From crib to coffin
my blood was tainted
i hoped myself to save
and from my works be sainted

While in my coffin lie
i wonder at what price
We hope for rest when we die
but did my works suffice

Carried on the shoulders
of the enslaved
who hope for sainthood yet
I am lowered to the grave

i pray for a cleansing flood
to make them not like me

John 21:15-17

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "You know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."
Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."

"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions."- G.K.Chesterton

We are always planning. it is out nature to plan ahead and hope. The denial of sin nature means everything we plan will fail. If there is no sin nature, that means people should improve with their environment. the denial of sin nature also means the denial of a theological problem and we try to deal with a theological problem with different means.

I have started to get to know a couple of homeless people. one in particular, just through his intense giving attitude, has made me realize how rediculasly materialistic we all are. i was cold, he knows i have money to clothe myself, i didn't have gloves on, he offered to give me his only gloves straight off his hands. I have two pairs of gloves and there is someone else who needs a pair of gloves. i have a dozen different pairs of clothes, a laptop to type this up on, mp3 player, cell phone, how much soccer equipment, two guitars, how many books, shoes, socks, covers, sleeping bags, the list goes on.

Matthew 19:20 "Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

How much do i give to the poor? very little. the gospel is radical, yet we're so tame.

" There is no deep hurt where there is no deep love."-MLKJ

There is plenty of reason to hurt. Death and pain surround us. There isn't a lack of reason to hurt. Maybe if we're not hurting for others, there is a problem with our love.

And there was a good man, a religious
He was a needy priest of a village,
But rich enough in saintly thought and work.
And educated, too, for he could reak;
Would truly preach the word of Jesus Christ,
Devoutly teach the folk in his parish.
Kind was he, wonderfully diligent;
And in adversity most patient,
As many a time had been put to the test.
For unpaid tithes he’d not excommunicate,
For he would rather give, you may be sure,
From his own pocket to the parish poor;
Few were he needs, so frugally he lived.
Wide was his parish, with houses far asunder,
But he would not neglect, come rain or thunger,
Come sickness or adversity, to call
On the furthest of his parish, great or small;
Going on foot, and in his hand a staff.
This was the good example he set:
He practiced first what later he would teach.
Out of the gospel he took that precept;
And what’s more, he would cite this saying too:
‘ If gold can rust, then what will iron do?’
For if a priest be rotten, whom can we trust,
No wonder if a layman comes to rust.
It’s a shamed to see
A shitten shepard and a cleanly sheep.
It’s the plain duty of priest to give
Example to his sheep; how they should live
He et his benefice for hire
And left his sheep to flounder in the mire
While he ran off to long, to St Paul’s
To seek some chantry and sing mass for souls,
Or to be kept as a chaplain by a guild;
But stayed at home, and took care of his fold,
So that no wolf might do it injury
He wsa a shepherd, not a mercenary
And although he was saintly and virtuous,
He wasn’t haughty or contemptuous
To sinners, speaking to them with disdain,
But in his teaching tacful and humane
To draw up folk to heaven by goodness
And good example was his sole business.
But if a person turned our obstinate,
Whoever he was, high or low estate,
He’s earn a stinging rebuke then and there.
You’ll never find a better priest , I swear
He never looked for pomp or deference,
Not effected an over-nice conscience,
But taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and His twelve
Apostles; but first followed it himself
-The canterbury tales- Prolouge, the Nun's Priest

The pop culture of today, even though it teaches tolerance, i believe it breeds intolerance and disappointment. Believing that person is innately good by birth and tolerance do not go together. they Breed two different thoughts that cannot co-exist. How many times have you heard, " i am just looking for a good man, woman, or role model."? We want to believe we live in a normal world with normal people. Reality is we live in a broken world filled with sinful people. If we believe a person is good by nature, that means either their exterior is a representation of their essence, or their exterior is not a permanent state, rather a stage. Imagine the disappointment when you find that you care about is corrupt in their essence? Also, if we are good by nature, then we are better than a person who lives a corrupt life. On the other side of the spectrum, if you know a person is corrupt by nature, you will be more tolerant to a person who is struggling in life because we expect a person to fail often, due to our sin nature. This makes us more prone to forgive, more lively to love the struggling, and this humbles us because we are no better. To end, with our sin nature, we are in desperate need of Christ's saving work. We are no better than anyone else and we would be as torn as they are without Christ.

the day it became politics job to change a culture is the day politics failed. All politicians can do it pass law to try and restrain a person and give money in hopes that will pacify a person. A person is not driven by need to kill, rape, drugs, or join gangs. That is a theological problem with the person. Something we try to do today is address theological issues without theology. It does not work. Laws and money cannot change a person. We have yet to realize that the welfare state has no decreased poverty, rather the dependents have grown greatly. The economy has grown also along with the standard of living. in 1972 the stock market hit a new high, 1000 points. The stock market in the pass two days has lost 1000 points and we are still able to function. Money cannot change a persons essence, but Christ can. We're control freaks and can't admit it when we realize that it is outside of our power to change a person. But we also drive government to make a dozen differnt laws to govern us by. G.K. Chesterton sums it up well:"If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments."

I would argue that the poor and fatherless are going to be, more so than ever, enslaved by the government. There is no reason to leave welfare, there is no reason to leave section 8 housing, there is no logical reason to stop taking government hand outs. There especially isn't any reason when you have been raised in a government educational facility that spoon feeds us the reasons why we should rely on the government. With the poor and downtrodden stuck in a government rut, this is all the more reason for the church to make strides in the worst areas of town. The irony of it all, the worst parts of town are government housing. To end, the need is growing, people are hungry for something more, and we haven't lifted a finger. perhaps we should.

"19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own"
1 Corinthians 6:19

This is a fairly well known verse. Today i noticed another aspect to this verse. This applies to everyone, right? The bitterness you have towards someone else is bitterness towards the temple of the Holy Spirit. Strange to think of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIXyBf2ELsA

An impromptu skit done at matt's apartment. After a few minutes of idle sitting, this happened.

"Culture is simply a worldview made evident. It is basic beliefs worked out into habits of life. It is theology translated into sociology. Culture is a very practical expression of the common faith of a community or a people or a nation. Culture is, as Henry Van Til famously quipped, “religion externalized.”"- Dr. George Grant

Where is the church and where are we?

We are more connected than we would like to think. We like to think our actions are our own and that we are isolated in their consequences. C.S. Lewis pointed out that God is outside of time. If there isn't time, then everything is. If everything is, then we are all connected in a literal sense. In another sense, we all carry a piece of those we are close to. If we ruin ourselves, we ruin that piece of the person we love. Funny, our lives are not our own in two senses. Our lives are gifts from God and we are bound, unless we wish to parts of those we love, to the people we love.

" The gospel is like a lake that is shallow enough a child can wade, but deep enough an elephant can swim."

From crib to grave, my blood was tainted
While my coffin lie, i wonder at what price
carried by enslaved who hope for sainthood yet
i pray a cleansing flood for them to not be like me.
that is my final advice.

Here's an interesting tidbit. One of main reasons for, that is mostly unheard of, the American revolution was for the widows and fatherless. Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams both called for the over throw of the British because they were a burden for the poor, for the widowed, and for the fatherless. Notice today when we talk about having a smaller government or even when you hear about people wanting to overthrow the government, they do not appeal to a call for justice or charity, rather to our greed.

I have always been a fan of the free market, rather than government pumping money into a failing business. Some of the strange things that happen are how the government gives over $300 million dollars to the tobacco farming industry, due to dropping sales and also spends over half a billion on ad campaigns to stop smoking. That’s off topic. I have noticed that people tend to think that life is at its best, right now, whenever something is stable, that is the best it can ever be, leave it at that. When something fails, we have to come up with something better to make it succeed or come up with something completely new. The trouble with trying to maintain life as it is, is this: it limits what you can do. If this is the best we can be, then we have no desire to obtain anything greater, we have no desire to learn. Notice how a person who succeeds is usually described as passionate? That person isn’t doing something solely for the purpose of doing something. Not because a person has a passion for accounting, but rather there is something deeper that drives him. What he is doing flows from who he is. That is why he learns more, that is why he does his job constantly improves and does his job better than he did before. It’s not what we do, but who we are.

Culture is religion externalized. The cultural failure that we are, this isn’t the other persons fault, it is our own. It is the churches fault. It is our fault. It is my fault. The luke warmness that we have, that isn’t convincing, probably since we can barely convince ourself that the gospel is real. Sincerity shines through. Our half hearted motives shines through even more, since not only do they not see sincerity, but they also see how little we care. It is not what you’re doing, but who you are.

i remembered some pslams and proverbs, i don't have references off the top of my head, where it talks about how God makes a persons path if one will follow him. i realized that it actually applies to every area of life. last week i would not have believed that my church would have started making steps to start an outreach ministry from my involvement in another ministry, but it did. I didn't plan for any of this, it fell into my lap. On the actually thought of this post, if a person knows who he is to be, or what he wants to be, what you do flows straight from that. Ultimately, whatever i do runs from who i am. every career i've thought about working in always had the same end goal. A place where the gospel is needed and a means to work with people showing them the gospel enacted. The gospel is bound in the essence of who i am. what i'm doing is flowing from that.

1 Answer me when I call to you,
O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me and hear my prayer.

2 How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame [a] ?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods [b] ?
Selah

3 Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;
the LORD will hear when I call to him.

4 In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent.
Selah

5 Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the LORD.

6 Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.

7 You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.

8 I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4

Funny how beautiful surrender can be.

Failing, misfortune, and pain. Funny how we are terrified of those words. The old Scotch Presbyterians saw these as merely a divine hand steering them towards another opportunity with greater glory. When the oppression of Scotland started in 1748 by raising taxes 450%, clearing the highlands of all people living there, and banning and crushing the cultural marks in Scotland, they saw it as the end of one thing and the start of something greater. Strange how right they were. When they were no longer able to live in Scotland there was a mass exodus of the Scotch Presbyterians to America. King George the Third said the revolutionary war was caused of the black brigades. Black referring to the color of the pastoral robes.

George Washington said, “ the aspiration of our people in Scotland can be fulfilled. Freedom shall be our call, freedom shall be out motto and voice, since we are all Scots indeed.”

The Scots had everything taken from them. Their land, everything they owned,and the majority of the men had been killed in the war lead by Bonny Prince Charley just years before. The generation that immigrated was mostly children and widows. Even in this, they believed that this was all caused to create a greater glory and never lost vision and hope in the gospel. they still believed that misfortune steers us to something greater. How right they were.

Our failings, misfortune, and pain is so much less than the Scots had and we still loose our vision.

If there is, then we should.

Is there is a God, there is a truth and a beauty that isn’t subject to relativism. If we believe in a God, then we should pursue this beauty. Culture is religion externalized. If we believe in a God, then we should create the culture. The culture we live in today isn’t anyone’s fault, except our own.

" Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleagured cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in comndemed cells, makes jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not Panache; it is our nature." C.S.Lewis the weight of glory.

There is no lack of desire for culture, art, beauty. There never will be a lack of desire, since it is embedded in our nature. People are always looking for something to fill the desire. Perhaps we should provide something to meet their desires.

We tend not to notice something until either we put in the middle of something that is starkly contrasted or loose it completely. As i was sitting in the parking lot garden at work, i look down and see a cigarette butt filled parking lot with screaming kids. I look up, and i see a placid sky. i look down and i see people making out, fighting, and attempting to use stock cars as racers around a parking lot. i look up, and there's a placid sky. There is a gift of the peace in the placid sky. The interesting thing is that we always trade even noticing that peace for something. perhaps tomorrow it'll be to try and validate myself with to the person next to me, perhaps it will be to hopelessly indulge my ego. I think the desire for validation and peace doesn't mean that we will necessarily obtain it, but that proves the existence of it.

Realizations have their limits. Our insensate questions of why, to gather more information, fueled by emotion and pain. The answers we're seeking come after our healing.

Lust. This objectifies, there isn’t any debate about that. There is something else, it limits. It limits to the physical and denies anything deeper. There is nothing wrong with beauty, actually, it’s something good. Rather it is not good as an end in and of itself. It isn’t an end, rather a beginning and falls terribly short of what a woman actually is. It denies all the depth and essence of her.

The difference between man slaughter and murder is our intentions. The difference between confrontation and hateful criticism is our intentions. Our intentions shine through rather brightly. As we are always working towards a goal, a purpose, when our barriers are broken down, as they are so easily, we serve our purpose. If sheer love is not the purpose, we cut the other person short. There is something admirable in the how kids see through our facades even easier than we do. part of that is because it takes more work to love the kids and they see us without our facade much quicker and more frequently than anyone else does.

And some quotes from class: ( these are in reference to the book Wuthering Heights)

Ellen: “ he says he wished he could die from drinking. Man, he just didn’t know how. He went to the wrong college.”

Heath:” he probably went to union.”

Ellen: “ they got married three years after their engagement.”

Lauren:” it took three years to plan a wedding?”

Heath: “ it was a big wedding.”

Heath: “ Shawn johnson, she’s __________ ” just fill in the blank and you have a sentance heath said

While ms.lesly is explaining a problem, she says, without missing a beat

Ms. Lesly: “ more like she’s out of your league.”

then without missing a beat, again, switches back to explaining the problem.

There seems to be no lack of ideas, but rather we exuast the source of our ideas; ourselves. People in general always think that they are something different and unusual as compared to the person next to them. we have a tendency to think our ideas are something unusual, that we really are something better than the people around us. Our ideas have been recycled over and over again. There aren't new ideas, but rather we strive to actually understand the current ideas. The issue is we're in a static state of mediocrity. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that is exactly where we're at. The question we seem to miss is if there is anything deeper than ourselves. If we think that we are the apitamy of the wisdom, then we focus on ourselves. We are nothing new, hence the recycled thought that appear again and again. If we look at someone else and view them as the god of thought, in most cases, we will see thoughts displayed that are recycled once more. If you're lucky, you'll find a person who reiterated the idea.

I used to be an atheist. One thing i could never reconcile was this: most of the people i knew or read about had some moment when they actually denied God, through art, music, screaming, writing, or all the other variations, but why did i feel the need to deny a god i didn't believe in? why were all the arguments against a god, or specifically, the christian model of god the same? Why do so many people have the same idea, but try to sell it as something new? The only answer i found was that there was an innate sense of something higher that ourselves. That we were created in the image of something, since in reality, we're almost identical to the next person.

In the end i was never able to reconcile these questions of why without the concept of a deity. After searching i found that christianity was the only religion that answered all the questions i had. Later i found that what made christianity so different was that it wasn't a religion. it isn't a systematic way to step through hoops to obtain something that benefits us. Grace, that is something that other religions do not have, but rather i've seen time and time again a scale and our good deeds must outwiegh our bad deeds. No one except their deity knows where our scale stands. We're left in uncertainty and driven mad trying to not be eternally punished. This either meant the deity had a incredible cruel sense of humor or was incredibly thoughtless. I am a sinner, i sin every day that i breathe. I realize my sin far outweighs any possible good i could do. The idea that we're naturally evil was the only thing that made sense and it is the only thing that ever has.

I knew i could never earn forgiveness and even if i did, i knew i would fail again. once more, a relationship with Christ, christianity, made sense. it took into account that i would fail, it took into account that i had an innate sense of God, that we're all made in the same image, and there was God wasn't incompetent of have a cruel sense of humor, rather God was loving and was above us and is an infinite source of thought that we can barely tap. i'll stop now.

in other news, i'm leaving for CRS on monday. farewell.