on christmas

well, i'm safely in lancaster county, despite the fact that a plane apparently crashed on the turnpike shortly before i got there. http://www.wgal.com/news/18309442/detail.html?rss=lan&psp=news thanks for making sure i wasn't hit by a plane rob. i suppose that's why God let me sleep in past my alarm this morning.

getting on to this christmas buisness. i decided this year to make all of my gifts. i am resurrecting the crafty person within me and putting thought and effort into my gifts. we spend so much time caught up in the trap of consumerism and forget that Jesus gave Himself...not crappy gifts like tickle me elmo or the unicorn princess "my horn can pierce the sky" (see the morrocan christmas episode of the office). ambridge christian center is also kind of going along with this theme. here is an amazing video they showed last sunday:



so true.

so close i can taste it

as my last official act of rebellion and procrastination i will blog rather than finish my independent study. i really do have a problem. this independent study crapness is the last thing to cross off of an extensive to do list that i feel has existed since the beginning of time. i can’t wait for that sense of peace i’ll feel when it’s all done.

but first, let me reflect on this past semester. in some ways it has been the best semester ever, and in some ways it has been the worst, but i thank God for every experience He’s given me, because i know it’s all a part of His awesome plan. let’s look back at some of the highlights:

i got my first apartment, and i live with an amazing girl named jessica!

said bye to jake as he left for wildhorse canyon : (

had fun with friends at homecoming

football game with jessica

did ground-breaking research with amazing friends

got to see ambridge christian center start having sunday services at ambridge high school!





my roommate got engaged : )












went on a boat cruise in pittsburgh with friends

i learned that gender is not dichotomous.

spent a ridiculous amount of money on food

did some learnin'

taught rob and krista about gender differences in facebook profiles

woke up at an ungodly hour...in the name of science

went to a halloween party


wow.
what a semester.

love your enemies? really?

Christ’s coming was not at all like d-day. d-day was when a huge army went to “defeat” the evil regime headed up by adolf hitler. as much as we love to see that day as a time when evil was conquered. the truth is that God calls us to defeat evil in an entirely different way.

if you are a christian i can infer that your model for living is the life of Jesus Christ. a tough task, and it is a much tougher task than we often think about it as being. we seem to be like, “ok, being nice to people is hard, not lying is hard, not gossiping is hard”. yes, all of those things are hard, but there is so much more to loving people than those kinds of commandments. if christians are modeling Jesus, they should go so far beyond that because Jesus loved in a radical way.

back to the idea of d-day. how would Jesus have handled the situation? how we did? probably not. how did Jesus conquer evil when He was on earth? well, ultimately He died on the cross to defeat evil for good, but lets think about His everyday life. His teachings were pretty clear, “You have heard that it was said, ‘And eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on the right cheek turn the other to him also…”(Matthew 5:38). Ecclesiastes tells us that there is, “A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace”. i think that what He says in the sermon on the mount is Jesus’ way of saying that there was a time for war, but now is not that time. it’s kind of hard to get around these teachings, yet, we insist that there is more to the story; i think that's our sinful nature. the fact is, Jesus didn’t say “turn the other cheek except when (fill in lame excuse for violence here)”.

in the book of Isaiah, isaiah prophesies about the coming Suffering Servant (Jesus) by saying, “…He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth” (Isaiah 53:9). this prophecy is true. Jesus was not a hurter, He was a healer. even to those who were defending good, Jesus insisted on loving rather than acts of violence to solve the problem. the prime example is in Matthew 26 when a huge group of people with swords and clubs came to arrest Jesus. one of Jesus’ friends who was with Him decided to defend Jesus by pulling out his sword and cutting off the ear of the high priest. Jesus doesn’t like this at all. he says, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?”. good point Jesus. why wouldn’t we just trust God in this situation? why can’t we let go of all of our earthly thoughts that tell us that we need to take care of a situation our own way instead of the way God told us to? what is interesting about this passage is that after Jesus says this the disciples and everyone else who was with Jesus peaced out (Matthew 26:56). seriously, they ran away from Jesus, who was God! obviously the thought of not being able to defend yourself is scary. the thing is...it’s what God calls us to do. flat out. our command from Jesus is to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. as hard as that is to live out, i think i’m gonna give it a try.

Jesus was ridiculously counter-cultural, especially when it came to loving people. don’t get me wrong, we need courageous people to go to places like iraq, but not with guns. christians should go to those places with the intention of loving the enemy like Jesus commanded. i think it takes a lot more courage to go armed with love than with guns. we need to trust in God’s method to take care of things, not our own. our job is to obey His commandments. so love your enemy.

in fact, beyond just not shooting people, let's ACTIVELY love people. let's find CREATIVE ways that we can GO OUT OF OUR WAY to love people. i mean, that's how Jesus did it after all. He went way out of His way to love us.

little things with great love

i think its interesting that us christians feel that we need to go away somewhere to preach the gospel when we can live out our lives like Christ in everyday life wherever we are. now of course i am not condemning to go overseas to share the love of Christ, i think that’s awesome, but if you can’t afford to go on a missions trip why not do something in your own neighborhood to share Jesus with others. better yet, save your money that would be spent on travel and do something in the community you live in. social justice advocate catherine doherty once said,

“The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child.... There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God”.

do what you can where you are. carry out a small act of justice in your hometown, speak out for the oppressed and ignored in your neighborhood. love your neighbor, literally. but here a problem arises. you see, us humans never really seem to want to do what is right. philip k. dick, that author that wrote about the nature of reality, made a statement related to this in his article,

“The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.”

lets change the world in the name of Christ by doing little things with great love.

my head hurts

so i read this article about the nature of reality and all that. it was written in 1978 by this science fiction writer. it’s actually not as lame as it might sound. in fact, you should read it. here you go: http://downlode.org/Etext/how_to_build.html. insert a shout-out to adam here for telling me to read it. and now for some excerpts and thoughts, hopefully they are sort of coherent:

“Do not believe — and I am dead serious when I say this — do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.”

this does seem Biblical. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,“…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”. the universe is moving in such a way that it is going towards the kingdom of God. it doesn't necessarily move from old to new on its own, God uses His people as His tools to do this redeeming work. we are called as christians to engage the world around us and find the redeeming qualities of creation and culture. as followers of Jesus, this should be our goal! but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we as His followers must be truly changed by Him in order to be able to bring change to the world. After all, “a glass can only spill what it contains”.

the author of the article also talked about how the world around us affects how we understand what is real,
“Because the bombardment of pseudo- realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans — as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides…Fake realities will create fake humans.”
this makes me think about how a relationship with Christ helps us to understand what life is really about. John 10:10 says, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full.” God wants us to get close to Him...the actual source of Truth. that is how we can have full life, complete with meaning.

don’t be confused now, we can know about God, but not know God Himself. there is a difference. the relationship is key. in Matthew 7 Jesus tells a crowd of people, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven…Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you…’”. Jesus wants us to talk to Him and to know who He is.

i believe that more we learn about the character of Jesus the more we can realize that God didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive (credit goes to pastor mike from today’s sermon at ambridge christian center). he wants us to have life to the full through the means of a relationship with Him. so how can we know about the nature of reality? we can have life to the full which means a relationship with Jesus and doing His work. life doesn’t get any more real than that.

i am really only touching on this subject. read the link for lots of interesting thoughts.

and still we struggle

i know that these song lyrics keep coming up, but lets face it: i'm not that great of a blogger. the truth is that some people are more gifted at expressing the deepest of all human thoughts and emotions in an artistic and creative manner. here is another song from mewithoutYou. this is my favorite song ever. to emphasize what the song means to me i put some explanatory notes in parenthesis. i can relate a lot to this song and it is a great picture of God's grace and deliverance.

tie me up! untie me! by mewithoutYou

i was looking at the leaves
climbing to the tops of the trees
but You were nowhere to be found.
(here the speaker looks for God, but can't seem to find Him)

just beneath all the green You were buried like a little seed.
among the roots and underground.
(...but he wasn't looking in the right places)

i was licking at the leaves,
but i was in short sleeves and You,
You were like some sickness that i caught.
(when he found God, He took him over like sickness)

my sweetheart moved away
swept off like garbage in the alleyway
(the things of the world were no longer important)

and i need more grace than i thought,
because brother i'm far away from everything good.
(he realizes his nature and how far he is from the holiness of God)

she's like a hot cloth on a fevered head,
and like a needle she leads me,
oh i follow like thread,
(the world calls him back away from God, and it is so easy to follow it's voice)

tie me up! untie me!
all this wishing i was dead
its getting old, its getting old
it goes on,
but its old.
(he is torn between his old thoughts, like those of suicide, and his new life with God)

i was swimming through the waves
for what must have been days,
but could find no relief.
(we return to the speakers quest for God, he cannot find happiness in the world)

and when i started sinking down
i thought for certain i would drown
until i saw You in the ocean underneath.
(God rescues him from "drowning"--related to thoughts of suicide expressed throughout this song)


all the bright colored fish tell
of a treasure in a dull shell,
"such subtlety so easily missed!"
(again, God is in an unexpected place, and he is reminded of God's beauty)

You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect Love,
and i'm the living example of 100%
the OPPOSITE of this!
(he realizes how far he is from the holiness of God)

she's like a hot cloth on a fevered head
and like a needle she leads me,
oh i follow like thread.
but You untied me!
didn't You untie me Lord?
and now i haven't even though about killing myself
in almost five months.
(but God rescues him from the trap of the world and his own detrimental thoughts)

i am reminded again of a jars of clay song that i put in a previous post, "i have no fear of drowning, it's the breathing that's taking all this work". it is so easy to die and not think about anything. the challenging, yet more rewarding thing, is to live life with God despite the difficulties the world presents.

"she" is the world, what we can't seem to let go. God "untied" us from the things of this world that hold us back. He conquered death and everything that goes with it. We've been set free. Praise God!

my life right now in two songs

work by jars of clay

just in case
i will leave my things packed
so i can run away.
i cannot trust these voices.

i don't have a line of prospects
that can give some kind of peace.
there is nothing left to cling to
that can bring me sweet release.

i have no fear of drowning,
it's the breathing that's taking all this work.

do you know what i mean when i say, "i don't want to be alone"?
what i mean when i say, "i don't want to be alone"?

empty spaces
with shadows hit by streetlights
warning signs and weight
of tired conversations

in the absence of a shoulder
in the abscess of a thief
on the brink of this destruction
on the eve of bittersweet

now all the demons look like prophets
and i'm living out
every word they speak
every word they speak

do you know what i mean when i say, "i don't want to be alone"?

I have no fear of drowning
Its the breathing that's taking all this work


c-minor by mewithoutYou

our house wrapped in disrepair,
a small mouse peeked out from a hole beneath the stairs
nearby to where my dad sat in his favorite chair,
thinking about the government and muttering a prayer
so i scattered some oats in hopes she'd stay
then sat still to stop from scaring her away -
but she hurried on her little way
and scurried around my mind
ever since,
every day.

Open wide my door, My Lord, my Lord.
to whatever makes me love You more.

i'm water, you're the drywood
equal parts misguided and misunderstood
but all the neighborhood
watched a fire burn from where they stood
as the smoke said,
"we're not half as bad as God is good"
still there's a whisper in my ear,
the voice of loneliness and fear, so i say:
"devil, disappear!
i'm still (ehh...technically...) a virgin
after 27 years -
which never bothered me before,
what's maybe 50 more?

Open wide my door,
My Lord, my Lord.
Open wide my door,
to whatever makes me love you more.

she came back for the oat,
but she brought along a "friend"
(this never ends)
the harder the rain,
the lower the flowers in the garden bend
(this never ends)
i'd rather never talk again
than to continue to pretend
(this never ends)

IT NEVER ENDS!
IT NEVER ENDS!