not the tree for us and that it would be better to buy one of the ones that they had already precut and laid outfront. However we swore on oath and signed our names in blood that if the fatty is there next year we'll return and get it. String it with popcorn and give it the home it has been grown for ever since it was a little sprout.

On the tractor ride back we all agreed we had made a good decision.

and then some of us were just cold.

The last and final challenge was how do we get the tree that we did choose home? Since we sold the van we no longer have a massive car to transport things around in. We wound up lashing the tree to the roof of my dads car and drove very carefully all the way home. So ends the story of the Lagans search for a Christmas tree. A happy ending for us because we found the tree we had been wanting but a sad ending for Fatty who remains cold and shivering in the back left corner of the Christmas tree field just waiting for someone to go and pick him.

Midnight Meditations.

2010-12-04T05:17:00.004+01:00

So without going into much detail I've been particularly frustrated recently. I dont even really no why. My life is awesome and in all honesty its really really hard to stay grumpy for any amount of time simply because their are always fun things that I could be doing...things I often am not willing to participate in like movies, video games ect... So I've been doing alot of thinking, trying to answer this question, "why do I have a lack of peace?" Trying to answer this question gave rise to numerous other questions like, "if I'm a Christian and the God I serve is the Prince of Peace then shouldn't I be at peace all the time?" Am I even a Christian? what exactly does Prince of Peace mean, perhaps, peace is something different and more complicated then merely a calmness of the inner being? All these questions have been pounding through my head day and night, haunting my dreams and making life a chore, doing the things I normally love like talking to friends or playing games with my siblings or eating or praying all proved tiring and so for the past two weeks I've allowed Satan to drag me deeper and deeper in this quagmire of guilt, remorse and self doubt. I think most of you know what sort of quagmire I'm talking about, most of us have experienced it at some point some of us are in the midst of it right now.

It wasn't until this evening that I really allowed God to give me some encouragement. Now the frustration is not gone, it is still terribly real as are all my feelings and as is this quagmire which I still need to work through but I do have some thoughts from my time with God earlier this evening which were helpful, so here they are. I'm putting them in list format to avoid being all confusing and to possibly lessen the prevalence of my grammatical errors.

I. beliefs determine our actions.
II. Our thoughts determine our beliefs
III. actions show us what we believe.
IIII. Our thoughts determine our reactions to feelings.
V. People must make mental effort to control their feelings, not to subdue hide or pretend their not there.
VI. We can not control our circumstances
VII. God can control our circumstances
VIII. Our circumstances are the barrier between allowing us to feel how our thoughts wants us to.
VIIII. To the degree that we can ignore our circumstances is the degree to which our thoughts determine our feelings.
X. God wants us to embrace reality while trusting in Him and so we can not merely abandon the world around us for a sense of spiritual bliss like the Hindu monks

In light of all these random facts which are merely the output of my mind computer not necessarily an insight I had from reading the word, a question is raised. Does God command us to feel particular ways, or does He merely expect us to act certain ways? I think the evidence is very clear that he commands us to feel things. He commands us to love, to be at peace to be humble all of which are at least have some feeling component they are not straight out commands they are more states of being. If God commands us to feel a certain way and yet we cannot control entirely how we feel without forsaking the world and being hermits then doesn't that mean that God commands us to do something we can not do? If this is true then how is that fair, how can God command us to do things we can not do then judge us guilty when we dont do them?

There is the impass at which I found myself and only tonight did God remind me of something I had written alot about in my journal a few months ago, mainly that God commands us all the time to do things we can not. He commands us to be perfect and love your neighbor as ourself and to forsake everything and follow Him these are commands that are entirely impossible to accomplish without His divine intervention. So answering my own question above "does God command us to do things we can not do?" Yes he does and He in His own perfect timing enables us to do just as He pleases. So how is it fair that God asks us to do things we can not do? It isn't
Why does God have to be fair to us He's God and the day He decides to be fair is the day I'd stop calling Him God. Justice is not treating everyone fairly, its treating them according to their worth and ability.

Tell me what you think, where I am wrong? where were my thoughts were misguided by carnal desires or the significant lack of green tea in my diet recently?

Oh I almost forgot, Over The Hills and Far Away by Nightwish is really cool. I've been listening to it all night.

Meh

2010-12-03T03:45:00.002+01:00

So I'm not sure what to post about. I'd like to post about something intellectual that I've been learning about such as God's peace or sanctification or the defense of the gospel or the biblical God as opposed to the American perception of god but all my studies in those various fields are simply producing more questions then answers, questions to which I have no answers. So I can not blindly write about a topic that I have no answers for.

On a more exciting note, I'm hopefully going to finish getting my permit tomorrow. *fingers crossed* I went on Monday and passed the written test but failed the vision test. So I have to go and see the eye doctor, get glasses and pass the vision test. All three of which are scheduled for tomorrow. Its also Jordan's birthday, he's turning fourteen lucky guy that he is. I wish I was fourteen again. I'll do a longer post later when I have some answers to those questions.

Here's something for you all to chew on and hopefully comment on if you have any answers. Mark 1:15, read it, think about it. Depending on your translation it will say "and saying The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel" Now this is Jesus talking and he's saying believe in the gospel. Dont most modern Christians when they hear the word gospel think of the good news of Jesus birth life death and resurrection? What gospel is Jesus referring to, what good news is he telling us to believe?

Their is my question for you, if any of you have any good topics you'd like me to blog about please let me know because I'm having a difficult time coming up with things.

Thankfulness Post, Day 14

2010-11-26T04:28:00.002+01:00

I'm thankful for today, it was pretty epic.
Stage 1. Early Morning Football.
This morning my family prepared for my church s annual football game. Since I have so many male siblings my family is always expected to make a good showing. Today we had six players, Nathan (8) Ezra (11) Jordan (13) Me (16) Daniel (22) Daddy (?). We headed out about nine complete with headbands and football jerseys. I wore my traditional Ricky Williams jersey, for those of you who dont know, Ricky Williams was kicked out of football for multiple years because of drug abuse but tradition is tradition so I had to wear the jersey. The games were really good and very evenly matched. Their were no girls, which made it much easier and it was not really windy only horribly cold. I started out playing poorly but I redeemed myself later on when I caught an interception which I returned for a touchdown and made a full layout to catch a ball that was actually meant for my older brother. My team won by a slight very small margin of two points.

Stage 2. Dinner
We had a very small crowd this year. One of my mom's brothers came up from New York with his family. We had our resident Super Genius Man Man come over, more commonly known as Dr John Vaz he is the culmination of all things respectful and gentlemanly. In total we had a scanty 13 people, 13 people to consume enough food for an army. Let me tell you, finishing all that food was rough like really really difficult. We somehow managed though to consume the majority of our feast and left the remains for tomorrow.

Stage 3. Conversation/Dessert 1
After dinner we rotated doing dishes and talking with our guests. We had an excellant Pecan Pie which has been an old tradition from the times of my grandmother. *whispers* I think my mom makes my great grandmothers recipe for Pecan pie better then she did. We talked about The City of God and the turbelant times during which The Church was proclaimed the state religion of the Roman Empire and all the struggles that went along with that imperial decision.

Stage 4. Dessert 2
Bidding farewell to our guests we loaded into our cars (its really sad, I can't say van anymore *sniff sniff* because we sold our epicly large 15 passenger van and we are now a two car family) but we loaded into our cars and headed over to my grandmothers house where all of my dads family has gathered for another dessert session. We passed the evening playing cards, I had the worst luck, and eating a combination of Cherry, Pumpkin, Apple, Boston Cream and Blueberry pies.

Stage 5. Home again and I'll probably soon be rolling my tired, sore stuffed body up to my bed.

It was one of the best Thanksgiving I can remember but today wasn't even the point of this post, I mean I"m thankful for today and all but I dont want to end this whole thankfulness exercise on being thankful for something I couldn't have avoided even if I wanted to. So I'll share with you something interesting I thought about today. As I was riding in the car I had an interesting thought and it made me really thankful, thankful that everyone is not like me. I mean I like me alot (being totally serious) and I love watching as God molds me into whatever clay vessel he's gonna make me. Sometimes it looks like a pretty vase and other times it looks like a dumpy inkwell but either way I know I'm being crafted by the Master Craftsmen. So my thought today was "what if everyone was like me?" Pontificating on this question made me sooooo happy that everyone is not like me. lol I mean honestly how boring would life be? No one would laugh at my jokes no one would be there to pick up when they fall and no one would be their to pick me up when I fall. The only thing I could really do well with myself would be play Age of Empires and that gets boring after awhile. So throughout the day I've been coming to appreciate the advantages that their are and the enormous wisdom that God had in enabling human genes to come up with an infinite combination of character traits and physical features. We truly serve a creative God with an awesome sense of humor. I mean just look at me? Doesn't it just make you chuckle and say "God you did that?....really... you made that? are you sure that was smart?"

So now that this fourteen days of thankfulness is over I hope we wont forget throughout the upcoming year how grateful we ought to be all the time. I think I'm gonna periodically scatter a couple more thankfulness posts throughout each month just to keep my mind focused correctly and I'd encourage you all who were disciplined enough to do this for fourteen days straight to make the effort to do it once or twice a month. How hard can it be if we do it together?

Thankfulness Post, Day 13

2010-11-25T04:57:00.003+01:00

I'm very much vexed because I was gonna post about something really cool and then forgot what it was. So now I'm stuck and with only 36 minutes left until tomorrow I need to come up with something quick. Today, at my churches Thanksgiving Eve service we played a really neat hymn that I hadn't heard in awhile called, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I was really thankful for that song because earlier we had sung three or four other songs which were not bad by any means but they just didn't have much substance they were kinda the fluffy modern worship songs. Recently I've come to appreciate hymns enormously, they are not merely fluffy songs that have all the right words but have no meaning in them. I think what makes hymns so special and powerful is that they were written through the passion of men who had experianced the power of the living God and had felt His saving grace. A Mighty Fortress is our God was written by Martin Luther during the the turbalant times of the Reformation. It Is Well With My Soul was written by Horatio Spafford after he had lost all his property in The Great Chicago Fire, his only son to an unknown incurable disease and all four of his daughters to a shipping accident. Their is power in words that come from the heart of a grieving father or a wearied pastor or a troubled child. We must appreciate the power in these relics of history that tell stories of darkness and frustration being conquered by God's power.

Here is a list of some of my favorite hynms, comment with ones I forgot to include or with ones that are particularly special to you: Be Thou My Vision, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Come Ye Sinners, All Hail The Power of Jesus' Name, Doxology, It is well, In Christ Alone, Amazing Grace, A Might Fortress Is Our God and A Call to Prayer

Thankfulness Day 10, 11 and 12

2010-11-23T16:56:00.006+01:00

Considering the enormous amount of things I have to be thankful for and taking into consideration the enormity of my blessings I can not fathom why I still have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. I have everything to look forward to and yet I get upset at the slightest provocation and can in an instant forget all my blessings and go back to the old ways of self love and sin. In an effort to keep myself from hearkening back to the old ways of self indulgence I'll try to make this post longer and move involved then previous posts.

So Sunday was a very interesting day, I've ceased to say whether days are good or bad because I can not trust my feelings to tell me whether it was good or bad because my feelings are often misguided and I can not trust the circumstances to tell me if it was good or bad because circumstances do not prove the morality of an action. Needless to say Sunday was an interesting day and it prompted me to include in this post my gratitude for the Sabbath. Historically the sabbath whether it was a Saturday or Sunday was a day of celebration and rejoicing. In ancient Jewish culture the sabbath was a time to rejoice in all that God had done for His people. In the early church you were allowed only to pray/worship standing up with your arms upraised on the Sabbath because it was day for rejoicing and not for repentance. You were supposed to be right with God before the Sabbath because on the Sabbath was the day set aside to praising God not sadness or regret. Today our sabbath has become something of a drudgery, we're glad for the day off from school and the time we can spend with friends at church but its almost like the glory of Sunday is darkened by the knowledge that we have to go to school the next day. I'm thankful for the historical view of the Sabbath and this view is one I'm trying to implant into myself. Sunday is not meant to be a drudgery or merely another day of the weekend, rather it is a time to rejoice together with the brothers and sisters of the faith, to rejoice in the remembrance of what God has done for us. Everything from Creation to the Exodus to the Resurrection and all subsequent divine acts of God that are worthy of praise. We must make Sunday a day of remembrance and empowerment not merely a day to cram all your homework into that you didn't do on Saturday. The day is holy and has the potential to be so much more then we let it.

Remembering the great acts of God brought me my second thing I'm thankful for. Some of you know this whole story, others have heard it in part and to some of you this will be entirely new. Know that it was divine grace that allowed this story to happen not luck or the good fortune of my parents.
For many years my family has been the recipient of thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of food. Stage 1. Over a decade ago my family approached the owners of a local Dunkin Donuts after noticing that every night the person who closed simply threw away all the leftover donuts and bagels. The manager agreed to allow my family to pick up all the leftover food from the weekends at no cost if we came at ten thirty every Saturday and packed it all up ourselves. For I think eight years my family got these donuts every weekend and what we didn't keep we brought to church the next day so the rest of the body could benefit from Gods blessing.
Stage 2. During that eight year period my father was in and out of work relatively frequently for two or two and half years. During those years we drove to the Farmers Market (a massive warehouse where all the veggies from around the world are dropped off and local grocery stores come and pick up their fruits and vegetables) At the farmers market their is a place where they sell bad or rotting produce for really inexpensive, really inexpensive meaning 1$ or 2$ for a massive crate of oranges or apples. The so called "rotten" produce normally had maybe one or two bad products in each box so we were able to get enough fruits and veggies at really low prices enough to feed my whole family. Sometimes we were lucky and got good stuff like melons and apples but other times they had more exotic things. Sometimes dad would come home with four crates of Radishes which required much more creativity to enjoy.
Stage 3. I saved the best for last because I didn't want to end on something boring. Now the Dunkin Donuts deal stopped about two years ago because the owner of the branch changed and a few other variables came into existence that made the free donuts not worth pursuing. The Farmers Market cheap produce section closed down and were not sure why but God who knew the needs of my large family decided to give us something else. Using the same tactics that we used for Dunkin Donuts we talked to the owners of a local Panera Bread and they agreed to let us come every Friday and Saturday night after the store closed and take all the leftover bread and pastries, this usually numbers three or four boxes. If you've been to Panera you know how expensive it is and its the finest quality bread you can get. So every week God gives us more bread then my family could possibly eat, enough that we can bring hundreds of dollars worth of bread to church every week. This deal with Panera is still going on and all you who go to my church can agree that it is awesome.

So I think that qualifies as three days of thankfulness. I hope that reading helped you all think of those special things God did for you which you can be thankful for.

I will finish this Thankfulness thing

2010-11-23T06:11:00.001+01:00

Just for the record I'm gonna post later today for today and the other two days that I missed I've just been horribly busy these past two days.

Thankfulness Post Day 9

2010-11-21T05:13:00.001+01:00

Audio books are something that recently I've become really thankful for. During school I generally listen to music and over the past few months I have listened to my limited musical collection to the degree that its tedious to hear the same songs again. So in need of something to distract me during the tediousness of schoolwork and finding myself at the library with ten minutes to spare I searched the audio books section. I stumbled upon The Da Vinci Code and The Shack, two books that I'd heard lots about but knew I'd never actually take the time to read. I checked out those two at our libraries fancy automatic no librarian required check out machine and have been listening to them over the past two weeks. Both were good and both were infinitely more enjoyable because I had someone reading them with funny voices and I didn't have to read them myself.

Now I figured out the hard way that listening to audio books only works well with novels or stories and not with non fiction works, books like histories and textbooks or theological works.. You can experiment for yourself but I think this principle will hold true for most everyone.

So if you have a novel/story that you've always wanted to read and just dont have the time then find it at the library and listen to it while you do school, or while you knit, or do it in place of watching Psych on Wednesday night *cough* Mercy *cough*.

Thankfulness Post Day 8

2010-11-20T06:41:00.002+01:00

Night closes doors forever
Night heals those souls dismembered
In Night secrets are brought forth never
Night hides all those assembled.

On this night I'm thankful for night itself and the world which it encompasses that few like to embrace. Their is something special in walking under a full moon, or watching from a rooftop a streak of lightening illuminate a darkened sky. I've come to appreciate the night and solace it brings from the tedious unpredictability of the day. Their is a purpose and reason it was given us which is greater then merely a time to sleep.

Thanksfulness Day 7

2010-11-19T04:03:00.004+01:00

Today I am thankful for something yummy. Something dark, something square and cold, something that I havn't had since last Holiday season. Something....chocolate.
Fudge, If properly made it is my favorite treat. I make it every holiday season using a very special recipe. Sadly it not a recipe that has been passed down through my family for countless generations :), actually I think we just copied it out of a cook book onto a note card and crumpled the corners so it looks real old. Anyhow the recipe is really simple and is soooo good or maybe its just my ability to make it so well, I guess we'll never know. Anyhow its particularly good with walnuts. I can think of few things I'd like better than coffee and fudge by a fire over Christmas break. Plus fudge makes an incredible gift, like really really yummy gift and one that very very few people like not to receive.

Thankfulness Post Day 6

2010-11-18T05:05:00.005+01:00

Today I am thankful for the witness and the testimony of the Christian saints who have gone before us. Men and woman who have spent their lives pursuing Gods will and their stories are an incredible example well worth imitating. To often we downgrade the example of other Christians, particularly historical Christians because we have somehow come to the conclusion that learning about these people eliminates our ability to focus on Christ. This assumption is simply not the case, if this were so then why does the bible include stories about people besides Jesus or those directly related to Jesus? Obviously they dont detract from Him but understanding people who have followed God with all their heart, who have sought His face will enable us to know how we can better to seek His face. In times of trial their is always the example of someone who persevered through such worse circumstances or mental strain and if we know and can appreciate these examples our lives our not only more enriched but it enables us to weather our own storms of life better and more effectively.

Some of the not mainstream Christians I have found particular encouragement in studying are men such as, Athanasius, Paphnutius, Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, St. Augustine, John Wesly, Adoniram Judson, Nate Saint and his son Steve Saint, ect... the list goes on and on into more and more obscure people. Their is literally no end to the acts of courage and valor which were done in the name of Christ.

Oh for the day when knights were bold and chivalry yet lived. In an age when postmodern relativists control the media and the schools I can not thank God enough for the overwhelming evidence of history that despite the darkness of this present day, history shines forth the glory and majesty of God in all its chapters and no where in history is the power or purpose of God more clearly shown then in the lives of those who sought His face. Augustine, when asked about the different rituals done when a saint or martyr died, said,"we do not worship the deceased saints rather we honor the lives that they lived and try to make ours like theirs." We deprive ourselves of so much by not knowing about our brothers and sisters who have gone before us and walked the narrow way already. The way to Christ may be narrow and difficult but their are a whole host of men and woman who have walked that road and written thousands upon thousands of pages about their journey, why do we refuse to learn from them and try to do it our own way? Its just silly when we are willing to think about it.

Thankfullness Post Day 5

2010-11-17T05:59:00.004+01:00

Today I am thankful for tea and coffee, not merely because they are what is currently keeping me up but also because their pretty. Their will be an eternal war waged to decide whether I prefer tea or coffee. I drink far more tea then I do coffee but I enjoy coffee more. They both are incredible and if they did not exist then life would just be a little less rich.

Thankfulness Post Day 4

2010-11-15T13:20:00.002+01:00

Today I'm thankful for sports and a body that allows me to participate in them. One of the few blessings that I can not understand is why God gave me a physique that allows me to enjoy sports and he denies it to other people. I am not ignorant of this blessing and I thank God for it almost everyday. With the exception of a very few and very rare spiritual experiences I've never had a greater feeling of being alive, of having my mind soul and spirit all united in one clear purpose then when I've been playing sports. This unity of soul spirit mind is indeed rare, and with it comes a complete sense of bliss but not a bliss that requires us to lose scope of other things, simply it is a knowledge that amidst all the trials and storms of life their is in that specific moment a perfect balance of existence. I have not found or heard of any state of existence that is better then having one soul spirit and mind united in one purpose, our relationship with God was supposed to be like that but because of our stupidity, nature, ignorance, laziness, and fleshly body some part of us is always waging war with God or another part of ourselves, denying us that peace which is our greatest desire perfect purpose yet is as illusive as smoke on a windy day.

Two specific actions have I found to be particularly enjoying. Number one is a bit odd and probably specific to me but chasing down an opponent just makes me feel empowered. Whether I"m running after a Frisbee or football that was overthrown or a member of the other team I can almost always catch up. I've rarely been able to run faster or feel better when I'm chasing someone or something else. I am definitely not as good as most players and so I have been out maneuvered many times but I can run like a fiend if the mood takes me. I guess that comes from being perpetually on alert from the age 5 to 13. I learned to be quick from having to watch out for the homemade spear and from taking part in the full scale acorn and pine corn wars we'd have in our woods each year. The second thing is making a diving catch, few things can compare to the adrenaline rush that happens when you do something like this. No explanation needed.

Their you have it, sports are awesome and for anyone able to do them I think they ought to be enjoyed as something God gave us to take pleasure in.

Thankfulness Post Day 3

2010-11-15T01:08:00.002+01:00

Today it was a little bit difficult to think of something I'm thankful for that isn't typical but after much thought and an afternoon spent studying in front of a fire with numerous pots of teas and of course, my bathrobe ;) I've think I've come up with a suitable subject for this post. Today I am thankful for floss. I've found floss to be extraordinarily handy despite the tedious task it is to use. If you've ever eaten corn on the cob, the proper way, which is not necessarily the polite way, you'll understand why floss is worthy of this post. Its amazing how little their is to write about something we use......or are supposed to use everyday. So I think I will end this post here cause I need to get back to work.

Moral of the story, floss your teeth you wont regret it especially considering the holidays are coming up.

Thankfulness Post 2

2010-11-14T02:45:00.003+01:00

Advance warning: This post will be shorter because my fingers are really sore from helping someone move today.

So in an effort to give emphasis to the less obvious things that I am thankful for I'm going to focus these posts on the more obscure joys of my life. I mean my family, my friends, music, and the like are all awesome but that's something everyone posts about. So today I am thankful for something most of you probably will think is weird but I'm thankful for bathrobes. Why bathrobes? your probably thinking. Well simply because bathrobes are awesome, Most people think bathrobes are just for, well....when you take a bath but this is simply not the case. Bathrobes are the equivalent of a less constricting snuggie that can be worn, all the time, at all hours of the day or night. I wear mine on top of whatever normal clothes I'm wearing and since we dont really turn the heat on in my house unless we really really have to, as the winter gets colder my bathrobe becomes one of my best friends. For anyone who has been to my house for along time or come to my house when I didn't know you were coming, you've probably seen me in my bathrobe I tried to find a picture but sadly, pictures dont really help describe its coolness. Basically its big, its black, its fleece, its fluffy and its got pockets big enough to hold anything I want. Whether I need to conceal some chocolate on my way from the kitchen to my room or if I'm just needing to carry around a book the pockets on a bathrobe are perfect. Obviously for anyone who isn't homeschooled a bathrobe is more difficult to utilize, wearing it to school wouldn't go over very well but for homeschoolers who's parents don't make them dress up for school a bathrobe is like the ultimate combination of comfort and efficiency.

So there you have it, never underestimate the bathrobe I mean it worked pretty well for the thousands of years before pants became popular.

Thankfulness Post 1

2010-11-13T02:54:00.005+01:00

So I suppose I have to do this fourteen days of thankfullessness thingy as well, although I dont think it should necessarily be limited to fourteen days. So what am I thankful for? Methinks I ought to be thankful for everything, I mean what is in existence that is not allowed by God? and if it is allowed by God then who am I not be thankful for it? I think we often limit ourselves to being thankful for very specific things and thus miss out on so many of the blessings that God has given us. Now I'm not saying we are happy all the time with the things God gives us but knowing that they are from Him makes them special and worthy of notice whether we enjoy them or not. So I guess what I'm thankful for is life in general, complete with happy times and sad times it all makes up who I am right now and since I know without a doubt that right now I'm a servant of the living God and thats pretty awesome, it enables me to be thankful for everything. At least until I forget I am His servant and therefore lose my joy so I guess the struggle is not in being thankful instead its remembering who's I am and when I do that I can be thankful all the time.

Perhaps that's to big and grand for so small a small paragraph so to satisfy everyone who isn't yet happy with this blog post I will tell you about something I am particularly thankful for because of an experience that happened this morning. Today I am particularly thankful for alarm clocks. As much as I think modern technology is a detriment to our spiritual state I do think that alarm clocks are one of the most helpful inventions ever. For instance this morning I didn't set one or it was turned off or I just slept through it either way I woke up an hour and a half late making my day much more difficult and busy. I do not have a picture sadly because I dont even have an alarm clock I use my phone. I actually use it more as an alarm clock then a phone.

So day one thankfulness post summary I'm trying to be thankful for everything, I am thankful right now for alarm clocks cause they keep me from oversleeping and being all grumpy when I wake up.

Alright I'm gonna try again, here are the pictures from two of my ventures which have reaped substantial profit. I went shooting with Master Davenport who has more knowledge about guns in his left pinky then I ever will. Despite his obvious superiority we had a blast, hehehe no pun intended. Totally didn't mean to do that. lol

Me trying to look legit with my great grandfathers Diana 35 a German made air rifle circa 1940.

Our armaments, Diana 35, The Russia and two weenie pellet pistols.

My target from roughly ten yards, for a noob shooting in the wind I was told this was pretty good.

These next couple pictures are from a tea sleeve I made. I took the pictures just beofre I tried to make the button hole, I knew I'd probably mess up the whole thing with the button hole so I wouldn't to have some pictures before I had to tear it apart. Fortunately I only half wrecked it and was able to ship it off as a gift to my sister still functioning, so if its breaks under her care its not my problem.

I used to size seven circular needles, that I got for my birthday, pretty spiffy if you ask me.

Cool Cables

From the back with my pattern and my scribbles representing how many rows I'd done.

Despite the recent posts about the extra curricular actives I've had time to do their are few places I'd rather be then right here in my personalized little cubicle. Despite the fact that its bitter cold most of the time and my chair is a tagsale resale its pretty awesome. We recently got the outlit behind the desk fixed so I can actually use the light you see there and I no longer need the candles.

An old journal entry

2010-11-10T05:40:00.002+01:00

Lately my journal which is really no journal but rather a simple notebook, has been falling apart so two days ago I finished the destructive process and relocated everything into a three ring binder. I found something interesting that I wrote, I think last winter but I'm not sure, theirs no quotation marks on it but I think its from Thomas à Kempis' the Imitation of Christ. So here it is, tell me what you think I found it helpful.

"When a spirit of fervor is kindled within you, you may well meditate on how you will feel when the fervor leaves. Then when this happens remember that the light which I have withdrawn for a time is a warning to you and for My own glory. Such trials are often more beneficial than if you had things always as you wish. For a man's merits are not measured by many visions or consolations or by knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, or by his being in a higher position than others but by the truth of his humility, by his capacity for divine charity, by his consistency in seeking purely and entirely the honor of God, by his disregard and positive contempt of self, and more, by preferring to be despised and humiliated by others rather tan honored by others."

Oh for the record the King Arthur soundtrack is really good.

Sloth

2010-11-09T04:49:00.004+01:00

Every epoch and age of history has had its various trials and struggles, those things which could have been the downfall of humanity yet were foreseen and halted before they were able to reap their destructive harvest upon humanities. Today we have another such enemy, one which Satan hopes will tear down much of the good Christianity has brought to the world. Due to all the time saving devices that modern technology has so conveniently invented for our use we now have an abundance of "free time" and therein lies our adversary. The idea that their is such a thing as free time must be obliterated from the mind of those among us who call ourselves Christians. As both slaves and sons to Christ we have no time to forsake the joy to which he calls us.

As sons with a Father who surpasses all earthly fathers it is our joy to repay His grace with a sacrifice of ourselves upon the alter of humility and self denial.
The duty of a slave is to serve their master regardless of life or personal preference.

Combining these two positions we hold before the Almighty into one will show us that not only are we infinitely blessed to enjoy a portion in the heavenly family, but we are also exhorted, because of our position as sons to serve our father as slaves would serve their masters without restraint caring not for what anyone else thinks or says.

For me doing things like watching tv, watching movies, playing video games, reading novels, have become less and less a question of whether they are morally right or wrong and they have become rather a question of whether it is proper to use the precious moments God has given me to engage in such activities. More often then not I hear God saying "if you are willing to deny yourself the divine pleasure of learning about Me and communing with Me then go and appease your worldly desire for comfort and lose yourself in the non reality of a tv show"

People would retort, "well God created us to live life to the fullest and we ought not to deny the use of the blessings he's given us" I will not judge motives but I can speak from experiencing and say that I live life to the full, not based on the actions I do but the reasons for the action I do and I'd rather spend five minutes experiencing the peace of heavenly tranquility that comes with the knowledge that I am a servant of the living God over making the most epic frisbee catches this world has ever seen. Living life to the fullest means living in a continual fellowship with God, not using God as means just to get to the weekend, or the event that we are looking forward to.

Romans 12:11 "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." How are we supposed to continue in that spiritual fervor which we experience if we are not willing to spend our 'free time" pursuing its author. Laziness comes when we look at ourselves in perspective to other people as opposed to God. When we realize who we are before God their will be no time for things other then His will. Not to say other things are right or wrong but they will grow strangely dim when our pursuit of Christ consumes our daily lives and goes beyond Sunday and youth group to ignite a fire and a passion that is unquenchable.

If we will not allow God to control our lives here and now what do we plan on allowing Him to do when we get to heaven? Lets not let laziness be the reason we dont live like Christians.

October

2010-11-02T03:54:00.003+01:00

Its not fair, I finally have sweet things to post about yet the camera is not working and I dont know how to fix it and now you guys can't see pictures of all the cool things I've been doing in the month of October. I guess that means I'll just have to describe them. Oh well, I guess now you'll just have to believe what I say because you'll have no pictures or eyewitness to prove me wrong, hehehe.

Well I've been busy since returning from Europe in addition to school I've invested in a few extra curricular activities, such as dundudndundudndudnudn!!! (drum roll) Ka'nitting, piano and shooting.

Ka'nitting which is the proper way of pronouncing knitting is something I learned how to do awhile ago but never took the time to learn the secrets of the trade. I have yet to entirely master the trade buuuuuttt restrain your judgmental glances and refrain from calling me a fake knitter because I actually made something more complicated then a square or a rectangle and I am very proud of it. Its a sleeve that you button around a mug to keep your hands from burning when you hold it. Not only is it practical its also handsome, being purple with cables and a big black button. Flawless in its symmetry it reigns supreme over my desktop, from its coaster throne brought all the way from Dublin Ireland it surveys its territory and scoffs at the unknitted balls of yarn which remain void of purpose shapeless in their randomness.

Piano has been really sporadic since school ended last year. Either I would practice hours and hours or I wouldn't practice at all for a whole week. Needless to say that habbit hasn't allowed me to really get far in my most challenging peice I"m learning, Pathetique Sonata 8 by Beethoven. I think I printed out the sheet music in maybe February of this year and since then I've progressed really slowly through it. However I'm relatively close to being done at least being able to play the first eight pages which is probably as far as I will go. I can play through page six pretty well it just has to be perfected and I have yet to touch page 7 and 8 but I don't think they'll be to difficult. I hope to have that done by Christmas cause I'll have lots of time to practice over Christmas break.

Shooting you ask? well yes that was a bit of an unlooked for event. My moms siblings came over with their families and they had apparently forgotten my birthday (I hadn't noticed, their very good to me) so I was just sitting their, minding my own business, drinking my coffee when they come with the oddest looking present ever. Upon opening it I discovered it to be my great grandfathers Diana 35, an original German made air gun. Not powerful enough to be considiered an actual firearm it can still kill that dumb woodpecker that goes "bangedy bangedy bang bang bang" all day while I'm sitting at my desk. So I got to go shoot that with my friend who knows everything to know about guns and I had a sweet picture of my targets. *sigh* well my best target had three bulls eyes which I was really pleased with because it was windy and the conditions were not ideal for shooting. Needless to say it was a good day and now I have a semi legit weapon in my closet.

Their you have it, pretty exciting, at least for me.

Plinky 1.0

2010-10-27T04:22:00.003+02:00

Due to an unexplained lag in my schoolwork, I'm going to take advantage of the time and write a blog post. Now I would like to upload pictures and do a post about some strange adventure that happened in Europe buuuuuuutttt the camera isn't wanting to coraporate. Having an absence of things to blog about I shall use Plinky.

The question for today, "If you were the president of the United States what would be your #1 priority?

Education

The most prevalent problem with the United States is that the up and coming generation can only think when things benefit themselves, party unity is based on what can benefit the individual, no one is willing to sacrifice for their country.

I'd hope to use education to change that. Give people a purpose, make America a nation to be proud of, inspire a national pride and all that. To do this I'd teach about America, its past its present and potential. I'd use the logic and wisdom of the sages from all ages to mold a generation who could be self controlled for a greater end. I'd create an enlightened people that would never allow the government that was created for them to be turned into an instrument of tyranny.

This education would be founded on these principles

Nothing helpful comes without hard work
Things naturally fall into chaos
For you live in excess someone else must live in poverty

Proving and engraining these three basic principles into kids would be the essence of the education. Rounding out these principles with the teacings of various school masters from history would be the curriculum. Once they were willing to believe and apply these principles, then I'd allow each kid to pursue a choice of work/study with classes that would teach him everything about that specific topic. Forget this silly idea of having kids know a little bit of everything, lets get them really good in one thing.

Yeah education we ourselves can take the cue from history and note that the most vile and evil tyrants were able to stay in power because they were able to change the educational system in their favor, for America to become proud again it must start empowering its citizens to beleive in its greatness and to have its citizens desire that greatness to increase so much that their willing to sacrifice for it. All through the process of education.

I'm Caleb Lagan and I approve of Plinky, it worked pretty well.

Busy busy busy

2010-10-18T22:31:00.004+02:00

I'm Home and safe and sound. Sorry it seemed like I dropped off the face of the planet. I got back on October 6th almost two weeks ago, which is oober weird to think that it was such a little while ago that I was sleeping on a board in Dublin having only bread and Nutella for sustenance. Well I made it through the pictures all the way up to Rome and I hope to slowly over the next few weeks put up the pictures from Paris, Munich, Cologne and Dublin. Being back has been very weird but I've had great practice in summarizing the story which I will do for you know with the highlights and adventures that are most significant.

Phase I. Thessalonik Greece, we got Josh all situated in his nice apartamant right on campus with his own kitchen and an agreeable roommate. Just a few days after arriving in Thessaloniki Daniel, Josh, and myself packed our three bags and went off on a tour of Greece. We did not go to the Islands we did not consider them worthy of our time when the remains of such mighty civilizations were awaiting our viewing. Highlight from this page, scaling an abandoned Byzantine Tower we found as we were driving along the coast.

Thus Began Phase II. We stopped off at Thermopylae where God held a public bus twenty seven minutes for us so we could make our connection and spend the night in Delphi. That was highlight number two. We toured Delphi, climbed a huge mountain for kicks then climbed back down and saw the ruins of the oracle. Went to Athens the next day saw the Acropolis and walked all over that stinky hot city looking for our hostel and a grocery store.

Phase III. We left Josh after Athens to return to school at Thessaloniki and me and Daniel continued on our way from Athens to Patras from Patras to Barri via ferry and from Barri to Rome via train. One of the lousiest traveling experiences ever. We had a fifteen hour overnight ferry from Patras Greece to Barri Italy, naturally our limited funds we were traveling worst class and spent the majority of the night bundled up in our two suits of clothing on the deck trying to catch some sleep. Arriving in Barri the next morning, cold, tired, hungry we discovered that our train had left early, the next one was full and one we could take we had to pay ten euros for while in addition to having to seven hours from ten to six when the train would leave. Finally arriving in Rome at eleven forty-five we opted not to wander through the city in the middle of the night and spent another sleepless night in the train station. The next day we found a campsite to stay in, we discovered how to use the public transport system and toured the city. Highlight seeing the Vatican, see previous post.

Phase IV. Being sick and homesick me and Daniel consulted and opted out of our plans to go to Venice and decided instead to go to Paris, where our missionary friend Miss Istoc graciously agreed to host us for a few days. We took an overnight train and filled our days seeing only a portion of what the city has to offer. I definitly think that Paris was the coolest city we visited on our trip. Highlight: we knew we wanted to visit Notre Dame and their just happened to be an organ concert the day we were there. So we heard an organ concert on the 7000+ pipe organ in The Notre Dame

Phase V. Germany: Visited Munich and Cologne where we stayed with Daniel's host brother and parents from when he studied in German. Went to the legit Oktoberfest for an afternoon. Saw Neuschwanstein Castle in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Highlight: Coming down from the top of the Cologne Cathedral, their was a young woman looking extremely pale laying across the steps, with her traveling partner leaning over her. Me and Daniel told the fellow we would help carry her and their bags downstairs, which we proceeded to do, down all 564 steps of the spiral tower. Quite an unlooked for adventure.

Phase VI. Dublin and home: When we left Daniels host parents we were both very ready to come home. Havng someone to stay with made it easier not to miss home but once we left the feelings all came back. We did have a succesful two day stay in Dublin though. We found our hostel and stayed in a ten bed room, which for anyone who's stayed in hostels is a potentially disastrous experience because you never know who is sleeping in the bed next to you. Fortunatly we were blessed in the fact that four of the seven people in the room with us were two Asian couples who with the exeption of saying "your welcome" when he opened the door for me, didn't say a word. and the other three people were very nice and everyone was always in bed by eleven. Coming home took much longer then we thought. We left Dublin at 12:00 noon and took a seven hour flight to JFK. Due to the time change we arrived at 2:30 in the afternoon and had to hang around JFK airport until 9:30 that night. When our plane finally got fixed and we flew to Bradly where we got picked up and driven home from. Highlight: coming home. :)

Well there it is, pretty neat and an experience that will last a life time. It was not a vacation but it was truly special, in that, now I have stories and experiences that will benefit me for ever. I've been ridiculously busy since I got home, hence the not posting but its been a good busy. Currently my schedule is in bed rarely later then midnight and up by six so I can do some pleasure reading before everyone else gets up. I'm taking Algebra II, Physics, Latin II, Writing a book and studying Church History.

Its so nice to be home and notice those little things that I never would have if I hadn't gone on this trip. I think my favorite part of being home is connecting with my friends again. The saying is true "you dont realize how much you have until you lose it." I did seriously underestimated how special all my friends are, until I left and spent the night dreaming about them, well them or a really really big steak. Either way, you guys are pretty special and it stinks having to eat and sleep and be limited to twenty four hour days so I can't make more of you.

Farewell for now pictures coming later.

Train station Meditations.

2010-09-29T23:51:00.006+02:00

Overlooking The Circus Maximus

Considering that over twenty four hours of the past tens days have been spent in a train station, I figured Id do a post about what Ive been thinking about. Because their really isnt much to do in a train station besides sit and think, sometimes you can read but its pretty load especially in the Rome train station, where they have huge vacuum like machines to keep the floors from becoming to disgusting. Now the drivers consider it a game to see how close they can get to sucking up your bags and so in between dodging the pickpockets, vacuum cleaners and random creepy people who haunt train stations, Ive been reading Thomas A Kempis, The Epistles of Paul, City of God and Christian Apologetics, all very good and all very thought provoking. Mostly Ive been reading and thinking in the context of the book Im hoping to coauthor on my return, so Ive been thinking about entertainment, enjoyment, fun and where all of those things fit profitably into a Christians life. Ive tried to summarize it in a few short thoughts.

I. To the degree that entertainment is beneficial to the spiritual well being of a person, to that extant ought it to be enjoyed.

II.When things that result in sensual enjoyment, not that are bad in and of themselves, but when they become a hinderance to ones ability to hear and obey The Holy Spirit then they must be thrown away until unity with the spirit is restored.

III.Sensual pleasure, is neither good nor bad, it can be either a result of pursuing the flesh or of walking with the spirit.

A. The gratification of the flesh produces a sensual delight that is wrong, and is dependent on ones circumstances, as soon as the physical circumstances change the pleasure leaves.

B. Walking in accordance with the spirit, brings sensual pleasure, NOT because we pursue it, but because God grants it to us as a gift and takes it back when He sees fit. This pleasure is more satisfying and is more dependent on the mental and spiritual state of the person instead of the physical.

IIII.Unless we wish to shame the examples of the most eminent church fathers we will not run from the chance to endure suffering when God refuses us the gift sensual pleasure, rather we will embrace pain and trail with joy knowing the greatest triumphs in Christianity came not in times of peace and prosperity rather they came in the midst of darkness, fire and sword.

V. Grace is the provision of God that allows human kind to forsake his natural tendency to pursue his own happiness and rather to seek Christ's pleasure. The result a sense of joy that is not necessarily sensual but more mental in its nature.

VI. Nothing ought to be pursued which is merely a tool to escape the life God has destined you to live, I would say thats cheating out on both the trials and the joys God has planned for each of us.

VII. True Happiness is only the result of a gift from God that comes when the flesh is entirely dead and the spirit is in control of ones feelings.

I'll interject here to tell a story about one of the times I feel like I've felt real happiness. We were in Rome and we went to the Vatican. We didn't see the Sistine Chapel but we wondered through Saints Peter's Basilica. I dont know what it is that makes a place more spiritual then others, obviously it depends on the person in each place, but their was something spiritual about that Cathedral and I wasn't the only one who felt it.

Here's a picture from the top, not my picture. So all around the top are statues of saints. The large courtyard was not as cool as I thought it would be because for some odd reason I thought their was a huge statue of St. Peter there and when their wasn't I was slightly disappointed. But we got to go inside, free of charge and first we went down to see the tombs of the popes. It was very solemn, no cameras were allowed, they had chanting in the background, As much as I might disagree with points of Catholic doctrine, I had to wander around the coffins in awe, gazing upon the men who for hundreds of years were the faces of Christianity. They were the men who upheld what was right good and lawful, they crowned and dethroned kings, they bore the responsibility for shepherding the entire flock of Christ. Then to see the tomb of St Peter was just incredible. Slowly I began to loose myself in the mists of imagination. Thinking about times gone by when knights were bold and popes still held the golden orb and scepter. We walked upstairs and surrounding us on all sides were statues of heroes from biblical, apostolic, post apostolic, Nicene, post Nicene and Medieval Christianity. Their was a room dedicated for prayers where me and Daniel went and their was where I felt happy, more so then I ever remember feeling before. Their was a true unity and connection with God that I can't quite describe. I dont know how long I stayed there in that little room, Daniel bumped my elbow to remind me I was still human and that we had to go soon so I thanked God for His gift that even after I left the room stayed and only wore off as God allowed, not as the physical circumstances changed. Over the next few days I realized why God had given me that special blessing, because the next few days were physically very taxing.. Daniel got sick from a combination of cold, spending the night in the Rome train station, spending a night on the open deck of a ferry, lack of good food and over exertion. We both felt really really homesick and we just sat around at the campsite we were staying trying to sleep trying not to think of home. I honestly think God gave me that special connect with Him in the cathedral to enable me to endure with perfect confidence and joy those next couple days. Even though we "felt" horrible my mind was clear and my soul was pure.

Sorry I know that was long. I figure since this blog is about me, I can tell a long story about myself every now and again. I hope that all made sense, for me it helped validify what I felt God had been teaching me both in my prayers and in what I had been reading. Namely that happiness is not the result of our circumstances rather it is a particular blessing from God that he gives at His leisure and takes at His leisure. Joy and such that is a different thing and a different topic which I must think more about and post on later. This post was to try to express in words a bit of what I've been thinking about and to show that my mind has not been inactive on this trip. Please comment with what you think, I hate it when people bring in a story into a debate that makes it all emotional and then its hard to contradict that person, so do not be worried about hurting my feelings if you radically disagree, I'd very much like to understand where I've gone wrong in my thinking.

Right now were in Munich Germany, visiting with one of Daniel's friends from when he lived in Germany. I still have to do a post with all the pictures from Paris then a post with all the pictures from Munich, on Friday we go to Cologne and stay there till Monday when we fly to Dublin Ireland and a week from today we fly home. Me and Daniel made dinner for the three of us and we made far far to much, so we have a massive pot of rice sitting in the kitchen so we are both well fed and content.

Pictures from Rome

2010-09-28T00:26:00.003+02:00

Sorry this is so late. We didn't really have access to a computer for a long time over the past week. These pictures are from September 21 I think. We saw all of Rome in one day it was really exciting. We saw the Vatican, The Colosseum, The Roman Forum, and loads and loads of Roman ruins, their all over the place, in the subway in the train station and random aquedacts throughout the city.

Us in front of St. Peters Basilica.
The alter in the Cathedral.
The outside is decorated with the saints, I think their is one for every day of the year.
The gulf of Corinth from the train window.
Trajans Column, he had the outside decorated with his feats from the Dacian Wars
The Arch of Constantine.
Amidst the ruins of the Colosseum their is a cross erected. Every year the pope comes to this spot to pray for the souls of the martyrs who died there.
The ruins of the colosseum. Me and Daniel just sat around for along time thinking and pondering. We had to pay twenty-four euros so we decided to make it worth out while. Im not sure about Daniel but I know most of my thoughts were dwelling on the extant to which man will take his love for entertainment, entertainment or escape from life. To think that the greatest and most well known relic from the one of the most powerful empires ever to dominate the world, is an enormous building dedicated to the sensual pleasure of the Roman populace. Such a dark contrast St. Peters Basilica just a little bit away, which stands for truth, and upholds the name of God. I will hopefully post more of my thoughts later. Its really annoying because the keyboards are getting really funky. In Greece and Italy they were very similar to American ones but in France and Germany they are weird. That is my excuse for short posts.

Paris

2010-09-24T23:37:00.002+02:00

Pardon my poor smile but as you can see we are very cold. I realized today walking through Paris that when I return home its going to be perfect weather for wearing my trench coat and leather gloves, it made me so happy.

St. Peters Basillica was definitly my place so far. Paris is definitly my favorite city. I'll write more and post more pictures later. Its been fabulous though. Me and Daniel are staying with a wonderful Missionary in Paris who stayed at our house last year, she advised me to study Calvin which I did so you all can blaim her for my Calvinistic streak. Today me and Daniel went and scaled the Eiffel Tower as well as looked at the Arch Triumphant bemoaning the whole time that America had no similar monuments.

Farewell I'll write again soon.

In Rome

2010-09-22T10:39:00.003+02:00

From Athens to Patras from Patras to Bari from Bari to Rome from Rome to Paris. This trip has been a great adventure. We had barely enough Camera battery to get some pictures of us in Rome and I'll hopefully be able to post those in Paris. Just wanted to post something cause I havn't posted in along time. I realized yesterday I've been a poor blogger and havn't been good about responding to comments. So now if you write a comment you can count on a reply.

Alright that is all...

brb

Caleb

Athens

2010-09-17T16:38:00.005+02:00

We arrived yesterday in Athens, the birthplace of secular philosophy. We walked miles and miles and used the money we would have spent on a taxi to buy sustenance for the evening. Bread, Nutella and Nectarines. Today we woke up and noticed an advertisement for a "Walking Tour" posted on our hostel door. The advertisement claimed they could lead us through the city in five hours. Naturally we decided to take up the challenge and see the city in four. Which we preceaded to do.

The Tomb of the Unkown Soldier. The real genuine not American one.

We purposley decided to walk to the Acropolis on the street with all the official government buildings. This is the academy, it is said Socrates was the founder.
A Statue of Athena outside the National Library.

Then we saw it, from between the trees and the aparment buildings, we saw the Acropolis for the first time. The same Acropolis which six hundred Athenians had held againts the persian army after Thermopylae.

To began the ascent you must go through a massive arch arrected by Hadrian. The path to the top takes you buy hundreds of other ruins. Here is some carvings on a partually restored theater.

A fully retored theater where they do performances.

Finally reaching the top is something special. The marks of fire on the older pillars are from the Persian invasion.

A view from the top
The view of the Acropolis from Mars Hill, where Paul preached.
Teenpact represent.

On the steps of the Parthenon.
Why did the Ottomans have to blow the Parthenon up? Imagine how cool this picture would be if the building was intact.

Traveling through history.

2010-09-16T20:51:00.006+02:00

The Temple of Apollo where the oracle dwelt.

This hornet used the all to typical mongol attack strategy. He went on a wild attack run that caused panic through ought the bus then retreated to his hole right alongside the AC unit above my bus seat. Fortunately I read Sun Tzu in preparation for just such an escipade and awaited his return from his little fortress. As soon as he reapppeared I finished him with my shoe. The remains of Athena's temple at Delphi

"Hail the victorious dead!!"
At the monument of Leaonidas. Just three history lovers next to one of their most favorite histoircal figure ever.

We climbed the mountain behind Delphi on a whim, here is me at the top. This is the mountain we climbed.

A view of the coastal town next to Delphi
The Valley bellow Delphi, complete with olive groves
Yet more ruins of the temple. After reaching Athens we trecked threw the city for multiple miles and used theoney we could have spent on a taxi to celebrate our victory. Nutella, Coke, fresh bread and some sort of fruit that slightly resembles nectarines. Tomorrow we seek out the Acropolis and Mars Hill.

....

2010-09-16T16:37:00.003+02:00

In a smoky internet cafe sorrounded by highschoolers playing Lineage. Thermopylae was awesome, Delphi was cooler particularly since we went their by my recommendation. Pictures and such will come later. All is well, dont worry about me :)

A Walk in the Aegean

2010-09-13T21:13:00.006+02:00

The limits of fun must not be exceeded as has clearly been explained earlier in this blog. Driving to Phillipi I was as happy as I could remember ever being, reminiscing about the lives of various warriors, philosophers, statesmen, orators, play writers, poets all of whom I have read about with bated breadth waiting for a story of courage and virtue to unfold. However in the midst of this emotional escastsy I was touched by God saying "who are you? why are you where you are? and remember that you being there is only to help fulfill my mission for you." So often I find myself getting caught up in a state of emotional mindlessness which however happy it makes me, I find it unhelpful to whatever God would have me accomplish plus the fact that its mindless inhibits me from true joy, which trusts not in mindlessness but in a conscious knowledge of God and His Spirit which reaps in us the purest and truest joy.

As I wonder through Greece, their are millions of questions running through my mind, "who walked here?, what man carved this stone? what orator spoke in this theater? what young woman was baptized in this church? how many ages of men woman and children have passed through this temple? it amazing how simply thinking about God and His glories put things back into perspective.

Yesterday we took a hike along the coast, really really beautiful. The water is so clear and extremely warm.

We happened upon an old Byzantine tower next to a cool chapel.

The only trouble was.....
The door was twenty feet off the ground.
I had to, it was fate calling me.
To commemorate our first swim in the Aegean we played another ninja game.

(to all my fans who are rooting for me in our ninja games, I was not beaten in this game, they cheated and if someone will watch the movie closely they'll notice Josh went out of turn to get me out)

I want this blog to be a bit more then pictures and captions so I'm gonna try to write a bit about what I'm learning and thinking as I travel. Sorry if that tedious for some people, I find it more fascinating then the pictures.

Days one and two.

2010-09-11T20:24:00.015+02:00

*sigh* I just spent like two hours uploading and writing status's for all the pictures but I deleted it all. You can go to my brothers blog http://withabackpackandmybrothers.blogspot.com/
to see most of the pictures. I'll just put a few of the best on here. So far its been STINKING AWESOME!!!!. Fascinating and contemplating.

The plain rides were uneventful with the exception of having to chug a waterbottle full of water in a security line because their wasn't time to leave my spot and the fact that for the seven hour trans atlatnic flight my tv didn't work and it was too dark to read. We arrived the next day and to beat jetleg we didn't sleep until ten oclock Greek time. So we could adjust to the time difference better. We saw Thessaloniki the second largest city in Greece and watched the beginnings of a riot unfold on main street. Alexander not great.
Thessaloniki from the lookout point.
Far more important then the fact that I'm standing with my brother in the city that Aristotle lived and taught is the fact that in this picture I'm successfully spinning a frisbee.

Out contemplating Aristotle with my siblings and host siblings.

Today we woke up around nine and drove an hour and a half to Phillipi the place of Lydia's conversation and the site of Europe's first convert. We saw the spot of Lydias baptism and I drank some of the water.

Hiked to Amon Sul above Phillipi sat atop the watchtower

Went to Kavala a coastal town near Phillip and checked the Venetian Citadel that guarded the harbor
Then to wrap up the day we went to a small road side restaurant where I had a superb Fish Soup.
Thats all for now, I've had a couple interesting thoughts, revelations and epiphanies along the way. I'll post more about them when I"m not so tired.

Oh and here I saved the best for last.

A Few Things

2010-09-08T16:11:00.002+02:00

Item Number 1. I learned to Cast Off yesterday.
For a novice knitter that's pretty exciting, I've had a couple squares/shapes/weird practice pieces of knitting that have been slowly unraveling off their needles because I never knew how to Cast Off, now they are safely stored in my dresser drawer and I took one, sowed it and made a sweet arm band.

Real knitters will be like "psh easy peasay, you nooob!" Fake knitters will be jealous and non knitters will be like "lame" but these random newslfases are what blogging is for anyway, so if you dont like, well....tough....hehehe.

Speaking of newsflashes, I have a major one coming up in a sec.....................................*waits for a sec*............................................NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!..................................................I've leaving for Europe tomorrow with my two older Brothers Daniel aged 22, Josh aged 18, for a one month tour of old Europe. To see the ruins of the most powerful civilizations ever to call themselves empires and to buy a "pint" of ale in Dublin are our main objectives. Oh and were dropping Josh off at college, he's studying in Thessaloniki this year. We'll be gone from September 9th to October 6th. :( were gonna miss Josh quite a bit, good fellow that he is. *moment of silence for Josh*

Ahem so that's that, were bringing a camera and hoping to post pictures and blogposts along the way. So check this blog occasionally and you might see pictures of us playing frisbee at Thermopylae.

Traveling between the various towns and cities is going to be highly time consuming. To releive the mental strain of riding a ferry for 18 hours, I'm bringing along a few activeties to pass the time.
I. The City of God by St. Augustine.
II. Study Latin, I've made over four hundred flashcards in the past two weeks to review everything from last year
III. Guide to Christian Apologetics by Dough Powell, its a textbook for a class I'm taking this year. (Which everyone who lives nearby should take, cause I dont want it to be just me and Sam)
IV. Read the bible
V. Knit, I managed to fit a ball of yarn into the one bag I'm bringing and I'm gonna try to knit a bunch of squares to make into a blanket when I come home.
VI. Take Pictures
VII. Comb my hair, since I wont be able to shower and I've decided to not cut my hair until I come back, its gonna need tons of brushing to keep it from getting all tangly and painful.

So theirs my to do list while in Europe, hopefully I'll be diligent and not just choose to sleep on all the trains.

In addition to all that, I have to start thinking about the book me and Sam are writing this year for school. The potential Thesis is: The Pursuit of Entertainment/Enjoyment is Detrimental to Christendom. I'm curious whether you all would agree with this statement, whether its clear and makes sense so comment and tell me if its true or false, and whether it is clear and concise and I might comment in reply....if your lucky.

I'm bringing a blank journal to write out all the thoughts ideas and quotes that will be of service so if you comment you'll get your name in that journal and if its a really good comment you might get your name in the book.