bits and pieces

I will be honest, I am tired as I write this, I have been up since 6 am with no nap (it is currently 9 pm), and I've spent the day thinking from the get go. Nonetheless, I am drawn to write a bit. Lately I've been struggling with some ideas, like inerrancy and authority of Scripture, and how we use (or abuse) Scripture, and its role in the Christian life and the Church. It seems to be a lense I'm seeing life through right now (thank you Lynn), be it my work in class (Reading Practices and New Testament), community group or early morning scripture reading (that is why I was up early) or in my conversations with friends. Anyways, I don't have the mental capacity to engage that right now...I will, hopefully, soon.

I also had a moment of perspective tonight, concerning my education. I am currently in New Testament class, for which I m paying $100 for just tonight's session (it is roughly $33 per credit, per session). I honestly have never thought about my education that way. Lately, I've been rethinking many aspects of my life, honestly, and again, more on that later.

I better pay attention, I think I just missed out on at least $1 worth of education in writing this.

::myth, community::

You are a king among men.

Those were the words of my friend Brandon to me the other night, part of a deeply meaningful exchange, concerning life and my experiences here in Seattle.

What struck me was the way he communicated all of what we talked about to me, it was not so much propositional knowledge, but mythic in nature. He compared me to Strider of Lord of the Rings, a king in the making, with many many challeges to overcome right now (like grad school). It struck me then that the language of the heart is story, not proposition, probably why Jesus chose to speak in parable and story rather than just proposition.

The other thing that struck me was the call came at a desperate time for me, a dark hour, and it wasn’t lucky timing but because another friend, Adam, had called him to say he should call me. It made me think about the wonderful blessings of community, three men separated by geography, Brandon in Colorado, Adam in West Virginia and me in Seattle, but still involved in very deep and meaningful ways in each others lives,. And it’s not perfect, we are all fools and idiots to be sure, but we still have community, and that is essential.

I haven’t fully processed or even felt the depth of that exchange, and perhaps it is far too deep right now for me to even put words to, but they were words I did need to hear, and perhaps I can follow up at a later time, but for now I must leave you, and get some desperately needed rest after a very intense and exhausting week.

::the riddle::

Today in my random search for music videos to amuse me, I came across The Riddle by Five For Fighting, a band I love and have recently come across again. I am completely in awe of The Riddle, a very catchy yet meaningful melody, a father-son love song about life and meaning (the description given by John Ondrasik, the musician).

::airborne swine::

So, it has happened, the National Weather Service has reported a dramatic, sub-freezing drop of temperature in Hades, the Federal Aviation Administration has been busy all day with reports of airborne swine, and when I flipped to the sports page, I saw that the Colorado Rockies are going to the World Series!

That's basically all I have, except that I was watching them beat the Diamondbacks last night instead of writing my paper.

Peace

::burrito cat::

Ok, so I feel like I'm in middle school again, because I find this freaking hilarious! You can find this image and many others of these cute and cuddly creatures call cats (I think I'm starting to be a cat lover or something, that is scary) well, anyways, you should visit I CAN HAS CHEEZ BURGER. Anyways, I thought I would put this up, more later.

::reflections::

Reflections on my first month…

I am homesick…I was honestly blindsided by that…I thought I would be ok coming out here. I loved Seattle in all my visits out here to check out Mars Hill Graduate School. The difference is this, while I love Seattle, on my visits I always knew I’d be going back home to Colorado and my friends, in other words, life wasn’t drastically changing for me. Now life has changed, my geography, my friendships, etc.

Now I live here, Seattle, Washington.

Not Broomfield, Colorado.

I am here.

My friends and home are there.

Honestly, in all my dreams of moving out here, in all my visits out here, I never thought moving out here would be so hard.

I miss my friends.

I miss the mountains.

I miss familiar places.

I miss what I knew as “church” there.

Now I find myself in a new place. A new story. New people.

And I wonder what the hell I’m doing here.

Seriously.

You’d think I wouldn’t have these doubts.

I do.

I doubt my calling. I am wrestling with my ideas on the Church (and the church). And I start Seminary in a week. Do I still want to go through with this? I say this for many reasons. One is I’ve given more thought to going to law school. Another is that I’ve given thought to working with various missionary/youth organizations. I have many many questions swirling in my mind concerning what I want to spend my life doing. There are many things I love. Many things I want to do with my life.

I want to make a difference.

I want to travel.

I love writing.

I love speaking.

I love intellectual challenge.

I love discussing law.

I love working with students.

Where does all this leave me?

Wrestling.

Undecided.

With lots of questions.

::tattoos::

I know this is random, but, look at the banner and remind yourself of the nature of this site. Anyways, today's post centers around a frantic text message I received from a friend of mine in which he was concerned about the eternal fate of his soul because he has a tattoo and some of people he knows told him tattoos are bad. Ok, so maybe he wasn't in despair concerning the fate of his soul, but wanted to know what they were talking about. I write this post, not so much to explain my position, I am for it, see this picture (click the link) to see mine, it is Deuteronomy 6:5 in Hebrew, so you know, but to see what others think (and to see if anyone reads this thing). So feel free to comment on this post.