Different Motives for Being Born Again.

Also, just the other day, Josiah and I were sitting on the couch after a Nerf Gunfight, and I noticed he was gazing very intently at the photo montage of himself as a baby. He turned to me and asked if he could be a baby again, I told him no, we only get one shot at that, but at the Resurrection we'll have all the good things about being a baby, like the newness and excitement of discovery. He kept looking at the picture and after a couple more seconds said, "I want to be a baby again". I asked him why, expecting some answer about the joys and carefree life of babyhood - but instead he turned to me and replied "Because I want to wear that shirt again. I really like that shirt. (pointing to the shirt he was wearing in the baby picture). I started laughing, and he explained to me that he used to really like his skateboard shirt, which he showed to me in the dirty laundry, but now he really likes "This shirt" (gesturing at the longsleeve camo shirt he was wearing) I told him I already knew he must really like that shirt because he's been wearing it three days in a row.

I have a headache. But the aspirin is casting it out slowly.

The day after tomorrow I am being sent to "Fire Academy" where we get to play fireman out at some Firefighter training academy up in the mountains for some 12 odd hours - dressing up in the gear and putting out fires. It's for work, since we're the first responders for fire emergencies as well as medical and pretty much everything else.

This is an interesting job, in a lot of ways it reminds me of being an on-call chaplain in St. Paul. Last week I had to respond to a call where a girl was cutting herself to relieve stress and ended up doing a worse job than she'd intended. NOT what I'd want to see, but I guess I'd rather it be me than someone else responding to it. I got to talk to her boyfriend a couple days later and he was very grateful for what we did, and said that she was doing better now. He said I was very "calming".
I seem to have that effect on many people. It's almost like I'm a sedative or something. I remember when I was little my mom would have me read to her to put her to sleep, which was very annoying to me because I want ppl to enjoy a book with me if I'm reading it to them, and if they're asleep that's hardly what I had in mind. Brandy falls asleep when I read to her too.

The first round of Layoffs @ SPU is over, and Safety and Security got through it unscathed, as far as I know. Next year they'll reassess and see if we need to lose more ppl. Praise God I kept my job, I really do like it here. And it's nice being at a job where I expect to stay for longer than two years. I wonder, it would hardly do for them to lay me off now that I'm accepted to go to school here, since I'll (Lord Willing) be bringing in more money with grants etc... than they pay me in a year.

Brandy & Theresa caught a crab at the beach on accident while gathering shells two or three weeks ago. it's a little tiny shore crab (about as big as a dime) with a white carapace. Brandy decided to keep it as a pet and got rocks and sand and a round fishbowl thing to keep it in with barnacles and krill and other tiny sea creatures that came along for the ride in the bucket. She goes to the beach every couple of days to get fresh seawater for the new "aquarium". Then night after she decided to keep it she had a dream where it grew huge and got out of the cage and I was trying to catch it but it was too fast, and then it turned into a dog, like the Scrunt from "Lady in the Water". Hopefully that doesn't happen. When Theresa found it she was washing shells in the sink and it jumped out, and she tried to hit it (Brandy & Theresa like to kill small things that crawl) but only succeeded in knocking off two of it's tiny legs. But yesterday it molted and its legs grew back. Brandy says it looks a lot bigger now, and I laughed and said as long as it doesn't turn into a dog we're all right. She laughed because that's what she was thinking about too.

Just listened to Andrew Petersen's "Far Country" on the drive in tonight, made me tear up. I haven't listened to that album in a long while, but it's so good, especially "Queen of Iowa". His voice is kind of nasal, but the words and the passion make up for it. I remember when Dominic got me that album off Itunes he said it reminded him of me. That whole year it seemed like everything I was reading and listening to had to do with Heaven, the New Heavens and Earth, and the Resurrection. That was a good year but intense. I want that kind of intensity though, I want to be urgent in everything that has to do with Jesus and the Gospel - even if it gives me ulcers. Like the four month period (more like a year off and on) where I was trying to reconcile the accounts of the resurrection in the gospels & that was a huge issue because it would decide whether or not I would be able to believe in the inerrancy of scripture. I want to take all these things seriously, because if they're real, they're pretty much the only things worth taking seriously, and if they're not, than they're not worth "taking" at all.

The last couple weeks I feel like I've been in isolation, all I've been doing is working, I hardly feel like I've been able to spend time with Brandy or the kids, but I haven't really done anything with anyone outside of the house.

Well, that's not entirely true. T.J. and I have been working out about once a week, and I'm almost to the level I was when I'd stopped working out in college! It makes me happy. Although I ran two miles on the treadmill this morning and it took me 18 minutes!!! that's terrible - more of a jog than a run. AND I dropped my Ipod.

But I do want to DO something. Something important. I really need to start getting some bible studies ready.

TJ and I had a long talk about the upper middle class after working out this morning. I don't like the upper middle class, and he wants to be the upper middle class. I guess for me when I think of the upper middle class I think about the seed sown on the thorny ground, where the thorns which were the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches grew around the plant and choked it. But that doesn't give me any right to dislike them I suppose, I should love them... But I don't trust them.

Almost finished with a book cover for Beth that I promised to do at the beginning of the year...horrible - why do I take so long with everything? I finally got the scanner at work to work and was able to get the image on my computer. T.J. looked through my sketchbook and spent the rest of the hour trying to convince me to go into freelance graphic design and make lots of money. I thought that was funny. Also, it seems like every time I draw people, the guys I draw look like me. I've got to start drawing other guys out of magazines or something to get out of that rut. It comes from having to use myself as a model and getting facial proportions off myself for my concept of what the male face looks like. But it's odd, I don't try and make them look like me.

I want to read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, after reading "Anthem" I really want more. Apparently they're making a movie of it too.

And now I've got to get to work.

Prayer on a Tuesday morning.

I have framed you with so many stones I cannot see your image
I have dressed you up so well I can't see the man
Jesus cut through dust of ages
come into my room
I am full term
don't let me be
don't let me die inside the womb
Men are billions, words are many, you are only one
They have their children, I would be yours,
turn me to a son!

Worship came out of my eyes
I poured out my soul
through the grate
down a hole
while my Idols lay still
as all idols will
now it's dripping in the dark
it's not like a set of keys
I can't bend hanger and fish it out
for a soul is a slippery thing
best kept for sure hands
and I need yours now
to forgive,
and fish it out.

We don't even know what we want.

Most of the time we think we know what we want, what will make us happy, but then as soon as we receive or achieve it we discover that it wasn't what we were looking for after all. It was definitely not that thing that was going to bring us happiness.
Since it seems like such a constant that we are wrong in what we want, would it be surprising if we turned out to be clueless as to the thing that WILL bring us happiness? We may think we DON'T want that very thing. (Of course, the biggest example would be God, in Christ)
I don't, honestly, want him at all times. But I believe that below all my confused and apparent desires he really is the only water that will meet my thirst, He's what I really want, even if I THINK i really want the used motor oil of sin, some girl to look at, some duty to neglect, some vindictive feeling to enjoy.
Just a little bit ago, I realised as I carried my bible to the couch to read that I didn't feel like reading it. I didn't feel like connecting to God at all, I just wanted to be left alone to do whatever popped into my mind.
But I read it anyway, and after the first couple sips I realised that it was what I wanted after all.
And I accuse women of not knowing what they want!
I guess none of us really know what we want most of the time.
Some would-be pop philosophers tap into this conundrum of desire (the incorrect identification of its object, and following sense of disappointment) and react with a sort of smiley despair & say something like "True happiness is to be found in the wanting, not the having" (Which to my mind seems to be a sideways admission that true happiness isn't to be had by anyone) A paraphrase might for this philosophy might be "Since the disease is terminal it's best to stay on painkillers til it's over."

I'm very glad that's not true.

I FINALLY finished N.T. Wright's "Resurrection Of The Son Of God". I've never taken that long to finish a book (as best as I can remember) It was a very good and informative book, I'll probably write a review of it or something, but not now. I don't think I'll read it again anytime soon, but I'm sure I'll go back and reference it frequently.

I love my job. I'm sure I've said that already. I cant wait to start going to school there again next year. (Lord Willing). I have one concern, My female co-workers have informed me that the student population is 70+% female, and they said that It was my destiny to get flirted with. Apparently (according to them) girls call in for security escorts across campus when they know the good looking guys are on duty. That's frightening to me because I'm such a beggar for compliments of any kind in the first place. I always want people to admire me and say good things about me-it's a weakness I've had as far back as I can remember. So I don't want to end up enjoying any of that sort of attention if it comes my way. I let Brandy know what they said and shared my fears with her. She's always a lot more compassionate than I would be in her position. Apparently she has been getting holla'd at when she walks the 1/2 mile down to the store lately too. My reaction to that thought was less composed.

First responder classes have been going very well. I passed all the practicals in the mid-class assessment, and found out that one of my trainers is a Christian. (I figured she was when she said C.S. Lewis was a good author after noticing me reading "Out of the Silent Planet" on a break). I also got chosen to act as a burn patient for the my classmates to treat in a practice session. I made it fun by yelling for morphine and aspirin, complaining that my burned jeans cost me sixty dollars and accusing my rescuers of trying to kill me. When they asked me if I had any allergies I responded "Fire".
It was a lot of fun.
They'd asked at the beginning of the class if any of us had seen a severe burn victim. I told them Pastor Chik's story, so that was the scenario I was told to act out for the practice.

I got some new and glorious music. Some Japanese Taiko drum music (gets the blood flowing) & some "bellydance" drum music at Brandy's request (which is very dance-able), then I got some Very, very beautiful acoustic fingerstyle guitar music by Andy McKee and Andy Fox that I'm listening to now.
I think there is some music that's like solvent to the soul-as it's playing your consciousness diffuses into it, and when it's over your sould re-precipitates, still reverberating with the vision-like impressions of the music. This is that kind of music.

Going to church tomorrow morning-looking forward to everything except getting up and ready. I'm getting sick apparently.