you are not hardcore

until you have tried


captain crunch






in five day old









coffee.



















it makes eating cereal.... interesting

... captions?

Pied Beauty

Something a bit different this morning. We're wrapping up my Victorian Literature class with a look at some of the period's poetry. A bit of a shame since this stuff is so fun. I was assigned a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. His name sounded vaguely familiar, but it still gave me those shivers that only curiously worded Victorian names can give you (oh don't snort out there in the back, you know that you have shivered over long 19th century names at least once in your life!!!).

Aaaanywho. I actually had my eye on another poet, so I was a bit bummed when I got this fellow; however, Pied Beauty also sounded vaguely familiar so I held my breath...

Turns out this fellow is brilllllllliant! The things he did with language were amazing, specially for a guy who didn't always feel that poetry was really his proper calling! Apparently he invented his own mini version of the sonnet, called the curtal sonnet (11 lines instead of 14), and he thought he'd share it with us mathematically like this:
.
!¡!¡!¡!
Yea, that's what I said.

Anywho, Pied Beauty is a treat, and since it's only 11 lines long I give it here for your pleasure:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

And, for a parting shot, wanna have your head blown off by this one? (pun intended :P)
try reading it aloud, it's ten times funner (I include this word for Amy's enjoyment...) that way

The Windhover
To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,	5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion	10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Walking worthy

We were meeting with Mr. York on campus yesterday and I believe all got some comfort an encouragement. We kindof shared how we struggle with scheduling, how to spend quality time with the Lord while still being faithful to our studies (and our families… and our friends… and maybe work…).

Anywho, he told us one thing that was a comfort to him when he was working through these same things in college was just the idea of walking with the Lord. The fact that, yes, we do need to spend concentrated times of worship every day – be in prayer or in the Word, even if it’s really short, but there’s something more too. Mr. York called it ‘practicing the presence of the Lord’ even while we’re just doing the daily activities of life. Christ is the center of our lives whether we’re reading our Bible, or studying for anatomy, or spending time with a friend (or hey, even making our bed in the morning). He hears us, loves us, and cares for us even when we’re not talking directly to Him, so we can treasure up a sense of His presence really at every waking moment (if you think about it) because that’s when He’s with us.

Well the reason all that came into my head at 6:30 this morning was because of a meditation out of Piper’s Taste and See: Savoring the supremacy of God in all of Life that I was reading. One quote seemed to ring a bell with what Mr. York was saying. Piper was talking about the phrase “worthy of” in the New Testament, and he quoted a couple of verses:

“Walk worthy of the Lord, to please Him” (Col 1:10 emphasis added). and then

“Without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb 11:16)

Then he adds:

So think this way. Not: I must have faith and love so as to be worth God’s favor; But rather: God’s favor is free and it is infinitely worth trusting. Walking worthy of that favor means walking by faith because faith is the one thing that agrees with (and fits) our bankruptcy and God’s infinite “worth.” Looking to God’s infinite worth for our help and satisfaction is “walking worthy of God.”

Set your minds on this greatness. Savor the incomparable trustworthiness of God’s promises. Ponder what acts will fit with this. And then rise up and be doing – “worthily of the Lord.”

A prayer for our Church

by John Piper (article here)

O Lord, by the truth of your Word, and the power of your Spirit and the ministry of your body, build men and women at Bethlehem . . .

• Who don't love the world more than God,
• who don't care if they make much money,
• who don't care if they own a house,
• who don't care if they have a new car or two cars,
• who don't need recent styles,
• who don't care if they get famous,
• who don't miss steak or fancy fare,
• who don't expect that life should be comfortable and easy,
• who don't feed their minds on TV each night,
• who don't measure truth with their finger in the wind,
• who don't get paralyzed by others' disapproval,
• who don't return evil for evil,
• who don't hold grudges,
• who don't gossip,
• who don't twist the truth,
• who don't brag or boast,
• who don't whine or use body language to get pity,
• who don't criticize more than praise,
• who don't hang out in cliques,
• who don't eat too much or exercise too little;

But

• who are ablaze for God,
• who are utterly God-besotted,
• who are filled with the Holy Spirit,
• who strive to know the height and depth of Christ's love,
• who are crucified to the world and dead to sin,
• who are purified by the Word and addicted to righteousness,
• who are mighty in memorizing and using the Scriptures,
• who keep the Lord's Day holy and refreshing,
• who are broken by the consciousness of sin,
• who are thrilled by the wonder of free grace,
• who are stunned into humble silence by the riches of God's glory,
• who are persevering constantly in prayer,
• who are ruthless in self-denial,
• who are fearless in public witness to Christ's Lordship,
• who are able to unmask error and blow away doctrinal haze,
• who are tough in standing for the truth,
• who are tender in touching hurting people,
• who are passionate about reaching the peoples who have no church,
• who are pro-life for the sake of babies and moms and dads and the glory of God,
• who are keepers of all their promises, including marriage vows,
• who are content with what they have and trusting the promises of God,
• who are patient and kind and meek when life is hard.

Pressing for all there is in Christ,

Pastor John

when my heart is faint;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I
psalm 61:2

You have been looking in google for far too long when your image searches for Silas Marner come up with this:

















someone please explain this to me.

you know you want one

Led unto Christ

Read this, it's balm on the soul.

“If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”

Galatians 5:18

He who looks at his own character and position from a legal point of view, will not only despair when he comes to the end of his reckoning, but if he be a wise man he will despair at the beginning; for if we are to be judged on the footing of the law, there shall no flesh living be justified. How blessed to know that we dwell in the domains of grace and not of law! When thinking of my state before God the question is not, “Am I perfect in myself before the law?” but, “Am I perfect in Christ Jesus?” That is a very different matter. We need not enquire, “Am I without sin naturally?” but, “Have I been washed in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness?” It is not “Am I in myself well pleasing to God?” but it is “Am I accepted in the Beloved?” The Christian views his evidences from the top of Sinai, and grows alarmed concerning his salvation; it were better far if he read his title by the light of Calvary.

“Why,” saith he, “my faith has unbelief in it, it is not able to save me.” Suppose he had considered the object of his faith instead of his faith, then he would have said, “There is no failure in him, and therefore I am safe.” He sighs over his hope: “Ah! my hope is marred and dimmed by an anxious carefulness about present things; how can I be accepted?” Had he regarded the ground of his hope, he would have seen that the promise of God standeth sure, and that whatever our doubts may be, the oath and promise never fail.

Ah! believer, it is safer always for you to be led of the Spirit into gospel liberty than to wear legal fetters. Judge yourself at what Christ is rather than at what you are. Satan will try to mar your peace by reminding you of your sinfulness and imperfections: you can only meet his accusations by faithfully adhering to the gospel and refusing to wear the yoke of bondage.

The unsearchable riches of Christ

Haven't posted in a while, and since school started this week (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooo) don't see too much posting in my future either.

But I know exactly what I want to put on tonight. An exherpt from Evening by Evening by C.H. Spurgeon, another good friend of mine.

“The unsearchable riches of Christ"

Ephesians 3:8

"My Master has riches beyond the count of arithmetic, the measurement of reason, the dream of imagination, or the eloquence of words. They are unsearchable! You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater Saviour than you think him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest. My Lord is more ready to pardon than you to sin, more able to forgive than you to transgress. My Master is more willing to supply your wants than you are to confess them. Never tolerate low thoughts of my Lord Jesus. When you put the crown on his head, you will only crown him with silver when he deserves gold.

My Master has riches of happiness to bestow upon you now. He can make you to lie down in green pastures, and lead you beside still waters. There is no music like the music of his pipe, when he is the Shepherd and you are the sheep, and you lie down at his feet.There is no love like his, neither earth nor heaven can match it. To know Christ and to be found in him—oh! this is life, this is joy, this is marrow and fatness, wine on the lees well refined. My Master does not treat his servants churlishly; he gives to them as a king giveth to a king; he gives them two heavens—a heaven below in serving him here, and a heaven above in delighting in him for ever.

His unsearchable riches will be best known in eternity. He will give you on the way to heaven all you need; your place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks, your bread shall be given you, and your waters shall be sure; but it is there, there, where you shall hear the song of them that triumph, the shout of them that feast, and shall have a face-to-face view of the glorious and beloved One. The unsearchable riches of Christ! This is the tune for the minstrels of earth, and the song for the harpers of heaven. Lord, teach us more and more of Jesus, and we will tell out the good news to others."

Amen, come Lord Jesus.

I want so bad

to read C.S. Lewis again.

Ever get that urge? Want your brain stretched out and your insides washed?

And yet... I read the Bible every day, how shallow my soul must be.

Thou, Lord, dost show mercy; forgiving Thou art;
Abundant Thy kindness and love
To all those who sincerely upon theyy do call.
My voice, Lord, attend from above
Ps 86:5-6

Somebody to be

Finding myself in possession of the house I…

(throw everyone’s pillows around)

(sneak onto computers and change email passwords)

(switch each bag of chips into a different bag)

no, I read Andrée Seu’s Normal Kingdom Business.

At the risk of violating all sorts of copyright laws and being chunked into prison for the rest of my days, I wanted to share one of her articles with you. Don't think I got all of it the first time through, but there was a blessing in it, in the end (you watch that with her, she makes your head work). She describes some of my inner struggles (read: faults) and turns the topic to a Savior who day by day is equally gracious unto me.

Be somebody

Find affirmation in Christ or spend a lifetime in terror of standing outside the “local ring”

| Andrée Seu

I look at women. It's a bad habit and I have to stop. I'm a woman myself, and this is not a lust thing, not in the common sense of the word. I cast surreptitious glances at my gender passing on the street to see where I fit in the hierarchy of being. I derive assurance from homeliness and terror from beauty. I grade on a curve. There, I'm as shallow as that.

When you don't have an internal sense of Self, you need an external—and a constant supply of it. You're condemned to roam the earth a parasite. The restless spirits of Matthew 12 go through waterless places and have no peace until they find a host. They do not exist apart from this.

If you tell me I am something, I am something. But you'd better say it every day, or at least once a week, because I've become a junkie for your praise, and my kingdom is in constant danger of overthrow. Your affirmation feeds my Self.

This is not different from what goes on in hell. The junior demon Wormwood, recipient of formally affectionate but vaguely disturbing correspondence, finally asks point blank if his Uncle loves him. "Love you?" comes the reply. "Why, yes. As dainty a morsel as I ever grew fat on." Screwtape's final communique, after the mission has gone badly, and the velvet glove is shed, is signed, "Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle."

We are all in need of a Self, of being somebody with respect to an outside source of approval. It is not as if there are people who need to be affirmed and other people who don't. It's just a matter of which reference you elect to heed. No one is ultimate enough in himself to be his own final integration point.

In 1944 C.S. Lewis gave the Memorial Lecture at the University of London's King's College. Of all the charges he might have given the eager young scholars, he warned against desiring to be in "the inner ring." "I believe that in all men's lives at certain periods, and in many men's lives at all periods . . . , one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local ring and the terror of being left outside." Lewis adds, "Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life. . . . Any other kind of life, if you lead it, will be the result of conscious and continuous effort."

Or, failing your "conscious and continuous effort," the Lord, in His mercy, will send a storm into your life. Now when your lover leaves you, and you have a strong sense of your value in Christ, it hurts a lot. When your lover leaves you and you have a shaky sense of your value in Christ, you suffer identity destruction.

Jesus met a woman at the well who had had five husbands. I would guess she had Self issues. I would say she was a hollow in search of filling. Jesus wanted to fill her. He said, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water" (John 4:10).

Perhaps all lusts are corruptions of good desires. Before "sin, the flesh, and the devil" got a hold of us in Eden, we desired (and we had) sweet intimacy with the Lord—and because of that, with each other. His love, and the assurance of it, were the wellspring from which to bathe our neighbors in nurturing, the hub of a solid soul from which spokes of ministry and not manipulation emanated.

Intimacy is not a secondary agenda of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. The salvation these wrought were a salvation into the sweet lovemaking of the eternal Trinity. Being somebody, being affirmed, delighted in, held in close embrace, are where reality began and where it all goes to.

Acceptance is tendered: "I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it" (Revelation 2:17). My soul, find yourself in Jesus and be free.

I miss youuuuu

so!

Hallucinations

One last post from the midst of a paper writing kick, just to show how silly your brain can get.

End of the semester homework does something to your head. Just like they tell us in psychology class, people are often thrown into disorders by extra stress.

I was just lowering the blinds in my room when a fake flower lei fell from the curtain to the ground. My first thought? “Aah! It’s a flying bunny!!!”

Freud would be amused.

Levitical Thoughts

It’s funny when your mind starts all of a sudden making connections in the Word. Last night somewhere between poli sci studies and the pillow I found myself reading Leviticus 6 and the words wouldn’t stay on the page. As a way of helping me remember it, I thought I’d write it down the random musings for you, and we can see whether it holds up to the light of day.

First there was verse 5 talking about making restitutions for stolen things: “he shall make restitution for it in full and add to it one-fifth more. He shall give it to the one to whom it belongs on the day he presents his guilt offering.” It just struck me that there is a timeliness to our dealings with God and man. Even if the stealer had the restitution ready, both people had to wait until he brought his sacrifice for worship. How often I need to be reminded that everything has its season.

Then when it is talking about bread for the priests in v 18, it makes a surprising statement: “Whoever touches them will become consecrated.” Wow, I’m used to thinking that common people who touched the holy things contaminated whatever they handled, but this time it works the other way! My mind went to David and the holy bread, and also to Christ thousands of years later who knew what was really going on there. The wonderful ways of God.

And then v. 23 “So every grain offering of the priest shall be burned entirely. It shall not be eaten.” And I thought of the Lord Jesus Christ who was consumed on our behalf and how I’m to be an offering wholly committed like him (Rom 12:1).

Lastly it just struck me how the whole burn offering system took faith. You had to bring something before God and watch it all burn away. You had to trust that the Lord would count it for something that would make you clean, “an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the LORD.”

A New Approach

The skinny:

First half of semester – done

Spring break – lovely

me – alive

life – good

The fat:

Tonight I picked up a volume of Charles Spurgeon expecting get a useful read, and instead had my brain stretched out again. Gotta watch that with Spurgeon. Smart fellow.

The passage he expounded was from Paul (II Cor 1:11-12), and just when you thought it was another sermon on prayer, Spurgeon caught the apostle approaching God in a special and deliberate way, using what he calls the Rule of Three: “He [Paul] argues from the past to the present and from the present to things yet to come.”

How simple and yet how encouraging! If I used this approach in my own prayers to God wouldn’t it make them more confidant and hopeful? If my faith is too low to ask for tonight’s forgiveness, need I look any further than this morning’s mercies? Too many times I forget the word that commands “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord” (Lam 2:19). I let my prayers get bogged down. Tonight, with the encouragement from Spurgeon, I want to call to mide past deliverances, with the hope, even confidence, that the Lord will rescue me now and in the future.

“Whatever our circumstances are, however perplexing our pathway may be, and however dark our horizon, if we argue by the rule of He has, He does, He will, our comfort can never be destroyed. Courage, then, you who are afflicted. If you had a changeable God to deal with, your souls might be full of bitterness; but because He is unchanging, every repeated manifestation of His grace should make it easier for you to rest in Him. Every renew experience of His faithfulness should confirm your confidence in His grace. May the most blessed Spirit teach you to grow in holy confidence in our ever faithful Lord.”

Amen to that.

Friends!!

I have them!!

And they comment even when I’ve disappeared!!!

and when I have

big

astronomy

tests

.

A quote

“Happy pearl divers go overboard for work”

-Unknown

She posteth soon!

but not today

ha

WC!

For soccer people this means the world cup.

In China it stands for Wing Chun, a Kung fu system.

In Scotland we know it indicates the water closet (you Americans do the math).

In science it might stand for water column, a unit of preasure to the area of a column of water on Earth.

And we won’t even go into Warcraft, or White Castle, World Championship, or Wisconsin Central Railroad (you know you were thinking about it)

But if you’re Reformed Presbyterian

And a college student

In Indiana (or Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or Kansas, or wherever)

This

Means

WINTER CONFERENCE!!!!!

Oh yes!! To all who did not know that this was going to occur, you must pardon my absence on blogger to spend time with 129 fellow fuzzies (can you believe it?! One hundred and twenty nine people! A record! A hoard!!! A mob!!!!) at the delectabe Shangrila valley nestled in the midst of a Indiana… uh, paradise of uh corn. Yup corn.

For those of you who did know of this happening and happen to have happily registered

you shouldn’t be reading this post – go and PACK!!!!!

There.

Goodbye.

Friday view

A new day. A blank page. How can God be glorified today? (if only I asked this every morning!)

My Christmas break now contains three days left in which to… live. Now is not the time to pine over what I didn’t get accomplished, but to give thanks for the break that I did have, a very peaceful one in the past few days. I’ve got to spend a lot of time with my family, shopping with mom, sitting and talking with dad, running Amy to work, reflecting and praying at the end of the day with Ben. This is the good stuff, I keep telling myself, and I think that’ll still be true during the school year.

Something else that has come as a blessing has been time to read. This past year for the first time, I’ve been working on reading the Bible in a year and now I’m getting pretty close to the end. During the holidays I’ve been able to devote a lot of time to catching up so that I can finish in time. Reading all of Romans in just a couple of days – whew! that’s a kick! I’ve had time to make headway in other books as well, and started Wuthering Heights (insert the evil gurgle of a happy literature student) which I’ll be studying in a Lit class. I’ve needed to read that book for years, and now I can both read it for pleasure and get some school work out of the way – yippee!

And finally this break has been a time of spiritual…. hmm, challenge, as Christmas break has proved to be for me recently. But today I’m not going to waste time listening to the devil, perhaps I’ll never know how much work he’s already impeded with temptation, and self focus, and doubt! I guess it’s just that the holidays are times that my true {selfish} self comes out more clearly, and this gives me trouble. On the one hand this is discouraging (let’s be honest), but on the other it’s a special opportunity for the Lord to deal with these things, to clean up the mess. Could He still work in my heart in the last three days? Yes, even until the fourth watch of the night (Mark 6, where Christ walks on water).

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. … take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Eph 6:10, 13-17