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.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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.