I wrote a lovely paragraph-by-paragraph response to the comment in the post about Terri Schiavo... and my dialup here at home disconnected, and I lost the post. John (my room mate) was laughing at me this morning when I noted I still had dialup, grr.
It's 1:30 AM and I'm beat (drove something like 350 miles yesterday, from Toronto to Hamilton to Grand Rapids), so I'll just go to bed now. In my own bed. In my own bedroom, mine, all mine. Sigh. I'll try to reconstruct that post tomorrow.
But I'm away from school now....
I got home and went into the basement to do my laundry. Putting the clothes into the washer, I heard my mom yelling something down the stairs, but couldn't understand what.
"Just a minute, Mom -- I can't hear you!" I shouted back. She kept yelling.
"I'll be right up!" I responded, a bit frustrated. I went up the stairs and my mom started screaming at me in the kitchen. "Why didn't you listen? I told you the washer wasn't working..." I finally was like "Come here, Mom." She was still really pissed off but she walked over to me and I gave her a hug.
Then I woke up here, in my room-mate's house in Toronto. Grrr. I wish I were home. I'm going home for the weekend today though (we have Reading Break today and tomorrow.) So maybe I'll get that posting done (oh, and respond to the comment on my blog re:the Schiavo thing).
Yeah, not so much eh? Anyway, I've decided to remedy that here, with a couple notes today on different things I want to talk about.
I haven't seen much blogging outside the Christian (especially Catholic) neighbourhoods in the Blogosphere about the Terri Schiavo case, that one where the guy tries to kill off his feeding-tube dependent wife so he can marry a new girl, over the wishes of her parents but with the approval of the courts. Frankly I am shocked that this could happen. I thought I could no longer be amazed at the disgusting things human beings are capable of. After partial-birth abortion (you know, that "medical procedure" where they suck the baby's brains out literally seconds before he is born and receives legal protection), after the Holocaust, after the recent despicable international defense of Saddam Hussein's neo-fascism... I honestly thought I understood the depths of human depravity. At least there were citizens who recognized the horror and petitioned the government; at least the other two branches of government stopped this in (we pray) a timely manner; but that comforts me little. This is only the next step of a process that began with the rejection of God and of all transcendent moral authority over human life. I fear for our nation.
Hope this isn't illegal to post -- hey wait, I live in Canada anyway.... :)
I don't know why I love this song right now. Usually I think this sort of pious contemporary type song is, um, annoyingly simplistic; faith isn't straight-forward, cut-and-dried. But it (this song, that is) definitely sums me up today.
sometimes it's embarrassing to talk to you
to hold a conversation with the only one who sees right through
this version of myself
i try to hide behind
i'll bury my face because my disgrace will leave me terrifiedand sometimes i'm so thankful for your loyalty
your love regardless of the mistakes i make will spoil me
my confidence is, in a sense, a gift you've given me
and i'm satisfied to realize you're all i'll ever needyou looked into my life
and never stopped
and you're thinking all my thoughts
are so simple but so beautiful
and you recite my words right back to me
before i even speak
you let me know, i am understoodand sometimes i spend my time
just trying to escape
i work so hard, so desperately, in an attempt to create space
cause i want distance from the utmost important thing i know
i see your love, then turn my back, and beg for you to goyou looked into my life
and never stopped
and you're thinking all my thoughts
are so simple but so beautiful
and you recite my words right back to me
before i even speak
you let me know, i am understoodyou're the only one who understands
completely
you're the only one who knows me yet still loves completelyand sometimes the place i'm at is at a loss for words
if i think of something worthy, i know that it's already yours
and through the times i've faded and you've outlined me again
you've just patiently waited, to bring me back and thenyou looked into my life
and never stopped
and you're thinking all my thoughts
are so simple but so beautiful
and you recite my words right back to me
before i even speak
you let me know, i am understood
I thought I'd make this into a thrice-weekly feature, so I'll just post my thoughts for each theology class (not, as you'll see, necessarily related to the class!) in chronological(ish) order.
8:10 -- The 5’6” Guy's Curse: No matter where I sit, no matter when I sit relative to the time of the event’s starting, the last seat in the venue will be right in front of me; and a tall person will take that seat. Happened yesterday at CITB, happened today in this class. It's true: Me=bitter.
8:15 -- Last night went well; the worship service as a whole was pretty good too. The speaker talked on maturity; he had some good points to make. I was re-convicted of my own immaturity anyway. It's so hard to be humble especially when you're me.... But really, it is hard, because whenever you realize you're humble, you begin to take pride in the fact that you are humble, mature, etc. CS Lewis said in Screwtape Letters (speaking as a demon to a young tempter) that at this point the tempter ought not to go to far, or the Christian will "just laugh at you and go to bed". A wise attitude -- I'll try not to get stuck on not feeling any pride at all. I think humility is something you do, not just something you think. If I can become more humble in my words and actions, it'll be better than if my thoughts were humble without external transformation.
8:23 -- Microsoft Word just did that auto-formatting into an outline thing. I hate Word but I'm not going to take my notes in Notepad so the evil minions in Redmond have pretty much got me.
2003.9.28 to be exact. i've decided not to use capitalization in this post. i can tell already this will be a 'looks back and decides it's crap' post which is funny cuz it's only two pm and usually this sort of thing happens at four am. anyway, why have i been gone? i don't know. i want to blog. i have great, wonderful, awesome ideas. when i'm not at the computer. which is even more pathetic cuz i'm always at my computer even in class cuz without it i would have to take notes on paper. so why don't i blog now that i have normal non-dialup internet like the rest of the free world? i still don't know. this post isn't helping.
so i decided to blog because i found out that my friend alaina has an online journal and it shames me that she has a life and everything and still manages to journal while i sit in front of my computer day after day not blogging.
oh and i'm playing jesus tonight for church in the box, our monthly worship service. oh, the controversy (for those of you who don't know, there's lots o' people pissed about citb's evil non-crc-ness anyway and a portrayal of jesus by a non-divinity such as myself is only going to further piss them off). i actually sympathize with that -- the heidelburg catechism says in Q & A 97 (that's right, the reformed churches were doing FAQs long before the internet, and we have them nicely organized too):
Q. May we, then, make any image at all?Being a good Reformed boy this carries a bit of weight with me. even my mommy, when i told her i was playing Jesus, was like ohhh, hmmm....
A. God neither can nor may be visibly represented in any way. As for creatures, though they may be visibly represented, yet God forbids us to make or have any likeness of them in order to worship them or serve God by them.
But really, it's not a huge problem for me. Plus it's too late to back out now since i sorta promised to do it and it's sorta tonight. I find it ironic because we're supposed to be playing Jesus anyway -- isn't that the whole point of Christianity -- Christ-like-ness? Today I've been Jesus by teaching sunday school to three-year-olds (especially fun when one of the kids came out of the bathroom stall with his pants sagging because he'd tucked his shirt into his underwear, the latter item of clothing being pulled up to his navel creating a massive self-wedgie). you have to laugh when you're around three-year-olds or you're frankly not human. Today I've been Jesus by making grilled cheese for half of dorm 14. Yeah, i'm playing Jesus tonite but i hope the performance doesn't stop when I get off the stage.
Wow that was deep. Better post than you expected, eh? <-- i've been here too long, e... <--caught myself there).
I'll leave you with this song from Relient K which is really really true and it scares me slightly to know that seventy-five percent of the students at Redeemer are girls:
we all know the girls that i am talking aboutmore after citb, i hope. if someone tries to worship me after i've been Jesus i'll make sure to tell you.
well they are time bombs and they are ticking
and the only question's when they'll blow up
and they'll blow up; we know that without a doubt
cause they're those girls, yeah you know those girls that let their emotions get the best of themand i've contrived some sort of a plan to help my fellow man
let's get emotional girls to all wear mood rings
so we'll be tipped off to when they're ticked off
cause we'll know just what they're thinking
cause what they're thinking...she's so pretty but she but doesn't always act that way
her mood's out swinging on the swing set almost every day
she said to me that she's so happy it's depressing
and all i said was "someone get that girl a mood ring"if it's drama you want then look no further
they're like the real world meets boy meets world meets days of our lives
and it just kills me how they get away with murder
they'll anger you then bat their eyes; those pretty eyes that watch you sympathizeand i've contrived some sort of a plan to help my fellow man
let's get emotional girls to all wear mood rings
so we'll be tipped off to when they're ticked off
cause we'll know just what they're thinking
cause what they're thinking...she's so pretty but she but doesn't always act that way
her mood's are swinging on the swing set almost every day
she said to me that she's so stressed out that it's soothing
and all i said was "someone get that girl a mood ring"cause when it's black (it) means watch your back because you're probably
the last person in the world right now she wants to see
and when it's blue it means that you should call her up immediately
and ask her out because she'll most likely agree
and when it's green it simply means that she is really stressed
and when it's clear it means she's completely emotionless (and that's all right i must confess)we all know the girls that i am talking about
she liked you wednesday but now it's friday and she has to wash her hair
and it just figures that we'll never figure them out
first well she's jekyll and then she's hyde....at least she makes a lovely pairmood ring oh mood ring
oh tell me will you bring
the key to unlock this mystery
of girls and their emotions
play it back in slow motion
so i may understand the complex infrastructure known as the female mind