the bridge...

So there was this guy. And He was thinking to himself the things of life. Things like meaning, and hope. He was walking on a bridge and when He looked to his left he saw the sun setting. It was a glorious thing. There were colors that no master painter would dare to duplicate and shading that was breathtaking. It was awesome.

He looked straight ahead and saw his life, easy, planned out with no extreme difficulties. He saw food. He saw comfort. He saw normalcy.

He then turned to His right. There was a mother holding her dying 4 year old in her arms...she has no money to feed him. Beyond her a little ways is an old man that's been blind since birth. He sits in the same place on the street and begs for pennies. His hand shakes so bad that sometimes when the "generous" person tries to drop the change in the cup, it missess and falls to the street. The begging children have more energy and better sight and so they take it before he can locate it. Beside the beggar is a young man that cheated on his wife. She left him. He has no friends. No money. No home. And now, no kids.

The man on the bridge thinks to himself about things of life, about things of Jesus. He turns his back to the sunset and faces full on the hurt of the world, for after all ,the sunset will fade but hurting people will be here untill we no longer need the sun. This is life. This is the christian life. This is the life of the Christ.

Are you a follower? Jump. Jump into the hurt, don't avoid it. Jump into the pain, Christ has prepared you for it. Jump into the disease, You may see a healing from it. Don't be a civilized Christian. John the baptist wasn't. The apostles werent. Paul wasn't. Jesus especially wasn't.

Be raw.

Be real.

Be unsafe.

Be dangerous.

Get rocks thrown at you.

Get beat down.

Be accused of something Christ-like for once.

I want to be, barbaric for Christ.

I'm...too sexy for my stache...

University -"An institution for higher learning with teaching and research facilities constituting a graduate school and professional schools..." - American Heritage Dictionary.

I'm stuck on the words "higher learning". I know they have good intent, at least I think they do, but does what the most populated universities in the nation teach actually fit the criteria to be considered "higher" learning?

Colleges and Universities exist for one purpose. To pass information (that may or may not be relevant) from a person that has been to a university to someone who is currently attending one for the purposes of bettering them (for themselves or for those around them) for life (as they perceive it).

Among the plethora of sources used for an innumerable amount of fields of study there is one gentleman that seems to dominate one particular field; Philosophy. His name is Friedrich Nietzsche. I am not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, I am simply curious. Why?

Any quick philosophy overview will tell you there are several paradigms (world views) in which to understand the six main divisions of philosophy. These world views span from Mono-Trinitarian-theism to, well, nothing. God or no God. Reality or no reality. Truth or no truth. One of these paradigms is nihilism. Started in the 1700's in Russia, nihilism was an almost aborted system until...Nietzsche

Nietzsche gave this starving thought something to feed on and it reproduced. It has children. All of the children are deformed. Most of them obviously so. None of them can mature for maturation is spawned from wisdom and practicality, it is here that nihilism fails.

Nihilism is, in it's simplest form, the belief that nothing can be known and values are nonexistent. Knowledge is unknowable. Truth is nil. Existence is futile. There is no end. It is a cyclical nothingness that repeats for no reason with no purpose. Values or morals are self- revealed and only self-applied. There is no standard in which to weigh these morals, that would entail absolutes and there are no absolutes, right?

What has this thinking birthed? Anything positive? Well? Anyone who holds this view has no reason to be happy and even less of a reason to continue to inhale, and exhale.

It is quite obvious why this thinking is embraced in the immature academic world. If I am a nihilist, nothing I do matters (by the way, why did Nietzsche write anything down?). Which means, guilt free parties. The perfect college life, thanks Fred! ( A friend of mine pointed out that this great, until you have kids. What would you teach them?)

I really don't know where to go from here. There is no logical progression of reasoning. Nothing exists and even less has purpose and worst of all, we do it all over again, until...Well, nothing happens. I have a difficult time understanding how this ideal has trudged through 100 years of enlightenment. If this is true, If nihilism is a valid world view, we would be better off to exterminate the human race all at once, because, perhaps, that has never happened before (or has it?) and that would be something. Anything is better than nothing.

I end here and with this quote, perhaps the self-prophesied epitaph of the superstar of philosophy: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Oh, he spent the last ten years of his life in an asylum repeating, "I am the antichrist!"
Just in case you wanted to know...

the loss of a life without fear...

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin Killed By Stingray

CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” was killed Monday by a stingray while filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44. Irwin was killed by a stingray barb to the heart on Batt Reef, off the remote resort town of Port Douglas in northeastern Queensland state, his wildlife park Australia Zoo said in a statement. Crew members aboard Irwin’s boat, Croc One, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead a short time later.



"I have no fear of losing my life — if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it."

"Crocodiles. I've been catching them since I was nine. No problem."

"I've worked with more dangerous snakes than anyone in the world and I've never been bitten. It's a gift." - Steve Irwin

It is sad that this man with little fear of the creepy, crawly, deadly things of this planet would be ended by something that rarely takes a life. We never have complete control...despite our gifts.

The hourglass nebula...

If you were to travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) for 8000 years away from our Planet Earth you would encounter the Hourglass Nebula. This picture was taken from the hubble space telescope in 1997, I think. This is one of some 1500 nebulas in our galaxy (The Milky Way). A nebula is a planetary star in its dying days...it's beautiful.

In the world of emotions that check and balance like our finances, death is always felt. It is felt deep. Mourning is the deepest emotion one's body can handle without turning inside out. Have you ever seen a woman mourn the death of her husband of fifty years at the graveside? The wailing, flailing, and casket holding scenario is not one of embarrasment, envy, or pride, it is hurt. It is hurt at the deepest level. It is perhaps the most human thing we do.

In the heavens birth is beautiful and the irony is that death is equally so. On our planet death is ugly. Death is silent. Death is surreal and real.

I have never lost anyone close to me, I mean really close. I hope I handle it with proper mourning. I don't mean the stonewall personality. I don't mean ignoring it because it will eventually go away. I mean the snot, the wailing, the flailing, the staring. I want to embrace it all. And when it's all done, it will be beautiful.

I'm back...

I know...I know... I havent posted in like eight months. Although If the auther is the only reader...it doesnt really matter. Still, sometimes, despite the hundreds of pages a day I read, the best thing I read is something I wrote. Arrogant? Maybe. Or it could just be that everyone else is not as interesting as I am. :)

God is not a whore...

...maybe it's like, "Yeah, I believe in God but it's ok if I sin because He'll forgive me." Or maybe even like this, "I believe Jesus died for me but I don't have to go around telling others about it or living 'perfectly' because no one can do that". To this I say to my friend and myself, God is no whore that he gives himself away to someone who shows him an inclination of belief. Remember when Jesus (in John 2:23-25) was being believed in by those who saw his signs. The key is in verse 24. The Greek makes the picture come alive in this verse for the word used for "entrust" comes from the Greek word ποιεω which is actually rooted in the concept of uniting or binding like in a contract. So these people were binding themselves to Jesus but Jesus wouldn't bind himself to them because he knows what is in a man. He knows better than to give himself to someone who is not devoted but only looking for easy-believism.

My denomination teaches the concept of "once saved, always saved". This should be spoken of cautiously for it could give some (maybe most) believers a false certainty of their eternal destination. God will not bind himself to someone who walks an aisle and says a prayer one day. This is not Christianity. Christianity is walking not only with Jesus everyday but walking the way he walked, perfectly. We are called to be perfect as He is perfect, aren't we? And if we're called and Jesus has done everything and sent everything ( The Holy Spirit) then what's the excuse? "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" What a cop out. We are a bunch of lazy (and I mean that in the strictest governmental terminology) whoremongers.

The prophets didn't have a problem telling Israel that they were "playing the harlot" with God. They had all their idols and immorality and they just mixed it in with YHWH GOD.

Do we treat so lightly Matthew 7:22-23. We are known by the fruit we bear. This is a smack over the head for me because it makes it me wonder...when was the last time I produced fruit? When was the last time I did anything for the God of the universe?
When...

Who do we think we are...really?

My wife and I had a conversation during a road trip about the characteristics of God. This was an interesting conversation. Sometimes the voices got louder and louder and then softer and softer. Sometimes one of us wanted to stop the conversation but the other didn't. Sometimes one of us had an "aha" moment and the other one was like "huh". The conversation lasted 2 hours and I feel that we are the better because of it. We hit philosophical and biblical ideas together. It was great. But lost somewhere in between the finite words that were falling from our lips was the fact the God is beyond finding out. You see, sometimes we treat God as if he is a genie in a bottle standing at the ready to answer any whim that may cross our minds. Yet some others may see Him as so far off that they don't pray. The Eeore syndrome, "why bother". What ever happened to the AWE?

Questions should affect the way we see God. Questions like: What does the Creator owe the creature? Nothing. He owes us nothing. Not even the air or the priveledge to live. If God decided that we would never be able to see Him or spend time with Him, then we should be gratefull. If God decided to cast everyone to hell, we should be gratefull. Not that a good God would ever do a thing such as this but it really puts our perspective on God into focus. Like, if God decided never to do another thing for you, would you still serve Him? If you knew that turmoil and strife and eventually death would come if you served God, would you continually devote yourself to Him?

Television and society have warped our idea of who God is...if you want to be brought back to the awe, read. Read the Prophets. Read about Moses. Read about Job. Read Revelation (Idon't care which of the four views you hold). The God of AWE has been lost in the commercials, who do we fear? We ought to be so scared of God that we are completely comfortable in his presence. We should approach the throne of grace in confidence, but with trembling lips.

He owes us nothing, especially salvation, yet it is treated as so lofty a gift. Do we truly understand what it meant for God to sacrifice His Son? To treat His only son as if he had committed every sin that has been or will be committed by every human being that has or ever will exist so that He can treat us as if we have committed none? Jesus lived the perfect life so that when we believe in Him the father doesn't see our unrighteousness, He sees Jesus' righteousness imputed to us because of the Son.

If God owes us anything it is only the right to wonder. The right to not have it all figured out. The right to never fully know Him until He has made us like him in eternity.

To Him be the power and the glory forever.

Pride

We are allowed to be proud. This area of pride is restricted to certain domains, but proud we can be. We can be proud of our children when they do well in school, at a track meet or in the home. We can be proud of our Lord. We serve a master that is good in all that He does. We don't serve him in slavery but in the epitome of freedom. I am proud that I serve a God like that and I am not afraid to tell you so.
But today I am proud of something else. My wife. She is the most wonderful companion and friend that I guy could asked for. She is the most honest person I know. She is super intelligent and humble. So humble that very few people know how intelligent she is. She only speaks when it doesn't hurt others. She only laughs when it is not at someone else's expense. She only cries when it is an outpouring of her soul and not for sympathy. She works very hard and somehow manages to be the perfect mother. Her name is April and there is no one else for me. I know that I will never be the exceptional father of our children that I would like to be. I know that I will never be rich. I know that despite what I may think I will never know it all. I know that I lack in all things and excel in few, but I also know that I was never meant to do any of this alone. We are one flesh and yet have different personalities. We are one flesh and I know I could not not do this life successfully without her. I love her with all that is me and I pray that Jesus will help me to show her everyday how much she means to me
She is also superwoman. Today she went to work for 5 hours, then she will drive 6 six hours to her sisters house. At that time she will help her sister to naturally go into labor and coach her through the delivery (no matter how long it takes) and then she will come back home. She digs childbirth. I am PROUD of my help-meet. And I hope I make her proud to be called my wife.

My Faith...I own it...

Is it necessary to follow all the traditions of those before us without even questioning whether or not it is relevant or even (dare I say) contradictory to our beliefs.
Is it necessary to believe only what our folks have told us despite the new evidence that you may acquire in your walk with Jesus.
My daughter brought me to this realization. She is four and she asks me "Why?" a lot. Now, I have two choices. I can give her my reason, which as an arrogant adult is most often, "because I said so!" or I can, as I am trying to do, help her to reason through the "why". Sometimes this means taking a few extra minutes, but isn't it worth a few extra minutes so that our children learn to think for themselves? I don't want her to have my faith while she is growing up. I am teaching her to reason and to come up with her own faith in the Lord Jesus. After all isn't it a common thing now to see a youngster profess faith in Christ having grown up in a Christian home only to rebel and leave God behind, sometimes never to return. If the faith they have is their own then they would only be rebelling from themselves. After all aren't they mostly just rebelling from mom and dad, or perhaps authority in general. Give them authority in their beliefs and they will own them, in turn their beliefs will be inescapable and will be the authority in their lives. Isn't it our beliefs that drive us either to obedience or disobedience?

I want my daughter to listen to my instruction not because it is my instruction, but because she believes it to be the instruction of the Lord that she believes in.
The other day she so philosophical it astounded me. She's four, mind you. But at the dinner table I encourage her to try everything that I make her and she is only allowed to "not like" two foods. She can pick any two that she wants but only two. Everything else she has to eat. While we were at the table she said she didn't like the food and didn't want to eat it. She then accused me of not listening to her. Her teachers at school have taught her that we are to "listen to eachother". So, in her philosophical reasoning she asked me. "Daddy, aren't we a boy and a girl?" and I replied, "Yes, I am a boy and you are a girl". Then she asked, "Doesn't a boy and a girl make up an 'eachother'?" "Yes, we are an 'eachother'". To which she asked, "And aren't we supposed to listen to eachother?" She had my undivided attention now. The conversation did not go completely in her favor (She did eat the food) but I did listen to her and she listened to me and we came to an understanding.
Reasoning is an important part of our spiritual walk. Isaiah 1:18, "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord..."

God always has the right answer but sometimes he wants us to struggle through it. When the struggle is over we realize that we have tapped into wisdom. The wisdom that David and Solomon and Paul refer to. They owned their faith in way that led them to become world changers. I want my kids to be world changers and if it takes an extra minute to help that to come to pass then there is nothing else that deserves that minute more.