A Pilgrim's Journey

Endless Summer

2007-08-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

Well, its mid August and it feels like this summer has been endless.
Tons of fun...but very busy.
Here's a run down. (this run down serves as an excuse for the non-existent posting this summer)
May
May 14-18
Week long all day seminary class in Washington DC, early to rise commuting on 95 and 495 ugh.
May 19. All day and church wide Yard Sale fundraiser for Missions Trip.
Memorial Day weekend, the wife and I flew back home to Chattanooga to see family, it was only 3 day, 4 night journey.
June
Seminary - 3 papers due and 2 exams. All within 2 weeks. Plus 2 full days of classes. That kept me busy and a bit insane...but June seems like a year ago now.
June 15th, took the youth group to an Orioles Game. June 23rd had a missions serivce project.
2nd week of June. Put contract on a house.
June 25-29, Victory Jam! Took the middle schoolers to the beach at Harvey Cedars New Jersey...a summer camp for Baltimore area PCA churches...it was a blast.
Every Wed. in the summer was college and career group.
June 29- Drop off kids from camp and run to closing on the purchase of our townhouse!
July
Starting in July and through August, every Thursday was MS and HS Y2, basically another opportunity for the kids to get together and have fun and a have a Bible Study
July 7th- Took MS and HS to Hershy Park Amusement Park. Oh yeah, lots of chocolate, coasters and drenching water rides.
First two weeks of July, Moving all our stuff to new home!
July 9-13
MS VBS at our Church. I had to run the whole thing, games, lessons, etc. Lots of crazy fun in excessive heat!! Oh yeah...almost 40 kids, only 1 helper! : )
July 16th - MS Swim Party
July 29- August 4th - HS Missions Trip to Toronto Canada!! Great time.
August
August 1-4 - Missions Trip.
August 12- HS Pool Party and Cookout
August 18 - Paintball Outing.
August 25 - MS Pool Party

Sept 1- 9 - My Vacation!!!!!
Going on a cruise in the Southern Carribbean!!

So a busy but enjoyable summer is coming to a close, and I am looking forward to my favorite season of the year!! Fall. And hopefully the opportunity to post more often. : )

Former Radical Muslim Speaks Out

2007-07-03T11:59:00.000-05:00

I think I have been away from blogging for a long while. I guess I can ease back into it by posting articles I find important to read. Here is my first such post.
If you would rather read this article straight from the source, here is the link.

Click here for link to story.

I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist
By HASSAN BUTT - More by this author »

Last updated at 07:38am on 2nd July 2007

Comments (21)

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.

Read more...

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More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

The attempts to cause mass destruction in London and Glasgow are so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that they are likely to have been carried out by my former peers.

And as with previous terror attacks, people are again saying that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy.

For example, on Saturday on Radio 4's Today programme, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: "What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq."

I left the British Jihadi Network in February 2006 because I realised that its members had simply become mindless killers. But if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again.

Mohammed Sidique Khan met with the author on two separate occasions

Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the July 7 bombings, and I were both part of the network - I met him on two occasions.

And though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice.

If we were interested in justice, you may ask, how did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting such a (flawed) Utopian goal?

How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion?

There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

The notion of a global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain.

For decades, radicals have been exploiting the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state - typically by starting debate with the question: "Are you British or Muslim?"

But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Muslim institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology.

They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex truth that Islam can be interpreted as condoning violence against the unbeliever - and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace and hope that all of this debate will go away.

This has left the territory open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, I repeatedly came across those who had tried to raise these issues with mosque authorities only to be banned from their grounds.

Every time this happened it felt like a moral and religious victory for us because it served as a recruiting sergeant for extremism.

Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism.

A handful of scholars from the Middle East have tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised so long ago by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion.

In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam.

But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me as a far more potent argument because it involves recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.

The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief.

For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here.

But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

However, it isn't enough for responsible Muslims to say that, because they feel at home in Britain, they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers.

Because so many in the Muslim community refuse to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day.

I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism.

Crucially, the Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from its state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.

If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence.

And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.

Grover Cleveland

2007-04-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Grover Cleveland

The First Democrat elected after the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was the only President to leave the White House and return for a second term four years later.

One of nine children of a Presbyterian minister, Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837. He was raised in upstate New York. As a lawyer in Buffalo, he became notable for his single-minded concentration upon whatever task faced him.

At 44, he emerged into a political prominence that carried him to the White House in three years. Running as a reformer, he was elected Mayor of Buffalo in 1881, and later, Governor of New York.

Cleveland won the Presidency with the combined support of Democrats and reform Republicans, the "Mugwumps," who disliked the record of his opponent James G. Blaine of Maine.

A bachelor, Cleveland was ill at ease at first with all the comforts of the White House. "I must go to dinner," he wrote a friend, "but I wish it was to eat a pickled herring a Swiss cheese and a chop at Louis' instead of the French stuff I shall find." In June 1886 Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances Folsom; he was the only President married in the White House.

Cleveland vigorously pursued a policy barring special favors to any economic group. Vetoing a bill to appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, he wrote: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character. . . . "

He also vetoed many private pension bills to Civil War veterans whose claims were fraudulent. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland vetoed it, too.

He angered the railroads by ordering an investigation of western lands they held by Government grant. He forced them to return 81,000,000 acres. He also signed the Interstate Commerce Act, the first law attempting Federal regulation of the railroads.

In December 1887 he called on Congress to reduce high protective tariffs. Told that he had given Republicans an effective issue for the campaign of 1888, he retorted, "What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?" But Cleveland was defeated in 1888; although he won a larger popular majority than the Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison, he received fewer electoral votes.

Elected again in 1892, Cleveland faced an acute depression. He dealt directly with the Treasury crisis rather than with business failures, farm mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment. He obtained repeal of the mildly inflationary Sherman Silver Purchase Act and, with the aid of Wall Street, maintained the Treasury's gold reserve.

When railroad strikers in Chicago violated an injunction, Cleveland sent Federal troops to enforce it. "If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a post card in Chicago," he thundered, "that card will be delivered."

Cleveland's blunt treatment of the railroad strikers stirred the pride of many Americans. So did the vigorous way in which he forced Great Britain to accept arbitration of a disputed boundary in Venezuela. But his policies during the depression were generally unpopular. His party deserted him and nominated William Jennings Bryan in 1896.

After leaving the White House, Cleveland lived in retirement in Princeton, New Jersey. He died in 1908.

Letters from a Nut

2007-03-21T14:40:00.001-05:00

What lies below is a real letter written to a real company. The letter is outlandish, funny, sarcastic and meant to provoke a response. The author of this letter is using a psuedo name to protect his identity.
(I'm almost positive the author of this book of letters is none other than Jerry Seinfeld, who I've seen in person.)
The author has put together a pretty funny book of his crazy letters and called it "Letters from a Nut" by Ted L Nancy.

What follows is one such letter and response:

Dear Nordstrom Deptarment Stores,

I am a regular shopper at your Nordstorms stores in Glendale. In the last few weeks I have noticed that a new mannequin you have out in the store looks just like my deceased neighbor. I have passed mannequin from many directions and the resemblance is uncanny. In every way - nose, cheekbones, hair, etc. Look at it from any angle. It looks like the neighbor I was friendly with. Even the clothes that the mannequin was wearing was the kind of lightweight windbreaker jacket my neighbor would wear. It is UNBELIEVABLE that this mannequin looks so much like my neighbor.

Is it possible to buy this mannequin (after its use) so I may present it to my neighbor's family? They would think this would be a VERY sentimental gesture. I think his co-workers would also like to have him remembered, so having him "there" would be good, theraputic behavior for all.

I was told to write to your stores HEADQUARTERS OFFICE afterI inquired about buying this mannequin to the sales lady (Very, courteous, I might add.) She suggested that only the stores main office could assist me in this purchase. But she was very helpful with my socks purchase.

Thank you, Nordstrom, for being a store that cares about its customers. I am a long time shopper. I keep lots of things in your Nordstrom bags. Fishing gear, etc. I have a garage full of Nordstrom bags full of old shoes, wire hangers, etc. Thats how I know I've been to your store so much. Let me know about the mannequin. This family is in some need of good loving. This will help!

Sincerely,
Ted L. Nancy

Nordstrom's response Letter:

Dear Mr. Nancy:

Yours is one of the most interesting requests I have ever received. Candidly, I can't imagine any family who has lost a loved one wanting to see a mannequin that resembles that person.

Of course, we want to respond to our customers as positively as possible, but we definately do not sell display materials while they are being used by the company. I see no reason why (when it comes time for a change of mannequins) that we wouldnt sell it to you at the same price we would get from our normal resources.

If you should be interested in that, simply talk to our store manager there at Glendale, Diane Kantor, and she will let you know when the time comes. Unfortunately, mannequins are used for a number of years before they are phased out.

Sincerely
Bruce Nordstrom

Blood Diamond

2007-01-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

Go see this movie. TWO very enthusiastic thumbs up. Its violent in parts, but its only depicting true representations of a civil war. This movie captures various elements about the human condition and it does so in a very engaging way.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou both do fantastic jobs as well.
I will comment more about the movie later...but for now, take my advice, go see this movie before its off the big screen.

Why I don't always write.

2007-01-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, I go through spurts of inspiration to post on my blog. The same was true for my journals I kept up with in high school and college. Lately, that motivation hasn't been there. It seems that I must have something very profound to say in order to post. For better or worse, I am a creature made by God that likes to jump head first into the deep matters of the heart, of life, of eternity. That being said, making my abode in the deep for long periods of time is hard. So I find myself washed up on shore, then aware of how fun the shallows can be, no fear of large sea creatures or of drowning, I frolic around on the surface. So I indulge myself. I take life easy. I move from one moment to the next, from one event to the next, from one moment of entertainment to the next. Then dawn of something bigger falls upon my face again, and I realize the promise of the shallows literally don't hold enough water for me; I vaguely hear the larger waves off shore crash and I am enticed. I remember the ocean of life is bigger than the shore, in fact most of life is out in the ocean. I dive into the next wave headfirst, eager to head out into the depths. Where life is uncharted. Where God can use me, rather than me clinging to the habits of comfort that keep me in shallow waters. Faith and depth is being where you cannot touch the ground. Faith and depth is praying to my creator each day, and in every moment of the day. Faith and depth is opening scripture to have His word impact me, unravel me and enrapture me all at once. Faith and Depth is letting go of all that I cling to in the shallows and letting God chart my course in the depths where life may seem more dangerous but is so much richer!

This is what I hope to capture with my words. This is what I hope to post with each post. But I know I cannot come close to capturing that piece of eternity, that depth, that is in my heart. And knowing the state of my being, the state of my heart, Paul's words in Romans ring so true...For the creation was subjected to frustration...in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:21-23

I may never be able to quite capture that depth. That essence of eternal inside me. But I thank the Lord for giving me something bigger than myself to cling to. I thank him for coming to my rescue. I thank him for giving me his Son.

Shine On!

2007-01-16T03:30:00.001-05:00

A cool video, and a very cool song. Turn up the volume and jam! By the way, props go to Kathryn for posting this on her blog in December, I've repeatedly gone back to it to play it and then I thought, hmm...why dont I just post it. Problem solved.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-21T14:39:00.000-05:00

So Christmas is like in 4 days. Crazy quick.
This blog entry may not look quick, but its a quick read because its so good.

If your looking for a devotional on Christmas you came to the right place.
The following cut and paste article is Tim Keller's take on the Purpose of Christmas. Tim Keller, from Redeemer in NYC. So get your Bible handy, read 1 John 1:1-4 and see what how 1 John 1:1—4 gives us the teaching and the purpose of Christmas.

For those not near a Bible, here is the scripture:

"1:1 This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched - concerning the word of life – 1:2 and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us. 1:3 What we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 1:4 Thus we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete."

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

Christmas is about the word incarnation. We sing it every year in our Christmas carols, especially in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Charles Wesley wrote that, and one line you've sung says, "Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see; Hail the incarnate Deity."
If you understand the word incarnation, you'll understand what Christmas is about. The Apostles' Creed doesn't use the word incarnation, but it teaches the doctrine of the Incarnation when it says, "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."

Where do we go to understand what Christmas is? The first two verses of our text give us the teaching of Christmas, and the second two give us the purpose of Christmas.
Let's take a look at the first two verses. We see here the teaching of Christmas is two things.

It's frankly doctrinal, and it's boldly historical. We have to grasp this before we move on to how it changes our lives.

Christmas is frankly doctrinal
What do I mean by "frankly doctrinal"? I used the word doctrinal on purpose. I know it's a negative word. It's part of a family of words that have negative connotations. Doctrine or dogma connotes being narrow, being rigid or closed. The word doctrinaire gets that across well. Doctrinaire is bad. It is bad to be narrow. It is bad to be closed. It is bad to be haughty. It is bad to not be open to reason. It is bad not to listen to others. But in our fear of being doctrinaire, we are not frank, we are not honest, about the fact we are all doctrinal.

A doctrine is a belief we base our lives on, and it's something we contend for, we insist on. In other words, a doctrine first of all is a faith position. It's not something we can prove scientifically. It's not something we prove empirically.
Secondly, it's something we live on, we commit ourselves to, we base our lives on.
And thirdly, it's something we push, we contend with other people over. That's a doctrine. And even though we shouldn't be doctrinaire, we are all doctrinal.

Illustration: I'll give you an example. Mr. A is a Christian. His friend, Mr. B, is not. Mr. A one day sits down with Mr. B and says, " I wish you could believe Jesus is Savior and Lord. Let me try to convince you." Mr. B says, "Nobody can know anything definite about God. And secondly, you should not try to persuade other people to see things your way. That's not right."
When Mr. B says, you can't know anything definite about God, what is that? That is a faith position. That's not scientific. That's not empirical. It's a belief. And secondly, when he says you mustn't try to convince other people your take on spiritual reality is the right one, he at that moment is trying to say to Mr. A, "You ought to see it my way." In other words, he's saying, "I have a relativistic take on spiritual reality, and you ought to take it." He's doing the very thing he's forbidding as he's forbidding it.
Both Mr. A and Mr. B are being doctrinal. They have a faith position. They've bet their lives on it. Mr. B has bet his eternal destiny on the idea that nobody can know anything definite about God. And they're both contending for it. Here's the difference. Mr. A is being openly doctrinal. He's being frank about his doctrine. Mr. B is not. Mr. B is in denial.

Let's try not to be doctrinaire. But we cannot avoid being doctrinal. Everybody has faith assumptions about God, about eternity, about human nature, about moral truth. We bet our lives on them and press for them, and there's no way to avoid being doctrinal.
Christmas is frankly doctrinal. The text says the invisible has become visible, the incorporeal has become corporeal. In other words, God has become human. The absolute has become particular. The ideal has become real. The divine has taken up a human nature. This is not only a specific doctrine, but it's also unique. Doctrine always distinguishes you. One of the reasons we're afraid to talk about doctrine is because it distinguishes us from others. Here's why the doctrine of Christmas is unique.

On the one hand you've got religions that say God is so imminent in all things that incarnation is normal. If you're a Buddhist or Hindu, God is imminent in everything. God is the divine spark in everything, and therefore incarnation is normal. God is incarnate in all sorts of people and things. Christians say Jesus is the God, and people from that family say sure. On the other hand, the family of religions like Islam and Judaism says God is so transcendent over all things that incarnation is impossible. Jesus as God is blasphemous.

But Christianity is unique. It doesn't say incarnation is normal, but it doesn't say it's impossible. It says God is so imminent that it is possible, but he is so transcendent that the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is an event. Christianity has a unique view on this that sets it apart from everything else.

Christmas is boldly historical
Christmas is not just frankly doctrinal; it's also boldly historical. Look at what John says:
We saw it. We heard it. Our own eyes, our own ears. We felt it, this eternal Life.
Here's what he's saying: When we give you these accounts of Jesus walking on the water, of Jesus rising from the dead, of Jesus speaking these words, these are not legends. These are not things we made up. These are not wonderful spiritual parables. These are things we saw. We saw him do this. We heard him do this. We felt him do this.

In other words, the doctrine of Christmas is that God became historical. The manger, the resurrection, the story of Jesus is not just a story. It's true. It actually happened in history.
This goes completely against what the average person believes. The average person says these are wonderful stories, but they're parables. They're legends. They didn't really happen.

Here's the one thing Christmas presses us on. First John 1:1—2 is saying: These are either lies you're reading in the New Testament or they're eyewitness accounts, but they can't be legends. Many scholars of ancient literature have told us this. Today modern fiction throws in details that give a realistic sense, but ancient legends were never written like that.
For example, the story of Jesus walking on the water in John 6 says, "When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water." You may not be an expert in ancient literature, but think of The Iliad or The Odyssey. Can you imagine Homer saying, "And Achilles met Hector in combat, and they were either three or three and a half miles from the wall of Troy"? He wouldn't have said that, because in ancient legends they didn't put in details that didn't help the plot or develop the character. Therefore, when a man back then was writing a legend he wouldn't say, "They were three or three and a half miles out." It wouldn't have occurred to him unless he was writing an eyewitness account.
When John says, "I saw him, I felt him, I heard him with my own ears, I saw him with my own eyes," everyone would know immediately he was claiming to be an eyewitness. Therefore, every reader of the New Testament knew either these were deliberately fabricated lies or they were true eyewitness accounts, but they couldn't be legends.

If they are lies, they're some of the stupidest lies ever made. Here's why. These accounts were written down within the lifetime of the people who were there. If you're going to write that 500 people saw Jesus risen from the dead in the Kidron Valley, you wouldn't write it 40 or 50 years later like the Gospels were written. You would write it 100 years later, when everybody who lived in the Kidron Valley at the time was dead. If you falsely write that 500 people saw Jesus in the Kidron Valley, and lots of people are still living the Kidron Valley who were there at that time, you're never going to have a religion that gets off the ground. But it did get off the ground, because they wrote these accounts and they weren't contradicted.

The point of Christmas is that Jesus Christ really lived, and he really died. It happened in history. He did these things. He said these things.

You may think, What's the big deal? You're being doctrinaire here. No. People say, "I like the teachings of Jesus. I like the meaning of these stories. The meaning of these stories is to love one another, serve one another. I like that. But it doesn't matter if these things really happened. Doctrine doesn't matter. What matters is you're a good person."

The great irony is, that is a doctrine, but they're not being frank about it. It's called the doctrine of justification by works. When somebody says that, they're saying it doesn't matter that Jesus actually lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died; all that matters is we can follow his teaching. That is a doctrine that says: I'm not so bad that I need someone to come and be good for me. I can be good. I'm not so cut off from God and God is not so holy that there has to be punishment for sin. That doesn't matter.

The gospel is not that Jesus Christ comes to earth, tells us how to live, we live a good life, and then God owes us blessing. The gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died, so when we believe in him we are accepted and live a life of grateful joy for him. In other words, if these things didn't happen, we can't be saved utterly by grace. If these things didn't happen, if they're just parables, what you are saying is you believe the doctrine of salvation by works—that if you try hard enough God will accept you. See, you cannot avoid doctrine.

The doctrine of Christmas is that Jesus came. If he didn't come, the story of Christmas is one more moral paradigm to crush you. If Jesus didn't come, I wouldn't want to be anywhere around these Christmas stories that say we need to be sacrificing, we need to be humble, we need to be loving. All that will do is crush you into the ground, because if it isn't true that John saw him, heard him, felt him, that Jesus really came to do these things, then Christmas is depressing.
Every year I see stories in newspapers saying Christmas is the time of year for depression. It is, but not if you believe these first two verses, not if you understand Christmas is not just an inspiring story we can live up to, but it's frankly doctrinal and boldly historical.

Christmas makes you deeply mystical
Verses 3 and 4 tell us that if you grasp this idea—not that Christmas is a sweet story but that Jesus Christ came to earth, God became flesh and lived the life you should have lived, died the death you should have died, as a Savior, not just as a teacher or an example—then Christmas will do four things to you. It will make you deeply mystical, happily material, fiercely relational, and free to be emotional.

First of all, Christmas will make you deeply mystical. First John 1:3 says, "Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son." This word fellowship, which is koinonia, means that if Jesus Christ has come, if Christmas is true, then we've got a basis for a personal relationship with God. God is no longer a remote idea or just a force we cower before, but we can know him personally. He's become graspable.

Let me give you an example. Scholar A and Scholar B are both trying to write a biography of Sir John Doe. Sir John Doe lived in East Anglia and died in 1721. Both Scholar A and Scholar B believe Sir John Doe wrote five letters to his wife, and they can learn a lot from that. But then there's a 500 autobiography, and it says it's written by Sir John Doe. Scholar A says, "I believe that's genuine." Scholar B says, "I don't." So they sit down to write their biographies. Those biographies are going to be different. Scholar A's biography of Sir John Doe is going to be much more detailed, much more personal. When you're done reading you're going to feel you know this guy. But Scholar B's biography is going to be much more remote, much more general, much more speculative. You're going to feel you hardly know him at all. It all comes down to whether the autobiography is genuine.

Here's the point. If Jesus Christ is actually God come in the flesh, you're going to know much more about God. He's going to be graspable. He's going to be somebody you can relate to. You're seeing him weep. You're seeing him upset. You're seeing him cast down. You're seeing him exalted. If Jesus is who he says he is, we have a 500 autobiography from God, in a sense. And our understanding will be vastly more personal and specific than any philosophy or religion could give us.

Look at what God has done to get you to know him personally. If the Son would come all this way to become a real person to you, don't you think the Holy Spirit will do anything in his power to make Jesus a real person to you in your heart? Christmas is an invitation to become mystical. Christmas is an invitation to know Christ personally. Christmas is an invitation by God to say: Look what I've done to come near to you. Now draw near to me. I don't want to be a concept; I want to be a friend.

Christmas makes you happily material
Greek and Roman readers of this verse would have been astonished when John said he felt the eternal, he saw the eternal. Greeks and Romans and even traditional religious people today believe matter is bad; divine is good. The divine would not come down. Traditional religion says salvation is escaping out of this world into the kingdom of God, but the gospel of Christmas is that salvation is the kingdom of God coming into this world. Traditional religion says the world is bad. Let's get away from cancer. Let's get away from poverty. The gospel is that salvation is the kingdom of God coming down into this world. The body is important. Matter is important. This world is important. He took on physical flesh. Therefore, Christians know in the name of Christ we share our faith, but in the name of Christ we also help a poor person get a decent house. That's part of testifying to the gospel of Christmas. The kingdom of God is here to rehabilitate this world, not to save us out into some kind of ethereal paradise. The future of traditional religion is paradise. The future of the gospel is a new heaven, a new earth.

Christmas makes you fiercely relational
Thirdly, not only does the gospel of Christmas make us deeply mystical and happily material, but it makes us fiercely relational. The Incarnation imprints on us an attitude toward relationships. Jesus says, I want fellowship with you. The test that you know what Christmas is about is that you become more desirous of intimate personal relationships with other people and better at getting them, because the Incarnation is the secret of good personal relationships.
When two people are different culturally and linguistically, how are they going to have a relationship? One must learn the other's language, speak in a broken dialect, and become vulnerable and weak. If you enter into another person's world you become weak; the other person keeps the power. But then you have a relationship.

If you follow the way of Jesus you say, "I will not work so much on being understood but on understanding. I will not work so much on getting my needs met but on meeting needs. I will work on entering into her or his world and giving that person what they consider love, not what I consider love." Incarnation, if it's imprinted in you, if you see what Jesus Christ has done, is going to make you unbelievably good at personal relationships.

Christmas makes you free to be emotional.
Look at verse 4. John says: I want you to have fellowship with us. I want you to believe what we are saying. I want you to understand the doctrine of Christmas. I want us to be united in a community. I want us to be united in belief.
And then he says: I'm doing all this—why?—so my joy will be complete.
He doesn't say: I need your lives to be okay so I can have any joy at all. He's already got joy. He says: You need to get your act together for my joy to be complete. There's a balance there. He's got a joy no matter what they do. Christmas gives you a subterranean joy.

Kathy and I used to own a house in Philadelphia. It was always damp in that basement, and always mucky in the backyard. Somebody said, "Didn't you know before you bought the house? There's a subterranean river that goes underneath all the homes on this street. It's always flowing, even in a drought."

On the one hand, Christmas gives you a subterranean river of joy, and no matter how bad it is on the surface, no matter how bad circumstances are, the joy is always there. It keeps you green. It keeps you fresh. After all, Jesus Christ has landed. The Lord has opened a cleft in the pitiless walls of the world, and the kingdom of God is coming, come hell or high water. That's subterranean joy.

But on the other hand, John says: I can't have complete joy unless you believe. That means this. Many of us are afraid to enmesh ourselves in the lives of other people, because we can't stand the idea of tying our hearts to other people. If they're unhappy, we're unhappy. So we pull back. We withdraw. We don't get involved in the lives of people. But the Incarnation means that Jesus Christ, God himself, got enmeshed in our brokenness. He got involved in a major way. He was weeping. He came in and he fell, and he had nails in his hands.
But here's what's great. It's a subterranean joy. It's a joy that cannot go out, and it will give you the freedom to get involved in the lives of other people. Christmas makes you free to be emotional. It makes you realize the emotion of grief is not going to take you all the way down, because you have a subterranean joy.

If you believe the doctrine of Christmas, it makes you deeply mystical. It makes you happily material. It makes you fiercely relational. It makes you free to be emotional. What else could you want? Think about that the next time you say to somebody, "Have a merry Christmas."

Nesting.

2006-12-12T11:25:00.000-05:00

Why do I have a picture of a nest?
Because at a Christmas party on Friday night, one of two for the weekend, and we were invited to another we couldn't attend, an older gentleman was inquiring about my newlywed status. How are things going? I responded by saying that we are accumulating things. He replied, "Ah, your nesting." Yes. We are nesting.
Jess and I just spent a good amount of money accumulating Christmas decorations for the house. A wreath here, a nutcracker there, a stocking holder, a snowman that lights up, a Victorian village, (my favorite), candles for the windows, bows, wrapping paper, ornaments, a tree skirt, and we haven't even started buying Christmas gifts.
I have been excited to buy these things. It makes me happy to feel like we are making a home. At the same time I see the bill piling up. And I reason that these Christmas purchases are an investment, we will use them over the years.
And so my thoughts return to nesting. To building a home. A place that Jess and I can call our own. That somehow the things we surround ourselves with say something about us and give us comfort.
We've definately been enjoying our first Christmas holiday together. Knowing that in years to come we will remember how we started to nest at Christmas when we got these shiny new things that will one day be worn but will be sacred in our chest of memories.
We also added a new family member this weekend. Dougy. Dougy is a Douglas Fur Christmas Tree. He stands at about 7 feet tall and when you walk in from the cold and step inside our living room its as if you walked into an evergreen forest.

We both like Dougy very much. We also got two nutcrackers. Jess didnt really like them but you cant have Christmas decorations without a couple nutcrackers. I named them Victor and Hugo. It was off the top of my head but it fits. Victor Hugo lived in the early 19th century, the same era as the nutcrackers costumes. This is the era of Napolean Bonaparte, the Count of Monte Cristo, the Three Musketeers.

Since that Friday night Christmas party, I have been asked about life, about marriage several times and have responded by saying, we're nesting. The inquisitor then slightly smiles and nods the head in response.
Well, enough with the nesting. Bring on the gifts!!

Babies Being Killed for Stem Cells.

2006-12-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

This is one of the arguments against approval for fetal stem cell research.
This would never happen right? Well, a news story came out today suggesting that that very thing is happening in Ukraine.

In the Ukraine, healthy, living babies are apparently being taken and killed to be sold on the embryonic stem cell market.

Click here for the BBC story. This is not coming from a right wing website but the ultra liberal BBC.

Family Guy-peanut butter jelly time

2006-12-06T14:46:00.001-05:00

Feeling down? Perhaps Peanut Butter Jelly Time will cheer you up.

Rosie O'Donnell states radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam. What is radical?

2006-11-29T09:45:00.000-05:00

I know this is old news but I just found out about it today.
On the View in September Rosie states that radical Christianity is just as threatening to America as radical Islam.

Click here for link to video & story.

Unbelievable.

My first responses to this are: shock and then anger.
How could she say that? Are Christians beheading people weekly? Are Christians flying planes into buildings? Are Christians blowing themselves up at bus stops?

Personally, I believe Rosie is more of a threat to America than Christians.

Then I started to feel guilty for being upset. Yes, what she said was completely off base but has Rosie ever met a radical Christian?
Perhaps, Rosie and I's definition of radical Christianity are different.
She's probably thinking of that lunatic Eric Rudolph who blew up an abortion clinic.
I would say that’s not a radical Christian but a sick and mentally insane person who misrepresents the Christian faith.

Come to think of it, I misrepresent the Christian faith all the time. I get upset at the person who cuts over on me on the freeway. I get upset when my food isn't brought out to me on time. I get upset when people insult or disagree with my beliefs.

Perhaps Rosie has never met a radical Christian. One who is so radical that he or she does not validate their existence on the things and persons around them. They don't have to be served first, or treated the exact way they want to be treated. Instead they love first, forgive first, care first, smile first, and rejoice first.
This is the definition of a radical Christian.
How radical is that? What if more Christians lived out the Gospel in every moment of their daily lives? What if Christians focused on the cross instead of themselves?
Luther once said he felt as if Jesus Christ died only yesterday. I read that and knew I didn’t feel that way consistently. I believe a radical Christian would. A radical Christian would be one who lives a cross centered life. One who continually gains understanding in Christ’s suffering for them, and grows in consistent joy and zeal in the knowledge of that unmerited favor Christ has given them in his death.

A radical Christian is one who is being equipped each day with the fruit of the spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Galatians 5:22
A radical Christian becomes these things not for himself but because God became these things for him. And in turn we show this radical life to others by our words and actions and we give testimony to the work of the cross.

Has Rosie met these radical Christians? Has the audience that so thunderously applauded to her comment met these radical Christians?

I know I have faltered in helping change the definition of radical Christian.

I believe the answer is found in living a cross-centered life rather than a self-centered life. Living the Cross Centered Life.

John Stott once said, "The Cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough for its sparks to fall on us."

God is still working on us, lets pray that we may become more cross-centered, full of love, joy, forgiveness, and compassion and become radical Christians.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-22T09:32:00.000-05:00

"When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you." Deuteronomy 8:10

Pains of Democracy*

2006-11-15T16:08:00.000-05:00

Well, that sick feeling in my stomach is gone. It was there for a day.
God is still in control of all things, of our leaders and our country.
That gives me comfort regardless of who is in power.
If folks in America thought they were making a change last week they surely did!
Now that the liberals are in power they can't hide behind minority status and I believe America will see their true colors in these next two years.

Polls say that Iraq was the most important issue. And according to our media, even Foxnews, the war in Iraq is going badly. I refuse to believe that. The news simply reports the negative things. It fails to report the positive. There have been three elections in three years where voting meant the possibility of death. There are 18 provinces in Iraq. Only 5 have severe violence. But thats all we hear about.

Gen. Casey: “This Is Not A Country That Is Awash In Sectarian Violence.” GEN. CASEY: “Make no mistake about it: We are in a tough fight here in the center of the country and in Anbar Province. But I think it’s important to remind people that 90 percent of the sectarian violence in Iraq takes place in about a 30-mile radius from the center of Baghdad, and secondly, that 90 percent of all violence takes place in five provinces. This is not a country that is awash in sectarian violence.” (Gen. Casey, Multi-National Force – Iraq Press Briefing, 10/24/2006)

The deputy Prime Minister just said in October the following, ""I believe, come next year, you will be seeing Iraqi forces in the lead in many of the Iraqi provinces.
By the end of the year, nearly seven or eight provinces of Iraq out of 18 provinces will be under direct Iraqi security control." http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061023/wl_afp/britainiraqmilitary
Isn't that what we want? Why isn't this being widely reported?

Did you hear about this story on the evening news?

The Prime Minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government met with the families of fallen U.S. soldiers on Nov. 6th and he had a message for the news media: your coverage of the Iraq war is terribly biased.
“CNN International and Al Jazeera are equally bad in their coverage of the situation in Iraq,” said Nerchivan Barzani, Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan.
“When I was in the United States recently and read the negative news in the Washington Post, New York Times and in the network TV broadcasts, I even wondered if things had gotten so bad since I had left that I shouldn’t return,” said Prime Minister Barzani.

I found the same thing to be true when I studied abroad in Jerusalem in 2000 for 4 months. I was there when the second intifada started. I was actually at the Western Wall when the first surge of violence started. There had been 3 years of peace and then the dam broke. Bombs went off. Rocks were thrown. I watched a battle of Palestinians fighting Israeli IDF forces in Gilo 2 miles away from the roof top of my school. I saw the helicopter gunships shooting missles and machine guns rat-tat-tatting.

Yeah, it was a bit scary to be in Israel. The school was flooded with phone calls from worried parents, mine included. Accoring to western media it was world war three in Israel. Even though I saw those things and heard about the violence, it never really was that close to me. It wasn't nearly as apocalyptic as the US news made it out to be. I did have some friends leave to go home, but less to do with the violence and more as an excuse to go home because of homesickness. When they got home they were amazed by the intensity of the negative reporting. They knew better.

The same was true for PM Barzani this last week. The same is true for US soldiers who come home and hear nothing but negative news reporting. I have a friend who came back after two tours and he couldn't understand why America's media was so slanted. He's back now fighting for our country. Did he have horrible stories to tell? Yes. Bad things happened, bad things are happening. I dont want to take away the gravity of that AT ALL. Violence is awful and hearing about suffering and death is tragic and heart wrenching.
But our media reports overwhelmingly about the tragic.
What about our successes?
Why wasnt this on the headline of any paper?

GEN. CASEY: “The American people … should also know that the men and women of the Armed Forces here have never lost a battle in over three years of war; that is a fact unprecedented in military history. They and our Iraqi Security Forces continue to carry the fight to the enemy every day, and I continue to be in awe of their courage, their agility, their resourcefulness and their commitment. You can be confident that our servicemen and women are well-trained, well-equipped and well-led.” (Gen. Casey, Multi-National Force – Iraq Press Briefing, 10/24/2006)

Never lost a battle???? Wait, according to everything I hear we are a losing the war.
How come we never hear quotes from Iraqi's who support our actions?

Here are some:

"Let me tell you, I for one Iraqi, and the majority of the Iraqi people, will always be grateful for the Americans and British for getting rid of the most despicable and the brutal Bathest dictatorship headed by Saddam.
Things are bad in Iraq because these thugs and their new Jihadi allies will not give up the power they lost and are taking their vengeance on all Iraqis who dared to dream of a democratic and decent country. It is not the Americans who are killing Iraqis, it is these terrorists and their supporters. Why is everybody talking themselves into defeat in the war against these subhumans who have tarnished the name of Islam.
Do you expect Iraqis to just give up to these thugs? Should any decent human being accept these thugs taking control again? I can’t believe the nonsense I read everyday!"
S KarimAbu Dhabi

I totally agree with Kareem, I’m an Iraqi living in Dubai, and I’m very happy that the dictator has been removed at last. But now the Iraqis need to stand together against his followers who are doing their best in creating unrest in the country, I remember the time when we used to live in complete harmony with all religious groups.Most of the people creating this unrest are coming from neighbouring countries, and are members of terrorist organizations.I call for the neighbouring countries to put strict control on their borders.

http://www.7days.ae/2006/10/26/many-iraqis-happy-with-us-intervention.html

Is it a black and white issue? No it is not. There is tragedy in Iraq. It is a war. Are things going as well as they could be? Have strategic mistakes been made?
Sure, there are mistakes in every war.
I am not saying not to report on these things. I am saying that the reporting is unabashadly slanted towards the negative.
But it is not so black that we cannot report the positive.

Imagine if the press belittled FDR during WWII? Imagine if a leading reporter met with Hitler for an interview when the whispers of war are stirring? (As Dan Rather did.)
Imagine if a presidential candidate called our troops terrorists and made them equal to Pol-Pot's genocidal Khmer-Rouge?
We went to war in Germany to fight off a genocidal dictator.
We went to war in Iraq to fight off a genocidal dictator.
And the press during WWII worked to help the war effort not destroy it.
Now some of the press today works with the enemy.
CNN getting a propaganda tape from a terrorist organization showing terrorists sniping our troops. The only request from this terrorist org. was that CNN would give them a fair shake.
And CNN did, by showing the tape not once but twice on CNN. Showing our troops being killed by terrorist.

Where are the tapes of our men and women defeating the enemy???

Where are the successes?

No wonder Americans think the war in Iraq is an utter failure.

* (the amazing title is quoted from esteemed blogger and friend, jeffrey B price.)

Another Reason to Vote Republican.

2006-11-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

John Kerry....if your not educated you will end up in Iraq.
Botched joke? I dont think so. A mask unveiled showing his disdain for the military. Yes. An aide to our enemies? To terrorists across the globe? Yes.
Another great reason to vote Republican in five days? YESSSS!!

At least our troops in the field can have some fun with it.

Victor Davis Hanson salutes these troops:

"One of the things I love about America is the spontaneous brilliance and humor that undermine all pretension. No better example was that wonderful banner from our brave and ingenious soldiers in Iraq...

20 million Americans must have seen it all over the Internet, and nothing sums up the nothingness of Kerryism better than those smiling soldiers. After seeing that, no wonder he's offering deer-in-the headlights apologies. This is a man who remembers everything and learns nothing.

Then there was the finger-in-the wind initial Democratic response: their supposedly slight ill breeze suddenly became a Katrina hurricane, and, Presto!, they were all over the airwaves demanding from poor Kerry the apologies that just a few hours ago they thought were not necessary.

As for Kerry — how quick the 24-hour metamorphosis from smugness to defiance to purported contriteness! At his earlier blame-the-wing-nuts-and-Rush-Limbaugh press conference, he thought he was a strutting, strong-jawed Napoleonic general leading his troops to rout the evil Bush-Cheney Prussians, and then, alone, suddenly turned around — and Mein Gott in Himmel!! — his Old Guard was heading for the hills."

QuickPost from FotoFlix

2006-10-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

Posted by deconbrodi

QuickPost from FotoFlix

2006-10-24T15:40:00.000-05:00

Posted by deconbrodi

Pictures & 80's Nostalgia

2006-10-17T13:41:00.000-05:00

I mentioned last week that I would post some wedding pictures. Well, I am lazy, below is the same link that enables you to see ALL the pictures our photographer took.

A LINK to some Wedding Pics! Click on Jordan/Jessica Formals and Ross/Blue Ceremony and Reception
Click here for pics.

Here are some more pictures.

Snorkels. Remember them? The underwater Smurf knock-off. This was a short-lived series introduced in 1984. It may have been short-lived but it was definately enduringly loved in my heart. Super Snorkel Fan 4EVER!!
Snorkel Curious? Click Here.

He-Man. What else can one say than to quote the best cartoon intro of all times?
"I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, Defender of the secrets of Grey Skull. This is cringer my fearless friend. Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held my magical sword aloft and said "By the Power of GREY SKULL!" "I have the power!!!!" Cringer became the mighty battlecat and I became HE-Man the most powerful man in the universe!!.... It goes on. If you want to see the rest, click on link below.

He-Man Rocks! Click Here to watch Intro Video Clip.

La, la, la, la, la, la, sing a happy song
La, la, la, la, la, la, Smurf the whole day long

Smurftastic Baby!

Who could forget Punky Brewster? If you did, check out Wikipedia.
Punky Brewster. Important Info.

Last and most obsccure video of the day. Who remembers this guy?

Moon Mac Commercial.

Here's the real bonus question. What is the title of the song that Mac changes to his own words?
Answer found in comments section.

Marriage Bliss.

2006-10-13T11:41:00.000-05:00

A LINK to some Wedding Pics! Click on Jordan/Jessica Formals and Ross/Blue Ceremony and Reception
Click here for pics.

Yes. Yes. To my two faithful readers who are still left. I am alive and well. I am married. I have a new job. I am excited about both! Marriage is amazing. The wedding was spectacular. My new wife is beyond the scope of words! My new ministry is amazing, the kids, the parents, the church has been such a blessing. I am excited about getting into the groove, getting to know the kids and I have a huge vision for the ministry. Just need to rope it in.

The wedding week and the wedding was magical. Everything I hoped it would be and more. I cannot say enough how beautiful it was. And this is coming from a guy. : )
The pics are absolutely fabulous, they belong in a magazine. I will have some posted very soon. Next week sometime.
I absolutely loved having my closest and dearest friends and family with me. That week, those couple days and that day will always be cherished. Thanks to everyone who was there, who supported us. It means more than you can ever imagine.
A wedding is a little piece of heaven on earth. Cannot fathom how amazing heaven will be!

The Mayan Riveria in Mexico was beyond wonderful. Everyone treated us like royalty. The All-Inclusive, adults only, jacuzzi in every room, free tours resort was truly like being a King and Queen for a week. And dont get me started on the Spa treatments.....ah heavenly.

Last weekend I was in New York City with my new youth group and my new wife. Manhatten Immersion. A huge video scavenger hunt running around from one New York landmark to the next. It was fun. Getting to know the kids was spectacular. I love you guys already. God will do some great things here.

Tonight I go off to the Mens retreat. Get back Sunday and plant some rose bushes in the rock garden that is our front lawn.

Monday I get back to work...start a lesson for Middle School and on Tuesday I post pics from the wedding! Stay Tuned.

After that, I remain more faithful to blogging. Now that the dust has somewhat settled and I know which way is up.

Peace.
- Domino Optimo Maximo

"I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the Earth." Isa 58:14

2006-07-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

Those who fly through the air in airships tell us that one of the first rules they learn is to turn their ship towards the wind, and fly against it. The wind lifts the ship up to higher heights. Where did they learn that? They learned it from the birds. If a bird is flying for pleasure, it goes with the wind. But if the bird meets danger, it turns right around and faces the wind, in order that it may rise higher; and it flies away toward the very sun.

Sufferings are God's winds, His contrary winds, sometimes His strong winds. They are God's hurricanes, but they take human life and lift it to higher levels and towards God's heavens.

You have seen in the summer time a day when the atmosphere was so oppressive that you could hardly breathe? But a cloud appeared on the western horizon and that cloud grew larger and threw out a rich blessing for the world. The storm rose, lightening flashed and thunder pealed. The storm covered the world, and the atmosphere was cleansed, new life was in the air, and the world was changed.

Human life is worked out according to exactly the same principle. When the storm breaks the atmosphere is changed, clarified, filled with new life and a part of heaven is brought down to earth.

Obstacles ought to set us to singing. The wind finds voice, not when rushing across the open sea, but when hindered by the outstretched arms of pine trees, or broken by the fine strings of an aeolian harp. Then it has songs of power and beauty. Set your freed soul sweeping across the obstacles of life, through grim forests of pain, against even the tiny hindrances and frets that love uses and it, too will find its singing voice.

Be like a bird that, halting in its flight rests on a bough too slight and feeling it give way beneath him sings, knowing he hath wings.

- Streams in the Desert.

Zombie, Shirt, Tie, Road, Turtle

2006-06-26T19:42:00.000-05:00

This morning I was driving on Loch Raven Drive; a road that cut the misty woods in two and slithered next to a lake that bounced off the early morning light beams tenderly onto the retina of my eyes. My windows were down and the morning country air swept over my face like a spoiler on the back of car. I always enjoy this drive into work. As a rule, regardless to the conditions of the weather; rain, sun, hot, cold, I keep the windows down and the radio off. The changing scenery: tree's towering over head, the thick deep forest, the green lawns, and rolling farmland beckon me away into a different world. A world away from the suburbs, from the starbucks, the Mcdonalds, the Wal-Marts, the congestion and the parking lots.
This is the drive I take each morning to work.
This morning as I hugged a curve, with the deep thick woods on my left and the glimmering lake on my right, I came across a man in a shirt and tie walking in the middle of the road. His car was on the side of the road with the hazards on. At first glance this man was walking strange. He was walking with an arched back, as if he was falling backwards, his hands and arms were straight out in front of him.
Initially I thought I had seen my first zombie.
A split second thought crossed my mind.
I needed to smash this walking undead through the grill of my SUV.
I would be a hero for saving humanity.
As it turns out, this awkward walking man in a shirt and tie was simply being careful not to get a very large, squirming and dirty turtle on his work clothes.

Rather than me saving humanity this man had helped save a party of turtleanity.
The zombie pose, the business man in a shirt and tie, and the large turtle.
Quite the amusing combo.

"It puzzles me how humans never seem to allow room for change and growth."

2006-06-20T09:10:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone.
It feels like its been a while. Here is an email I recovered from a long lost friend. Her name is Shannon Shibata. She was a part of my close circle of friends while I was in Jerusalem and this is her email to me written after she had returned to the States.
I had kept this email because it was so powerful to me and I know it will be for you too.

I have never had a hard time articulating my thoughts and feelings. It has always been something I could do with ease. But lately I find it harder to express what is going on inside. Because I'm not sure what IS going on inside. But here are some thoughts that have crossed my mind concerning people here in the States and the Christianity that has been thrown back upon me like cold water since my return:

It puzzles me how humans never seem to allow room for growth and change. They desire to keep those around them always in a place in the past where they can keep expectation carefully framed and boxed in simplistic egotism. All of us are guilty of being blind to the endless possibility of change and growth. We are more comfortable with the static, unable to wrap our minds around the work of God which is dynamic, always morphing, always changing. Only God himself remains unchanging, in the midst of a world that is shifting as the shadows becoming second by second more like or unlike Him at any given moment. He is the only constant. And part of the beauty of life is releasing fear of the dynamic, allowing people, circumstance and emotion to stretch, ebb and twist, knowing that change is okay because we have a grand and steady iron thread which holds the madness together always; just as the sun rises, His truth is our constancy . Thus goes the adventure.

We who dive deep are the "unknown" of endless possibility in the lives of those in the suburbs of America, where people covet stability and sameness. Every time people encounter us, we are different somehow, full of life, emotion, learning, thoughts, views, expression. They don't understand the catalyst for this spring of gushing waters that swell and flow without a patterned tide. And this makes the world uncomfortable. Because we live and die by our catergorizations. It used to suffocate me, and now, it makes me feel sad and sorry for those who try to rope me into their tidy corners. Its a bondage I dont desire anyone to have to live by.

The last few months have been marked by so much enjoyment of life and change and growth and the endless depths of God I forgot to care about what others thought about it or perceived it. His opion, countenance and confidence became my counter, my measure, my expectation. And suddenly, I woke up able to breathe again. Human measurements dont have a long enough standard to meausure the depths of God. For God has no ceiling, no end to His length. He is the most perfect diamond with infinite faces. And if we are with Him, there is no way our finite ways of measurement could count how far we have the possibility to grow and become more like Him. Every time people encounter those who are truly walking with God, they see a new face of the diamond that is God reflected back in our countenance and it is frightening. And if we try to measure God and put Him in a box when we talk to others would be cheating those aspiring for the full gusto the ability to dream for more than they are living at that very given moment.

True believers are already off the charts of human measurement. They aren't on the radar, they're the ones that have gone beyond the maps to a place yet uncharted. Because "no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." And the place where God resides and allows us to access to is a place where charts and measurements and maps cannot reach. It is an eden that is shrouded to our naked eye. It is the place that most humans and Christians have heard of in mythlike stories but never had courage to believe in the genuine existence of. And the few that have the "nutzo" tendencies for God, (the inborn fire that drives us to believe in the myth of a deeper God, knowing intuitively that which we live is only a fraction of what exists), dive in and realize somehwere in the journey that HIS eden isn't a myth. It is more real than anything in life. And we bring back stories of our journeys to that place where no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived. And we try with words to capture the essence of something that even illudes us because it overloads the senses beyond that which can be captured with words. For THAT is the nature of God.

We look up in the midst of our stories and look into the eyes of those who look back with blank expression, and in one hand they hold a finite measuring stick they grip white knuckled and we begin to realize the obstacle that keeps understanding from dawning. It is the finite meeting the endless and some refuse to take a step into the unknown threshold. Because the closer we get to that threshold we begin to feel ourselves being overwhelmed with that feeling of being annihilated and healed in one swift movement of the current. Its this magnetic draw that feels as though we are being put together and pulled apart in some paradoxical dichotomy. You've felt it haven't you? Tasted it? I know you have. I've seen it waging it's holy war in your face. As the author Calvin Miller said, "the agony and ecstasy together abiding at once in your frame." The walk of a God lover is not an easy or neat and button downed thing. We all want to package it that way, and feel comfort in it, yet the more I live and experience , the more I realize that God turns our worlds in a way that we cannot predict. He will quite literally rock our worlds and he will not be harnessed by our human desire for sameness and stability.

------------------------>

your thoughts?

Impression Reports from Trip to Jordan

2006-06-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

We had to write impression reports each day for our field trips for our class, Physical Settings of the Bible. These reports were handed in for grading by the professor. It was nothing formal, just making sure we paid attention on our trip.
What follows are my impression reports for the three day field trip to the country of Jordan, and for southern Israel. This post will only cover day one.
(Parenthesis remarks are current day informative comments)

(Written some time in October of 2000)

We woke up bright and early this morning. I actually had to get up at 5:30 because I hadn't done any of my packing! I know I always procrastinate. I bet I won't have my tux on for my wedding until the music is playing. Perhaps one day I will learn and not pull a rabbit out of my hat every time. I was lucky because I got to sit by myself on the long journey to the Jordanian border way up north. I guess it would have been luckier to have been able to sit by a sweet cute looking girl but I don't seem to have attained that kind of luck in my life. (Note: I have now!) We eventually arrived at the border crossing, and I remember we were the last bus to leave because Mark K. forgot his passport but we were the the first bus to cross the border because our bus driver pulled several Dale Earnhardt maneuvers by passing our companion buses, one right at the finish line to capture the checkered flag. This caused a wave of cheering I had never heard for a bus driver before; he smiled.

When we got there I was the first in line to get my passport checked and I took two pictures there and plan on selling them to terrorists who plan on making an illegal transport of dangerous explosives. Wink yelled at me (Another classes field professor) but I didn't care because I was getting a pretty penny for my labor. My Japanese blooded friend, Ryan Ikeda, actually took a picture of me standing by a Jordanian sign with an arrow. I stood in front of it in such a way that the arrow pointed at me. I am sure the terrorists will love that picture and will probably frame it and put it up in their secret lair. (This is definately insensitive pre-911 commentary but eerily clairvoyant)

After the wonderful border crossing it was the consensus of the class that we enjoyed the best bus for Physical Settings. It actually had head rests on the side of your head so you didnt have to lean to one side completely and break your neck.
Our first stop that day was Jerash.
This was a really cool stop and said by some to be the best preserved Roman city in the Middle East and maybe the world.

Hadrian had an influence there because he was known as the traveling Emperor who visited most of his empire. To be honest with you I would have probably stayed in my royal abode and enjoyed the comforts of home, hit up a couple gladiator games, a chariot race and for sure would have relaxed in those hot baths. I would be known as Jordanias the Comfortable. Anyway, Jerash was pretty spectacular. The ruins were magnificent and you could only imagine what the city would have looked like in its day. This was also my first exposure to the Jordanian people. I was already enjoying my view from my lofty bus during the drive because this was a country that was completely Middle Eastern and had less of that westernized look to it. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to a handful of Jordanians, including a couple of policemen. I could already tell they surpassed the Israeli's in terms of friendliness. At the top of the ampitheater I heard some music lofting my way. A group of teenie-boppers Jordanian girls had a radio going and I could hear American pop and I was initially comforted by the sounds of home until I realized it was Brittany Spears. It was also at this time that I decided to go by middle name rather than my first. It seemed to cause some confusion in the ability to start up a conversation, either that or amusement that I was named after their country.
We made a couple more stops that day, including Mt. Nebo, where Moses looked into the Promise land before he died. Mt. Nebo is a huge hill/ridge overlooking the Dead Sea and we were there during a purple and orange sunset which made it feel otherwordly as it reflected on the desert floor. We then made it to our hotel. The next day was our amazing visit to one of the wonders of the world. The ancient city of Petra.

Jerusalem Revisited

2006-05-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

In September of 2000, I ventured far from home and anything or anyone familiar and went to Jerusalem, Israel to live for 4 months to attend Jerusalem University College. It was one of my favorite times in my life. No words can capture just how amazing it was. During my stay there I wrote many emails home and even had an update newsletter I called "The Adventures". I just recently came across these emails in a very large notebook and thought I would start posting them on my site.
I loved my time there, I love reading over these and thought you guys would get some enjoyment out of them too.

I may add some notes to the emails to bring more clarity, I will put them in parentheses, ( )

9/3/00 - "The Beginning: Email # 1"

Dearest Friends,

I have been in this timeless land for three days now! And it is absolutely awesome. I have decided to write a weekly update to all my friends and let you read about my adventures. I will write more personal emails to you too, just as long as you send me emails! : )
I flew from Atlanta on Tuesday and had an hour layover in London and arrived in Tel Aviv about 14 hours after I left Atlanta. I had to get a sherut taxi to Jerusalem. (A mini-van that holds 6-8 people)
I was on board with 6 orthodox Jews all around my age and under. The guy next to me was from Atlanta and the rest seemed to be from Boston and Manhatten. They come over to Israel to study for the year. At one point in the drive I thought I was in a Seinfield episode due to the absurdity of the line I heard: the guy next to me was talking to the kid in the front in this jibberish I hardly believed was another language and then all of a sudden in perfect English he says to the other guy, "Your Yiddish is impeccable, where did you learn it?" The other kid answered, "Manhatten", and they promptly continued to the conversation in Yiddish. It just struck me as very funny. First that line, "Your Yiddish is impeccable", second that they would stop and speak impeccable English to make the comments and third; that I always joked about knowing Yiddish because to me it is some obscure sounding foreign language I thought I would never hear.

About an hour later, after being completely ignored for being the only gentile in the van, I got dropped off about a mile away from my campus because my driver didnt want to take me all the way over to the school due to traffic. So I lugged my gear along a street running parralell to the Old City wall. I finally figured out where I was and how to get to the school but as soon as I plopped myself down on a chair in the lounge all these students where taking off for the Old City and I was told that all the undergrad men and about half the undergrad women were living just inside the Old City walls at the New Imperial Hotel across from the Citadel of David. The school had rented out the hotel for the semester. So I am actually living within the Old City of Jerusalem in the Christian Quarter right next to Jaffa Gate. (Jaffa Gate is the Red Spot on the left)

But there are no Protestant Christians, they are all Orthodox Arab Christians or Muslims. I visited the Temple Mount and the Western Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock was in the background. Ultra-Orthodox Jews were crowded near the wall bobbing their heads up and down while they prayed.

The next day I went to Tel Aviv with four guys from the school. We took a bus that only cost 18 shekels, $4.50. We basically walked around all day, went to a four story mall and swam in the Mediterranean Sea. The Tel Aviv beaches are full of people and the water is like hot bath water, so it wasnt refreshing from the hot sun.
On Friday, registration started and because I live in the Old City I have to walk out of Jaffa Gate and walk down a hill and then up Mount Zion to JUC, (The College) its about a 10-15 minute walk. I have already done more walking than I had the whole rest of this year. Friday we went on the New City walking tour and walked down Ben Yehuda Street, it is the place to hang out on the weekends. That night, I walked deep into the Old City by myself. I felt like I entered back in time by a thousand years. The "streets" are more like covered sidewalks and the streets are narrow, crooked and maze like and laid with worn out stones. I made a couple right turns and ended up in fron is the Church of the Holy Selupchre. The Church that was built over the site where Jesus was crucified and buried. {Archeologists are 95% sure this is the site}

There are seven different churches that share the church and not one is protestant. The Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian churches all lay claims on the church and all operate separate services and have their own chapels either in or on the church. Throughout history there has been disputes over certain issues concerning the church, such as who gets to restore the church, thus it is really dilapidated Another arguing point is who gets to open the church each morning. Thus they have allowed the same Muslim family unlock the doors for the last 300 years. I saw the Greeks perform and a service with liturgy, chants and swinging incense burners. I was there late at night so I avoided the crowds and was able to go into the tomb of Jesus all by myself and I knelt and prayed there for about 5 minutes. The tomb is a chapel built over the site inside the church. It was beyond description to be there, I will be going to this church a lot while I am here.

Well, I hate to say goodbye but I am in an internet cafe that closes in four minutes, more details are coming soon. My classes start tomorrow. They are as follows: Physical Settings of the Bible, (Where we learn about the Bible on Biblical sites!), History of Egypt and its relation to Canaan, Palestinian Politics and Culture, Archeology of Palestine, Rabbinical Thought and Literature, and Modern Middle East. I will definately write again soon.

------------------------------------>

Those were the words from my first mass email to my friends and family. I think I will update my story once or twice a week.

The Da Vinci Code Discussed.

2006-05-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow the Da Vinci Code is coming to theaters. Despite sub-par reviews from the Cannes festival and the USA today (2 out 4 stars) millions will flock world-wide to see this movie. Millions in America have kept this book at the top of the best seller list for over 3 years. TV Networks are publicizing the movie whereas some Christians are up in arms. What's all the buzz, excitement and fuss about?

I do believe as a Christian we have an obligation to be in tune with the trends of our culture to better engage and interact with culture to fulfill the great commission to spread the Gospel. (Acts 17:16-34) A simple out of sight, out of mind attitude is not what God calls us to.

If you haven't read the book and you want to be an an informed Christian on a topic that permeates our society today then please read the below article I have linked from By Faith Magazine. I have read several Christian articles discussing the Da Vinci Code and I believe this is the best one. Warning: It does discuss the book/movie and the claims and conclusions it makes.

Da Vinci Code Article.

Navy Corpsman’s Good Works Live On

2006-05-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

A very touching story from Afghanistan. A story you won't hear from the media.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan, April 4, 2006 — When U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class John Fralish was killed Feb. 6 during a firefight with insurgents in Laghman Province, in eastern Afghanistan, it was by no means the end of his remarkable story – or his legacy.

"That whole village mourned John’s death along with us. All those who served with John are deeply affected by his loss. To see Afghan villagers also affected is a true testament to the character and type of person John was."

Continue Story Here.

Gadhafi: Islam taking over Europe

2006-05-03T09:29:00.000-05:00

Islam will take over Europe without violent force within a few decades, said Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi in a speech aired on the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera.

"We have 50 million Muslims in Europe," Gadhafi said. "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe – without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

Continue Story Here.

Life in Saudia Arabia

2006-05-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

I have run across this interesting blog. A Pakistani by birth, who was schooled in Saudi Arabia and now lives in Canada.
He apparently grew up Muslim. In the link below he reveals what life was like as a student in Saudi Arabia.

An Inside look at what its like to be a school student in Saudi Arabia

More Demotivators

2006-05-01T09:08:00.000-05:00

Check out more of these demotivators at Despair.com
Click on Demotivators.

Effort.

2006-04-28T11:47:00.000-05:00

The Time is Short

2006-04-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

Brethren, the time is short.

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Death is swallowed up in victory. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lords. To live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Cast not away ... your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

1 Cor. 7:29. Job. 14:1,2. 1 John 2:17. 1 Cor. 15:22,54. Rom. 14:8. Phil. 1:21. Heb. 10:35-37. Rom. 13:12. 1 Pet. 4:7.

Picture of the Day

2006-04-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

When I was in China my cash flow came to a trickle so I took this side job hauling these birds on a stick. I got just enough coin to buy one of the birds and eat it.

The Islamic Doctrine of War: Jihad

2006-04-26T10:14:00.000-05:00

I am taking a class in Seminary called: Christianity and Islam. I have always loved studying Middle Eastern politics, history and religion and this class has been highly informative.
I took a class taught by Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, a former Muslim who is now a Christian living in England. He was absolutely brilliant. He is a top consultant to the British Military, Scotland Yard and NATO. I was required to read one of his books and do a short book review. If your interested in knowing more about what Islam teaches about jihad and war then please read on.
I think its important that we all become more knowledgable of Islam and the immense threat that it is against Western civilization.
If you dont feel up to reading a longer post then check out this website.
The Religion of "Peace".

If you want to know more about the persecuted Church in Islamic lands and how you can help.
The Barnabas Fund Website.

The book I read was called, Understanding Islamic Terrorism, written by Rev. Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, a Christian research institute specializing in current trends in Islam and their effects on non-Muslim minorities.

The purpose of the book is found on the title page, Understanding Islamic Terrorism and the Islamic doctrine of war and in doing so learn how to better deal with Islamic terrorism. This scholarly book explores in powerful detail how Islamic terrorists today are in fact embracing classical interpretations of Islam rather than some fringe doctrine. Dr. Sookhdeo points out that modern day government leaders, and media have failed to see and define the connection of terrorism to traditional Islamic doctrine and practices. And in doing so will not be able to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism properly.

Although Dr. Sookhdeo uses the Qur’an and Hadith extensively in showing us the Islamic doctrine of war he also focuses heavily on Muslim sources throughout history who have interpreted and applied these doctrines and in doing so Dr. Sookhdeo has weaved an enormous summary of how the doctrine of war in Islam is intricately connected to what it intrinsically means to be a Muslim.

There are so many enlightening and contributing points to this book that helps us understand the Islamic terrorism and the doctrine of war but I will focus on a couple that really stood out in my mind.

One of the key doctrinal truths pointed out about Islam was their concept of the world being divided into two parts; Dar al-Islam, the house of Islam where Muslims are in power and the part where Muslims are not in power, Dar al-Harb, the house of war. The reason this is important is because within Islam Muslims have a duty to change Dar al-Harb into Dar al-Islam. The way this was done throughout Islam’s history was through conquest, jihad and violence. Muhammad operated this way along with hisuccessors, and this was how the Islamic Empire was built thus we can see how terrorists are simply following in Muhammad’s footsteps. The philosopher-historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) points out how war is a key part of being a Muslim when he defined jihad as “a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or force.”

This Muslim worldview of House of Islam and House of War makes it more clear how Muslims perceive it as a religious duty to dominate the world through any means possible, including war and violence. It is an inbuilt theological urge at their very core to expand and dominate. There really is no concept of peace in Islam. Peace is generally dealt with in classical Islam as an interlude in the jihad process that must go on until the whole world has become Muslim.
Another driving force behind terrorism other than seeking Dar al-Islam is the status given to those who participate in jihad and the martyr status they receive. Someone who participates in jihad and dies, he or she is declared a martyr goes straight to paradise. (A normal Muslim must be questioned and judged.) Their families actually celebrate at their deaths and receive financial support from the community and from Saudi Arabia. Martyr’s become public heroes.

I have touched only a very few amount of topics discussed in this book that brings light to the doctrine of war and Islamic terrorism. With this knowledge in hand the question is what do we do about Islam’s goal of Dar al-Islam and their method of bringing it through war, violence and terrorism?

Dr. Sookhdeo finishes his book with a chapter on responses to Islamic terrorism, both historical and current. The following are the responses to Islamic terrorism that he mentions: colonialism, elimination, military defeat, brutal repression, denial of human rights, financial restrictions, economic uplift, yielding to terrorist requests, peace treaty, theological undermining, and reform of Islam from within.

The option that Dr. Sookhdeo views as creating long term hope would be Islamic reform from within. A push from the West for Islamic reform he says will be futile and antagonistic, although we can help by supporting liberal Muslims secretly. For short-term options he suggests economic sanctions, good diplomacy and the right use of force. But it is his hope for Islamic reform from within that he believes will deliver long term results. He says, “If terrorism is going to be dealt with at is source, Islam has to change and undergo a transformation.” He continues by stating, “…the most realistic way to provide a permanent solution to the problem of Islamic violence in the long term is the reform of the Islamic doctrine of jihad for one of the peaceable non-classical variations to supersede the classical interpretation and be acknowledged as the new norm.”

The book was wonderful up until this point. I cannot fathom how someone writes an entire book discussing how Islam at its core is violent and seeks domination through violence and yet thinks it can or will reform. It is changing the religion completely. It would cease to be Islam. I believe his long-term assessment is nothing but what he says; a hope.

One doctrine that is highly important to all Muslims is ijtihad. Itjtihad is the process of interpreting and making deductions about the Qu’ran and the Hadith, which formulated Classical Islamic theology and created the Shari’ah. This would seem to indicate that there might be room for Islamic reform using ijtihad but there is one major problem, the door of ijtihad has been closed for over 1,000 years. The five schools of Islamic law claimed that ijtihad is to stop and this has created a huge reluctance to any kind of rethought, questioning or reforming of Islam from then until today. “Hence it is that the majority of today’s Sunni Muslims see it as a heresy to consider altering or updating the Shari’ah.”

There may be a good number of peace loving Muslims and intellectually liberal minded Muslim scholars who want to embrace the ideas of democracy, toleration, freedom and equality but these values fly in the face of traditional Islam. Noticing the trends of radical Islam today I cannot fathom Islamic reform from within ever succeeding. But I am not fatalistic and I do believe a combination of short-term objectives should be tried to promote peaceful stability in the world. In agreement with Dr. Sookhdeo some immediate options we should employ should be diplomacy that understands the nature of classical Islam, timely use of force and at times brutal repression of radicals may be needed, both economic sanctions and uplifts and support for liberal Muslims, both scholars and laymen.

Dr. Sookhdeo pointed out the eschatological mindedness of the Islamic terrorists and I can’t help but agree with them. They do seem to be ushering in the end times but they are on the wrong team. God told Abraham he would create great nations from both Isaac and Ishmael. Considering Ishmael it says in Genesis 16:12 “He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” Ishmael was conceived through works, Abram tried to work out his own “salvation”, an heir, whereas Isaac was conceived through the law of grace where Abram did have faith. Islam is a religion of works, which lives in hostility towards all brothers. Whereas Christianity is a religion based on faith in Gods grace, which directs us to love others. In my mind there is no long-term hope for Islam and its ability to adopt true peace into its religion. It would be interesting to hear Dr. Sookhdeo beliefs in Islam’s part in Christian eschatology.

In conclusion, this book coupled with the lectures I attended by Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo was a wake up call to the seriousness and danger of Islamic terrorism. Knowing that “Jihad is the signature tune of Islamic history” as mentioned by M.J. Akbar has radically changed my perspective whenever I encounter and weigh in not just on terrorism but current events worldwide.

Happy Easter

2006-04-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

Why do we blog?

2006-04-06T19:02:00.000-05:00

Why do we blog?
Expression. To articulate. To comment. To formulate. To communicate. To assert. To utter. To speak.
To manifest oneself.
Why do we want to manifest ourselves to others? To express is to be known. We all want to be known.
And expression through the written word is one way to do that. We all long for expression.
Right now...that desire is penetrating through my fingers sent from my brain where my eyes can visually see the output of my heart.
Crazy.
And now there is something altogether different taking place. Have you ever known an expression that occurs not because you desire to be known but simply to express? You become totally aware that most of your life your expressions purpose was simply to gain something in return. But now....its different. You express because you have peace. The desire to express selfishly vanishes like a fog lifting. A brighter world exists.
You feel it so strongly it makes you realize your finally alive.
It's as if you have awaken from a long slumber and the routine and familiar things in your life become new.
Your eyes gleam and your step is light and yet deliberate. You realize where your feet are taking you.
You notice people and things that all too often pass on by.
You smile with your eyes. Its like you have a secret that no one else knows about and you wonder if they can see it in your face.
This moment is special. To live outside yourself. To live for something greater.

......and then.....***poof*** ......it's gone....we descend like a feather in the air....and we settle.

we settle for many things.

The Great Lover.

2006-04-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

The Great Lover
By Rupert Brooke

Written by a young man from England in 1914. One of my favorite poems.

I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; -- we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: -- and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -- we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .
These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such --
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; --
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
---- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Mataiea, 1914.

Amazing Juggler

2006-03-29T11:08:00.000-05:00

This is a great video... it is about 4 minutes long, but worth the time.

This guy named Chris Bliss is an amazing juggler.
He juggles in sync with the beat of the song. And he really gets going during the drum solo's.

Make sure you have VOLUME UP

Click on this link for video.

Those Christians - A letter written in.....

2006-03-27T20:28:00.000-05:00

"...For Christians are not differentiated from other people by country, language or customs; you see, they do not live in cities of their own, or speak some strange dialect, or have some peculiar lifestyle.

This teaching of theirs has not been contrived by the invention and speculation of inquisitive men; nor are they propagating mere human teaching as some people do. They live in both Greek and foreign cities, wherever they chance has put them. They follow local customs in clothing, food and other aspects of life. But at the same time, they demonstrate to us the wonderful and certainly unusual form of their own citizenship.

They live in their own native lands, but as aliens; as citizens they share all things with others; but like aliens, suffer all things. Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country.

They marry and have children just like everyone else; but they do not kill unwanted babies. They offer a shared table, but not a shared bed. They are present 'in the flesh' but they do not live 'according to the flesh'. They are passing their days on earth, but are citizens of heaven. They obey the appointed laws, and go beyond the laws in their own lives.

They love every one, but are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death and gain life. They are poor and yet make many rich. They are short of everything and yet have plenty of all things. They are dishonoured and yet gain glory through dishonour.

Their names are blackened and they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life. They are attacked by Jews as aliens, and are persecuted by Greeks; yet those who hate them cannot give any reason for their hostility.

To put it simply - the soul is to the body as Christians are to the world. The soul is spread through all parts of the body and Christians through all the cities of the world. The soul is in the body but is not of the body; Christians are in the world but not of the world."

From an anonymous letter to Diognetus, possible dating from the second century ad.

I'll tell you what. I felt both convicted and inspired at the same time.
I think it would be hard to find a letter like that written today.

You Take Me Back.

2006-03-24T12:06:00.000-05:00

Just discovered the talent of Jeremy Camp and have been listening to him the last two days. His songs have really encouraged me. Sung to the one who accepts us, loves us, died for us...and forgives us.
When we repent he takes us back. We are restored.
If only I grasped the vastness and deepness of that restoration each moment of each day. If only I embraced what He did for me each day. Imagine how I could live?
I could praise God all day...accept that I am sinful all day but that just as sinful as I am that God restores me all the more. Shouldn't this make me want to obey him more? Out of love. Not working out my own salvation but accepting His.
Why do I try to save myself?
Lord thank you. My finite, tiny, little mind, heart and soul longs for something so big and all too often I fall for those tiny finite things on earth rather than falling on my knees before you. Yet these words comfort me.
Grace. Unmerited Favor. Your faithfulness. Your truth. Beautiful.

The reason why I stand
The answer lies in you
You hung to make me strong
Though my praise was few
When I fall I bring your name down
But I have found in you
A heart that bleeds forgiveness
replacing all these thoughts of painful memories
But I know that your response will always be

I'll take you back always
Even when your fight is over now
I'll take you back always
Even when the pain is coming through
I'll take you back

You satisfy this cry
Of what I'm looking for
And I'll take all I can
And lay it down before
The throne of endless grace now that radiates what's true
I'm in the only place that
erases all these faults
That have over taken me
But I know that your response will always be

I'll take you back always
Even when your fight is over now
I'll take you back always
Even when the pain is coming through
I'll take you back

I can only speak with a grateful heart
As I'm pierced by this gift of your love
I will always bring an offering
I can never thank you enough

You take me back always
Even when my fight is over now
You take me back always
Even when my pain is coming through
You take me back

A poema pro meus diligo.

2006-03-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

A poem written to my soon to be wife....

Ah beauty too wonderful to behold.
Your smile is a dagger to my heart.
On your eyes I float, descend, rise and fold.
I hang on every word you impart.
A fullness dwells within
more than words can say
and I am left here with a grin
thinking of you this day.
tomorrow is too far away
turning twisting like a knife
mocking my internal strife
missing you is my bane
i hung my head in the rain
then the thought of you
like a shooting star
shot across my heart
an image, a dream
and it was clear as a mountain stream
there you were standing next to me
your eyes shining as the dawn
and the touch of your hands on mine
made the galaxies come ablaze
a brilliant shining spinning ecstasy
a rhapsody between you and me
and the enchantment of the world
bred upon the tender touch
of you and me.

Did we really need further proof Hollywood is full of kooks?

2006-03-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

Scientology and Tom Cruise “believes modern psychiatric medicine derives from an ancient alien civilization’s plot to drug and enslave humanity.”

Read this short article on MSN. After this article I can never take Tom Cruise serious again.
Scientology foes blast Cruise.

5 interesting facts about Scientology.

1. L Ron Hubbard is the person who created this cult. He was a science fiction writer born in 1911 and died in 1986.
2. According to Hubbard and Scientology, millions of years ago, an intergalactic ruler called Xenu rounded up the populations of 76 planets and sent them to Earth where their bodies were dropped in volcanoes and vapourised with nuclear bombs. Their spirits now cling to human beings, causing all mental traumas.
And it is the belief in that that drives the sects millions [ 100,000 at most world-wide] of members.
3. Hubbards academic background.
Although he claimed to have graduated in civil engineering from George Washington University as a nuclear physicist, university records show that he attended for only two years, was on academic probation, failed in physics, and dropped out in 1931. It is also claimed that he obtained his Ph.D from Sequoia University in California, which was later exposed as a mail-order diploma mill
4. Scientology started as a fake "self-help" psychiatric sham in the 1950s called "Dianetics" by the convicted felon L. Ron Hubbard. When profit from Hubbard's "Dianetic clinics" fell drastically after the initial fad waned, L. Ron Hubbard pursued what he called "The religion angle" and turned his fake medical practice into a fake "religion."
5. L. Ron Hubbard at first insisted his new business was not a religion. "Scientology has opened the gates to a better world. It is not a psycho-therapy nor a religion," he wrote. The United States Internal Revenue Service agreed with him for over 30 years, denying the business tax-exemption status, after Hubbard sought protection against medical malpractice under the pretense of being a "religion." The United States Supreme Court agreed with the IRS; several courts throughout the USA and the world have also ruled, as a matter of law, that Scientology is not a religion nor a church

Key Celebrities of that follow this cult.
1. Tom Cruise
2. John Travolta
3. Jenna Elfman from Darma and Greg
4. Leah Remini from King of Queens
5. Catherine Bell from Jag
6. Isaac Hayes Blues singer
7. Giovanni Ribisi Actor
8. Greta Van Susteren Fox News Channel
9. Jason Lee from My name is Earl.
10. Kelly Preston Actress
11. Lisa Marie and Priscella Presley daugher and wife of Elvis and Actresses
12. Kristie Alley from Cheers

Plus many others.

V is for Vendetta and for Voluptuously Vainly Leftist Propaganda

2006-03-21T17:24:00.000-05:00

Unmasking the Real Vendetta.

This movie is blatantly and unabashadly anti-Bush, anti-conservative, anti-American, anti-absolutes, anti-Christian.

I am almost walked out of the movie.

If you don't believe me, the below link is further proof of how bad this movie is. This article is not biased, simple truth about actual facts within the movie.
Check out this article.

DO NOT waste your time on V for Vendetta.
The one thing the movie had right was that morals have declined in America.
If you really want to waste your money then put 7 dollars in an envelope and send me the money.
(If you really want to do this then I will provide my address at your request)
Thanks.

By the way, the original writer of the comic book, disowned the movie writers and wanted nothing to do with the movie.
Kudos to him.

Jessica is Baltimore Bound

2006-03-11T17:57:00.000-05:00

Jessica will be arriving at BWI in less than 2 hours!!
She gets to stay for about 9 days!
So tired of 4 and 5 day visits. This is definately a blessing.
We already have a lot planned for the next week....so we should have fun.
So for that reason, my posts will not be as consistent as the last week.....
Chow....

Random Quotes

2006-03-10T14:35:00.000-05:00

"Best sermon you will ever preach is your life."

"The greatest need of the church is not to teach the gospel but to live it."

"Now because of Jesus I see the truth. He is not the object, he is the glasses."

"Spread the Gospel wherever you are, and when necessary use words."

Jesus- the Ultimate Counselor.

2006-03-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

In response to the blog entry from: http://kathrynthomas.org/musings/
I really liked the below quote, although found it funny which colors you tagged for Christian and pagan.

"life is not black (i'm a christian) or white (i'm a pagan); life is messy and dirty. we need the freedom and security to fall down sometimes."

Yeah, as a kid growing up it seems like a black and white world. But now as I've grown up I've realized its much more convoluted than that. Life is complex. Yes, there are absolutes but as fallen people trying to emulate Christ we cannot live absolutely perfect in our relationship with Christ. Trying to live as if were perfect before each other and before non-believers is where we come up short, where we are labeled hypocrites.
We should feel free to embrace our failures and use them as an instrument to point to Christ's amazing grace in our life. Our sin should be a testimony for our need for Christ.
So the issue at hand is that as Christians we aren't doing the best job relating our relationship with Christ to those around us.
All too often we look like everyone else around us. I am so guilty of this.
So how do I deal with others in a way that allows me to be salt and light?
The amazing thing about Jesus is that he entered into everyone's world. He met people where they were. He sat down for dinner with the prostitutes while the disciples raised their eyebrows outside. He befriended the despised tax collectors and Samaritans.
He comforted Martha and Mary in different ways when Lazarus died. He wept with Mary and spoke about spiritual truths with Martha. They needed to be comforted in different ways and Jesus knew that. He is the ultimate counselor and should be a wonderful model for us. When it came down to it he dealt with people with authenticity and love.
There is the connection we all seek. We all want authenticity and love. Operating from this perspective would set us apart.
Meeting the people around us where their at shows genuine care and love.

"The question is not where are the Christians, but what are the Christians "where they are." - Os Guinness

Wise people amaze me.

2006-02-28T15:53:00.000-05:00

And no I am not talking about the wise guy mafia type. But rather the type of wisdom that comes from Pastors and other godly people God puts in your life.
Because Jessica and I live 700 miles apart we were not able to meet with my hometown Pastor for our first premarital counseling session in person but had to do it over a conference call. The conference call was a bit strange but I was soon swept away by the power and enlightenment of my pastors counseling. His name is Joe Novenson and I highly recommend that you listen to some of his sermons. It will enrich your life.

This link should take you to some of his sermon.
Click on www.lmpc.org
Click on Sermons
Click on Sermon Library

Hearing a good sermon is like getting a shot of epinephrin. It awakens my heart, it gets my blood moving and gives me life. When the day or the week has siphoned off my tank, a good sermon can fill me back up and empower me for Christ.
Thank the Lord for the people He has appointed to bring us the good news!

I listened to a sermon from one my other favorite pastors today. Rankin Wilbourne of First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga. He is an associate pastor there and not much older than me. When I used to live in Chattown I would go to Wednesday night services there. (Whats up with that "d" in Wednesday? Why is it there?)

The sermon I listened to today opened a series on the "Parables" starting with Mark 4:1-20.
He starts out by mentioning the bumper sticker, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" And we all say Amen to that ...
but is that all there is when it comes to being a Christian? That eternal life comes down to being "just forgiven"?
He then goes on to quote a leading pastor today who laments that Christians today are weak, the church may be growing but that church goers are all too often indistinguishable from the world.

In Romans it says, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord and you will be saved.
Rankin is arguing here that our confession with our mouth means nothing if we dont belive in our heart. He then goes on throughout the sermon by looking at Mark 4 what it means to believe in your heart.
In a way of answering that he looks at the central theme to all of Jesus' parables.

How much do you hear of the Kingdom of God? Not much, its not in our vocabulary much but it was the main focus of Jesus' ministry and his parables. This Kingdom pervades in everything he says and does. Starting his ministry Jesus claims in Mark 1:15 "The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and Believe the good news!"

Rankin gave this definition to Kingdom of God. His kingdom, his rule, is where He wants done is done. That is a pretty basic definition but it centers on the main point. Dallas Willard says that the Kingdom of God is the eternal kind of life now available to us.

Jesus' life, death and resurrection makes possible our living into the life and heart of God.
Christianity is not just about what happens to us when we die but an invitation to live in Him RIGHT NOW! Eternal Life has already started!
John 17:3 says "This is eternal life, that they might know God and Jesus Christ he has sent."
I loved this because we dont stress enough what it means to live in God day in day out. We don't consider that we already have eternal life!
This takes me to a quote from a book I've been reading, "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church":

"All of us live in some sense of story or other, and the most important thing is to live in God's story, the story-line of the Bible itself. The gospel of the Kingdom invites us into a large, all encompassing story; the stories of Adam and Eve, Israel, and the church were always intended to be lived in. Living there is a huge privilege. Choosing to live outside Gods story has serious ramifications (a wasted life and hell come immediately to mind.)"

The Christian Message is not just about what happens at death, its not just about sin. Its not just about confession. It is about life! All too often we've reduced our Christian life to Sin Management.
Instead we need to be TRANSFORMED by living out the Kingdom of God: To care about what God cares about.

Rankin goes on to really delve into Mark 4:2-20. I could go on paraphrasing Rankin's sermon but I know it doesnt compare to hearing it yourself. I simply wanted to pass on a few pearls of wisdom.

This is my last pearl. In talking about Mark 4:7, "Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain." Jesus interprets his own parable referring to the seed among the thorns and says "Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceifulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."

Ranking gives a John Piper quote from his book "Hunger for God" in reference to Mark 4:7. (Bear with me, its long but good)

"The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for Heaven but endless nibbling at the table of the world.
It is not the x-rated video but the prime time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.
The greatest adversary in loving God is not His enemies but His gifts.
And the most deadly appetites are not from the poison of evil but from the simple pleasures - for when these replace an appetite for God the idolatry is scarcely recognizable and almost incurable."

WOW! Epinephrin Shot right there! Convicting. So how do we avoid this? How do we produce fruit? Repent and BELIEVE in your Heart and Live into the eternal life, and the heart of God.

Jordan and Jessica Update

2006-02-28T11:37:00.000-05:00

I thought I would put up some pics of Jess and I because a comment that was left on one of my posts. It asked if my "pilgrim's journey" ended when I met her. I guess it did in the blog world! But no, my journey has not ended and it has only just begun another chapter. And I am truly blessed God has put this wonderful woman in my life. So I just wanted to share a little bit about what we've been up to.
Jessica was up here in January. And we had a great time just being able to see each other every day rather than burning up the telephone lines. We spent a day in DC and that is where most of the pictures are from.
And now she is coming back up in 10 days!
We have tried to visit each other once a month. The time between our visits is tough and our time together seems too brief and feels more like a dream than reality.
Although in March and April she will be up here for 10 days each and then she will move up in May for the summer. Then in August she will move back down to TN and prepare for our wedding which will be September 9th!
Please pray for us as we plan everything. There are so many things that are not settled yet! At least we have a date and a church.
This is the sanctuary of Lookout, where we are getting married.

The pictures below where taken mostly in DC but a couple where here in Baltimore.

Jordan and Jessica

2006-02-27T20:55:00.000-05:00

Posted by deconbrodi

I posted yesterday too.

2006-02-27T10:02:00.000-05:00

I am going to make up for my absence by posting at least one article a day.
This won't be an original post, but something I found off the internet. I will post something original tonight.

I found this article on World Net Daily and it is an amazingly written piece by a sage of his generation.
The author is a 16 year old boy who wrote an article about his generation. He actually has a regular column on WND and apparently he has already written a book. Wow. Anyway, read on.

Today's hedonist youth: Just looking for peace
Posted: December 4, 2004

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Growing up as a teen in America seems to be an experiment in social anarchy – that is, if you hang out with the right people. Because of this, the problems arising are obvious. This generation is the topic of unending gossip and the target of endless public-awareness campaigns – from teen sex to drugs to abortion to pop culture, and all areas of morality.

America's youth are an amazing testament to Aristotle's idea of a human's imitative nature and even the biblical idea of self-awareness and unceasing comparisons. You mix these natures together with an increasing acceptance of all things, deviant or not, and you have a generation – mine – that is often compared to William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." Then, just for a little spice, throw in a society ruled by greedy CEOs, unimpeded – despite the laughable efforts of the FCC – in their marketing of all kinds of entertainment and products. What do you finally arrive at with this mix? Honesty. I'll explain.

Look at the characteristics that best define my generation: few restrictions, social anarchy, over-exposure to a shallow culture, little depth in education and unrestrained gratification of carnal desires (sex, drugs, etc). Basically, we do what we want. Thus, we come to a generation that is reminiscent of others, but bolder. There is no righteous mask to hide behind and no justification. This blatant behavior is not unique on a worldwide scale, but it is new within American history. It demands notice.

As we come to this place of increasing hedonism, at least we're honest with ourselves. We want escape from life's pain; we want comfort. We can't fool ourselves: We want rest from the problems. We are working out our redemption in the vanities of the world. This behavior leads to dissatisfaction. As the age old Christian belief goes, there is a void that must be filled.

Then, on the other end, there's Christian subculture. In an effort – which I'm sure is sincere – to reach a younger generation, we seem to be presented with leaders that dress up the Gospel to make it feel more appealing. This manifests itself in many ways. Instead of serious prayer, we throw a pizza party to spike the numbers on Wednesday night. Instead of real accountability and friendship, we go to the next big conference. We've got our 40 days for purpose, an endless parade of self-help books, concerts everywhere and events to get everyone excited. While there's nothing inherently wrong with some of the teaching in which we take part, the trends taking place within Christian subculture suggest unhealthy obsessions over the Next Big Thing. I realize the gross generalizations, but, if we're honest, this is the reality of Christian pop culture.

Unfortunately, in an effort to reach this group of people, we're getting it all wrong. True answers are never found in sensationalism, and depth does not reside in the Next Big Thing. And so, for refugees fleeing from the depravity and shallowness that is American pop culture, we offer them little more than watered-down truths and a sensational subculture that is frighteningly reminiscent of the greater American society.

Being controlled by greater culture is not a new deal within Church history. In the fourth and fifth centuries, and leading up to the Reformation, this behavior took place. Even so, historical precedent aside, our current predicament must be addressed.

We're all searching for peace. We're all searching for rest. Our actions are dominated by an overarching pursuit of paradise. I write because I desire acceptance. Just as some shoot heroine up their arm to escape pain, we're all pining for real life.

Groping around for God, we aren't pursuing seven principles to potential – that doesn't address the complexity of life. And if that's all Christianity is – a set of principles to give us morality – then it is not relevant.

There's a great book out by a guy named Donald Miller called "Blue Like Jazz," in which he discusses some of these ideas. He says he never liked jazz music because it doesn't resolve. Then, one night, he saw a man passionately playing his saxophone outside a theater in Portland. He liked jazz music after that. I think Donald Miller is right.

As deeply imitative creatures, someone has to show us the way. We see someone love God and we are drawn to love Him ourselves. That's where life is found, and that's all we need.

In "Seen and Heard," Kyle Williams takes on the establishment, offering clear evidence that a leftist agenda is at work in our nation. His lively, energetic analysis of current events is both informative and entertaining and will leave readers with a better understanding of the daily attacks against traditional family values. Order your copy now in ShopNetDaily.

Kyle Williams is 16 years old and a high school student living in central Oklahoma

"I have a blog?"

2006-02-26T21:20:00.000-05:00

So what does one say when you haven't posted in nearly 2 months? And havent seriously posted since October?
I can't think of anything... I guess same thing happened these last couple months.
So I am watching Family Guy right now. Peter Griffen and his buds are dressed up as the A-Team.
That was a good show. I was a kid when it was on, I remember Mr. T and all that gold weighing him down. If the Mafia wanted him dead they wouldnt have had to attach cinder blocks to his feet.
Now Family Guy is doing a satire on the whole Rocky movie when he fights the Russian...whats his name Ivan Drago?
Thats off the top of my head and I am not going to google it.
But anyway, train of thought going on here.
Today in Church my mind was wondering. I always feel guilty about that. I am staring at the ground or up at a wall and then bam it hits me....I'm daydreaming. I sit up. Move my back against the chair, cross my leg, fold my hands on my knee and look right at the pastor. Its not his fault at all, its a great sermon. Talking about Israelites crossing the Red Sea, one of the three big moments in Exodus. I find myself start to drift back to my Bible. There's a map of the path the Israelites took across the Sea as they zigzagged back and forth through the desert just like my mind was zigzagging through the memories of my mind. Its hard to believe I was in Egypt almost 6 years ago. My mind was elsewhere. Racing against my friends in the hot desert sun from one pyramid to the next. Feeling like a kid when I climbed up Snefuru's Red Pyramid looking into the hazy horizon while the paid off Tourist police sat on his camel. Riding horseback at midnight around the pyramids and getting lost in the pitch black night hoping my horse knew his way home. Walking through the Khan el-Khalili market after swerving back and forth in a wild taxi ride. Hiking through the Valley of the Kings with the hot sun at my back and venturing into thousands years old tombs. Sailing on the Nile river where the desert's rolling hills met the cool blue waters.
And my mind is still wandering.
I told my fiance today how I felt.
I think this world is huge. I love history because it displays the immensity of our world throughout time and space. Walking in the desert next to 4,000 year old Temples and pyramids and now I am sitting at Church...reading, hearing about the people that were there so long ago....nothing seperates us but time.
And from that time to now, the time I have been away from my blog is next to nothing!!
So please forgive me.
Anyway, I am blown away by the whole time thing, the immensity of time and all the people and events that have ever taken place, and God is there and he is outside time and space. He is not constrained or contained by it.
All of it. This world, this space and all of time is being expressed at once; without time.
It is beyond my finite mind to comprehend but it gives me comfort to think about it.
It gives me comfort to think about how we are already sitting at the right hand of God.
We forget about that too much. The immensity of that needs to be in our life.
Knowing that God is bigger than even that immensity makes thinking about it even better.
For me, it gives me perspective. It gives me hope. It gives me comfort.

UnRetreat!

2005-12-13T17:54:00.000-05:00

The Best 3 Days on the Planet!
What was your most memorable moment?

Sorry, your browser does not have the correct version of Flash installed.

Posted by deconbrodi

Here's Joorddaaan!!

2005-12-02T10:52:00.000-05:00

I'M BACK!!!
I actually spent the last month in Folsom Prison because I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. I broke out late last night and my first thought was that I had to update my blog. I am so sorry fella's. I reckon I lost my audience. But being put in prison because I mimicked some lines from a Johnny Cash song is a very good reason. Nah. I didnt do that. I dont have murder in my blood. (A quote from last weeks episode of Lost) I do have love in my blood though.
For all those out there that have not heard. This old man was rolling home last October and went on a blind date my pops set up and WHAM BAM!!! LIGHTNING Struck me just like lighting struck my plane last Monday.

BUT as I said...this lightning struck me. It was love at first sight ya'll!
An angel descended from heaven and her name was Jessica. When her sparkling eyes gazed on me I heard the heavenly beings sing in unison...Hallelujah!! Hallelujah!!

AND in my soul my voice lofted on High....PRAISE YE THE LORD!!

I was smitten. I was head over heels. I levitated. I was in rapture. I danced like a dirvish. I asked her for a second date.

The second date...we went and shot pool. I dont think anyone existed in that entire place but her. When she looked at me I had to turn away and remember to breath again. I was literally breathless.

I looked away so I could exhale but I would stop breathing when our eyes met.
It was right then and there that I knew loved Jessica.
I had to leave the next morning at 6 am to make it to the airport. We stayed up talking until 4:30 in the morning and then we talked on the phone on my way home.
(She lives in Chattanooga, my home town, and I live in Baltimore.) Out of character, Jessica asked if she could fly up and see me at the end of October. I said
OF COURSE, I would love that!

October 29th. She arrived. I took her to a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, we sat at the peak of a ridge with water in all directions. The sun was setting, rose petals and candles were set with her favorite foods set out in a picnic fashion. With the help of friends I suprised her with a beautiful picnic. The day before I seriously considered asking her to marry me at that moment. It would have been our 4th date. I decided to wait.
This is a picture of Loch Raven at sunset.

Her time up here was amazing. Fast forward. I was to fly back to Chattanooga on Thanksgiving day to spend time with her and family. I decided to fly down on the Monday before Thanksgiving and totally suprise her. The flight was turbulent the whole way, lightning struck the plane and my palms were sweating. I landed in Atlanta...it was pouring rain, a 2 hour trip home took 3 but I arrived at the destination. Rembrandts Coffee Shop in the art district of Chattanooga. It is on a bluff overlooking the city and the river. It was also the sight of our first date.
Under a ruse to get her to meet there..my dad set up a dinner date with her and my parents and my little sister. She had no idea I was there.
Late by 40 minutes I arrive in the rain. I hid in the sculpture garden...my little sister tells her she has a gift to give her in the sculpture garden overlooking the river and takes her down. With an umbrella disguising my presence I turn to her when she gets close. My dad and sister fade away. Jessica jumps into my arms. We kiss in the rain. She says, "What a suprise!" I tell her, "I have one more suprise Jessica." I get down on one knee and pull out a ring from my jacket and tell her that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. "Jessica I love you with all my heart, will you marry me?" And on the eighth day since we've been together in the same place...she smiles so big and says the only word I want to hear. "Yes!"

This is the view from the Bluff view art district of Chattanooga where I asked Jessica to marry me.

We embrace in the rain and my heart is on fire!
I actually got more of a reaction from her when I told her I was flying home in two hours. An engagement story to remember for all times. And now a beautiful marriage to remember for all times.
Jessica I love you!

AND THAT IS WHY I HAVE BEEN AWAY FOR TWO MONTHS!

More Pictures to come. And more frequent posts! I will leave you with these three pictures:
1. Jess and me at Sunset 2. The Ring 3. The Beautiful Fiance

Where's Jordan Been?

2005-10-26T09:21:00.000-05:00

Good Question. Its been two weeks since my last post. The longest I have gone without posting. I could say I've been busy. Or I could say I've been hiding.
Hiding just like Waldo? hmmm....why don't you see if you can find him in the below picture. You may need to click on the pic and even then you may need eyes like a hawk

Okay, Okay....here I am. Lets just say I've been lost in the shuffle. Can you find me here? (If you can then maybe you should donate your eyes to science)

Or you could simply say that I've been like a lost monkey in the jungle?

But your best bet is that I have simply been distracted...with other things in my life that have become way more important and much more fun. Perhaps daydreaming is a better word than distracted. Yes. Daydreaming. Lost in the clouds.

Anyway. I am back at my blog. Only long enough to tell you that. Hopefully I will remember to post more consistently. So what does everyone else day dream about?

The Doctrine of Impassibility

2005-10-12T16:03:00.000-05:00

A disclaimer - "We can begin to make sense of the doctrine of impassibility only after we concede the utter impossibility of comprehending the mind of God."

Executive Summary of this post:
The doctrine of impassibility is the assertion that God is "impassible" by nature--that is, that he cannot experience suffering. Classic theism teaches that God is impassible—not subject to suffering, pain, or the ebb and flow of involuntary passions.
To say he does suffer takes away from the guarantee that He has the power to save, and makes him vulnerable. It would be the sick leading the sick. It brings God to our level. It makes the Creator on par and dependent with his creation. An impassible God still loves and shows us compassion but at the same time is strong and able to save us from our suffering. Wouldnt you rather have a stronger God, who at the same time is completely capable of showing compassion on his own free will and not contingent to us? If outside influences can force an involuntary change in God's disposition, then what real assurance do we have that His love for us will remain constant?
"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not" (Lamentations 3:22).
Malachi 3:6: "For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."

Here's how JI Packer describes the doctrine of impassibility.
"This means, not that God is impassive and unfeeling (a frequent misunderstanding), but that no created beings can inflict pain, suffering and distress on him at their own will. In so far as God enters into suffering and grief (which Scripture's many anthropopathisms, plus the fact of the cross, show that he does), it is by his own deliberate decision; he is never his creatures' hapless victim. The Christian mainstream has construed impassibility as meaning not that God is a stranger to joy and delight, but rather that his joy is permanent, clouded by no involuntary pain.[18]"

Two points were made in the comments in relation to my previous post.
Painkey - God shows emotion and has feelings. I agree. He is by definition love. The Creator does display emotions and feelings concerning his creation but I do not believe that He himself suffers or bases his emotions solely due to our actions or the events that occur within the time and space of our world. God is outside of time and space. I do believe that he can empathize and love us just the same. To say that God is effected by us, of which we are full of sin, is to say that God is contingent upon our well being.
This is not the case. God cares and loves because He is love, not because he is necessitated to love us due to our own self afflicted sin. And this in no way takes away from the fact that He loves us, in fact it assures us that He does and that He is strong and sovereign above that which inflicts us, suffering due to sin.

Spamprice- My comment on the following quote, "but that God suffers due to his relationship with the sinner." This last sentence I think I answered above. But let me add that the minute we say that God suffers anything due to us begins to chip away at his absolute sovereignty, holiness and righteousness.
I think the issue is the definition of suffering. And I found the following article available online as it states the issue much clearer than I ever could hope to do.

The Modern Reworking of "Suffering"
The modern question is rather different from the one faced by Cyril. First of all, theologians today want to affirm that God can suffer (in some sense at least) in his divine nature, and to claim that the whole concept of "suffering" needs to be rethought. Many would agree that if the ancient notion of suffering is accepted (suffering back then specifically referred to the physical body), then of course, God must be impassible. Not only does he not have a body, but his sovereignty makes it inconceivable that he could ever be subjected to an external force which is more powerful than he is. The real difficulty with the traditional doctrine is therefore not that it is wrong in its own terms (it is not), but that our understanding of what suffering is has changed in such a way that the older assertion no longer makes sense. This solution has the advantage of exculpating the ancient fathers, while at the same time demonstrating why their teaching has to be recast today.
The main point of difference seems to be that suffering is regarded today as a psychological, emotional, and even spiritual phenomenon, as much as a physical one. The claim is made that such distinctions are artificial and untenable, and that if it is true that human beings can have a relationship with God which is both just and caring, then God must be capable of entering into our pain. The modern theologians are not talking here about brute physical force, but about compassion and "empathy," which the ancients supposedly ignored. That is not strictly true of course--ancient Christian writers categorized such notions under "love," rather than "suffering." Once that shift of perception is made, it is quite clear that the fathers of the church believed in God's compassion just as much as any modern theologian.
Perhaps the best way to try to understand the nature of this problem is to take a familiar modern analogy--that of doctor and patient. Someone lying in a hospital bed does not want to be solely treated by a machine, which functions regardless of the pain it might inflict. Rather, the patient wants to be treated by someone who understands what he or she is going through, and who will sensitively adjust his approach. For this, a human being is essential, and any good doctor knows that his or her bedside manner is at least as important as any medicine. But having said that, what patient wants the doctor to climb into the bed next to him or her and start making groaning noises, as if to indicate that the doctor, too, is experiencing the same pain? This is not the kind of "empathy" desired, because the fundamental reason the patient wants the doctor is not to receive sympathy from him or her; the patient can get that just as easily from any medically unskilled visitor. What the patient wants is to be cured. Understanding pain is all very well, but overcoming it is what all sufferers really want. God is impassible, not because he is uncaring (he is in fact far more compassionate than any human being ever could be), but because he is strong to save. Unlike human doctors, who are available only at certain times and who are occasionally "off sick" themselves, God is always ready and able to help. The impassibility of his nature is, therefore, a guarantee that he will always be there.
The modern reaction to impassibility may be understandable in its context, but it is essentially misguided. Accusations that the fathers of the church were influenced by their pagan philosophical background do not stand up to serious examination (quite the reverse, in fact). More important still, the doctrine is not a barrier to understanding God's compassion, but is in fact the assertion that his compassion is always fully available and functioning. Impassibility may not be something that we need to think about very often (when things are going well, we usually take them for granted), but it is vitally important nevertheless. As Christians we need to appreciate where divine impassibility fits into the overall picture of God's saving work.

Packer again clears things up with the following,
"[Impassibility is] not impassivity, unconcern, and impersonal detachment in face of the creation; not insensitivity and indifference to the distresses of a fallen world; not inability or unwillingness to empathize with human pain and grief; but simply that God's experiences do not come upon him as ours come upon us, for his are foreknown, willed and chosen by himself, and are not involuntary surprises forced on him from outside, apart from his own decision, in the way that ours regularly are."

Full articles on this topic may be found on the following sites.
http://www.geocities.com/the_theologian/content/doctrine/
impassible.html
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/impassib.htm

The dual capacity of Christ. (Does God Suffer?)

2005-10-11T17:54:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I asked the question "Does God suffer?"
Well, its funny I got two arguments that slightly fell on both sides of the issue. They weren't concretely yes and no but leaned in both those directions. Our class also did the same thing.
Both Kathryn and Janet were right in certain things they said.
Kathryn is correct in saying that Christ can suffer. The reason that is true is because he is both 100% man and 100% divine.
Why did Jesus need both natures? Adam was a man. Adam sinned. God rejected man because of sin. The relationship was broken and as heirs of the first man we all are condemned to death as everyone is born in sin. How can we gain access to God again?
Only a perfect and innocent man can atone for our sin. The problem is that man can never be without sin.
Can God pay the price for our sin? No. He is completely righteouss and holy and it is not his penalty to pay.
Whats the solution? The incarnation. The son, the second person in the trinity, comes to earth in the flesh and becomes man to die for our sin and pay the penalty for us and being fully God he is capable of living without sin and thus meets the requirements of God.
Why did I have to go through all this?
Because Kathryn mentioned John 11:35 and Christ's sharing of our pain and suffering. This is true. Christ was man. He was tempted, he hurt, he was in agony, he cried with us. He met us in our pain and he did this out of love but also out of necessity for our redemption and salvation. He understood and experienced suffering. If not then that would mean his death on the cross meant nothing to us because he didnt truly relate to our humanity.
The question then turns to God the Father.
Can or did God the Father suffer?
Here was my answer in class.
I said that God the Father cannot suffer. That the incarnated Christ in his humanity suffered for our sins and related to all of humanity. But to say that God the father suffered puts Him in a box. As finite creatures we are attempting to encompass the infinite God.
God is sovereign and omnipotent and he cannot be restrained by anything.
Look at it from another angle. Due to Gods nature there are certain things God cannot do. He cannot be unfaithful, he cannot die, he cannot lie, he cannot deny himself, and he cannot sin. Where does suffering come from? It is a consequence of sin. What is suffering? It is a force outside our control. Can God ever be out of control? The answer is no.
God is completely and utterly holy and righteous and cannot be associated with sin or its consequences - suffering.
A classmate pointed out that is why Jesus cried out on the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus was enduring the curse of Gods judgment on sin - the full, furious and dreadful wrath of the Almighty God. And God being holy and rigtheous could have nothing to do with sin.
Through the incarnation of Christ and his death and suffering for us we gain a great high priest who can sympathize with suffering because He went through it. Hebrews 4:14.
In conclusion, we can say the following. One member of the trinity died in the flesh for us. Christ died and suffered according to his human nature but that he had the dual capacity to be both divine and human.
Karl Barth said the following,"God who co-suffers makes him co-dependent and a weakling."
I have no idea if I have communicated what I've learned coherently or not.
Does that make sense? And if so, how does that conclusion make you feel?

Does God Suffer?

2005-10-10T17:03:00.000-05:00

So today was my first day of a week long intensive seminary class at Reformed Theological Seminary here in the nations capital. The class is Systematic Theology: God and Scripture. It lasts from 9 am - 5 pm every day this week. I am suprised how well I held up today. I think it was because I was typing the whole time. I took 18 pages of notes on my computer.
I reckon thats a lot. At this rate I will have nearly 100 pages worth of notes. Hmm...maybe I should slow down a little bit.
It is really good stuff and I am loving it but even though this is my first seminary class it still feels like I am going over some stuff I already know. I guess thats the payoff for being brilliant. But I am not claiming that my comprehensive knowledge of the incomprehensiveable God is equivocal rather it is better to say I have an analogical understanding and knowledge of God. Meaning that I understand God in a human manner rather than in a divine manner. I have a true knowledge of God but in a human way and to the degree that God has shown me.
(I know what your thinking, and your right, that was almost straight from my notes today, cool stuff huh?)
Anyway...the teacher is from England and he uses proper King James speech when naturally communicating and in a very dry monotone that only slightly keeps your ears perked due to the accent. Most days...probably 9.5 out of 10...I would have felt myself dozing off to sleep but today was different. I loved hearing everything that was taught.
The minute you start to treat seminary as simply an academic act then I surmise that it is very possible to loose your desire to stay interested.
I think it was Calvin which said that the purpose of theology was not simply to use it to fill your head but rather view it as an act of worship. I pray that I may be able to do that this week as I wade through the course.
One question the professor asked was this, "Does God suffer?"
When asked the question he broke us into two groups and had us discuss the topic.
So what do you think, does God suffer? How does he relate to us in suffering or does he? In the Bible and OT especially God displays a full array of emotions, he is jealous, wrathful, he changes his mind, he both strikes down and holds up with his mighty hand.
What are the implications of a God meets us in our suffering? If you were a cancer patient would you want a doctor who laid down to next to you and sympathize with you by saying I know what your going through even though he didnt have cancer?
Or would you want a doctor who had cancer to lay down next to you?
And does God really experience our emotions or is that simply a form of anthromorphism?
(giving human characteristics to God)
Does it take away his sovereignty and omnipotence if we say that God can suffer? He is all powerful and the creator of everything so what would it mean for him to suffer?
It seems like a dilemma and it seems like there is two sides and two answers...or is there one?
Does God suffer?
What say you?
(I might tell you the "answer" later)
I dont usually intercede my thoughts in class but I spoke up for our group and in laymans terms answered the question hoping I wouldn't be way off and labeled a heretic. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize that the professor was confirming my answer as his King James speech and superior intellectual mind finally penetrated the smallness of my brain.

Evil Canevil Jordan Style

2005-10-07T11:22:00.000-05:00

I was looking at some of my pics last night and came across these two and thought it worth putting up for everyone to see!
I am shocked that in all my life I still havent broken a bone due to my foolish stunts.
This is from the youth group ski trip last February.
PS. Thats me in the reflection of this random kid that was sitting next to me on the ski lift.

Blue eyed boy meets a brown eyed girl

2005-10-06T08:37:00.000-05:00

I want you to get swept away
I want you to levitate
I want you to sing with rapture
I want you to dance like a dervish
I want you to be deliriously happy
Love is passion, obsession. To fall head over heels.
To forget the head and listen to your heart.
To make the journey and not fall deeply in love...ah
You have to try and if you haven't tried you haven't lived.

-Those are the lines from one of my favorite movies...can you guess??
Meet Joe Black
And from one of my favorite actors... Anthony Hopkins

Definition of a dervish. "A member of any of various Muslim ascetic orders, some of which perform whirling dances and vigorous chanting as acts of ecstatic devotion."
Definition of deliriously. "Marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion; ecstatic: delirious joy."

Quick thought on fun.

2005-09-30T13:10:00.000-05:00

I like to wear my socks on hardwood floors and slide around. Although stairs can be treacherous.

Photo's of the Day

2005-09-28T16:16:00.000-05:00

Daniel and I near Xingping Town on the River Li in the Guangxi Province.
We paid this lady like 10 cents to hold up these ducks and get our pics taken.
They actually use these ducks to fish, by putting something in its throat, and putting a line around its feet they allow them to go under water and fish but the duck cant swallow the fish and the fisherman grabs the fish out, but he has to let the duck eat every once in a while or else it wises up and stops fishing!

To Sleep or not to Sleep?

2005-09-28T10:22:00.000-05:00

To sleep or not to sleep that is the question.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep.

Here's the first few lines of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, note the first line is mine.
I have a problem with sleep. At night when the bed and pillow beckon unto me I do but hesitate its languorous call.
I have always had a hard time deciding to go to bed, granted once I am there I have no problem falling asleep.
And I think thats due to my status of staying up so late and having to succumb to my drowsiness.
For me, going to bed means I will be missing out on life. On seeing, doing or feeling something that life has to offer. And so I choose to stay up as late as possible to experience life when most of the time I'm not really doing much but getting tired.
Funny thing happens in the morning.
I don't care about experiencing life. As I stuporly awake for the first time in the morning I feel robbed of my opportunity to avoid life. In the morning, I want to continue sleeping to avoid having to live in this world. That may sound drastic but its true. Thats when I pray the most that I be called to my eternal home. To be taken away from this faraway country and finally find eternal peace and rest in my forever home. And I reckon thats where Hamlet comes in. He knew what it meant for me when I wake in the morning...to fight the slings and arrows of this broken world but rather than opposing them I would rather sleep!! And if I must wake I pray for my safe passage to my real home.

Anyone else have similar or dissimilar ways of thinking, feeling or dealing with sleep? Just curious about others experiences.

Because God has made it plain to them

2005-09-26T19:56:00.000-05:00

Heres the thing about change...When you think you've changed for the better all you've done is exchange one addiction with another.
I got that from a TV show I watched tonight.
So true. And an addiction is simply what we idolatrize in life. Its when we transfer worship and homage to some power or object other than God. That can be anything, from vices to "virtues". Aside from all those vices we all know about, its the virtues, the good things that are more easily made into idols. Your addiction, your idolatry could be pleasing your parents, seeking acceptance in friends, gaining approval from co-workers, desiring a loving relationship, loving your children too much. All of those things can become addictions and idols. One of the scariest books I've ever read was CS Lewis's "The Great Divorce". The reason it was scary was because it showed how even "good" people can turn "good" things into addictions and idols. (Its a must read for everyone)
Ever wonder why you feel distant from God even though there is no external and clearly visible idol or addiction in your life.
I bet its not a vice thats keeping you from the peace of God but something that God created for good that has been distorted by our sinful nature and put above God.
Idolatry in any form will result in moral decline and in guilt.
Here is something I read from JI Packer tonight..."Fallen humankind is in one sense ignorant of God, since what people like to believe, and in fact believe, about the objects of their worship falsifies and distorts the revelation of God they cannot escape.
In another sense, however, all human beings remain aware of God, guiltily, with uncomfortable inklings of coming judgement that they wish they did not have. Only the gospel of Christ can speak peace to this distressful aspect of the human condition."

Archiving Quotes & Thoughts

2005-09-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

This means there are new thoughts and quotes on the sidebar!! Yippee! I really enjoyed this weeks quotes.

Quotes for the Week
But often, in the world's most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire. After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force. In tracking out our true, original course. A longing to inquire. Into the mystery of this heart which beats. So wild, so deep in us- to know. Whence our lives come and where they go. - Matthew Arnold

Across my foundering deck shone. A beacon, an eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash. Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash; In a flash, at trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and this Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond. -Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Faith means you want God and want to want nothing else." Brennan Manning

Thoughts for the Week
First thought...My sleep patterns are back to normal after China. The routine has started to settle back into its normal course. I am both pleasantly pleased by this yet slightly disturbed at the same time. Trying to fight against the normalcy and complacently that is so easy to slide back into amidst the comfortable confines of our American lifestyle. I am not upset about our condition because I know each culture desires comfort but what I am concerned with is my casual indifference towards those who suffer.

Public Relations. It sounds like an official term but we all take part in it. Its a funny thing that our deepest desires is to be wholly known and to wholly know others and yet we put on so many different masks. We are afraid that if we take off our masks we will be rejected by others. And therein lies the problem; we fear more the rejection of others than believe in the acceptance from God.

I enjoy those days when my body seems quite rested and the land laid out before me seem quite deep and distant as if I'm living on a different plane from that which surrounds me. This speaks to me of Heaven

Old Journal Entry

2005-09-21T18:21:00.000-05:00

I picked up one of my old journals tonight. Whew! What a mixed bag of emotions. I actually dropped it at what point because of the emotions it brought back. I wasn't very happy with myself. : )
Anyway. I wrote in my journal a couple of years ago while I was spending time with some newlywed friends of mine.
What follows is my reflections and dialogue with my friend about marriage, relationships and life.
Hanging out with them for the weekend was my first real experience of seeing close friends in a marriage relationship.
To frame the story a little bit it might be important to tell you that when I wrote it I had just gotten out of a year and a half long relationship, so suffice it to say my spirits weren't very high.
So you might ask, why put this on my blog? It is a revealing piece of writing but the emotions I was dealing with did come to a good conclusion and I believe the message can be applied to all of life. And isn't that what this blog is all about?

A Night's Conversation with a Newlywed friend who I will call Robert and his wife Cindy.

The cars are ceaselessly passing by the duplex. The sun stained man next door is getting into his red truck and is reaching for what looks like a 12 pack of beer while he takes a drag on his cigarette. It was 88 during the afternoon and now I need to wear a jacket. The weathered man has come out again. My back is facing him but I hear his slippers scuff the sidewalk as he drags his feet. I wonder why he drags his feet. Maybe it has something to do with what he came to out to his car for. Speaking of cars, these cars in front of me ceaselessly cruise by my second story porch. I saw a car get run off into the grass today. A van came over on him. I heard the screech before I turned and saw the car swerve off the freeway onto the sloped grassy embankment. I played frogger today on Atari. I wonder if I could make it across this ten lane interstate.
Robert and Cindy are taking a walk. I've asked them a lot of questions in my two days here.
"Robert do you ever get bored? You know how it was back in college. The weekend would roll around and we'd be bored trying to figure out what to do and so we would entrust our night to a big group of people who were bored together hoping that seven or eight minds were better than one or two. Then it would come down to watching a movie. I mean isn't it the same thing in a marriage? But instead you’re just bored with your wife?"
Robert seemed to be interested in the question but his response was not what I was looking for. Robert looked up and said, "Well, we watch the Simpson’s together, ride bikes, we go see movies a lot."
I disappointedly replied, "Yeah, it seems that life is always the same. Instead of being bored in a group you’re bored with one person. Its just a new dilemma, a new situation."
"I don't get bored with Cindy", responded Robert. "You do have times when you don't have anything to say to one another, when there is just silence."
"Yeah", I replied, "I guess it’s like that with anyone. Joc and I got to the point where we had stopped saying new things but simply talked about our day."
"Cindy and I do that a lot. It's a good thing we don't see each other all day; that way we have things to talk about."
Deep inside of me I felt this yearning for something more than that. I wanted to have that adventure of discovery occur throughout the relationship, for it to be never ending. I was poking around trying to see if being married changed anything or if it really meant the spark and adventure would disappear. I had been watching them. There were moments of sparks and new dialogue here and there but they weren't deep. I often saw Cindy's listless eyes and it bothered me; but I was probably reading too much into it.
Robert interrupted my thoughts,” But we do clean up the house together."
That wouldn't take long I thought. They only have three rooms.
Then it dawned on me its not about being bored or entertained from one stage of life to the next. Its about choosing not to be bored. Its about being satisfied with where your at and enjoying who your with at the moment. It’s about enjoying what you have on this earth no matter the circumstance. If its grey and rainy, if your single and lonely, if its bright and sunny, if your with your friends or with your spouse.
And I have come to realize you can only do that with a daily renewal of your spirit and committing yourself over to the Lord's will and living within and pouring out his love each day.

And that is the end of the journal entry I wrote two years ago.
I would say I have learned a lot in two years. I feel more comfortable about life, about marriage. I think I have been able to to more frequently take to heart the conclusion I made two years ago. Some days I forget though and I think thats why I needed to post this little story.
I need to remind myself more often.

The Boxer Rebellion

2005-09-20T12:33:00.000-05:00

If anyone has read the 19 posts in my Saints Soldiers entry then you would understand my posting of this fight night way back in March in Puerto Rico. Be sure to turn up the volume on your computer.

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Posted by deconbrodi

Divine

2005-09-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

Here is my pic for Photo Friday.....a site where you post a picture that defines the word of the week...the word for this week was divine. Okay so I added two but I had much more I could have posted!
(And dont worry the boxing pics are coming soon)

Interested in knowing more about this website....click on below link.
http://www.photofriday.com/how.php

Saints and Soldiers

2005-09-12T14:47:00.000-05:00

I just watched this movie last night and was thoroughly impressed with it and reccomend it to be watched.

The Plot line, which is based on Actual Events:
Five American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War II struggle to return to Allied territory after being separted from U.S. forces during the historic Malmedy Massacre.
Why I liked it? Aside from the fact it won 7 best picture awards at 7 different film festivals. It's not simply a war movie in step with the Saving Private Ryan type but it actually takes a more in depth and personal look at each of the soldiers. It has a very powerful and emotional touch that tugs at your heart. And unlike most war movies where you typically want to watch fight scenes you root for these guys to avoid them because you want them to live. What I particlarly enjoyed was the character Deacon's interactions with the Medic Steven Gould. Deacon was a missionary in Berlin before the war and has faith in God which irritates Gould who believes the war has proven there is no God. Their talks and deepening friendship amdist the suffering of war makes the movie well worth the watch, especially with the emotional payoff at the end. It is a great story of love amongst the atrocities of war.
I am probably going to end of buying the movie.

For all of those who dont like War movies....meaning all you women out there. : )
There is no gratuitous violent or bloody scenes. There are battle scenes but no real blood and guts. The movie is PG-13. The director and producers wanted to make it watchable for families. So that will put you at ease and gives no one an excuse to watch one of the years best movies.

Settling Accounts and Discovering Johnny Cash

2005-09-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

According to Christianity Today one of Johnny Cash's favorite Bible verses was Romans 8:13
"For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live."

Simple and to the point. And apparently appropriate for the "man in black". He really associated with Paul. A man with a very sinful past much like his own. There is something deeply authentic about Johnny Cash. You dont look at him and see a mask. He is not hiding behind self-righteousness but fully aware of God's love and grace in his life.
Wouldn't it be nice if we all had a little more self-depreciation and less pride, and more of really believing that God is the
"I am" and that we are the "I am not". Instead of accepting others and loving them as they are we demand that they meet our expectations and our wants.
So what happened to the Gospel? To love God and our neighbor as ourself? What happened to being like Christ, who lowered himself humbly to meet us where we are? Instead we demand our selfish desires to be met. We are all guilty of it. But we need to practice more of what we preach and extend that grace to eachother. That is why ultimately we cling to Christ.

We call God our Father and yet we fight amongst our brothers.
We are to be the light upon the hill and yet there is no light behind closed doors.
We are to be the salt of the earth but how, when we can't salt our church?
We hold accounts when our account was settled long ago
We keep tabs and call for justice when its not for you or I
We think and ponder and say Amen
When we consider how we must be right
Alas our selfish deeds keep us from the light
So thank the good Lord for the grace to see us through,
For clinging to what He's given is all we have to do.

The following are poignant lyrics from Johnny Cash's song, "Old Account was Settled Long Ago."
(Too bad the sons and daughters of Christ fail in extending that grace to eachother.

Long ago (down on my knees)
Long ago (I setted it all)
Yes, the old account was settled long ago; (Hallelujah!)
And the record's clear today,
For He washed my sins away,
When the old account was settled long ago.
There was a time on earth,
When in the book of Heav'n
An old account was standing
For sins yet unforgiv'n;
My name was at the top,
And many things below,
I went unto the keeper,
And settled long ago.

Long ago (down on my knees)
Long ago (I setted it all)
Yes, the old account was settled long ago; (Hallelujah!)
And the record's clear today,
For He washed my sins away,
When the old account was settled long ago.
The old account was large,
And growing ev'ry day,
For I was always sinning,
And never tried to pay;
But When I looked ahead,
And saw such pain and woe,
I said that I would settle,
I settled long ago.

Long ago (down on my knees)
Long ago (I setted it all)
Yes, the old account was settled long ago; (Hallelujah!)
And the record's clear today,
For He washed my sins away,
When the old account was settled long ago.
When in that happy home,
My Saviour's home above,
I'll sing redemption's story,
And praise Him for His love;
I'll not forget that book,
With pages white as snow,
Because I came and settled,
And settled long ago.

Long ago (down on my knees)
Long ago (I setted it all)
Yes, the old account was settled long ago; (Hallelujah!)
And the record's clear today,
For He washed my sins away,
When the old account was settled long ago.

Thanks Johnny...I look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Archiving Quotes and Thoughts for your thorough Enjoyment

2005-09-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

"When our lives are through, we will regret only that we loved too little, never that we loved too much." "But if I love others, I will be vulnerable; I will appear weak; I may get hurt. Remember, someday you'll be dead. It won't last forever. So while you still have life, love everybody you can love. Love them as much as you can love them. Love freely." - Rich Mullins

To love without expectations. To love without demanding change. To love without not wanting something in return. This is what it means to love. It is not conjuring up a warm fuzzy feeling but rather an act of will and a choice in behavior to surrender to self and put others above yourself.
One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, and passionate prayers in which idle people indulge themselves. - Cardinal John Henry Newman

"A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accesible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence."
"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained."
"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so." - John Stuart Mill

Top Thoughts
I have all of sudden gotten very nostalgic.(It actually happens quite often on the grandest of scales) I am listening to Louis Armstrong right now, just finished up with some Bing Crosby and Bobby Darin. "A kiss to build a dream on." Ah what a nice sentiment to dwell on. The past always seems to be better than the present doesnt it? We live in the past and look forward to the future and forget to live in the present.

So have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount? Its pretty amazing stuff. So your suppose to love your enemey? Mourn over your sin? Submit to God? Have peace in God? Live by faith rather than works? Turn the other cheek? Give to the needy? Pray? Not store up treasure on earth? Not worry? Dont judge others? Wow, what a list. You know some churches used to believe the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount was to show us how sinful we were because of the seemingly unreachable task of living out what the Sermon preaches. All too often I find myself admiring Jesus and not living like him. The difference between the two is the difference between heaven and hell.

Within the last couple years I have realized something about myself. That even though I may get meloncholy at times that all the drama in our lives that seem to dictate so much really adds up to less than a hill of beans. A healthy dose of indifference never hurt anyone and once you start taking the pill it makes life more enjoyable.

Helping those in China

2005-09-04T14:49:00.000-05:00

I had someone ask me what they could do to to help the people in China and in case you missed my comment in my previous entry, I thought I would give it its own article.

Firstly and most importantly, pray for their continued saftey, the strengthening of their faith and that their suffering continues to produce perseverance, character, hope and love. Romans 5:3-5

The non-profit group, China Aid, is an advocate for the persecuted Church in China.

http://www.chinaaid.org/english/index.php
They posted the following:
Ways You Can Help Us and the Persecuted Christians in China:
Pray for them. You may refer to our press releases listed on this website.

Tell others about the persecution situation in China.

Write letters to your respective senators or representatives, and China government's diplomatic officials. (I have already started on a letter)

Make tax deductible donations to help our investigation and advocacy efforts.

I would add another one here. Not to forget about the persecution in China but to look at the below sites daily and become an expert on whats going on there so that you may be an advocate to everyone you meet.

This is another great website for the pesecuted Church worldwide.
http://www.persecution.net/

For those of you that want to get more involved and have have ministry experience there is a great need for missionaries in China. One of the churches greatest needs is for teachers and pastors to come and educate them more about the Bible and Theology. If it works out Dan and I plan on going back to China in May to teach in the underground Church.
If you are interested in looking into this then I could probably put you in touch with the needed people.

The Season of Tranquility and Serenity

2005-09-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

A serenity has swept upon the savanna of my soul as refreshing and tranquil as an alpine lake touching the morning sunset...
A coolness enraptures me as delicate as a ripple authored by a lily blossom dancingly dipping upon the water's shoreline...
A gleam glistens atop the water's shoal reflecting upon my eyes the afterglow of the setting stars...
Upon my heart and upon my soul the soft winds of waning summer set my heart afloat to drift upon that placid path of quiet passivity...
This season of contentment for me is incited by the ebb of summer and the flow of fall...
The marrow of my bones revives, dawning as a whisper ever so softly spreading slowly across my soul...
The azure sky is deeper, the winds are crisper, the sun is sadder, the air is sprightly and the lively fragrance nurtures peace...
The land is changing and yet I am in solitude...
As if from behind a mirror the world turns and the meadows of my soul only gently sway from the shifting winds...
An equinox of equity harmonized upon my being due to my affinity of the fall.

Highlights of China

2005-08-31T10:20:00.000-05:00

Please Read My Previous Entry before looking at these pictures.

If you want to view all my pictures then leave a comment with your email address and I will give you a website address.

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Posted by deconbrodi

The Untold Truth About China Revealed.

2005-08-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

When I was in China I could not view my website because the government blocked it. It had too many references to God. Today I walked into Lifeway Christian Bookstore and saw one my friends who works there. She asked how my trip went and I told her it was amazing but that a place like Lifeway would be illegal in China and that we would all be thrown in jail. I was walking around the store and I got tears in my eyes just thinking about the Chinese Christians; about how they were arrested for meeting together to learn about the Bible, not only arrested but beaten, tortured, sent to hard labor camps and killed. We have this wealth of information just sitting at our doorstep and on the other side of the globe Christians risk their lives for knowledge about the Bible. I have not been able to stop thinking about them and about what I take for granted.
The unsaved Chinese friends I met in my travels are also on my mind. Most of them don't even know what the term Christianity means and have never heard of the Bible. This larger awareness of the persecuted Church and all those untouched souls created upon my heart a meloncholy that I have not been able to quell and I pray that it doesn’t alleviate. God has lifted the veil from the confines of my comfortable life and I feel led to share my limited experience with everyone else. More than any other trip, going to China has really made a profound impact on me. God has really laid a burden on my heart for that country and its people; both the saved and unsaved.
This trip has given me a much different perspective on life and on my Christian walk. The number 1.3 billion constantly hovers in the conciousness of my mind. That’s nearly the number of people who know nothing about God, or the Gospel. The tragedy of that number initially grieves me but then it inspires me to further the Kingdom of God in that land. I took every chance to share the Gospel with those I met and each time I did I was sharing something completely new and foreign to them. This changed the last night when I met a girl who had the color bead bracelet that represented the Gospel story. A westerner had sown the first seeds before me and had shared the Gospel with her and given her the bracelet. This made me incredibly excited and opened the door for me to share more with her about God and the Gospel. In the end I gave her my small Bible and she told me she would cherish it.
Seeing this one photon of light in a dark country was both exhilarating and sobering. Most of China lives in the dark; and this is due to their government. Everything they've been told about the world today and the history of the past 60 years is skewed and often outright false. For example, they are told that China liberated Tibet. Liberated from what? Themselves? China invaded Tibet and killed over a million people. The people literally have a veil put over their eyes not only about history and current events but of not really being aware of the outlawing of Christianity and the persecution their own people.
While I was there I felt the desire to lift this veil and shed the light of the Gospel. The Chinese Christians are doing a good job at this but need help. Imagine the early church after Christ and how they held councils to determine doctrine, this is the similar situation in China. These new churches are reading their Bibles without the aid that we have and they desperately want to know more about Theology. This is where my good friend Daniel comes in. He and another Westminister Seminary student named Eric, went to China earlier this summer to teach reformed theology to the underground church. It was the first missionaries and teachers this denomination had seen ever seen. They were incredibly appreciative of them and treated them like royalty. Daniel and Eric took turns teaching 7-hour shifts and the pupils were eager for every bit of it.
On August 2, things went bad when my friends went to a high-risk part of China. The taxi driver turned in my friends and the Chinese Christians. Dan and Eric were taken to a holding room in an unmarked government building, interrogated but were released 7 hours later. The Chinese Christians with my friends were not so lucky. They were put in prison, beaten, and tortured for an "illegal meeting."
This might be graphic for some but it deserves to be told. The Chinese Christians were beaten with metal chairs to the head, tortured with cigarette burns to the face and arms, needles stuck into their wrists and their thumbs pulled out with mini-handcuffs to the point where they couldn’t use their hands. One girl was stripped naked and beaten on the legs and rear so hard by bamboo rods that she bled and couldn’t walk for weeks. Most have been released. Two are still in prison; one an older frail lady who owned the house and the female leader who tried to stop the police from arresting my friends. Both are beaten daily and there is no current release date set.
These are people that my two American friends knew. Not just names in a paper but friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. In 2000 the pastor of the church was arrested along with some women of the Church. The women were tortured to sign a document that said the pastor had raped them. After extensive beatings four signed the letter but after release recanted. (They are now in hard labor camps for reeducation) The fifth girl who didn’t sign the document was beaten to death because she didn’t sign. The pastor was given the death penalty but his wife and the church sold everything they owned to buy off the government, so now he has life in prison.
These stories I have heard from Chinese Christians themselves, and from my friend Daniel. These events weigh on me and I don’t believe I can ever truly be the same. The Christians hunger and thirst for the Gospel like I've never seen before and they willingly pay the price for it. The American Church pales in comparison. There has to be something more we can do for them.
I feel like the Holy Spirit has truly touched my heart for both the saved and unsaved in China and I am looking for ways to be used by God to help the people in China.
If your interested you may look up an article in World Magazine dated August 27th about my friends and their arrest in China.
http://www.worldmag.com/displayarticle.cfm?id=10971
This link gives further information on recent Christian persecution in China.
http://www.earnedmedia.org/caa0818.htm

Please keep the Chinese Christians in your prayers.

Hello Banana?

2005-08-24T00:46:00.000-05:00

Hello Banana? Was the greeting by several of the old ladies in Yangshou when we would walk down the street. Now I know what your thinking. She thought we were banana's but my hypothesis is that she actually wanted to sell us the banana's she had in her basket. Later that day we saw T-shirts for sell that had a picture of a banana and the words Hello Banana. So the whole trip Dan and I would walk around and say Hello Banana, Hello Apple, Hello Mango...to all the vendors...and one time I said it just as we walked up to a lady and sure enough she said, Hello Banana?
So this trip has been chalk full of funny things like that and not so fun things.
Like walking home to our hotel everynight we had to wade our way through a small market that was set up in the street every night around 8. The problem was not the market or the people but what they were cooking. They had tanks of water with live fish swimming around, crawfish clattering around, frogs all bundled up in a mesh bag, and the occasional group of snakes. Now this wasn't the problem. The problem was the smell. (What I look forward to the most back in the USA is the fresh air!)
The minute we stepped inside this death zone for small critters we automatically felt the sting of airborn spices that permeated everything....and most notably our eyeballs. And as our eyeballs cringed in pain our nostrils where filled with the rank smell of critter blood being fried for the Chinese palatte.
Anyway...two small stories among hundreds...I could go on and on but at this point my stomach is beckoning me to lunch.
I leave tomorrow and I am sad. I loved Yanghshou, not so much Beijing, but Yangshou was great. I love the Chinese people. It is so sad to see an almost entire country of 1.3 billion people in the dark. We need to shed the light on this country.
I took every opportunity I could to do just that and I have several stories to tell about those experiences as well but that will have to wait until I get back to the States.
I do look forward to seeing everyone....I look forward to being back with my church family in Baltimore. I miss you guys in the youth group!!
Much love to everyone and even though I may be back home I will still post stories and pics from my trip.
-Jordan
Oh and by the way, I have been able to see the comments to my blog through email, and thanks so much for all the responses...although I cant respond to them at this point because the government won't let me see my own blog.

Observations about China

2005-08-20T00:47:00.000-05:00

I am now in southwestern China. Sitting in the West Lilly hotel listening to the bustle of the crowded street outside with its bicycles, scooters, screeching mini buses, three wheeled trucks, oxen drawn carts, motorcycles, mini motor bikes, a 40's vehicle with a bed and an engine precariously perched on the front of the vehichle exposing the antique tractor engine that it uses. It truly is a cornocopia of transportation that leaves wondering if there is any other place in the world with such a wide array of transportation.
So here I am in the back packers paradise of Yangshou. It sits in the middle of Karbst mountains that literally look like God took balls of clay and threw them on the ground to make giant balls and some he dripped from the heavens like a child would drip wet sand on the beach to create jagged peaks. And these mountains raise from the flat ground in all directions and line up and down the Li River which snakes through the southern part of the town. Yesterday we spent $1 to take a man powered flat boat up and down the river for about 20 minutes and today we got up at 5:45 am to take a bus and a mini truck/motorcycle hybrid to a town 1 hr north to take a bigger motor powered flat boat up and down the river to view the otherworldy mountain peaks. It was mythical, it was exotic and it was beyond words.
This place is truly one of the most beautiful and exotic places I've ever been.

Some observations about China:
1. It seems that there is not a man in China who doesnt smoke. Young and old alike. I have yet to see a woman smoke.
2. Even out in the countryside the air is dirty. The smell in the cities is a mix between pollution, trash, excrement at times, and the spices of food.
Last night we walked through a market and the spices were so bad we could hardly breath and at one time we had to close our eyes because it stung.
3. Things you can eat on a stick, silk worms, other bugs, whole fish, baby chickens, snake, scorpions, chicken hearts, squid and lets not forget that dog may not come on a stick but it is on the menu.
4. Everyone here sits by squatting. Butt almost touching the ground and the feet are flat footed. I cant do it, I can only squat on the balls of my feet.
5. The kids here dont wear diapers and instead are allowed to go where ever they so desire through the method of split pants. And we have seen them go wherever they want.
6. Wherever we go I see people just lounging around as if they have nothing to do.
I have seen people working but it seems most people arent up to much.
7. The room that we are staying in here has two single beds, AC, a TV, bathroom and shower and only costs $4 per person per night. Suffice to say things here are cheap.
8. Generally people are good natured and helpful. Although everywhere we go peddlers are trying to get us to buy things. At the Great Wall we had our own personal peddlers for half the day follow us...not heckling the whole way but simply following. I have yet to see anyone kiss in public...not even mom's or dads kissing their kids. I have seen a couple of people holding hands. I have yet to see a pregnant lady.
9. Everyone dresses with slacks and short sleeved button down shirts. And the ladies with pants, a blouse and heels. Unless your a Chinese tourist and then you see them in shorts.
10. Everyone uses umbrellas all the time. Especially in the sun. Ladies often have them becuase in Chinese culture the whiter you are the prettier you are.
11. Bicycles. Half the worlds bicycles are in China and I think that number is higher!
12. I do get looked at a lot. So I just look right back. Its amazing that a whole culture can have the same traits, the same color eyes, hair, body shapes, heights, little hair and yet at the same time they dont all look the same.
13. I had a Chinese girl tell me that if I lived in China I would have a line of potential suitors. Too bad its not like that in Baltimore! And too bad only 100 million share my faith. That is out of 1.3 billion.
14. Chinese history is completely different from 1949 to the present. The Korean war was fought in the defense of Korea against the American aggressors, etc. and etc.

Well, I need to go but I will update again soon.
In case your wondering, I am unable to check my blog for comments or questions, courtesy of the government and its blocking of my site.

Great Wall

2005-08-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was miserable...cold and constant raining...today was the opposite. Absolutely gorgeous outside with a cool breeze, a warm sun and puffy white clouds.
It was a perfect day to head up to the Great Wall. The rain swept away a lot of the pollution too so it made for a very clear day up in the mountains.
The normally 1 1/2 hr bus ride took neary 5 hours because of traffic and an accident. But it gave us a chance to get to know the rest of the international travelers on the bus...3 guys from Switzerland, an older English couple, a young Belgium couple, a Morroccon girl, an Austrialian girl and a girl from Maine thrown in there for good meausre. The wall was beyond words stunningly amazing spectacular wish you could have been there experience. Imagine jagged peak lines of an infinity of bright green mountains in all directions and imagine putting towers and a wall along the precipice and thats only a very weak description for an amazing sight to behold. I did post some pictures earlier but I cant wait to post my pics once I get back. Seeing the wall alone has made this trip worth it.
We also had personal tourist knick knack peddlars follow us around the whole time.
Dan and I had a good time teasing them and sharing jokes. Humor is the best way to cross the langauge barrier.
Tomorrow we see the Forbidden city which is not so forbidden anymore.
And then hopefully we'll be able to get a train ticket to Suzhou near Shanghai.
We've been told they have been selling out several days in advance.
We'll see what happens.
I will update again soon.
Have a splendid evening or morning or afternoon....actually its about 125 pm over there and 125 am here....if I closed my eyes right now I would fall asleep.
So on that note.
Good night.

Tiananmen Square is around the corner

2005-08-16T06:39:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone
I am in Beijing now...Its 730 pm and it feels like 730 am because there is a 12 hour time difference, so needless to say I am exhausted. The flight wasnt bad as we took the northern route over the north pole to get here.
Anyway...Its been raining here since I got here and were hoping the weather changes by tomorrow so we can go hiking down an old section of the Great Wall.
Right now its dark and the Tiananmen Square is all lit up..its pretty crazy that yesterday I was back in the USA and now I am on the opposite side of the globe chilling out next to Mao Tse Dong's Tomb....and chilling is the literal word as they lower it down each night to cryofreeze it. My friend here has had some crazy stories....I'll have to share when I get back.
There are some crazy jobs over here...like girls walking around with brooms to sweep the water down the drains in the street and guys with red flags that wave pedestrians across the street as if we needed them, they also yell at you if you cross his imaginary line. And ladies with mops that continually wipe down the entrances to these huge malls. I guess when you have 1.3 billion people you need to make up things to do for everyone. Not to mention the countless cops and military on every corner just standing there. And a lot of the corner cops look like they belong in my youth group.
I ordered Rice and diced chicken for dinner and the chicken breast came out with a hard bone running through it and the meat was light pink, suffice it to say I didnt eat the chicken and whent the waitress took the plate away she smiled and giggled.
I also had another waitress giggle at me as I fumbled around with the chopsticks.
Anyway...nothing too exciting yet. I will keep everyone posted.
Wan An and Zaijian

China here I come

2005-08-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

I leave for China on Monday at 9 am...get to Newark around 10 am and then take off to China around 11....and nearly 14 hours and 6,834 miles later I will arrive in Beijing on Tuesday at 1 pm. I lose a day going there...but the cool thing is on the way back I leave at 3 pm and get back to the US at 4 pm of the same day! I've always wanted to experience time travel.
Anyway- I just wanted to say that I will be away for a while. I get back on the 25th. So I will post some pics in about 2 weeks

Please keep me in your prayers. And know that even though I will be away on a grand adventure that I will think of you every now and then. : )

Beyond the Sea with pictures!

2005-08-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

I already posted a blog about Bobby Darin and I wanted to be able to play one of my favorite songs of his on my blog. So turn up your volume because the slide show is about to begin.

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Posted by deconbrodi

Ahora... Maintenant...Heute...Now

2005-08-04T13:44:00.000-05:00

But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again, he thought and so you better take what time there is and be very thankful for it. If the bridge goes bad. It does not look too good just now.
But Maria has been good. Has she not? Oh, she has not, he thought. Maybe that is what I am to get now from life. Maybe that is my life and instead of it being threescore years and ten it is forty-eight hours or just threescore hours and ten or twelve rather. Twenty four hours in a day would be threescore and twelve for the three full days. I suppose it is possible to live as full a life in seventy hours as in seventy years; granted that your life has been full up to the time that the seventy hours start and that you have reached a certain age.
What nonsense, he thought. What rot you get to thinking by yourself. That is really nonsense. And maybe it isn't nonsene too...
So if your life trades its seventy years for seventy hours I have that value now and I am lucky enough to know it. And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am happy with it. Now, ahora, maintenant, heute.
Now...it has a funny sound to be a whole world and your life.

.......these lines were taken from one of my favorite books....i thought they went nicely with the quote of the day...

Beyond the Sea

2005-08-01T22:06:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee. Both movie stars, one a grammy winning singer. They were married and in their hay day were the hot couple of Tinsel Town. : )
I just watched "Beyond the Sea", a movie starring Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin. A movie based the real life of the famous 60's and early 70's singer and movie star. Most of you would recognize him as the singer of "Splish Splash". That was his initial hit that raised him to stardom. Just like today's music there are songs and artists that appeal to the teenieboppers and that song, his break out hit, did just that. But most of his songs were more like the Rat Pack style, along the lines of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
And its a funny thing that I watched this movie tonight. Last night I decided to download some songs from the 60's and that included some Bobby Darin songs. I listened to Splish Splash and then I listened to his other songs, Beyond the Sea, Dream Lover, & Sea of Love and I instantaneously fell in love with them. And I wondered why I had never heard this side of him before. I am glad this movie introduced me to Bobby Darin.
I think most importantly this movie touched my heart. I am finding out that these drama films based on the lives of real people seem to have a more profound effect on me than regular movies. Its because I get a glimpse of someone elses life and their ups and downs...their heartaches and their loves. And just as the characters life flows forward and up and down, I see a microcosism of their life right before me and it speaks to me of life...of their life, of my life and the nature of life all around me.
It makes me want to make my life into a movie. Not because I am an egomaniac. But because it seems so nice and tidy yet powerful and touching at the same time. To have a soundtrack to my life...linked to my swaying feelings seems appropriate.
To somehow plug into that streaming life of mine and put it in a box where there is a beginning and an ending where it displays all the passions and struggles...where there are moments of happiness and joy and moments of struggle and ultimately there is a climax and it ends.
We all are in a drama like an act to a play and we live our part and it is played out on the cosmic stage.
Some of us think a legacy of some great achievement will be needed to make our act stand out in the countless others before us and the countless ones after us but in fact the best legacy we can leave can best be measured by how much we loved.

At the end credits there are little biopsies of some of the people in the movie, and the line following Sandra Dee (His wife) said the following:
"Sandra Dee lives in Los Angeles, she has never remarried. She remains in love with Bobby Darin to this day."
That line pierced my soul. 22 years have passed since Bobby Darin died and a part of him lives on in the people he loved and the people who loved him. (Read my previous post titled "Graveyard", it echoes this sentiment)
Sandra Dee actually died in February of this year, very shortly after the movie was made.
I may have never met them in my life but I know Bobby and Sandra.
Just as the last lines of the song in the movie said...." as long as your singing then the world's alright and everything’s swinging, as long as your singing your song." - Bobby Darin is still with us in his words, in his songs, in his movies.
But its not just a legacy, its so much more than that. On a much more lasting and intimate level he is with us through those who loved him and he is with us because we relate and know what it means to love and for that reason a part of him will always remain.
And so it is with all of those that have gone before us.... and so it will be with us.
The song we have written and weaved with the beats and rhythms of our life. The hearts that have touched ours and the hearts we have touched...and world is spun by the beat of our hearts and even when time has passed beyond the fingertips of our presence and spun beyond the charted seas of our lives our song is still sung, echoed in the hearts of humanity throughout eternity.

Fire in the Sky

2005-07-31T17:40:00.000-05:00

"In the created world around us we see the Eternal Artist, Eternal Love at work."
- Evelyn Underhill

China Bound

2005-07-19T09:23:00.000-05:00

I leave for China on August 15th.....I went to DC to get my visa from the Chinese Embassy. Still can't believe I'm going. Should be a blast. Here are some pics of some of the things I will see. That is if we dont change our itinerary and instead of going south we go west to the Tibet and the Himalayas- The rooftop of the world. But as of now, we are heading to Beijing...then to the south to a city called Guilin and the river Li and then work our way north to Suzhou and the other canal and garden cities. So the first couple pics are of Guilin and then Suzhou and then Beijing. In case your wondering...going with my good friend Daniel Cohee...our third trip together...first was Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar...the second was London, Dublin, Scotland and Norway. Brien Meyer was with us on that one but he cant make the China trip...Brien you can still change your mind buddy!
We are going to start a Gentleman's Expedition Club where we smoke pipes and banter back and forth about our past exploits and our future adventures.

Tibet? If we change our mind and head west...we will go to the rooftop of the world
Go to the city where the Dali Llama has his palace....where for a thousand years no foreigner set foot in the city....
And could possibly go take a look at the tallest mountain in the world.
The three pics of the Potala Palace...One of the top wonders of the world, on top of the world!

Love

2005-07-16T12:35:00.000-05:00

This post was inspired from the common bond I see in humanity. Its a comment on the human condition. And as general as that sounds it is so achingly personal and it haunts me every day of my life.
Why do we love? Simple. Feeling loved and giving love is the closest to heaven we can get on Earth. It is in our souls..it is written on our hearts. We search for it, yearn for it, write about it, sing about it, dance for it, fight for it, die for it.
We live and die by love. To love is to be human. It is the deepest longing of our hearts to be accepted and loved. We will do stupid things, crazy things.....and if we arent careful our pursuit for love can become twisted...distorted...unhealthy and it can corrupt us. The irony, the sadness of longing for love to be known, to be intimate...to be loved unconditionally can very very very easily be the ruin of us!
It doesnt make sense does it? It seems to be that everyone wants the same thing. What seems so natural to our being, or personhood is so so so hard!
Everyone wants to love and be loved.....and yet why are relationships so broken? Why are relationships so hard? Why do we hurt eachother?
And those mountaintop experiences never last do they?!! Its infuriating isnt it? We try and try and try and yet we ruin everything. What seems so innate and natural inside us becomes difficult and turns to heart ache. And before we know it its all happening again...the cycle is endless.
The continued pains leaves scars that many people cannot recover from.
Well....I would say the reason this happens is not because we werent meant to have beautiful relationships full of love but becuase we are the problem. We cant love people unconditionally like we should. I mean thats what we want right? So it seems to reason we should be able to follow through. But we cant. We are messed up. People are messed up. Relationships are messed up. They are broken and distorted.
What do you do?
When you have turned to everyone you can possibly turn to...your family, your friends, your best friends, your guy friends, your girl friends, your romantic interests...you've tried everything and no one is there for you.
It is at this point that everything seems hopeless. You've hit rock bottom and all you ever wanted to hit was someone who loved you completely and accepted you totally.
Only one person can do that. That person is God. He is by definition; Love. Why is this desire to be loved written on our souls? Because we reflect our maker, our creator. If God is love then it stands to reason we long for love with all our being.
Imagine if you could turn to every single person on earth...for love. In the end no on can love you the way your heart really wants to be loved. No one. God can....God does.
He loves you so much He sent his son to die on the cross.....to die for all that broken crap in the world. To die for all that sin in the world....all things we are ourselves are guilty of....We all are guilty of hurting people.
Well Jesus died so we didnt have to be miserable anymore. If we admit that we are messed up and broken and guilty of our own share of crud, ask for forgiveness and then believe that God in his perfect love sent his son to die for all of that and that Jesus conquered death and sin and reunited us to the perfect love of God then our lives will change.
Rather than looking for love and truth in the brokenness of this earth...in the broken people around us.....in ourselves
we can find PERFECT LOVE, PERFECT ACCEPTANCE in God....who is by his very nature and definition Love.
Imagine that!!!
Love is written on our hearts for a purpose. And God doesnt want you to hurt...He wants you to turn to him.
The perfect Lover, who will never abandon you.

Philippians 2:4-8
"Let each of you esteem and look upon and be concerned for not merely his own interests, but also each for the interests of others.
Let the same attitude and purpose and humble mind be in you which was Christ Jesus...(Let him be your example in humility)
Who, although being essentially one with God and possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God, did not think this equality with God was a thing to be retained.
But He stripped himself of all privileges and rightful dignity, so as to assume the guise of a servant, (slave), in that he became like men and was born a human being.
And after he had appeared in human form, he abased and humbled himself and still further carried his obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!

Imagine having perfect love...perfect is an imaginary word to us on earth, because everything is broken...there is nothing truly perfect here. But Jesus had it.
A perfect relationship with his Father...perfectly accepted and loved and yet out of that love he chose to leave that perfect state and descend to earth. Amazing.
And then he went even further...rather than simply coming down here...he actually took all that brokenness and took the burden of sin for us...
Jesus was obeying his Father by dying on the cross for us to have access to God.

Romans 3:23
All have sinned and fallen short of the honor and glory to God.

Romans 3:22 But
"Righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah-Savior)

To be honest with you...I do not feel satisfied in posting this entry as it is. It is not sufficient for the great magnitude and depth of the topic.

And to be honest with you....this post was written for one person that I met recently. Someone God purposefully put in my life and I in hers. (And it was more than simply being a helping hand at the hospital!)
I hope she reads it and finds peace, acceptance, forgiveness, righteousness, hope and love from her heavenly Father.

But as I mentioned it is important for everyone to hear because it speaks to the human condition and it is a daily importance for me to hear as well.

PS
Romans 5 is great too...
We are justified, declared righteous, given a right standing with God, through Faith, let us grasp the fact that we have peace and reconciliation to enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through Him we also have our access by faith into this grace, (state of God's favor) in which we we firmly and safely stand!
And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God.
Moreover let us also be full of joy now! let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings....(READ THAT AGAIN) knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.
And endurance develops maturity of character (tried integrity). And this character produces the habit of joyful and confident hope of eternal SALVATION!
Such hope as this NEVER disappoints or deludes us, for Gods LOVE has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
While we were yet in weakness, POWERLESS TO HELP OURSELVES!, at the fitting time Christ died for and in behalf of the ungodly, (us).
Now it is extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable benefactor someone might even dare to die.
But God shows and clearly proves his own love for us by the fact that while we were still SINNERS, Christ died for us.
Therefore now we are justified , brought into right relationship with God, by Christ's blood, how much more , certain it is that, we shall be saved by Him from the wrath of God.

AMEN and AMEN!

(taken from the amplified Bible version, Romans 5:1-9)

New Entry Coming SOON!

2005-07-14T17:29:00.000-05:00

I dont know why I just posted this....I am leaving in 5 minutes to head off to Church for Family Night of VBS.
A new post coming soon.....hint...it will be about my adventures in the Middle East!

Well...as you can tell...it ain't happening tonight...its nearly 11 and I am going to set a record by hitting the sack before midnight two nights in a row. So....g'night ya'll

Untitled

2005-07-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

Back by popular demand.

This is something I wrote 4 years ago....way back in February of 2001.

I am not a man of in betweens
I am either here or there
I see the space behind the face
I know the beat upon thy heart
I see beyond your words and footsteps
I stand alone listening to the song of leaves dancing in the wind
I vanish away- I fade into the gentle breeze
I fade into your eyes
I fade into the earth I tread upon
I fade into the distance-
the distance I see in this life
The distance of this earth stretches into infinity
And I can barely comprehend it,
Before it collapses back into the snap of the wind
The song of the birds,
The smile in your face,
It fades away- the distance fades away
Everything near fades into an oblivious sharp epiphany
I see the calmness of the earth
I see the traffic, I see the movement
The constant change is static
And it stretches apart from me
My searching eyes its focal point
time, place, circumstance, memory and moment
reign no more upon my soul.
Everything fades away from me inside of me
This earth, this grey shadow of reality...
fragile on the reflection of a teardrop
So various, so beautiful, so new
So static, so grey, so old.
A paradox within my eyes
Within my mind upon my soul
Everything grey fades away from me and into me.

EAGLES CAMP & Victory Jam 2005

2005-07-12T20:52:00.000-05:00

The last three weeks have been a whirlwind, I have spent two of those weeks at summer camps....Middle School Victory Jam on Long Beach Island New Jersey right next to the beach and EAGLES Camp at Swallow Falls State Park in the mountains of Western Maryland.....details to come...now I'm off to VBS.

Okay I'm back...I am 4 hours removed from the end of VBS today and now I will tell you that I had an amazing time at both camps this summer. Above all the most influential experience for me was the deeper relationships I formed with my youth group and with other kids at the camps. Both camps were different in that regard...Victory Jam was large and I spent all my time with my kids and it was great. I felt like I really got to know everyone a lot better. Brandon and Alan...you guys were awesome roommates! We got a room for six all to ourselves! And I was really impressed by both of you and how intelligent and deep your conversations were about the topics we were talking about. You guys have wonderful potential to be wonderful leaders for the youth group. No doubt in mind about that.
I was so glad that we had some of the newer girls to the youth group come to camp. It gave me and Suzanna and opportunity to get to know you guys better. Kelsi and Lauren...you two really opened up by the end of the week and I was totally impressed with your "big booty" skills....I still havent been able to get that game/song out of my head!! Ah big booty!
Anyway....Katie...your so cool....you were so quiet at youth group but by the end of the week at Victory Jam I think you opened up the most! It was so cool to see....and lets not forget Colleen.....you really let loose and showed your funny side and your capability to be such a great influence on those around you was amazing.
It truely was a treasure for Suzanna and I to get know you guys better. The week really endeared me to you guys.
The camp itself was a blast....lots of fun games....fun moments- like my car breaking down on the way up, to our beach freeze tag to our night game of outburst to our Christian Rap Jam session in the parking lot to the Showplace ice cream adventure where Colleen and Katie sang musical caliber lines in order to get their ice cream!
I know for me the talks given by Drew Derreth were incredibly enlightening and encouraging for me and I am pretty sure that you guys like it too....and I definately know you guys enjoyed the jump and jiving worship time and the wacky skits put on by Jeff, Tim and Steve.

EAGLES Camp
I got home late Friday night completely wiped out...and it took two days of sleep for me to recover from those cold, damp nights spent shifting my sleeping posture over a rock that was unremovable under my sleeping bag.
Other than the cruddy sleeping conditions and the two days of rain...the experience was amazing.
This was a much smaller camp...probably close to 30 kids and around 10 counselors....and we all bonded like family!
I loved spending time with Laura, Rebecca, Mary Claire, Jaclyn and one my tent buddies, Ben P! MC and Jaclyn were in the best small group...the "Quazi's" which was my group! (Along with Sydney from Severna Park) We had the best group because we had the most laughs...and the freakin' best flag design ever! Our name came from the word quasi meaning half....long story.....and our motto was cleverly thought up by Chelsea....."Quazi's are half and not whole without God in their souls" Wow....what a catchy phrase...and only a cheerleader could come up with that!
The highlight of the week was a our small group time, problem solving and the rafting. The problem solving was so so funny! Sydney and I's group did the least creative things to cross the imaginary canyon with their boards and other tools to help them cross over.....Hannah was so funny, she wanted to use Duct Tape for everything....including anchoring the 2 x4's to grass by using the duct tape! I made a bewildered face after that! Our group also had the bright ideas of doing a run, jump and summersault roll across the tavern in an Indiana Jones fashion....roping a branch and swinging across like Tarzan and using cheerleader holds and pushes which only led to a 2 foot jump....so yeah....thats why I said our group was not very creative...they just wanted to copy Hollywood stunts.
So Syd and I decided to make up the rule that they had to use all their tools to get them across....in a good nature they complained about it to Trip, leader of the camp, and he said they had to follow our rules and the kids responded by saying that other groups didnt have to do that and he said it was beacuse their group leaders were sadistic! Of course that was their new catch word for the week.....everyone wanted to change our team name to the Quazi Sadistics!

Onto Rafting....everyone in my raft....Scott, Chelsea, Hannah, MC and Jacyn fell in twice but me and MC, the anchors to the raft in the back. I dove in once kamikazee style to take out Andrew who was on another raft...but what was better was down the river when Daniel repaid my act with an even more stealthy kamikazee manevour that left my feet vertical and my body doing flips under the frigid river waters....I heard it was quite the site to see!

Another highlight was Brian Wolf....the speaker from Miami who reminded me a lot of my college friends. He really taught us a lot about temptation and how to surrender our lives to God. His stories and funny sense of humor really made it relate!
I am thinking we might see him again next year.....if the youth group goes down to Miami for a missions trip.... perhaps?

So I get home Saturday and my roommate is gone and I am alone and I feel like I should have 40 people around me and there's not.....and of course the last couple days I have missed everyone.
These two camp experiences were amazing for me and I loved every moment....even the lack of good sleep and stinky kids!
I Thank the Lord that he gave me the opportunity to grow closer to those of you that went....that was the highlight for me

Thoughts in a Graveyard

2005-07-12T14:09:00.001-05:00

I wrote this a while ago when I was sitting in a graveyard on a grassy hillside reading names from tombstones....

Emarita Pitts Murphy
March 31, 1912
June 26, 1989
Gone but not Forgotten
Perpetual Care
Colbert- Eady- Caldwell- Armour- Hicks
Bowles- Williams- Layne- Eason- Calhoun
Thompkins- Boozer- Toney- Dixon
Jefferson- Rice- Cater- Jones
Banks- Tuggle- Albert- Keith
Page- Riggs- Lee- Grace- Cameron
Matthews- Bradford- Price- Skelly
Gilmore- Hainey- Tyler- Lawrence
Eastman- Angel- Irvine- Robinson
We were people once- a generation apart
a disease apart- an accident apart
We were alive to set the stars in place
That glimmer in your deep dark face.
We were alive and whispered love upon the ear of time.
You can hear it softly spread upon this earth-
Love- Forgotten beautiful love-
A person in his own right...
He strikes upon you in the moonlight
He wanders these windswept hills and plains,
visiting valleys and mountain peaks,
whispering forth from the echoes of time-
Loved and not forgotten
Gone and not unloved
It lingers yet above the grave-
Oh it lingers yet and fills this world of dreams
Love- He dashes forth like a mountain rapid
Yet finding root upon this slippery solace sneaks away into the night
These lost loves
These lost loves who once loved
Loved like we- loved with passion and fear
Loved with trembling hands and studdering lips-
Loved the beauty set before them...
Loved the dying of the light and the golden caste set upon the earth
A blanket of warmth and solitude
Gone but not forgotten
We who stand at the doorway to eternity
We who journey to unknown lands
We whose eyes search upon this land of dreams set before us
We who have had lost loves
Who set upon that distant sea
We who love murmer it upon the earth
And set it free to roam
In this interlude to eternity
We who love now will be gone too soon
But never to be forgotten

Orioles vs. Astros 6.13.05

2005-07-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

Monday Night I went with Larry and Lydia to the O's Game. It was amazing! I felt like a little kid again. It was like no other game I've been to.
I thought there was no way to beat opening day when I sat in the first row of the outfield and got to high five the entire team as they got introduced. (The only time all year they come in that way) This time, I was actually sitting in row AAA seat 1. It was the seat of the owner of the team! (Although most often he sits in his skybox) Peter Angelos gave the tickets to Larry's mom because she works for him. I was sitting so close to the players in the dugout I could reach out and touch them without getting out of my seat! Out of 48,876 seats I was in the seat closest to the players! I was closer to home plate than third base, so close to the on deck circle I could take two steps and stand next to the players, and when I talked on my cell phone the players could overhear my conversation! I made eye contact with every player on the team and I bet they wondered why that kid was sitting there. In fact it was kinda odd, Rafael Palmeiro made enough eye contact with me to make feel weird. Anyway, it was awesome, it was a high I hadn't felt since climbing up one of the pyramids in Egypt. I also got some good video, Miguel Tejada waved at me as he was on the on deck circle.
A tremendous thank you is due to the Komenda's!

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Which Lord of the Rings Character are you?

2005-05-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

What LoTR Character Are You?

You are most like Legolas. Life is good, you're the star. You can take any problem that comes your way. Don't get too cocky, though. Go ahead and enjoy the nature around you, but don't be too reclusive. There are plenty of people who will like you if you just give them the chance.

Howard Hughes the Aviator- One Song, Glory- Rent

2005-05-26T00:41:00.000-05:00

I seem to be writing a lot of puff pieces and that’s not like me. So I'm gonna let it go...

I have two things in my mind right now. I just watched the movie The Aviator and I am now listening to one song on repeat: One Song Glory from the musical Rent.
For some reason these two things go together for me in my mind.
Its nearly 2 am and I cant sleep...oh yes, my body can sleep and my eyelids could close quite easily but my brain is working overtime. I wish it werent so late because I am anal about feeling tired during the day.
Its hard for me to watch movies that depict people on the edge. People that teeter between sanity and that void that sucks them into themselves and over a cliff. (We tend to think that being insane is on the outside but its whats on the inside that makes us crazy) It's like having one foot on the platform and the other is caught on a moving train. I'm not trying to create the image of being torn apart but in a way it is that forceful tension between sanity and insanity. Okay, now that your getting worried, let me water my thoughts down and make them relatable. You may never feel like your about to visit the cukoo's nest but we all get driven to places we don't really want to go, both by circumstances and that push from our soul that searches and yearns for expression beyond the finite.
Am I making sense at all? Have you seen the Aviator with Leonardo Decaprio? (Go see it, he does a better job than he did in Titanic) He is capricious, he is eccentric, he is driven, he is stubborn and he loses it mentally. He teeters in that grey realm between normal and abnormal. How often do we feel that tension and yet step back off that moving train and onto the platform? What would it take to step in the other direction? What pushes us to the other side? And when were pushed there, is that moment of insanity checked or is it embraced?
This might sound crazy, but there have been times when I have wanted to let go and get swept away.
I know I am speaking in abstract thoughts but how do you pinpoint abstract feelings?
I have often questioned what makes me different from those who do get swept away. To go over and then step back, kinda like a cleansing of sorts. I don't know but maybe to appreciate the stability of the normal you have to have one step on that moving train. Or maybe we need to evaluate the definition of normal. Is it more normal to have seemingly everything together or express where we really are in our hearts and souls? I would suggest its the latter.
For some reason I just had the vision of myself as a child holding a GI Joe...with my huge hands powerfully gripping the GI Joe's waist securing it and anchoring it down even though its legs are spread out and unsteady. I think that's why I liked playing with GI Joes, I could control everything from their storyline to their movements.
Sometimes I forget that there is someone holding me like that. And when I forget about those secure hands I feel like I am on that train watching the world flicker before my eyes wanting to escape into myself and over the cliff.
In the movie, Howard Hughes nearly dies, his plane crashes, he is literally burning and he says desperately to some guy rescuing him "Howard Hughes the Aviator" - I had to rewind the DVD a couple times to understand it....
That really struck me hard. That is his soul speaking...his being, his identity...that’s who he is searching to be, to be known for, that’s what he wants to be written on his tombstone.
If I were dying right now, what would I say?
Jordan Ross the ______?
What would you say? You you the ______?
I am still on that seesaw teetering between the moving train and the platform somewhere between sanity and insanity...
somewhere between laziness and ambition.......somewhere between luke-warmness and passion.....
somewhere between the mundane and the adventure......somewhere between single and married....somewhere between satisfied and incomplete, somewhere between wanting to sacrifice and wanting comfort
somewhere between the real me and my ideal.

This brings me to the song....One Song Glory...oh to capture my soul within the beauty of one song....when I first heard this song it enraptured me because it was someone trying to capture their soul within the lyrics and rhythm of one song. I wish you could hear it. I will figure out a way to play it. Lyrics will have to suffice for now.

This song is sung by a young man hanging in the balance teetering between this world and the next....all found within his own heart. The name of the musical is Rent. Its appropriate, he is only renting his time on earth. Renting his body. Renting the love that he has...that he expends and searches for. He too knows what it means to yearn for the eternal even though he may not be able to surmise it to that conclusion.

One song
Glory
One song
Before I go
Glory
One song to leave behind
Find one song
One last refrain
Glory
From the pretty boy front man
Who wasted opportunity
One song
He had the world at his feet
Glory
In the eyes of a young girl
A young girl
Find glory
Beyond the cheap colored lights
One song
Before the sun sets
Glory -- on another empty life
Time flies -- time dies
Glory -- One blaze of glory
One blaze of glory -- glory
Find
Glory
In a song that rings true
Truth like a blazing fire
An eternal flame
Find
One song
A song about love
Glory
From the soul of a young man
A young man
Find
The one song
Before the virus takes hold
Glory
Like a sunset
One song
To redeem this empty life
Time flies
And then - no need to endure anymore
Time dies

Puerto Rico Revisited

2005-05-25T11:17:00.000-05:00

Here are some highlighted Puerto Rico Pics from my March Trip this year. It's the third time I've been down there and I absolutely love it. The sights are great but having my best friends there and all my Puerto Rican friends there makes it even better. Suffice it to say the counseling classes I take there are lifechanging as well.
Just click on "Play Flix". Make sure you have the volume up. You can also click on the pictures you like to see a larger image and even post a comment to each one.

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The Home Concept

2005-05-19T13:51:00.000-05:00

Coming Home

Andrew: "You know that point in your life when the house you grew up in isn't your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you had some place where you put your stuff, that idea of home is gone."
Samantha:"I still feel at home in my house"
Andrew: "You'll see one day when you move out. It just sort of happens one day, and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesnt even exist. Maybe its like this rite of passage, you know?
You won't ever have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself. You know,for-- For your kids. For the family you start. Its like a cycle or something. I dont know. But I miss the idea of it, you know? Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."
Samantha: "Maybe."

This dialogue was taken from the movie Garden State. There is some truth in those lines and some very relatable sentiment. The reason I mention this is because two weekends ago I went back home to Chattanooga for a short visit. I decided to surprise my family and my mom in particular for Mothers day. It was a smashing success and my family have said they will always remember the shock of the surprise. (My dad acted like he saw a ghost and took a double take, my little sis jumped in my arms and my mom cried!)

The temperature outside me was rising as I drove farther into Dixie and my heart started rising with excitement as well. I love my city. I love my friends. I love my family. I love my home. Mere words would not do justice to the emotions of my heart. The whole weekend I felt a sense of privilege for being able to walk amongst the familiar things of home; from walking around my house to walking with friends in old stomping grounds. On the surface the air was alive with the joy of being home and it penetrated deep within my heart but it somehow intermingled there playfully with those haunting flames fanning the very concepts that Andrew from Garden State had verbalized.
I had seen the movie before but I watched it again later after my return to Baltimore and I felt like what he mentioned had grasped some parallel truths that I had experienced that weekend. It wasn’t a new truth but one magnified due to the fact that I actually do live far from “home” now. My family will always be home to me. And Chattanooga will always be my home. And the friends and people I know there will always contribute to that sense of home.
But as I enjoyed every minute of my stay back home, in my parent’s house, with my family, with my friends, with my city, there was still this underlying current that ran through me longing for something deeper yet. My parent’s house no longer felt like home. It was a place where I put my things for a while. I had felt this before as a college graduate when I went back home for a short while and I felt it again as I visited home.

One night after spending some quality time with close friends I started feeling bitter that I didn’t have such an extensive network of friends in Baltimore. Then it dawned on me that I had spent my first several months in Baltimore feeling hurt and upset because I didn't have the type of fellowship I wanted. Rather than feeling sorry for myself with the prospect of returning to Baltimore I decided to thank the Lord for the friends I had and for the opportunity I had to see them that weekend. I was operating from a totally ungrateful worldview when it came to what I wanted in my social scene. (Since returning I have taken ownership of my new “home” and enjoyed the friends that I do have here without the slightest trace of dissatisfaction but rather with a whole new sense of appreciation and enjoyment)
Perhaps those thoughts led to the next epiphany I had further down the road on that same car drive home. This thought captured me quite vividly: that I really desired to start my own home, with my own house, with my own kids, with my own family. (This is without seeing the movie) It was a very sharp thought and desire that struck me and it made me happy to think about it.
All this to say; Andrew Largeman, the character from the movie Garden State, had struck at some very good truth. We all have a concept of home and an undeniable and unexplainable feeling and desire for home. He claims that perhaps family is tied together in that search for the imaginary thing called home.

Well, Hollywood is touching something true but it hasn’t dug deep enough yet.
Home is not an imaginary concept, it’s not the search for home that defines the meaning.
Home is a universal longing we all search for.
As the saying goes, “home is where your heart is”, that’s true too but what if your heart isn’t satisfied with home? What if you return and realize that house you grew up in doesn’t make you feel at home anymore? What if that cycle turns and you establish your family and have your kids and build your home and yet somehow that home you have established still leaves you longing for something more?
The simple truth is, you will always be searching for something more. For a home that will make you feel welcome at last and satisfy that desire to rest in a familiar place.

Later in the movie, Andrew Largeman, finds his home. As he holds the girl he has met and fallen in love with he says the following, “When I’m with you I feel so safe. Like I’m home.” Everyone who knows me knows I am a romantic at heart and I want to be able to say that line someday too. And when I have a wife and family and a cute little house in my little nook of the woods that even though I may feel at home and I may feel safe and on the surface the air will be alive with the joy of being home and it will penetrate deep within my soul, it will ultimately intermingle there playfully with those haunting flames fanning me to someone bigger than myself, bigger than my wife, my kids, my house, my home…..He will be calling me to an eternal home where my longing will finally and completely be met.

Reflections on fasting 30 hours with my Youth Group

2005-05-05T11:25:00.000-05:00

After a weekend of Fasting, this is how I felt.

Yeah.....In case you ever wanted to know what its like to fast for 30 hours while trying to coordinate the whole event for a youth group, well here is your chance!
That pic is suppose to represent how I felt at the end of the whole thing. If you can tell by looking at the pic, my face is kinda gnarled like an old oak tree, kinda like the face Calvin (Not John Calvin, but from Calvin and Hobbes, perhaps John Calvin when preaching through Leviticus) would make when eating some kinda of pea casserole. (I picked peas, because I hate peas, there just small mushy things with no taste, I don't get the appeal)
In any case, my face is gnarled, kinda like my stomach after eating oreo cookies and mountain dew on an barren stomach. My stomach told my head, "Woh, hey head, what's this moron thinking? How about you make him lightheaded and dizzy. That will stop him from throwing down all that junk."
And it did.
I had to take a break for a minute or two before I went back to the lighter food of chicken soup, cheese and milk. Apparently that stuff is better for you after having not eaten for a while. And I thought I wanted a steak with a loaded baked potato. If I had that I would have been on the floor with the world spinning overhead.
Thats actually what I did have before the famine started on Friday. I ordered an 8 once Sirlion from Chili's and because I had no one to eat with, I got it to go and ate it in the parking lot in my car. Whenever someone pulled up next to me I would close the to-go lid and pretend I was reading the newspaper that was in my lap.
I dont know why I did that, I guess I thought it a little odd to be eating a steak in my Jeep at 11:45 am so I didn't want all those curious peeping Tom's to see me stuffing myself; as if they really cared.
So those snippets were the bookends of my 30 hour fasting story.
Now for the middle. I feel like a Charlie Kauffman film.

Youth Group started at 7 but the prep work for the weekend had taken a couple of days. I spent about 3 hours on Thursday scrounging around dumpters looking for large pieces of cardboard. I would pull my Jeep close enough to the dumpster to hide my endeavor from view of all those interested onlookers I was so worried about. My odd oddessy finally found me half way inside a dumpster behind a TV/Stereo store. The only problem is I couldn't both reach for the bottom dwelling cardboard pieces and cover my nose at the same time. That stench remained with me almost as long as my hunger pains.
Let me remind you, this was prep work for the weekend, not an eccentric hobby.
The idea was that I was going to have the kids play a game where they build shelters out of cardboard boxes using masking tape and then have them divide up into "tribes",(a way of having them relate to their World Vision African identity cards they were to be given), and then take turns trying to knock eachothers shelter down with a ball. It was a great idea and probably would have been a hit with the kids but we ended up scratching it due to lack of time.
So there is a behind a scenes look at the event that never was! You know, like a DVD option to view "deleted scenes" that never made it to the movie.

Another behind the scenes snippet: I text messaged a friend on Friday afternoon with this quote,"You would never guess in a million years what I am doing right now. I am putting wild bird seed in brand new hanes crew socks." If you weren't there on Friday night, then you wouldn't understand. What happens in Youth Group, Stays in Youth Group. If your really interested in my seed socks then ask me about it.

Friday night- everyone starts to arrive. Much like right now, my stomach was hurting. (Its 1 pm and I haven't eaten yet. I am such a lazy consumer of food, last night I decided to order pizza at 9:45 pm)
The lesson went well. I still have no clue if I am teaching the right way or not.
We had worship time, led by Aisquith's youth leaders Andrew and Larry. I have always loved worship time and could "sing of his love forever". I think thats why God didnt give me a good voice and musical ability, because I love it so much. If I had been good at it I probably would have been selfish with it and become too proudful. Yet Heaven awaits me and my new voice will hopefully sound more like a morning lark than a crow. (I like crows by the way)
Suffice it to say, I enjoyed the worship time and I am praying that we are able to get someone(s) to come lead it every week.
Eventually we went to bed. I brought my two single mattresses from home because I am pretty anal about my sleep. Initially I wanted one of them to be for me. But as I heaved them into my Jeep I was thinking I ought to be generous and offer them to my leaders. To make a long story short, I ended up with one anyway even though I tried to pawn them off on my leaders. Don't really know if that outcome was just circumstantial or God just patting me on the back for obeying Him in my desire to display generosity. I think they go hand in hand.
The morning was what I was excited about. I was going to wake the boys up with songs from musicals! It was hard to fall asleep with all the built up excitment in me, it was like the night before Christmas. The early morning air was as peaceful as Switzerland when I invaded with my German made stereo and cracked that quiet air with the song "Good Morning" by Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly from Singing in the Rain. I am not ashamed to admit that I really like that song. I thought that the guys would appreciate a good song too.
A couple more thoughts:
Later we divided the youth group in two for a service project. One went to the Christian Community Center and my group went to the Helping Up Mission.
Three guys gave their testimony. All were drug users and dealers at one point. One guy had spent 10 years in jail and had been shot three seperate times. During his testimony he proceeded to take off his hooded sweater, (he had a wifebeater on underneath) and as he flexed his huge guns, he showed us these gnarled white scars up and down his arms from heroine use. This guy had a story.
And the coolest part was that it was God saved him from that story. And he had great theology and understanding of the gospel and his quoting of the scripture convicted me of my inability to do the same.
Back in the car on the way home I asked the kids what they thought, they sayed the place smelled. It did. It was just a funny first impression. The smell reminded me of my time on the Mercy Ship. Just an old place with odd odors wafting and lingering around the air. Following your nose in the different smells was like swimming in a lake going from warm spots to cold spots. (Thats always a weird feeling)
I also decided to talk about food on the way back. You know, kinda rub in the fact that were fasting, to face it and verbalize the experience. I asked them this question, "If you could eat anything in the world right now what would it be?" As the kids were describing the food my mouth was salivating like Pavlov's dog.
The hilarious thing, in a sad kind of way, was that each kid named a fast food joint!
I couldn't believe it, Mcdonalds, Burger King and Chick-Fil-A ranked as the top choices of food for an empty stomach. Just goes to show we live in a fast food generation.
We got back to the church and we decided to create a handprints banner to hang up in the sanctuary. 29,000 is the number of kids that die each day from hunger. We thought we would create a visual for that number, because numbers get lost in translation. Each fingerprint on the handprint would represent one child. To do this each kid would have to make 400 handprints. We ran out of paper and paint. So we only got about 11,800 fingerprints. It still made quite the impression both with us and with the church members on Sunday morning.
I also think the kids liked doing it because they could slap their goopy hands on paper, mimicking the game Hungry Hungry Hippos.
And that about brings us to the break-fast dinner on Saturday night. We blessed the food, we ate, we went home, we went to bed.
We had accomplished something and hopefully that weekend will stay with us. Our lessons focused on the idea of creating a "Life Preparedness Kit". From all the different events of the weekend I feel better prepared to follow Christ in the everyday business of living. From understanding hunger to appreciating scripture memorization, I came out of the event prepared to engage life with a little more refined purpose than before.

2005-04-20T16:44:00.000-05:00

Depth is more than a principle of Art; Depth is where we should wade daily.

Extreme Makeover

2005-04-20T16:12:00.000-05:00

"Extreme Makeover: Transforming hearts in a changing world", was the title of a Youth Conference Conference that the Jeff, Amy and I attended 2 weeks ago. The question presented to us: "Do we simply try to sell Jesus like a marketing rep? Like someone trying to sell vacuum cleaners? Or do we allow Jesus to touch the whole of our lives each day and as a result genuinely try to touch others for Christ?"

Before we can engage another person's heart whether it be family, friend, a stranger, a child or a student, we must first be aware of what is going on and ruling our own hearts.

There is a big difference between asking someone how they’re doing and actually caring about the answer.

I saw a young man in the mall once that had a T-shirt that had these words on the front "People always tell me to stop drinking.." and on the back the phrase ended with, "But no one ever asks me about my thirst."
Today's culture (MEANING= The world we live in everyday! Even our lives!) is built around trying to avoid the real questions. Avoid that void, the pain, the hurt.
Why can't we be more enticed to see someone’s soul? To really be in tune with someones heart?
Culture today lives for comfort and escapism and we wonder why were apathetic and indifferent.
We should change our motto from "Land of the Free, to the, Land of the Numb".
We can create ourselves island paradises if we have the right supplies.
(TV's, DVDs, music, espresso machines, laptops, video games, nice cars, the right relationships, the cool shoes, the high position at work or church)
This was the idea Hugh Grant presented in the opening scenes of the movie, "About a Boy", the last line of that whole montage said the following,"...like all island dwellers you often have to visit the mainland."
How often have we visited the mainland of our hearts? How often do we break out of this state of anesthesia and enter into another persons world and actually touch them?

As Brad Pitt says in Fight Club, "We're the middle children of history.... no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." We associate with this quote, with this movie, or at least I did because we feel lost in this culture that says that we live for ourselves. At least those people back when had something to fight for, to fight against, right?
Nope...today we are simply trying to escape reality and enjoy every fake minute of it. We are self-absorbed, living somewhere between depressed and happy and never simply content.
Turn off your TV's, your palm pilots, your cell phones, your video games, your computers for one night and face the quiet.
How does it feel?
Do you feel lonely? At a loss for what to do? Why do we always have to have something entertain us? Because it numbs us from the reality that we need something greater than ourselves. If we occupy our time then we don’t have to worry about the reality of life. That it is lonely without God, without a relationship with Christ.
When life gets hard, the dating scene seems old, your children wont behave, your spouse annoys you, your job is depressing, your dog dies, whatever..turning to the numbing agents of TV, computers, cell phones, and video games feel empty don't they? They dont quite satisfy during those rough times. {As a side note- So we eventually turn to bigger self pleasers...bar scenes, clubs, relationships, drugs, wealth and whatever else}
I'm not saying to turn into a monk and throw away all your posessions, but be aware of what culture says is important, be aware of what you turn to when you feel lonely and empty.
Turn away from the thin things that this consumeristic culture has put in our lives and turn to the thick promises and security found in a relationship greater than ourselves, a relationship with Jesus.
And as a follower of Jesus the next time you bump into someone and ask them how they're doing....care.
Show them the love of Christ. Crush them with love!

My introduction Audio Post

2005-04-13T20:07:00.000-05:00

The Dawn Treader

2005-04-13T15:00:00.000-05:00

The Dawn Treader

Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one
Wisdom -- - the truth! -- - "All day the good glad sun
Showers love and labour on you, wine and song;
The greenwood laughs, the wind blows, all day long
Till night." And night ends all things.
Then shall be
No lamp relumed in heaven, no voices crying,
Or changing lights, or dreams and forms that hover!
(And, heart, for all your sighing,
That gladness and those tears are over, over. . . .)

And has the truth brought no new hope at all,
Heart, that you're weeping yet for Paradise?
Do they still whisper, the old weary cries?
"'Mid youth and song, feasting and carnival,
Through laughter, through the roses, as of old
Comes Death, on shadowy and relentless feet,
Death, unappeasable by prayer or gold;
Death is the end, the end!"
Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet
Death as a friend!

Exile of immortality, strongly wise,
Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes
To what may lie beyond it. Sets your star,
O heart, for ever! Yet, behind the night,
Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,
Some white tremendous daybreak. And the light,
Returning, shall give back the golden hours,
Ocean a windless level, Earth a lawn
Spacious and full of sunlit dancing-places,
And laughter, and music, and, among the flowers,
The gay child-hearts of men, and the child-faces
O heart, in the great dawn!

Written by a great lover of life-Rupert Brooke. Died during the Great War at age 27.

A Pilgrim's Journey

Endless Summer

Former Radical Muslim Speaks Out

Grover Cleveland

Letters from a Nut

Blood Diamond

Why I don't always write.

Shine On!

Merry Christmas!

Nesting.

Babies Being Killed for Stem Cells.

Family Guy-peanut butter jelly time

Rosie O'Donnell states radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam. What is radical?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pains of Democracy*

Another Reason to Vote Republican.

QuickPost from FotoFlix

QuickPost from FotoFlix

Pictures & 80's Nostalgia

Marriage Bliss.

"I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the Earth." Isa 58:14

Zombie, Shirt, Tie, Road, Turtle

"It puzzles me how humans never seem to allow room for change and growth."

Impression Reports from Trip to Jordan

Jerusalem Revisited

The Da Vinci Code Discussed.

Navy Corpsman’s Good Works Live On

Gadhafi: Islam taking over Europe

Life in Saudia Arabia

More Questions about Islam: Patrick Sookdheo Speaks.

More Demotivators

Effort.

The Time is Short

Picture of the Day

The Islamic Doctrine of War: Jihad

Happy Easter

Why do we blog?

The Great Lover.

Amazing Juggler

Those Christians - A letter written in.....

You Take Me Back.

A poema pro meus diligo.

Did we really need further proof Hollywood is full of kooks?

V is for Vendetta and for Voluptuously Vainly Leftist Propaganda

Jessica is Baltimore Bound

Random Quotes

Jesus- the Ultimate Counselor.

Wise people amaze me.

Jordan and Jessica Update

Jordan and Jessica

I posted yesterday too.

"I have a blog?"

UnRetreat!

Here's Joorddaaan!!

Where's Jordan Been?

The Doctrine of Impassibility

The dual capacity of Christ. (Does God Suffer?)

Does God Suffer?

Evil Canevil Jordan Style

Blue eyed boy meets a brown eyed girl

Quick thought on fun.

Photo's of the Day

To Sleep or not to Sleep?

Because God has made it plain to them

Archiving Quotes & Thoughts

Old Journal Entry

The Boxer Rebellion

Divine

Saints and Soldiers

Settling Accounts and Discovering Johnny Cash

Archiving Quotes and Thoughts for your thorough Enjoyment

Helping those in China

The Season of Tranquility and Serenity

Highlights of China

The Untold Truth About China Revealed.

Hello Banana?

Observations about China

Great Wall

Tiananmen Square is around the corner

China here I come