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