buuuuurrrrnnooouuuuttt

does anyone remember marvin the martian? of course you do. in my opinion he is the most underrated looney tune's antagonist. i just decided that he's my favorite all time looney tune's character. period. in fact, i'm making this very picture the background of my computer in solidarity with marvin's underdog, anti-villain persona. if there are anti-heroes then there should be anti-villains right? always striving but never quite making it. i mean, you never really wanted bugs bunny to get away from the bad guy right? we always rooted for yosemite sam or elmer fudd and even marvin the martian but bugs bunny won every time. if you ask me marvin was the most diabolical, for example, the dynamite cannon aimed at earthly destruction. how many other looney tune's villains were hell-bent on planetocide (dibs on word coinage)? i can appreciate his dedication and resolve. had he ever been to earth? actually i think he had...so obviously he had first hand experience and thus was not planning on eradicating our planet out of ignorance. so, he was educated and arguably justified in his motives. and there weren't any other martians were there? so perhaps he was the last remaining of his species. marvin was a survivor. did that deter him? no. the man possessed stones. despite the death of his fellow martian brethren he did not lose sight of the collective martian vision of terrestrial eradication, passed down through generations of martian folklore and tradition. marvin THE martian.

the last 30 sentences are the product of a fried brain.

i think i burned myself out last week. i worked pretty hard between school and landscaping to get caught up and then to get ahead, and now i just don't want to do anything. i'd rather just relax and procrastinate for a while and write dumb blogs. i haven't procrastinated at all this semsester, so i deserve a little bit right? well, honestly i can afford to relax a few nights and i'll still be right where i should be by the end of the weekend. so who cares?

there you go, i just justified blowing off school for the last three nights, hahaha. i drank too much coffee tonight too. i'm gonna be up for a while.

we have no community

i don't know my neighbors.

whose fault is that? well, mine and my neighbors i suppose. i've been reflecting on my lack of community recently. the first question that may come to the minds of most evangelicals when they hear i have no community is whether i have joined a church. my reply is no, i have not joined a church because well, i'm not willing to settle. i don't know how many times in the last three months i've heard "don't look for what a church can give you, but look for what you can give to the church." and you know what that's a good point, i appreciate the anti-consumer approach as well as the jfk rip-off. but, i'm asking a further question in my search; what is this church giving to others? call me idealistic, but i want to gather together with a body of believers yearning to share all that Jesus has with a hurting world. is there not a church in fort worth built around that principle? i'm patient. i can wait until i find a church that is outwardly focused. there has to be one some where around here, right?

back to community. i am surrounded by 600,000 people and i have no community. i live in a neighborhood with hundreds of other seminary students and i have no community. my neighbor could die tomorrow and i wouldn't find out until the next chapel service when our president asked us to pray for their family. wait, i wouldn't know then either because i don't know their names. you see, it is my fault as well as theirs. however, we are only continuing a lifestyle created before us in which we all have been raised. why else is this the case for 98% of americans? we didn't choose it and yet we choose it every day. sound familiar? we are so lonely yet we do not know love well enough to recognize our own loneliness.

i was blessed to live in a tight community last year. it had its difficulites, but rarely did i have to do anything without one of my best friends right beside me. now, i'm expected to do everything alone because i am a single male and i'm supposed to be an individual, independent from everyone. you know what, i can do it without a community around me, but my quality of life while doing it won't be the same. do you see? every day we close ourselves into our homes with our things all around us, with our tv's blaring, our computer monitors on the most recent sports page, and we live with no realization of how terribly lonely we are.

i consider myself to be a fairly healthy individual with a pretty optimistic outlook on life. i attribute these things to my parents, my extended family, and to my faith. but the majority of our society never had these three things, let alone one or two of them. i can handle being alone...i'd just rather not. i dream of life without television and the internet (ironic that i'm using it now i know, i'm not opposed to it) and without cars. in my opinion these three things have done the most to destroy any sense of community. we are sucked inside by television and the internet, while cars allow us travel across town to friends we rarely see instead of spending time with those in our more immediate circle whom we could share our lives with on a daily basis.

we could ride bicycles everywhere and we'd be healthy too.

christian scholarship...?

"the matter is quite simple. the bible is very easy to understand. but we christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. we pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. my god, you will say, if i do that my whole life will be ruined. how would i ever get on in the world? herein lies the real place of christian scholarship. christian scholarship is the church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the bible to ensure that we can continue to be good christians without the bible coming too close. oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? dreadful is it to fall into the hands of the living god. yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the new testament."

-Soren Kierkegaard

i have to admit that to a large extent i agree. i agree despite the indictment this passage makes against the very thing i am doing with my life at this moment. i am a christian scholar in the making. now, i do not believe that the bible was written for scholars only. nor do i believe that you must understand the text in its original language to fully appreciate or know its true meaning. christian scholarship is important insofar as it holds our teachers accountable to sound biblical theology, centered around christ and authoritative as the foundation of truth. do men and women hide behind their lexicons and commentaries in lieu of service to the needy? do we spend entirely too much time in multiple bible studies when we could be out learning experientially about our faith? yes, both are unfortunate realities for many christians. so, i agree to the extent that christian scholarship may serve as an impediment to doing our faith. but i also see its purpose for the church.

i'm looking for the real deal. i'm looking for a church in fort worth not content with just showing up sunday morning and not focused on ministry to itself. i'm searching for people who give their whole lives to others, like jesus. i want to see that. so far it's been hard to come by. i'm not looking down upon the traditional ministry positions my brothers and sisters at the seminary are working towards. we need solid pastors willing to challenge their complacent bible belt church body. we need youth pastors who will show selfish and self-conscious teenagers how to look outside themselves to see who jesus really is. i just don't think my place is there, at least not right now. maybe my place is on the street with the dirty and forgotten.

did you know that since the row v. wade hearing in 1973 we have killed 50 million babies in the u.s. through abortion? bloody hands. what is this nation? who are we kidding, god bless america?? i will never sing that song again; instead while others are mindlessly singing those absurd words i'll be lifting up an intercessory prayer for the forgiveness of "the greatest nation." or maybe i should pray for a little justice?

i lived on the pointy one farthest to the right.

why am i never entirely content in one place? i spent the last year in colorado, beautiful, sunny colorado where the weather is nearly always perfect even when it's raining or snowing. i was so anxious to start school in fort worth. i was anxious to finish the job there because it was hard. i was ready for civilization and "real life." what was i thinking? not that i'm disappointed about life now. i'm not, actually there are some really exciting things happening and school is great. i've met some wonderful people in fort worth and a lot of opportunities have come up to spend time with old friends. but texas is not colorado. first of all it's hot here, duh. secondly there are no mountains hence no snowboarding, ski towns, ski resorts, mountain coffee shops, or cabins with fireplaces. you can't hot tub comfortably for five months of the year in texas, and white water rafting is non-existent.

so, i don't miss the job i had and honsetly i don't miss living on the side of a mountain as beautiful as it was. i miss the accessibility to beautiful places and to the kind of recreation i enjoy.

i need to learn how to be content wherever i am though don't i?. there are redeemable aspects to living anywhere, right? maybe, haha, i don't know. perhaps you can sympathize if you spent one year living your fantasy and then you had to move back. i didn't have to by the way, i chose to. that might leave less room for me to complain. though i don't feel like i'm complaining, i'm more expressing what i've been thinking about. any advice? basically the plan is to finish out school over the next two and a half years and then move back to colorado! we'll see what God has to say about that one, eh? i guess i could be anywhere three years from now.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, 'For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us."
Romans 8:35-37

"even if the enemy's foot be on your neck expect to rise again. you are more than conquerors."
-spurgeon

i'm sure you've heard these verses. just thought one more time couldn't hurt.

african music

well, i've been waiting around for something interesting to happen so i could blog about it, but nothing has come up in the last few days. life is ordinary; ordinary interactions, ordinary errands, ordinariness. and that's all good, it's good to be normal every now and then, to go with the flow and all that. so i am going to write about the most interesting thing i have discovered this week...african music. ive been listening to yahoo music while i study, and they have a set of stations labeled "world music." within this set is the african music station. i highly recommend it if you're looking for a change. it plays everything from beautiful african hymns to hip hop. we white folks are pretty aware of our inherent lack of rhythm. ok, that may be a coarse generality...i have a little rhythm, but it is not as natural or intriguing as african rhythm. they lay down some amazing beats even in their hymns, and the accompanying melodies are completely different from anything american. they know how to play the blues too, dang! so, if you're bored with the indie junk you always listen to check out the african station and buy some albums. impress your friends with your broad, eclectic taste in music.