Ravings, Thoughts, and Dreams

Another Semester Passes

2007-12-12T13:42:00.001-05:00

Well, another semester has met its end. I'm sitting here, relaxing & studying, before my final exam, and reflecting on this semester has been hard to resist. I've learned alot of interesting things, inside and out of class, and I thought I might share. First, philosophy is a spiritually corrosive discipline that one must attempt to over come the corrosive effects of or lose all sense of the world beyond themselves. I've found that the more I study for my major, the more I find myself distraught with the way I've been living, have lived, the like. It's hard to face yourself and your past selves and know something is dreadfully wrong with them in varying, and often times similar, ways. I've also learned that people ultimately have short social memories. You can leave for a long period and if you haven't left a strong impact on people, they lose interest. However, leaving for a good while can help you learn who truly cares to see you when you get back. Lastly, and most important, I've learned life is hard alone, especially in college, and we should do our best to try and avoid doing it alone. That's all for now, I'll probably check back in after school starts in January. Until then, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Feeling Lost

2007-09-27T16:02:00.001-04:00

I can't help but feel like I've fallen off the face of the world now that I'm back on campus again. Kinda hurts that the people who were always telling me they missed me while I was gone pretty much welcomed me back and never gave me a second look since. I get treated more like a novelty item now than an actual person. There's a few people who still recognize me as some kind of human being, to them I'm more than grateful. You'd think I'd have fallen from the face of the planet rather than have gone abroad for the semester. Seems like the people who were most excited for me are the ones least interested in me now.

Still...

It's very strange to be reconciling the life I've lived the past six months (self-sufficient and independent, yet overwhelmingly lonely). I've felt more like a returning exile since classes started than a traveler come home. I still feel the aches of ostracization as though I had been voted into going abroad. Yet at the same time, I've been longing to come back so much that I've broken into tears over it before. Settling myself is going to be hard these next few months and I just don't have the time to do it either. I think this may completely disillusion me for the remainder of my time at Covenant.

Journal Excerpt

2007-07-05T03:43:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I updated the blog. So I'll be quick and leave a nice little journal excerpt:

The Rain is a sooting peace to me. I guess it's always been a symbol of peace to me. Even in my poetry. That's why I have come to think of peace as a blessing which comes and goes like the rain; at the will of God. Yet, storms are different. While they come and go like the rain, they remind me of death and the end. Death has peace to it, just as a storm has rain, but storms make you question if there'll be anything left in it's wake. Death makes you ask the same thing. No wonder I look to storms with excitement, so that I can look to death without fear.

And God tells me: "Peace be with you."

And I say to others: "And also with you."

Poetry Excerpt

2007-04-24T10:42:00.000-04:00

Following is a brief excerpt of raw poetry from my private journal. I've been working on it, fancying it up, but sometimes its nice to show what your poetry looks like when you first set it to page.

Is rest only for the dead?
Is life to wreck not only flesh, but soul as well?
I have stumbled far too simply,
yet I've fallen far too hard.
In contrast I have seen my soul,
and in patterns I weep for its stains.

I cannot wash them!
I cannot wash them!
For my sight is back
and I can see them!

There stands the Reaper,
holding rest, and I am shy.
Too shy to stain myself in the blood.
The Blood of I AM.

OK, Sorry

2007-04-19T07:25:00.000-04:00

Sorry for ignoring this so long. Slovakia has been more fun than even I can handle. Here's some photos. You can guess, or you can ask in a comment; your choice.

The Feeling that Comes on the Cusp of a Future

2007-02-13T07:27:00.000-05:00

Been thinking about my future lately. Never really done that, to tell the truth. I've been blessed with God and man alike throwing things my way; giving me things to do. Thought I might want to be a Philosophy professor one day, didn't want to spend that much time in pure academic class. Thought I might go fly for the Air Force, afraid of heights. Thought I might be missionary, too rooted in my relations. So I spent months praying on the topic.

I say to you all now, my prayers may have been answered. I prayed for a calling; for God to make within me something clean to use. I think, I'm still not sure, that God has done that. I don't want to share what it is right now, but what I want to share is that, for the first time ever, I know the feeling of standing on the cusp of a true and long-lasting future.

Search Me!

2007-02-12T06:21:00.000-05:00

Lord! Search Me!
I cry in the darkness,
fumbling as does the half-blind man,
with blindfold over my face.

I seek the light of your hand,
the Light of the World,
so that it may show me my way.
Search for me in this Labyrinth.

When you find me,
Search my heart.
You know my iniquities.
You know my virtue.

In cold metal, you see art.
In empty houses, you see abundance.
For all things are made great
Through You, Oh God!

Unveil my eyes!
Heal my ailments!
Oh God, that I would follow you
All my days and nights!

Search my heart, oh God!
Make within me
Something clean.
Bring me home to your Shalom.

More Quotes

2007-01-13T01:20:00.000-05:00

I feel like (another) set of quotes for y'all:

"Gently lifting hands to heaven,
softened by the sweetest hush,
a Father sings over his children,
loving them so very much.
More than words could warrant,
deeper than the darkest blue,
more than sacrifice could merit,
Lord, I give my heart to you!"
-"Dandelions" Five Iron Frenzy

"Oh to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!"
-"Come Thou Fount" Hymn

"Tis mercy all!"
-[I can't remember]

"I cannot think of One without being instantly surround with the splendor of The Three, nor can I discern The Three without being suddenly attracted to The One."
-Gregory of Nazianzus

"The difference between a friend and friend who is Christian is that, where any other friend stays with you for their own pleasure and sense of belonging, the Christian seeks show you the way pleasure and belonging were meant to be; unrelenting and ignorant of circumstance."
-A very good Friend from High School.

Laziness

2007-01-11T13:38:00.000-05:00

Today I'm being reminded how lazy I've been over the last few weeks. I'm taking care of my financial affairs (bills, student loans, more bills, etc.) and figuring out what I need to get for my semester abroad in Slovakia. It's becoming more and more obvious that I should have started on this stuff before last week. On the bright side, I'm going to have plenty of money while I'm in Slovakia, but I'm near crushed by the weight of all the stress that comes with managing great gobs of cash.

On the Slovakia note, I'm dead excited that I've got less than two weeks left before I leave home to begin what I like to think of as "A Grand Adventure of the Slovak Persuasion." There'll be pictures a plenty here on the blog so please come and look. We'll probably be flying into Vienna, Austria so my first post once arriving in my new home in Slovakia will most likely have pictures of that beautiful city (if not, there'll be an angry rant!).

Looking to the near future, my last bit of time will be wasted on World of Warcraft. The new expansion pack "The Burning Crusade" comes out next Tuesday and I'll get my copy sometime in the afternoon (beauty of pre-ordering things like that). I look forward to most of the addition, but the pretty sweet thing I like the most is many of my old High School buds will be joining me on Hyjal to play with the new races added to the game. Too bad I'm likely not to be on as much after the first week.

Overall, I'm stressed, excited, and ready to get this over with and leave for Slovakia. I pray that I will!

Sin & Attonement

2006-12-10T03:21:00.000-05:00

Christ died, died get that straight it is very serious, to be a propitiation for our sins. Now, in recent discussions it has come to my attention that there are many, and alot of them apparently very close to me, too, Christians who think that Christ, the one who is sent by God who loved the world, died only to attone for only the Elect, for the non-Christian or person (blessed person I dare say) not aware of the doctrine election (this does not include the people who are opposed to it) this refers to those whom belong to Christ and will join him in Heaven. This is preposterous! God, who loved the world so much that he gave His only Son to the cross, only sought to redeem a fraction of the world he loves!? That is not good news, the work is not finished, then! To say this is to call Christ's words on the cross false! It is finished!

1 John 2:1-2 (ESV) : "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world."

In 1 John, we are taught that if we do not love our brothers, we do not love God, and if we do not love God, we do not have eternal life. What then can be said of us if we take the loving act of Christ on the cross, the painful act of Christ on the cross, and the holy act of Christ on the cross, and turn it into something reserved just for us, the Elect? We do not love our brothers in Adam, our fellow man. Even if I turned out wrong, thinking that Christ died to redeem all of God's creation, then the demand had to be made upon every member of the Elect to call out to God and beg Him to grant Mercy upon all the creation because He made it Good and called it Very Good once, and things should be on Earth as they are in Heaven! I dare you to call yourself Christian thinking Christ suffered on the cross only for you and not for everything. You call yourself righteous, but you lack all evidence of it in doing so!

Meditations

2006-12-04T03:06:00.000-05:00

It's late nights, like these, when I face my doubts and trials. I've had many in my Christian walk in the last few months. It has nothing to do with any situations I have in school this semester, but the start of it seems to correlate, and it scares me. Tonight, I give you some quotes that have been meditations for me these past few months (Those without an author named are words that ring in my mind with no name to them):

"In Christ alone my hope is found."
-In Christ Alone, Hymn

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
-Percy Bysshe Shelly "Ode to the West Wind"

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."
-Ecclesiastes 1:9

"For eighty years I have served the Lord and He has done me no wrong. I will not blaspheme the name of the King!"
-Polycarp

"If mercy falls upon the broken and the poor,
Dear Father, I will see you, there on distant shores."
-Five Iron Frenzy "On Distant Shores"

"Your Steadfast Love"

"Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God"
-Before the Throne of God Above, Hymn

"My Lord and My God"
-John 20:28

A Sense of Taste

2006-11-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

In one of my more common bouts of unusualness, I was watching people eat in the Great Hall (our cafeteria here at Covenant College) and noticed how people shoveled the food in and also how it was just overlooked in favor of conversation. Now, I could just be overlooking the fact that I put to much attention to single thoughts than I should, but do people even consider their sense of taste? Do they put something in their mouth and contemplate not just the essence of it being a famliar and food-like, nor simply that they are being appeared to sufficient-sustance-ly, but also ask, "What would make this better?" "What is it that I am tasting?" "Is there anything interesting to this taste and/or texture?" Is the art of food preparation lost to us?

Seriously, when was the last time you actually thought about the food in your mouth other than "Hey this tastes good!" I mean, how can you declare it "good" when you've never contemplated the very essence of "good" when used with food? I can understand, surely, in the Great Hall it isn't fine gourmet cooking, but God gave you the sense of taste to rejoice in His creation of it. Food is not just that thing that gets in your way three times a day. Food can be like an individual work of art with textures and details that a contemplative mind can wander through! I implore you all to try to have a sense of wonder about your food!