Incessant Ramblings

2005-02-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok, I get it I am a truly horrible person. I have not blogged in ages, ok moths really but a lot has happened since then. Warning this might be a little long I have a few things that have happened in the past couple days that I really do want to share about. One thing happened a while back that I have yet to write about—I graduated. It is hard and strange to believe that I am done with school, twenty-two years in the hallowed halls of American academia reached their culmination. One of the most unusual things for me since then is realizing at various times that I don’t have to read. Not that I have stopped reading by any means but I no longer have that persistent guilt ridden feeling looming over me telling me that I need to be reading need to be reading faster, need to be writing over what I just read, starting research papers, working and doing anything but hanging out talking with friends or watching TV, or reading something simply for pleasure. I welcome these days with arms wide open (thanks Scott Stapp . . .RIP Creed).

Ok there are three big other topics on my mind at the moment.

1. One of my best friends Travis has a link on his blog http://travisharsch.blogspot.com/ to mine. The sub header on that link reads “friend who has bad things happen to his car)”. Well it happened yet again. Last night sometime between the beginning of the epitome of American commercialization (aka the Superbowl) my car was broken into for the 5th time, for the third time since my last birthday. This time nothing was stolen, I just have to mess with yet another broken window—yippee.

2. On Friday night I saw Hotel Rawanda. While this movie has good acting, and I do believe Don Cheadle certainly is deserving of his Oscar nomination—he shows an incredible range of emotion. This movie is not superb. I probably will not watch this movie again. Yet, I must say that it is probably the most intense movie I have ever seen. Not in the Jerry Bruckheimer sense, but in the oh my God this actually happened sense. I have never reacted in the way that I did in this movie. I truly believe that everyone should see this movie. Everyone walks out of the theater in stunned silence. Most shocking of all is the fact that this happened in our lifetime, a mere ten years ago, and yet I no practically nothing about it. Even though a million people died in this Genocide. Our knowledge base is so prejudice. I won’t watch this movie again not because it is not worth seeing, but because I don’t know if I could handle seeing it again.

3. This past weekend I went with some friends to a really neat Hispanic art exhibit in Dallas entitled el Corazon. After taking three hours to get there—many wrong turns—we finally made it to this really cool exhibit. Which had a number of rooms of paintings, photography, and sculpture all themed around the heart and done by Latino artists (shout out to V-Day), they also had performance art too. We got there quite a bit late obviously, and thus were only able to see (?) performances of the oral history, and a blues bad. Regardless it was a great experience, I wish I took more time to appreciate the arts.

Well that is all for now, hopefully I will make this blog thing happen a little more often than once every other month.

gloer update

2004-12-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

just wanted to let it be known that i saw gloer again today, and he appered much better than yesterday. when i went in he was sitting up in the wheelchair reading some crossan. and he was much more lively, but his speech was still slurred. he wsa excited to report though that he walked eighty feet today with his 'hemi' walker. i guess like any road to recovery there will be bad days and good day, let us jsut pray for more of the good days and for each to be better than the last.

things

2004-11-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, so now the ‘check engine light’ is on and off intermittently—I better take it in. But, I don’t want to think about that right now. Nor do I want to think about my theology final on Thursday, or the huge project due on Friday.

Somethings though that I don’t want to focus on I am forced to do so. This afternoon I went to visit dr. gloer in the hospital, he is one of my preaching and scriptures professors, he had a stroke on the Sunday before thanksgiving. It was good to se him but at the same time disheartening. He has paralysis on his right side, the doctors seem to think that he will be able to recover from this. More disheartening than his loss of motion was his slowed and slurred speech. Dr. gloer is a master orator, he is the type of person that can’t speak without preaching, but it never gets annoying as it does with the cast majority of that type. He is so skilled in the art of rhetoric that it is always a joy to hear him speak. But to se the frustration in his eyes and hear him, slow and slurred and say ‘my mind is moving so much faster than my mouth,’ makes my heart ache. I hope and pray that he will soon return to his normal self. We love him no matter how he is but we beg to see healing in his life.

Now, though, to what I really want to talk about, something exciting, something which brings happiness to think about and discuss. . . . two of my best friends—andrew and dana—got engaged over the t-day break. It is so awesome when two people whom I love individually not just because I am called to love them as persons, but because they are truly awesome people who are bright and truly good people, people whose fellowship with me is the manna of my life find each other and get together. Its not one of those cases where one is settling or one person is just a jerk in disguise, but rather they are the type of people that constantly push each other beyond which they thought was possible before. I am overjoyed at the thought of these two committing life and love together.

t-day

2004-11-27T21:12:00.000-08:00

So I awoke Thursday to finish getting ready for Thanksgiving. I had already baked my pies: pumpkin and bourbon chocolate pecan, but still needed to do some cleaning. When I let nova, jessy’s dog, out to pee he ran away so I went and got my keys to bring him back in my jeep which is when a couple things happened. One getting into my car I notice that junk was everywhere, as it normally is in my car, but I had just cleaned my car the other day. Stuff was everywhere because yet again, for the fourth time, I had been broken into. Fortunately this was the least painless of the times though: someone had left a door unlocked so, there is no window to replace and they only got away with 2 things: a hundred dollar inverter that lets return the cigarette lighter into an outlet and the cigarette lighter adapter for my cell phone. But, that is the lest of the two things which happened. When I was getting Nova my engine started to sputter and I could only go like 15 mph. So that means its gonna have to go into the shop again, and I have no money to pay to get it fixed—especially after the last breakdown.

But thanksgiving was not all bad. A bunch of people came to house and vegged all day over a feast of goodness. We ate, played games, napped, ate, watched movies, and drank, and ate. We ate more than I could have imagined.

politics

2004-11-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, it has been some time since I last posted. It is after all that time of year: papers due, money running out, mourning over the election. I have a big paper due tomorrow that I am way behind on, but I feel the need to post some stuff that I have had on my mind for some time, also I am in class right now, so you could say I am multi-tasking (taking/recording notes and writing this).

Ok, while I was upset by the election, my frustration was more over who won I am not upset that some undue process was wrought upon the American people as I was to a degree four years ago. Bush won both the electoral and popular votes. Sure some peoples votes didn’t count that should have and some may have been ‘disenfranchised’ but chances are this happened going both ways. The only case I have noticed that was despicable is in Ohio where people had to wait in line for nine hours to vote—I wonder how many turned away not able or willing to wait that long to vote.

Here is what really bothers me though. Bush has claimed to have a ‘mandate’ and that he has gained ‘political capital’ and he intends to use it. I am not arguing the fact that he won, I do contend thought hat he is far from having a mandate. Consider: if you had a group of one hundred voters only 1.3 of that hundred would need to switch from Bush to Kerry to have a dead heat. This is not a mandate. This is an incredibly close election, even though the electoral college skews it some.

Now my frustration has grown since yesterday morning; Colin Powell, one of the few voices who advocated global alliances and would offer Bush counsel divergent from the Bush team, has resigned and Condoleezza Rice will take his spot. So instead of the president being surrounded by mostly ‘yes men’ Bush will be surrounded by ‘I don’t even have to say yes because I think what you think men (or women).’ The great and brilliant leaders of history have surrounded themselves by even smarter people whom disagree with them. Oh how, I long for a leader to do this.

vote

2004-11-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

So I voted early on Friday. Had I known then that my polling place was literally across the street from my house, close enough to go during a bathroom break then I would have waited till today. No surprise here when you hear that I voted for Kerry. But that isn’t exactly what happened. In reality I didn’t vote for Kerry as much as I voted against Bush. But, there was one vote which brought my joy to vote FOR someone—Chet Edwards. I can’t describe how refreshing it was to vote for someone because I was truly excited about them and not voting a certain way because it is the lesser of evils.

halloween

2004-11-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Oh wow, so a lot has happened since I last posted. Most notably it seems that the discovery has been made that hell is located on the moon and that it did actually freeze over during the lunar eclipse last week. Evidence: the red sox swept the world series, football. Kind of crazy, if you ask me.

Also the lair hosted our infamous annual Halloween party (it is annual because Halloween only comes once a year). It was a lot of fun, but exhausting. I think we had around 80 people there, but I think I only knew two-thirds of the people there. There were a good number of first semester Truett students whom I don’t know if I had ever see before. It it is cool that they came. The house dressed as characters form the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ and I got to be Daisy.

consider

2004-10-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

This will be brief, I have a presentation I am not ready for yet in a few hours. But last night one of the most amazing things happened—The Red Sox came from a three game deficit to beat the damn yankees. This has never been done before in major sports. It was awesome.

Now think about what this sets up for a possibility. If the Astros can come through today, Clemens is pitching, then we would have: Houston versus Boston—Texas versus Massachusetts, does that sound familiar? Maybe we could just talk Kerry and Bush forgoing the election and letting it be played out on the field—the baseball field that is. Game 7 of the world series is scheduled for Sun. Oct 31—2 days before the election.

While I was away.

2004-10-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

So, ok, I am a bastard. It has been over a month since my last post—that is bad and rude. But, here we go I will try and briefly cover a few of the major highlights from the last month.

Labyrinth:
A few weeks ago I went down to Mosaic for the weekend to help put on a worship labyrinth. It was awesome and exausting. We had around a hundred people go through it which is pretty good considering Mosaic is such a small church. It was especially encouraging to see those who came down from my life group at Calvary: Rose, Hartley, Becky, Roger, Audrey, Sharyn, Jen, and Chris their presence there meant a lot to me. All in all the project came together really well, although a little short of what we had hopped for, but considering the circumstances we are totally pleased. As I said it was exausting Sat I got to the church a little after 11am and left at 4 (in the am that is), got back to the church at 10 in the morning and left at 2 in the morning. All the work was well worth it though.

Car:
So last week I decided to get a new battery for my car before our camping trip this past weekend. Well, the guys at sears did a piss-poor job connecting it up and lefft some wires loose, which meant that my car died on the way down—three hours later we were back on the road, but it still had to be jump started each time. This morning I took it to sears another wire had gotten loose (they had installed one part upside down) it was working fine. Then went home had some lunch and got my stuff together to come study. And guess what, yet again it wouldn’t start. But this time rather than having the sound of deadness that comes with a battery, the engine is turning over but not starting. So I don’t know what is wrong with it. And oh yeah, I didn’t have to get a new battery the other I day, I just knew that I would need one before long. So my car is yet again my evil nemesis.

Camping:
I don’t want to end on a dour note, other than the car trouble my trip to Garner state park this weekend was awesome. Hiking a nice loop, cooking fajitas over an open fire, tubing the Frio river, eating Dana’s and Jenny’s delicious soups was all awesome. But more than that just getting to spend some time neglecting my studies (bad Idea) and spend it with friends away from home was wonderful.

Anyways, I’m gonna try and get back in the habit of popping something on here once a week.

Something is Wrong Here

2004-09-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I am sitting in the new science building—freakin nice place to study BTW—and a girl just walked by wearing one of those now infamous ‘George W. Bush is my homeboy T-shirts.’ Now, as you likely know I am far from being a fan of Bush, but I do have some serious issues with these T-Shirts and a good part of the culture here at Baylor. These T-shirts are a clear rip-off of the ‘Jesus is my homeboy’ T-shirt of Urban Outfitters fame from a year or two ago. I have gotten used to Christian capitalist culture imitating the surrounding pop culture: ‘Lord’s Gym’ in place of ‘Gold’s Gym’. Those types of shirts still bother me in some ways but I become immune to them. But here we see a role reversal which is quite disturbing. Rather, than having a case of what Niebuhr might call ‘Christ over Culture’ (‘J Christ’ instead of ‘J Crew’), which I would even argue against. We have the exact opposite we are seeing a culture over Christ (‘GWB is my Homeboy’ instead of ‘Jesus Christ is my homeboy’). And that’s not even the worst of it is what is really bad are the people who are perpetuating, it is ont only the fashion trendy. But, also in this group are the same people who profess to be faithful followers of Christ. George Bush might (might ☺ ) well be a Christian but he is far—as far as anyone form being truly like Christ.

Perhaps I am writing this just a s a method of venting and procrastination. But I think there really is something here, it is even evident not only in a few t-shirt wearers but also in the culture of Baylor as a whole. On Saturday I went to the Baylor football game. (BTW: our performance even though we won was dismal.) Saturday was the anniversary of 9-11 so the theme of the game was ‘Heroes Day.’ This was done to recognize the military, police officers and firemen of our nation and community, but also to recognize some of Baylor’s own sports heroes who won national championships and gold medals over the summer. At half-time there was no surprise when there was a remembrance of 9-11. Which should have certainly been done. They even did the cool thing of having Texas State’s and some high school students join with the Baylor band in doing it. (I love to see things like that where different groups come together.) But what they did when they were together is kind of where I began to have some problems. The bands joined together to play ‘Amazing Grace.’ Introduced as an American favorite and certainly a beautiful song, but they did so while all sorts of American images were shown on the jumbotron (Statue of Liberty, the flag, etc). Amazing Grace is not something given to the United States it is something given to humanity. It is equally offered to me, George Bush, true-blooded Americans, devout Iraqis, and even to Osama Bin Laden. There is a real problem when we start wedding the message of Christ with any person or party other than Christ’s own bride the church.

And oh, by the way, the guy who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’—John Newton—was British.

yeah

2004-09-03T22:11:00.000-07:00

the hurricane has died down and we are not going anymore.

Florida

2004-09-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

I am about to head to Florida for a week or so to help Chris and his family clean up from hurricane Frances. The eye of the storm is supposed to hit his hometown, Vero Beach (or, at least very close to it). I don’t know what I will see on this journey all that I know is that I am to go. I will be leaving either this afternoon (Friday) or in the morning and will likely be gone for about a week. Please pray for us in our journey, but especially pray for Chris’s family and their safety. There is a good probability that I won’t have any way to communicate while there. I will have my cell phone of course with me so i will be available on the journey but who knows if the cell-towers survive the storm.

Waco

2004-08-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

So I have been back in Waco for a little over a week now. Which does many things for me. I am now beginning my eighth year in this blessed city—which means more than one-quarter of my life has been spent in this most infamous of Texas towns. Each year at this time a new stock of freshman come in to remind me of the fact that I am another year older, and here I still sit, at first I want to say nothing changes. (Same town same single status as always) But then I will overhear a conversation and at first infuriate or frustrate me but then remind me of just how much has changed. For instance I was in line the other day at the Tower working on my financial settlement (Tangent--BTW I cant help but think that Baylor is extorting its students with the new financial polices moving up the date of financial settlement to try and get a hundred dollars a pop. Just think $100 x 1,000 students= $100,000 tangent over).

So, I in line overheard this girl saying, (something just short of a valley tone) “So it is just weird at Baylor I think. I mean it is supposed to be this Christian university and all, and I have my theology classes etc. And then though I go to my science class and the professor talks about evolution and stuff as if it actually happened.” I found myself simply wanting to laugh. So many people at this school are still tied to the idea of the bible as a book of science as well as theology. Rather than seeing the bible for what it really is the story of God’s interaction with his most beloved creation—humanity. The bible was never intended to be a book to give the scientific account of how humanity came to be, instead the bible seeks to give an account of why humanity came to be—to love God and neighbor. Overhearing such conversations can be both frustrating and almost comical to me now, but alas I must remind myself that some eight years ago I was the one having that conversation rather than being the one whom eavesdrops on it.

Anyways here are a few of the things that really excite me about returning to Waco:
--Hearing the BBC on our NPR station late at night. I love to get news from this truly outside source. The other night I heard a story about one of my own heroes—the El Salvadoran Oscar Romero—and how one of his assassins might be brought to some form of justice some twenty years after his murder. It is unlikely that this story would ever appear on domestic news.
--Common Grounds, one of the truly happy places in my life, a place where some many people know my name, and I can just pass the time in conversation with good friends hearing about their summers working at camps, taking classes, and traveling this grand world of ours.
--more than anything though it is so good to back with my community, with my friends. They are what allow me to say that my life is joyful.

It is good to lose

2004-08-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

I have thought a good deal about team USA basketball’s loss to Puerto Rico this past Sunday. This pseudo-dream team was embarrassed 92 to 73 by this commonwealth of the US. I must call them a pseudo dream team or team USA as the only real Dream Team was the original: a team with the likes of Jordan, Bird, Magic etc. was something that was truly dream like. And after all, even if a team nearly as good or possibly better were assembled it wouldn’t be a ‘dream team’ because we have already had a dream team and once a dream is fulfilled it loses some of its dream like status.

But I digress. This is only the third loss in the history of USA Olympic basketball and the first since the Dream team graced us with basketball glory. Many people have pointed fingers as to why this loss happened: no real shooters, some of the best American players feared for their lives and turned down invitations, unfamiliarity with international rules, increase in popularity of the sport overseas and an inability to play as a team are chief amongst these. That is not though what I want to talk about. I don’t care about the why, but I am glad that it did happen. Some parts of me almost hope that the US won’t even make it to the medal round (they will but they might not win gold). But I truly believe it is good for us—especially the US—to lose occasionally. Any good parent will tell you that it is not only impossible but wholly idiotic to give a child everything they want in life. To do so would turn the child into a total brat, which no one on the block will ever want to play with (unless of course it is to borrow off of the child’s wealth). Losing and not getting what we want in life remind us of our nature as mortal human beings getting what all that we want gives us delusions of divinity. Losing reminds US that we are not all that we want to be nor are we all that we think we are. But in fact the harsh reality is that in life sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but in the end you die.

Covenant vs Contract

2004-08-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a couple of meetings with a pastor here in Austin. It was a very refreshing meeting. The agenda of the meeting was to be about discussing the preparation and carrying out of funerals, weddings, and baptisms. But like any good relationship driven meeting (rather than one which is simply concerned with checking things off a to-do list) much more was covered. We talked about schools and common friends. Talked openly about the things that irk me to no end as he did as well. He talked about going to school with my professors and affirmed that even as a lowly undergrad Hulitt Gloer could even then out preach anybody in Waco. We talked about those professors whom both teach and inspire us and cussed about the administrators we loathe. This meeting was very refreshing to me—to spend time with a pastor of a major church in Austin who was willing to be so real. Not that are other pastors are holograms or anything like that but often times they might as well be since the worries over how they will be perceived create ministers whose only concern is for image rather than substance.

But it was not simply a couple of bleeps that made this meeting enjoyable, but also he imparted a great deal of wisdom. In particular in talking about marriage. Nothing earth shattering new that he said but just a reminder of the nature of a covenant. The pastor got onto one of my soapboxes and talked about the marriage not the wedding ceremony being what is important. In doing so he briefly mentioned the fact that marriage is to be a covenant not a contract. In a contract of one party does not hold up to their end of the bargain then the contract becomes null and void. However, with a covenant it does not matter what one does it does not dissolve. No matter how many times Israel screwed up (and boy was it ever a lot) they were still God’s people inescapable of his love. Today we hear many evangelicals arguing for ‘marriage protection acts.’ Why don’t we start by truly protecting marriage inn the church. That would mean divorce regardless of how bad a marriage is getting would be almost nonextant (abuse and adultery being the exceptions). It would mean that rather than creating a culture where good little Christians go to college and find their ‘soul mate’ to get married within a year of graduation would die out. It would mean we openly affirm and put people in leadership who are single and have been rather than simply doing something they were supposed to end in divorce. It would also mean though that we would love and cherish the people whose marriages are in shambles but they have not yet given up on it.

It means that if I get married no matter what my wife would do she would still be my wife whom I must love. After all it is a covenant and to date Christ hasn’t stopped loving me.

iTunes

2004-08-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that my iPod went bye-bye at the hands of some thieves (those bastards ;) ) I still use iTunes a good deal on my computer, it is an awesome program for being your computers jukebox. I love the way that it keeps my music organized automatically. The program is free and works on PC's as well as Macs. Occasionally I will log on to the iTunes store website to see what is new and available even though I have no cash. Today I found two things one which was exciting and the other utterly depressing.

First the good: on the site they have the majority of the speeches from the Democratic National Convention available as free downloads-FREE, I really like that (see note above about cash assets). Certainly all of the speeches are a bit pompous as is understandable in a convention setting, but some of them are really good, others (ie Jimmy Carter) are ones i really want to hear. I only hope that they will do likewise with the RNC (I really do hope that). I highly recomend Barack Obama's speech.

now for the depressing note, I clicked on the audio books link within the speeches section, perhaps it appealed to me after reading Myles's blog (http://godinthedetails.blogspot.com/) but i think i really did so to see if there were any other freebies. I think audio books can be good for long drives etc, but i am a particular fan of radio shows they have such as This American Life and Prairie Home Companion. Anyways, that is when I saw it: the "audio book version of the novelization of the film Spiderman 2"

And there you have it.

An Opportunity--gone

2004-07-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

Suck, well it now appears the michael moore will not be there apparetnly he recieved several death threats etc. not sure if i am going to be there or not now.

since i know how often i myself pick up the paper in waco, it is often easy to miss something going on in town, particularly when it happens on short notice. today i was doing my usual looking at news on news.google.com ( a good news site that puts several links to the same story from different news bureaus) and couldn't help but notice the headline 'michael moore invites bush to crawford screening.' i looked at this and tomorrow night (wed. night) there will be a special screening of Fahrenheit 9-11 in the football stadium parking lot in crawford, tx. moreover, michael moore himself will be there to talk about the movie and have a Q/A session. whether you agree with him or not this is a pretty neat opportunity. they are asking for $8 donation, it will be kind of old school drive in style--meaning the show will start at dusk. I am hopefully going to be able to be there, maybe you can too, and who knows maybe we will even get a state visit (yeah, right).

more details/ directions @:
http://www.crawfordpeacehouse.org/

politics revised

2004-07-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

revision after *****

ok, in light of the imminent democratic national convention, and in honor of our president’s annual vacation to my beloved central texas city, i am going to make a brief foray into the realm of politics. i get rally frustrated some times because we claim to be living in a democratic and free society—free to choose our own destiny. but what choice do we really have? a multi-millionaire war mongrel or a multi-millionaire pro-choicer? it seems that despite our free elections there really is little choice, votes are all bought and the rich get richer while the poor get f#%ked. if you know me then you likely know that I am planning on voting for kerry; bush’s passion for killing people and his ‘well we can leave the poor kids behind’ policy based on the idea of uncompassionate greed leave me with a desire to see almost anyone else in office (not quite but close to it).

but alas, i think i have finally done what i would have thought was impossible a few weeks ago. i have finally come up with a truly sound reason to vote for bush, which just might turn my vote. (not that my vote really matters since i am registered in texas.) here it is: if bush loses he will be in crawford=waco all the freaking time. gone will be the days where we would have two weeks vacation between his ‘working vacations’-our hell of diverted traffic and constant helicopter noise. so there you have it, a sound reason to vote for bush.

******************
ok, i have just been informed that there is a second and possibly even more valid reason to vote for bush's reelection. the yankees have not won a world series while a republican is in the white house since the '60s.

Dr. Chip Conyers

2004-07-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Dr, Conyers professor, writer, and friend passed away yesterday morning. His death did not come out of the blue, but rather as has happened more than once in his tenure (ironically he being a founding faculty member had just completed ten years—‘tenure’ of teaching young theologians) at Truett found himself imminently close to death much of this past year. Not that you would know such from any conversation with him in the past year, despite his visibly distraught state, he was always jovial and curious as to my own well being. Perhaps it is because we have heard tales of Ruth Ann Foster and other faculty visiting him in past years on his deathbed that brought shook to me yesterday when I heard of his demise. He came to class in the fall, with an altered schedule, and apologized to us for having to take a call from his doctor, his lung had collapsed earlier in the day, but before going into the hospital he insisted on teaching us. He has been able to recover before and despite the fact that the doctors had given up treatment of the disease, surely God had not given up on healing our beloved professor. And if God had not given up, then I should not give up hope either. I am even signed up for one of his classes in the fall, and while I wasn’t expecting him to be there every day I was certainly holding on to the hope that he would make a few appearances to impart some of his profound wisdom, all be it in his convoluted way.

A few weeks ago I preached on death and suffering, from the first chapter of Philippians, Paul writing from prison says that he looks forward to death and would even choose that over life to go and be with Christ. I concluded that sermon with the closing page from C.S. Lewis’s epic, The Chronicles of Narnia, the last page of the last book in that series—The Last Battle reads:

“Then Aslan turned to them and said: 'You do not look as happy as I mean you to be.'
Lucy said, 'We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.'
'No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?' Their hearts leapt, and a wild hope rose within them.
'There was a real railway accident,' said Aslan softly. 'Your father and mother and all of you are—as you call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.'
And as he spoke, he no longer liked like a lion to them; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And so for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last we are beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

One of my favorite memories of Dr. Conyers came from my semester in his Intro to Theology class, one of his patent jokes in that class was, “So years from now when you are in the coffee shop reading and chatting and someone asks you what ______( novationism, nominalism, etc) is you can tell them . . .” Several of my friends had gotten together one night at Common Grounds to prepare for one of his midterms, and we had some confusion in our notes, so we decided to call him, I called and told him, “Dr. Conyers we are at the coffee shop discussing . . . and needed your help.” He just rolled into laughter, and then gave us a good deal of help.

Dr. Conyers you have departed us, you have awoken from this dream that we call life at the feet of the Lord, fully enlightened and fully restored to worship our Lord in resurrected perfection. Years from now when I am chatting at coffee shops I will be talking about you and remembering you fondly.

amarillo 4th of july

2004-07-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

So wow, it has been a little while. Sorry for that—the trip to Amarillo, while good was a bit of a whirlwind. Everything went pretty well: got to see my family and friends young and old alike. We kicked my parents out of the house and had the bachelors party there including a good little bit of torture for Andy. Anyways that is over and done with.

I skipped church on Sunday. I normally look forward to going to church back home at least a little bit. But this time was different—I had seen the order of worship in the room where the groom’s side hung out. This time the worship included the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem as well as a testimonial time for veterans. If you know me at all you are likely to know that patriotism in the religious sphere of life is one of my biggest pet peeves. I don’t know if anything gets my blood boiling more than seeing a cross draped in an American flag. The whole phrase ‘God bless America’ also causes me to cringe because it is so often said not only out of a petition of God’s favor to show upon us, but also out of the belief the we are God’s chosen instrument to enact the divine will upon the world. If I were to go to church that Sunday I would likely try and rip the chair out of the balcony and throw it at the stage. Ok not really, but I would defiantly be pissy as result for a good while. We in the American church are guilty of committing idolatry with the American flag. After some thought and venting though I have come around a little bit and must admit that I am thankful for living in a country where the flag stands for having the right to rebel against it.

preaching done

2004-06-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

So, the past couple weeks I haven’t been quite as good at blogging as I was when I first started. I think when I started I was so excited about my niece I wanted to tell everyone, and I also think I was a little lonelier here in Austin at that point. But slowly I am making good friends down here.

It is hard to believe that we have already reached the end of June. I am excited about going home this weekend for Andy and Jen’s wedding. As I have told everyone it will be really strange but fun to have everyone in town. All my worlds will be colliding this weekend—I am just hoping than none of the atoms get smashed blowing everything to smithereens. Friends that I grew up with from middle school, high school and youth group will be there, as well as roommates and good friends from college, and on top of that a whole bunch of seminary friends will all be there. And oh yeah, my parents also live there and my aunt and uncle will be in town, so pretty much Amarillo this weekend will be the nexus of my universe. Who knows it may turn into a black hole and suck Chris in from Carolina and David Wiley in from Scotland. There is only one bad thing that I realized last night about this weekend. I usually look forward to going to my home church, it is far from the perfect church but I still like it. But I will be there now on the 4th of July, and one of my biggest peeves is patriotism in worship services. No doubt this service will be full of such stuff, so I don’t know if I will even want to go then.

So last night I preached at Mosaic, I talked about suffering and death, I used the first chapter of Philippians. I thought it went fairly well and people told me I did really awesome: so in actuality it would probably fall into the category of good. Although I was given one really high compliment by Emily Vanderslice, or so Don V told me, that my style etc. reminded her of Jeff Raines—the Assoc. Pastor in Amarillo, someone whom I have an awesome respect for. It really is one of the highest compliments I have received in long time.

I forgot to write in my blog last week that I had the privilege of planning a commissioning service for Eric, one of the guys at Mosaic who is taking a team to India for the next 6 weeks. Not only was it an honor to do so, but it was really neat thinking about it, preparing it and doing, not only for Eric and his teams sake but also I couldn’t help but think about Jen, Julie, Lizzie, Tim, Dr. Stroope, and all my other Truett friends who were in India at the time.

One shitty day

2004-06-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

You know how sometimes everything is just going along on an even keel—nothing awful nor anything great happening at the moment. Which really means things are quite well, because after all if things aren’t bad then they must be good, right? Then comes the wrench and it wreaks havoc on everything. Well the wrench came on Friday, the day after my birthday no less. L I had gone over to big Phil’s to hangout with a few friends and watch a movie. Afterwards, I was just about to leave grabbed my stuff, told my friends I would see them tomorrow and walked out the door. They were surprised by my reentry to the room just a few minutes later. My car had been broken into—for the third time and it isn’t a charm. Stolen: my wallet—with all of my ID’s, credit cards, and insurance cards--, my iPod (something which is one of my prized possessions), and my spare tire. They took my freakin spare tire, it isn’t even a full size one, but the little donut you can’t drive more than 50 miles on, why? Is there some secret black market in Mexico or something for donut tires? Anyways, I got all the credit cards cancelled before they made any charges. Now, I just have to go about rebuilding my identity: drivers license, SS card, ATM card, credit card, etc. . . Each of these will of course cost a little bit each adding up to a lot. But, in the end it is still just stuff, but it is really a big pain in the ass to get it taken care of.

Oh, and thanks to Cisco and Kimberly for getting me my passport the only proof of my existence that I have any more, legally speaking, I don’t often doubt the reality of my own existence, but that is another discussion entirely.

Unbelievable

2004-06-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, most Americans are likely wholly unaware of the great sporting event that has just begun across the pond—no I am not talking about Wimbledon or the Tour de France, but I am talking about the Euro Cup, a soccer event which occurs only every fourth year. All the European nations get put in pools and have a big tournament. Today Don, one of pastors of mosaic, and I were going to go to a bar and watch the Germany v. Netherlands game. We called the bar to be sure they were airing it, and sure enough they were. So we set out to walk to the bar—a little over a mile from the church. We get to the bar and walk in and there is a 20 dollar cover charge. Yes, that is right you read that correctly twenty dollars to watch a soccer game on television. Unbelievable.

This past week was rather uneventful. I have moved down to shelton’s—way on the south side of town, but a very nice house. The house is on border of a new neighborhood and the greenbelt—an area that is city park to recharge the local aquifer so it will never be built on. It is nice to look out the window and see the hill country.

This past week also went to a couple of really good concerts. Some friends came down to see Pedro the Lion play at Emo’s on Thursday evening. And on Tuesday night The Sad Accordions, the worship band at mosaic. Both shows were awesome. There is something really cool about seeing authentic Christians play good music at bars, while having a cold frothy beverage.

PS. I almost forgot to include that I am rather upset at myself this week. I came very close to going to FBC Austin on Sunday morning, but I backed out and decided to sleep instead. When we got to the church to setup for Mosaic for the evening we ran in to Roger the pastor of FBC. He told us who we just missed—the official canter for the Dalai Lama—apparently he is friends with a member of the church and came to town doing some human rights stuff. It would have been awesome to meet him.

Ah Hah

2004-06-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Finally I have figured out how to post a pic. :)

Here is the infamous and beautiful Kate in the arms of her mother.

Distant Beauty

2004-06-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

On my trek to dallas (ok it isn’t really far enough to be a trek, but I broke it up to see friends along the way, so it defiantly was a journey) Kate born I was struck by several juxtapositions. On Thursday morning going through Hillsboro I drove past where I-35 southbound was closed, because a trucker had been killed, it appeared as though the truck in-front of him ahead slowed down and he couldn’t stop in time and rear ended him, there was nothing left of the truckers cab, it had been smashed to oblivion. Here I was going to see a new life while next to me a life had ended—the church must be big enough to cry and celebrate at the same time.

The night before on my way to Waco for a night I was mesmerized by the show that laid ahead of me throughout the drive. Just after I got north of Round Rock it began to show itself. A marvelous lightning storm. At first I would only see a strike every minute or so, eventually it would rise to nearly every second. Each strike illuminated and silhouetted the storm heads from a different angle making each more unique than a snowflake. This lightshow was far and away better than anything ever on the side of Stone Mountain. I was in absolute awe of the beauty of this show. That was from a distance, when I got into Waco, it began to change. As soon as I passed the city limit sign a lightning strike in front of extended the yellow reflectors on the left side of the road infinitely skyward. Then after running by the house I headed to Common grounds to meet some friends. As I passed through downtown it hit—high winds shook all the signs and the same lightning storm, which had been so beautiful from a distance I was now in the midst of. And it was loud and destructive—knocking out the power for a while in downtown. When I got to CG’s many of the people there were worried about the possibility of a tornado, fortunately there was none, but only some heavy straight-line winds.

The next day I thought about that storm and how it was so beautiful from far away but quite scary from within. Then I thought that is much like God. God is beautiful and truly amazing from a distance, but if we allow ourselves to get to close—utterly destructive. God when we come too close God destroys everything that we have known about truth and reality and leaves as something new. Isaiah 6.

waiting fulfilled

2004-06-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

Well, What a week this has been. While my first week in Austin was relatively laid back—a few big projects to do, but overall laid back; the second week was almost the exact opposite. Crazy, frustrating, tiring, and exciting. Early in the week it was hot and my car broke, as I already posted, but I eventually got it fixed and I managed to work my way up to Dallas on Thursday morning around 10 to wait with my family and spent the morning and early afternoon waiting and waiting and waiting . . .actually we didn’t have to wait as long as some have had to, but when you are waiting with baited breath each minute can seem like an eternity. But eventually, a little after five my brother emerged to the waiting room to tell My parents, Shelby’s Mom and brother, and myself that Kate Elizabeth had been born at 4:43 all 6 pounds and 13 ounces o and 20 inches of her. She is so beautiful and sweet, not that I am biased at all but I think she is gonna be a genius or the next Serena Williams or something, at only 18 hours she was already lifting her head and turning it on her own. She takes after me and her other uncle, she has ouw fingers, they are super long.

then I drove back to Austin late on Friday night, then got up bright and early on Saturday morning and spent all day on a decostruction project with habitat for humanity. I probably used a skill saw on over a hundred boards and removed a few hundred nails from boards-so that the boards could be recycled and sold to help with the next habitat build. I was very tired by the end of the day.

In the post below this there is a link to a pic of Kate. (I am still learning this bloging thing, and how to embed pictures in one).

Kate

2004-06-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

to see a pic goto: http://community.webshots.com/photo/149261794/149261928DwtyLc

To tired to write but there is Kate Elizabeth Smith.

Born: June 3, 2004 3:43 pm (2 weeks before mine)
Weight: 6 lbs 13 ozs
Length: 20 in

I'll add more later

Austin 2.1

2004-06-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Today has been one of those days when it is really hard to tell if it was a good day or not.

Midmorning came, and with it so did staff meeting, but we don’t meet like a typical church staff, today I just had to walk across the street to Flight Path, grab a cup a joe and then we started. Right as we were about to leave my phone rang, I looked at the name and there it was “Harold” (my brother) the name I had been hoping to have call me for the past 3 weeks. He said, ‘well first off, we’re not having the baby now, but we wanted to let you know that we are having it induced on Thursday.’ A friend and I were talking the other day about that waiting for a baby is kind of like anticipating a sunrise when you live in northern Alaska, you have been waiting for it for months, but don’t know for sure if you will actually get to see the sun today. Well, now I finally know when I will get to see the sun, months even years of waiting finally have an ending date set. J

Then, I was driving around this afternoon and Ben, one of the guys in the band at Mosaic, called and asked if I wanted to go with him to Zen for lunch. Zen, is aptly named as it a fast-food Japanese place here, complete with sushi. Ben works at this Zen, but it doesn’t open until tomorrow, today was one of those VIP/family and friends of workers day. Which meant we could have all we wanted and it was all free. J

Then I went to Target to begin working on some projects for the church, they didn’t have what I needed so I was going to head to Home Depot. I got in my car and started it. SCREEEEEEAAAAAACH. God awful sound so I killed the engine, popped the hood and saw that my belt-the only belt in Jeep Cherokees had busted. So I called AAA, had the car towed to a mechanic, and walked home from there, about a mile and a half. Now that isn’t too far. But when it is hot like it was today it far very far. The heat index was around 108—that is the kind of heat, that when you ring out the sweat from your clothes when you get home you squeeze out your own body mass in sweat. L

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon cooling down and reading. J

I’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out how bad the news is on my jeep, but I must say overall it has been a dang good day.

Austin: Week One

2004-05-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

So here goes, my first blogging experience. I guess I am starting this since it is much easier than email everyone updates constantly.

Austin truly is a unique town. There is defiantly a strong contrast between it and Waco. There are several stark contrasts. As you are well aware if you know me at all one of my favorite activities is going to Common Grounds to study, people watch, and spend time with friends. I knew replacing CG’s for the summer would be an impossible task, especially since part of the great appeal of CG’s is all of the friendships that I have there. But, I have already found a few good coffee shops here: one right across the street from where I am staying the first couple of weeks—Flight Path, and another a couple miles away—Spider House. While these coffee shops don’t have my friends, yet at least, they do have one thing that Waco’s coffee shops lack that makes them almost as good if not at times better—they all serve beer. But the differences do not stop at the local coffee shop. The very make up of the average person here is quite different than that of Waco. In Waco, I have the appearance of a hippie communist freak; meanwhile, in Austin I have the appearance of a yuppie. Ok, not quite but I while defiantly stood out in Waco, I look rather kosher for this town. Moreover I must admit that I am a guy and can’t help from notice that bras are much less popular here than in Waco. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no it doesn’t. Friday night, a couple friends and I were going to 6th street to see Okerville River and Shearwater play at the Parish. Both en route to and coming out of the club we noticed a woman who was not only lacking a bra, but her shirt as well—she was walking around completely topless, we even saw a cop ride right by her, look and do nothing. This really is a different town.

But, I am really loving the diversity of culture that this town offers. Mosaic’s (the church I am working at) meets on Sunday nights leaving my mornings free to either sleep in or go elsewhere. This past Sunday morning I went to Liquid, a postmodern styled Chinese church. It was really awesome, my friend and I were totally made welcome there. We even went to lunch with several people from the church including the pastor. We got to talk theology, missiology, and the possibility of forming some partnerships. It a something neat to be in a service where I am in the overwhelming minority.

Mosaic’s service went fairly well despite one of the most hectic Sunday afternoons I’ve had in a while. The church normally meets on the 4th floor of FBC Austin, but that room doesn’t have any AC so we will be spending the summer in the basement in the fellowship hall. But, the room presents a bit of a problem, it is too sterile and too big. So, one of my tasks this past week was to construct a frame to hold up black fabric to break the room up. Thanks to a friends help and a random visitor who arrived an hour and a half before the service we finished constructing this curtain a whole 20 minutes before the service was to begin.

Anyways, all is well for now. I am just still finding myself frustrated waiting for that phone call telling me to come to Dallas to become an Uncle. Kate Elizabeth Smith, was due this past Tuesday, and still no word! She is soooo tardy.