Talked to a depressed friend yesterday, and asked him where he thought individual human worth came from. He said

"Do you want to know the "right" answer?"

Me: "I want to hear what you think the right answer is, but I want to hear your answer."

Friend: "Well, the "right" answer, 'Jesus died for our sins & we're redeemed' - but me? I have no idea."

This followed with a little more conversation in which I mentioned that I think scripture says our worth is based on us being created in God's image-not necessarily the redemption.

I also shared that when I was in a similar spiral I prayed for God to help me to feel what I knew. I also probably kept him longer than was good for either of us.

All during that conversation, I was trying to remember when I felt the same way.

Once I did. It's been such a long time though, I don't feel that way any longer and haven't for quite a while. I don't want to forget though.

It's one thing to repeat the "right" answers, or to correct someone's "right" answers, but until you've gotten inside someone's anguish and tried to really understand the problem, I've found that people (others have done this to me and I've done it-God forgive me-to others) tend to shoot over the heads of the people they're trying to help, and after blowing the smoke from their barrels with a satisfied smile, they get irritated that their patient can't see that their problem has been neatly solved. Maybe they'll reload and try again. Maybe they'll blame the patient's obstinacy. Maybe they'll blame the patient for something else.

But maybe, just maybe, there is a God in heaven,

A God who hears prayer and does, really does, something about these things.

I have a regimen of praying - or trying to pray.

Oh God, help me to stop just talking to the ceiling & beg you with something like reality for the things only you can do.

Got to teach at Ruslan's Ukranian/Russian youth service again. They call the church "Skinnia" church, which sounded funny to me so I looked it up. Apparently it means "tent", like a stretched skin tent. Neat name if you think about it, it has a very "Sojourner and traveler in this world" feeling to it.

This time I taught from Hebrews 11:1 on Faith. That verse reads as follows:

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

I confess that this verse has historically been one of those "Abide in the Vine" kind of verses for me. By that I mean one of those passages of scripture that have striking language but obscure metaphors, and which tend to be recited to a far greater degree than they are understood. And then when some people take it upon themselves to crack the nut they reveal more nuttiness than truth. One of my disturbing associations with this verse was a conversation I had with an individual who'd just read through Hebrews, and in the course of an overlong conversation fixed me with what was meant to be a profound and mystical gaze and proclaimed: "You know what faith is? Faith....is a substance!" (from the context of the conversation I believe he meant that it's a substance in the same sense as mayonnaise, but on a grander scale)

Teaching is a high pressure thing. It's not like normal public speaking where as long as you've amused people you feel that it wasn't a complete failure. Teaching God's word to people is like operating the big red nuke button when the world's watching you - you feel very motivated to NOT screw up, to make sure you're handling it rightly.

So my discomfort with this verse had to go. I did my word studies and true to my training read through the scripture itself over and over again trying to understand the wording. When I was done, I remembered what I'd read in a book that said you should be able to distill your message into a sentence. So what I distilled was as follows:

"Faith is the perceptive faculty of the heart as sight is to the eye, activated by the Word of Christ, by which we perceive invisible realities, either past, future, or unseen."

I was surprised that it came out so clearly, and thankful. I know it's not nearly all that the verse means or what can be gotten out of it, but as far as the question of a "definition" of Scriptural faith I was happy with it. But just to make sure I wasn't radically misinterpreting the verse, I looked at what some other guys had to say. Tozer said it's misleading to try and use the verse as a definition, but he ended up describing it as something akin to what I'd written. Then I checked out Andrew Murray's commentary on Hebrews, which is titled "The Holiest of All". He said, in reference to Hebrews 11:1

"Faith is the spiritual faculty of the soul which deals with the spiritual realities of the future and the unseen. Just as we have our senses, through which we hold communication with the physical universe, so faith is the spiritual sense or organ through which the soul comes into contact with and is affected by the spiritual world."

So, I think I like how Andrew Murray worded it a little bit better, but I was excited when I read it to have evidence in the similarities that "No prophecy is of any private interpretation", and that God speaks the same word to His people even if they're separated by time and space.

After the service, Ruslan invited me to his house for tea. It was about 10:30 pm, but I didn't have to be anywhere the next morning so I took him up on it. He explained to me that about 12 people (all family) live in their house. As we went in only two sisters and one brother were awake and present, and they already had the hot water on and more goodies than I could eat in a week on the table. I was surprised as they got the tea things out and set everything else up, and asked if they do this often. Ruslan's sister explained that as they rarely see one another since they all work or go to school, they do this as a time to get together. They all watched me curiously as I poured milk in my tea and asked me how that tasted. (Apparently Ukranians don't put milk in tea). Ruslan tried it and pronounced a favorable verdict. So we all sat around and chatted til about 11:30, when Ruslan's parents came in and his mom insisted I eat a second dinner. So I proceeded to eat a big bowl of homemade borscht and explain that no, I am not Ukranian, I go to school with Ruslan, yes, I am a christian...etc... They were really neat and hospitable people, and told me next time I should bring my wife and kids. Then Ruslan showed me his book collection and told his little brother he'd have to wait til tomorrow for help with his biology, and I thanked them for the wonderful tea and left, since by that time it was after midnight.

We have the van back!

Its Babylonian captivity is over. I went to write a review of "Premier Transmission" and found quite a few scathing reviews from the past month or so written by other customers/victims. After having read some of the reviews I became much more certain that our situation wasn't a fluke, and felt a lot better about writing a "never go here" review.

Thankfully, TJ & Destiny (friends from work) have been kind enough to lend us their Toyota 4runner (nice car by the way) for the past two weeks, so we've at least been able to get around.

Still trying to get a home fellowship off the ground. The meeting time for HF 'leader training' is Sundays, (2 in a row) 12-4pm. If I were to go, I'd be going to work Sat. night at 9pm, getting off at 7:30am, going to church, staying til 4pm, and going back to work for another 10hr grave shift at 9pm Sun, and starting classes as soon as I got out of work at 7:30am Monday morning. Sooooooo, I don't think I'll be doing that. Lord willing it'll work out so I don't have to, I spoke to Pastor Jack down here at the Wallingford campus and he sympathized with my situation. If they end up not letting us do the HF for that reason, I figure I'll just start a bible study out of the house and start inviting ppl from school/work/apartment.

Pastor Wayne spoke out of Luke today, where Jesus says "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" and goes on to tell the parable about the rich man who wanted to build bigger barns. I felt convicted about that, as I've been developing a buyer's impulse with my student Amazon.com account. It gives me free two-day shipping, and that's been such an incentive that I've found myself searching Amazon for "needs" that qualify for the aforementioned free shipping.

So, instead of being given to Gospel for Asia or needy acquaintances to 'make friends that will welcome me into eternal dwellings', my filthy lucre's been poured out in sacrifice to the inflamed lust aroused by free shipping. Lord forgive me.

I almost went down to the front for prayer after service, but there was only one guy praying and a man who looked even needier than I was in the process of voicing his requests, so I went out and helped Brandy herd the monkeys instead.

You who answer desperate prayers, to you all flesh will come!
Even those desperate enough to play bible roulette,
and find that in order to "watch ourselves"
we must rebuke our brother who sins
and wait for a chance to forgive
on the grounds of repentance
and if not to that end
than at least, hopefully,
it was all a mistake.

If my vacation request goes through, we're headed to MN for a week or more in endofJulybeginningofAugust.

Ruslan, a friend of mine at SPU invited me to teach at his church this past Thursday. Ruslan's been a good friend during my time here, he's a younger guy I met in Biology class during my first quarter. He was the only one to support me when I questioned the idea of common descent we were being taught in class. Since then he's always sought me out at the collegium or wherever he happens to see me and we have some good conversation. He's a refreshingly excited believer and usually by the end of our conversation I end up praying silently for a portion of his zeal.

Anyway, over many conversations he found out that I believe I'm called to eventually be a pastor, and so he invited me to come teach at his youth group.

It was a youth service for Ukranians, (Ruslan, as you may have guessed from the name, is Ukranian too. I looked it up and found that it's actually of Turkish derivation, and is another way of saying "Aslan" - lion) mostly second generation kids from not just Ukraine, but Kyrgystan, Romania, and that night some from Germany. A good friend from SPU invited me, since it's his church and he's very active in it. When I arrived the Youth leader expressed surprise because he had thought that Ruslan (my friend) had invited a Ukranian. I hope I didn't put him out too much, and let him know that according to my Y-Chromosome, I share a male line descent mostly with Eastern Europeans. Got to use the extent of my Russian, (dobri diyn=good evening)and taught out of Philippians Chapter 2.
It went really well. I had many people praying for me during my preparation and during the sermon (primarily Brandy) and I felt really at home with the people I was sharing with. Most of them had thick accents but spoke English fluently.

The service was very interesting. If it weren't for every other song being sung in Russian, I could have been in an Assemblies of God church for much of the service. Even the songs in Russian were ones I recognized by the tunes (i.e. Lord I Lift Your Name on High).

The only part that got really confusing was whenever the person currently leading the service would say "Let us pray", they meant it literally. Everyone broke out in their own prayers, I heard russian, english, tongues, and sometimes the Leader praying over the microphone at the same time. I'm used to a person with a microphone saying "Let's Pray" and then they pray, while we wait for them to finish (hopefully assenting in our minds) and then we all say "Amen" when they do. I actually liked their Ukranian way better, but I entirely forgot about it when I got up to teach, and so when I said "look, I haven't done this in a while and I'm going to pray for God's blessing on it and help" I expected that I was going to pray and they would say "Amen". Not so. The room erupted with sympathetic tongues and for a moment I was so surprised I forgot to pray myself. I think by the end of the service I had the hang of it though.

I loved being around people from the other half of the world. Well, believing people. A bunch of the younger guys came up and introduced themselves to me after service, they were all very respectful, and during the service/worship even their goofing off wasn't bad (I caught conversations where they were lamenting the wasted intelligence of poorly behaved guys in their high school, etc..., where normally I'd expect conversation about girls or why so and so is so stupid and hated by all.) It was really a blessing and I'd love to go back. Some of the girls wore headscarves, like E. Orthodox women do.

Halfway through the message, my throat got so dry I was in danger of a coughing fit, and Michael the youth leader ran and got me a cup of water. May the Lord remember him on the last day! Despite what seemed to be initial disappointment at my non-Ukranianness, he was very graceful and friendly and we had some good edifying conversation before and after the service. (so much so before the service I began to worry that I wouldn't have a chance to visit the urinals - my teeth were swimming! But I think he saw it in my face because he told me where to find them when our conversation finished.)

They also prayed for the world at large during the service, things like the N/S Korean conflict. I was really impressed by that as well.

Michael said they'd like to have me there again, and said next time they'd feed me too. Now that's Christian love.

Then I went to my cousin DeLynn's place, where Brandy and the kids were (it's only 5 minutes from the Church I was at, but both are about an hour's drive from our house.) There we talked about documentaries and DeLynn and her husband Moses warned us about air travel in S. Africa and DeLynn made us coffee before we headed home.

I never heard a wage-based insult until I started working at a private (Christian[?]) college. A co-worker of mine was insulted between swear-words the other day with "you make $8/hour!" (we make considerably more). The inebriated speaker apparently thinks that making 8/hr is a reason to hang one's head in shame, probably because his daddy's patched his every boo-boo with a big fat check. The poor kid somehow equates wage with intelligence, character, or ability.

I pity the fool who thinks that this (wage=worth) is the case. I'm making close to twice what I've made at most of my previous jobs here, yet I don't think of myself as any more or less worthy to walk the earth because of it. It's a job that I enjoy and that I'm grateful for, and that's it.

How do these people live? Even more puzzling, how do they remain in the upper classes of society? By pure snob power?

Part of me longs to fulfill the proverb "Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence". Unfortunately, most institutions of learning have abandoned this effective teaching technique.

And so, I am left to apply the message of my last blog. Even though it wasn't even me being insulted.

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On another note, the other day I had to go down the hall and confront the hispanic gangsta-guest-of-our-neighbors that's been ogling my wife when she does laundry. It's hard to warn people who don't speak English, but I think he got the idea.
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Well, I just got out of the night shift, and now need to write a paper on the difference between Romanesque and Gothic art for a class I have in two hours. Tuesdays are rough.

The last couple days have been packed with good.
Monday I outed myself as a theological conservative in class. We were reading through "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok and the class discussion had gone to why the really orthodox people were scared of "scientific" study of the Talmudic texts, and the conversation was headed towards why those crazy fundamentalists are scared of science. I pointed out that even Theologically conservative people like myself who believe in scriptural inerrancy don't have a problem with textual criticism, since all statements on inerrancy have to do with the autographs, not the manuscripts or translations, and text criticism is the attempt to get the reading most faithful to the autographs. The prof then said, Oh, so you would call yourself theologically conservative?

The next day I went to school (& got there on time, always a plus) where I started classes as normal. Had an easy time of it after christian formation in the Collegium, where I studied for the Bio lab that afternoon and went over greek conjugations and declensions to make sure I had them memorized. Listening to Supertones on my new Ipod with the earphones Brands got for me, and read up on my Miller Urey abiogenesis objections. Then came bio, where after a particularly dogmatic remark by the professor, (who is, by the way, a great teacher, and I can tell she loves biology, she reminds me of characters from the Madeleine L'engle books) regarding the origin of living cells and proteins via chemical evolution. So I raised my hand and asked how she reconciles a certain issue that even the rabid evolutionist author of our textbook admits is a challenge. We went back and forth for a bit, and then I said I didn't want to use any more of her lecture time up (which is true, she's nice and everyone needs to hear the lectures to get the info for exams). She thanked me and admitted that these are the sort of questions that keep her up at night. Then I heard someone behind me laughing, and thought, Oh, great, I'm "that" guy again. Just like in high school. But seriously, in this christian evangelical school no one once has said anything about the repeated dogmatic statements about chemical and biological evolution that have been made since the start of class. I'd say it makes up from one fifth to one third of each lecture. And no one's said anything! So I ask oblique questions to show that it's not cut and clean and to question their assumptions, just to keep my sanity and 'cause I can't stand to just let that sort of thing go. But I limit myself to one such question per class, and make sure I ask other relevant questions about non-evolutionary subject matter. But to my surprise, when we were doing an exercise sheet, the prof. came up and said that I ask such interesting questions and wanted to know if I could stop by her office after class (I couldn't, I have Greek right after). But I said I'd try in the next week.

Then after Bio lab later in the day, one guy from the Ukraine who was in my Lab group said, So, you seem really interested in those origin of life questions...
And I said, yes, I really am, but as you might have been able to tell, I'm not the biggest fan of chemical evolution.
He said, "neither am I, or Biological evolution either."
So then we got into it and I had a hard time getting back to the lab with all the talk about Ravi Zacharias and G.K. Chesterton and why evolution's (chemical evolution and common descent) is bunk. So we decided to be friends, and he said he was glad I'd asked questions in class since otherwise it would be as if the class was giving unanimous assent. Then after the lab we hung out waiting for our rides and he showed me all his quotes from various authors that he's got categorized in folders for research papers. I was impressed. He reminded me of a younger me, since I had to sit there for a while listening to him because he was just waiting for someone to come along that he could recite all his thoughts, quotes, favorite authors and apologetics to. It was a lot of fun and I thanked God for it.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Recency


It's snowing here in Washington. As I left for work the flakes had started coming down. The kids caught a glimpse of the shallow white ground cover as I was headed out the door and yelled "It's Christmas!!!, can we open our presents?!?" I told them their education had been neglected and that it wasn't christmas every time it snowed, and Brandy explained that Josiah had asked before "when is christmas?" and she had told him that it was christmas when it snowed, as she hadn't expected to see snow anytime soon. So I smilingly told her she's been miseducating our children and we laughed about it as she had the kids come look out the door at the snow falling as I headed for the car.
We'd watched the first half of "Amelie" before I left, as that was all I had time for. It's very funny so far, and like all french films I've seen it's also very existential.
The definition of existentialism (according to that wonderful cauldron of common knowledge which is wikipedia) is "the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject – not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude," or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."
At first I would think that existentialism would be totally Christian thinking, but it's really not. There's a huge existential element in christianity, on the personal level: we're addressed by God and Jesus as feeling, acting humans, and God Himself seems to be the same. Overall something very hard to put in a graph or a diagram. But at the same time we're given a stability that pure existentialists don't have, since we have things that never change (The promises of God), and we know some basic answers for basic questions like "Who am I, where did I come from, where am I going" but between all that there's still a huge realm of unknowns that to us seem absurd/meaningless except in the light that they're part of the divine plan somehow.
Speaking of absurdity, I've been feeling somewhat out of touch with reality lately. I think in part because I'm working nights, and haven't gotten out of the house in fully conscious mode in a while. Also I think it's the isolation; as I have no believing friends (the kind of friends I can hang out with I mean, I acquaintances galore, but I miss having friends, and I miss my friends back in MN.) - Except, of course, Brandy, who I am grateful for, but without babysitters our times together have been between the hours of 10pm-3am, not the best time for hanging out. Lord willing we've got some potential babysitters lined up for the near future (some girls from church). Then again, all my ethereal-ness could just be brain chemistry gone awry, in which case this too shall pass soon enough.
Meeting w/ a faculty member from SPU Monday morning, he read my letters to the editor and has a group of people he meets with who want to change the course of SPU in a somewhat more scriptural direction. I pray that goes well, and I pray it's not political.
My role in youth group is interesting... I haven't seen or talked to any of the guys for about three weeks for more than a few seconds, because Sun. grp has been cancelled for the past three weeks (well, one of the weeks there was a guest speaker) and with my kids running underfoot it's impossible to have any real conversation after service. We end up going to the church coffeeshop and sitting down to watch them for half an hour or so til we go home. So my plan of getting to know the guys @ Youth Group has thus far flopped.
On the upside I'm going to be off work for over a week during Christmas Break, that's going to be very nice. We're planning on going down to Centralia to visit w/ the relatives down there. We'll also most likely go up to Nate and Marielle's at some point then too.
Read "The Spiritual Brain"-a book on non-materialistic view of the brain/mind connection which confirmed my earlier theories, but it was written by a neurosurgeon of the Teilhard De Chardin variety. (kinda cosmically new agey). Also read "Napoleon of Notting Hill", which although it has its moments isn't as good as the other Chesterton I've read. Finished Isaiah and am on Jeremiah 11, listened to "Hood" by Stephen Lawhead and am now listening to CH Spurgeon's autobiography on MP3. And reading through A.E. Wilder-Smith's Autobiography as well. Plus, if anyone feels like passing it along to Paul back in St. Cloud, the puritan devotional he gave me had been a constant encouragement.
Well, I think that's it for now.

On the "Reverse Golden Rule"
I was talking with my good friend Ian at a coffeeshop and we got to talking about "Spiritual" things, sort-of, since Ian's not a dualist or a supernaturalist, especially Buddhism since that's the last conversation we had shared about such things. I asked him about the qualities of buddhism that attracted him, and he brought up the buddhist version of the "Golden Rule" ("Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you", whereas Jesus' 'positive' version reading "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"). Ian said he saw it as superior to Jesus' positive version, since it was less invasive and interventionist. He prefers the Buddhist version.

My contention:
The negative version "frees" us from responsibility to exercise compassion. If I am only expected to leave people alone, following this mandate - though easier - would result in selfishness and neglect. And, of course, it's a lot easier to follow.

Example:
The "Good Samaritan". In the parable of the "Good Samaritan", Jesus illustrates what His "Golden Rule" looks like in action. And unlike Buddha's version, it requires action. The Samaritan in the story DOES unto the injured Jew as he would have done unto himself. The Priest and the Levite follow the "negative golden rule" by not interfering. They don't do anything bad to anyone, yet it's obvious how they come up short in neglecting an obvious duty to have compassion on the suffering and helpless.


In defense, a proponent of the "Negative" G.R. might say that they would not want to be neglected by passersby, and therefore would act, but that's using a double negative to result in a positive formulation of the "G.R."

Note Jesus' conclusion: "who was the man's neighbor?...go and do likewise!"
Now, a task much more difficult than definition and defense of Jesus' word - to live it by His Spirit! :-)