Life is Like a Safari

stuff I want

2011-08-25T13:32:00.004-04:00

Hey there, deep pocket...

I am tired of buying things. Really, really tired of it.

I'm good at buying them. When I get something, it almost always ends up being useful and long-lasting. This is why I prefer buying things for myself to receiving them as gifts.

But I'm so sick of buying things for myself. I'm sick of spending the money, and I'm sick of burning Amazon's logo into my retinas. So, who wants to get/give/procure me some things that I need?

namely?

kitchen knives. preferably a couple, in different sizes, but not a set with 20 knives. Who really needs that many knives?
a rug. 8x10. they're expensive, and obviously I'd love to have some input into the selection, but a clean rug that looks decent will do.
wall tapestry/covering(s). there's a pointless door in my apartment that should be hidden. additionally, there's a circuit breaker panel in the kitchen that could stand to be covered as well.
little table. maybe i could put it in the middle of my room and set my laptop on it?
lounge-chair-type thing? I'm not really sure where I'd put it, but if I had one, I'd find a spot for it. So that visitors would have somewhere to sit other than on my bed, which is awkward, right?

I'll add to this list as necessary. And in the event that anything becomes unnecessary, I'll remove it.

If you're asking yourself why I posted this, let's be honest: it was an exercise in honesty. And in determining if anyone, including myself, ever bothers with this blog anymore.

I can hardly wait for Christmas!

a train of thought

2010-09-12T20:38:00.004-04:00

Today's sermon was on Matthew 5:27-30, which is part of Jesus's famous declaration that our murderous, adulterous, idolatrous thoughts themselves are sinful. This particular part is dealing with adultery, but also throws in the sweeping and disturbing declaration that we ought to have regular body-part-chucking competitions (if you're a guy and this sounds like the coolest sport you've ever heard of, please, please, please... don't think the ladies will be impressed at the next church picnic by your holy combo of unmatched arm strength and zeal for the Lord).

Now, I'm not an exegete. I did take a look at a number of different translations, including some Portuguese translations, and I will say this: every one I saw used some form of the word "make" or "cause" in verses 29 and 30. Which is to say, it seems that whatever words Jesus actually used, the thrust of His comment can probably be safely summarized as "if a part of your body causes you to sin, get rid of it."

So, the first car on this train (and remember, once a train gets started, it's pretty hard to stop, so if your car stalls on the track, grab the baby from the backseat and run - don't spent those thirty seconds praying that God will refill your gas tank like He did the widow's jar of oil!) is my (perhaps not all that novel) interpretation that Jesus chose the word "cause" for the very reason that it invalidated right off the bat the idea that He intended anyone to self-mutilate. Jesus makes it pretty clear at other times that the fault for our sin lies at the feet of our idolatrous hearts (okay, terrible metaphor, sorry!), not at the doorstep (again, I apologize) of circumstances, other people, or our raging hormones. When Jesus says "if your eye causes you to sin," I suspect He intended to subtly remind us that our hands are NEVER the cause for our sin.

Okay, so if you'll grant that interpretation (or if you won't, but will agree that He didn't mean it literally, or even if you disagree entirely but are a masochist... or if you just really like trains?), move with me into the business class carriage. Here we find ourselves wondering, gosh, haven't there been people over the years who have actually sliced off parts of their bodies (guys, don't tell me you didn't have at least one moment of terror as a teenager over this verse) because they believed this was a literal commandment? Now, none of us would accuse Jesus of being careless with words, and yet... do we not generally consider that love for one's neighbor involves taking a reasonable amount of care that what we say will not give occasion for anyone else to be confused or to commit sin? How much more so if you are the Lord of the Universe, knowing full well the foolishness of humans, and even knowing the future itself, so that the effects your words will have are already written in your mind before you say them? You may argue that, no matter what He said, Jesus was bound to be misunderstood, and He could not simply remain silent on that account. But that is not a valid reductio ad absurdum - certain things Christ said cannot be misinterpreted but by the hardest of hearts, while others frankly beg for the budding convert to seize upon incorrectly, foolishly, and with greatest zeal.

Then what? On to the coach class, where most of us spend most of our time. Shall we agree with the Catholics that "the fuller sense of the Bible can be found in the authoritative interpretation of [the]... authorities" - i.e., that it best to check with the Church before coming to a final conclusion about what the Scriptures mean? This seems insufficient - the apostles and prophets, not to mention Jesus Himself, are recorded as speaking directly to the common people on a regular basis, and we should not assume that this was done merely as a convenience, or for the sake of 'the public record.' If not that, then what?

It certainly seems to me as though this passage can only be rightly interpreted in the light of the rest of Scripture (whereby we learn that our hearts are the issue, and that constantly reorienting ourselves - loving - our Creator is the only way to live a good and righteous life that is free from all sin). This is an ideal that gets bandied about a good deal these days within the circles in which I run (ha, take that, sneaky prepositions!), but I don't think we take it all that seriously, because it posits a frank impossibility that we're reluctant (or entirely unwilling) to acknowledge - namely, that no matter our wisdom, brilliance, learning, and love for God, we will never be 100% certain about what all of Scripture says, because to know any one part of it requires that you know all the other parts. This is, at the very least, an impossibility within a non-infinite lifetime (it's really a study in mathematical limits, if you think about it - and don't you go inventing a theological calculus!).

Also, because coach is usually cramped and longer than the other parts of the train, I want to come back to the question of how we use words. I have often thought that part of our imperfection was our inability to accurately gauge how our actions will end up affecting our world. That is, if I were wiser, more careful, etc., I would have known that using that particular word would cause someone to think my tone was negative, thus encouraging them to respond negatively, etc., etc., usually spiraling into rage and violence about whether or not D minor really is the saddest of all keys. This passage, however, seems to indicate otherwise. Jesus knew that some people would be foolish (I don't mean this pejoratively) enough to cut off body parts in order to keep His commandments, and though this isn't what He intended, and probably brought Him no pleasure at all despite their well-intentioned attempt to obey the letter of His law, He chose His words carefully, with nothing but love for His hearers (both present and throughout the ages). And yet, it was not His intent to somehow choose His words in a such a way as to manipulate the hearers into following a certain path. Though He could, no doubt, have said exactly what was necessary to manipulate each individual hearer into doing His will, He never attempted any such thing.

We have arrived at the caboose - which indicates to you that the end is near, and is one of the most fun words in the English language (go ahead - say it out loud a few times! I can wait). Manipulation is a way of life for us. Whether in malice or in love, we nearly always choose our words and actions based on how we believe others will react to them. Sometimes it is blatant - I figure that if I offer to wash the dishes in front of the guests, my sister will choose to be gracious and offer to do them herself, allowing me to both look good and get away without having to do any work. Other times, it is a less selfish calculation that determines that the best way to invite someone to talk about Jesus is to pretend as though He isn't really that important to me, so that they won't be scared off by my crazy religious fervor (ha!). Whatever it is, though, it's never done out of true love - God Himself never gives us any indication that His communications with us are intended to fool us into doing what He wishes. What's more, any manipulative actions are performed with, at the very least, the (self-absorbed, and therefore not necessarily conscious) belief that we are (in at least some small way) mentally superior to and/or more crafty than the one we're manipulating, and usually also 2) an idolatrous attitude toward the desired goal and 3) a lack of trust that whatever we can bring about through a more honest and transparent approach to our neighbors is going to somehow be sufficient to accomplish God's (or our) purposes.

There's a lot more that could be said about who and how we manipulate (children -> parents, parents -> children, woo-er -> woo-ee, spouse <-> spouse, etc.), not to mention my proposed solution to my manipulative ways, but this train of thought is already too long to even leave the station, so I'd better get my fat butt off so that those of you who actually needed to get somewhere can be on your way!

We've Been Down This Path Before

2010-09-01T22:52:00.003-04:00

...and we always seem to end up getting tired, coming back, and forgetting that we ever tried.

But productivity is an elusive goal, these days. The pursuit of productivity is marred by laziness (the under-utilization of attention capital, e.g., I have this extra time - I'll watch some TV), procrastination (the over-utilization of attention debt, e.g., "I'm too busy, so I'll learn/do that tomorrow" -- and yes, it leads to attention deficit, as you already guessed), perfectionism (e.g., "I can't do anything else until I'm done with this" -- or, just as bad, "I won't start this, because I'll never be able to do it well enough").

I don't have time to write this blog post. I won't write it well, and in the process I'll probably spend too much time trying to polish it into something 'worth' posting. Still, it's time to do something.

Gmail just introduced Priority Inbox. At first, I was inclined to ignore it - after all, I have my system, and it works well enough. But, being susceptible to the allure of the latest, greatest technology (especially from the G-people), I decided to see what it could do. As it turns out, I like it. I have, for a long time, consistently maintained fewer than ten read emails in my inbox at any given time, with those ten basically representing whatever things I've received that will eventually require some sort of time/effort to deal with. However, these things do tend to pile up, and the more important ones get lost at the bottom of that stack just like everything else. Also, I generally have Starred emails in order to provide a special visual reminder that they're important, but this tends to lose its impact fairly quickly.

This is probably where I should mention Inbox Zero, the strategy a very process-savvy friend of mine> uses and brought up when I started talking about this today over Buzz. I think his flavor of this strategy makes a lot of sense (using Stars for followup/future reference but always Archiving immediately after reading), and I wish I could use it myself, but the reason this is not currently a possibility for me is that I don't have consistent access to anything but pen and paper during the workday, meaning that I either have to manage my task list in my brain (with help from whatever emails I may or may not have in my Inbox regarding those less-pressing tasks that I would be prone to forget), or use pen-and-paper or some solution equally undesirable because of its incompatibility with the digital age that I live a large portion of my life in.

Inbox Zero and its arguable brilliance aside, here's my strategy for configuring (and then USING) Priority Inbox to increase my productivity.

What I do not plan on getting out of Priority Inbox: Time savings later on. Why? Email in an inbox is inherently hard to scan, and even when properly categorized, you have to rescan each email individually for it to remind you of anything. Just because my inbox is now divided into

Important AND Unread,
Starred,
Important, and
Everything Else

doesn't somehow magically let me know what email I should be re-reading right now in order to inform me what my next efforts should be directed toward. Often, an email gets a Star and sits in my Inbox precisely because I know I won't be able to do anything about it for at least a week, and I figure I'll forget about it if I don't leave it there to remind me later.

What I do plan on getting out of Priority Inbox: A reason to ask my brain to do more of the work as soon as I receive the email. When an email arrives, Gmail will do its best to decide if it is Important or not. If it isn't, the email will fall all the way to the bottom of my Inbox, even though there are read emails sitting above it. If I can trust Google to guess correctly, I can now safely ignore that email entirely until such a time as I choose to go through my unimportant email and deal with it. If, on the other hand, the email is marked as Important, I should probably read it now. If the email was indeed worthy of my immediate attention, I will leave it marked as Important - otherwise, it will be marked Unimportant. If the email requires a response of some sort that I am unable to provide immediately, I will leave it in my inbox - otherwise, it will be Archived. If the required action is of considerable effort, I will Star it (thus providing a visual indicator of how many heavy-duty items are on the list).

The other thing I want to discuss here is Gmail Labels - something I've used because they were like folders (and because Filters made them easy to apply automatically) but have applied poorly and used very infrequently. Today's thoughts about Priority Inbox have helped me decide on a better use of Labels. Again, the theory is that it is best to ask my brain to manually categorize an email as soon as it arrives (using, of course, keyboard shortcuts to make the process bearably fast). The categories, though, are the issue - what rises to the level of a category? I have decided that my life is focused around certain basic desires or pursuits, and these should correspond directly to my Gmail Labels. Previously, I had labels like Commerce, Bank, Internet, and Church. Not only do I have no need for a view that shows me all Bank-related emails, but it really doesn't help my brain to classify an email as having to do with banking. When it comes in, I already know all I need to know about it from the first line, and the vast, vast majority of those emails aren't interesting in the slightest. An email from a friend about Photography, however, or an email to a flight instructor about my next lesson - these things are worth categorizing, because it is worth reminding myself regularly what my priorities are, why, what order they fall into, and that each of them requires some regular effort in order to maintain (if, indeed, I want to maintain each one).

This leads me to a question, which may be better addressed in a subsequent post. Around what do we organize our lives? If we're organizing them around anything other than our basic pursuits, I suspect we're fooling ourselves into a false organization that serves mostly to exalt the stated rather than the actual purposes of our lives. Let's talk about this soon, shall we?

Long Distance Runaround

2010-06-16T23:54:00.001-04:00

I heard two excellent sermons on Sunday. My very own pastor is preaching through the Beatitudes (helpfully distracting me from his point every time he reminds us how inadequate the phrase "the attitudes you oughta be at" is), and this week's verse was:

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

Tom pointed out various things that meekness isn't, including being the guy who sits in the back of the room, trying not to be noticed...or the guy who sits in front of his computer, day after day, bothering no one. To be meek isn't to be a shrinking violet - it's to be the beautiful violet itself, which has no eyes to admire its own beauty.

To offer a more tried-and-true explanation of his excellent sermon, I'll quote C.S. Lewis. Tom had a similar quote from someone else, but that quote reminded of this one by Lewis, from Mere Christianity:

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you'll think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him... He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

This rings very true, of course. I know that I think about myself far too much. Scarily, my cognizance of this indicates that there was probably a point in my past when I thought about myself so much I didn't have enough time to think about how much I thought about myself.

Honestly, though, that's not what scares me most. Want to know what does? You're still reading, aren't you? Well, what scares me most about this... is how heartily we'll agree with it. So heartily (as it often is with Truth), in fact, that I am led to suspect that there must be something in the practical application that we're missing completely.

I'd suggest that what we're 'missing' is our ability to completely reconstruct our personalities in a way that allows us to believe we're no longer thinking about ourselves.

Huh-what? Let's take this one step at a time. When I am reminded that I think about myself too much, what is my first reaction? Generally, it's to (gasp) think about how I shouldn't do that. That, of course, is more thinking about myself. Fine, we all get that, and we often eventually realize we're doing this. Next step? For some, we remind ourselves the great Truth about putting off sin, and putting on Christ, or good works, or what-have-you. Fair enough. So now we're thinking about Christ, or how, because He loves me, I ought to love my neighbor, and that if I love my neighbor, maybe she will see how good Christ is, and love Him, and love her neighbors, and then maybe this world won't be such a terrible place - oh, but wait, remember that the world will always be a terrible place 'til Christ returns, and of course, it's not just my neighbors' fault, it's mine too, because I don't live like I should...anyway, it's still Good to build the kingdom of God, and it's lovely that He allows us to participate in that, and I wonder what I can do better tomorrow to love Him and love my neighbors? (This is usually the point where I fall asleep, of course, since I've been thinking while lying in my bed - but that's an issue for another time.) Some of you may have better luck in having those thoughts on a regular basis than I do - some, perhaps, less. Other times, or perhaps all the time with some people, maybe the thoughts are more general - how can I improve my community/environment/world/galaxy/local playground?

All of these are fine - nay, necessary thoughts to have. What concerns me is what we do next. This, by the way, often takes a whole lifetime (this pearl coming to you from my extensive experience with lifetimes), or at least many years to come to fruition, making it (again, from my experience) very hard for us to see in ourselves. What we often do next is, over time, teach ourselves to think about ourselves less, and the goal more. Whatever that goal may be - starting schools, building churches, feeding orphans and widows - we start pouring ourselves into it. When someone makes a comment in church about how many inner-city folks are poor because they refuse to work, my mental militia is marshaled immediately ("But they've been deprived of every social advantage you've ever had! In the city, there's no work to do! When's the last time you actually talked to one of these people, anyway!?"). If an actual discussion ensues, I am often deeply offended or annoyed (on behalf of the important cause I am defending, of course!) by the very real blindness that my brother or sister is displaying.

This is sin, of course - indulgence in hatred and anger is usually pretty easy to identify once you start talking about it openly. But what motivated the sin? Surely, my sympathies are with the people living in miserable conditions in the inner city, not with my own comfort, wealth, or personal liberty? I would suggest that the sin was motivated by the fact that, while convincing myself that I am tearing down the fortress of my own self-absorption, I have silently rebuilt my personality around 'the cause.' This may sound labor-intensive, but it is really rather easy to do, and tremendously tempting. Why? Let me go out on a limb here, and declare that none of my readers will ever be as wealthy as Warren Buffett. You won't, in all likelihood, end up as President of the United States of America. You probably won't even be on the evening news. Your name will not endure in the annals of history, and even if you DO become President, what will you really be remembered for? How well (or poorly) you managed to implement the great programs that you championed, first as a candidate, and then as the Commander-In-Chief. Your only shot at immortality is to be identified with an enduring system - an enduring cultural good (to borrow from the excellent language of Culture Making, which I recommend more highly than any book I've read in the past year, excepting only The Idiot). Whether you know this consciously or not, this is your instinct for self-preservation - or, if you prefer, your striving to be like God - kicking in behind the scenes to keep you satisfied with a life that is otherwise clearly moving toward its end. "If you will identify yourself with causes, then you can live this life without appearing to be selfish. If you pick those causes wisely, then it's a win-win!"

This evening, I read about Kendrick Perkins, the center for the Boston Celtics, who won't be playing in Game 7 of the NBA finals because he tore his MCL and PCL in Game 6, last night. I don't know the man's heart, but I know my own. In his words, however, this is how I would identify myself with a cause:

"...it's not about me. We're trying to win a championship. It's not about me. And I don't want the focus to be on me -- for my teammates. I don't want nobody feeling sorry for anything like that. We got a game to win. I want them to stay focused. I'm going to be all right. It's an important game. I appreciate my teammates and coaches that they're concerned. But it's not about me. It's about winning a title."

Well, that's great. Obviously quite the team player. Except, if it were me, I know I would say those same words, and the reason for those words? I want a title. I want a championship ring. Sure, I'll be thrilled for my teammates, too. I'll be very happy for the fans. I'll give away my championship bonus (I know nothing about basketball, bear with me here) to the underprivileged kids in Boston. Because I, yes, I, won an NBA championship! If all my teammates will just please forget that I'm injured, so that they can focus on winning (me) a championship, I will be very, very content!

Thing is, there's really no getting around this. We are on Christ's team. When He wins, we win. When the brokenness of this world is defeated, even a little, by the feeding of a homeless man in downtown Baltimore, we do actually win. But as soon as we start buying into the idea that these victories are worth pursuing, we'll also start reconstructing our own personalities around them. It goes from being a cult of personality focused on my very obvious desires (money, sex, power) to a cult of personality built around all the things I've turned myself into (the crusader for human rights, the Habitat for Humanity builder, the retired Marine officer, the bold evangelistic preacher). So it's still about me, and not about Christ.

Jesus came to set us free from ourselves (the sinful 'flesh'). Free to love Him, free to follow Him, free to find our identity in Him. He doesn't expect us to have no personality at all; He does expect that it not be focused on ourselves, whether through sarcastic, grade-school humor designed to exalt ourselves in the presence of our peers, or through clever political satire designed to make the institutions we've staked our lives on look better than those of our adversaries.

If you find yourself offended by someone's comments about something near and dear to you, ask yourself Why? - and don't settle for the easy answer. If you are constantly getting lathered up about politics, or economics, or social justice, or the unity of the Church, ask yourself, Why? There may indeed be something of the driving-out-the-money-changers-with-a-whip in your motives...but there is guaranteed to be something of the cutting-off-the-ear-of-the-high-priest's-servant in there as well. Pray that you will not be so easily hoodwinked by your ability to love yourself by proxy as you are relying on everyone else to be.

Jesus is the only way to be meek. He is the only one who was meek. I must not turn Jesus, or any of the innumerable, good things that He loves, into that beautiful, new, granite pillar that everyone simply must go see, in order that they will be thinking only of how wonderfully meek I am when they finally see the golden statue of me, high and aloft, in the center of the square.

Age After Age

2010-05-02T20:45:00.003-04:00

The more I learn about ancient Israel - the more I read what God was saying to them, and try to peel back the layers of my faulty assumptions - the more I wonder...

The promises that God made to Israel were generally along the lines of "obey, and I will make you prosper in this land." I've often, without realizing it, read that as if it were a promise to take them to heaven - I subconsciously decided that "this land" didn't actually refer to that land, but to the heavenly land that all of "Abraham's children" will one day enjoy. That's really a rather bold leap, and one I'm no longer willing to make. When God said "this land," I believe He meant exactly what He said.

On the other hand, I do see a lot of symbolism in this. In fact, I believe that the entirety of Israel's history is meant as a symbol to the world - a symbol of how well we will succeed at obeying God through our own efforts, even when miracles and prophecies and wonders are happening every generation or so, at least! A symbol that clearly tells the one who sees it, "You won't. You will never succeed, because your heart is hard."

Alright, great. So it's a massive symbol to explain to us our own brokenness. Makes sense. BUT WAIT A MINUTE! Why in the world did God need to play with the hearts and minds of 40+ generations of tribal Israel just to prove a point to the rest of the world? That seems a little ridiculous, doesn't it? Couldn't He simply have told us? Why make them go through all the effort, failure, destruction, and despair? Why not just send a prophet to say, once and for all, "YOU CANNOT OBEY. YOU ARE TOTALLY DEPRAVED.* YOU NEED A DIVINE SAVIOR WHO CAN PURCHASE YOUR FREEDOM, BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO IT YOURSELVES." Boom. Done.**

Or what about telling us a story?*** Instead of making all of these people suffer under the weight of ceremonial and religious laws for hundreds and hundreds of years, with only the faint hope that perhaps God would show mercy to them despite their disobedience and failures - why not just tell a few parables with the same message? A few poetic stories about a group of people who tried and failed miserably would prove the same point, wouldn't it?

But perhaps not. Perhaps we, like the ancient Israelites, are just as hard-hearted in the face of what we are told about ourselves. If someone had warned Europe of the coming horrors of World War II, how many people would really have believed that the cold-blooded murder of an entire race was something that the Germans would actually carry out? In fact, if no nation in history had ever murdered the members of a rival nation, who would believe that such an evil was actually possible?

It seems as though God requires Himself to tell us about Himself and ourselves through history. What good is a story, really, if it doesn't mirror actual history in some way or another? Truth, then, is actually worked out through history. It cannot simply be "pretended," or "theorized," or "imagined." It may be that there cannot be something True which has neither happened, nor will happen.

I've heard people say that one of God's reasons for our suffering here on earth is that, having experienced suffering, we will be able to appreciate sides of God's character (His mercy, His healing, etc....) that the angels, who have never suffered, will never really be able to understand. I'm sure that angels have brilliant minds, and I'm sure we could "explain" to them what it is like...but not having experienced it, they will be unable to really comprehend the goodness of God's mercy.

In a similar vein, I've often wondered why Christ actually had to die... If He's now alive, and enjoying the same bliss He was before He came to Earth, what did He actually accomplish? Sometimes it seems a lot like a stage drama - God was obviously trying to get our attention, but He probably could have used a body double for the actual death. Once again, the only answer I can fathom is that, as we have really sinned, so must someone really give satisfaction (make atonement) for our debts. He couldn't simply tell us how much He loved us, or I am sure He would have done just that. He couldn't have truly loved us as much as He does without actually performing an act of love more loving than anything else has ever, or will ever, be.

As a question for further thought, how does this apply to situations where we are trying to help others who are going through a situation we've never been through? How do we interact with them helpfully (or can we even help at all?) despite not having truly experienced what they are experiencing, and therefore on some level being unable understand their suffering?

* Calvin would've appreciated this.
** I am, of course, ignoring the fact that He did actually tell them they were going to fail. But only a time or two, and obviously He just wasn't being clear enough.

*** Best/most ironic name for a genre of literature, ever? "Religious Fiction."

This Isn't A Dream

2010-04-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

They are born in a vast room.

Their eyes are shut, tightly, against an overwhelming light; a light that seems, at the first, to burn into their minds even through their eyelids. Yet the initial brightness does finally seem to fade, and, eventually, each one will make an attempt to open his eyes and see the sort of place into which he has been born.

The first moment of an unguarded eye is tremendously painful. The light is even fiercer than expected, and the eye must quickly be shut again. Further attempts bring the realization that progress in knowing the world will have to be very slow. Yet, as time passes, they learn to squint into the room... and through their still-woven eyelashes, they now begin to see the faint outlines of fantastical shapes! Foreign! Awful! Patterned and colored in the wildest ways imaginable! The all-illuminating source of light is nearly forgotten in the wonder of what spreads itself dimly before their eyes.

As slowly they learn to move around the room, they discover that the shapes are objects, some small, some of terrible enormity, all distinct, though somehow alike. As they learn more about the objects, they learn to move them, change them, combine them, and destroy them. Their mastery over the objects develops apace. Many get so absorbed in this transformation that they forget that their eyes remain squinted. Many, in fact, begin to disbelieve that it is possible to open their eyes any further, and any suggestion of this possibility is firmly rebutted. Still, many remember the brightness of that initial light and glance upwards in search of it...

A searing pain, even more intense than the first, forces their eyes shut once again

Their eyes recover, but many decide never to make another attempt: they consider that the time lost in recovery is not to be wasted on trying to see something that causes such pain, and is, indeed, of dubious importance. Over time, the light is largely forgotten: many, calling themselves the Morphologists, say that it serves no purpose other than to illuminate their surroundings; others deny that it is anything at all. Some, who call themselves the Pragmatists, theorize that the objects themselves emit their own light, while others (the Egotists) argue plausibly that they themselves are the emitters of light.

Others, however, remain fascinated by the light. As they encounter others with a similar fascination, they learn that there is known to be one method of looking at the light. It requires some special equipment: a device that is both rare and expensive. Some are discouraged by this information, but others begin their search for this mysterious device. Many devices are invented after an aborted search, and some consider their inventions to be superior to the claimed capabilities of the mythical Photoscope, while others declare that theirs is the true and perfect design. Many do eventually come into the possession of the original Photoscope - it is described as a complex machine made of mirrors, heavy filters, and many other, unknown, pieces. It is considered rather unwieldy, and requires instruction and practice for even the most rudimentary use.

Those who find it begin to use it to look at the light. Though the pain is still intense at first, they begin to learn about the light, and their desire to learn more about it increases. Their progress is slow, as even the Photoscope cannot adequately shield them from continued exposure to the light. They call themselves the Photologists, naming themselves after the magical Photoscope itself, and they spend much of their time thinking about and discussing the light or the Photoscope amongst themselves. They will often argue with the Morphologists, the Pragmatists, and the Egotists about the light's existence and purpose, though many of their arguments are with those who espouse the use of a different device.

However, there is yet another set of people who have no patience for this slow progression - from that first painful moment of seeing the beauty of the shapes around them, they are fascinated and insatiable. Despite severe pain, they open their eyes wider, and wider still, disregarding the childish hesitancy of their peers. For many, their eyes are seared in their infancy, yet they pursue ever more strenuously the unimpeachably great achievement of gazing fully and freely upon the wonders of the splendorous objects in the room where they live. These people, calling themselves the Cosmologists, quickly outstrip their peers in their knowledge of the room. Some of them despise the weakness of those who refuse to expose themselves to the pain of knowing their world, though many work tirelessly to convey their knowledge to those who are more timid in their efforts. None of them can agree with those who say that the light is unimportant; based its effects on and reflections from the many and varied objects that they can see (some near, and many that are tremendously far off), the Cosmologists are able to discern a vast number of things about the light itself. However, they remain unable to view the light itself, for it is far more potent than any of the objects upon which it shines.

A few of the Photologists who have used the Photoscopes for a long time eventually come to an understanding of the room that is commensurate with the knowledge of the great Cosmologists (though this accomplishment is indeed rare, and quite hotly debated). Many of the Photologists actively refute the observations and descriptions of objects provided by the Cosmologists, calling them inaccurate and dangerous, and arguing that only the pure study of the light has any power to reveal truth.

The Cosmologists, too, hear of this contraption that will enable them to look directly at the light. Some are not interested at all, their knowledge of the world being already more complete than the knowledge of those who are suggesting its use. Others are interested, and acquire one of the Photoscopes for themselves. However, in the use thereof, the vast majority find that their eyes are simply too injured by the continuously bold use they have endured so far to gaze for long upon this supremely bright object. Others of the Cosmologists, though willing to endure even this last and greatest pain, find that what they see does not quite correspond with what they had already discovered about the nature of the light. Some of the observed discrepancies are lesser, others greater; except for a very few, the Cosmologists conclude that the device is faulty - that in its complexity and mysteriousness, it must be fundamentally altering the view of the great light.

As time passes, the eyes of all eventually fail, and whatever they had seen seems to determine the manner in which they now live. Many find life without sight unbearable; many now deny the existence of the objects themselves - the objects that they had spent so much time using, changing, and characterizing. Many refuse to speak at all; their thoughts are therefore unknown.

It is said that some, who had seen the light itself most clearly, are unable to forget its beauty and its brilliance. It is said that they live in perfect contentment, declaring that they can see it even more clearly, now that they observe it with the eyes of their mind - this, most of all, I am unable to confirm.... And yet I find that my own eyesight is strengthened as I hear the stories of these.

An EP by Larkin Poe

2010-03-23T21:36:00.006-04:00

This is the first music review I've ever written; it was kinda written on a whim, and I don't necessarily expect I'll ever do this again. Regardless, here it is for your enjoyment and/or derision:

Larkin Poe, 2/3rds of the recently-disbanded progressive bluegrass band the Lovell Sisters, gives us their first effort, and it is a very solid start. Wisely eschewing the full-length album format in an effort to put out a cohesive set of quality songs that listeners will find easy to appreciate on the first spin, the two sisters who still carry the surname 'Lovell' shared songwriting duties on the EP to great effect.
As the lead vocalist on all of the tracks, Rebecca Lovell varies impressively between the soulful southern twang of an old-time gospel singer on 'Burglary,' and the uptempo improv jazz vocal on 'Fairbanks, Alaska.' Megan Lovell's harmonies are consistently rich, and her proficiency on the dobro is heard as early as the first moments of 'Long Hard Fall.'
Their lyrics don't break much new ground, sticking largely to the tried-and-true country bluegrass themes of love, heartbreak, and the challenges of spending months on the road. Still, with lines from 'Nothin' But Air' like "cupid ain't so stupid that he'd go and try to tie a blindfold on me," and "choking on lies you've told me: nothing but dares, and little boy jokes, backing up dreams you sold me," Megan and Rebecca prove that they can be clever and even insightful.
The sound of the EP is firmly established by a quartet of excellent backing musicians, highlighted by Daniel Kimbro's virtuosity on the electric and string bass (the latter of which is especially effective as the backdrop to the epic and energizing 'We Intertwine'), and Mike Seal's always solid, and occasionally sublime, control of the electric guitar (most obviously in his inspired guitar solo on 'The Principle (of Silver Lining)').

All in all, An EP by Larkin Poe is a worthwhile addition to your library, a fun introduction to the still-evolving world of 'newgrass' in general, and the only way to start your collection of music from the duo that shows strong signs of being a worthy successor to the far-too-short career of the Lovell Sisters.

To that I will add simply that the whole thing is available for listening and purchasing on their website, and if you're one of them dih-jee-tul folks, you can also get it on iTunes or (better yet) AmazonMP3.com.

Things That You Know

2010-03-13T13:09:00.002-05:00

I'm afraid today's entry is nothing new. It's even something of an awkward topic, although my strict policy of non-tolerance toward awkwardness obviates that particular concern. But the real problem is not that I can't be original, nor that I may come across as overly self-confident; no, it's that I don't really know much about the subject -- which, by the way, is a least a little ironic.

I used to dread that God would see that I consider myself to be a particularly intelligent person and take away that intelligence to punish me for being so proud and ungrateful. It's true that I was, and am, both proud and ungrateful. However, partly as a matter of understanding God's character somewhat better now, I don't fear that He'll strip gifts away just to punish me for being sinful; for one, if He were consistent about such punishments, I'd have absolutely nothing left, since I'm proud and ungrateful about everything He's given me; for another, if He did take away my intelligence, although it would likely teach me humility pretty effectively, I understand that His motives and actions are not to be reduced to the level of "well, I finally just got tired of how awful Peter is being and decided to show him that I'm serious."

With that window into the psyche of a teenager, I'll progress to my question. What good is being intelligent? Everyone's heard the phrase "ignorance is bliss," and while everyone knows that the sentiment often being expressed therein is actually sarcastic, implying that people who appear to enjoy their state of ignorance are foolish, there's a smaller (though perhaps not much smaller) subset of people who have also seriously considered the plain meaning of the phrase: that not knowing things truly provides for a more blissful existence. And for those who have considered this, it's not a hard idea to accept, at least conditionally. The obvious example is one of the largest groups within our society; children. Who would argue that children do not, on average, live a life with fewer troubles, cares, woes -- occasions for the diminishing of their bliss?

I should admit to equivocation with the term 'intelligence;' many children could be said to be more intelligent than their parents, yet rarely are their parents more 'ignorant' than their children in terms of the "quantity of things known." I've also been overly broad about the corresponding categories of ignorance and bliss - I'm not really all that interested whether being uneducated about current events makes a person more or less happy.
What really concerns me is the question of childlike, and arguably ignorant, faith. I sit in church on Sunday mornings and I struggle. Within me exist, often simultaneously, two opposing thought processes. The one is the incredibly deep-rooted, very serious, and honestly considered belief that God exists, is who the Bible says He is, loves me, and has saved me from all of my sins. The other is that it seems too good to be true, that so much about Christianity seems like exactly what I would want to believe in order to free myself from the miseries of life, and that Bible study, discipleship, and worship seem like just so many facets of a comprehensive program aimed at brainwashing people into living unwaveringly happy and peaceful lives. Not that Christianity preaches a 'natural' happiness, but it certainly teaches that it is good (and possible), "no matter what state I am in, to be content." Of course, there are many arguments that deal excellently with these doubts, and these specific doubts aren't my focus here. But this forms the heart of my question, because I perceive that many of my brethren do not struggle with these thoughts the way I do. Perhaps I am very wrong about this being a result of my above-average intelligence, but since that is unfortunately a very difficult thing to prove without carefully executed statistical analyses, it's better left alone for now.

Assuming (as is only reasonable) that God does exist, it is clearly good to have faith in Him. If it is, in fact, easier to have faith when your mind is not clouded with the many wandering thoughts that run through the overly-active brain of someone who is "above-average," then is being smarter of any lasting benefit to those of us who are? It clearly affords every worldly advantage that can be imagined; on average, we have better jobs, better health, and longer lives; we commit fewer crimes, we are murdered much less frequently, blah, blah, blah, etc, and so on and forth. But since I can hardly believe that any of those things are actually of true importance in the kingdom of God, what have I really gained by receiving this gift of intelligence? Along with all those unarguably enjoyable effects, I appear to have a brain that is capable of chasing itself in circles for hours, - nay, years - wondering whether religion is just a well-reasoned construct of the masses and my own desires, and endlessly contemplating my own capability for self-deception.

Jesus himself said that God has withheld "these things" from the wise, and had revealed them to the 'babes.' That strongly reflects what I observe; that people who are intelligent struggle mightily to believe the things that God has said...and assuming that it's true, it makes sense on the most basic level; the more capable we are, the more we're likely to believe we're smart enough to comprehend enough of the universe to determine whether God exists (though this admittedly ignores the issue of whether truly wise and intelligent people more clearly perceive their inadequacies). As another example of my own psyche, I often wonder whether this was just a well-crafted claim designed to convince less-intelligent folks to believe in God, on the grounds that the stuck-up intelligentsia could therefore be seen as inferior in the most important realm of all knowledge.

As a matter of fact, the truly brilliant people throughout the ages have been well distributed across the spectrum of belief. No stockbroker who has ever lived has been as intelligent as Plato, yet Plato had a strong belief in some type of divinity, while no stockbroker has ever shown any signs of believing in a power higher than the mighty dollar/yen/euro/peso/Kenyan shilling. Many of the greatest artists, writers, and philosophers in history, whose brain activity probably gave off disruptive electro-magnetic fields that caused people with metal fillings tremendous toothaches, have had strong and well-reasoned beliefs in God. I would like to believe that there is a certain level of intelligence beyond which these doubts (which must ultimately be considered foolish) cease to be a trouble. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that this is so, and even less likely that I am intelligent enough to reach those lofty heights.

I am tempted to end there, because I really don't have an answer for this question. I will propose, however, that it seems intimately tied to the answer to the last question I posed; if there is true, lasting purpose in the things we 'accomplish' here on earth, then perhaps the simplistic answer is that, though intelligence may be a burden (how disturbingly haughty this sounds!), it is to be borne for the good of others. That answer is easy enough, though incredibly dangerous for the heart of one so naturally inclined to view himself as superior. In my experience, anything so easy is suspect, so I'll end by suggesting that it's probably inadequate, though how exactly is something I haven't determined. It's very possible that I'm still allowing my brain to run in circles.

The Things We Can and Cannot Keep

2010-03-01T22:15:00.003-05:00

Writing an unplanned email to an unexpected person reminded me today of my desire to return to the world of blogging. The Internet is a great and tremendously variable medium, and while it's several steps removed from writing a classic novel or important philosophical treatise, blogging appears positively epic in the light of Twitter, Facebook and the sundry 'easier' pursuits of the electronic world.

I've watched too much TV over the past year. No, over the past 3 years. It started innocently enough, ingesting ten seasons of Stargate SG-1 over a one-and-a-half month period, but it has progressed to an addiction involving (among others) Fringe, Chuck, LOST, House, Dollhouse, Burn Notice, The Office, Battlestar Galactica, and, yes, The Bob Newhart Show. In fact, the only TV show that I can truly say was completely worth my time over these past years was Firefly, and that (by God's good providence but also FOX's miserably corrupted exercise of free will) amounts to a scant 10 or so hours of television.
Conversely, I have not read enough. The list of books I've read over the past several years is fairly small, and not particularly varied. I've re-read most of C.S. Lewis' works, and a couple of things by G.K. Chesterton. I re-read The Idiot (my favorite book ever, for those who did not know), and I've read a trio of books by The Brothers Peterson. Reading is, in my opinion, the single most important factor in the life of a well-educated, intelligent and wise person, yet I do so little of it.
I've drunk too much beer. I've eaten too much food. I've done too much sitting and too little running. I've wasted time at home and at work. I've prayed rarely and poorly. My worship has been incredibly thoughtless, even when I momentarily recognize God's greatness in the midst of it.

Some of you may have heard that I've been actively rectifying some of those issues over the past couple of months. It originally had to do with some long-term plans I've made which will require me to be in at least decent shape; now it's become something of a love. I've even made some progress in the area of regular prayer, though I don't know if it's 'better' prayer. Worship, I am afraid, doesn't appear to have changed for the better. Actually, I am getting ahead of myself there...

You see, the past two months have really been good. My sleeping schedule, my work schedule, my energy levels and bodily strength are probably all at their all-time bests. And that's good, right? It certainly seems so. I'm fairly sure many of us could craft an argument that Scripture recommends all these things as worthy of our thought and effort.

Then here is my question: the things I've mentioned above, with the exception of those specifically spiritual, like prayer and worship (which are largely the same thing, of course): are they things I can keep? I'm not asking about my newly-developed pecs. I want to know; can I keep my sound mind? does having rapturous thoughts about the beauty of great works of literature and art change me in a way that I will never lose? does my transport at the wondrously compelling music of Over the Rhine, or Rich Mullins, or Jars of Clay, help to define my soul? To take a more mundane example, what about my tremendous desire to sail the heavens, brought on nearly every evening, as taking my leave from work I hear the roaring of turbine exhaust and drink in the exquisitely beautiful and functional shapes of jet airplanes as they soar overhead into the sunset? Perhaps you think I'm exaggerating? Not even slightly.
Yet all of these things, things that I love desperately, seem fleeting. Will I still be able to fly airplanes in heaven? Will my love for the books of C.S. Lewis, or England, or Brazil, or indie rock, remain? It is not that I would be devastated to learn that they won't... I am comfortable with the understanding that heaven will be better than I can possibly imagine, regardless of what form it takes. It certainly feels as though these things are worth my time, but in the absence of a guarantee that I can keep them forever, I question whether I should strive to increase my love for them. I want to know: are these things I can keep?

A second question. Love of anything in this world, at most, will be reduced to a memory, will it not? So, do memories have value in heaven? On this earth, you can return home from the other side of the world with only the smallest of trinkets. In the next, even those will be left behind. I am a sojourner in this land, and someday all of my digital photos, my books, my half-full bottles of scotch whiskeys, and my vast, vast, exceedingly vast hoards of money will be left behind. Yet my memories will almost certainly last. Memories, however, are always bittersweet. Some of my best memories are of my years in Brazil, or that week-and-a-half in England, and the two months I worked at Wesley Woods before my senior year of high school. They are my best, but they are easily the most painful as well; I can hardly dwell on them for more than a couple of seconds without a sharp pang of sorrow for days to which I can never return. How will it be to have memories of an imperfect world? Will I still find great joy in the thought that I once went here or there, or that I saw this thing or that? Perhaps even memories can be cleaned, perfected. Perhaps I will spend my days praising my Father for his kindness in allowing me to fly through His clouds in a small machine made of metal. Are memories things I can keep?

One last question, then. Can I keep the things I have imagined?
I have imagined, and will imagine, many more wonderful things than I will ever get to experience:

I have imagined, and will imagine, the joy it would have been to sit in The Eagle and Child, even (and perhaps especially) quietly, with Lewis, Tolkein, Barfield, Coghill et al, as they talked about everything I know and a good deal more that I don't.

I have imagined, and will never cease to imagine, how I would love to live a lifetime in Brazil, or in Kenya, or in Colorado, or Tennessee, or any of the other places where even a lifetime spent would be far from enough.

I have imagined, and will ever strive to imagine, what it would be like to spend weeks, months, years composing music, or writing books, or doing any - no, ALL - of the the things that all of the most brilliant people have done throughout history and before.

Are the things I have imagined things I can keep?

This life is far too short to participate in even the tiniest fraction of what God offers us, and the memories of things done and things not done pale in comparison to and yet also vastly outshine the things themselves. None of these things are things that He assures me I can keep, or even if He does, there is no mention of how I will keep them.

I live as though His relative silence on the subject is tacit permission. Most likely it is. And yet, for these things that seem to be the very greatest things this world has to offer, it is surprising that they should pass muster based on His lack of comment. What a very odd world this is. How little I truly understand. Perhaps someday I will return to this topic with more to offer than the wild-eyed questions of a traveling boy.

best article I've ever read

2010-02-07T09:09:00.002-05:00

Keeping America's Edge

Seriously. Not only does it dovetail with (as well as contradict) some of the thoughts I've been having recently about America's place in the world over the past sixty-five years, it also paints a very lucid picture of what's currently happening in our politics and economy, where it's headed, and what we ought to do now and in the future.

For those of you looking for a rabidly conservative or liberal viewpoint, you'll be disappointed. For those who don't like economics, well, this may not be your thing, but if you read it carefully, you'll be better off for it. =)

it's about time to admit...

2010-01-06T21:27:00.004-05:00

that I had no idea what to title this post. Okay? Deal with it.

I just thought I'd broadcast to the small part of the world that I don't have time to tell individually (yes, that means you, less-important-person!) that I am beginning to take flying lessons. Starting someday soon. Not sure when, really. It's expensive, but it should be fun, and I'm looking for a challenge that doesn't involve (just) staring at textbooks for many hours a day.

This is part of a larger, master plan, which I ~~will~~ won't reveal from this location at a later date.

STAR WARS!

2009-12-03T16:49:00.003-05:00

I hate to stop by just to post a link, but this is the coolest thing I've seen in months. Even topping the Obama Chia Head. Which is harder than it sounds, for all you naysayers.

Anyway, a real, bionic arm. Yes. And CNET breaks out the awesome journalistic style that Engadget's known for on this one. So go read, and enjoy.

friday night live

2009-10-23T22:19:00.004-04:00

this is my new favorite website. Obviously, in a sane world, this would be, at most, an elaborate joke. Of course, no one in his right mind would assume that this world is sane.

offensive

2009-10-22T22:45:00.004-04:00

I know, I know, we're long overdue for a post here, and you didn't care anyway, so why am I apologizing? But I want to make sure I'm covering my bases. Despite my apathy toward baseball, I know how to get in the analogous spirit during the Hunt for October.

Anyway, tonight's topic is 'offense'. Something, most of you no doubt are thinking, that the University of Tennessee has been lacking in this season. A team that traditionally lacks it, but is having a reasonable amount of success so far this season, is the University of Mississippi - traditionally, "Ole Miss". Apparently, this upstanding member of the Southeastern Conference has a fight song which, at some points or anothers, has included a post-song chant of "the South will rise again". Terrifying as that may be to us Northerners and our unsweetened-tea and cornbread-as-cake sensibilities, I'm, as always, a little doubtful about the overall evilness of such a chant. In fact, if you want my very private opinion, it's pretty clearly a mindless chant used by people who are excited about a football game to get other people excited about a football game. Does anyone actually think that "the South", whatever that IS, is going to be rising any time soon, the excellent qualities of White Lily Self-Rising flour notwithstanding? But, of course, there are people who strongly believe that this chant runs counter to all the principles of goodness, fairness, and Ole Miss. And who am I to argue? I don't really know that much about any of those things - it is, after all, the South, and don't they have their own special brand of morality down there? But here's the funny thing. According to the good women and men at ESPN.com, the student government has made a suggestion on how to modify this chant to be less offensive.

Warning: this is the part where the post gets sarcastic. You may wish to leave the room.

They suggested is that people who wish to chant after the school's fight song is sung, in a manner more inclusive and friendly to the various people attending and participating in the football games (that was ironic without even trying to be), should instead chant:

To Hell with LSU!

To which I respond: The Vols will rise again!

AHA!

2009-09-23T22:05:00.002-04:00

If only I had been born in the summer, my life would have been a piece of cake. I always, always, deep down in my heart of hearts, knew this was true... and correlation DOES TOO equal causation!

wenger, part 2

2009-08-24T17:28:00.009-04:00

I'm thinking of buying a Swiss Army knife. I lost my old one a while ago; I think I left it at my parents' when they were redoing my room after I moved out. They probably rented it to someone who never paid and then disappeared. My parents do have a slight history of deadbeat renters.

Anyway, I need a small knife like this one:

Or this one, the silver version:

In fact, that's the problem...I can't decide. The silver one looks way better. The black one seems slightly more functional (toothpick, anyone? And tweezers, for the metrosexual in me).

I recommended to Johanna that she get this one, because it has a high-decibel whistle (that word means loud, folks) that I figured was appropriate for a teacher of first graders. Belatedly I realized, in the heat of battle, it is not inconceivable that one might whip out the high-decibel whistle in order to injure one's attacker, or the 2.5 inch blade in order to attract the attention of passers-by. Not only am I undecided about which would be worse, I have alternatively become pretty conflicted about which combination of action/intended result would work best. That is to say, I think you'd actually get plenty of attention after slicing open -- you know what, never mind. This blog has been fairly gore-free, and I think I'll keep it that way.

Back to the pretty/functional dilemma. It occurs to me that this is the story of my life (potential wives, take note). It also occurs to me that as much as I like to think of myself as a fairly consistent fellow, I've been anything but consistent in this realm. There have definitely been the times I've gone for the pretty (c.f. my currently inoperable vehicle), and then there have been the others when I've gone for functional (my wardrobe, for instance). Actually, full disclosure: a good example for the latter category took me a few minutes to come up with. But, yes, when buying a knife turns into an existential dilemma, one begins to wonder if there are disturbing undercurrents of subconscious desire that, if known, would shed more light on my desire to buy a knife that will accompany me everywhere. Hmmmmm....scary. If you think about it.

I thought writing this post would make my decision clearer. Easier. Or at least more fun. As it turns out, that didn't happen, and now I'll probably put this off for another five months. Thanks for nothing, blog.

Grocery shopping

2009-08-18T23:19:00.005-04:00

I have friends who call it 'the food store'. While part of me revolts against the aural horror of that phrase, the logician in me finds it hard to argue. Which is why I say I 'have' friends, instead of using the past tense 'had'.

I tend to treat trips to the grocery store like visits to the red light district; I go late at night, hoping that no one will see me, that I'll be able to get in and out quickly, and that the goods will still be fresh after everyone else has picked through them earlier in the day. Last week - I think it was Thursday night on the way back from a meeting at church - I went to the Superfresh which is less than a mile from my new home. I hadn't been there yet, and while I was fairly certain it would be more expensive than the Food Lion I am accustomed to frequenting, it is close, so I figured I should check it out.

Well.
The boxes of clementines (ALWAYS CHECK THE BOXES!!) were labeled June 21st. And one didn't have to poke one's finger through the plastic mesh to tell that these clementines couldn't recall even the highlights of their better days. Yes, I did poke anyway. Also, their chicken (all sorts) was priced highly. They Did Not Have Grapefruit. The yogurt that I found was tagged at 1.09 apiece, unless you had a Special Card (or whatever they call them), in which case it was 40 cents. Great. They didn't even have no-brand bagged rice, which was a shame until I realized it was a good excuse to learn how to cook rice by measuring water. This was actually a success on Saturday when Gavin and Janet came over to eat Indian Food, so I guess that's just as well.

I was pretty disappointed, as you can tell. I'm not sure that I won't go back, but I sure would love to see 32oz bags of chicken nuggets that cost less than $4.50, in lieu of the $5, 280z ridiculousness they were trying to foist upon me on Thursday. No. Thank. You.

Take back the beep (not my idea!)

2009-08-18T13:06:00.001-04:00

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the-mandatory-15-second-voicemail-instructions/

This is a good article that details pretty well the ridiculousness of current cell phone voicemail systems. Seriously...why do I have to listen to you talk for fifteen seconds before you let me hear the person's own prompt? Crazy.

And yes, this (that is, technology) is basically my only brand of activism. Sad, I know.

my new room

2009-08-08T23:34:00.007-04:00

for those who might be interested, here's a chance for some unabashed* voyuerism:

BEFORE

AFTER

* it's unabashed only because I said so. Otherwise, I would expect you to be extremely abashed.

Linux-y wireless-y things

2009-08-03T17:50:00.002-04:00

Today was interesting. I broke my wireless trying to replace NetworkManager with wicd, but later this afternoon used a wired connection to get wicd installed. It worked instantly, and all of my suspend/resume stupidities are gone; at least, with my desktop they are.

The netbook, however, hasn't connected to the wireless in my new place once. It just seems to get confused, and never manages to extract an IP address from the router. It is sad, especially since there's a lovely backyard that seems perfect for hammocking while hacking. Hmm. I shall get this fixed eventually, I suppose.

In the meantime, I just want to encourage people, if they've had any problems with their wireless connections on Ubuntu Jaunty -- try wicd. It seems to work, and doesn't seem to suck like NetworkManager.

EDIT: This edit brought to you by a working wireless setup for Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty on my Asus EEE 1000H netbook. Which is great, and I'll probably try the backyard once I get ahold of my hammock. I'm going to post a modified set of instructions here, which are not originally mine, but should work as of August 3rd, 2009.


cd ~
sudo ifconfig ra0 down
sudo modprobe -r rt2860
find /lib -name rt28*

Remove all files (sudo rm -rf ) that this query finds.


wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/25979268/rt2860sta-connect-to-mixed-tkip-aes-routers.patch
wget http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2009_0424_RT2860_Linux_STA_V2.1.1.0.tgz
tar xzf 2009_0424_RT2860_Linux_STA_V2.1.1.0.tgz
cd 2009_0424_RT2860_Linux_STA_V2.1.1.0/
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/26192677/Patch%20for%20rt2860sta%20driver%20for%20WPA1-2%20connection%20v1.8.0.0%2B.patch
patch -p1 < ../"Patch for rt2860sta driver for WPA1-2 connection v1.8.0.0+.patch"
sudo make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe rt2860sta
sudo ifconfig ra0 up

If necessary, at this point, you can use NetworkManager (or better yet, wicd!) to actually make the connection.

Today ended much better than it started.

safety in numbers!

2009-07-21T08:13:00.001-04:00

numbers of bullets, that is.

Truck dealer aims to spike Web traffic with free AK-47s

I will pretty much guarantee that this is the first time a CNET editor has posted an article with the tag "AK-47".

correlation does not equal causation!

2009-07-13T19:22:00.002-04:00

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Dazed-Giant-Sea-Creatures-Wash-Up-Minutes-After-Quake--.html?yhp=1

Of course, all the media wants to do is give their wholly unlikely slant on the thing; namely, that the squid got confused by the earthquake and ended up washing ashore. Seriously? I mean, read that title again. There are Giant Sea Creatures washing up on a beach, people. Is it more likely that the earthquake caused them to show up, or that the impact of their massive bodies caused the earthquake? Well, I don't need to tell you which one *I* think is more reasonable.

But yeah, the squid are definitely at fault here.

diary part 261

2009-07-11T00:28:00.004-04:00

Since I mostly use this thing as my diary anyway, and since writing in diaries is what one does when one can't / won't / ain't / warn't / 'tisn't (a)sleep(ing), here goes:

I need pretty serious lumbar support when sitting on this couch.

I am beginning to realize that I don't actually know even the slightest things about how to pursue a female person. The last time I really succeeded, I was 15 and didn't actually do anything other than sit next to her in all of my classes. Does this explain why I sometimes wish I could go back to high school? I just don't know what I'm doing.

Also, being attracted to someone feels a lot different than it did in high school. Back then, it was all stomach and no head. Now, I analyze everything like crazy. Even thinking I'm attracted to someone is something that I seriously question. I never used to wonder why I was attracted, or whether I should be. I mean...should I be attracted to someone I really almost never talk to nor have any good way of communicating with? These days it seems like I can hardly convince myself that I am attracted, not because I'm not, but because it just seems preposterous.

This is the first time I've ever tagged a blog post with 'girls'. It probably isn't the last.

a time, two times, and two quarter times

2009-07-07T21:22:00.004-04:00

Lately, I've spent a lot of time thinking about music and poetry and art. Mostly about how, probably more than almost anything, I want to make good music and poetry and art. I really like listening to it, reading it, and seeing it, but....
I don't think it would be very true to say that I've always been an artistic person. Writing has always come reasonably easily to me, and I've always liked music a lot, but I can't draw, my few poems have been nothing better than passable, and the couple of songs I've written are either unfinished or Nothing to Offer, which is reasonable, but probably not destined for anyone's top one hundred.

This is part of why I've gone back to playing the guitar. Or, rather, to learning to play the guitar. I need to somehow learn to be more artistic. This blog has probably been the most artistic thing I've participated in over the past couple of years, and we all know how awesome it's been.

In other news, my room is messy, but somewhat under control. I have bought a Bible, which is good, because going without one for almost a month is not. I have way too much beer in my closet, which means I'm poorer than I ought to be, but I'll be recouping that over the coming months as I drink my way, very slowly, through my vast stash, not needing to buy any more for a long time.

It's pretty hard to believe that this year is almost halfway over. I feel old, especially after vigorous games of soccer and/or capture the flag, except for when any of my cousins asks me how old I am and I realize that they all still think I'm pretty little, at 22. Unrelatedly, I was pretty (and little), when I was 4 years old. I wonder why that all had to change?

Tired // Africa // Music

2009-06-28T19:20:00.004-04:00

Just got back (okay, maybe an hour ago) from Kentucky. A trip with Gavin, Janet, Josh, and Wayne that I'll remember for a good long while. Though I'm entirely exhausted, it was really good. I only hope that Gavin and Janet can get some real sleep on their plane, because although it was in some ways a very relaxing weekend, I am definitely more tired than I would have been at the end of a normal weekend.

Ahh yes, a plane. For you see, they are going to Uganda. For a whole month. We actually dropped them off at Dulles International on the way back from Kentucky. They should be flying by now, but don't have good seats at all. They could definitely use your prayers (and mine!). Pray, I think, most of all that they will be able to focus on serving the people in Uganda, and not on how complicated their lives are going to be when they get back. Gavin will be starting a new job, they will be finding and moving into a new apartment, and even more craziness which I won't go into now.

I have to say, spending time in Kentucky seriously rekindled my love for the south. I would love to find an excuse to spend a week in Bean Station, TN later this summer - dunno if it will happen, but it would be nice. Especially if anyone wanted to go with me. Another thing I miss is working at Wesley Woods.

I am planning on following up my insane weekend with an insane trip to Powhatan, VA tomorrow to see Derek Webb (and gosh, hopefully SM as well!) in concert. The tickets are ridonkulously cheap, so...well, yeah. It might only be a three hour drive, if we're really fast and really lucky.

I have been trying to write music. Melodies come to me pretty easily now; it's the words I'm struggling with. I seem to be able to write one verse and one chorus for pretty much any song, but it stops there.

Guitar playing is actually going pretty well, which is excellent. As fun as it is at this point, I expect it will get even more fun over the coming months. I'm very excited. My friends who are Real Guitar Players should feel free to shower me with tips, advice, criticism, gifts, chocolate, money, and sweet sweet lovin' --- uhhh..... I'm leaving now.

One last thing -- Sonic roller-skating girl...if you ever see this, I'll still marry you.

computer things

2009-06-11T23:09:00.005-04:00

When your new motherboard/CPU combo boots the first couple of times just fine, then starts not even making it to the POST sequence (and the hard drive access light just stays on), the first thing you should check is whether or not your CPU power cable is plugged in. (BOTH ENDS. MOTHERBOARD AND POWER SUPPLY.) Needless to say, this was not the first, second, or tenth thing that I checked.

Also, when your CD drive doesn't work either - it would probably be a good idea to check your SATA cable rather than worrying about whether your Crysis DVD ruined your drive with all those horrible clicking noises.

Newsflash! Core i7 setups don't work with CPU fans from Core 2 Duo setups! Which means I'm stuck with the generic Intel fan, which is kinda whiny, compared to my Arctic Freezer 7 Pro.

Let's see, what else? Ahh yes. Windows 7 can't seem to set up wireless drivers as easily as Ubuntu. Silly Microsoft. What else? I'm loving how Linux sees my new CPU as eight separate processors.

If Amarok 2 is annoying you (and it probably is), at least you now know that you can make all the icons come back by installing the kde-icons-oxygen package via Synaptic (or apt-get!). Getting sound to work seems a bit more complicated, but I think I installed mostly xine packages, especially the one about plugins-all or something like that.

Anyone looking for a motherboard, CPU, and 4 GB of RAM to start them down the road to a pretty hot computer? Only caveat being that this motherboard's S3/S4 'sleep' (often called suspend) functionality has never worked, and won't work for you either.

______________________________

PART TWO:

HECK YES. Best part of the day so far was learning how to re-enable my wireless card after resuming from S3 (in Ubuntu, though this should work in pretty much any flavor of Linux). The only thing you really have to know is the name of the kernel module/device driver for your wireless card -- oh, and the name of your wirelss network interface, which is usually either wlan0 or ra0. The name of my kernel module is rt61pci.

ifconfig wlan0 down
modprobe -r rt61pci
modprobe rt61pci
ifconfig wlan0 up
dhclient wlan0

Since I know you're curious, this next list actually describes what those commands are doing:

Deactivating your wireless interface. This is probably already the case if things aren't working, but it's hard to know. If running 'ifconfig' doesn't report wlan0 as "UP", then it's already down, and this step is unnecessary.
Removing the kernel module. Also possibly unnecessary, but better safe than wondering-why-your-wireless-internet-connection-won't-just-work.
(re)Loading the kernel module. Definitely necessary, and the important step that your computer is sadly leaving out when resuming from sleep.
Activating the wireless interface. After running this, ifconfig will report wlan0 as UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST, most likely. The UP part is the important one, since all the others were showing up before you did your magic.
Getting an IP address from the router! This took me a while to finally figure out - I tried manually assigning myself an IP address, but it didn't work. I don't know if that's because I didn't actually communicate with the router, or because it was already taken...regardless, using dhclient got me an IP address in no time, and all of a sudden, everything WORKS.

If you're dealing with this sort of issue, the best thing to do is to write these commands in a script and put it somewhere will it will get auto-executed on resume from sleep. I'm stealing this script from someone else, and adding the dhclient step for (y)our benefit. If you run these commands directly (within a terminal), you'll need to remember to use 'sudo' for each one, since you're not allowed to do these things unless you are root. The ones in bold are the actual meat of the script:

#!/bin/sh

case $1 in
hibernate|suspend)
;;
thaw|resume)
ifconfig wlan0 down
modprobe -r rt61pci
modprobe rt61pci
ifconfig wlan0 up
dhclient wlan0
;;
help)
echo “$( basename $0 ): Reinitializes wireless rt61pci after a suspend”
;;
*)
echo “$( basename $0 ): called wrong”
exit 1
;;
esac

It is important that you put this particular script under /etc/pm/sleep.d/, or wherever your distro puts the scripts that it runs during "suspend events".

experience

2009-06-04T00:28:00.007-04:00

One thing I may have realized for the first time this evening was a result of the following train of thought: we as humans are continually having new experiences. Feeling ways and thinking thoughts we haven't before. These strike us as very new and different, and indeed they are. As an unintended result of our recognition of just how new and different these experiences are, we tend to somehow come to the belief that these experiences are unique to ourselves in an important way...that is, I am the only person who has ever experienced quite this type of sensation. This is bogus logic. There is absolutely no logical connection between having an entirely new and unexpected experience, and the reality of whether or not someone else has experienced the same thing. Isn't it rather likely that they simply haven't gotten around to experiencing many of the things we have, while we're just now getting around to experiencing what they already have?

As Christians, we rightly understand life to be a progression. Often we allow ourselves to believe that if we have had certain experiences that others haven't, we have necessarily progressed farther than they. While this seems to make sense, I suggest that it does not. I will endeavor (regardless of how much wiser and better I stupidly think myself to be) to actually believe those who say that they have undergone the experience I am undergoing, and receive their wisdom with joy.

dun dun dun dun dah dun dun dah dun

2009-05-31T21:00:00.004-04:00

I want to tell you this story about how I went to see Star Trek (which was good, by the way) and when I came out of the theatre the speakers in the hallways between theatres were playing the Imperial March from Star Wars....but I'm not sure how to do it.

Edit: This video, which I discovered ten minutes ago, is extra funny in light of the story which I wanted to tell.

Beyond the pale?

2009-05-12T20:17:00.003-04:00

Have you ever seen someone spell that phrase with the word "pail" instead? I hope you never have to.

As Christians, we are not to return evil for evil. My initial reaction to this article was one of amusement but also concern, since it seems like repaying evil for evil. But the overall effect of this practice (scam baiting) seems to be a good one. More than that, it's actively defending people from being bilked out of their life savings.

Would this be wrong for us to engage in? I don't have a great answer, though I guess I know which way I'm leaning. If you have a great answer, a reasonable suggestion, or even a really shoddy one that you're incredibly proud of, let me know.

wenger

2009-05-10T14:45:00.004-04:00

That's the name of my pastor. But that's not where we're going with this one.

Has anyone ever bought one of these? Seriously. Anyone? Ever? I cannot imagine meeting this person. It would be particularly disturbing a) because I think this person is ridiculous, and b) because I know he has a two pound, eleven ounce implement of death, destruction, and insanity in his pants. At least I hope that's what that is.

have you ever?

2009-05-06T21:51:00.005-04:00

Have you ever thought that maybe you were having a heart attack? This happens to me on occasion, and I often consider trying to feel my pulse to see if my heart is still beating. Thing is, I never do, because I know that if I feel it and it isn't beating, I'll freak out, have a heart attack, and die.

Have you ever been more scared by a bunny rabbit than it was by you? I have. I was jogging merrily along, and an enormous furry monster jumped out in front of me - and hopped serenely across the road. In my terror, I nearly ingested asphalt.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have a better imagination? I thought about it the other night and ended up thinking about a work of modern art I'd like to see created. I don't want anyone to steal my idea, so I'm not telling you what it is...but it's good.

Have you ever loved loving God? I have. It's the best thing I've experienced, and I wish it were the case all of the time.

wasting time

2009-05-05T23:05:00.003-04:00

I'd love to get a copy of Left 4 Dead and have some people to play it with. This doesn't seem very likely, though.

On an ENTIRELY unrelated note, check out this infomercial. It is pretty funny.

Lastly, if you weren't aware, XKCD is running daily this week. It requires a bit of background knowledge to appreciate, but if you've seen Firefly and Dr. Horrible, you should be in pretty good shape. And it helps to know that the writer of XKCD owns an electric skateboard (of which he is very proud), and that he recently learned that Nathan Fillion also owns one.

Two miles

2009-04-28T20:27:00.002-04:00

without stopping.

Also, a haircut, online banking account with TFCU, extension cords and whatnot for my room, and I made taco meat. Today is a good day.

oink oink

2009-04-27T22:05:00.004-04:00

to continue the recent rash of posts relating to animals, this one is about porkers.

Two links. Read them in either order. It might be funnier one way or the other; I really haven't decided. Maybe you can tell me which order you think would've been funnier.

XKCD

CNN.com

rapido

2009-04-27T20:15:00.003-04:00

I was excited about coming inside and blogging about the fact that I had run 1.5 miles in 9 minutes. Then I checked Google just to be sure, and now Google wants to say that it was 1.1 miles. That makes me sad. I am fairly certain that Google has changed its mind over the past 3 months about how far that run is, but I can't prove it. Anyway, it was my fastest circuit ever, and this is because I had curry cooking at home, and I needed to get back to stir it. Let me tell you, the fear of seeing flames licking out of the windows when you get back is quite the motivator.

I really would LOVE to get to bed early tonight, but I have an awful feeling that I'm going to fail once again. We shall see.

More than a month later, I am finishing up the iced tea that Nina sent with me. First off, I can't believe it lasted this long. Secondly....it is really good.

Firefox still thinks the word "blogging" is spelled incorrectly. YOU FOOL.

woolly

2009-04-27T00:15:00.001-04:00

This is probably one of the coolest videos on the Internet. Even if you don't like sheep. And honestly...who does?

Three links

2009-04-23T01:26:00.003-04:00

I found these three articles recently, and thought they were good reads.

The first one is about running, and what kind of shoes to wear.

The second one is about the real dangers to our technological infrastructure.

The last is about professionalism in computer code; especially in comments. I sympathize with the writer of this one.

Those are all things that interest me.

turbo

2009-04-21T19:35:00.001-04:00

Running would be a lot easier if I had a turbocharger.

....and on days like this, windshield wipers.

rest / weary

2009-04-21T02:18:00.003-04:00

It would be great if I could be sleepy at night, and awake during the day.

Jaunty isn't much different than Intrepid, but Amarok 2 seems nice enough. Despite the missing functionality.

Hey, Iain! Your recital was good. Maybe I'll see you next week.

Omegle

2009-04-16T00:41:00.003-04:00

I gotta admit, I just wasted the last 45 minutes of (what should have been) sleep by talking to random people on Omegle.com. Not that I recommend this as a daily pleasure, but I imagine that getting together with Gavin or Matthew and using our combined brainpower for befuddlement and consternation could be well worth our while.

I have missed...

2009-04-13T22:22:00.003-04:00

conversations like that. Even though it was more like "Radio Hour(s) with P. Gaultney"....it really helps me to be able to think out loud like that.

Thanks.

Also, the purpose of this post is not to make you like me. I hope. Really.

huh, that's weird....

2009-04-12T08:36:00.003-04:00

I'm sick this morning. I started feeling it last night, and now I am.

=(

Boa Pascoa!

Guinness is better partly frozen

2009-04-11T17:35:00.004-04:00

My recommendation is, for a can of Guinness Draught that has been fully refrigerated, you should put the can in the freezer for between 1.5 and 2 hours to get the full slushiness:

P.S. And it turns out that (at least for the freezers I've experienced) you can leave the Guinness in as long as you want, too. It might need to warm up for a minute or two before you try to pour it out of the can, but other than that, no problems were encountered. =)

Ubiquity

2009-04-07T21:34:00.003-04:00

It's embarrassing how far behind the times I am with this, but I guess that's how it goes when you're distracted by anything and everything else.

Ubiquity is the perfect extension for Firefox. I know this, and I haven't even used it more than about three times. But goodness....a command-line for Firefox?!

But no, it's not that. It's better. You don't have to memorize commands. You just type what makes sense. Sometimes you have to pick one of the suggested commands out of a list - usually it knows exactly what you want, even before you're done typing.

I abhor mice. I also abhor computer mouses. Both require me to take my hands off my keyboard. Ubiquity is neither, neither does it require me to move my lazy hands all the way from their resting place on the stationary plastic wireless device underneath them to the movable plastic wireless device 12 inches away.

I interrupt this broadcast to start enjoying Ubiquity. If it weren't already interrupted, I would suggest that you do too.

This old blog

2009-04-05T21:22:00.002-04:00

is tired of being ignored.

I'm home, where I belong. I've been away for too many Sunday mornings recently. This coming weekend, I'll be here - the weekend after that, Tennessee. But after that...well, I really can't imagine spending too many Sunday mornings anywhere but Pasadena.

Freeman Dyson

2009-03-28T18:40:00.002-04:00

For science fiction fans, think "Dyson spheres". For people who like to read about global warming, read this article. It's just all-around interesting.

It is I!

2009-03-25T23:44:00.001-04:00

Remember: "It's me!" is NOT proper English.

That being said, here's a cool t-shirt!

expensive

2009-03-21T23:33:00.004-04:00

owning a car, that is.

Today was so expensive...new tires....front-end alignment (which wasn't really necessary, but....eh), all sorts of fancy cleaning products. The car is beautiful, and I am very tired.

Still, just like everything else, the novelty wears off really quickly. It's a great car...it really is. And I'll be happy if people say nice things about it tomorrow when I see them at church and so forth. But I'm also starting to get a little tired of it. And it's been interesting to me, over the last year or so, how quickly the novelty wears off of just about everything.

So yes. This year's tax refund can't come soon enough.

I had an INSANE knot in my back this morning. In certain positions, it felt like I was on fire. On. Fire. I bought Elton John's Greatest Hits today while waiting for my car to be done. 34 songs. I'm excited.

My phone made a different noise this evening.

front-to-back

2009-03-19T17:31:00.002-04:00

Here are some more pictures. But the G35 is still dirty.

artificial intelligence

2009-03-18T14:57:00.002-04:00

I found this article on Slashdot, but I'm linking you to it directly. It's really good, and kinda scary. And my favorite quote from it is: "When you beat the computer, it's an illusion. The computer let you win. We just want it to let you win in a way that feels good."

grab a sword and fight the Horde!

2009-03-16T20:32:00.001-04:00

Seriously. I once had a battle with Nerf guns, and that was awesome. This seems like it would be equally ridiculously amazing.

pictures

2009-03-16T19:15:00.004-04:00

Someone asked.

I took the top one. The others are the ones that I saw before I ever saw it in person.

I'll be sure to take some more this weekend once I've given it a proper bath.

growl

2009-03-15T21:03:00.002-04:00

I need a name for it. And maybe a gender, I'm not sure. But it is definitely fun to drive, and pretty comfortable, and despite the complaints of everyone else in the world, I think the BOSE sound system is great.

But seriously. Yesterday morning - YESTERDAY MORNING, PEOPLE - I was sitting in this chair. And now I've been to Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Bean Station, Kingsport, Roanoke, Winchester, Harpers Ferry, Frederick...and I'm back in the same chair again.

I need sleep.

in Atlanta

2009-03-14T08:40:00.002-04:00

I am here. The experience has been optimal, so far. There was a bit of confusion at the ticket counter, where at first I was told there was no point in standing by because the flight was full. I asked if I could buy a regular ticket for the 6:00 flight, and was told yes, but that I couldn't buy one for the 8:30 flight. I took this to mean that there should still be a chance of getting on the 6:00 flight on standby, so I asked the agent to try again. After some conversations with his colleagues, they gave me something even better - a boarding pass with an assigned seat number! I couldn't really believe it, but there it was. Sure enough, not only was it a boarding pass, but the seat was in an exit row, so I got all the legroom in the world....something AirTran usually charges extra for. Even after boarding, I was a bit nervous that someone would decide that it was ridiculous that they had let me on the plane that easily and yank me off the flight. In the end, I don't believe there was a single empty seat on the plane.

The flight was fairly uneventful, but I did have a long conversation with my seatmate, who happened to be looking at Consumer Reports' 2009 Car Buying Guide. I told him about the Rebel, and he told me about the first car he ever owned, which was a '74 Gremlin.

Now I'm sitting in the airport, trying to decide what to do next. I could rent a car, or I could get breakfast. I don't have anything to do for the next three hours, so it's hard to plan for anything specific. It's a shame I don't know anyone down here well enough to visit them.

Hopefully y'all are all having fairly normal Saturdays back in the real world. And hopefully I can get back to the real world within the next couple of days...maybe even with a car!

the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

2009-03-12T23:39:00.004-04:00

There is a great dilemma which I believe has faced many men at one point or another in their lives. At first blush, it seems to be one of those decisions that is impossible to make rightly.

I am, of course, speaking of the occasion of sudden and simultaneous desires for ice cream and beer.

To all men who have not discovered the answer, Behold! I tell you a mystery! You do not have to choose!

To all men who wonder what I could possibly mean by saying something which has so much of the savor of those things which are simply too good to be true, I declare: Wild Goose Oatmeal Stout mixed with Breyer's Peach ice cream is a gift too wonderful to be described by human lips. Thankfully, it is NOT a gift too wonderful to be enjoyed by human lips. Therefore, rejoice! No longer must you choose one or the other; no longer must you go to bed having had neither because choosing one over the other was simply impossible. No! But get thee to a tall glass, and enjoy Beer mixed with Ice Cream!

Happiness

2009-03-11T22:45:00.003-04:00

is having more than enough coat hangers.

Which I do not.

Joy is a different thing, though possibly not entirely different. The discussion tonight was very good, and even though I talked a lot, I listened a lot...especially to myself. That may sound weird, but the things I said were things I haven't thought (or said) very much recently. And it was good to hear someone saying them, even if it was myself.

I can't decide whether to get some food before I go to sleep. Regardless, I'd appreciate your prayers. Sleep has not been a very....fulfilling? thing recently. I've done a lot of it, but I still wake up feeling tired, even after nine or ten hours of it.

what to say, what to say?

2009-03-10T22:18:00.003-04:00

I was told this evening by my father that he reads my blog. This inspired me to post. It is also the reason why this post is going to have little or nothing to do with alcohol.

I am looking for a car. You already knew this, right? Well, I may have found one. That is why I plan to take a little trip this weekend....down to Atlanta, to look at a car. If you were curious, it's an Infiniti G35. If you hadn't already heard this and you feel offended, please don't be. I was planning on surprising you, and then I realized that the whole surprise thing wasn't going to be working out so hot when I started calling you all and asking you for rides to the airport on Saturday morning.

I may have a traveling companion - if this is the case, I may not need a ride after all. If it is not the case, I will almost definitely need someone to drive me to the airport on Saturday morning, and possibly back from the airport on Sunday or sometime. I'll certainly let you know.

Work is tough right now. I've hit an annoying snag that I can't very well circumvent on my own. The days seem long. And I still don't feel like I'm getting enough sleep. On the other hand, I do have the office to myself. This would have seemed like a great thing, but partly it means that I have no one to run my ideas by, and partly it means that it's really quiet. Except for my music, which I can play through my speakers.

I haven't actually started running yet, for those of you who had that impression. I intend to, but I want it to get just a tad warmer, so that I'm not worried about it getting cold again. Also, at this very moment, things just seem too busy. Maybe they aren't, but they seem that way.

I am going to sleep now. Shocking, but it's true. Oh, today I made sandwiches and took them to work, for the first time in a while. I'm really tired of restaurant food, even if it's filet mignon.

exhaus

2009-03-08T17:50:00.003-04:00

i can't even finish that word. i'm just too tired.

ultimate frisbee was lots of fun. i did not play excellently, and my lungs are a bit upset.

it is starting to hurt....when people compliment my car. it's happened a couple...no, maybe three times in the last three days. aaaaand....she's dying. i've never called it a she before. it's not really a she, but the pronoun serves its purpose right now. and i don't have the heart to tell people that. and they're going to be really surprised the day i get out of a new car. =( and so will i...

bleech. i feel a little sick to my stomach. too much water? not enough?

my room looks like a village recently visited by a horde of Vikings. did you notice that i capitalized that 'v'???

praise the Lord.

Obama's new budget

2009-03-06T11:58:00.003-05:00

Guys, it's been a long time since I posted anything political. Frankly, I have been generally frustrated with the entirety of American government for a few years, so I have found it hard to rail against anyone in particular. I was not particularly upset about Obama's election; based on recent historical precedent, Democratic presidents haven't been substantially better or worse on fiscal or social issues.

The first thing that I have to say is that I found the headlines about Obama's new budget absolutely appalling. Most of the news agencies that I saw gave it a headline about "halving the budget deficit in four years". Well, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? It certainly did to me. If I've ever believed that there is a disturbingly liberal bias to the media, it was when I read those news articles. The "halving" of the deficit is based on his newly-proposed budget, which expands the deficit to a level beyond anything seen at any point in our nation's history.

Granted, that second line (for 2009) is only an estimate. But even the first line, which doesn't include the stimulus package or the bank bailout (TARP), is the worst budget deficit we've ever seen.

Now, if that weren't disturbing enough, please do me a favor and read this very, very excellent article written by an Economics professor at Stanford. It's excellent because it's well written, not written as an inflammatory riot-inducer, and actually includes some real facts/references. Also, it won't take more than 5 minutes to read.

When you've read that, you'll probably feel as disturbed as I do. This really does sound like what we've been dreading for a long time. We need to elect leaders who will stand up against this sort of thing, and not trash the nation's economy (and by unfortunate extension, the economy of much of the rest of the world).

one more day

2009-03-06T09:04:00.003-05:00

It's Friday morning, and we're starting class. Hopefully it will be survivable.

I talked to Dad last night about getting a new car. Actually, no. We talked on Wednesday night (or Tuesday? I can't remember) about the current car situation, and we decided that it might actually make sense for me to get a car. I spent a lot of yesterday looking online, and quickly narrowed down my options. Toward the end of the day, I finally found one I'm really interested in. I talked to Dad about how to go about it, and he was very helpful. I don't know whether I'm going to go after this one, but I think it's fairly likely.

I'm heading home this afternoon. Praise God! I am very tired of being down here - well, mostly just tired of this instructor. I have learned some things, but not thanks to him. =P Jeff/Garth/Pat...be afraid....be very afraid.......

Hopefully I'll have enough energy for Capture the Flag tonight. I'm getting waaay out of shape, just in time for things to warm up enough that I can run. I really want to get back to running.

Oh. For those of you who have Twitter....you can find me at twitter.com/petergaultney. I started the account to have a place to let off steam during this class, so I'm not pretending that it's necessarily going to be very encouraging for the first 80 or so tweets. From here on out, I have no idea whether or not I'm really going to use it. It's unlikely that it'll get updated particularly often; I'm making no promises either way. But I just thought you might want to know.

sheesh

2009-03-04T22:05:00.002-05:00

I have learned a lot more just by tinkering around and looking up stuff on Google. Why do I have to go to the class tomorrow? Sadly, they do seem to take some sort of 'attendance'.

Time for bed. Tomorrow will be a better day, if the Lord wills.

Lastly, does anyone have a place I could store the Rebel long-term?

I can't do this.

2009-03-04T07:08:00.000-05:00

prepare thyself

2009-03-03T08:17:00.001-05:00

This looks like it'll be an interesting class, if I can survive the juvenile humor.

me: 2, challengers: 0

2009-02-28T03:34:00.001-05:00

That's the only statistic from tonight that I care about. ;)

And they were 4-person free-for-alls, too.

warm milk

2009-02-21T23:06:00.005-05:00

I love warm milk. It's soooo good. My mental ideal of "home" includes warm milk appearing at unexpected times for me to enjoy, without even having to punch buttons on the microwave.

That, actually, was going to be the entire blog post. Now, I'm going to ruin it by getting very philosophical. The author of Hebrews (I think it was the Greek philosopher A. N. Onymous) tells us that, when we have become mature Christians, we should partake of the strong meat of the Word. And I've always understood that to be my goal. But now that I think of it....I still really, really like the warm milk. I delight in remembering that, despite (or including?) everything else that I know about Him...everything...I belong to Christ because He first loved me, and gave Himself as an offering to appease God's wrath toward me.

in marks of indelible Grace

2009-02-21T08:54:00.007-05:00

A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear, with Thy righteousness on, my person and off’ring to bring.
The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do;
My Savior’s obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.

The work which His goodness began, the arm of His strength will complete;
His promise is Yea and Amen, and never was forfeited yet.
Things future, nor things that are now, nor all things below or above,
Can make Him His purpose forgo, or sever my soul from His love.

My name from the palms of His hands eternity will not erase;
Impressed on His heart it remains, in marks of indelible grace.
Yes, I to the end shall endure, as sure as the earnest is giv’n;
More happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in Heav’n.

--Augustus Toplady

A free weekend

2009-02-20T19:53:00.006-05:00

It's the first time in a while. I think I have forgotten what I do with myself. I need to figure it out, because the next few weekends, at least, will all be free just like this one is. Frrreeeeeeeee.

If I have the time tomorrow =P I'm going to overhaul the back-end of this blog design, in order to allow for a bit more flexibility. Probably not 'worth it', but it's been so long since I did anything substantial with CSS.

I really, really like my job. Today was incredibly fun (and successful). I really enjoy working with computers: learning them; understanding them; mastering them.

Lunch was good today too. Brad is very helpful. And I had never seen a schoolday at Rockbridge before. It reminded me of Tall Oaks. I kinda miss school.

Also, this just in: Rich Mullins made some really excellent music.

I see the morning moving over the hills
I can see the shadows on the western side
And all those illusions that I had
They just vanish in Your light
Though the chill in the night still hangs in the air
I can feel the warmth of morning on my face
Though the storm had tossed me
'Til I thought I'd nearly lost my way

And now the night is fading and the storm is past
And everything that could be shaken was shaken
And all that remains is all I ever really had

Patience

2009-02-18T20:40:00.001-05:00

...is a virtue, which I cannot wait to have!

thankful

2009-02-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

I am not my own.

fear

2009-02-10T19:48:00.004-05:00

I don't want to belabor the point. We should not fear sin. Sin no longer has any power over us. We should not fear believing the wrong thing, because though that is also sin, sin STILL has no power over us. The Spirit has power over us. Grace has power over us.

This is not to say that we should not be careful about what we believe. But I encourage you all to search your hearts - is your care motivated by trust in the Lord, or by fear?

This post comes to you courtesy of Martin Luther's advice to sin boldly. I strongly encourage you to read the context of that statement. I understand him to be saying that when we fear sinning - when we fear that we may sin in ignorance, especially -- we are doing wrongly by Christ and His grace.

Manner and Means, part six

2009-02-08T18:34:00.000-05:00

I apologize for not finishing the series promptly.

The question for me, at this point, is: in what ways do we try to 'love' God by doing things, when we should be instead reflecting on how wonderful He really is, in order to inflame our hearts and minds to do His will? If you give your son a bicycle, and he adores it and spends all his time riding it, you will be happy for him. But your desire is that he would love you, not just the bicycle. If he loves the things you give him, this is not the equivalent of loving you. If he does the things you tell him to do, this also is not the equivalent of loving you. It may be a good thing, but it is not going to produce true joy or lasting communion.

Often, I think we (Reformed Presbyterians?) give the Word of God too much value. Before I am devoured by a pack of angry wolves, I should say that I think by doing so, we are not ascribing to it the glory it deserves. Just as our glory is not found in being exalted to the level of God, neither is the glory of the Scripture found in its being exalted to the level of God. We know that Christ is the Word. But I do not think that we can accurately say that the Word is Christ. If Christ is fully contained in the words written on the pages which we have (with all their footnotes, endnotes, and what-have-you), then there is not much to be excited about in terms of the life which lasts forever. We already have everything we could ever want. But this is manifestly untrue. If God has given us everything we could ever want, then what 'hope' have we? None. But no! He is reserving the best for last. He is reserving the fullness of His glory. Now we see dimly, but then we shall see Him face to face.

Perhaps I have sounded like I am tearing down the respect for God's Word and His multifarious means of grace. But this is not my intent at all. Just as we are to find great joy in being His people and doing His will (not in being exalted ourselves), so we are to find great joy in all the things which He gives us as means with which to love Him. Reading the Scriptures is something I have found to be more and more enjoyable, the more I see them as the things which give me one of the very best opportunities to see Him and to know Him. Why? Because seeing Him and knowing Him make me love Him! Doing His will makes me love Him! We CAN love Him more by reading His Word, and by ministering to our neighbors and enemies, and by fleeing from temptation. But I strongly suggest that we will not do these things well unless we love Him, and not just the means themselves.

Does this make love a means to doing good things, hence blurring the lines between end and means? Perhaps. The whole thing is certainly bound up in intricacies. But it is fairly clear that just as we do not save ourselves by works, we do not somehow "love" God with our works either. We love him with our heart, mind, and soul.

I will admit that my conclusion is poorly done. I find myself with very little to say, and less ability to say it. I strongly recommend that you read Matthew's recent post on Grace and Discipline. It is exactly the sort of summary which this topic deserves. You can find it here.

Manner and Means, part five

2009-02-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

I would like to devote this part to addressing certain objections that may have come up in response to this series so far.

1) Are some non-Christians actually better than Christians? By God's standard, absolutely not. Romans tells us that there is no one who is good, except those who are in Christ Jesus. But this is not the point. The point is that the parts of the law which are technically "doable" without knowing or loving Christ (these tend to be the parts of the law everyone, even Christians, get particularly hung up on) are quite often kept better by some people who are not Christian than by many people who are. This is quite clearly the case, and again, it begs the question: is loving God the exact same thing as keeping the law? The answer must just as clearly be "NO." I also want to clarify that it is not my belief that the Pharisees kept the law perfectly - in fact, my point all along has been that "the love of God" is itself commanded by Christ. No one, no matter how good they look, is actually a Keeper of the Law.

2) Doesn't John 15 refute these claims about the love of God being the goal? Jesus follows the previously quoted verses by saying, "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love."
Not at all! Go back to verse 9. Notice he prefaces with "Abide in my love". This is the "command." Looking at the overall context of John 15, we see that we only keep God's commandments BY abiding in His love. Therefore, Christ is showing forth the absolute necessity of being in communion with the Father - abiding in His love - if we are to have any hope of keeping the commandments. We will not bear fruit unless we remain attached to the vine!

3) Aren't "works" important? It sounds as if you are saying that all we need to do is love God!
The answer here is twofold. Firstly, works are quite clearly important. In Paul's seminal defense of "salvation by grace through faith", he follows up immediately with "so that you may walk in good works". James is very clear that faith without works is dead. So the answer is that works ARE important. But if the question is "do we need anything but to love God?", the answer must be found in the word "need". We need only Christ, and if that were not true, we would be hopelessly lost. But "need" and "ought" are not the same thing. Ought we to do good works? By all means! Need we do good works? Our salvation is not dependent on what we do. One of the most wonderful blessings of being in Christ is that we are finally freed from the power of sin, which makes us unable to enjoy doing good. Now that we can enjoy it, of course we will do it! We are finally free to do what we were created to do.

Lastly, it will be pointed out that keeping God's commandments is a way of stirring up our love for Christ. This is absolutely true. C.S. Lewis puts it like this, with regard to loving our neighbors:

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

There are three important things to note about this phenomenon. First, notice that the end is still love. We are called to love these people, and that is the result of having done the things that Christ called us to do. Second, it is Christ's love that enables us to love these unlovable people in the first place! Third, people are not the same thing as God. We cannot expect to find ourselves loving Him more simply because we have done good things, because the problem we are trying to overcome is not His unlovableness, but our sinful hearts. No. He graciously provides good deeds as a way in which we draw closer to Him, but this is only the means to an end, and an uncertain one at that. Many a person has spent his whole life doing good deeds in order to get closer to God, and has found himself at the end of a long life, exhausted, miserable, and no closer to the God of heaven than he was when he started. We must not allow ourselves to think that we will gain communion with God by doing the things He has commanded us. We lost that communion by choosing not to trust Him in the garden, we have regained that communion at Christ's expense, and He will maintain that communion on our behalf. We need do nothing. We ought to do many things, and by His grace, we will.

Manner and Means, part four

2009-01-30T20:52:00.004-05:00

The love of God. What is this, really? Everyone talks about it like they understand it. Many people think that it is an emotion that causes us to feel connected to God. Others dispute this, saying that it is much more objective than that. I know a song by a Christian rock group called "Luv is a Verb". If you can get beyond their difficulty with spelling, you'll see a familiar phrase. I have certainly heard many people in my life talking about how love is not something you feel, it is something you do. I have grown up understanding that is necessary to fight off any idea that love would be something other than "doing good for another".

I digress for a moment to reference a classic debate. What role do good works play in our salvation? Catholics would argue that James and other authorities specifically teach that good works save us. Not works by themselves (this is a straw man that gets set up and torn down more times per day than the silverware on your grandmother's dinner table do in a year), but works and faith working together to produce your salvation. Protestants have often rebutted this by noting that Paul says very specifically in Ephesians that our salvation is by grace through faith alone, and....not by works. Protestants note that Paul says works are the result of saving faith, and thus will always be present in the Christian's life, but do not contribute to his salvation. Setting aside this important debate for the moment, I call your attention to this Protestant position that the works are the result of something else.

So, the Scriptures that I believe are most relevant to the question of what the love of God is, are Jesus' answer to the Pharisee who asked him what the greatest commandment was, and his great soliloquy about love in John 14. Jesus' answer to the Pharisee sets the stage for us. He says that the greatest commandment is to love God. All of us turn this on its head every day of our lives. Instead of taking Jesus' words at face value, and understanding that as a command to enjoy our creator, delight in knowing Him, and rejoice at being reconciled to Him, we see it as a an instruction that love IS keeping His commandments. Perhaps if Christ had said "the greatest commandment is to keep all the other commandments, because that is what love is", then we would be correct in taking this path. In a search for clarification, I turn to John 14. Jesus tells his disciples that "whoever loves me will keep my commandments". In yet another astounding logical error, we often mentally convert this into "whoever keeps my commandments is loving me by doing so." There are two huge problems with this inversion. The first, and the one that has caused me endless confusion throughout much of my life, is that there are many people who do not even know Christ who do a good job of keeping many of his commands. Grandparents, in general, are a good example of this. I have met many very kind, gentle, peaceful older people who do not believe that Jesus is Lord and God Almighty. If I interpret this passage backwards, no sense can be made of this. The second, enormous, problem with a backwards interpretation of this passage is that we Christians do NOT keep all of God's commandments. We simply do not. If we truly have no love for Him, then what on earth is being accomplished?

I conclude that the love of God is something that we feel. Perhaps less provocatively, I could say that it is something that comes from within. It is not, in fact, something that we perform by doing certain deeds. It is an emotion. Love often presents itself as a longing, does it not? You love a woman, and you long to be married to her. You love your child, and you long to see your child full of joy and peace. When your child is not joyous or peaceful, the love does not go away - it makes itself felt even more strongly. When your child receives joy and peace, your love is delight in the fulfillment of the longing. We were created to be in communion with our God. We ought to long for that communion, and we ought to take joy in the true communion which we now experience because the Holy Spirit lives inside us. Similar to the role of works as related to salvation, we should see the role of works with regard to our love for God not as the thing which produces love, but as a result of love. Jesus says that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. This strongly argues that love actually inspires the keeping of His commandments.

There are more things to be said, and the next post will deal specifically with certain objections. I do want to deal with one immediately, however. By saying that love comes from 'within', I am not saying that it is something we produce. Just to clarify.

Manner and Means, part three

2009-01-28T23:25:00.003-05:00

The love of God. That is Jesus' implied 'end' (goal) for the Pharisees, as well as (by obvious further implication) for us. If we are to read Scripture, not because it simply confers grace by mystical power, but because it has the goal of helping us to love God, then how DO we understand the power that Scripture so clearly claims for itself?

The answer to this question seems to lie in the reality that we really only have one option left. It is not that Scripture, by itself, confers grace - it is that God uses Scripture to accomplish his ends. If His end is that you should love Him more, then Scripture is effectual in that way. If His end is that your heart should be hardened, it is effectual in that way. There is an interesting parallel in communion, which Paul carefully cautions the Corinthians against in 1 Cor. 11:27-29. We say that the Eucharist is an effectual means of grace, but we do not mean by that that it automatically confers grace upon the recipient. In fact, it seems important to note that Paul is speaking to those he calls "believers" in this passage; Paul is therefore not fencing the table against unbelievers, though they are of course included. He is fencing the table specifically against believers who are coming without having faith in Christ. I would add that I think the thrust of this fencing could be explained this way: if communion is truly a communion with Christ, then "partaking unworthily" is nothing more or less than partaking without an actual desire to commune. The preceding context is the explanation of what we are doing when we 'take communion', and that should serve to inform our understanding of why he would be fencing the table; not against certain people, but against any person who is not approaching it rightly.

At this point, I want to extend by analogy this need for a right end for every means. It is my belief that we are called to have a right end -- the right end -- in sight for all of our actions. This right end has already been identified as the love of God, which at this point I'll always put in bold text just because I like consistency. The next portion of this series will take a look at what the love of God is, and (spoiler alert!) how we strive after idols which we make to look very much like the love of God.

Manner and Means, part two

2009-01-27T23:59:00.000-05:00

Do the means justify the end? I will give an example. I must be careful not to base my argument on example, but I think it may be helpful. Let us imagine that I am preparing to build a house for my impoverished neighbor. I notice that Jesus tells me not to build a house on a foundation of sand, so I find a good solid rock on which to build the house. I build the house using his advice. Is this house a good work?

How about a more general example? Do you believe that the Bible is the infallible and inspired word of God? That every bit of it is profitable for your preparation to do good works? If you were to consult the Bible before you did whatever it is you are going to do next, believing that the words of Scripture are effectual and will give wisdom to the reader which surpasses the wisdom of the world - true wisdom, which is not powerless - would the actions that follow your method be good?

Let me go back to my first example. What if I told you that I am a building contractor whose grandmother read the Bible to me when I was very little. I grew up hearing the things that Jesus said, and even though I don't put much stock in those sorts of children's tales anymore, I think that he had a lot of good things to say, and I try to keep them in mind whenever they make sense. Was the house that I built a good work?

Before you think that I am setting up strawmen, let me get to the point. It is not easy to define a specific method of achieving a goal as good. I recall Jesus's condemnation of the Pharisees as having what would have otherwise seemed high praise...namely, that they tithed even their spices...and Jesus encouraged this tithe! He did not accuse them of not following correctly the pattern set for them; instead, he said that they followed the pattern, but neglected justice and mercy. Now, it is true that justice and mercy express themselves in actions which Jesus noted were absent in the lives of these men. So let us look at another thing he said about the Pharisees. He declared that they were men who diligently studied the Holy Scriptures of God. Now this, if nothing else, should be an inevitable sign of goodness, should it not? If the Scriptures are God's perfect and holy word, how could it be anything but good that they studied them day and night? Let's look at the passage from John 5:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

Notice that Jesus's specific criticism of the Pharisees was that they did not have the love of God in them. Apparently He thought this even more valuable than searching the Scriptures. In fact, it seems fairly clear that Jesus was setting forth the love of God as the end for which the means of 'searching the Scriptures' had been given.

Notice also that Jesus brought Moses into the question - Moses, the one who wrote many of the Scriptures. Moses accuses the Pharisees before God. Why does he accuse them? It is not because they do not follow his law. We know that the Pharisees did. Furthermore, we know that Paul (later) talks about the function of the Law - how it condemns those who learn it, and not those who do not know it. In fact, it seems to me that Moses accuses the Pharisees precisely because they read the Scriptures. If not this, why would Moses be their accuser at all? His status as accuser comes as a result of God's appointment as accuser, and God's appointment was not arbitrary. I believe He appointed Moses because Moses wrote the Law with a purpose, and the Pharisees were reading it without reference to that purpose.

I want to be very specific on this point: we often say that the Scriptures are a means of grace. It would probably be theologically correct to say that they are only means of grace to the elect. However, since we cannot infallibly identify the elect, we must admit that we believe that reading Scripture is, in every sense of the words, a good "means". There can be nothing evil about the reading of Scripture itself. Further, we must acknowledge that Christ portrays the reading, and indeed the studying, of Scripture as a means, not an end, and rather specifically as a means to an end.

Manner and Means, part one

2009-01-26T18:21:00.005-05:00

I ask for your patience as I attempt to explain something. Also, yes, I have stolen my title.

I would guess that most people, if you asked them to say whether they believed that the end ever justifies the means, would say that it does not. I could be wrong. I do know that most Christians would certainly say that the end never justifies sinful means.

Here is, to me, a more interesting question: do means justify the end? Maybe that is confusing. I'll preface by restating what everyone knows - in the language of Scripture, "justify" means to "consider righteous". Not, particularly, to make righteous, but to consider (the word "count" is also often used) righteous. Whatever is justified is considered to be righteous. There are a ton of good quotes here, but I'll just grab one of many from Romans: "And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness."

So, to reword the question: can we correctly say that, if something is by the right means, that the end should be counted as righteous? Again...do the means ever justify the end? I will propose an answer to the question in following posts, and an application (or two?) as well. I invite you to think about it. One note of caution, however: I do not intend that my explanation of justification is to be taken as the beginning of an analogy.

I humbly ask

2009-01-25T21:18:00.002-05:00

I just remembered what it was I was intending to add to my previous post. Since it really had nothing to do with green, other than there's no green in this picture, I am making this a separate post.

Please, please, please. Please. Please... Please do not EVER serve me this:

green

2009-01-25T20:59:00.004-05:00

Apparently I have a very forceful personality. At least, when it comes to colors. Bradley (who is about 5 years old?) and I had a conversation a few weeks ago about favorite colors. I believe his favorite was blue. I told him that green was mine, and I probably (though I do not remember for certain) told him that it was the best color. That would certainly be ironic, since his father spent a good hour (in Sunday school) talking about the difference between opinions/preferences and truth/fact. Oops. In any case, he has apparently been asking many people about their favorite colors, and generally interjecting, before giving the person a chance to answer, that "Mr. Gaultney's favorite color is green." When his mother revealed this to me, I felt both pleased and disturbed, but of course Brad (Bradley's father, weirdly enough) suggested that I write a journal entry about green. He was joking, but blogging about it came immediately to mind, and here we all are, writing and reading about green.

I was reminded today how awesome Caedmon's Call used to be. Seriously. Jeff started playing "Faith My Eyes"* on the piano downstairs, and I just had to go downstairs and sing with him, even though I was in the middle of reading the first chapter of How People Change. Which, incidentally, is a really good book, despite my mind's insistence that I don't really need to change, and that I already know how to change anyway, and that this book has a weird typeface, so it can't really be that good after all. Also, though, I think I must have read part of this book before, because the first chapter has parts that seem awfully familiar.

I am trying to finish the sushi** I bought on Thursday. I think it's fair to say that while grocery-store sushi is not the things that dreams are made of, it's also not true that I would actually enjoy 'real' sushi. I think I've had stuff that fits somewhere in between before, and that's the stuff I've actually enjoyed. This stuff mostly makes me feel fishy.

There was something else to be said, but it seems to be eluding me. (I am currently looking around the room for something to jog my memory, but apparently everything in my room holds the same belief about jogging in sub-32 F weather as I do)

* Faith My Eyes is on Caedmon's Call's "green album", called 40 Acres.
** Sushi is really just an excuse to eat wasabi, which is green. Except it really isn't, or at least, the stuff you get here in the U.S. is apparently just horseradish dyed green.

sore

2009-01-24T23:24:00.002-05:00

My heart is sore from too little praying. I have very dry soil, it would appear, because even a largish part of a day without really praying will seriously disturb my mind. I get sad, usually about very unimportant things, and I start feeling like everything is bad and miserable.

My arms are sore from too little use. Or, rather, from too much use relative to normal. I am going to admit, on the Internet, in front of the entire world, that I stole a ten-pound weight from my family. And I am going to lift it. And hopefully it will someday be the case that 30 reps with a ten pound weight will be as ridiculous as running up the stairs for daily exercise....but for the time being, it's pretty serious stuff.

My neck is sore from...being a bad neck. It will probably always be.

I write when I feel like it

2009-01-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

It's funny. Tim's blog, I Write When I Feel Like It, is awesome. He only blogs maybe a few times a year, but when he does, it's always - so far ;) - worth reading. My blog, on the other hand, is not all that different. The difference is that I often feel like blogging, but don't really have anything to write about.

Firefox doesn't think I've spelled "blog" or "blogging" correctly. That's funny. More funny is the fact that it also doesn't think I've spelled "Firefox" correctly.

I'm redoing my family's Ubuntu installation. It doesn't seem to want to make sound, which is pretty sad. Maybe this will fix it, or maybe I'll spend the rest of the afternoon wrestling with it.

I'm listening to the Phantom of the Opera. =) And typing this post on my netbook. I don't much like the mouse on this guy, but otherwise, it definitely gets the job done.

presidential

2009-01-22T23:43:00.005-05:00

This article is the reason for this post, but isn't really the topic. If you don't want to read it, it basically points out that the Obama administration has asked a federal judge to withhold judgment in a case that would otherwise hamper the President's ability to wiretap U.S. citizens without a court order, exactly like President Bush's administration had.

The post is about the reality of the Presidency, the world we live in, and so forth. Matthew pointed out very recently on his blog some stuff about abortion that I think is particularly interesting to me because it reminds me that Presidents never seem to do anything about abortion. I mean, yes, partial birth abortion was...outlawed? by President Bush, but let's face it - public opinion was VERY heavily against partial birth abortion. It was a decision that had been coming down the pike for quite a while. But Presidents, no matter what you may think of their politics, are rarely anything but middle-of-the-road centrists. There's a pragmatism that seems to be forced on them by the realities of their office. Don't get me wrong, abortion, in every one of its commonly-practiced forms, is 100%, no question, wrong. And Presidential policy/executive authority should reflect this. But is there a God-given right to "privacy"? Not as far as I can see. And when a President gets into office, and he's been having top government officials finally explaining to him, for the first time (over the last several months since the election) the nature and importance of all of these various, perhaps Constitutionally-shady, programs, what does he do? He allows them to continue. Because no matter how much you might think that the Department of Defense (how I wish we still called it the Department of War....how cool would that be?!) is bloated, there are real reasons for the things that we do. Maybe we're overextended. Maybe our foreign policy is overly bellicose. But Obama obviously recognizes that we are seriously threatened by people who, no matter what olive branches we extend, DO NOT WANT peace with us. And he also obviously recognizes that our methods of garnering intelligence about threats to national security are spineless if we have to get court orders for wiretapping in every case. I hate to be the person that says this, but let's face it: have you seen the court systems? If there were a real terrorist threat against some place in Baltimore, would the Maryland courts EVER get around to making the necessary legal arrangements for allowing federal operatives to START gathering information about what was going on? Not a chance. By the time all of the bureaucrats got back from their winter vacations, we'd have a smoking crater in Dundalk. Now, I know what you're going to say, but....Dundalk is people too!

This really doesn't have anything in particular to do with wiretapping, or abortion, or anything else. It's just that it really boggles my mind how people can get so up-in-arms about what a President does or does not do, without taking even the slightest moment to consider the reality of the situation that one would face, as President. There are some things that would be incredibly distasteful to me, if I were to become President. But reality seems to be that there are other things - death, destruction, total governmental collapse - that would be even worse. I disagree with Bush's philosophical stands on a number of things....but I find myself more and more sympathetic to his choices, given the reality of the way this world, screwed up as it is, works. Maybe there are better solutions than some of the ones his administration came up with. I suspect there probably are. But the simplistic ones that I tend to hear (we should never have gone to war in Iraq, since there obviously weren't WMDs; why didn't we open better lines of communication with Hamas so that we could avoid another war in the Middle East) don't ever seem to take reality into account, nor do they make any attempt to suggest real, practical solutions (that don't implicitly assume that everyone in the world would really just get along great if we all treated each other with great respect and patience). I strongly suspect that history (not even in 30 years, but maybe in 100) will have a lot more respect for the way President Bush handled his terms in office, and a lot less fawning adulation toward President Obama and any other President (no matter what gender, race, or political party he/she may represent) whom God sees fit to give us.

other than sliced bread...

2009-01-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

What could be better than a titanium spork? Which I have.

Going Out of Business

2009-01-13T20:16:00.005-05:00

An Open Letter:

We opened our doors with the firm belief that what we had to offer the world would bring in business in numbers no one could have imagined. We thought, talked, planned, and in every way prepared for the onslaught of customers we KNEW we would have. To our great joy, we were correct. People from all over came to us for the jobs that only we could do; for the things no one else could supply. Things were going wonderfully...
We ran out. That was it. There was nothing else to it, really. We had nothing left. The pent-up demand was as horrendous as it had been exciting. Everyone wanted what we had been offering, and now we had nothing to give them. Nothing to show, even when they had come from miles away, expecting....KNOWING that we would be able to solve their problems. Everything had gone too well. We were not up to the task.
We regret to announce that we will be closing our doors. We simply cannot do what you want us to do. We have tried, and we have failed. We appreciate, very much, your business, over the last several months. We wish you all the best.

-- The Management

P.S. Christ is sufficient, where I am not. I'm 'open' again.

this one's a whopper

2009-01-12T19:19:00.003-05:00

Bad pun.

However, check out this interesting news article about something fun to do on Facebook. I'm very tempted to do it myself...not even so much because having a free Whopper would be cool, but just because it might be a good time to prune my list of Facebook friends.

The Secret

2009-01-11T21:13:00.002-05:00

This is the best book review I've read in quite a while. I'd like to thank my friends at the Rumor Forum for bringing it to my attention.

Now, for a much more profitable read, try this post on for size.

movie -> game -> party

2009-01-10T16:13:00.002-05:00

I watched Wall-E all by myself today. It's a good thing I was by myself, because I was able to enjoy it a lot more. Having people around would've been embarrassing.

I managed to straighten out my suit by leaving it in the bathroom with the shower running hot water. It should be passable, but it really needs to actually be cleaned one of these days.

I am going to watch the Ravens-Tennessee game right now. I do hope the Ravens win, I suppose. And after that, I'm going to a big party. Exciting!

so long

2009-01-04T14:03:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone has been reading Matthew's reports of his trip to Turkey. Especially since I haven't been around to entertain you.

The Stanley family (most of us, anyway) gathered in Pennsylvania between Christmas and New Year's (largely because it is the state with the coolest name, and partly because there are some hills with snow on them up there). This was a good time, in terms of both the skiing and things that went on, and my general success in resting in Christ throughout the time. Even though I didn't have a Bible. =P

For those who wondered, the Rebel is still just as shaky as ever. But hopefully sometime this month we'll find time to try to fix it. My eyes look at new cars differently than they ever have. This is sad, but I hope to someday get back to my customary disdain for all vehicles under the age of 30.

I have a new webcam (thank you, Maria!) and microphone, so I'm about to learn all about Skype. Actually, I got them both working, finally, late last night (this morning?). If only my printer would print beautiful pictures, and the "sleep" function acted less like "vegetative state", I would have a Linux user's dream computer.

Today I handled the sound system at church for the first time. It actually went reasonably well. No horrible feedback loops, and only once or twice did I fail to bring the pastor's microphone back up in time to catch the first half of a sentence.

It is not worth noting that the Colts lost their first playoff game last night.

It is worth noting that that makes this a very, very sad year for football.

On the other hand, these lyrics put a lot of things into perspective. I mean, we all know that when sin and death are finally defeated and all things are made right, the Colts will win the Super Bowl every year. Even that, though, is not what I should be eagerly anticipating. Instead, the experience of being fully and permanently with my Savior is what should thrill me about the life which is coming:

The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear Bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory
But on my King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth
But on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Emmanuel’s land.

ski trip! and other verbal wanderings

2008-12-27T01:22:00.003-05:00

I am excited about this. If nothing else, it should keep me out of trouble.

Actually, I can always use people's prayers. This is a good opportunity for me, just like most times, to speak and act redemptively, as Paul Tripp (I'm paraphrasing) puts it. And like many, many, many times, I imagine I'll fail a lot.

I watched Die Hard 2 tonight. It would've been better with a Chimay. I mean, it's not really a 'great' movie, but it's fun.

Oh, right! I participated in a performance of the Messiah this evening as well. I don't think I hit even 25% of the tenor notes throughout the performance, but I did buy the music (...I am not cultured enough to use the word 'score'), so I'm going to try to learn it before next Christmas. At least well enough to sing it passably?

In case anyone was wondering, my birthday was pretty good. I'm 22 now, which I wasn't excited about until I realized that there are two twos in twenty-two.

Sleep well, 'Kathryn', 'Maria', 'Johanna', 'Gretchen', and 'Gregory'.

Happy 22nd year of life!

2008-12-24T23:44:00.003-05:00

It was. Not nearly in the ways I expected, or was originally hoping. In fact, it started out pretty miserably. But God proves Himself to be better than I understood, and I am therefore very, very happy.

I'm looking forward to my 23rd year! I really don't know what's coming, and that's part of what is lovely. I don't have to know. Whether I manage to sneak in a wedding, or get hit by a bus and become a quadriplegic, God will be with me.

Joyful

2008-12-21T20:42:00.003-05:00

...all ye nations rise!

We caroled this evening. It was mostly successful, meaning that very few doors were actually shut on the sonorous sounds of our voices. Ha. But...I think this could be the Christmas where I actually pay attention to some of the things I'm singing. Like...."joyful all ye nations rise!" Wow. That is such an amazing idea. What is great is that, even though it doesn't LOOK like the nations are rising to praise the Lord, that IS why Christ came. Which means it's going to happen.

Lo He Comes

2008-12-21T15:52:00.005-05:00

...with clouds descending! I haven't thought about clouds very much recently, and this is a crying shame. I did think about them today. I just....I wonder whether I don't look up at the sky a lot more when I am really loving God. Maybe that's stupid, but it's just so beautiful, and you know how, if you want to hide an Easter egg really well, you usually put it up high, because no one ever looks much above the level of their own head? Well....yeah. I just think it's really dumb that I don't look at the sky more often.

holy cow

2008-12-20T21:33:00.004-05:00

That title could refer to one of the following three things:

My propensity to overuse this phrase, as of late. It is a Lort influence. I've never understood how they get away with such foul language.
All the things I cherish more (and more often) than Jesus.
the first words that popped into my head as I opened up this page.

I was excited to see Matthew reference my blog. Actually, I am really proud about it, which is really disgusting. And here I thought I was having a pretty good night.

Tim, Alex, and Matthew have ALL posted (a lot!) recently, and even though I only really read a few people's blogs, I'm totally behind on everything. Unfortunately, my Internet connection is HORRIBLE tonight.

Speaking of HORRIBLE - my Dr. Horrible DVD arrived! AWESOME. I'm listening to Commentary! The Musical as I write, and my goodness it's good. I particularly like the song "I'm Better Than Neil". It's hilarious.

Actually, a bunch of other things arrived this weekend, and that's great, but it reminds me that I have not yet bought Christmas presents for most of the people on my list. Who wants a copy of Far Cry 2? This would be a crappy present, since I got it for free.

I've been reminded over the past few weeks just how fickle I am. I vow to be constant, steady, and loving to everyone around me....and then something happens that reminds me that things aren't all exactly the way I want them to be, or even the way I thought they were, or something, and then....I just fall apart. Or rather, I would, but for two things: A) the grace of God, and B) my really well-practiced show of 'love' that is really just self-interest.

Speaking of blogging style, I don't even seem to have one anymore. It would be beyond hypocritical to apologize for this post, so that's not going to happen.

Work has been a lot of fun lately. Is it not nice to say that when I can't tell you why?

Two

2008-12-14T19:19:00.004-05:00

I have two Christmas presents already bought.

I have drunk brandy two days in a row (and it is good).

I have two mice for my computer.

I will have two keyboards for my computer in a couple of days.

I am going to two choir concerts this week (Lord willing).

I have two days left where the office is all mine.

Two Sundays in a row have passed with no Ultimate Frisbee.

I bought two Indelible Grace CDs.

This post is two long already.

I have two natures.
One tells me that everything that happens is ultimately about me. Whether I keep my job, whether I go back to school, whether I have friends, whether I get married. What people do to me matters because it's either a Blessing or a Curse. What people say to me matters because it's either a compliment or an insult. What people think about me matters because it's either worship or it's condemnation. And my oh my do I want worship.
The other tells me that none of this matters, because Christ is my all in all. And I live and move and have my being in Him. He blesses me with everything He does, He only speaks good of me to the Father (!!!!), and He thinks of me as His servant, His brother, and even His wife!

I'd really rather just have the one, but as some people wiser than I have pointed out before, even the angels do not get to experience glorifying God through suffering. I need the Spirit to reshape the way I think about all of this. Every single day.

my keyboard DOES work

2008-12-12T18:30:00.002-05:00

Apparently my keyboard had lost its encrypted connection with the receiver, which, quite frankly, is ridiculous, because without Windows you can't even set one up in the first place. And since I couldn't even use my boot menu for lack of a working keyboard, I couldn't boot into Windows to find this out or fix it. Aaaaalso, my fancy-shmancy mouse is working again. Apparently the charger had come unplugged. Without telling anyone. I Am Not Amused.

So, when the NEW keyboard arrives sometime next week, I will officially (yes, officially) have 3 mice and two keyboards. Or is that keybird? Anyway, that's gonna be totally useless, so I'm gonna be looking for a friend with a desktop who needs a new keyboard/mouse for their new desktop computer for Christmas. Unless I get really selfish and fall in love with the new one. =P

my keyboard don't work

2008-12-12T14:14:00.002-05:00

which makes this post kinda like the Virgin Birth. If ya think about it.

I've some things to post about, but until that gets fixed, I won't be doing any posting as far as I know.

To blog, or not to blog?

2008-12-10T22:47:00.003-05:00

That...is the sentence that would have gotten Shakespeare laughed out of even the roughest of bars.

In which I am reminded that being confused is okay

2008-12-07T15:38:00.004-05:00

I am still confused, I guess. But I have good friends, and even better, I have a Savior, so who needs friends? I mean, really. I am glad that I get to rejoice with them, and that they encourage me and bless me. And that that's okay. But it also isn't necessary, and I already have what is necessary.

I really am quite good at getting my priorities confused.

Also, Brad, you are really good at teaching Sunday schools about things I had been looking for a better way to understand/conceptualize/explain. Even though you probably won't ever see this...thanks.

Oh oh. And despite the fact that there's still something wrong with my car, I think I got the timing and carburetor adjusted really nicely this afternoon. Which goes to show that I don't know NEARLY everything about cars, because I just kept retarding the timing when it would backfire. I have no idea WHY advancing the timing fixed it, but it did, and in a big way. I've scoured teh intertubes, and I have yet to find a REAL explanation for WHY it would backfire when retarded, but all the same, apparently this is something that does happen. Whatever. =)

confused

2008-12-06T23:15:00.003-05:00

I apologize in advance for smearing my confusion on teh internets, but....

Do I need to reconsider what I am pursuing? Christ definitely comes first, and He'll pursue me regardless of whether I pursue Him. But I'm starting to wonder about some other things. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up with a different perspective.

serious

2008-12-05T22:16:00.003-05:00

I am considering getting rid of the Rebel. The engine vibrates, and there appears to be nothing I can do about it. I am sick and tired of having a car that just can't seem to work, and if there's not even anything I can do to fix it, I don't see any point in sticking with it any longer. It is no fun to drive a car that shakes as much as this one does.

The road to victory

2008-11-28T19:22:00.005-05:00

Runs through Washburn, TN, apparently. (Click on that link or die). For those who haven't been paying close attention, the day that my exhaust got finished, the passenger-front wheel fell off. So...the car was disabled the same day it got finished. Worst of all, the spindle was destroyed, meaning nothing that could be bought at a parts store would do me any good.

The long story is that we found a '74 Hornet which had the exact same brake setup all the way around. Exact. Meaning, of course, that the common knowledge about these brake setups is all entirely incorrect. =P But regardless, I should be able to get my car back up and running on Monday, Lord willing.

I'll probably post some short videos of the part-finding expedition once I get home. This whole YouTube thing is kinda cool.

Oh oh oh oh oh. Also....Thanksgiving in Tennessee is the way the holiday was meant to be celebrated. Even the Pilgrims and the Indians had nothing on this. I'll probably also post a video of the turkey-turning.

Lastly....there are two UT records at stake tomorrow. One - our status, along with Ohio State, as the only two I-A programs which have never lost 8 games in a season. Two - our status as the current holder of the longest active winning streak against a I-A team - vs. Kentucky. We nearly lost it last year, and I am not at all sure we're favored to win it this year. But I'll be at the game, and it'll be under the lights. I'll come back with some good photos of that, too. As long as I don't freeze to death in section HH.