i hereby ground myself from blogger

hullo.

yesterday i spent... an OBSCENE amount of time reading comics on the internet instead of doing... well... any of the million things i should have been doing.

i didn't even do wiki. sigh.

that sounds suspiciously like a confession.

anyhow, i am officially restraining myself from doing anything remotely entertaining on the internet... starting now.

including wiki.

sob...

reason #541 why i am glad to be an american

thought one:
i remember back in American Lit, reading how people would list in their diaries their sins for each day.

(don't worry, i shan't take up that practice, at least not electronically.)

but i do find that confession is sorely lacking as a habit of mine.

if something becomes uncomfortably glaring, i will confess, etc., but i do not really set apart a time for confession.

and "confess your sins one to another" pretty much never happens... maybe occasionally, but certainly never on purpose... and i always feel rather weird doing so.

kinda not a pleasant thought.

thought two:
we all supposedly know the difference between agape and phileo, right?

for a recap (according to Strong's):
agape: of the will; determined love according to duty ... God's unconditional love
phileo: of the heart; affection, fondness... etc. brotherly love

how easy it is to operate on phileo and credit ourselves for our Christ-like love...

we just don't get involved.

if one does not spend more than an hour or two a week with someone, it's pretty easy to remain "fond" of them. unless one is under supreme stress, strife is unlikely.

one doesn't even need the Holy Spirit to be nice in such an instance.

but getting involved... as in spending prolonged periods of time with someone else, interacting with them on anything other than a superficially-friendly level... either you will be doing some heavy dependency on the Holy Spirit or you will be treating the other person badly.

just that simple.

thought three:
(this is where it gets difficult)

Jesus does not call us to be nice.

He calls us to love one another.

as in... relationships.

ugh.

difficult.

cause if i'm not incorrect (double un-negative that), that entails involvement.

messy.
prolonged.
flesh-hurting.

hmmmmm...

thought one:

will we have memory in heaven/ the hereafter?

we will have to give an account of our sin, true, but memory would hold pain and sadness, if nothing more than in the thought of hell....

thought two:

does it not seem that one comes to associate the appearance of someone with the feelings that person has for the other?

errrr... okay. let me try that again.

i just noticed that after the first couple of encounters with someone others, i honestly can't evaluate their appearence. i can tell you what i first thought about them, but my appreciation of their physical appearance is pretty much equivalent to how i feel about them as persons.

i cannot tell you whether any member of my family could be considered beautiful, because the feeling i have when i see each one of them is the same as if they were perfection personified.

familiarity + affection = beauty?

thought three: (while we're on the psyche kick...)

"Memory makes death a transcendental affair. As long as we (or what we create) are remembered - we continue to have a physical effect on physical systems (i.e., on other people's brains). And as long as this is happening - we are not technically (or, at least, fully) dead. Our death, our destruction are fully accomplished only after our memory is wiped out completely, not even having the potential of being resurrected in future. Only then do we cease to exist (i.e., to have an effect on other physical systems)."

man... did you just see that?!?!? existance equated with having "an effect on other physical systems"?!?!!??

i just got excited. :D

(see thought 3)

...hmmm... but maybe something's missing... b/c that's not quite a theistic view of existance, i'm thinkin'....


thought another:
"LIFE is the potential, possessed by organic originals, to create (=to fight entropy by increasing information and order), using their own software [= the brains]. ...

Upon the original's DEATH, the potential to create is passed through one's memory. Creative acts, works of art and science, or other forms of creativity are propagated only within the software (=the brains) of other, living, organic originals."

but...but...but... what happens to the INIMITABLE PRESENCE?

i SHALL return to this subject.

(oh dear, i need to stop posting things i know nothing about... i'm looking quite pretentious. but this stuff is just so interesting!)

its a long un

thought one:

i have this theory, see, that self-discipline is nothing more than habits that happen to be good.

running is a perfect example. many people see running or daily exercise as a feat. truth (though i sure haven't been able to attest to this lately... insert guilty look): there are these little things called endorphins that ensure running gets done. they act all subtle and friendly when one does the running thing... but woe is you should you skip a day or (horrors) two. like any other fix, if you fail to deliver your body its preferred hormone, it will revolt. you will feel mopey and grumpy and generally unlikeable. running is no virtue.

making one's bed is another example. for people who do not do it, bed-making sure seems like a freakish exercise in self-discipline. bedmakers, on the other hand, see it as... nothing. a habit as difficult as brushing one's teeth.

but of course, self discipline is necessary on the course to forming a habit. i think i heard somewhere that it takes something like 8 repetitions to form a habit (or memorize something... or something...) 8 instances in self-discipline... and you have a good habit. if the payoff is sizeable enough, a habit could be created in even less repetitions.

so what habit would you like to start today? (besides the wiki one, of course)

thought two:

how bout habits of holiness?

there is a term,"entire sanctification," which is entirely too loaded for me. generally, people seem to operate on their connotation of that word rather than any theological definition.

once upon a time, i heard the phrase "entire consecration," and that was much more palatable.

the idea is this: "to be intensely focused on God’s point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God’s purpose alone." (amen, brother)

to be set apart to Christ... uh... the supposed purpose for which He died, no? "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (titus 2:14)

not effort... surrender... over and over again... which is where the above "thought" comes in...

how bout making habit of righteousness (ouch, sounds efforted already...) no, but to turn thoughts of lust to prayers to Christ. say it only takes 8 times... a proud reflection pops into my head... which i promptly ignore for an expression (musical quite allowed) of gratitude. or make thoughts of impatience transformed into prayers for long-suffering...

do we see that i cannot MAKE myself patient? but i can develop habits that thrust me upon Christ to make me patient...

imagine if "praying without ceasing" was not a hyperbole...

wow...

i think we let ourselves get away with a lot more sin than Christ would like...

vida nueva, gracia, y el Espiritu Santo... UTILIZE THEM.

if i only had a brain... i would be on the OTHER END OF CAMPUS (the smart side)

thought one:
" Human beings differ from each other at a genetic level according to the information encoded on the DNA molecules. There is encoded on to some of the DNA molecules, a set of information which causes human beings to be unbelievers in the God and Father of Jesus Christ. For this reason, a person can be convinced that the facts [...] do not add up to a Designer because there is a section of DNA making it impossible for that person to believe this theistic and potentially Christ revealing understanding, regardless of the power of the argument presented to them. Another person remains an evolutionist and an atheist in spite of the scientifically impossible nature of spontaneous generation, because the "unbelieving" segment of the DNA causes him or her to want to not believe in God. "

wow. that's predestination one-upped, no?
i think i actually got my money's worth out of LeTU last night.

thought two:

why does black people music incite movement/clapping/"getting down"? why do amelia's songs send chills up one's spine? what does my people's music lack to be the kind that takes your heart and squeezes it just a little?

is it:
a) a beat
b) minor keys
c) necessity of diaphragm-controlled breathing
d) the southern end of the musical scale
e) soul
?

i'm not complaining. i was just really pondering the impact that these folk songs have on people.

is it wrong to sing the same thing repeatedly?
is it pathetic to sing more than 5 songs in a service?
is dancing really immoral?
how much does God get out of singing, anyhow?

as Timberella (or was it el Turi?) said, paraphrased: if you're not enjoying it, God sure isn't either.

thought three:
Paul never quotes Christ.

reason number five-thirty-three why one should sign up for "a slice of infinity"

THOUGHT ONE:
"At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. there is a large wooden altar from a synagogue that was vandalized by Nazi soldiers who had come to remove the Jewish citizens of the city. Across the altar is a single phrase of Hebrew carved deeply into the wood. Though it bears the hack marks of axes that attempted to delete the words, the phrase is still decipherable. It simply reads: "Know before Whom you stand." "

http://rzim.org/publications/slice.php

THOUGHT TWO:
Martin Luther had an (apparently) beautiful marriage.

THOUGHT THREE:
just had an epiphany of sorts. it was quite distressing, really.

setting: my teaching of reading class... the professor is talking about teaching study skills and we are discussing photographic/short-term/long term memory and retrieval systems...

he says, "a lot of you operate almost entirely on short-term memory... before a test, you cram and then make an a... but if you had to retest the next day, you'd fail the exact same test. you're cheating yourselves out of an education."

baboom... ouch (here comes the epiphany)...

i've always been kinda cocky about being able to cram or "cheat the system" in one way or another. felt so darn clever. but now, the realization is slowly coming to me that i don't KNOW anything... i know how "to get by," and i know "test taking strategies..." i know how to get the best grades on a minimum amount of work, and i know that when in doubt on a multiple choice test, one should always choose 'c,' but...

i cannot explain to a six year old how an airplane flies.
i have no idea what kind of trees are native to texas.
i can't build a model volcano.
i don't know how many layers there are to the earth's atmosphere.
i can't remember erikson's stages of development.
i have no idea how the bolshevik revolution started.

and it's not public school's fault either. i see the books they have... they are GOOD.

it's my fault because i'm lazy.

i'm rather glum now. thanks for asking.

re: the sky

thought one:

i have to constantly remind myself, "Self, don't forget the sky" because i noticed a while back that if i don't consciously remind myself to remember it, i'll forget it.

usually, i find myself either a) staring off into the distance with a peculiar, glazed look, pretending to be brazilian, or b) frantically scanning the concrete (or grass or dirt or pavement, como sea) immediately in front of my flip-flops to see if perchance a stray idea for a lesson plan or bulletin board has been engraved into it.

and that was a wordy sentence. (which is not the point.)

the point is that I FORGET THE SKY!!! AND IT'S EVERYWHERE!!! what is wrong with me?!? whole days pass by, and i can't tell you whether we had cirrus clouds on periwinkle blue or cumulus on azure. [well, that and the fact that i didn't know the difference until 5 minutes ago, but that's not the point either.] worse, it's not even like my mental rumblings compensate for my total celestial blindness.

the absolute worst example is this one road on the way to school each morning. gorgeous, no matter what the weather... all these acres of sky and open, rolling hills and cows and lakes and whatnot. it's lovely. makes me happy just to breathe around it. but get this... that is the precise road that i speed the most on. what makes me prefer a blur over beauty?

man... a whole sky, constantly changing in a hundred ways, depending on one's relative location and meteological happenings... blinkin' exquisite- whether we see it or not. the sky i see while eating my dinner @ LeTU is different from the one some pilot sees a hundred miles up and away... but still so stunning. and the view from some remote tundra in the Yukon, where there are not even caribou to look up... how can so much beauty exist?

and why?

(oh dear. this is quite rambling.)

what purpose does it serve? especially when we don't notice it... ah... but then again, maybe it's vain to assume something is purposeless, just because humans find no need for it.

so... how 'bout that sky?

well i'll be jiggered

thought one:
"...birds, such as duck and geese, will follow the first moving object they see after they are hatched."

hmmm... this must be where are you my mother? comes from. from whence the book comes. whatever.

thought two:
fernando ortega has absolutely the best voice given to a man that i've heard "in a while." okay, so pavarotti isn't bad, but ferdy... he's the man.

thought three:
i miss peru, and i haven't done anything pertaining to my wikidiet today.

thought four: "Give a man a taste for reading adn the means of gratifying it, and you cannot fail to make him a happy, as well as a better man. You place him in contact with the best minds in every period of history, with the wisest and the wittiest, the tenderest and the bravest, those who really adorned humanity. You make him a citizen of all nations and a contemporary of all ages." -Sir John Herschel (whoever that is) i feel so much better now. have all those wiki-endorphins flowing.

my new diet

today was the 2nd day of my wikipedia diet.

let me tell you why the wikipedia diet is wonderful.

most diets you start "tomorrow," no? this is one where you can say with pride and ease, "I started yesterday," (provided, of course, you did indeed start yesterday.)

here's the deal: you (or "one" or "i") resolve[s] to search out one unknown topic on wikipedia a day. this diet cuts down on your mass of ignorance one day at a time, with noticible (how DO you spell that?!) results within 30 years. it's cheap, easy, and a lot funner than writing your machiavelli essay or writing a lesson plan for P.E. tomorrow.

yesterday, i discovered who Bill Hybels and read about realpolitik.

today, i read about the basic premises of the emerging/ emergent church, which is throwing my head for a spin. new schemata! new schemata!

ahem. anyhow. i haven't thought yet whether an "overindulgence" in the wiki-diet is healthy or not... is it like sneaking a couple of graham crackers and peanut butter or like going too far on a run...

start today! (and then tomorrow you can say you started yesterday): wikipedia.org

let's hear it for my boy Big Mac

thought one: (...surely i wrote this...)

"They were freer than their forefathers in dress and living, and spent more in other kinds of excesses, consuming their time and money in idleness, gaming, and women; their chief aim was to appear well dressed and to speak with wit and acuteness, whilst he who could wound others the most cleverly was thought the wisest."

uh-huh-huh... talkin'bout my generation...

thought two:

"For Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches. And always, like a woman, she favours the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity."

this brother needs to broaden his feminine horizons a bit. "favors the young?" pshwaw.

thought three:

"...the vulgur are always taken by appearances adn by results, and the world is made up of the vulgur."

thought four:

would i/you/one rather be loved or feared?


thought another:
This personality test has a range of 0-100
Your score is: 62
You are a high Mach, you endorse Machiavelli's opinions.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but there's a significant minority at either extreme.

a week's worth of thoughts... off wherever dead thoughts go... here are the remnant

thought one:
isn't it funny how "crises" of belief differ from person to person? for instance, i have issues with hell, yet i am pretty much... ah, what's the word...? letsee... "the suffering in the world is not a crisis point for me." sensical or non?

ok. let me try again.

some people lose their faith because of the evil in this world or because of science/ historical finds that cast shadows on their convictions. all those things strengthen my faith and make me more convinced. yet the concept of hell, which my brother says gives him not a faith-hiccup [not in so many words] is... difficult. likewise, OSAS has always seemed kinda off to me, and it was easy for me to renounce it. others, even strong Christians, hold that as dogma... "salvation by grace through faith... forever-no-matter-what-you-do-or-believe-thereafter." abortion is so achingly glaringly evil to me, and yet others see it is as a situational, personal issue. homosexuality... ah, how to phrase this... i hate as a cruel, sick, sad evil, but i have no actual dislike or disdain for homosexuals. not a virtue or accomplishment on my part... just my natural reaction. others see homosexuals as complete abominators and are not opposed to reinstating old testament laws. (which i'm not even getting into right now.)

it's just funny, how the framework of belief gets built.

why are tongues an issue now and not in the early Church?
why didn't the Medieval Church have the same affection for the Jews as Evangelicals do today?
why did the early Church have such a conflict over the nature of Christ, which we kinda just take for granted?
why does the Bible not give a one-two-three steps to salvation guide?
etc.

history thrills me.

thought two:

what do the following have in common?

-ships/cars/airplanes
-fortune
-moon
-earth
-sea
-cities
-nations
-philosophy

thought three:

fortune/ chance is not a "force"... it is the name given to group phenomena having no apparent relation to will.

still. is there such a thing as chance? surely God does not ordain the outcome of every flipped coin? or are unknown natural laws the determinant?