THE WORD OF GOD REGARDING HORRORS, PROMISES, AND RESURRECTION.

[Warning: This is a really long blog. Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to answer the question "why do the righteous suffer at all?". That question I believe can only be satisfactorily answered by the answer that Satisfied Job, seeing God's face. Explanation: throughout I use the words deliver, save, protect etc...in the plain sense scripture uses them most - physical deliverance, salvation, protection.]

Okay, what disturbed me most about Denise Amber Lee's story was that she had sincerely called out to God to protect her and he had not. The reason that bothered me most is because Scripture over and over again says that God's the defender of the orphan and widow, the helpless; Esp. Psalm 50 where God equates true worship as calling out to God in the day of trouble so He can rescue you and you can thank Him. Also it seemed to me in part false advertising that almost every story in the bible is about people asking God to save them in one way or another and then the follow up of God answering and saving them as if this is how it always goes- a misleading impression if, in fact, you can be a defenseless mother calling out to God as you're being dragged off, yet end up getting raped, shot and dumped in a ditch.

To this I found first of all that:

1. There are a lot of implied stories where God does not save the needy when they call on him, not even the needy righteous from torture, rape, and death.

Starting with Abel, who's blood cried out from the ground to God. Which implies he must have done some crying while his brother beat him to death - and yet God didn't see fit to intervene until Cain was walking off. But he did see fit to protect Cain from being killed.

Then Sodom and Gomorrah. Notice how frantic Lot is that the angels who he doesn't know are angels do NOT spend the night in the square. Could this be because they wouldn't have been the first defenseless travellers he'd seen that stopped to rest in the square only to be woken up by a city full of rapists who gang-raped and murdered them? It would seem so considering the LORD's aside to Abram, that the outcry against Sodom was very great and had reached him. Why had not God answered that outcry when it first went out, and prevented the rape and murder of those defenseless people?

In Exodus 2:23, it says "the people of Israel...cried out" it also says God heard and sent Moses, but how many of those who cried out died under the whip? How many mothers saw their children taken from them and chopped up or thrown into the nile to be eaten by the Egyptian's 'gods' (crocodiles) before God saw fit to send Moses?

In Jeremiah 26, a prophet named Uriah it is said prophesied the same things Jeremiah did, and the king sought to kill him, so he ran away (I presume afraid, and as a godly man, also asking God to save him like Elijah did when Jezebel was after him) to Egypt, was hunted down and dragged back before the king, who most likely mocked him before he was hacked to death with an edged weapon and dumped into a mass grave. As for Jeremiah? It doesn't say the Lord saved him from the same fate, but rather that he was buddies with an official so he got a get out of jail free card. (I'm not saying that the Lord's hand wasn't in this, just that Scripture doesn't say it was)

Job said "Behold, I cry out 'Violence!' and am not answered; I cry for help, but there is no justice" and "I Cry to you for help, and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me"

Zechariah 14 says that just days before the Second coming of Christ the Jews in Jerusalem will be defeated, ransacked, and all of their women raped (By nations that the LORD says he will gather there). Then after they're raped the Lord Jesus comes back to save them.

In 1 Sam 22 all the men, women, children and infants in Nob were killed with a sword by Saul's man Doeg the Edomite because they had helped David, God's anointed. It was a priest's city, devoted to the worship of God. I'm sure all of them called out to God for protection. And yet, of all who called, only one escaped. David heard about it, and didn't blame God, but blamed himself, since he knew Doeg was in Nob when he came and would tell Saul that the priests had helped him. David also wrote Psalm 52 about Doeg-it's worth a read.) However, this is the same David that wrote "I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or his children begging bread." Richard Wurmbrand said he had seen the Righteous go insane under torture and their children eating out of the trash.

In 2nd Kings 15:16, Amos 1:13, 2 Kings 8:12, Israelite pregnant women are torn open by invaders. I have a hard time believing considering their heritage even as part of a backslidden country there was not a single one that called out to God for protection before they were torn open.

Habbakuk said: "O YHWH, how long shall I cry for help, and you shall not hear? Or I cry out to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?" - He said this of the land of Judah before the Babylonian Captivity, regarding the way the wicked surrounded the righteous and destroyed them in his neighborhood. Apparently he was frustrated that God didn't prevent this in response to his prayers. Then God tells him that in response he's sending the Babylonians to sack Judah. How many at the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians called out to God and were not answered? Those women being raped and murdered, and their children smashed? The writer of Psalm 137 writes: "blessed shall he be who repays you (Babylon) with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!"


ALL THIS TO SAY - Scripture does give record, albeit in a roundabout sort of way all through that there are many who cry out and yet are still raped, ripped open, tortured, or killed. This answers my first question :"why does scripture maintain in story and promise that God always answers and saves physically and immediately?" The answer is, Scripture doesn't, if you look closely.

SO THEN, WHY ARE ALL THOSE STORIES AND ASSURANCES EVEN THERE IN SCRIPTURE?!? - well, for that, I bring you...
AN INTERESTING NOTE ON HABAKKUK: When God told him how He would answer his prayer for justice, Habakkuk reminded himself of the way God saved Israel at the red sea from their enemies, and said that He would remember this, asking God to revive this kind of thing and in the midst of the years make it known. God had already told him that all of Israel would be crushed by Babylon in hideous ways, and in the face of this he still reminded himself of God's actions at the Red Sea. Then, he didn't put a pious smile on his face at the thought of what would happen to his people, He says: "I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us." - in fact, I recommend reading the last chapter of Habakkuk with the "question" in mind.
WITH THIS IN LIGHT, IT SEEMS THAT THE PAST ACCOUNTS AND ASSURANCES OF GOD'S SALVATION ARE MEANT (or at least used by Habakkuk) TO REASSURE FAITH EVEN WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR PRAYER FOR PROTECTION ISN'T GOING TO BE ANSWERED!

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Question #2: What then, about the apparent promises (Like Psalm 50)? And the stories? What's assuring about them if we have no guarantee that they have any bearing on reality? What of the GOD who cannot Lie?

For that, I turn to Hebrews.

In Hebrews 11, the "Hall of Faith", the first three quarters are those who saw the promise of deliverance in their life, those who "won" and were protected. The last bit, however, are those who were tortured, killed, harrassed and starved in faith. It says they were "commended for their faith" but that (note this) THEY DID NOT RECEIVE WHAT HAD BEEN PROMISED!.

Mind-boggling, isn't it? But why didn't they receive what had been promised? In their case I assume part of their promise was protection and health, salvation and safety, since "In Christ all promises are Yes and Amen" and these things are among the things promised to those people of faith. Yet as already stated, they didn't receive what had been promised. It says rather that "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." You might say "Something better?!? what could be better than God keeping his promise?!" But it seems that God considers that it's better that he keeps his promise later, at the resurrection of our bodies. (Made perfect is used throughout scripture of our state at the Resurrection, the "Regeneration of All Things" - when the righteous rise out of their graves to everlasting life and the wicked rise to everlasting destruction).

Also in Hebrews5:7-9, it sounds like Jesus' loud cries and tears during his life on earth were to God to save him from death, but his prayer was heard and answered retroactively in His resurrection, not by the prevention of His death.

So it seems that God considers all his promises to be retroactively answered at the resurrection, when we will receive indestructible physical bodies to house our purified souls in a union that fully reflects God.

With this theme the last verse of Psalm 17 makes sense of Psalm 50 in a way, in that David says he will be satisfied (in the context of a prayer of deliverance from the wicked) at the resurrection, awaking in God's likeness (NKJV translation) or awaking to see God's face (NIV, ESV)

ALSO - In 2 Timothy 2:13 (which I've never noticed before is In the context of hardship and suffering) it says: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful" implying that even if we're terrified and can't see or feel God with us as we're being brutalized or killed, God doesn't desert us.

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Third Issue. This one I didn't think about so much when I read Denise's story, but as I read scripture it kept on coming to the foreground.
Apparently, God holds us - Especially those of us in positions of authority - responsible to answer the cries of the helpless for protection and justice.It's not like God couldn't do it, but when the innocent are slaughtered, God blames the men in authority who should have prevented it. THIS Theme is all over the Psalms and Prophets, so I won't weary you with quotes.

As I read in Richard Wurmbrand's "If that were Christ, Would you Give Him Your Blanket" David wrote that he had never seen the righteous forsaken, or their children begging bread, however Wurmbrand said that was because there was a David on the throne who brought the kingdom of God to bear on the country's ills. Wurmbrand said he had seen the righteous tortured to death and screaming in agony, and seen their children eating out of the trash. He also pointed out that the idea that God won't allow his witness to die out in an area from persecution is false, as Islam conquered north africa and the near east, slaughtered and forced conversion of christians there, and thus christianity was wiped out of its former stronghold for a thousand years. - These things Wurmbrand, and scripture, call THOSE IN AUTHORITY, and CHRISTIANS to account for, as things preventable had those men who's responsibility it was had done their job correctly. In Denise Amber Lee's story there was a similar vein, the 911 dispatcher was suspended for negligence and some of the witnesses didn't do anything.

An example of this theme from the Lord Jesus Himself - The parable of the good samaritan doesn't say that the man on the way to Jericho was saved by God, but by a man, and in doing so, the man pleased God. It didn't say or indicate that God was going to supernaturally rescue the victim had the samaritan not passed by. And Jesus told this parable during a very unique time in history when the Son of God was on earth healing all who came to him. He told the scribe to go and do as the Samaritan in the story had done, indicating that even with Jesus on earth the defenseless still needed people to love them as themselves and deliver them from the wicked.

I have been critical of "Social Justice" causes before now, but not so much anymore. I just don't believe they can be empowered by God and sufficient apart from true faith in Jesus Christ.


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AS A FINAL NOTE, for those of you who have read this far.

The Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus says nothing of the great faith of Lazarus, but only that in his life he had bad things, and therefore was admitted into paradise. I hope this is the case with those who had no great chance to develop a relationship with God, but who were the victims of the wicked during their life on earth.


All this would not make me less crushed if anything like what happened to Denise happened to anyone I know, but at least I know there is a future, and I know that God isn't deceiving us with scripture.

I consider myself corrected, may God have mercy on me!

I have read & thought over scripture and I think I have an answer that at least helps me regarding my previous blog. I'll post it soon.

In the meantime though, here are some pictures from my 20 mile (round trip) hike into the Olympic Nat'l Rainforest. My blisters are healing nicely, thanks for asking.

I read tonight a very disturbing story on the news. It was about Amber Lee, a 21 year-old married mother of two who at a little after 2pm in the afternoon last year was abducted from her house by a plumber, driven to his house, raped, shot in the head, and buried in a shallow grave in his backyard. But that wasn't the most disturbing part to me. The most horrifying thing is that when she was being driven to her death at about 6pm, she got a hold of a cellphone in the car and called 911, and as the worthless 911 operator kept saying hello, she was heard in the background pleading with the man to let her go and saying "please God, please protect me!"

When I read that, I felt sick. I still feel sick. I kept thinking about Psalm 50, when God says "call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." I've thought about that psalm a lot in the past couple weeks, but how can I think of it now? Immediately I think "How God? How could you hear her begging to you to protect her in what was-if anything ever is-the day of trouble? But you didn't save her!"

Some of the most comforting words in scripture are where God is called the protector of widows and orphans, the defender of the defenseless. But she was defenseless! It's not as if she was defenseless and godless, she called specifically on God to protect her. There was no one else who could protect her, only God could protect her. But instead she was raped, taped up and shot.

I guess Jesus called out to God as He died, and asked why he was forsaken, and we can't say if he got an answer on the cross. But even so, He didn't beg God for protection - He chose to lay down his life. What about those who are terrified? Who beg God for protection? Who have no choice?

I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that I will be very, very careful saying to anyone "God will protect you" or telling them to claim psalm 91. Whatever those scriptures mean, It's obvious they don't mean that if you beg God to protect you, you won't get dragged out of your house away from your husband and kids to be raped and shot.

I Know God is there. I know He's real and that when it suits Him, He does protect those who beg. But I don't understand when He doesn't.

I am not righteous like Job, If God can rebuke Job he can certainly put me in the wrong. And what happened to Amber has not happened to me. I am just a man, and a sinful one. If something like what happened to her happened to me, I would not be able to call God to account for injustice. But the thing that sickens me is that a helpless and terrified woman can beg God to protect her, and be left to what horrors stalk the earth; while the majority of scripture seems to imply that this doesn't happen, that those who are afraid and call on the Lord are saved.

Maybe I'm wrong about Scripture. Maybe I've been reading it wrong. I'll search it to see - and I pray that God does put me in the wrong and show me that I'm a fool. It would be better.

If anybody's interested, Christianaudio.com is offering the audiobook MP3s for "Til We Have Faces" for about 11 bucks til the 31st of August, and "Green" the last of the circle (trilogy? it's #4) will be out in Sept. If you pre-order it now off Amazon or CBD, you get a lower price.

I was doing research on slaves and slavery in the early church, and while reading from the "Recognitions of Clement" an early church document from the 2nd century, I got sidetracked in a part where the author is refuting the then common concept, called "Genesis" (what stars you were born under) as a sort of fatalistic determining factor in your behavior & conduct.
The recognition struck me that there is a similar concept, the popular idea that something called not "genesis" but "genetics" determines your behavior, dragging your powerless will behind it inexorably into sins and perversion. I believe Clement's refutation stands for both beliefs, neither of which are supported by reason, science, or Scripture. After giving many examples of populations that have given up sinful customs and lifestyles upon the Gospel's introduction (as proof that people can change their behavior), he says:

"Since God is righteous, and since He Himself made the nature of men, how could it be that He should place genesis in opposition to us, which should compel us to sin, and then that He should punish us when we do sin? Whence it is certain that God punishes no sinner either in the present life or that to come, except because He knows that he could have conquered, but neglected victory."

Also reference 1 Cor 10:13.

Haiku Vs. Limerick.



My leaves drink the sun
veins bring life mixed with water
each fruit holds new seeds
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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.



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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.

Fun with Haikus

Good Shepherd hold me
I know your name and your voice
help me to follow.

I have been near deaf
But your voice has not left me
And neither have you

Always my rising
you shake off the death of night
I will wake in You.

Time rolls on with iron tracks
like a bulldozer without a sense of art
mangled pasts stuck between its plates
this is what I feel from time to time
but when my lids are closed
and my eyes are open
I know Time is my chariot of fire
and the calm hand of God.

I have worked out @ the gym. For the first time in a couple months. Ran about 3 miles and then did some leg presses-which almost pressed out my meager stomach contents.
It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

I really really want to go hiking the Hoh trail. If I can't get TJ to go with me I'll go by myself, there's a mountain (called "Mount Olympus") and the blue glacier at the end of the ten mile trail. (The picture above, from Google is a view from the glacier.)
I've been talking about climbing Reinier for about a year now, but after looking into it, It looks way too expensive and complicated to reach the summit.

Tomorrow we're going down to my Aunt's place to visit with the cousins. One of them is asking me to appraise her boyfriend. I pray that I'm equal to the task.

Oh, and I got a new toy!


Well, this is all rather random, and I'm going to go to sleep now.

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.

This is an Excerpt from a letter Written by Seraphim Rose (An eastern Orthodox Clergyman) to the Trappist monk Thomas Merton concerning Merton's call to "Christian Social Action/Social Justice". In the light of movements in the church at present, and after reading some of Merton's writings, I thought it was very illuminating and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
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Modern idealism, which is devoted to the realization of the idolatrous "Kingdom of Man," has long been making its influence felt in Christian circles; but only in quite recent years has this influence begun to bear real fruit within the womb of the Church itself. I think there can be no question but that we are witnessing the birth pangs of something that, to the true Christian, is indeed pregnant with frightful possibilities: a "new Christianity," a Christianity that claims to be "inward," but is entirely too concerned with outward result; a Christianity, even, that cannot really believe in "peace" and "brotherhood" unless it sees them generalized and universally applied, not in some seemingly remote "other world," but "here and now." This kind of Christianity says that "private virtue" is not enough—obviously relying on a Protestantized understanding of virtue, since everything the true Christian does is felt by all in the Mystical Body; nothing done in Christ is done for oneself alone—but not enough for what? The answer to that, I think, is clear: for the transformation of the world, the definitive "realization" of Christianity in the social and political order. And this is idolatry. The Kingdom is not of this world; to think or hope that Christianity can be outwardly "successful" in the world is a denial of all that Christ and His prophets have said of the future of the Church. Christianity can be "successful" on one condition: that of renouncing (or conveniently forgetting) the true Kingdom and seeking to build up a Kingdom in the world. The "Earthly Kingdom" is precisely the goal of the modern mentality; the building of it is the meaning of the modern age. It is not Christian; as Christians, we know whose Kingdom it is. And what so greatly troubles me is that today Christians—Catholic and Orthodox alike—are themselves joining, often quite unaware of the fact, often with the best possible intentions, in the building of this new Babel....

When I had reached the end of my tether, when my wisdom had run out to the end, when my willpower was revealed as ultimately powerless, when my physical strength was laying dead in the water and without direction, when emotions had lit off all their firecrackers and lay numb and senseless
Then there was Jesus Christ, Crucified, Jesus Christ, with the nails in his hands and feet. Jesus Christ, who bled and died for me, and all my pride was gone, naked I stood-or did I sit? or was I laying? It didn't matter - becuase there was Jesus Christ, the Righteous for the unrighteous, and I knew here was everything I had despised up until then, and that which I had despised was now bleeding for me, and was washing me with that blood. And in the absence of my wisdom, in the death of my willpower, in the release of my physical life and in the irrelevance of my emotions was the One who loved me, the Truth and True Life. And what was not my own he made to dwell in me. It was Himself.

God let me never forget this.

I've heard it said that every man loves three women
one's long dead, one's not yet born,
and one lives in his dreams -
I've also heard the grass is greener
in the only place I haven't been
while all the wonders I want most
I do not know and cannot win
and you know, I've never breathed before
that tune in the key of irrational numbers
to the rhythm of waves on a distant shore
the song to wake me from this slumber
So would you meet me in the sunset
standing on the greenest grass
your three faces own me wholly
my dreams from forward and the past
speak out from the edges
from the doorway to my home
and I know I've never been there
but this time I'm not alone
I belong just over the nearest hill
on the edge of bigger worlds
where the sky's my eternal windowsill
and all I was scared to hope for pours
where we'll step out into morning
and shake off all our dreams
to see them blossom into summer
those seeds that lay so long unseen.

Today I got some books, and a rug. Two books by G.K. Chesterton, and "The Veritas Conflict" and some book by Thomas Merton about "the East". I was on assignment to pick up a rug we'd found on Craigslist for our new apartment (which we haven't moved into yet) we need something to go under the dining table since the new apt. has a carpeted dining room.
And a used bookstore was near to the house where I picked up the carpet, so I had to stop in.

Working on a new tattoo design for Luke, my bro-in-law, it's good to be drawing again, esp. after admiring the artwork in "Fables" by James Jean, and talking to Dan from church who's a graphic designer/artist.

Speaking of tattoos, I've been getting a lot of questions on my tattoo, people wanting to know what it says, It's nice being able to say "Jesus Christ in Lord" in response to a question.

Yesterday we were @ some friends' house and one of them asked me "What has the Lord been teaching you" which is a nice question to get, but hard to answer sometimes. I haven't really been in tragedy mode for so long, we're so used to what many would call hardships that I don't really give them all that much thought, so It's hard to have to struggle with the Lord when you give in right away to Him, and if you do, then it doesn't seem as looming in your consciousness, at least not enough to pop to the surface when someone asks "What's the Lord teaching you." The one thing that did come to mind was that one of the kids (I think, I didn't see so I don't know for sure) stomped my Kindle and messed up the screen, so I got upset initally, and left the house for work without saying goodbye to the kids. I was waiting to get really angry, but I just didn't - so about halfway to work I realized that the only way I'd get angry about it was if I really wanted to be, and realized the Lord was giving me a way out, so I took it and stopped thinking about it. Then when I got to work I called Brandy and she told me she'd been praying for me not to be angry - so I have the Lord and my wife to thank. Then the next day I called Amazon and they're sending me another Kindle free, no questions asked. So thanks to the Lord, and to Brandy, and to Amazon. They (Amazon) may be evil, but at least they're nice.

So that, and the fact Paul/Holy Spirit brings out in Thessalonians chap 3 about the need for "establishing and encouraging" all round between believers.

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.

Last night I told 70+ college students to stop screaming and running in circles in the middle of campus at 12:30AM and go to bed. Then I Trespassed the nicest 300lb homeless guy I've ever met, who told me the name of his favorite imported soft drink and the circumference of Korea (neither of which I remember)

When I see trees and the sky it's easier for me to sing praise songs. Usually. Most of us christians acknowledge that It's a gift from God when we get to witness, taste, feel, experience something beautiful in creation. But it seems to me the way I've usually heard it growing up it's as if God happened to find something out there in the universe and thought you might like it, so he brought it - like a kid bringing flowers. The shortcoming with that take on the nature of God's "giving all good things for us to enjoy" is that it makes the gift totally separate from the giver, as if it's something totally other than Him that he wants you to enjoy. I think there's an element of that sort of giving in it, but it's more - you see, anything that IS enjoyable, that IS beautiful or pleasurable isn't just something God found, it's something he MADE! So whatever qualities we find pleasurable, beautiful, desireable in whatever goodness of creation we experience...those qualities come from the one who made that good thing, whatever it is, and in Him those qualities have a Fountainhead. That's why when I enjoy looking at the sky through the trees while singing praise, I'm conscious that all that I enjoy about the trees is part of the nature of the God I am singing to - that he gives a little bit of His own goodness through his creation and that's WHY I enjoy creation, because it's infused with the scent of the Goodness of my God.

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.

A Day in the Life of Me.

Today, I counted to 1,000 for Josiah. Well, now that I think of it, it was 1,020. I can't remember why we got on the subject, but he asked me how you counted to 1,000, and I told him it's like counting to 100 ten times. Then he asked me to show him. I started, expecting him to get bored at about two hundred, but no - he sat there watching me, sucking his thumb on and off, for the whole ten minutes or however long it took. Then I counted to 20, to make sure he knew that 1000 wasn't as high as I could count. Which doesn't really make sense, but it made him happy. For most of the time Jaelle was annoyed because the sound of me counting was interfering with her watching the "Planet Earth" DVD. But it ended when I hit about 700 so she went into the bedroom to look at books. (She can't read yet, but she'll just sit and look at books)
After counting to 1,020, Josiah wanted to gunfight. So we did, with these Nerf guns we got him for his birthday. He's a really good shot, he shot me just as much as I shot him - I guess I'm a larger target, but still, that's pretty good. But that's also what he spends most of his time doing, shooting. He got to be a really good shot with his little toy bow too.
Then Brandy came home, and after stuffing the kids with sandwiches and me watching a few gunfighting scenes from westerns or john woo movies with Josiah at his request. The last one was from a movie I've never seen in Chinese with Chow Yun Fat, and I got really into it but then it cut out at the crucial moment. Then the kids took a nap after getting me to pray for them, and Brandy and I sat down to watch the third disk of "Lost" with some cheesy bean dip, chips, and a couple glasses of wine, but not before Brandy sent off the application for the apartment in Queen Ann that we're going for. Then I took my one and a half hour nap, & Brandy was able to snuggle with me for the first five minutes which was nice. Then I woke up to go to work, listening to "Enter the Worship Circle" #2 and thinking again that I should really start picking up the guitar again. And also thinking and praying that I really want to feel what I'm singing and wondering why I don't always and in what areas my relationship to Jesus Christ and the Father is deficient - and wondering about the nature of faith and how C.S. Lewis said that what pleases God most is when a man feels utterly abandoned by God but keeps on believing and obeying, and how O. Chambers says (over and over again) that we aren't meant to live in the "mountaintop experience" but to live in the light of it in the valley, where we spend most of our time. Then I thought about that song I love by Derek Webb "Wedding Dress", and thought about the most recent music by him, how he's become a little too cool for me, all anti-war pro-gay and S-word saying. Then I wondered about Martin Luther and the lawfulness of saying such words, and Then I thought about that mini-sermon "Others May, You Cannot" thing and about my conversation with Nate Musson the other day.
And now, I'm at dispatch refreshing my memorization of Titus amidst incoming calls and manning the reception desk.

Brandy, my wonderful wife, is going to start blogging soon. Maybe. You can click on the link titled "The Ivy Tree" on the left to take you there.

Blessing and cursing

I was pressed and the vinegar came
and here I thought I was full of wine
and It was just a gentle pressure, too.
bitter, burning through the wound
It should have been wine.
When did I neglect this infection?
must have hoped it would go away
but today It was betrayed
when the words in my mouth
turned to brine
long before I turned the handle
to stop the flow
and for all I know
there's still pressure in there, somewhere
Vinedresser, undress my soul
and cut away that rotting growth
-no sweet fruit can come, I know,
Until only fresh water and wine
for and of my brothers flows.

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.

Water and the Blood

So I was reading in 1 John and came across the part in chap. 5 where he says "This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree." This part has always been one of those passages I read over and am impressed by, but don't really understand. And as I thought about it it reminded me of another passage - you know that part in John's account of the crucifixion, how he says that when Jesus' side was pierced with the spear, "water and blood poured out"? John seems to think it's a big deal, and I never quite understood why. I mean, blood and water are big symbols in Scripture, but still I wasn't sure why John seemed to think that it was so important that he would say "And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe..." He says it was to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus' bones wouldn't be broken, and that "they will look on Him whom they pierced" But it seemed to me that it was significant beyond this. So today I looked into it and I found something that was very interesting. I was thinking how Jesus' side was pierced, and that got me thinking, there's something else about a side that's very important, isn't there?... yes! Adam! To make sure, I checked the greek word for "Side" in John 19, which is "pleuron" and then checked the septuagint for Genesis 2 to make sure that it doesn't use some different greek work specifying a rib bone or something. But, although most translations read "rib" the word IS pleuron - the same as in Jesus' case at the crucifixion! When God was going to make Adam a companion suitable to him, what did he do? He took Eve, Adam's bride, out of his side, so that Adam could say in complete truth that "This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone." It was almost as if Adam in a sense gave birth to his wife, out of His side, through an act of God. In the same way, Jesus' side was "opened up" and let flow that which made the birth of his Bride (the Church, you and I) possible. Jesus, in the giving of His blood for a new covenant and for forgiveness for us who would become His church, and the washing with water through the word to make us blameless for himself:
"This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."

In meaning this is also connected to the sacraments of Baptism and The Lord's Supper, both of which are the only things of a symbolic nature he told those who would follow Him to do. Symbolic of us sharing in Jesus' death and resurrection, and of taking in His life "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in Me, and I in Him"..."Having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead."

It's also interesting to me that the early church fathers indicate that the significance of the water and blood coming from Jesus' side was indicative of "two baptisms" among other things. And they drank the Wine of the Lord's supper mixed with water.

So just as God through the living tissue from Adam's side produced a bride, So the new Adam, Jesus, gave out His own life to begin a new creation - and purchase a people for Himself, who would be zealous for good works. He gave birth to the church out of his side, a Bride that will be a fit companion for Him, just as woman is the glory of Man, so we will be the Glory of our Heavenly Bridegroom - "When He appears, we will be like Him, for we will see him as He is"

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.

time not tasted - is it wasted?
what if we're not meant to feel
each moment like a pouring rain?
what if seconds have meaning
even while I sleep
And when you present Me to me,
in person like yourself
will I be surprised
that I was fed
by minutes never felt?

Well, now the van has been resurrected, It had died on the way to church, but after last Saturday when it started up, I drove it home and changed the fuel filter, and it's still running! Thank God. Also I used some mix-weld compound to fix the muffler, so now it doesn't sound like a 4-wheeler Harley Davidson anymore.

I'm listening to a couple of MP3's of "Kallistos Ware" An eastern orthodox bishop who's a big voice for the "orthodox" church. I'm listening out of interest because I've known a lot of fellow evangelicals who've gone orthodox, and remember my dad almost did for a while.

Also finished "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco, it was interesting but sad. Made me excited to look into Byzantine History more.

May 16th I'm gonna go sign up for classes @ SPU, that's also Josiah's birthday, so I hope to get it done and get out of there quick and easy.

We found out that apparently our lease is a year and 28 days, not just a year as we'd thought, so we have to wait to move for another month or so now. I was looking forward to moving sooner, but Rom 8:28 is still in full effect, so I trust it's for good reason.
I've finished memorizing Titus chapters 1&2 as part of the "Men In Turn" group @ Calvary Chapel South. This is the first time I've memorized two consecutive chapters of Scripture, (not the first time I've tried) and I was really happily surprised how easy it was! I guess in part it's because it's an assignment that I've been given, and there's an expectation of an authority (A Pastor) that I'll have a certain amount memorized every two weeks. It's sad that my own desire isn't enough to get me to memorize this quickly, that I need accountability to get it done, but it seems like it's like that with everything. For the past month or so, I've been working out and running with a friend from work every Monday and Tuesday morning - which I very likely wouldn't be doing if I didn't have someone who expected me to be there. I guess that accountability is like a means by which, If we're really serious about any sort of discipline, we'll reinforce our decisions. I remember when I first truly was saved, God impressed on me that I couldn't just lay around and expect God to sanctify me on the sly, If I wanted my eyes to be right, I had to get rid of my Maxim magazines, if I wanted to break out of my introspection and love people, I had to force myself to talk to people. If I was going to testify to Jesus Christ, I had to set myself up, by doing things like scripturally themed art pieces for school assignments to have a chance to explain them.

Well, I'm at work, and my break's up, and I guess that's all the thinking time I have.

Drinking tea with lemon, and gauging whether or not I feel good enough to run this morning, or if this mini-cold will cripple my monday morning exercise routine yet again. So far, so good, I think the tea is helping.
Just read an essay my little brother wrote on perception, it's really good. I'm surprised, he never really wrote anything before - at least anything I remember enjoying. But this essay was very clear (clearer, at least, than my writing) and reminded me of Kierkegaard's essay "The Crowd is Untruth" which I recommend (not on authority though, because that would defeat the purpose).
Our van is in questionable health too, it stalled out on us on the way to church, but our brothers & sisters in Christ rolled up their sleeves and pushed us to the church parking lot after service, gave us a ride home, and helped me look at it this past Saturday. But by then it was too late, since on Saturday it started up just fine and tried to act as if nothing happened, but it's not fooling me. I know it's biding its time til I'm tooling down I5 in rush hour traffic, and then *putter putter wheeze croak*-it'll give up the ghost. So I'm not going to even try and drive it til my weekend, which starts tomorrow morning.
But I replaced the fuel filter all by myself, to feel manly.

I am now 28, and I have just finished Atlas Shrugged.

The following is fiction to illustrate a true principle:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I stretched out on the thin ledge, gripping what chunks of rock I could to hold on in the rising wind. My friend with me grinned idiotically into the distance as I looked over the edge and winced - a sheer drop of about a quarter mile, and jagged basalt at the bottom.
Hey, don't worry, we've got rope! he chuckled with good humor, and proceeded to unwind a forty foot length of 10mm climbing rope and looked up with an ecstatic grin at the cliff edge some thirty feet above us.
"What are you going to do with that?" I asked. "Oh, he said, it's rope, you know. As long as you've got rope you're all right." He started flailing one end of it upwards, and after about five tries he got one end of it to lay at the top, maybe it was sunk in the snow up there, I had no way of knowing, I was just impressed he'd gotten one end of it to stay up there.
"Great", I said, "now what?"
"Well, as long as we've got rope we're unstoppable!" he said. "I'm going up!"
and with that, before I could process what was happening or stop him, he leaped up holding the rope with a shout of "Rope will carry me through this!" the end of the rope at the top flipped back off and went sailing down at terminal velocity with my friend to the meat-grinding plateau below us. I grabbed uselessly at the rope as it passed but it was about four feet out from the ledge as it fell. I almost fell myself in the process, yelled something I probably shouldn't have and scrabbled at the rock with my bleeding fingertips until I got what I was sure was a firm grip. The last I saw of my friend in one piece was his confused face plummeting down, I could read his lips:"but..I had rope!"
Hours later, still clinging like a limpet to the ledge, I heard some shuffling from up over my head, and when I looked at the cliff summit, I saw through the misty air a face peering down at me, It looked friendly from what little I could see of it, it was starting to get dark.
"What are you doing down there?" - so I wasn't hallucinating, I thought. "I'm trying not to fall!" I said.
"So I see. would you like to get up here? There's far less chance of falling then."
"Yes! Of course I would - please help me!"
Okay", he said, and threw down a length of rope. With a sense of relief I saw it dangle in front of me and I grabbed on, then remembered my friend, now dead. "Wait! I said, my friend threw some rope up there and it didn't work, he fell!"
"Well, the man said, what did he have it tied on to up here?"
"Tied?" I asked, "Nothing I guess...He just threw it up there!"
"What?!?" He almost shouted. "That poor fool! Didn't he know a rope's only as good as what's on the other end? And he had NOTHING on the other end??? Where did he expect it to take him?"
"He's dead now", I said angrily.
"Well, nothing else could have been the result with that method", he said sadly. "But this rope here's tied to a stone that's part of this mountain, it's not going anywhere, and I'll pull you up as soon as you tie yourself on!"
Well, I thought, that's all well and good, but I can't see that stone, how am I supposed to know that it's there? Just take your word on it?
I said as much, and He raised his eyebrows, knelt down and took hold of the rope, and with a swift jump and twist he rappelled down to where I was, smiled at me, and climbed hand over hand as fast as a spider back to the top.
"Now, are you ready?" He gave the rope a shake from the top and the end wiggled in my face.
"All right", I said, "I am"! And tied myself on.
In another fifteen seconds I was at the top, safe, and headed in his truck to the town he had built at the summit.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

All this to say:
1. Hope - it's not supposed to be a buzzword, no word is. It's supposed to mean something. Just like rope isn't a standalone, a word is not meant to be just a cheerleading noise.

2. Hope, in order to have a meaning, must be directed towards something, just as rope has to be tied to something to be of use.

3. Hope, like the rope, is only as good as what it's attached to on the other end.
Hope in hope will not save anyone from anything except maybe the capability of dealing with reality until it's too late. You need to know what you expect from hope, and what reason you have to expect it.

What do I hope for?
I hope to be fully redeemed from all that's wrong in this world and in me, including the very likely possibility that I will physically die.
I fully expect to be raised physically from the dead to a new kind of indestructible, pure, joyful and everlasting life, and to receive a reward for the things I did in my current body, whether good or bad. I expect this to happen when Jesus Christ returns to renew and rule the earth.

What is my hope attatched to? Jesus Christ and his Word.
Why do I think that it is not just "rope tossed into the air"? -Because Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead about 1,973 years ago, and in Him and through his physical resurrection God proved that my hope is firmly attached to a solid anchor, to a fully attainable goal. Just like in the story the man who threw down the rope climbed down to prove that it would hold, So God in history raised Jesus Christ from the dead so we could examine and see for ourselves through the evidence that history provides that His word is like a steel cable, it will hold.
And a hope like that is worth hanging on to.

I have been reading Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" after finishing "The Brother's Karamazov". Between those and spending depressing amounts of time uploading other literature onto my kindle, I have realized that I have hardly read the word of God at ALL!!!
God help me, no wonder I feel so fragile. It's no wonder that the spirit is the center of a man, and a weak spirit is as incapable of holding up a body as a weak spine. I've had more fears and anxieties to fight in the last couple weeks that I have in a long time, or at least it's the first time in a while I've been prey on their radar.
:::
Just got back from church, all better.

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.

So, it looks as if I am going to school after all. I got a financial aid letter the other night saying that I'm getting enough grants and awards to cover almost all of my tuition. I wasn't expecting it, to tell the truth.
So, what this means is that Brandy & I (Lord willing) will be moving up closer to seattle, in the Magnolia/Queen Anne area.

Most of all though I want us to do God's will, I know he didn't have us come all the way out here just so I could go to school. My main prayer is that God will lead us where we need to go, and that he would help us to know when and where to start a bible study, and which church to get involved with up there.

The church here has kind of started to hold us at arms length, at least that's how I feel. The guy in charge of the youth ministry called me last week and said that due to pastor's orders he's taking over Relate again, since he's the Youth leader and all - apparently he'd never cleared handing Relate off to me with the pastor, and once the pastor found out he told Joe that shouldn't be happening. It's just as well since Joe's been taking most of the Relate sessions anyway, the ones that weren't vetoed by special speakers etc...
The pastor here was really encouraging me to start "Men in Turn" -his version of pastoral training, after some coaxing I agreed, and then after putting in all the paperwork I've been chasing him around the past month trying to set up an appointment to meet with him about it, since he said we have to meet first to start the training. I finally got a date from him, and it's going to be another week or so till we can meet to start this thing I filled the paperwork out for last month.
It almost feels like an old school CC St. Paul "Test".
He also kept dropping very strong hints that he wants me to stay here and not move, and become part of the ministry here in CC South, but I encouraged no illusions of that happening, and I think they've finally taken me seriously and are withdrawing...

But, this could all be me being pessimistic. I have a tendency to do that; for instance: if something of mine is missing for a couple days, I assume that it's been stolen and get upset at the hypothetical thief, only to find the "stolen" possession behind the couch or in my closet or wherever I left it last. Why do I think the worst of people?

I finally broke down and shelled out the money to get the (ridiculously expensive) Logos for Mac bible engine, so that I can open up my Oswald Chambers and Francis Schaeffer CD's and hopefully load them on the Kindle.
All this reading... Reading through Brother's Karamazov again, but I just read a quote of John Wesley that struck me:

Beware that you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
- John Wesley


Sigh.

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!

All that's called gold does not glitter.

I was talking to a good friend a week or two ago who espouses a blend of Buddhism and Agnosticism, which since Buddha himself was something of an agnostic, is almost a natural blend.) -Actually, I think he and I ended up talking about the same thing a couple of months ago when we last went out for coffee.
Anyway, we got on the subject of the "Golden Rule" as it's stated by Buddhism and Christianity. He was saying the virtue of the Buddhist formulation is that it's in the negative, (don't do to others what you would not want done to you) so it keeps you from getting into other people's business.) I can't really remember what I said in response, but I was thinking about it tonight on the drive into work, and I've decided that the version spoken by Jesus Christ is the purest form. I think this because the Buddhist version asks us not to do, whereas do unto others as you would have them do unto you makes plain a fact of human existence:

It's impossible to "not" do.

As human beings, all of our actions (and apparent inactions) require a dictate of the will, even in not doing we have made a choice, and to choose is to do. As human beings, even if we're paraplegic (as long as we're conscious) can't stop willing, can't stop doing. And Jesus' words give a more basic and true to fact exhortation than any negative version can.

I think what got me thinking about it is that I'm reading through Aldous Huxley's "Island" which is a utopian novel showcasing the same themes as his other novel "Brave New World" (therapeutic drugs, therapeutic sex, organizing society) but this time with a walloping dollop of mahayana Buddhism thrown in to make the mix glow. It's about an island where everything is happy and everyone's well adjusted due to population control, buddhist philosophy, tantra, open families and happy mushrooms. It's like the U.N. playbook, and a vision of the best the world has to offer. But he really pushes the Buddhist philosophy and really criticizes Christianity in the book, which is what got me thinking about the conversation I'd had with my friend again.

Now, to practice!

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.

I am very thankfully excited that I'm getting (Lord willing, barring disaster or more faulty customer service) a Kindle 2 and the Hebrew Rosetta Stone software. And I should actually be able to use it since Brandy will have her own computer. By the grace of God I'll be speaking the language of the patriarchs in no time, while reading the complete works of George Mac-D, G.K. Chesterton, Thomas Aquinas, and others for pennies! Thank you socialist tax return!

This will rock.

I had to explain to Josiah the other day what a transvestite is.

We were taking a family outing to the mall, and as Josiah and I were walking apart for a bit, I stopped for some reason or other and knelt down, as I did a transvestite came walking past, and I saw josiah do a double take, and stretch his neck out like he does when he's trying to get a better look at something unusual. The poor misguided thing walked past, and josiah watched it go with his little eyebrows scrunched up. Then he patted me on the back and said, "Dad, dad - that guy was wearing girl clothes!" So I said yes, he was, and explained that a small percentage of the population is messed up in the head, and because they don't know Jesus, and they don't know God, they don't know up from down either and want to be girls and want guys to like them so they dress like girls 'cause they think that will help. Josiah shook his head, with a half smirk and raised eyebrows, and laughed again at the silliness of the idea, and said - "ha!, a guy! wearing girl clothes! that's just wierd." Then he asked why the guy didn't believe in Jesus and I told him I wasn't sure, but that there are a lot of weird things like that in this world because lots of people don't know Jesus. Then we re-joined Brandy & the other two kids and headed for the gumball machine.

The Horrors of Customer Service

And the Wonders of Forgiveness.



I don't Know what else our apartment management and Fedex could have in common, but their customer service is one at least.

For the past three weeks ago people have been helping themselves to our parking spot, and we've (for the most part) not been able to catch the people going in or out of their vehicles. So it's been a tossup whether or not we're parking in the "visitor" spot every time we pull in. Half the time it happens when I'm away @ work, and the interlopers stick around until morning. We decided that most of the traffic came from the drug dealers a couple apartments over.

And Fedex was supposed to have delivered Brandy's new Macbook two days ago, but the pkg tracking has for the past two days read "Delivery attempted, residents not home or business closed" which is bogus since we've been doing little else but sitting home looking out the window for the FedEx truck, which never came. So after about five or six calls to their cust. svc line, with five or six different stories and excuses (none of which agreed with each other or made any sense) And three calls to Apple, I discovered that the contract Apple has with Fedex for deliveries dictates they're not allowed to talk to each other (what the heck?!?). So they can't help us. After another couple of calls to Apple I got a guy who gave us a 50.00 credit - nice of him- saying that I could go down to the FedEx hub and pick the pkg up, (which by the way, FedEx was adamant that we couldn't do) So I drove down there anyway in desperation to find a real live person to talk to. I did, a woman @ the actual FedEx office across the st. from the FedEx "home delivery" office (apparently they're private local contractors who work for FedEx but aren't really Fedex employees) who told me to call them again and have them hold the pkg tomorrow and she would go with me down to their office to straighten it out. Then I stopped a Fedex home deliver courier I saw parked in a lot and asked her if she had my computer, (she didn't) and she gave me some useful info that cleared up some of the babble we got over the phone. I've concluded that to people on the phone, the voice on the other end is just that - a voice, some kind of annoying noise that you've got to get off the phone as quick as possible by whatever means necessary. Talking to people in person is so much nicer. And so are the people.
So tomorrow I'm supposed to go down there and pick it up.
Also, I've nearly given myself an ulcer getting angry and frustrated over all this, even after Brandy & I had a talk about forgiveness and when someone has you carry something for them one mile going the extra, how Jesus told us to deal with ppl who step on our "rights", but I forgot in just a day, and went back to working on my ulcer, but today I was reading through James 4 which I was assigned to teach out of for Youth ministry, and the first part about why we get angry - because we want something and don't get it... Yeah. So I got better and prayed with Brandy, who I'd influenced over the past couple days to the point where she was upset and ulcery too, and we read through our Psalms & Proverbs for the day until it all got washed away in the great Antacid of Faith in a faithful God.

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.

I should honestly post more often because whenever I DO sit down to type I can't think of where to begin and what should be left out to make it readable...

The pastor's conference in the beginning of Feb was phenomenal. Not only did they have free espresso drinks and gluttony-provoking food catered in-house, the spiritual food and caffeine was fit to match it. We'd gone hoping mainly for some time together away from the kids (I had been disappointed by a "Men's Rally" sort of conference I'd gone to some weeks before and had very low expectations for the teaching portion) but the sessions were very worthwhile. The drive out was beautiful, I had Brandy read me "The Fellowship of the Ring" for as long as she could (which wasn't very long) but that was just about fine because the scenery through the mountains demanded too much attention to listen anyway. I saw Venus about a hundred feet up in the air, it looked like if I'd climbed to the summit of a nearby mountain I could've touched it. We got to stop at a perkins for breakfast with Jeremiah & Nicole (I haven't had a perkins breakfast in forever, and very few things are as fun as road trip caravan breakfast breaks).
When we were actually at the conference we had some good conversing time with pastor (my father in law) Don, Pastor Seth, & Pastor Chik - who screamed and performed his usual theatre at the catering table enough to make four hundred people stop and stare, until it felt like Appleton.
The conference began with communion and a request that we pray for one another concerning whatever was on our hearts, I asked some nearby brethren to pray for me about our future (to go to school or not, to move closer to Seattle or not, to start a bible study or not) and to keep me from pride (concerning the guys in youth group, who seem to consider me some sort of genius) - yes, I know it's lame to even have to fight pride over the compliments of 18 year olds, but everyone has their weakness, and mine (one of them) is being complimented. And that's exactly why I was begging for prayer. One of the guys all but accused me of repressing my wife who he was sure was just waiting for a chance to cut me down to size, he was sure of this because that's what his wife does. At first I bristled a little, but I figured I'd let him assume whatever he wanted to assume so long as he prayed for me, and if there was anything in need of remedying, God would remedy it. So they prayed for me and I prayed for them, after which I told Brandy about the conversation and asked her if she felt oppressed and if there was anything she would like to say to bring me back to the cold reality of my insufficiency as a human being, and she proceeded to tell me how gifted she thinks I am, which I told her didn't help my pride at all, but did make her seem a lot hotter even than usual.
Then the second speaker covered the subject of pride thoroughly enough to disembowel my self-esteem through my tear ducts, which I take to always be an act of God, and the one two later spoke about the future. Then at the lunch session on the second day P. Chik called me aside to exhort me to get to what we came out here for and start a church before I got old and fogeyey. I also took this to be the voice of God.

So Brandy & I have been praying about the where and how. Last week we went on a drive through the Magnolia district as it is close to the university and has no CC's within a fair radius. It was gorgeous. I declared a major today in the admissions dept, and picked up the requirement sheet for the "Classics" major. I also reveived the news from Fin. Aid that they won't really have anything to say to me re: my Fafsa until about April - which surprised me since they sent me an email a week ago telling me I needed to submit my FAFSA post haste since the time was fast approaching. Maybe they thought I was applying for spring semester.

Took Brandy out Arching with her longbow, it was a comical experience all round and worthwhile, but I've got to find a closer place for us to shoot at. Puyallup is kind of out of the way. Enoch was miserable the entire time at being in his stroller and not being allowed to wander in the line of fire, and he did his best to make sure everyone else was miserable too.
Brandy got better by the time we wrapped up for the day, she also got a lot of bruising on her left forearm from the string drag. We need to get her some sort of arm guard thingie.

My old best friend from High School Ian McDonald the agnostic lawyer finally emailed me back. I thought he was done with me and due to the influence of Seattle's atmosphere didn't want to talk to his fundamentalist friend Judah anymore, but apparently I was mistaken, he's been in self-imposed exile studying for the Bar for the second time. He suggested we go out for coffee or a run, I suggested we go with the coffee, and he also wanted to have dinner sometime & meet my kids. I was just praying for him a couple days ago for the first time in some months, so I don't think it's coincidence that he contacted me when he did. I'm really looking forward to seeing him again.

After sending out a stock email about my book of poetry I self-published via "Blurb.com" I received two email responses of "Congratulations" which was exremely embarrassing, I think they thought it was actually published by a publishing house of some kind. It made me feel like that time in Jerusalem when a rabbi was being effusively welcoming and friendly to me until he figured out I was not a Jewish youth contemplating making aliah - at which point he shuddered at the thought of having spoken to a goy such as I and sped away.
But another person is paying me to autograph and send a copy to them, to that almost makes up for it.

Donovan invited me to come visit him in Bellingham across the water, so with Brandy's leave I took the ferry there (which was glorious - I got some good reading done between scenery too!) when I arrived I quickly realised that it was a setup. Donovan had invited me there in order to sell me on the idea of becoming part of CC Bellingham and helping with the school of ministry out there and/or pastoring the church up in port Angeles (across from Victoria). I thanked him fo the tour of their gorgeous facilities (a renovated old-school theatre) and for the Teryaki spicy chicken that made me appear to have an emotional breakdown, and told him that I would pray with him and be open to any voice of the Lord moving us in that direction, but let him know that the direction we're currently being moved is the Magnolia district & school @ SPU (Lord willing). He was disappointed, and I was full of Teryaki and good humor. Although seriously, I am open to the possibility - but very much doubt it is the Lord's will for us at this time.

And all of this has become ridiculously long, so I will stop it here.