Exasperation.

Empty dorm room again.
Somewhat yay.

Lot's of homework.
Not so much yay.

Stomach is somewhat better.
Lots of yay.

Food.
Nay.

Water and Gatorade.
Yay.

A long useless list.
Not sure why but it just keeps growing itself.

The whole not sleeping thing...not so healthy.
I feel a bit less stressed since I have things outlined...now just to follow through sometime after I wake up in the morning...do that test and start major prep work for Tuesdays presentation.

I am almost feeling a bit creative.
Writings...writings...writing...

Ah oh well...maybe more sleep.

Focusing isn't my forte right now.

It's nice to smile and laugh.

Slept some...still feeling deathly though...need homework done...

No sleep.
Oh well, at least I've got the pain to keep me awake, going and company.
It just is not a very good conversationalist.
Most days.

...is it not bad enough that I have to deal with no sleep, stress, muscle twitching, being in a perpetually bad/depressed/mopey mood but nightmares?

What few minutes I sleep are vivid, terrifying nightmares.

I just...don't know.

I am far from being in a rational mind right now...almost no sleep this week on top of stress...and I found out I have ANOTHER presenation Tuesday while going through my class itinerary.

Is it too much to ask for a desk calendar?

I knew I was screwed, hands down, but this is looking to be the coup de grâce of my spirit at the rate things going.

My thoughts are following such a lack of any sort of order...I have myself worked up into such a perfect little ball of stress and I am forgetting to breath...and I thought this was going to be the year of trying not to whine all the time...but we see how quickly that went out the window.

Part of me wishes I could just get a hug while laying here...but just...screw it, there is no point anyway...a zero multiplied into a zero still only makes a zero. Nothing is nothing is nothing is nothing...or so it seems to go on about.

Maybe...just maybe a little attempt at sleep now...maybe...

Late Night Walks

I am tired.
Things are not very coherent right now but I'm trying to make sense of the long sadness I feel inside of me.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact I haven't really slept much this week...just naps here and there to help baptize my already sick body and mind into getting a bit worse.

I want to run and hide from...what feels like fake light.
I want to see the truth I always miss
and see what in life that is not worth dying for
but the beauty worth living,

I have no doubt things will become even more redundant as things tend to make even less sense as they go along...and God knows I'm lonely but I can deal with being alone, just as I have had to deal with not eating and drinking as I would like.

My body protests a lot and apparently thee skills may allude me.

I am not sure how long that started but they are working on it...well are.

A two mile walk, a hot shower and a shave later...I still can't sleep...the walk and prayer helped...just...I need to formulate this better...so many loose ends...

Screw this...too much noise...too much on my mind...time for a walk...

I think studying systematic theology turns me off so much because of the abundance of holy language being reiterated every few paragraphs as well as the lack of actual systematic structure.

Call me crazy but if I wanted to actually map out beliefs and thoughts like this I would include charts and graphs.

As is I'm wadding through massive walls of text that take a lot to say little. Focusing is hard and ultimately it just leaves me feeling a little miffed.

I'm not even sure what I need to do to become more...open to studying and being willing to learn...this is so hard to focus on because I know so much about it that I do not care. I know enough to know that the people who actually spew this crap out verbatim are typically the ones I have the least amount of patience with because it feels like it is religion and less about any sort of vivid love...but that assumption of mine is inherently flawed because I'm trying to act as a judge and play God.

Ack.
I suck.
=/

Isaiah 43:10-13

10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,
"and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.

11 I, even I, am the LORD,
and apart from me there is no savior.

12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "that I am God.

13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?"

Yeah...I now have "Nightswimming" by REM stuck in my head.
I wish it could be a more quite night...I'm stuck in the lobby trying to do homework while about two dozen guys run about acting like idiots.

I like having friends visit but I need to do work and...well...it's either this or Waffle House and I'll die before giving up my amazing parking spot.

Quote of the Day:

“To the frivolous, Christianity is certainly not glad tidings, for it wishes first of all to make them serious.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Quote of the Day:

"What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
-Holden Caulfield

Dichotomic Exchange

I need to feel hope,
I need to breath it in like oxygen
and drink it in like water.
I need to feel it in my bones like heat
and while my heart falls in flutters.
I need it coursing through my veins
replacing the bad blood.
Pushing out every reminder
of the person I was
and reflecting the hope to come.

Playing as music floating across the waters
while waiting here on the eastern shore,
eyes fixated to the west
hoping there is more beyond this eternal sea.

Minor panic attack is almost over.
Breathing again.

Whatever will be, will be.
I just have to focus on taking care of the foremost task in front of me right now.
I can do nothing but control my actions in the now and making amends for mistakes as possible.

I cannot, will not and shall not fail at choosing to press forward no matter how dark things seem and impossible they are.

I was born to live and live I shall, no matter the deep of night and fear of light I posses.

I am an idiot.
I really should just keep my foot in my mouth before I do something else stupid.

Quote of the Day:

"Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be."
—Rob Bell

New Testament Outline - Matthew

Chapter Three - Matthew

I. Contents
-Disagreements over the structure of this gospel arise because there are so many overlapping and competing structural pointers that it appears impossible to establish a consensus on their relative importance.

Three theories to explain and to organize break down the book of Matthew:
1.Some have detected a geographic framework that is related to Mark's gospel.
-This analysis reflects the broad chronological development of Jesus' ministry and preserves some geographic distinction, but it is based on a selection of thematic considerations and does not reflect the literary markers that Matthew has left us.

Weakness:
-Because of the ease of recreating this with the other gospels it does not provide an adequate means for seeing the distinct characteristics of the Matthew gospel.

2.Three large sections, tightly tied to Christological development.
A."The Person of Jesus Messiah" (1:1-4:16)
B."The Proclamation of Jesus Messiah" (4:17-16:20)
C."The Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Messiah" (16:21-28:20)
-After the two breaks come the decisive words "from that time on" signaling a progress in the plot.
-The Last two of the three sections each contain three summary passages (4:23-25; 9:35; 11:1; and 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19)

Weakness:
-The "from that time on" is not necessarily redactionally important for Matthew that his entire structure hinges on it. It is used in Matthew 26:16 with no break in the flow of the narrative.
-One could possibly argue that there are four passion summaries in the third section, not three (By adding 26:2)
-At both structural transitions he could have been more influenced by following the writings of Mark than by other considerations.
-The outline breaks up the important Peter passage in Matthew 16 in an unacceptable way.
-The christological development is not as clear as alleged: the person of Jesus (section 1) is still a focal point in sections 2 and 3 (e.g. 16:13-16; 22:41-46); the proclamation of Jesus can scarcely be restricted to section 2, for two of the discourses (chapters 18, 24-25) and several important exchanges (chapters 21-23) are reserved for the third section.

3.The most frequently proposed structures turn on the observations that Matthew presents five discourses, each beginning in a specific context and ends with a formula found nowhere else.
1.Discipleship (narrative, chaps.3-4; discourse, chaps.5-7)
2.Apostleship (narrative, 8-9; discourse, 10)
3.The Hiding of the Revelation (narrative, 11-12; discourse, 13)
4.Church Administration (narrative, 14-17; discourse, 18)
5.Judgment (narrative, 19-22; discourse, 23-25)
-With Matthew 1-2 acts as a preamble and 26-28 as an epilogue.

-The weakness of this outline is that it is presupposed that the five part outline was supposed to be a

A Seven Part Outline:

1.The prologue (1:1-2:23)
2.The Gospel of the Kingdom (3:1-7:29)
3.The Kingdom Extended under Jesus’ authority (8:1-11:1)
4.Teaching and Preaching the gospel of the kingdom: rising opposition (11:2-13:53)
5.The glory and the shadow: progressive polarization (13:54-19:2)
6.Opposition and eschatology: the triumph of grace (19:3-26:5)
7.The passion and resurrection of Jesus (26:6-28:20)

II. The Author

-Although the author of the gospel is not named within the text like the Pauline letters, a strong tradition holds that the apostle Matthew is the author.
-There is no evidence that any of the canonical gospels ever circulated without an appropriate designation.
-Until recently most scholars assumed that the four gospels circulated anonymously and that the present tiles were not attached until around A.D.125. This had simply been an educated guess based upon the presupposition that the gospels themselves were entirely anonymous and on the fact that by about 140 (or earlier) the traditional attributions were widely known without signification variations.

-Martin Hengel has examined the practice of book distribution in the ancient worlds and titles were necessary to identify a work to which any reference was made.
-Tertullian's criticism was because of Marcion for publishing his own gospel (which was a highly truncated version of Luke) without the author's name.
-As soon as two or more of the gospels were read in a church setting than it would have been necessary to distinguish between them by the use of a title.
-It is inconceivable that the gospels could have circulated anonymously for up to sixty years, and then in the second century suddenly display a unanimous attribution to certain authors.

Several issues in the modern contemporary debate over the author:
1. Only this gospel refers to “Matthew the tax collector” (10:3). This can be viewed as a sort of self deprecation to the work of which he was apart of before he followed Jesus.
2. In Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27 the man whom Jesus calls from his role as a tax collector is identified as Levi. The most economical explanation is that “Matthew” and “Levi” are alternative Semitic names for one person.
3.The assumption that Matthew was a tax collector and was author of the gospel helps to make sense of some details (depiction of financial transactions and a fluency of Aramaic and Greek.)

III. Provenance
-Regardless of the stance of whether one holds that Matthew was written by an individual or a group within a school of thought they must hazard a guess as to its geographical origin.
-Because the church fathers held the work to be written first in Aramaic they presumed it to have been written in Palestine.
-Modern scholars mostly hold to Syria being the place of origin because of Palestine being mostly destroyed by about 70AD.
-It is impossible to be certain of the exact geographical provenance of the gospel but nothing of important textual wise hangs upon this.

IV. Date
-There is much debate and argument over the dating of the gospel but a balanced look at the evidence suggests that Matthew was written shortly before 70AD.

V. Destination
Possible intended audiences:
1.Believers in his own area or flock.
2.Because of the predominate exposition of Jewish themes it is possible he had a certain audience in mind rather than a particular location.
3.There also exists the possibility it was intended to be read by all Christians in all locations.

VI. Purpose
-Because the theme of Matthew is not directly stated in the gospel all attempts at delineating are merely conjectures drawn from the themes and how certain topics are treated.

Major Presented Themes:
1. Jesus is the promised Messiah, Son of David, Son of God, the Son of Man, Immanuel and the one to whom the Old Testament points to.
2. Many Jews, especially the leaders, failed to recognize Jesus as such during his ministry.
3. That the promised ‘Kingdom of God’ has already dawned and has been brought about by the life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.
4. This Kingdom is both compromised of and continued by both believing Jews and Gentiles that have submitted to the authority of Jesus. The wholehearted embracing of Jesus’ teaching of demonstrating love is the witness to the world of this kingdom.
5. This messianic reign is not only the fulfillment of Old Testament hope but the foretaste of the kingdom that will dawn when Jesus the Messiah personally returns.


VII. Text
-The major textual difficulty with Matthew is the same variation issues that contribute to the synoptic problem. (12:47, 16:2-3, 18:10-11)

VIII. Adoption into the Canon
-The Gospel of Matthew was universally received as soon as it was published and continued to be the most frequently cited gospel for centuries.
-As far as known the book never caused division between the Eastern and Western churches such as the letters to the Hebrews did.

IX. Matthew in Recent Studies
-Until recently the Gospel of Matthew was largely ignored by most commentators.
-The most recent and reliable studies attempt to temper traditional historical criticism with a greater literary sensitivity to result in a more holistic reading of Matthew.

X. The Contribution of Matthew
-Because of the close relation that the Synoptic gospels share any contribution made by one gospel must be evaluated in the light of the others.

Six unique contributions of Matthew are:
1. Preserves large blocks of Jesus’ teaching.
-The Sermon on the Mount
-Numerous parables
-The eschatological discourse
2. Complements the other gospels.
-Joseph’s account of the virginal conception of Jesus that contrasts with Luke’s gospel which gives Mary’s perspective.
-Elaborates on the birth narrative in ways the other gospels do not by including the visit of the magi and the flight into Egypt.
3. A complex and rich use of the Old Testament
-The number of Old Testament quotations (fourteen) used to show the link between the old and new covenants which results in a very strong Christological reading of the Old Testament.
4. Treatment of the Old Testament law
-Shows that Jesus came to fulfill the law (5:17)
5. Holds the foundation of what the early church became.
-The debate of the relation between Israel and the church.
6. Percuilar shadings of Jesus character by the use of titles and names
-Associates the title of “Son of David” with Jesus’ healing ministry.
-In referring to Jesus Immanuel, “God is with us” (1:23)

Such strange smiles.

...yeah...mixed metaphors...

Quote of the Day:

"The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot."
-Salvador Dalí

I am almost frustrated enough to take a baseball bat to both my New Testament and Systematic Theology textbooks.

Where do they get these useless authors?

Ack!

Five words of advice:

Get a copy editor mofos!

"Trying To Throw Your Arms Around the World" - U2

There is not enough time it seems...not enough...simply not enough...

Quote of the Day:

"I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started."
-Ernest Hemingway

You know...it's okay to not go into unnecessary icky details...

A Momentary Standstill

I wish I was better at dealing with these...awkward situations better...I never have the words, I never know what to say or do...

This isn't the end of the world...but why am I sulking like it is? Or like Jesus took away my favorite cookie?

Love...love...love...isn't it supposed to be the answer?
A way of covering over a multitude of sins?

I don't even know who I am much less who You are Lord...how am I supposed to help solve these problems?


I need to finish homework now but it's so freaking hard to focus...there is too much going on and it is so much easier to focus on the things that are wrong then it is to be responsible enough to take care of myself or school things...ack...

Reasonable Increasing Increments

All of the burning inside my mind
and the circular resonances
of life passing through my soul
is making an unexpected turn towards light.

Simple joys of conversation
and drinks of water in the sun
are making the days brighter indeed.

Quote of the Day:

"What do people mean when they say, "I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?" Have they never even been to a dentist?""
-C.S. Lewis

So much and so little at the same time.

Quote of the Day:

“What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.”
-Leo Tolstoy

Things to do 1-24-2010:

General:
(X)-Apologize for missing call and church

Game related:
(X)-Make post for Watchmen forum
(X)-Get stuff ready for Deadlands game tonight

School:
()-Memorize verses for Tuesday Theology
(x)-Do reading for Hermeneutics and Theology for Tuesday
(x)-Make prep outline for Thursday class discussion in New Testament

Sunday morning, how I dislike you.
Coming so early and attacking me with odd symptoms.

I hate that I overslept and miss the ride to church...there will be more chances and thankfully this was just the first time I've missed a possible church service. I hate how it sounds like I think of church as being nothing more than an obligation...because I honestly miss being involved as part of a family...it's just so many churches are less of families and more of a preying ground...uh no pun intended.

I'm working on killing my cynicism...I've never stopped the ministry work regardless of where I am...just because I don't openly preach at people doesn't mean that the gospel isn't being spread...if actions cannot show the validity of Jesus' love than no amount of words ever will. Actions are a better love letter than speaking until I am blue in the face...

I mean, the idea behind church is supposed to be this group of believers who realize the importance of the gospel and have been changed by the love of God...when a person mostly deals with people who are more focused on worshiping religion than learning how to love God and others...it can make for a frustrating and lonely experience.

But...life moves on...I think the most important thing is learning from the experience and not allowing the negative to control me...it's so easy to let myself shut down when I am hurt...even when it is joking jabs, if I don't trust the person or have been hurt I can just shut down and become a robot.

There is such a huge gap for misunderstanding that the fact Christianity has thrived for nearly two thousand years is part of the miracle...

I'm starting to loose some of my capacity of empathy for those who keep putting themselves in bad situations. =/

"A Grief Observed" - A Review, of Sorts

So I read C.S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed" in one sitting today. The only other book I have done that with in recent memory was Elie Wiesel's "Night".

I suppose there is enough common threads between the two for that to make sense...raw and undiluted visions of what it means to suffer, to loose one's world and to question God, to raise the questions shouted when it becomes darkest.

I've never seen such profound lost over love expressed in something that was real...there are so much romantic nonsense and Hollywood embellishments on the subject of love that to actually find such a sincere ache at having lost something so beautiful...it's like drinking frigid water...it quenches the thirst but more importantly awakens the soul to the arid environment that is so deprived of any semblance of understanding love.

I thought I possibly might have understood love but if love is this deep, this profound and so all consuming that to loose it is to loose yourself...than I have profoundly lied to those closest to me.

This is something...so profound, so beautiful and so disturbing at the same time. The majority of people must never love like this or marriage would be so much more respected and revered...as to opposed to being a meaningless laughingstock to most.

In a lot of ways I have sacrificed personal relationships out of fear...it's easier to think you love someone as infinite as God when you have no finite benchmark...instead all I have really been doing is running since I could choose to.

I want to know what it means to really love people...because I am afraid I've never really done that...I have a bad habit of running from most people once they reached certain level of closeness...and I have a developed habit that I have groomed for getting myself into utterly asinine situations.

Apathy is never a solution...but giving access to my inner most thoughts to...well even this blog...it's almost like it can act as a means of misdirections. "Yes, look at this horrible detail of my life so you will NOT see the big picture and the rampant hypocrisy that guides my every breath!"

So many questions...he asked so many questions in the book...none I have answers for. Most pressing are the ones concerning love and about what happens when one dies...what truly happens...answers nowhere to be found in the Bible or on this world.

I am forced to agree with Lewis' assertion that it is with a knowing and sympathetic ear God listens to this plea to know...but ultimately we can't process or understand it. These things are so much bigger...and powerful...

...sigh...I have so much more to think and write about but I must sleep...I'm getting myself worked into a hole of wanting isolation and to be away from people but the morning is early and there is church...so I'll be leaving this with a quote from the book.


** ** ** ** **

"The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed - might grow tired of his vile sport - might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety.

But supposed that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take you choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.

Either way, we're for it.

What do people mean when they say, "I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?" Have they never even been to a dentist?"

If I am to speak I must be cleansed for I am a man of unclean lips, one who has never understood love and played at understanding the Divine...so much eternal beauty and with every breath I am forced to relearn the basics of my faith again.

Quote of the Day:

"I hate cynicism...it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."
-Conan O'Brien

Fleeting Glimmers of Dying Reds on the Water

Tonight my heart is bleeding,
just falling apart for You.
It's now or never
failing or fallacy,
either pull me along
and let me live
or let the sun fade on this life.

At Your beauty I'm lost for words.

I can't give
I can't trade this away,
my soul is fading
while trapped in this dying machine
and all I have left
is nothing.

Let me fall on grace
for it's all I have left
as this dark night
slowly passes on,
seemingly to never end
as I wait praying.

The cornerstone of human failure is thinking we know what we want, one might think that I would have caught onto this by now but getting what I want is so often the stupidest thing I could have done.

Procured C.S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed" from the library five minutes before closing.

Apparently being able to cough up my lungs helps me have better timing.

Quote of the Day:

“Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.”
-Francis Bacon

Being socially interactive is not quite as easy as some people might have you think.

Quote of the Day:

“Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.”
-Orson Scott Card

Quote of the Day:

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”
-C.S. Lewis

Beauty Veiled in Pain

Perfection is lacking in the colors
as they fall like painted rain drops
moving in patterns
as echos of hope
make their way to your soul.

Hope eternal,
reflecting in everything
and faith that this kernel of love
with blossom
in this wasteland
and grow into full.

The death of hopelessness is near
and nearer still
growing as near as you are to me
with only pale distance in between
and as vivid as touching your hand
with the hope of never being released.

Everything we have strived
and hoped to hope for
with the death of pain.

Love, love given on a kiss to the breeze
as words grow and pain is realized
in ways so often untold.
Only this shred of perfection
expressed in Eternity can heal.

Believe, hope and breath
and regardless the distance
love can carry in this night
and through this sickness.

Breath and being made alive,
oh dear Muse
how can this ever be enough?

Returning Redundancy

...I am so lucky to be loved.
Even when I whine, cry and throw a temper-tantrum about being sick or in pain or social drama...the One who sang me into being still loves and holds me close...I can never understand how it works or the whys...but Love is its own reason...

I want to be more grateful and more helpful to those around me...and not just this negative downturn...but God it is so hard to focus on the positive when it feels like your insides are melting...but...I suppose Paul set the precedent of grace being more than sufficient...

It is just...is exhausting trying to be brave and that is why I have to use this blog as a verbal beating place to get out this negative in me...

I want perfection, I can feel the heartbeat of One so infinite and beautiful...and seeing the Hell we have made this world it hurts...it hurts to feel separation even though there is that renewed connection because of Jesus...

I'm so tired...and aching and just wish every thing could be made right and beautiful right now...that the ones I care about could feel Your love...I don't understand why You hide Your face and will not be seen...reveal Yourself...I am not enough and it is not like any of this was me anyway.

It's just You being nice enough to use a broken vessel...thanks...again, now and forever.

...and even more needless frustration...

Quote of the Day:

“The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.”
-C.S. Lewis

Thoughts Like Flames

Why can I have a rather awesome day but I get all upset and mopey because I manage to botch up just one single conversation out of the whole day?

I don't even know why I bother getting myself so stupidly worked up over something as complicated as taking a breath of air and trying to be myself...I can never tap into the supposed source of intelligence and wit I posses when I need them most.

I can babble like an idiot as often as need be...I just want...

I just wish the canvas of life could be rolled back and I could look into the width and breadth of eternity and see my Love...I was touched by the Eternal and Infinite tonight...for just a fleeting moment and now...it's like silence...and emptiness and I have no way of...

To feel the Eternal and have no way of expressing the complexity of the Love...the intoxication of the song that brought life into being...is there words? Can there ever be words?

I just need...

You know...but still...cries in the night, feeling so lost and displaced and not even knowing why or how this came...or could be...

I just know...I know that even though I want to give up now...I can't...

Please keep me afloat, give me the strength to break through any level of despair and remember Your face in the darkest of nights...

"Cassie (Acoustic)" - Flyleaf

Feverish Pain

So hard to focus.
Pain is so real.
Feeling lost and even though I am stationary it feels like I am tumbling and falling far away.
I do not like the sensation.
I know...I know...the thoughts are coming and going...already so lost...

I want to know the how and why...

I loose my faith so easily...when the pain is so intense.
It is times like this...like when I was in China in so much pain that I forget why I am alive and I simply wish and pray for an end to the pain. Be it death of some other means...because I despair far too easily...and seek after things that were never my own.

I am so cold.
I feel so alone.
I do not have clever words.
I feel lost and isolated.

I do not know what warmth and what it is like to not have the burning sensations robbing me of strength and focus.

Where is this?
Where to?
Why can things not simply be more easy?
Or maybe just less pain for once?

One oddly nice night.
Sickness though.

Still...so sick...and blah...feel like I've been ran over multiple times.

Quote of the Day:

“This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.”
-Charlie Brown

I'm not doing so bad for feeling like thawed out death.

Can't breath...gonna fall over...ack...flam building in lungs... x_X

Quote of the Day:

“A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's the small things...the very small things that make life not just enjoyable but worth living.

However...peace, hope...and love eternal are a beautiful canvas to pain a life on.

The fact that there are "Christians" who are saying the earthquake in Haiti is the judgment of God is tapping into the source of rage I normally reserve for Westboro church.

Isn't it LOVELY to have people in such direct contact with God they can not only tell us His EVERY thought but those in Heaven and in Hell?

Oh Jesus help me to learn how to love because my rage wants me to do things that would only shame You...

-Dayquil
-Gatorade
-As I Lay Dying
-Rabbinic Stories

Such an odd combination but for now it is working.

I think the fever is gone but it is so cold I would rather just wait and see...and see...

Fever...and nyquil make for some bizarre dreams...I hate vampires, why are they in my dreams?

Shoo.

I would rather dream about reading my books for class tomorrow...or sleep writing my masters thesis so I will not have to do it later.

Worst case scenario I would rather dream about a girl...granted, they tend to be as safe as dealing with a full sized dragon...but at least (some) are not vampires.

And the fever begins...ack....

Quote of the Day:

“The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.”
-John Cleese

I hate causing awkward moments.
I can say with quite honesty that it depresses me...I cannot help how people react...but having people look at me as though I was some sort of...thing that should be removed from their presence...it is a bit saddening.

Besides my aches and pains the only other really bad thing is I think I am coming down with a cold or something else...really bad headaches and my throat hurts and fever...

Seeing one of my best friends from my time down here at Mobile was nice...a reminder that there are other humans that live in this area. Hyperbole I know...just...

The Bible study tonight was nice...along with classes it is encouraging to see leaders actually advocating deeper learning and pushing the students to dig into the Old Testament to attempt to understand the historical context of their faith and how Christianity can only be understood from a Jewish perspective.

And rambling.
On and on and on like I do best.
Words to hear myself speak.

I'm not ready for what is next...so it is nice to know it won't be...

Whatever and ever amen.

Hope for the hopeless.

Rabbis and Such

As always with any Mashburn class, Hermeneutics is already giving me a deeper insight into the teachings of Jesus. There always is the idea of people bringing their own ideas into what literature says...the fact people twist Jesus' teachings to suit their own agenda is nothing new.

The Jewish thought of taking scripture and all the commentary built around it and going off of that...is an interesting concept. Why did certain Rabbi's feel one way towards this law and felt more that this is the appropriate interpretation?

Jesus taught with stories and questions...following in the line of Rabbis that the Pharisees themselves were not just a part of but a major part of the influence of Jewish theology for the past two thousand years.

What I'm interested in doing is reviewing the method of which Jesus taught the parables...actually attempting to look at them from the perspective of a first century Jew familiar with how Rabbis taught might actually give a better perspective on how radical and how unique Jesus' ministry and teachings were/are.

Part of the problem of being a 21st century Caucasian protestant who has grown up in spoiled America is that I have no idea what it was like to be a poor Jewish denizen being repressed by the Roman Empire.

Context for understanding any teaching, literature, poem, parable or question is important...otherwise you negate any possible meaning by the preconceived notions you bring to the table.

Hmm...more later I suppose...

To Hermeneutics and beyond!

I'm awake.

It is nice to be able to just lay here in bed for a little while.

Even with the pain and stress...it is nice to just be able to breath.

Pain is unavoidable...but I guess part of life is choosing what to do with that pain...although at the time it is hard to make any rational and logical thoughts concerning it.

I am trying not to over think things...and just take this process one step, one breath, one moment at a time. Even with all the fears and doubts running in the background...right now I feel the impossible peace that I can only successfully blame on Jesus.

I am here but I am not...

Who I am...and who I am not...multiplied by the fading vistas that surround the evening sky.

Everything and nothing at once.

Pure paradoxical contradiction that is mixed with redundancy.

But I want to feel...want to be overwhelmed by what it means to be alive.

Prayers...a lot of those right now...mixed with traces of doubt and fears of my own inadequacy. Wishing I could take on the weight of others so they could be free...prayers laced with profanity because of the injustice I see around me...

I want to feel more than just the base elements I have been engaging for a while...I want my body, my mind and soul to be taken up in the song...and I want to feel You again...I want to just let everything...everything...fade and refocus as it ever will...

Having some sense of what I am talking about what be nice as well...but I can't have everything...can I?

Quote of the Day:

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
-C.S. Lewis

So...plus five points for good thinking about how I could get studying done at the commons/cafe.

However minus several hundred points concerning the idea that there would actually be people here to socialize with.

Do kids these days not drink coffee or something?

Revised Song of Hope

Muse dear Muse
sing a song of roses and the kingdom,
of the sun giving life
and all that is yet to come.

Sing a new song full of hope
for the days passed
and for the measure yet to come
as the sea continues to crash
on the Western shore.

Remind us of the hope alleviating the fears
of the shadows racing across
as the Dark continues to fall.
Reminders of divisions failed
and the hope burning inside
as the heart chooses to beat again.

With Hope unstoppable,
Peace renewed
and Love undefinable
these words take form and fly
from lips to ear
with a gentle cry
and the expectation
of all to come.

Dear Muse sing
and sing again
as the Night comes
and beats against your wings.
Sing for the day to come,
the eternal Dawn
which will burn away every trace
of fear and distortion.

Hope is coming,
hold tight.

Quote of the Day:

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.”
-T.S. Eliot

Fooling, Foolish Inklings

Like the rest of this tune that has gone amiss, I'm feeling a bit out of place and out of sync with matter which I thought I knew for sure. But really it is my own fault for making assumptions about things as fickle and untrustworthy as humans, not that it is wrong to trust or fall or rise up for any of this but at the same time...

How much of it is with reason or point?
I try to make things work in my mind.
I'm good at making the illusions seem real.

Maybe I owe people some apologies but at the same time I suppose no one has a gun held to their head to where they are forced to talk to me. Getting around talking to me is so easy...I wish it was as easy as removing myself as a friend from facebook so I wouldn't have to deal with myself. I understand why people can get sick of dealing with me...because I am sick of dealing with me.

I hate how undependable I am, I can't stand how I break commitments based upon how my health is, I cannot stand how weak my resolve and heart are, I wish I was a better Christian, I wish I would stop complaining, stop being judgmental, I wish I could be a good little lamb and stop questioning and trying to fix the world...but here I am with all my flaws and aches and my pains.

None of you are ever under any obligation to stay.
You are invited to stay for the remainder of the show.
Just bear in mind that if you cut out earlier there will be no ticket refunds.

It's not possible to reboot or reset this mind, do a memory wipe or make everything equal out a certain way...welcome to being human and trying to deal with the fact no one is who you would like them to be and everyone is wishing you were different (at some level or another, various shades of shallowness do apply).

And...those who love me for who I am are just a handful.
The rest know me so little that they would not understand my complaint about them not understanding me at all.

The question is why are YOU here?
What did you come to see?
I don't have much right now and it looks like things are going to be the same for a while.

I feel like I'm plugging in the holes of a ship.
One thing gets better and another hole happens.

I am quite worried about my left shoulder and arm...my fibromyalgia is acting in ways I have yet to see before...it feels like I pulled a muscle or at least was hit by a baseball bat...but nothing happened to it. I just had the misfortune of waking up and now using my left arm or hand sends excruciating bolts of pain through my body.

What did I do to deserve that?
How is waking up a crime?
Stuff happens...just making a point to myself.
If by chance you pick up something along the way, splendid.
If not, no surprise here.

I am tired.
Tired of me and my words.
But I am stuck with them.
I envy you, who do not have to live with me.
You can shut me off, shut me down and do anything you want to drown out my voice and you are so lucky.
I wish I could sink to the level that some do in being able to shut their voice out but I can't.

There is no serious way I can drown the voices out.
I refuse to drink and although my pain levels would require any sane doctor to give me narcotics it is best I do not have them because I would be addicted to them in a heart beat.

So my body collides against my soul which hits this frigid stone of reality that makes my bones burn because of the cold.

Why?
Why can I not be like everyone else?
I didn't ask to be special enough to be a fool that has to care about everyone and scare people away because I do not understand certain aspects of basic interaction. If people do not want to share or communicate it is as easy as telling me to go away or just die...or something. I'm not sure what the proper social colloquialism these days.

I do not want to believe in love but I do.
I feel it and God it hurts.
I wish my heart would stop bleeding as it beats so I could catch my breath.
I hate feeling the pain of everyone I am around but I do.
Typically those who mean the most do not realize, do not believe or do not care and so the pain is amplified.

At least I have that handful of people who care.
I wish I could be content with that and just stop caring about the rest of the world.
I can't.
Even the things I hate and that hurt me...I can't stop thinking about or wanting to help.



The more I see, the more people I talk to the more exhausted I am.
Jesus, Jesus...Jesus.
Why?
I know I won't be getting an answer I like...but whatever way it goes...You know I am here and will be. No choice really...but there is love and not just mindless obligation.
Just give me the resources I need, the people so I do not go crazy...and please take the pain in my soul and body away so I can try to function.
Pleas.e

Reason

Reason, reasonably...

I hate how my thoughts, emotions, spirit, mind and body all just do there own thing...I hate the burning fire coursing through my body trying to take control of me.

I just wish this thing could die.

Never to rise again.

So church.
It's a big one.
With a college program.
I hope this isn't as weird or awkward as I am afraid of.
Numbers.
Yikes.

Refracted Beauty, Redacted Hells

With morning so young
and sun so bright
the falling rays of light
burn my eyes as I drag across this land
and wonder where oh where from here?

Bracing my prejudices and fear
and holding my Bible to my heart
I wander as I wonder
and hope against all vivid hope and wonder
that this time,
that this time everything will be new.
Everything that be beautiful and true
will be before me
and the wrongs will be right
and I will for once be allowed
to make the right choice
as the right choice
and not just because of fear
but because of perfect Love
that has killed Death, Hopelessness and Fear.

Oh quite my dear heart,
the waves of rage that threaten to stir you
so early and in a day so young.
So much anger at injustice
and my own inadequacies
as I stumble about looking for metaphors
and a way to murder my pride.
As I so dearly miss my Beloved
and wish this distance, oh so grand,
would part and I could see
with eternal eyes
the beautiful
in the deluded sludge
of this Hell.



Muse, beautiful Muse,
sing to me over this wasteland
that we share in our connection,
such beauty and shades of gray
as burning thoughts
hold salve to the tongue
as frightened words
refuse to be spoke.

For all of our tales
and the Love we share with the Lover
and the connection burning within our hearts
we can see the Truth
and hope with dim eyes
that the eternal will burn
away all the fear
as every tear is wiped from our eyes.

Never shall the rejection of man
haunt our souls
as we may be united
in ways that only proper poets
and prophets have indeed spoke of
since time was put into motion.

Muse, dear Muse,
beauty which gives spark
and sets the mind in motion,
One responsible for so much of this
and the igniting of hope
that the eternal will burn in.
Seeing shades of the future
as the past fades
and the present mists part.

Too much on my mind and too few are the ways in which I can express it...

Quote of the Day:

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
-Jim Elliot

Done with New Testament for today!
Hooray!

Now to do Rabbinic readings while "Hott Fuzz" plays in the background...

So tired...moderate levels of stress today...more of being concerned for others than myself.

I suppose I will go eat dinner than come back and try to study some more.
When I finish that I shall reward myself by trying to make a new Deadlands character...

Quote of the Day:

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”
-Desiderius Erasmus

Yeah and stuff...

It's been an odd day, there has been some wonderful conversation that warmed my soul and made me feel...

And then there was some of it that made my soul scream out in protest.

I will never understand apathy towards those hurting...and Jesus knows I wish I could take the pain from those I love and even though it would be a disservice to them...I'm so sick of seeing the pain in others. I'm so sick of those who are least deserving having to carry the biggest burdens...

Where is Your plan and Love in this?
I do not understand and if I did...I would be more terrified...

The best I can figure is that I'm here for a reason, I am breathing and walking for purpose...and I so wish to carry Your love to these around me...

You have taken me, allowed me to be broken and rebuilt and let the process begin again...love is so painful, so wrenching...but it's such an intoxication. How could I ever live without You?

It's like I have found You and are still looking...

But I just want...

...You know?

Quote of the Day:

“I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.”
-Desiderius Erasmus

I hate being so melancholy...things could be going perfect and I will hit a depressed slump when I get perspective and see how bad things can be.

I'm just so tired of...so much and so many things...

It's an exhaustion of trying to carry too much...my body can't handle the stress. I just cannot cope with the stress so the best thing I can do is simply not.

I hate having a heart with emotions and feelings...I almost would rather be a mindless robot than have to deal with all of this...complicated crap.

I wish it could all just be removed...no more of this...no more...

Ultimately...everything is going to fade, all these things will end, all the relationships will be cut and everything will die...and I'll be alone again.

I'm tired of feelings, loosing energy and myself to other people for exchange for...nothing in most cases.

Nothing is the problem...nothing in absolute terms and in full that will be complete with the cycle and circles of time and sand and every thing else that will be that will be under this sun.

I'm too old for this drama stuff...I'm so tired...

Brain is frazzled.
But in a good way.
It is nice to have my mind pushed and stretched again.
I'm just not looking forward to a three hour class.
Ack.

Oh well.
Overall things are...getting better and nicer.
I hope things can get better and better...

Quote of the Day:

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
-Stephen King

Acid Jazz remix of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, reading on the New Testament and caffeine.

Life just doesn't get too much better than this.

Sadness...

Ah...hypocrisy you know no bounds...

My soul is devoid of any real meaning.
The night is showing me as the beast I am.
Frightful and afraid.
Full of deceit and wickedness.

Quote of the day:

“Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Things, things, things...

-Chiropractor at 3PM today
-Going to book store to get book list and prices.
-Begin Kierkegaard research
-Get supplies for classes

I tried.

...if only you knew...tis a pity you do not...

And...here we go...yet again...

Quote of the Day:

“...emptiness is only a disguise for an intimacy of God's, that God's silence, the eerie stillness, is filled by the Word without words, by Him who is above all names, by Him who is all in all. And his silence is telling us that He is here.”
-Karl Rahner

Self Serving Ego Rant

Evangelism feels like it is such an abused subject.
What is pure, what is evangelism done in love?
Not the Bible beating and ego bashing sort of crap that does nothing except prove peoples negative preconceptions of Christians?

The way Christian culture is...it is so easy to just live in a bubble and sit around in a circle patting each other on the back and acting like we're doing God a service by going to church on Sundays and taking Bible verses out of context about what it means to be a great patriot and what this country will look like when we get a leader who will ship all the 'undesirables' off to California and then detonate the fault lines so it can float off and be it's own little Sodom and Gomorrah.

Evangelism, sharing 'good news' can't be done with hyperbole as much as it cannot be done with false pretense.

I have been apart of numerous short term evangelism projects: street preaching, hanging out tracts as well as going door to door doing surveys.

I have also been a part of actual mission projects where I have gone to various cities and we worked on old houses doing painting and roofing.

Of the two of those only the latter every really produced any real results because it was the only one in which Jesus was really being shown. Evangelism cannot merely be words...it is action. It's sort of what Saint Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words."

Actions are so much more meaningful and important than merely sharing a piece of paper with words on it. The Gospel has always had power for transforming lives and will continue to do so but the only way to get past the hearts flooded with anger and cynicism is to break down the walls with simple Christian love.


Something that bothers me greatly...is why is there so much anger from those professing to be Christians? Why do people march around with picket signs declaring "God hates fags" and other equally unsavory slogans? As though they alone were ordained to be mouthpieces for the Almighty?

What sort of broken person does it take to make an individual who refuses to feel compassion for the poor, those dying of AIDS, children forced into prostitution?



"Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
-John 13:34-35

"If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
-James 1:26-27



Somehow and in someway this is supposed to be what Christian love is...loving God, others and ourselves. Loving enough to do the right thing but not to abuse others.

I do believe there is a real place for preaching, teaching and the like...but the single greatest absence is actual doctrine being put into tangible practice. More than just endless debates but actual positive action to the sick and hurting.

Of all the people in the world...one would think Christians would be the last ones to judge.

I know the reasons why I get angry and scared...it's because something is getting too close to my heart and what I am trying to hide.

Is it too much to ask, to much to want...for this false sincerity to take a permanent vacation in my own life?

All the ideas in my head about wanting basic and pure love and religion that is based upon giving up everything except the bare necessities is terrifying...I do not want to die clutching these useless things when I can be out helping other people.

I can't figure out if I am just making excuses, if I'm just running from Jesus or if this is the path I am supposed to walk...I do not want my life to be just a waste of me asking questions and being too terrified to do anything.


So many questions...I have so many doubts about myself and others...maybe one of the things I've been missing with a regular church family is people to help encourage me and remind me that I am not in fact insane...that there are others who believe just as ardently as I do in the eternal life of Christ.

I want to take the faith I have, the impossible Love I feel for Christ and let it be real in my interactions...my friends I have been living with, my family at home, at the school I'm going to...and...and...there is a blank. I don't know where I am going or what I am doing exactly...

I am anxious and afraid because there is this upcoming gap in my life that I do not know will be filled in with...if anything. I do not want to get lost in depression an anxiety again...because there are so few people I can actually trust to talk about this...I feel like I've been screwed over so often by people who never meant anything malicious...because face it, who can handle living around someone who lives in such extremes as I do?

Nothing is every in moderation...it is all or nothing...just like how I wish things could be with the way evangelism was handled...not just simple gestures but life giving devotion to others.

I wish things could be more simple and all the various voices of my soul, my body, Jesus, temptation and everything could be quite long enough for me to hear the gentle whispers of the One True God...not the false notions I have of Him...but who He is really...

In ways I feel like I wouldn't recognize my savior if I saw him...I'm so obsessed with finding perfection in the mud that I cannot really imagine what Jesus means by life...love and wholeness.

I do not know but God do I wish to find it...wherever and however...

Similar to Wolfwood, I simply must ask, "Lord, what the Hell am I doing?"

God my body feels like a train wreck this morning.
I really do not feel like driving 9 to 11 hours to go back to Alabama.
Bah.

Foolish Words

My tongue is tired
from being tied up in these investments,
subtle lies I never saw coming
until they blossomed into fruition.

Beginning at this moment's ending
I want to say just
how sick I am
of every falsehood grabbing my heart
and lifting me to despair
just as I begin to fall apart
all over again,
just for words that could never mean...

Crying every tear
and feeling every sigh
I tire of this broken connection
and the static that rips through my mind
with every breath
of this hellish air.

Given wings to fly
I might begin to see
how all of this,
every shred of pain
is from this prison
I built with my hands
and will only die
at the Word of One.

Quote of the Day:

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.”
-Meister Eckhart