I feel like I'm being given a raw deal at work,
as if my failings are magnified and others' overlooked
but what can I do?
compare myself to other men?
and expect justice on the earth?
If I have wronged, however small,
let me bare my back for beating
as my earthly masters see fit
and God help me to know
from the blood in my bones
that even this
is not to my credit.

If there is injustice
in unequal measures
of bureaucratic wrath
then let it be
for my True Master
to search out.

Let your blows inside the blows of men
and purge my inmost heart
to serve you in all things
with a clean conscience
and a pure will.

God, I entrust myself to your judgement
and I trust fully in your mercy
if there is vindication
to be had
from the scars and twistings
received from little kings,
then let it be
for you to raise up
and cast down.
Until then,
I'll wait.

Why this urge to justify?
An unrighteous thread in a tapestry of rebellion
what is it in me
that cries out for a verdict
that my fibers are not as soiled
as the surrounding warp and weft?
The only outside eye can see
more clearly than I
and if I call for a premature
appearance of the Judge of all the earth
who can endure the day of his coming?
Who can stand when he appears?
For he will be like a refiner's fire!
But I will call out for cleansing of
what is unclean in me
and let him be to me not a judge of others,
but for me, a launderer's soap.

T.J.: "You have children, I have animals."

Me: "What about "animals are people too"?"

T.J. "That's debatable."


I think if you've been up for 23 hours you should qualify as a "vulnerable adult", at least until you've had a solid six hours of sleep.

The spiders have had a population explosion this year. I can't walk across campus at night without getting outfitted with a web-beard form all the little spider shanties that've been strewn thickly across every path.

There have always been spiders on campus but this year It's begun to feel more like an invasion, like Starship Troopers or something.

The spiders are thick and juicy, obviously the result of some spider-vitamin a robber-baron chemical factory has dumped into the canal on the north side of campus. They crawl around everywhere like a festering mess of mini-Shelobs from Lord of the Rings, as I hold out my flashlight like the star-glass light to fend them off, or at least to warn me before I walk face-first into another web and am forced to spend the next five minutes brushing myself off in paranoia and peeling the remnants of spider silly-string off my arms and eyebrows. They've only gotten larger as the year's progressed, right now the average one could pose a danger to small dogs and children. If the raccoons around here weren't so low to the ground I wouldn't be surprised to see a few of them sucked dry and left hanging in some grand specimen's web.

But it's finally getting Autumn chilly, and I think that's killing them off.

The brain. Feels like it's frozen, fuzzy-frozen like something left too long in the freezer, so long that it's responded by a winter coat of frost.
Not sleeping, staying up all night walking around in the dark through empty buildings and driving through empty streets. Sometimes my job feels like a post-apocalyptic novel. All I need is the zombies.
Sometimes I think I see one in the theater building but then realize it's only a mirror, one of those full-length ones that the resident thespians use to check their outfits before entering stage left.
That zombie stares dully back at me with his tired brown eyes before using his expandable baton to poke at the enormous spiders infesting the corner of the stairwell.

The moon is spectacular tonight. Or, this morning. It's 5:54 and the moon just rose an hour or so ago. It's a waning crescent that has the subdued light to the rest of it, just enough so you can still see that it's a round thing, not just a hanging scythe. It looks like a black-brown velvet against the blue-black sky.

FOUR QUARTETS::::#1

There are fireworks pounding off outside. I'm a scrooge when it comes to these things though.

Bah.
Humbug.

I'm also at work. I must admit it's impressive feeling the shockwaves through the walls though. My coworker just left for Ashton, the dorm on the hill, for a better view. Such is the weakness of man.

The book I'm currently reading is "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot. It's poetry. Dense poetry. I've attempted to read it about three times before, and the last time I made it all the way through; but came out on the other end none the wiser. This time, I'm getting a little more out of it. A little.

I wouldn't normally bother, but T.S. Eliot is just about the most highly recommended poet of the last century, and I've heard "Four Quartets" is a christian work of sorts.

It's divided into four sections ('quartets'): Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding.

Burnt Norton still eludes me. East Coker I belueve to be about the vanity of things under the sun and about the lives that pass into and out of it. It begins:
"In my beginning is my end..." - and goes on to paint an evening pagan flavor (fertility, dancing, death) on the way all living things are made of the previously dead "Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,//old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth//Which is already flesh, fur and faeces...". It made me think of the part in 1 Cor. where Paul says, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." - in our beginning, is our end. "Flesh gives birth to flesh, and Spirit gives birth to Spirit." Insofar as our beginning is dirt, that's where we'll end up. Insofar as we're "Born from above", we'll end up in the image of the Man from Heaven.


East Coker develops until he begins talking about the nature of death, and how it's only at death that we're freed from the 'distempered part': Our only health is the disease...to be restored, our sickness must grow worse"
it ends:

"Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning."

So, he ends with the reversal of the first line, but this time with a different meaning - that in death we've finally begun. I could take this as "If anyone loses his life for my sake and the gospels he will find it" or "To be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord." I'm pretty sure Eliot means something like the latter, especially with all his talk of mortality and dying.


In between the beginning and the end were some choice verses, my favorites below:

"That was a way of putting it - not very satifactory:
a periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter
It was not (to start again) what one had expected."

(reminds me of Francis Schaeffer's critique of the state of things, where people aren't sure they're really communicating, and listen to "the poet" simply in a vague
mystical hope that some meaning will break through. Francis would say that the Christian doesn't-or shouldn't-have that problem, since we know that God made language, and that we can truly-though not exhaustively-know our fellow men, since they are what we are: men made in the image of God, and communicators, as God is a communicator.)

"At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been"

Which I take to be a critique of the statistical way we look at everything, using the past's statistics to decide what we'll expect from the future, which leaves us open to the surprise (or shock) of the new.



"Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless"

(Stock Socrates stuff, but sound.)



"In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not."

(In other words: "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.")



"So here I am...having had twenty years-
...Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Becuase one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it..."

(More of the difficulty of communication. It helps if you only have one thing to say :-))


So, that's where I'm at so far.

I've got to reset my vocabulary.
It seems like I've got into the bad habit of complaining again... And it's almost involuntary. I've been praying about it for the past couple of days, but I'm still making the same complaining statements at work. "get out while you can" (to guys whose shifts just got over) "not again" (when another call comes in) etc... And once you get used to saying something like that, it becomes automatic.

But God, I don't want it to be. I want to be thankful and have my speech be graceful, "Seasoned with salt". My prayer is for the Lord to instantly heal my vocab, but most likely He'll want me to cooperate by actually practice thinking about what I say before I say it as a first step. This will lead to awkward pauses in conversation, and will be uncomfortable. But if that's what it takes, then It's more than worth it.

I don't want to degenerate into a walking sarcastic complaint when I have the alternative by the Spirit of Jesus to speak "as speaking the oracles of God".

All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

I got a written reprimand from my boss for being late to those meetings last week, but he was very gracious about it and said he was sympathetic.
Then reading scripture at church I came across the part in Romans 11 where he quotes from the OT, "who has given a gift to Him, that He might be repaid?" This immediately was applied by the Spirit to my heart as a clarifying agent, since I had been whining and discontent-at least internally-about all of my misfortunes that week. I had gotten to the point where I wasn't frieking out, but I still felt as if my not frieking out somehow was something in my favor, and that I was really a decent guy to put up with all the Lord puts me through.

Which is a really bad attitude to have.
Especially seeing that I call Jesus Lord. It's a lot easier to give thanks in everything if you don't have wonderful plans for your own life that you expect to go off without a hitch. But He IS my Lord, and I want to delight to do His will - so may my plans be slaughtered like canaanites.

That's all about that though, It's over and I am done talking about it.

::::::::::::::::::::::

Got to go to a lecture tonight, it was part of a series of lectures on Darwin & Darwinism put on @ School since it's the anniversary of Darwin's birth or death or something like that. This particular lecture was titled "GK Chesterton, a duel with Darwin." It turned out to be more theatre than lecture, as it was a G.K. Chesterton impersonator from Bloomington, MN who gave it. Overall it was pretty good, and I got to talk to the people who put it on. I had been impressed before that the school actually allowed one of the lectures in the series to be less than flattering to Darwinism, but lo and behold, it was co-sponsored by the Discovery Institute. So the school didn't actually put it on, per-se.
Next week I'll be going to the most rabid of NeoDarwinist's lectures, (one of our Bio. Faculty) who will be speaking on Human evolution, and how we're "closing up the gaps" in the fossil record.

Work's getting exciting again, lots of drunks and thieves, and drunken thieves!

Just wrapping up what turned out to be a trying week. First, via a scheduling mistake I missed about six hours worth of very important and expensive meetings on Tuesday (which I've gotten a letter of reprimand for), then being told on Wednesday I couldn't be financed for the Lasik appointment I was supposed to have Thursday, which was the biggest bummer because I've been looking forward to that particular appointment for about a month and been wearing glasses (no contacts) for about that long in preparation. I've rescheduled for February, so I can figure out what's going on with my credit & possibly save enough so I don't have to do the CareCredit thing. I have wanted to get Lasik for about a decade, so that was the biggest letdown. Then there was breaking my toe the day before missing the meetings on a dumbell the kids had hidden under a jacket in the dining room. I've also been tense because my second big Biology test which I took this friday. Still waiting for the results on that one.

Brandy can tell you I was very melodramatic about all this. Since Friday I think I've been able to rein it in a bit. I do want to curb the habit of telling people my problems, as it seems I'm always more eager to tell them then they are to listen-even if they ask-and It doesn't help much. The whole deal did help me realize that my stamina for disaster has gone way down. I managed to say "blessed be the name of the lord" but with a very sour face. I'd prefer to be to the point character-wisewhere I could honestly sing a worship song in similar circumstances.

Our microwave has developed a Zeus complex. The other day as Brandy was heating up some peas in a bowl it began throwing lightning around inside and making a loud snapping noise...not a good sign. So remembering a couple years ago in St. Paul when our then-microwave spontaneously combusted I had Brandy unplug it until we can figure out what's wrong or throw it away.
As a man once sung - "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone..." I had to heat up my cold coffee by dumping some boiling water into it. Just not the same.
Radioactive cube of convenience, why have you failed us?

And yet, Romans 8:28 is in full effect. Though He slay my microwave, yet will I trust Him.

Screwed up in a big way. I missed about six hours of meetings at work because I thought they were tomorrow and because I'd left my cell on "silent". I'm gonna get chewed out either way, but pray for me that nothing worse than that comes of it, and that my name won't top the shame list at work for the next six months.

The other day at the goodwill I finally broke down and got a copy of Luther's smaller catechism. I wanted it for a short reference to go over with the kids as a primer on Christian Doctrine, and I've looked through it multiple times over the years and have always considered it good & clear christian teaching. I remember when I was little at church we were heavy on story but not so much on doctrine-nothing was really well defined. So I figured I'd do them a favor, plus I was reading through Ephesians where he tells dads to raise their kids in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.
So anyways...
Today I slept until about 2pm and when I got up felt the need to do something edifying. So naturally I called Josiah and Jaelle over and pulled out the copy of Luther. It starts out with the ten commandments, and by the time we got to four I thought something wasn't right with the numbers, and then I realised, 'Ole brother Martin numbered the commandments like a Catholic! (Catholics blend out the "graven images" into the first, and it shifts the numbers down. They get #10 by splitting coveting into two: houses & the rest. Odd how houses get their own no-covet commandment and wives are stuck with donkeys.)But I figured the kids will forget the numbers anyway, and I can re-number them later. I wanted it for a guide more than anything, since I need something to go over all the basics, and I can embellish beyond that. By embellish, I don't mean make stuff up, but expand on.

Then Josiah asked why we should "fear" God (since Martin prefaces every commandment with the reason we should obey it-"fear and love of God"). That was a tough one to answer. I kept thinking about George MacDonald telling his childhood story of when he found out about hell, "predestination" etc..., and broke down crying, wondering how God could be more cruel than his earthly father, and how that thought eventually led to him becoming a Universalist. I didn't want to give Josiah that impression, so I tried to explain it by asking if he was scared of me, and he said no, and I said how about when I catch you doing something you're not supposed to, he said yeah, and we took it from there.
Then we all had a short fighing free-for-all, and I read a book with Enoch (who was listless and alone on the couch with a fever) until Brandy called us to the table for chicken soup.


Now I'm @ Work and my co-worker just found a giant dead rat at the entrance to the bertona modules. There are all kinds of wild (and not so wild) life around here. Yesternight I was checking Robbins and a large Opossum was at the south entry door. When I opened it, she just stared at me for a couple seconds before waddling off. 'possums always seem a little slow in the head.

Haiku Vs. Limerick.



My leaves drink the sun
veins bring life mixed with water
each fruit holds new seeds
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Each man's work is his gift to mankind
a gift woven with hands and with mind
mine's riddled with knots
it's horribly botched
'cause I weave like I'm numb and I'm blind.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
After I wrote this, I found out that haiku's aren't 5/7/5 syllables, they're 5/7/5 "moras" - which is a different subdivision of language, like a small syllable. I tried distinguishing moras, but it's beyond my ken.
So we'll consider these American style Haikus. We won the war anyway, right? And if they can put mayonnaise and corn on a roll and call it American, I think my imprecision can slide.

School starts in a little over a month.

We've been having a family church service Wednesday nights (the church we're going to now doesn't have a Wed. Night service). Brandy plays some worship songs, and I teach. I've been teaching through Colossians and I think it's been getting better because last night's service didn't put Josiah to sleep. Last week he succumbed. As did Brandy, almost.
Thank God for coffee. At least I enjoyed it (the teaching).

Today I visited the "Q Cafe", a christian coffeeshop a couple blocks off campus. It's owned by a church right next to it, and upon entering it reminded me quite a bit of "Sojourner's Cafe" the old coffeeshop in St. Paul. Some of my best memories are from that coffeeshop. Isn't it odd, one would think that a person's best "spiritual" memories should be in church or at a retreat, but the coffeeshop wins hands down.

Read an Oscar Wilde quote the other day, it goes: "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". It's an interesting quote, and seems to echo the sentiment of most people in that it focuses on the past of the saint, and the future of the sinner.

Why is it that conversion stories are the most interesting? It seems like in all the stories a character gets saved, or gets married, and then the curtain falls, 'cause 'it's over'. The main character may as well have died.

I don't think that's really the case for the saint. Maybe it's because a saint dies to his/her old life, and begins over again. Maybe because as far as the world's concerned, the saint it dead, and that brings in the finality. Now the only interesting thing about him is his past.

But they love stories of a sinner's future, too. At least most people do. It has suspense, climax, and drama.

Even the story of the prodigal son runs like that. The most boring character in it is the "older brother" - the saved guy. I wonder if his character would've been more interesting if he'd gone in search of his younger brother, and used his own inheritance to track him down through all the pigsties and brothels to bring him back. But would that even have been possible? If it were, wouldn't the Father himself have gone?

Unless it's like a Cain/Abel thing. "Am I my brother's keeper"? Cain asked that, and the answer's implied. God didn't stop Cain from killing Abel either. Ultimately, God is his children's keeper, but he seems to expect us to take up that role, and usually is pretty hands-off (at least observably).

So what would have happened? I think it would have been a good story. Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said "As I am, so are you in this world".

I think that makes for a good storyline too.

Stephen Lawhead

So, last night Stephen Lawhead - one of my favorite fiction authors - came to SPU. I was working, but after seeing the posters I delayed my lunch break til 7pm and used it to go in and listen. He was reading from "Byzantium" which was the last book of his I read before the general ban on fiction I imposed on myself after being born again. (I've lifted it since then).
I was really hoping for a chance to ask how all the medieval history research affected his Faith-since I'm planning on studying ancient & medieval lit/history too. This, however, was not to be. In full security officer uniform, I was standing in the back of the room (which was just large enough to support the nerd population of SPU) with my hand held high during question time, but the moderator kept on ignoring me! There would be a pause, during which my hand would be the only one up, and he'd scan the room until someone else flickered a paw, and then he'd pounce on 'em. That happened about five times, so I finally gave up, my lunch was over anyway and I was back on patrol.
I wasn't as annoyed as I'd thought I would be though, it seemed like enough of a blessing to be there in the first place. And I could always email him my question.

It's odd seeing people one admires in person, I remember the day I got to visit Francis Schaeffer's grave (which meant much more to me than last night's entertainment) it was strange thinking that his body was below me, that he was a real person. I don't really know what I'm trying to say, but I'll leave it here because whatever it is, it's too complicated for a blog.

Moving, Apartments, Vacation, and Labor.

So, we're going house shopping tomorrow. It occurred to me that although I have my ideas of what I want and where I think it should be (house with a big living room, a yard, and an ocean view on Queen Ann Hill), But only God knows where the perfect place is for whatever it is he has planned for us is. If that makes sense to anyone.

So, Brandy & I (facilitated again by the wonderful sister who's agreed to watch our kids while we're out) are going to look at five places or so tomorrow and then find a coffeeshop to pray them over and see what the Lord says. It's crazy to think it's almost June now, we haven't even started boxing stuff up yet.

A couple of days ago now I got to go down to Winlock and help my grandma out at her house. She's trying to get it ready to sell, so all the t-posts and huge wood posts with concrete bases had to be pulled up out of the ground, sorted, and laid in the truck. So I got to do that for the better part of the day, then I got up on the roof and figured out a way to take down the TV-Antenna-on-a pole-contraption my great uncle had macguyvered to the roof with a 40' douglas fir trunk/pole. I ended up tying a rope around the rest of the tree-pole and lowering it down from the roof after sawing off the antenna. It was all a lot of fun really, and I got good and sore by the end of the second day.
And my grandma gave me a coleman stove out of the garage! Sweet! I've really been wanting one of those.

Then before that we took the kids to Kalaloch, a beach on the Olympic coast that my mom used to take us to when we were kids. I took a bunch of pictures of Brandy and the kids, got some great ones of Jaelle on the still-wet shore that makes it look like she's walking in the sky.
We all had a LOT of fun there, even if we froze during the night. (I couldn't feel my feet when I woke up, I had to rub them back to life) I got up in the morning and started a fire for Brandy (she told me she loves morning campfires) and she made me some really good egg/sausage scramble stuff over the campfire.
We've got to do that more often!

Oh, and I registered for fall-quarter classes @ SPU. Biology, Christian Formation, and Koine Greek. Registration/Orientation went great. I was the only one during Advising that was going for classics, so I had the Classics professor all to myself for questions and to figure out my schedule, so what normally is confusing, chaotic, and time-consuming took all of 20 minutes.

Encouragements and Exhortations

Due to the kindness of a friend from church who watched our herd of hobbits, Brandy and I were able to go out for an early Anniversary present almost a week ago now. We made it up to Seattle and enjoyed fish and chips up by the Ballard locks and walked through the garden near there. Then we went to a Tully's nearby and sat down to talk. It was especially good to have time to talk about our plans and hopes and thoughts. Before that day I really hadn't tried to organize them enough to present them in any sort of order, and here are a few.

I've had a sort of "drifting" feeling within the past months, of aimlessness - like I'm just existing. I've had doubts about the Lord's plans for us out here - maybe doubts isn't the right word, more like lack of interest. I've treated everything as it comes with indifference, like going to school, or my job, as a separate instance of life, not as a part of a greater unified plan.

Normally I hate planning, because it seems like things so rarely go to plan, and I don't like setting myself up for disappointment. But as I thought about it, I could definitely see the working hand of God in all that's happened with us over the past year. I am coming to believe that it's through my timidity in recognizing it AS the work of my Lord Jesus and the lax way I've talked about our circumstances and plans that have killed the zeal I should be burning with. "And without faith it is impossible to please Him". I had been asking God for specific things for the past three years:
#1. to send us somewhere, then receiving the word to Washington,
#2. I asked for a job, and believed I was being led specifically to the Job at SPU Security, and God not only brought us out here safely, but gave us a place to live, and out of many candidates gave me my current Job. When back in MN I looked at this job, I prayed about going back to school and in part applied with hope of getting tuition discounts.
#3. When I applied to go to SPU, I asked the Lord to give me a sign financially if I was to Go to school with his blessing. I got a full ride with grants and scholarships (didn't have to take out any loans) The amount I've been given to pay for school this year is almost exactly what it will take for a year @ SPU (almost 30K). If my Father hasn't done this, then who has? I could never have afforded this on my own. If it wasn't for my conviction that the Lord was taking us out here, I never would have thought to apply for the job @ SPU security, since they asked for someone with a B.A. in the listing, whereas I don't even have an A.A. .

God has given us a good church to go to here, with a pastor who is genuinely interested in us for the Lord's sake, and who takes the time to go through the "Men in Turn" leadership training with me and to keep me in the word and serving while waiting for God to move us up to the Seattle area. It's not many pastors who would be willing to give that time to someone they knew was only going to be in their congregation for a year. He also shelled out a chunk of cash to give me the resources for that program gratis, including the "Foundations for Pentecostal Theology" book and the Chuck Smith "Through the Bible" series. Because of his working with me I've memorized the first two chapters of Titus (which sadly enough is the first time I've ever memorized two consecutive chapters of scripture) and am now working on the 3rd. May God repay him for all he's done for my good!

Also, a couple nights ago I was kicking students out of OMH at about 2:30AM (it's the physics and mathematics building, so the students would stay there all night to do homework if they were allowed to). I started talking to one of the guys, and as we began talking he asked about my work, and I told him why I went to work here in part-to study classics to learn Greek and Latin and learn the background of scripture better. Then I pointed out that it didn't have any occupational value but was only for my own enjoyment (which is a lie, since I want to do it to Serve my God and His people, but I've said that so many times in an apologetic way as if I was ashamed for going to school for something not technical or "practical" to make money that I'd almost come to believe it) But this blessed kid says "Well, that sounds like it will open up lots of opportunities to minister and serve God" and I again pointed out that I meant unlike physics, which he studies, my degree will have next to no money value, and he replied, "Well, that's why I study physics, so I can support people like you!"

I shut my mouth, and for a second almost felt like crying. I'd convinced myself almost that no one values what I want in my heart and felt the call to - to teach and feed the Word of God to men, and to go to school to supplement this. And here this kid in one sentence made me ashamed of my shame and encouraged me to no end, to think that there are people who so value the word of God and the office of Overseer that they would work to support it! God forgive me. But what that kid said stuck with me, and I have felt its encouragement 'til now.

God help me to encourage others too, I've been reminded how much it's needed!

So I told all this to Brandy, and she told me she's been in the same funk of not feeling like we're doing anything, and like I was going to school just to go to school, and a feeling of unreality regarding us starting a church.

And the more I've been thinking about it, I know I've got to recover a passionate love for God, and a pursuit of Him, and an "Abiding in Him". That's where all these desires came from in the first place, and I can't recover passions created by the lifeblood of Jesus Christ without being plugged firmly into his Vine, and drinking in His life. All these dreams are just that without him, and will be impossible to pursue without Him in me to give me works, to will and to work his pleasure-with pleasure.

I got my acceptance letter in the mail from SPU today, it reminded me that last night (morning? I don't sleep at night so it must've been yesterday morning after getting home) I had a dream where the current president of SPU was voted out and was getting very surly while being forced to pack up and go. An unlikely and interesting dream, since it has very little chance of coming true and since I know so little about Pres. E. that I am surprised he featured in my dream.

Brandy & I also tried to watch Fight Club which Netflix had sent us because they didn't have the next item on our list readily available. I say "tried" because there was something wrong with the DVD that caused it to get all unbalanced in the DVD player and make an odd sound like a washer on spin cycle. So I took that as a sign of God's displeasure over us trying to watch that particular movie, which I wasn't at all surprised at because I was kind of wondering whether or not we should be watching it in the first place. I mean, I liked it when I watched it as a pagan, I appreciated its critique of American commercialism and inhumanity, but there's just so much to strain the conscience in it too, and I hesitated even trying to watch it. So when its imbalance cause the rumbling of Divine Wrath to emanate from our DVD player, I embarrasedly explained to Brandy my interpretation of this "sign", and we ended up reading Psalms and Proverbs instead, and the first couple chapters of Romans. I'm glad we did. Then I read her a little bit from where we left off in the "Fellowship of the Ring" and had dinner.

And now I'm @ work, praying that no one in Robbins or the Wesleys decides it would be a good idea to get drunk and noisy, and filling out an incident report about a "No Parking" sign that someone ran over.

Thanks to Mel for putting me in the same sentence as Shakespeare.
I just ordered a copy of "Lord of the Rings" in a single volume. This is an exciting moment for me because when I first was truly regenerated I threw away all my LOTR stuff along with all my other fantasy literature. I had done that at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, my guess looking back was because it was such an escape for me it had turned into something of a "Slight healing" of the wounds of sin. The wholesale immersion of myself into fantasy dulled the pain and emptiness caused by my Disconnect with Jesus Christ. But now, some eight or so years later, my conscience is free once again and I want to give the Lord of the Rings another read through as a New Man.
I got some martial arts target mitts off ebay with the intent of exercising Brandy & I's (and maybe Josiah's) punching muscles. We've had them for about two weeks now and it's been a blast. Brandy's punches are getting harder every couple of days and I've been pleasantly surprised that she enjoys it. I also got her a longbow for christmas, and I'm looking forward to taking her out to the range to shoot.
More outrageous articles in the school newspaper, I think I'll probably write a response to one of them, but part of me feels like it would be doing nothing but exercising my futility muscles. Still, like William Wallace's father said in Braveheart: "I didn't say we had to beat them, we just have to fight them" - We shall see.
Youth group... The situation is still interesting. I have taught twice, and have led a couple small group "discussions" at least that's what they're supposed to be but the first one ended up being a group chat time becuase none of the kids were taking it seriously and because that's what they've always done before. I gave them a "why are you even here" speech and the next time everything went great, we kept on topic and prayed together meaningfully at the close, I even remember all of their names. A few of the older kids complain to me that their relationship with God is stagnant and they're frustrated with the youth group the way it's being run and the shallowness of the teaching and want me to start a study group outside of church that would be voluntary. I would really like that in one way, but I don't think they're being entirely fair to the current youth pastor and I wouldn't want it to be detrimental to what's already going on there. I'll have to talk to the Pastor and the Youth pastor and see what they think.
Speaking of pastors and youth pastors, the Pastor wants to meet for breakfast with me again. We went out to breakfast once before, a kind of "getting to know you" sort of thing once I expressed interest in the youth ministry, I don't know why he's asked to get together with me this time. It was a Wednesday night when he first mentioned it to me, he came in after youth group and said that he wanted to get together with me and talk, but he'd just been sued and his wife's mother had a stroke in service the week prior and had since died, and as he was telling all this to me I noticed that he had some kind of red inflammation like poison oak or something all over his face. I found out the suing is a ridiculous frivolous lawsuit against him and three other homeowners by a plumbing contractor who just finished suing a nearby county -apparently this is how this guy makes his living when he's not plumbing. But seriously, after hearing the pastor's story and thinking about the events in the lives of the pastors I've known for the past two years, it's enough to make me scared at the thought of becoming a pastor-it seems like being selected to storm Omaha beach on D-Day. Still...
Working with a new guy at SPU security, he's Irish (kind of) son of travelling missionary parents and a reader of sorts, so we have lots of interesting discussions. We talked about the history of the IRA, the popularity of Coldplay amongst the "cool" christian culture, and everything in between.
Applying for school here at SPU, hoping to get a degree in Classics. Just ordered transcripts to be sent to the admissions department from my former colleges, and now I'm just waiting for the Academic and Personal recommendations forms to be returned, then I'll be in. This is fixin' to be one busy year. We're going to move closer (as always, Lord willing) to the School in June when our lease is up, I'll be going to school, still don't know if we'll end up going to Calvary Seattle there or trying to keep coming here-(I can't see commuting back here from there though)
We're going to the NW Calvary Sr. Pastor's conference. Brandy already booked the rooms, she is as ever the superninja of the practical and administrative. Not only did she find the most economical hotels in the area, she booked rooms there for Don Rypstra and Chik as well as one for us. Nate and Marielle (Brandy's brother and sister-i-l) are in my good books forever for agreeing to sit on our babies while we go out to Spokane for the conference. It will be glorious being alone with Brandy, without children, by ourselves, together, for more than five minutes, without the constant threat of the little people getting out of bed to come and announce that they have to go to the bathroom or are sick or scared of gollum. As I said, Glorious.
Although Brandy wants another. I like the ones we have, the way I see it, three's good enough for God (think Trinity), so it's good enough for me. But the biological clock ticks fiercely, and I have promised to comply on conditions known only to her and I.
But I still think three is the # of completion. (Or is it perfection? Still, either way.)
I also bought Brandy a pair of hotboots. A sound investment.
Reading through Ezekiel. If anyone knows the meaning of Ezekiel 20:25&6 feel free to share, I've got some ideas, but initially it's very confusticating. The rest of Ezekiel is great as always, but I have found it necessary to balance it out by reading the gospel of John as well.
Just finished today listening to Christianaudio's free book of the month, "Abandoned to God" - the life of Oswald Chambers, by David McCasland I believe, narrated by Simon Vance (who's voice I appreciate) very edifying, too much to write, but I suggest you download it for free @ Christianaudio.com and listen through it. What a life in Christ. I pray that I live that way. I bought the complete OC works now and am reading through "Biblical Psychology" when I can. But I'll have to wait til my weekend (Monday) to really dig into it.

Peace to all of you in our Lord Jesus!
'cause that's all for now.

Adventure!

I got to push a bus last week. I was on the way home, when our bus stopped for a very long time at the intersection. I looked up and saw that the driver was getting out to help the driver of another bus that had stalled in the middle of the intersection blocking all traffic. Apparently she had hit a "dead spot" a part of the electrical power cable that holds no charge (the Seattle buses use electric power within city limits). Our driver came in and let us know it would be a while til a truck could be sent out to tow the other bus out of the way. It was about 11pm by that time, and I knew that if we were delayed that long, I wouldn't get home til about 3am. So I asked the bus driver if I could push it out of the way. He brightened up and said, "you know, it doesn't actually take that much to push one of these things, we could probably do it." I replied, "lets do It!" and jumped up out of my seat. The driver patted a heftyish mexicano guy who was occupying a seat towards the door of the bus and said "come on, you too!" and so the three of us hopped off, rolled up our sleeves, and pushed the bus a good five feet til it passed the dead zone and kept on going on it's own power, the driver waving at us as she left. So we hopped back on our bus, I made it for my transfer, and got home at about midnight.

So, here I am at work again. We just went through some training on fire alarm systems, and when my boss Mark was giving us an informational lecture, I was losing consciousness in a bad way. It was good information, but I kept waking up, and nodding off, and waking up, until he said "and soon we're going to go out and test the actual alarms outside so Judah can stay awake" -at which point I asked to break and get some coffee. Which worked for the next 30 minutes of lecture or so.
A man can only pinch the skin on his leg so hard, after all.

Well then, My lovely wife is moving the kids beds into our room for the duration of my dad's stay, I'm happy to have a chance to exercise my very rusty hospitality (Brandy's a natural) and also the 5th commandment. I figured it would be better to let him have a door, I always like to have a door when I'm staying with other people, it makes me feel less like an invader.

It's strange with me, any huge thing I adapt to within the first day so it feels like it's always been this way. I have no gift for novelty. I wonder if it got burnt out of me from all the moving when I was young?
It feels like my dad's always been here.

But it's still strange, trying to resume a relationship which hasn't existed in person for over a decade.
And last time I saw him, he was taller than me.
Everything changes. Well, except Someone.

That's one of the most comforting things about our God, I think. He's a person, and he's a person who doesn't change. Change is like wind, and it's nice to have a windbreak to step into, a feeling of comfort, of home, someplace and someone to go back to when everything around you is rushing through a swift process of change and decay.

I've decided (well, I decided it a long time ago) that the thing which makes our faith in Jesus Christ special, and different, is because it's faith in JESUS CHRIST. and through him, in a specific God, Yahweh, the I AM. He's not just some generic "God" - for there are many "gods" and many "lords" but He's the one we know and believe. The philosophic system can be ripped off or superimposed onto another religion, but we're not asked to trust in a philosophic system, we're offered to place our belief in a specific person, Jesus Christ.

Been reading Thomas Wingfold, there are some points in that book that almost...well...they do...make my eyes water up. I was at work so I had to duck down my head and suck 'em back into my tear ducts.

I keep on expecting life to slow down. At least the maintenance part of it. But it never has, and I'm starting to think it never will. After reading T.W., I decided to try and actually obey something of God's word, the "Do all things w/o arguing or complaining." it's strange to think that I, calling myself a Christ-ian, have not consiously tried to obey anything He says for a long long time.

So here I am at work again, I got here late... I'd asked Nate to change my schedule so I could come in early and get off in time to pick up my dad from the airport. But then after getting off at 10pm last night, I had to take the 2 hour bus trip home, got home at midnight, and stayed up with Brandy for a couple hours.

The bus.
I was kinda looking forward to riding the bus so I could have time to read, but it's not turning out that way. A couple nights ago I rode home next to a black woman tweaking out something serious on meth. NOT FUN. She was little, so I figured if she went crazy canadian on me and tried to stab/decapitate/cannibalize me I'd be able to hold my own, but I didn't feel it was wise to take my eyes off her either. She was twitching and frieking out, devoured her bag of gardettos like the cookie monster, (slammed mouthful after mouthful all over her face making animal noises-crumbs ended up everywhere) she'd keep on twitching like she was having a siezure or something, and shouting and jumping like she was constantly being surprised. I flicked a piece of pretzel off my knee that she'd launched in her ravening, and the movement startled her enough to jump and yell like a psychotic hyena.
Which she kept on doing after sinking into a semi-unconsious state.
Needless to say, I didn't get much reading done. And that's it for my sitting next to crack/meth/other heads on the bus. If they start twitching, I'm gonna ask em to move or I'll move myself, but I've done my share for the year.

On other fronts... Checked out Beowulf for some reading on breaks, a new translation my Seamus Heaney. I've been looking for a translation by JRR Tolien - I could swear I used to have one - but I can't find evidence that one ever existed.

I've been letting lots of people into buildings. And telling ppl to keep their dogs on leashes. I'm trying not to let the power go to my head.

Reading "Thomas Wingfold, Curate" again, it seems like I've been re-reading a lot of books lately. I want to buy that one though, and found a nice site where they do reproductions of McDonald originals.

Watched "Bonhoeffer" the other night, and got so interested I dug out his "Letters and Papers from Prison" to read the last section. Bonhoeffer was a interesting guy, I really like his stuff. A lot of the "new" waves in theology seem to be trying to duplicate his work in a 2-D sort of way. I want to read his "Ethics" to see if he can make the statement: "It's better to do evil than be evil" more convincing than it initially sounds. I'm pretty sure I'd lie if the gestapo showed up at my door and asked if there were any jews inside (providing that the were jews inside), but still I can't really get over the idea of lying being OK.

Also read a book my aunt gave me called "Restoration, restoring the Torah to christians" or something like that. He says we should all keep kosher and observe sabbath + festivals. He makes a decent argument, but I think it still has a lot of holes. I remember almost coming to that conclusion on my own (I should be keeping sabbath etc...) after a month and a half in Israel. I do agree with him as far as the statement that Jews can/should keep the Torah laws, and that they were never abolished. But as far as us gentiles go, I can't buy that having read galatians etc...

Also, reading N.T. Wright's commentary on Colossians where he believes Judaic commandments and traditions to be the heresy Paul's trying to contradict. Which goes directly against how the guy from the other book interprets it. Funny how they can get opposite conclusions from the same book.

I'm very tired.

God's been very good to me, I have yet to be assaulted on the bus, aside from the odd food item splattered on me by druggies, and home has been good as well.
I'm off break now, will write more later.