Done with grading.

For this whole school year.

Forever.

Thank you God!

"If previous generations haven't held on to every single human being they've met since kindergarten, then why do many of us seem to feel the need to do so today?Shouldn't some of our relationships slip away so that others can thrive?" -Meredith Whitmore

Good question - any response facebook?

I can't believe

that I graded the last research paper of the school year.

Thank you, God!

Dumb: A meditation on the folly of hunger

"I'm board!" cried the prodigal, surrounded by work in the home and fields. So he went to his father and practically wished him dead in asking for dough to spend now. His father, however, complied knowing that such reasoning couldn't be reasoned with.

"I'm limited and confined here," growled he who had status and opportunity waiting at his door. So he slammed that door on his way to the station, only pausing to ensure that he had a good list of casinos and hotels in hand.

"I'm freeee!" he shouted as cash flowed like oil, not realizing the irony at hand: that far from independently choosing expenses, each gold piece went to such predictable ends.

"I'm done for," he whispered as the last door shut on him, alone in a land where friends melted like daydreams. So he wandered the streets begging for something to do, anything but think about the life he had squandered.

"I'll eat them" I wept (now the real hero comes forth) as I looked at the dead corn husks in my hand. The shame was bitter, but nothing compared to the void in my middle that howled to be filled. Oh, what I wouldn't do to satisfy up the emptiness.

"I'm starving!" I cried in a final burst of lamentation. "I'm filthy! I'm empty! I'm ugly! I'm lost! Here I've been starving the last few weeks, and oh so willing to blame You, Father, for a failure to feed me, when I see now that it's been my mouth that was clamped shut to Your provision all this time." And as I looked from pigs to husk and back again the light finally broke...

This is nuts. I am nuts. All the ravings of every lunatic in history could not be more inane. Here I am by my own volition starving to death in a pigpen simply because I was to rushed, or stressed, or busy to eat at the table that was set all along. This is bonkers. Daft. Balmy. In a word,

dumb.

Good bye, corn husks,

I'm going home.

This post written by a professor at the RPTS seminary made me want to cry. It talks about a rare disease which dramatically accelerates the effects of aging in its victims - the children who are born with it die by around age 13 from heart attacks or strokes. But it was the pictures of a little boy with that curious mixture of three-year-old charm and withered decrepitude that got me.

This isn't right! I thought. And I believe that 'down in our gut' as humans we know that things just shouldn't be this way. Such decay and death is all messed up - a world made very good turned upside down. But amidst this helpless frustration my mind went over to another cry, a voice that assures that it will not always be this way - some day all the twisted lots in life will finally be straightened, never again to bend:

"For behold, I create new heavens

and a new earth,

and the former things shall not be remembered

or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

in that which I create;

for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,

and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

and be glad in my people;

no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping

and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it

an infant who lives but a few days,

or an old man who does not fill out his days,

for the young man shall die a hundred years old,

and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain

or bear children for calamity,

for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD,

and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;

while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;

the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

and dust shall be the serpent’s food.

They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain,"

says the LORD.

quote of the day

"Anyone who is used of God is just living proof that God still speaks through rocks and donkeys. That's about all you can say about it."

-Paul Washer

any way the wind blows...

Happy April 1st everybody...

Praise the Lord

I'm getting married!!!

:D

paper due in two hours and I've got writer's block

phooey

:/

What a [week!] this has been, what a rare mood I'm in,

why it's almost like being in love...

;D

and when I sat down at my computer I thought...

today I wish I could change the world.

sometimes

I would like to post in purple

the good life

I'm over in Kokomo again this morning, and while I was putting around with homework I noticed I'm following the hobbit schedule today (in timing if not in portion size):

8:00 a.m. - breakfast, one poptart with coffee

9:45 - second breakfast, granola bar

10:00 - morning tea, earl grey... hot

11:00 - elevensies, hot soup and pretzels

We'll see whether my afternoon schedule mirrors the morning, but my tummy can't complain about the steady trickle of goodness that it's receiving. The hobbit schedule? It's the good life

oh the mahogany goodness

of coffee

=

new day

Hello world, it's Saturday! And let me tell you, if you ever have the chance to wake up to adorable kids and eat a breakfast of hot french toast and coffee...

take it!

to be perfectly honest

I wish that we lived in a society where juice was free.

It's such wonderful stuff, can't it be something that anyone can enjoy any time?

ahh, juice...

Isn't it the bomb?!

man

God is so good.

woof

Well, I figure peeps haven't really commented since 2009 (I know you're out there you secret readers!) then I'll just up and put something

like...

a shark vs. octopus fight.

classy.

culture gap

In grad group we've been reading an insightful book called Culture Making that exhorts us to not just react to "the Culture" (whatever that is) but to be willing to make culture ourselves, everything from sugar cookies to symphonies to, yes, student papers about pot holes. The book even has a website where readers can join the discussion and where writers dig up videos such as this one, exemplifying the fact that, well, some new culture takes a little while to get used to.

I love watching the Olympics. And I can honestly say that I nearly salivated at the thought of enjoying the treat yet again when the 2010 Winter Olympics begin next month. Yet if there's anything that can kill my zest for enjoying a spectacle (even a potentially awe-inspiring and God-glorifying spectacle like the Olympics) it's the knowledge that human lives might've been demeaned, trampled, or ignored somewhere in the process. It was only after the Olympics in 2008 that I began learning of the downright mess of justice that happens in some parts of China. Now, a year and half later, I guess I somehow assumed that a good ol' North American first world country could of course host an international sports event without all the injustice and oppression.

Well buggers. Here we go again.

Vancouver apparently has issues. This article highlights some of the current tensions that are coming to a head this month. Yet it was this article, written three years ago, that really caught my attention while surfing. Far from reducing it's relevance, I believe that the oldness of the article (in news terms at least) actually works in it's favor in this case.

The closer people draw to an event, the more heightened their emotions get about it, both for and against. But to get a real sense of the way things have been for the locals in Vancouver it seems that a more temporally distant perspective is needed, and that second post provides it. It doesn't claim to be an unbiased take of the matter but then let's be honest, is there such a thing as a wholly unbiased take of anything? Mmm, probably not. In any case, it's a sobering enough look at the situation in Vancouver to make me question whether I want to be involved (even as a "passive" viewer) with the Winter Olympics at all.

Of course, a sport is never just a sport, political baggage and the fallen world in general continue to work against anything true, good, or beautiful. Even the wondrous feats of wonderful creatures made in God's very image, something that should be so exhilarating to behold, just has to get mired down in injustice, oppression, and the cheeping of those very same wonderful creatures. Alas, fallen world!

So perhaps I'll be tuning in next month when the games begin, or perhaps not. But both aspects of Olympic games in this world, both the glory and the shame, leave me hungering for more. For a day when excellence and mercy walk hand and hand together, when God's people soar, not on wings of plastic and steel but on rapturous limbs of bodies made new. Then we will run and leap and dance for joy that both our bodies and our souls are finally fit for the eternal exhilaration of heaven.