I Just Won 10 Swag Bucks on www.swagbucks.com

I Just Won 10 Swag Bucks on www.swagbucks.com

Ok, kind of embarrassing, but I forgot I had a blog.

So...I'm starting back at school this coming Tuesday. So far I'm signed up for Ethics and Sanctification, Theology 2 and Medieval Philosophy...we'll see how this goes.

I'm ready to graduate. I wrote a poem today (posted below). I'm going to try to sleep now.

I pumped it straight into my veins

It made straight for my heart, then entered my soul

Something meant to fulfill only drained, left a hole

Pierced to the core

Nothing safe anymore

Security gone

Anarchy here to stay

Any semblance of peace

Was violated and dragged away

Supreme, the being

Judge and master, the eye

Anger that could sear

Shot up at the sky

Pent up in one little body

So much frustration and anger

Straining to expel it all

The consequences spell out danger

Trapped and ensnared

Our plight, twice thickened

When we look beneath our skin

To our blackened hearts, we’re sickened

Discover emotion just to lose humanity

When I commit crimes

I’ll have to plead insanity

Because I know the truth and still listen to lies

That funnel in my ears, tickle my pride

Leave me alone

Leave me here to die

I can’t help but hurt everyone

No matter how hard I try

Caught in the game

A victim of the trick

But I’ll have to pay for the joke

I’ll get every last lick

So to live life is to know that you’re trapped

Confined to a body

In weakness, wrapped

But the challenge is to find the source of strength

To learn to tap into it

And endure evil to its length

To ward off lies

More annoying than swatting flies

Cause they’ll destroy your life

Leave you with no alibis

Lies will destroy you

They’re from the author of hate

Listen to them today

And tomorrow they’ll seal your fate

Decapitate them early

In whatever their infantile form

Before they grow above your head

Before you’re metal in a lightning storm

I’m convinced and I see

That love’s the only way out

It turns your face away from darkness

It explains every doubt

If we could only see

Exactly what love means

The depth that surpasses seas

That encompasses every good dream

Divine, pure and clean

Yet conceivable by you and me

What a clash of glory and grime

A God who confines Himself to time

Love embodied itself helplessly

To die on behalf of you and me

Brings sorrow and joy unto me

Love was the beginning and the death of me

My notes from Richard Dawkins' lecture at USC

-Evolutionary Biology

-The Greatest Show on Earth (newest book)

-Dawkins defends absolute truth

-Says evolution is believed by all--even preachers and popes--"we just differ on when"

-Quoted the Bible, has religious terms down

-Overarching point: evolution is a fact, beyond doubt, flood of evidence

-No unbiased reader will deny evolution after reading my new book (*there is no such thing as an unbiased reader)

-Chapter called 'Missing Link':

-Creationists fault evolutionists on missing links

-"We're lucky to have fossils at all."

-Human fossils. The first one discovered was 3.6million yrs. old

-Chapter on Embryology and Evolution:

-40% of Americans accept the Bible as literal (creationists)

-Why are certain animals only on certain continents?

-28% of Britan gets its thoughts on creation from the Flintstones...believing that humans cohabitated the earth with dinosaurs

-Evolutionary arms race (gradual escalation in evolution) The leapord gets more effective at hunting, the gazelle gets more effective at running away

-"Why would God make 2 forces that continually outwit each other equally?" Leapord vs. gazelle

-"There's grandeur in the evolutionary biology view of life."

-Incorporates Darwin

-The fact of our existence is almost too overwhelming to bear

-Problem of our existence- Darwin

-Existence and complexity

The wheel of life, it's turning

Well, well, what to write about? I could tell you about this book I've been reading by Phillip Yancey. It's unlike his other books; it's geared towards skeptics, and he asks his fellow skeptics to just consider an invisible word--just consider the possibility of it and observe life in light of an invisible world. I'm 3/4s of the way through with it, and I'm a big fan. No biased, outrageous, hell, fire and brimstone statements...just musings about the possibility of truth in the Christian world view. He's very honest and blunt, but very learned. He incorporates quotes from scholarly men and women throughout the whole book from Soren Kierkegard to The Elephant Man from the eighteenth century.

I could also tell you about my ongoing job search...American Eagle has upgraded me to working a whopping 2 days a week...haha, oh brother. I've applied to a lot more places... restaurants, personal assistant jobs, a farm, doctor's offices, department and clothing stores, sporting goods stores, etc, and still nothing. Bummer.

In the mental department, I've met with one of my professors, and I plan to meet with another in the near future, I've attended a conference by a professor of philosophy at a local church, I've decided to start attending Church of the Apostles here in Columbia which is known as an "intellectual" church, if you will, where I hope to soak up some wisdom. A bunch of CIU profs actually go there, as well. I have been reading books, listening to sermons, and watching lectures out of the Truth Project, and lastly, I attend theology class on Monday afternoons. I have interesting yet mentally laborious conversations with close friends, and then I get to try all this new knowledge out in real life situations...my life has definitely been less boring since my mind was shocked back to life 18 months ago! This is not the type of adventure I always expected or wanted, but now that it's here knocking on my minds door all the time, I never turn it away. What's ironic is that I prayed for this...to be a constantly aware and thinking person, taking cultural notes and being conscious of the leanings of my heart and mind. When I asked for this unnatural consciousness, I did not know that I was inviting insomnia, stress, headaches, hours and hours of time, energy and tension within relationships. There is a cost to this newfound treasure. I have to remind myself to not see the knowledge in itself as the end goal; it is truth that I am to value and knowledge is only the vehicle or catalyst that aids me to reach towards it more and more.

Or...I could tell you about how much I'm loving not being in school...the homework, the nasty cafeteria food, sitting in class for hours while fighting off stress, fatigue and ADD tendencies. I don't miss required chapel 4 days a week or biweekly required hall meetings. I don't miss living in the dorm room--always afraid of catching an irreversible disease from the asbestos over my head and having to coordinate or dodge a roommate's schedule--whatever the case may be. Those are the pros...there are cons, but I don't really want to discuss those at this time.

In a week, I am taking my first trip to New York...not the city but the state. Lydia, Allison, Anna and I are going to Lydia's home for fall break. Considering the fact that Lydia has 7 siblings and lives in a beautiful area of the state, it is sure to be an unforgettable experience, and I'm really excited to go! If all works out with our passports, we might also be visiting Niagra Falls! That would be awesome!

Well, I guess I've told you enough for now, and now I'm going to go read some more books, listen to some more lectures, lose more sleep, attain some more wrinkle lines on my forehead and enjoy the outdoors before it gets bitingly cold.

And life rolls on...

Even though I'm taking the semester off from CIU, I sit in on a 3-hour Theology class on Monday afternoons. Yesterday, we talked about a lot of things including canonization, authority and authenticity of Scripture, the leading of the holy Spirit, doubt, etc. Our prof mentioned this movement that I had never heard of before called the New Atheist movement. It intrigued me so I was researching it, and found a good article on it. It is very relevant to us as a nation and as thinking Christians. Here's the link...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070625/aronson

Short Post

Wow...I was just looking over my blogs, and...my blogs are long! I don't intend for this one to be, though. I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about relationships and people and their roles-- The importance that we place on people and their value in our lives. I've lived in at least 3 different cultures in polar opposite regions of the world, and people are either not valued enough and the individual is the most important thing or they can be valued too much and we are foolish enough to rest all of our fullfilment and happiness on the shoulders of another human being. I have certainly been guilty of both, but I also think that I have more of a healthy view of people and their roles and relationships than the person who has only experienced their culture and way of thinking. How do I live in the American culture and value relationships differently than Americans? Maybe I wouldn't feel the tension, but I look American and talk American, and therefore I'm expected to BE American...but I'm not and can't fully be no matter how hard I try. I know why my blogs are so long...I write about one topic, like relationships, and then I feel the need to expound and give details about my thoughts because the issue is linked to so many others, and there are contributing factors that I feel I must survey to get a balanced picture of what is...of reality. In case you were wondering as I sometimes have, about the purpose of this blog, it is the quest of reality and what really is--not what is perceived or traditionally assumed, but what really is...what really is life? Who really am I? And what does it matter?

My God, My God
You cannot leave me
I'll wrap my arms around your arm
And I'll never let go
I could never let go
You pat my head as if to say goodbye
I won't say goodbye
I refuse to leave your side
Voices distracting
Taunt my gaze away
Telling me their theories
Their formulas and their lies
I don't want that, I don't want them
I just want to forever gaze into your eyes
I can't let go
I wont let go
I find myself in You
If you walk away from me now
I wont know what to do
If you walk away, You leave with all of me
Well...all of me that's fit to see
The more steps you take
The more my spirit breaks
The cool breeze leaves
In walks terror
It has come to seize
I try to run, I try to hide
All the time looking for the absence of my pride
I've been to all our spots
I don't find you there
I've gotten up early
I've stayed up late
I've been trampled underfoot
But still you tell me to wait?!
How could you?! What are you doing?
Leaving me here like this?!
I can't breathe another breath
Without a divine kiss
Where did you go?
Don't you miss me as much as I miss you?
No, I guess not
You're the hero
I'm the zero...
I'm pretty messed up, too
But God I'm begging you
Through the sobs and tears
Run back now, give back my joy
Relieve all my fears
You're running away from me now
I want to stop you, but how?
I can't get any lower to the ground
Oh well, if you have to leave, just go
I can see there are just too many things that I do not know
I'm sorry for whatever I did
I wish I could reverse time, believe like a kid
I just went 10 rounds with an invisible foe
I'm knocked down and bleeding
I keep falling and falling...each time a new low
I don't even look for you
Not anymore
When I hear someone knocking
I know it's not you at the door
To think I actually trusted you for all of that time
I actually believed that you would really be mine
I actually trusted you with my whole self
I didn't know you would push me to the back of the shelf
I'm sorry I didn't have the faith to stay
I climbed down from the shelf and showed myself out
I guess my belief in you wasn't that stout
I know I can't restore
That's what I need you to do
My hearts shattered into a thousand pieces
Can you fix that, too?
I looked elsewhere for a temporary fix
But me and this world...we just don't mix
My only home is You
And you're the only place I can rest
Are you depriving me?
Or did I catch the devil's eye?
When I started believing you could never, ever lie
My days with you were so sweet
Just sitting at your feet
I could not have been any happier than the moments when we did meet
I could sit in silence for all of eternity just sitting at your throne
Smiling up at you, when in your likeness I have grown
There is no aspiration that I have in this life
Than to be with you always, amidst all the strife
Rich or poor, I want nothing more
Than to have you, sweet Jesus
Have you forevermore
So this I plead
From the dust and the ash
Please...my soul can't take one more dash
Restore your presence in my life
Melt away the nightmares, the tears and the strife
Banish my enemy, drive him away
Cut off his feet
So that we'll never meet
Like we do these days
Up in my brain
I find him toying, laughing, scoffing
In my sleep, in the day, in every conversation, in every way
I can't escape him
I need you!
The more I run the more demons he sends after me, too
I have claw marks running rampant down my back
Of teeth marks and scratches I have no lack
My insides are in tatters
My soul tries to hold on
But without you oh God
All of me is gone
Return to me swiftly
On heavenly feet
Tread softly
And in my sorrow let's meet
Because I know you can be tender and comforting too
And right now all I need or want or hope for is You