Went on a roadtrip a few weeks ago to New York city to experience Hillsong NYC's opening extravaganza.
It was awesome.
I drove on the way there. Didn't stop once.
Highways absolutely mess me up.
When you're on an interstate, all you see is the road that you're on. At 70mph, you're always looking almost a quarter mile ahead of you. With the exception of passing through (over) big cities, there's usually a wall or trees on either side of you.
Your world consists of your car, and the line that is the road that you are on.
Eventually, when you exit the highway, you look around and realize just how far away you are from where you started. Hundreds of miles. A journey of several days 150 years ago. Several weeks if you were on foot.
Technology has come to a point where "travel" is no longer a Grand Adventure like it might have been when our great grandparents were young.
It is now an inconvenience- we measure the distance away from places in "minutes". We groan when we find out our friend's birthday party is "an hour away" and think about the precious gas money slipping away from us.
Before cars were invented, that would have been a great excuse to take a Holiday, go on an adventure with friends, travel to see people you hardly ever see.
On the route between my home and Barrington NH, there's an overpass that goes over local Route 16. Tebbetts Road. Right before you hit that bridge, there's a street sign next to someone's driveway: "Old Tebbetts Road". If you slow down enough, you can see that the trees on the other side of that driveway are thinner brush than the woods of the surrounding area.
The view from Google Maps makes it even clearer: Tebbetts Road is not where it used to be.
Sometime when they turned "Route 16" into a highway, they had to move Tebbetts Road. It probably made local residents unhappy. Or at the very least, Frazzled.
In fact, whenever they decided to cut down a 150 mile stripe of woodland and pour asphalt over the ground, people must have been frazzled.
We love highways. Roads in general. Without them, we would be confined to our local towns, and Somersworth would have to bring back the Trolly line that it used to operate.
But then you think about the millions of people who have been displaced by them.
"Sorry sir, you are going to have to move your house so people can go on family vacations. You have no choice."
Sounds wonderful.
These are all the things that you don't notice when you're driving on a highway.
You don't notice all the people who live literally a hundred feet from where you're driving at breakneck speed, down that line of black tar, staring at the car in front of you. You don't notice the neighborhoods, the businesses, the people.
Let alone the nature.
Me and Karen Mawikere visited the Rochester Toll Plaza a few weeks ago.
Here's how it went: Drove into what could easily be any random business's parking lot. Walked into the woods for maybe a hundred feet. Stepped over a low fence. Looked up and BAM, there's a toll booth. Cars everywhere. Cars on their way home from work. Cars full of people not liking to pay tolls. Just driving, a part of their daily routine. With absolutely no idea that they were just moments away from a parking lot in Gonic, from what could only have once been a christmas tree farm, from a ministorage place, from everything else that you don't notice when you're on a highway.
Think about all the local things that there are in your town. Parks. Local stores. That Gorge in Troy. People "driving through" on the highway that is no more than ten minutes from your house go by in a matter of seconds, and miss everything completely.
We have turned towns into white words on 8-foot tall green signs. Maybe with an arrow. Maybe with a "miles to" number.
Just one more thing that I'm unhappy about.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Climate Change
There's a lot of hype these days around global warming. I heard the other day that the last major incandescent light bulb factory is shutting down. Apparently, our government has mandated that everyone switches to CFLs in their homes. I don't understand why this is, since CFLs have a much more detrimental effect on the environment than regular light bulbs, requiring more energy to manufacture and causing plenty of problems when not recycled.
Pay attention:
None of you care about global warming. None of you care about the environment as a whole. In fact, pretty much no one on earth cares. Not enough for it to matter.
Because if you did care, you wouldn't be reading this.
In fact, you wouldn't have a facebook account. You wouldn't own a computer. You would live in a log cabin, maybe on Walden Pond, and might spend your free time telling everyone you can about how absolutely horrific the internet is for the environment by simply existing.
"Green" is a marketing term that companies use to get you to buy their stuff. Apple, in all their talk about making environmentally friendly products, doesn't care about the environment. Maybe they recognize that its smart business to try to make a smaller impact on the natural environment, but if they actually cared about the earth, they would just stop manufacturing computers.
See what i'm getting at? No one actually cares about the earth.
Not enough to actually change how we do life around here.
One thing that is true is that there are plenty of fans of global warming.
You know, it seems like everyone in america wants to be "green". That's no surprise, seeing as how "green" products like CFLs are marketed as energy saving, which is identical to money-saving. No one has to "sell" the green movement, it literally buys itself.
But its also so phony. No amount of "reducing our carbon footprint" can ever save the planet. You can reduce and reduce but you will never eliminate it. And as long as a carbon footprint exists, we're destroying the earth.
And you don't care.
Jesus also has a lot of fans. The Bible is the number one top selling book of all time. But just like global warming, not a whole lot of people seem to actually try to work out in their own lives what Jesus was all about. Like, literally, being a Christian means trying to live like Jesus. I'd say that in general, most christians are pretty bad at that because in general, i don't see a whole lot of Christians even trying to heal sick people or even walk on water. Not as a part of their daily lives. Plenty of people, though, enjoy showing up to church, wear christian t-shirts, and listen to christian music. You know, things that fans do.
And its probably for the same reason most people buy CFL light bulbs yet still drive cars.
Its easy to be part of a movement. We're wired to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to participate in a mob. It's a different story to live completely radically.
Pay attention:
None of you care about global warming. None of you care about the environment as a whole. In fact, pretty much no one on earth cares. Not enough for it to matter.
Because if you did care, you wouldn't be reading this.
In fact, you wouldn't have a facebook account. You wouldn't own a computer. You would live in a log cabin, maybe on Walden Pond, and might spend your free time telling everyone you can about how absolutely horrific the internet is for the environment by simply existing.
"Green" is a marketing term that companies use to get you to buy their stuff. Apple, in all their talk about making environmentally friendly products, doesn't care about the environment. Maybe they recognize that its smart business to try to make a smaller impact on the natural environment, but if they actually cared about the earth, they would just stop manufacturing computers.
See what i'm getting at? No one actually cares about the earth.
Not enough to actually change how we do life around here.
One thing that is true is that there are plenty of fans of global warming.
You know, it seems like everyone in america wants to be "green". That's no surprise, seeing as how "green" products like CFLs are marketed as energy saving, which is identical to money-saving. No one has to "sell" the green movement, it literally buys itself.
But its also so phony. No amount of "reducing our carbon footprint" can ever save the planet. You can reduce and reduce but you will never eliminate it. And as long as a carbon footprint exists, we're destroying the earth.
And you don't care.
Jesus also has a lot of fans. The Bible is the number one top selling book of all time. But just like global warming, not a whole lot of people seem to actually try to work out in their own lives what Jesus was all about. Like, literally, being a Christian means trying to live like Jesus. I'd say that in general, most christians are pretty bad at that because in general, i don't see a whole lot of Christians even trying to heal sick people or even walk on water. Not as a part of their daily lives. Plenty of people, though, enjoy showing up to church, wear christian t-shirts, and listen to christian music. You know, things that fans do.
And its probably for the same reason most people buy CFL light bulbs yet still drive cars.
Its easy to be part of a movement. We're wired to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to participate in a mob. It's a different story to live completely radically.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
true inspiration
Inception was one of those movies that kept me smiling almost the entire time.
Not because it was particularly well made. I have a few peeves with the plot, relating mostly to how none of it actually made sense to me and how they couldn't bother to do math for us (if 5 minutes is an hour then 10 hours gets you 5 days > 2 months > a little less than 2 years).
But i was smiling more because of how relateable it is.
Now i really have no idea if the rest of you ever feel this way but i have a disturbingly loose grip on reality.
I, every day in my life, feel like I'm lost.
Not lost in a dream. Not lost on a road, but lost in general.
Not lost in a particularly bad sense. Just like I have no idea where I am.
Usually when i have "work" to do to keep me busy, this is not an issue.
But by golly, an almost 3 hour movie is a great place to think.
Here's one way that I often feel lost: My memory, for the most part, only works when other people are talking about things that happened to me.
It doesn't take much for me to stand back and wonder how I got "here".
I can look around and recognize where I am, and I can know where I've been, but sometimes none of it has any meaning.
This has happened to me on almost every math test I've ever taken:
I look at the page, see some numbers and some funny symbols, and have no idea what to do with it. Like, I probably know how to solve a first order linear differential equation. But it takes quite a bit of effort for me to make sense of what the heck that writing on the paper means. Lost. Very lost.
Another subject that the movie vamped on a bit was Inspiration.
Like, what does it actually take to create an original idea?
They mentioned always knowing when someone else thought of something.
They also covered that feeling you get when you're not actually creating, but "discovering". You know, that musician-architect-designer feeling where the piece reveals itself. It is so incredibly sketchy to me, but i absolutely know the feeling.
That, to me, hits at the very core of what it means to be alive.
A biologist will tell us that in a way, we're not all that different from a tree. We're related- we're both "alive", and made up of the same general materials.
But a tree can't create.
Is creation even possible?
If we don't have souls, then we're just biological engines, reacting to our surroundings, responding to inputs. How can a universe-wide chemical reaction make anything new? Let alone ideas?
I wrestle with the concept that the moment you just spent reading what i am right now writing is GONE. FOREVER.
Yes, you have a memory of it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to look at words on a screen and connect them to the language that gives them meaning. But the actual moment, the infinitely small piece of reality, is gone forever.
And that's why I struggle with the knowledge that every day, literally millions of hours of reality in America get used up watching tv. yelling at children. yelling at parents. Checking facebook. Picking at zits.
LIKE HELLO, THOSE MOMENTS ARE GONE FOREVER, WE COULD HAVE USED THEM BETTER.
Growing up, i've always had this unshakable notion that i could be anything that i want to be. This is difficult for me because i really do want to be and do everything. I want to be rich, I want to develop world-changing innovations, I want to drive a UPS truck, I want to be the CEO of general motors, I want to be an engineer, I want to be a toshiba authorized service person, I want to work on an oil platform, I want to be in the navy, I want to be a researcher, I want to be an IT guy, I want to get a degree from Yale, I want to work at a church. the list really does go on and on.
And I don't want to have to choose.
And so I'm lost. I don't understand how people get stuck with careers that bring them no joy. I don't even understand how people can pick careers.
This is not a dream that we can realize and wake up from. It is very, very real.
I forgot, i was originally going to write about inspiration.
I think I need a kick.
Not because it was particularly well made. I have a few peeves with the plot, relating mostly to how none of it actually made sense to me and how they couldn't bother to do math for us (if 5 minutes is an hour then 10 hours gets you 5 days > 2 months > a little less than 2 years).
But i was smiling more because of how relateable it is.
Now i really have no idea if the rest of you ever feel this way but i have a disturbingly loose grip on reality.
I, every day in my life, feel like I'm lost.
Not lost in a dream. Not lost on a road, but lost in general.
Not lost in a particularly bad sense. Just like I have no idea where I am.
Usually when i have "work" to do to keep me busy, this is not an issue.
But by golly, an almost 3 hour movie is a great place to think.
Here's one way that I often feel lost: My memory, for the most part, only works when other people are talking about things that happened to me.
It doesn't take much for me to stand back and wonder how I got "here".
I can look around and recognize where I am, and I can know where I've been, but sometimes none of it has any meaning.
This has happened to me on almost every math test I've ever taken:
I look at the page, see some numbers and some funny symbols, and have no idea what to do with it. Like, I probably know how to solve a first order linear differential equation. But it takes quite a bit of effort for me to make sense of what the heck that writing on the paper means. Lost. Very lost.
Another subject that the movie vamped on a bit was Inspiration.
Like, what does it actually take to create an original idea?
They mentioned always knowing when someone else thought of something.
They also covered that feeling you get when you're not actually creating, but "discovering". You know, that musician-architect-designer feeling where the piece reveals itself. It is so incredibly sketchy to me, but i absolutely know the feeling.
That, to me, hits at the very core of what it means to be alive.
A biologist will tell us that in a way, we're not all that different from a tree. We're related- we're both "alive", and made up of the same general materials.
But a tree can't create.
Is creation even possible?
If we don't have souls, then we're just biological engines, reacting to our surroundings, responding to inputs. How can a universe-wide chemical reaction make anything new? Let alone ideas?
I wrestle with the concept that the moment you just spent reading what i am right now writing is GONE. FOREVER.
Yes, you have a memory of it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to look at words on a screen and connect them to the language that gives them meaning. But the actual moment, the infinitely small piece of reality, is gone forever.
And that's why I struggle with the knowledge that every day, literally millions of hours of reality in America get used up watching tv. yelling at children. yelling at parents. Checking facebook. Picking at zits.
LIKE HELLO, THOSE MOMENTS ARE GONE FOREVER, WE COULD HAVE USED THEM BETTER.
Growing up, i've always had this unshakable notion that i could be anything that i want to be. This is difficult for me because i really do want to be and do everything. I want to be rich, I want to develop world-changing innovations, I want to drive a UPS truck, I want to be the CEO of general motors, I want to be an engineer, I want to be a toshiba authorized service person, I want to work on an oil platform, I want to be in the navy, I want to be a researcher, I want to be an IT guy, I want to get a degree from Yale, I want to work at a church. the list really does go on and on.
And I don't want to have to choose.
And so I'm lost. I don't understand how people get stuck with careers that bring them no joy. I don't even understand how people can pick careers.
This is not a dream that we can realize and wake up from. It is very, very real.
I forgot, i was originally going to write about inspiration.
I think I need a kick.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
On Camp
Yesterday I got back from this summer's NNED camp. Our church brought a handful of teenagers and me and josh were on rec staff, which means that josh got to tell people how to play games and gave teams points while I spent every day with a video camera and every night editing footage. I've never not been a camper at a camp before. The perspective is pretty good.
My favorite part of the whole trip was watching the pieces come together. Here you have 30 or so individual staff members, all from different churches, half of which were college kids from Valley Forge on the band, and a guest speaker who you've never met before, and in the time between dinner on sunday night to lunch time monday afternoon, you have to all get on the same page and make a weeklong summer camp that actually works.
And it actually works.
Because even though you've never met half of those people before, let alone collaborated with them on anything, you are all already on the same page. Everyone was there for the same purpose, to see lives transformed.
Its encouraging to me that individuals from different backgrounds can have enough in common to get that done.
My favorite part of the whole trip was watching the pieces come together. Here you have 30 or so individual staff members, all from different churches, half of which were college kids from Valley Forge on the band, and a guest speaker who you've never met before, and in the time between dinner on sunday night to lunch time monday afternoon, you have to all get on the same page and make a weeklong summer camp that actually works.
And it actually works.
Because even though you've never met half of those people before, let alone collaborated with them on anything, you are all already on the same page. Everyone was there for the same purpose, to see lives transformed.
Its encouraging to me that individuals from different backgrounds can have enough in common to get that done.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Half
Summer is half over.
This year of 2010 is half over.
I've read the entire Bible through twice so far. I've started a third time with the Message Remix 2.0. I love it. Its easy to read and challenges everything you've ever thought about the Book.
All of it flew by.
So far this summer has been nonexistant.
I started working 50 hours a week over two jobs. I'm making enough to pay off a little more than half my student loan from this past year. All of my personal belongings are still in plastic bins scattered around the house. I've been keeping my clean clothes in a laundry basket in the middle of my room. The last time I picked up my bass was 2 weeks ago. Most days i open my laptop for about half an hour to keep current on facebook before going to bed. I don't know where i'm living yet this school year. I hate paying five dollars a day for gas to go to work. I hate paying maine taxes and social security that will not exist by the time i can retire. Often i fall asleep in my chair at 10pm and wake up at 3. My alarm is set for 430am. I leave for work at 530 when i'm not late. This past week i started running a mile and a half in the morning. I think it makes me less tired during the day. 4 days of the week I don't get home until after 9, which is already past when bedtime should be.
I'm not looking forward to school. I have never in my life looked forward to school. Starting over trying to connect with people i've never met before is a real challenge for me. Especially considering the hit-or-miss personality i seem to have. But somehow I managed to only sign up for 15 credits, and I only have one class on tuesdays, in the late afternoon. For once i never have anything earlier than 10am.
I have not read anything other than the bible since winter break. I have a growing stack of books that i need to go through, some that i was excited to read 8 months ago. I have a growing list of books that i want to read but can't justify buying without first getting through some of the ones that i already have.
Got the new hillsong cd last week. They always all sound the same until you've listened to it over and over and over again.
I still really want prescription sunglasses. But I haven't found a pair of anything that looks good on me. I also have been unable to find any place that sells columbia eyewear, and I could really use a new pair of actually good regular glasses.
I've also always wanted a pair of kangaROOs shoes. That company stopped making shoes in April. I'm torn. Combined with the puma outlet store being closed for who knows how long, and i just now bought my first pair of new shoes since this time last year. Asics. blue. On sale. Just like every year for the past 4.
Last week i wrote a 21-text long text to myself so i could remember a thought that i wanted to blog about. I just re-read it and its depressing, so i probably won't post it. I wonder if its actually possible to measure progress.
This year of 2010 is half over.
I've read the entire Bible through twice so far. I've started a third time with the Message Remix 2.0. I love it. Its easy to read and challenges everything you've ever thought about the Book.
All of it flew by.
So far this summer has been nonexistant.
I started working 50 hours a week over two jobs. I'm making enough to pay off a little more than half my student loan from this past year. All of my personal belongings are still in plastic bins scattered around the house. I've been keeping my clean clothes in a laundry basket in the middle of my room. The last time I picked up my bass was 2 weeks ago. Most days i open my laptop for about half an hour to keep current on facebook before going to bed. I don't know where i'm living yet this school year. I hate paying five dollars a day for gas to go to work. I hate paying maine taxes and social security that will not exist by the time i can retire. Often i fall asleep in my chair at 10pm and wake up at 3. My alarm is set for 430am. I leave for work at 530 when i'm not late. This past week i started running a mile and a half in the morning. I think it makes me less tired during the day. 4 days of the week I don't get home until after 9, which is already past when bedtime should be.
I'm not looking forward to school. I have never in my life looked forward to school. Starting over trying to connect with people i've never met before is a real challenge for me. Especially considering the hit-or-miss personality i seem to have. But somehow I managed to only sign up for 15 credits, and I only have one class on tuesdays, in the late afternoon. For once i never have anything earlier than 10am.
I have not read anything other than the bible since winter break. I have a growing stack of books that i need to go through, some that i was excited to read 8 months ago. I have a growing list of books that i want to read but can't justify buying without first getting through some of the ones that i already have.
Got the new hillsong cd last week. They always all sound the same until you've listened to it over and over and over again.
I still really want prescription sunglasses. But I haven't found a pair of anything that looks good on me. I also have been unable to find any place that sells columbia eyewear, and I could really use a new pair of actually good regular glasses.
I've also always wanted a pair of kangaROOs shoes. That company stopped making shoes in April. I'm torn. Combined with the puma outlet store being closed for who knows how long, and i just now bought my first pair of new shoes since this time last year. Asics. blue. On sale. Just like every year for the past 4.
Last week i wrote a 21-text long text to myself so i could remember a thought that i wanted to blog about. I just re-read it and its depressing, so i probably won't post it. I wonder if its actually possible to measure progress.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
On Adventure
For the first time since 8th grade I've been watching tv regularly- one show, mondays at 8pm. Adventure Time. Amazing. The most creativity in television in a long time. And hilarious. And animated. The main character will go out of his way to make sure he seizes upon every single opportunity he has for an "adventure". It usually involves "bad guys" and new invented words for 'awesome'.
As the semester wraps up, i've been presented with several opportunities for adventure. There's three in particular that have been "big decisions" for me.
One is whether or not to sacrifice the first week of summer vacation, when i could be relaxing and preparing for sl8, for the intervarsity retreat going on up at saranac lake.
Increasing the bracket is the summer internship i got offered for which would be a full time job all summer long. Again, i've been struggling with the notion of all my time this summer disappearing. Not really a fan.
Lastly would be where I'm going to college for the rest of my degree.
And the conclusion I think i've come to on all three fronts is for adventure.
I keep thinking back to the only book i finished reading in 2009. Go read it. Its worth it. Fact is, i really really like being comfortable. It takes work for me to go do something different and unknown.
So i'm going to the IV trip, even though i didn't really want to. I'm taking the summer internship even though i still don't really want to. And i'm thinking about transferring to unh.
The way i'm feeling about it is that RPI was last year's adventure. I didn't really want to go to RPI. I was set to go to unh and stay home. But most of the reason i decided to come here was that I could, and it would be a waste to not walk through a door that swings open on its own. I've been here for 2 semesters. I've gotten comfortable. I'm not sure how i feel about that. RPI is a system that's easy to learn. School is easy, you just have to figure out the motions. But i feel like i've accomplished nothing here. I have nothing to show for my 2 semesters in nerdopolis. And i don't know if that's pushing me to leave quicker or calling me to stay. Either way, life is an adventure and its a complete shame to not make the absolute most of it and chase what God is throwing at us.
As the semester wraps up, i've been presented with several opportunities for adventure. There's three in particular that have been "big decisions" for me.
One is whether or not to sacrifice the first week of summer vacation, when i could be relaxing and preparing for sl8, for the intervarsity retreat going on up at saranac lake.
Increasing the bracket is the summer internship i got offered for which would be a full time job all summer long. Again, i've been struggling with the notion of all my time this summer disappearing. Not really a fan.
Lastly would be where I'm going to college for the rest of my degree.
And the conclusion I think i've come to on all three fronts is for adventure.
I keep thinking back to the only book i finished reading in 2009. Go read it. Its worth it. Fact is, i really really like being comfortable. It takes work for me to go do something different and unknown.
So i'm going to the IV trip, even though i didn't really want to. I'm taking the summer internship even though i still don't really want to. And i'm thinking about transferring to unh.
The way i'm feeling about it is that RPI was last year's adventure. I didn't really want to go to RPI. I was set to go to unh and stay home. But most of the reason i decided to come here was that I could, and it would be a waste to not walk through a door that swings open on its own. I've been here for 2 semesters. I've gotten comfortable. I'm not sure how i feel about that. RPI is a system that's easy to learn. School is easy, you just have to figure out the motions. But i feel like i've accomplished nothing here. I have nothing to show for my 2 semesters in nerdopolis. And i don't know if that's pushing me to leave quicker or calling me to stay. Either way, life is an adventure and its a complete shame to not make the absolute most of it and chase what God is throwing at us.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
On Wonder
Yesterday in between classes i stopped for a few minutes to watch a dump truck empty out some dumpsters.
I was watching from a second floor balcony and got to watch the truck crush the trash inside. Very cool. As an engineering student and as someone who has always been fascinated with big machines, i got a kick outta it.
There's a lot of money, work, and planning that goes into designing and building something that we think of as trivial. Everyone's seen a garbage truck. But they really are impressive bits of engineering. Teams and teams of people worked on that truck, from the fluids guys that designed the hydrolics to the automotive engineers that got drivable.
I can appreciate that. Money, work, effort, and it pays off in real ways.
As I was leaving and walking going to my next class, a squirrel scurried by, looking for food. Squirrels are also everywhere, just like garbage trucks. We've all seen them. Students at RPI are quite familiar with their personalities and the way they act. I don't know anyone around here who hasn't stopped to watch a squirrel at some point.
They are also quite fascinating.
They're small. They're also much, much more complicated than a garbage truck.
I feel like, yeah engineering is vitally important to humanity and all that jazz. But when i look at the results of the very best that humanity has done, it is simply not comparable to what God has already put before us. I also read an excellent line from Perry Noble yesterday: "Disney created a mouse…GOD created the Grand Canyon…HE HAS THE TRUMP CARD!"
That totally sums up everything i was thinking then and there.
Unrelated: Last night i listened through what might be my favorite album of all time. I don't know why, but after all the worship music i've listened to, that one still feels very close to me. It could be because its the first hillsong album i owned. Or because of the memories of learning the songs on it after youth convention that year. Or because its one of the few albums that i've sat down with my bass, and played along from start to finish. Or maybe its just very good worship music to begin with. Its good stuff. Left me feeling nostalgic and warm-fuzzy for the future at the same time.
Also, in wonder of the ridiculous thing we live in called life. What an insane, unimaginable concept.
I was watching from a second floor balcony and got to watch the truck crush the trash inside. Very cool. As an engineering student and as someone who has always been fascinated with big machines, i got a kick outta it.
There's a lot of money, work, and planning that goes into designing and building something that we think of as trivial. Everyone's seen a garbage truck. But they really are impressive bits of engineering. Teams and teams of people worked on that truck, from the fluids guys that designed the hydrolics to the automotive engineers that got drivable.
I can appreciate that. Money, work, effort, and it pays off in real ways.
As I was leaving and walking going to my next class, a squirrel scurried by, looking for food. Squirrels are also everywhere, just like garbage trucks. We've all seen them. Students at RPI are quite familiar with their personalities and the way they act. I don't know anyone around here who hasn't stopped to watch a squirrel at some point.
They are also quite fascinating.
They're small. They're also much, much more complicated than a garbage truck.
I feel like, yeah engineering is vitally important to humanity and all that jazz. But when i look at the results of the very best that humanity has done, it is simply not comparable to what God has already put before us. I also read an excellent line from Perry Noble yesterday: "Disney created a mouse…GOD created the Grand Canyon…HE HAS THE TRUMP CARD!"
That totally sums up everything i was thinking then and there.
Unrelated: Last night i listened through what might be my favorite album of all time. I don't know why, but after all the worship music i've listened to, that one still feels very close to me. It could be because its the first hillsong album i owned. Or because of the memories of learning the songs on it after youth convention that year. Or because its one of the few albums that i've sat down with my bass, and played along from start to finish. Or maybe its just very good worship music to begin with. Its good stuff. Left me feeling nostalgic and warm-fuzzy for the future at the same time.
Also, in wonder of the ridiculous thing we live in called life. What an insane, unimaginable concept.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Action-y
Last wednesday was a pretty different day. It marked the end of a work-intensive few days, and i found myself suddenly without anything important to do. So as I was eating lunch in Commons I ate with some other RCA kids and we got to talking. A certain person kept asking probing questions about me. Not really useful questions. But then again, maybe there are no useful questions. I feel like every question I answered was more frustrating because sometimes, you can't learn much about a person by asking them very specific questions.
Oddly enough, I ate dinner later that day in a different dining hall with a different few RCA friends. Completely different story. We started talking about Bible translations. We cracked out a laptop and started reading the awesomeness of the Message:Remix. I then ended up forcing them to watch videos from church services. I was really excited. I love showing people how much more awesome church can be than what they are used to.
I think the two people I was with for dinner gleaned a lot more about me during the shorter time I had with them than the group I ate lunch with. They saw what I was interested in, what I spend my time doing, where my heart is. And they didn't ask me any questions.
Analytical people bother me. RPI is full of analytical people for some reason. It stresses me out. Why can't we just appreciate what we're a part of without tearing it apart, analyzing it, and graduating with an engineering degree? Ick.
Oddly enough, I ate dinner later that day in a different dining hall with a different few RCA friends. Completely different story. We started talking about Bible translations. We cracked out a laptop and started reading the awesomeness of the Message:Remix. I then ended up forcing them to watch videos from church services. I was really excited. I love showing people how much more awesome church can be than what they are used to.
I think the two people I was with for dinner gleaned a lot more about me during the shorter time I had with them than the group I ate lunch with. They saw what I was interested in, what I spend my time doing, where my heart is. And they didn't ask me any questions.
Analytical people bother me. RPI is full of analytical people for some reason. It stresses me out. Why can't we just appreciate what we're a part of without tearing it apart, analyzing it, and graduating with an engineering degree? Ick.
Friday, April 16, 2010
t-shirt lesson
sometime around winter break, i went around telling people that I was going to start wearing solid color american apparel t-shirts. The main reason for this was that i have a profuse sweating problem to the point where all my t-shirts get really disgusting pitstains after a little while. I love t-shirts. If i wasn't poor, i would collect them. There's something that i really really like about wearing art. Except that i end up buying shirts and then ruining them. So i figure, why not just wear $5.50 shirts and not be sad when they start looking nasty.
So here's what i did.
I started telling everyone i know that i was gonna wear solid color shirts.
Then i bought some.
I got 6.
I only really wear 4 of them, since i'm not bold enough to wear bright pink or purple around people i might want to make a good first impression on.
I have enough shirts where i only wash them every 2 weeks. In any given 2 weeks, 4/14 days i wear a solid color shirt without anything printed on it.
That's less than a third of the time.
But strangely enough, people mention it to me, often enough for it to be memorable.
things like, "i can't picture you not wearing a solid color shirt"
or on the 10/14 days, "woah! you're not wearing a solid color shirt!"
I seem to have created a bit of a reputation for non-printed t-shirts.
I don't wear them most of the time. I only have 6 to begin with. But the reputation is there.
I think there's something to be learned from this.
That it doesn't take nearly as much work as some people think it does to build a reputation for yourself. All it takes is communication and some action. But mostly communication. The important part is any action at all. It doesn't need to be grandiose or extravagant or all-consuming. It just needs to be enough to show that you follow through with what you tell people you are going to do.
I could be wrong on this, but it seems to be what happened with my t-shirts.
So here's what i did.
I started telling everyone i know that i was gonna wear solid color shirts.
Then i bought some.
I got 6.
I only really wear 4 of them, since i'm not bold enough to wear bright pink or purple around people i might want to make a good first impression on.
I have enough shirts where i only wash them every 2 weeks. In any given 2 weeks, 4/14 days i wear a solid color shirt without anything printed on it.
That's less than a third of the time.
But strangely enough, people mention it to me, often enough for it to be memorable.
things like, "i can't picture you not wearing a solid color shirt"
or on the 10/14 days, "woah! you're not wearing a solid color shirt!"
I seem to have created a bit of a reputation for non-printed t-shirts.
I don't wear them most of the time. I only have 6 to begin with. But the reputation is there.
I think there's something to be learned from this.
That it doesn't take nearly as much work as some people think it does to build a reputation for yourself. All it takes is communication and some action. But mostly communication. The important part is any action at all. It doesn't need to be grandiose or extravagant or all-consuming. It just needs to be enough to show that you follow through with what you tell people you are going to do.
I could be wrong on this, but it seems to be what happened with my t-shirts.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
On Excellence
Excellence is always lacking.
Not in the sense that it is unachievable, since excellence in a mostly relative term.
But no one will ever tell you, "nah don't worry about it, we have enough excellence."
Joseph gave us a great example of excellence in action in Genesis 41.
The Pharaoh of Egypt, of whom Joseph has been a prisoner for more than 2 years, has a dream. It freaks him out so he calls all of his officials together to see if any of them can tell him what it means. No one can, but his cup bearer remembers that there's this guy named Joseph in the dungeon.
"I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it." (Pharaoh)
Joseph replies in 41:16, "It is beyond my power to do this, but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease."
So they go over the dream and Joseph interprets it.
"This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do. The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout the land of Egypt. But afterward there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten in Egypt. Famine will destroy the land. This famine will be so severe that even the memory of the good years will be erased." [41:28-31]
Cool. Surplus. Famine. Thanks Joseph. Thanks Joseph's God.
but what comes next is cooler.
"Therefore, Pharaoh should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh should appoint supervisors over the land and let them collect one-fifth of all the crops during the seven good years. Have them gather all the food produced in the good years that are just ahead and bring it to Pharaoh's storehouses. Store it away, and guard it so there will be food in the cities. That way there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come to the land of Egypt. Otherwise this famine will destroy the land." [41:33-36]
pharaoh didn't ask for advice.
he had all sorts of royal advice-givers and planners and such who were in charge of telling pharaoh what's what. All Joseph needed to do was mention seven years of surplus and seven years of famine. Then he was free to go back to his dungeon and be sad.
Instead, he followed up on his interpretation. He thought up a good idea on how to deal with the situation, and it was good enough (or God enough) to get him hired up as the chief adviser in charge of everything except for sitting on the throne.
I believe that we are called to exceed expectations and break barriers of "good enough".
Not in the sense that it is unachievable, since excellence in a mostly relative term.
But no one will ever tell you, "nah don't worry about it, we have enough excellence."
Joseph gave us a great example of excellence in action in Genesis 41.
The Pharaoh of Egypt, of whom Joseph has been a prisoner for more than 2 years, has a dream. It freaks him out so he calls all of his officials together to see if any of them can tell him what it means. No one can, but his cup bearer remembers that there's this guy named Joseph in the dungeon.
"I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it." (Pharaoh)
Joseph replies in 41:16, "It is beyond my power to do this, but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease."
So they go over the dream and Joseph interprets it.
"This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do. The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout the land of Egypt. But afterward there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten in Egypt. Famine will destroy the land. This famine will be so severe that even the memory of the good years will be erased." [41:28-31]
Cool. Surplus. Famine. Thanks Joseph. Thanks Joseph's God.
but what comes next is cooler.
"Therefore, Pharaoh should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh should appoint supervisors over the land and let them collect one-fifth of all the crops during the seven good years. Have them gather all the food produced in the good years that are just ahead and bring it to Pharaoh's storehouses. Store it away, and guard it so there will be food in the cities. That way there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come to the land of Egypt. Otherwise this famine will destroy the land." [41:33-36]
pharaoh didn't ask for advice.
he had all sorts of royal advice-givers and planners and such who were in charge of telling pharaoh what's what. All Joseph needed to do was mention seven years of surplus and seven years of famine. Then he was free to go back to his dungeon and be sad.
Instead, he followed up on his interpretation. He thought up a good idea on how to deal with the situation, and it was good enough (or God enough) to get him hired up as the chief adviser in charge of everything except for sitting on the throne.
I believe that we are called to exceed expectations and break barriers of "good enough".
Friday, April 2, 2010
Another Pet Peeve
Going on right now is Air1's spring pledge drive.
That means they play much less music and do much more harassing to convince people to give them money.
I would be alright with supporting them if they were a radio station.
But what bothers me is how they're talking about how they have 5 pastors "on staff" and "on call". Phone pastors. Not a fan.
I put my radio at air1 so i can listen to music.
Not so i have the option of calling a pastor i've never met so i can tell him my problems.
Counseling, support, growth, that's all what the Local Church is for. Not radio stations.
I don't want to listen to a parachurch ministry. I'm glad you think you're making a difference, but i'm not into that. Play music. Do nothing else. Be good at what you claim to do and don't stretch yourself into what you shouldn't be doing.
Kinda like churches with "libraries" and thrift shops.
There's no need for that. Get your books at a bookstore. Steal your clothes at walmart.
That is all.
That means they play much less music and do much more harassing to convince people to give them money.
I would be alright with supporting them if they were a radio station.
But what bothers me is how they're talking about how they have 5 pastors "on staff" and "on call". Phone pastors. Not a fan.
I put my radio at air1 so i can listen to music.
Not so i have the option of calling a pastor i've never met so i can tell him my problems.
Counseling, support, growth, that's all what the Local Church is for. Not radio stations.
I don't want to listen to a parachurch ministry. I'm glad you think you're making a difference, but i'm not into that. Play music. Do nothing else. Be good at what you claim to do and don't stretch yourself into what you shouldn't be doing.
Kinda like churches with "libraries" and thrift shops.
There's no need for that. Get your books at a bookstore. Steal your clothes at walmart.
That is all.
A Complaint
Last night i finished reading through the entire Bible in 90 days.
Today i'm starting reading through the entire Bible in 90 days.
On January 1st I decided to read from the New Living Translation, since i've had a NLT bible for a few years and have never really read from it.
Now i have.
I don't mind it as much as i used to.
Today I'm starting through with the Amplified bible.
The amplified is a little scarier. The language isn't as nice.
At some point this week, i also have to get around to looking at the notes i took in the past 3 months.
One thing that bothers me is how difficult it is to find a 90-day Bible reading plan.
The internet is full of "one-year bible" plans, but i'm struggling to find even the original list that I used last time.
This is ridiculous.
Christianity is supposed to be based entirely on the bible.
With the sheer amount of marketing done in the "Christian" industry with music and books and other consumer nonsense, you'd think someone would encourage people to actually get to know what they say they're living for. Come on. A year?
In a year's time, I've gone from an overstressed highschool student wanting to get out of "here" into an overstressed college student wanting desperately to get out of "here".
Seriously though, a lot has changed in a year's time.
...if my life can change dramatically in less time than it takes to understand what my life is all about, i'm not in a good place.
So that's my complaint.
That christians don't read the bible enough, and aren't demanding that people help them read and understand it completely.
Frustrating.
Today i'm starting reading through the entire Bible in 90 days.
On January 1st I decided to read from the New Living Translation, since i've had a NLT bible for a few years and have never really read from it.
Now i have.
I don't mind it as much as i used to.
Today I'm starting through with the Amplified bible.
The amplified is a little scarier. The language isn't as nice.
At some point this week, i also have to get around to looking at the notes i took in the past 3 months.
One thing that bothers me is how difficult it is to find a 90-day Bible reading plan.
The internet is full of "one-year bible" plans, but i'm struggling to find even the original list that I used last time.
This is ridiculous.
Christianity is supposed to be based entirely on the bible.
With the sheer amount of marketing done in the "Christian" industry with music and books and other consumer nonsense, you'd think someone would encourage people to actually get to know what they say they're living for. Come on. A year?
In a year's time, I've gone from an overstressed highschool student wanting to get out of "here" into an overstressed college student wanting desperately to get out of "here".
Seriously though, a lot has changed in a year's time.
...if my life can change dramatically in less time than it takes to understand what my life is all about, i'm not in a good place.
So that's my complaint.
That christians don't read the bible enough, and aren't demanding that people help them read and understand it completely.
Frustrating.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
On Apple
Go to Apple's website. As of this writing, you'll be greeted by a full-page spread of the iPad, along with a line describing it as "Magical and Revolutionary".
This has been bothering me for a while.
A little while ago, Apple released the "Magic Mouse", which replaced the already single-button apple mouse (or the however many button 'mighty mouse') with a touch-sensitive surface.
I watched the speech where Steve Jobs revealed the iPad, months ago.
He stood up there and called it "Magical".
Like, not even joking. It was as if he was calling it, "awesome".
Except he called it Magical.
Magic doesn't exist.
But what does exist, is a famous quote from Sir Arthur C. Clark, the writer of 2001, A Space Odyssey: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
And everyone knows that science fiction writers are always right.
But the quote is pretty accurate. Think back to things like electricity, magnetism, the first computers... as far as anyone in the general public was concerned, it might as well have been magic.
But for a company, especially one as in-the-limelight as Apple Computer, to actually assert that their product is Magical is entirely nutty.
Maybe they're trying to be cute.
I'm sure Apple doesn't actually believe their product to be magical.
They probably know that their latest offering will work magic with their stock prices, but there's nothing unexplainable about it.
Here's what I don't like.
Even with the recession and people remember how to be thrifty, we're still a completely consumer-entrenched culture. Companies aren't even trying to sell us their stuff anymore- they don't have to, we buy it anyway. Advertising dollars are literally spent for the sake of selling brands and corporate identities rather than the products that merely carry those identities into peoples' homes.
And you know, i'm sure Apple payed out a pretty penny for that slogan. Have our minds become so numb that a company has to yell "LOOK AT OUR MAGICAL PRODUCT" in order for us to be interested?
Its insanity. I don't like being treated like a consumer.
RPI tried to convince the class of 2013 that we were gonna "Change the world".
Whatever that means.
I'd rather go around yelling at people, "LOOK AT MY MIRACULOUS JESUS" than buy an iPad that claims to have magic.
This has been bothering me for a while.
A little while ago, Apple released the "Magic Mouse", which replaced the already single-button apple mouse (or the however many button 'mighty mouse') with a touch-sensitive surface.
I watched the speech where Steve Jobs revealed the iPad, months ago.
He stood up there and called it "Magical".
Like, not even joking. It was as if he was calling it, "awesome".
Except he called it Magical.
Magic doesn't exist.
But what does exist, is a famous quote from Sir Arthur C. Clark, the writer of 2001, A Space Odyssey: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
And everyone knows that science fiction writers are always right.
But the quote is pretty accurate. Think back to things like electricity, magnetism, the first computers... as far as anyone in the general public was concerned, it might as well have been magic.
But for a company, especially one as in-the-limelight as Apple Computer, to actually assert that their product is Magical is entirely nutty.
Maybe they're trying to be cute.
I'm sure Apple doesn't actually believe their product to be magical.
They probably know that their latest offering will work magic with their stock prices, but there's nothing unexplainable about it.
Here's what I don't like.
Even with the recession and people remember how to be thrifty, we're still a completely consumer-entrenched culture. Companies aren't even trying to sell us their stuff anymore- they don't have to, we buy it anyway. Advertising dollars are literally spent for the sake of selling brands and corporate identities rather than the products that merely carry those identities into peoples' homes.
And you know, i'm sure Apple payed out a pretty penny for that slogan. Have our minds become so numb that a company has to yell "LOOK AT OUR MAGICAL PRODUCT" in order for us to be interested?
Its insanity. I don't like being treated like a consumer.
RPI tried to convince the class of 2013 that we were gonna "Change the world".
Whatever that means.
I'd rather go around yelling at people, "LOOK AT MY MIRACULOUS JESUS" than buy an iPad that claims to have magic.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
On 1000 Years
There's a bible verse that causes a fair amount of disunity between different schools of thought- in 2 Peter 3:8 Peter says, "...A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day."
There are people who use that concept to justify "old-earth" vs. "new-earth", saying that the 6 "days" in Genesis could have been millennia.
But that isn't really important at all.
What I think a lot of people miss is the other half of that statement- that a day is like a thousand years.
I don't know about you, but a thousand years is a long time. Think about everything that's happened in the world since the year 1010. Its essentially all of modern history. There are people who spend their lives devoted to studying a single decade; there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on in a thousand years, and I think you and me probably have no grasp on the size of that scale.
Now think about what you did yesterday. You could probably make a list of events that happened. Pretty boring. Pretty lame.
Christians usually hold that God "Has a plan for each of us". I'm not really sure where the Bible says that, but i believe it to be true. I think that there's no reason why God doesn't plan out our days for us, how we're going to interact with each other, the way that the weather influences us, the wind blowing on our faces.
Imagine if God put the detail of a thousand years into each single day of our lives.
He is familiar with every micro-second that goes down. From your life-changing decisions to how hungry the dust mites inside your pillow are.
What we think about as another mostly boring day is actually jam-packed with everything you could find in a thousand years.
I think we should try a little harder to appreciate that.
There are people who use that concept to justify "old-earth" vs. "new-earth", saying that the 6 "days" in Genesis could have been millennia.
But that isn't really important at all.
What I think a lot of people miss is the other half of that statement- that a day is like a thousand years.
I don't know about you, but a thousand years is a long time. Think about everything that's happened in the world since the year 1010. Its essentially all of modern history. There are people who spend their lives devoted to studying a single decade; there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on in a thousand years, and I think you and me probably have no grasp on the size of that scale.
Now think about what you did yesterday. You could probably make a list of events that happened. Pretty boring. Pretty lame.
Christians usually hold that God "Has a plan for each of us". I'm not really sure where the Bible says that, but i believe it to be true. I think that there's no reason why God doesn't plan out our days for us, how we're going to interact with each other, the way that the weather influences us, the wind blowing on our faces.
Imagine if God put the detail of a thousand years into each single day of our lives.
He is familiar with every micro-second that goes down. From your life-changing decisions to how hungry the dust mites inside your pillow are.
What we think about as another mostly boring day is actually jam-packed with everything you could find in a thousand years.
I think we should try a little harder to appreciate that.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
On CCM
If you asked me to make a list of the things that i dislike about college, somewhere towards the top would be, "no car."
I love driving. I made my brother let me drive the entire way back from a conference in PA over winter break. 2 stops, not counting getting pulled over. It was wonderful.
Part of not having a car is not having a radio.
And part of not having a radio is not having Air1.
...Which makes vacations nicer, actually. Because the time in between my breaks gives the station a chance to change a few songs in the line-up. I come back and there's something different, which is excellent, because it lessens my view of the radio as a song-destroying consumer machine that cashes in on christian subculture.
There's always one or two songs that are just really annoying. Usually its because they are overplayed, but there is a certain example I want to harp on. It's "God shaped Hole" by Plumb. It's not only overplayed and annoying to begin with, but fundamentally distressing. The chorus goes, "There's a God-shaped hole in all of ussss". I couldn't disagree more.
The idea of the song, of course, is that we're all missing something- God- and that He fits right into us and makes us complete. That's about as theologically sound as jello is concrete.
I think a better comparison might be to think of ourselves as Ground Zero after 9/11. A giant heap of burning rubble responsible for hundreds of deaths. It will be 12 years later when the replacement building is finished. That's a long time, and a lot of complicated mess to deal with. But ultimately, One World Trade Center will be a much better, taller, nicer looking place to be.
There's no "god-shaped hole" in anyone. Just a smoldering mound of junk. It takes us to recognize that and realize that we can cash in the insurance and get the Best instead. Simple in concept, often times difficult in practice.
I love driving. I made my brother let me drive the entire way back from a conference in PA over winter break. 2 stops, not counting getting pulled over. It was wonderful.
Part of not having a car is not having a radio.
And part of not having a radio is not having Air1.
...Which makes vacations nicer, actually. Because the time in between my breaks gives the station a chance to change a few songs in the line-up. I come back and there's something different, which is excellent, because it lessens my view of the radio as a song-destroying consumer machine that cashes in on christian subculture.
There's always one or two songs that are just really annoying. Usually its because they are overplayed, but there is a certain example I want to harp on. It's "God shaped Hole" by Plumb. It's not only overplayed and annoying to begin with, but fundamentally distressing. The chorus goes, "There's a God-shaped hole in all of ussss". I couldn't disagree more.
The idea of the song, of course, is that we're all missing something- God- and that He fits right into us and makes us complete. That's about as theologically sound as jello is concrete.
I think a better comparison might be to think of ourselves as Ground Zero after 9/11. A giant heap of burning rubble responsible for hundreds of deaths. It will be 12 years later when the replacement building is finished. That's a long time, and a lot of complicated mess to deal with. But ultimately, One World Trade Center will be a much better, taller, nicer looking place to be.
There's no "god-shaped hole" in anyone. Just a smoldering mound of junk. It takes us to recognize that and realize that we can cash in the insurance and get the Best instead. Simple in concept, often times difficult in practice.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
On Unleash
This weekend was absolutely the best 3 days of my life. Actually, it wasn't even the weekend. But that's okay. Went to Unleash at Newspring church in Anderson, SC. It was an 18 hour each way road trip with my favorite people in the whole world.
Newspring's campus is amazing. Perry Noble, their pastor, has talked a lot about how the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet, and that secular organizations should be looking at the church and asking, "how can we do that?" instead of the other way around. His church is an excellent example of that concept at work. Original architecture and definitely a contender for the most creative kids ministry ever conceived. The church bleeds excellence. From the 600 volunteers at the conference to the 109 staff members that pour their hearts into their ministries.
The conference was divided up into 4 teaching blocks, 2 main sessions taught by the Man Perry Noble and then 2 break out sessions ran by staff members on various topics. As valuable as the teaching time was the space in between, some of it occupied with the free chick-fil-a lunch but the rest with literally being able to wonder around everywhere and absorbing absolutely everything possible.
I'm not going to lie, my face literally started twitching from smiling.
Worship was unbelievable. Newspring is the first church i've been to where i was satisfied with the way the audio was mixed. They had not-too-huge line arrays but lots and lots of subs. And with a D-Show for both FoH and monitor world, everything about everything screamed that they mean business.
We stopped by Elevation Church's main building in North Carolina on the way back. Their graphic arts guy was bomb enough to give us an impromptu full-on tour of the place. Looking back on it, the contrast between Elevation and Newspring might be the most awesome part of the trip. Newspring is an example of a church with a 13.7 million dollar annual budget, with a very deep bucket of resources and some 15,000 total attenders.
Elevation on the other hand, just turned 4 years old and have 1/3 of the members. They have a lot less staff members and have focused a lot of their attention on stretching everything they have as far as possible. Their facility was impressive in its own right, not for how huge it is or for nice equipment, but for how they've utilized what they have. Example, their graphic designer is one guy. Newspring has a team of 9 full time employees complete with an internal 2-week turnaround on all requested work. I saw more graphic arts in the 45 minutes that we were in Elevation than the 10 hours that we spend at Newspring church. He also gave us all t-shirts. That's sweet.
But what do you care?
Sound and Light guys, as well as musicians, are completely obsessed with gear. All of them. You can go up to a sound technician after any show and start asking questions and he will all of a sudden turn into a kid in a candy store talking about his own equipment. Its part of his job to love that. Its part of his job to know exactly how it all works together and seamlessly to produce what you paid money to see. There was no shortage of that enthusiasm at Newspring.
But on the car ride back home, I realized that over the past year or so, i've started to become pretty much church obsessed. I watch church services online. The last time I missed a sunday morning was when I was 12 years old. I love talking about church. I love hearing about church. I loved our 36 hours worth of being on the road for a one day conference about church.
If the symmetric property applies to occupation, then something becomes glaringly obvious.
Newspring's campus is amazing. Perry Noble, their pastor, has talked a lot about how the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet, and that secular organizations should be looking at the church and asking, "how can we do that?" instead of the other way around. His church is an excellent example of that concept at work. Original architecture and definitely a contender for the most creative kids ministry ever conceived. The church bleeds excellence. From the 600 volunteers at the conference to the 109 staff members that pour their hearts into their ministries.
The conference was divided up into 4 teaching blocks, 2 main sessions taught by the Man Perry Noble and then 2 break out sessions ran by staff members on various topics. As valuable as the teaching time was the space in between, some of it occupied with the free chick-fil-a lunch but the rest with literally being able to wonder around everywhere and absorbing absolutely everything possible.
I'm not going to lie, my face literally started twitching from smiling.
Worship was unbelievable. Newspring is the first church i've been to where i was satisfied with the way the audio was mixed. They had not-too-huge line arrays but lots and lots of subs. And with a D-Show for both FoH and monitor world, everything about everything screamed that they mean business.
We stopped by Elevation Church's main building in North Carolina on the way back. Their graphic arts guy was bomb enough to give us an impromptu full-on tour of the place. Looking back on it, the contrast between Elevation and Newspring might be the most awesome part of the trip. Newspring is an example of a church with a 13.7 million dollar annual budget, with a very deep bucket of resources and some 15,000 total attenders.
Elevation on the other hand, just turned 4 years old and have 1/3 of the members. They have a lot less staff members and have focused a lot of their attention on stretching everything they have as far as possible. Their facility was impressive in its own right, not for how huge it is or for nice equipment, but for how they've utilized what they have. Example, their graphic designer is one guy. Newspring has a team of 9 full time employees complete with an internal 2-week turnaround on all requested work. I saw more graphic arts in the 45 minutes that we were in Elevation than the 10 hours that we spend at Newspring church. He also gave us all t-shirts. That's sweet.
But what do you care?
Sound and Light guys, as well as musicians, are completely obsessed with gear. All of them. You can go up to a sound technician after any show and start asking questions and he will all of a sudden turn into a kid in a candy store talking about his own equipment. Its part of his job to love that. Its part of his job to know exactly how it all works together and seamlessly to produce what you paid money to see. There was no shortage of that enthusiasm at Newspring.
But on the car ride back home, I realized that over the past year or so, i've started to become pretty much church obsessed. I watch church services online. The last time I missed a sunday morning was when I was 12 years old. I love talking about church. I love hearing about church. I loved our 36 hours worth of being on the road for a one day conference about church.
If the symmetric property applies to occupation, then something becomes glaringly obvious.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
On a pile of Dirt
I finally had a free moment to pick up Praise Habit again. I read a page before i had to put it down and think about how good it is. Here he's talking about Psalm 1.
"And to live in ways that twist and distort His creation brings death. Real death. Not just the redundant (none of us are getting out of here alive) burring of corpses, but the walking around kind that tastes of dust rather than the Maker's exhale of love. It is repulsive. It doesn't hold together. It is not the genesis-shape imagined for a human.
...Our cultural conditioning of Western nationalistic Christianity typically sends us headlong into pharisaical discussions of R-rated movies and cussing and drinking and smoking and the dangers of associating with heathen who do any of the previously mentioned activities. I am familiar with a copious quantity of people who do not participate in any of these activities yet walk around lifeless, as dead and intriguing as a pile of dirt."
I can remember sitting around as a younger child, being completely terrified of dying. I think we all have moments when we realize that we cannot, as humans in human bodies, comprehend death. Because you can't imagine yourself not existing. That's why Heaven is such an excellent thing. But as much as we're afraid of it, so many people really are dead. And more serious of a death than being physically dead.
That's what's incredible. People are walking around, breathing air and drinking water, and they're more dead than some of the people in your local cemetery. Literally, more dead. That isn't symbolism. People are literally dead. And we need to do something about that.
"And to live in ways that twist and distort His creation brings death. Real death. Not just the redundant (none of us are getting out of here alive) burring of corpses, but the walking around kind that tastes of dust rather than the Maker's exhale of love. It is repulsive. It doesn't hold together. It is not the genesis-shape imagined for a human.
...Our cultural conditioning of Western nationalistic Christianity typically sends us headlong into pharisaical discussions of R-rated movies and cussing and drinking and smoking and the dangers of associating with heathen who do any of the previously mentioned activities. I am familiar with a copious quantity of people who do not participate in any of these activities yet walk around lifeless, as dead and intriguing as a pile of dirt."
I can remember sitting around as a younger child, being completely terrified of dying. I think we all have moments when we realize that we cannot, as humans in human bodies, comprehend death. Because you can't imagine yourself not existing. That's why Heaven is such an excellent thing. But as much as we're afraid of it, so many people really are dead. And more serious of a death than being physically dead.
That's what's incredible. People are walking around, breathing air and drinking water, and they're more dead than some of the people in your local cemetery. Literally, more dead. That isn't symbolism. People are literally dead. And we need to do something about that.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
On the Elderly
Old people are really cool. A good majority of them somewhere along the way stop caring about what people think about them, accept the fact that they're old, and are completely okay with saying everything that comes to their mind, with no censorship.
It's adorable.
The RCA worship band, accompanied by some of Russel Sage's gals and later by other kids from RCA played a set of 5 hymns at a nursing home yesterday.
I've never liked hymns.
I've also never liked nursing homes- as cool as old people are, i get a bit apprehensive when i'm surrounded by them on all sides.
But don't get me wrong, I liked playing. It was a good night, disregarding the lamp that I knocked over with my bass case, shattering a glass tabletop.
But what I couldn't get out of my head was this:
In 20 years, the people living in nursing homes will not want to have college students come to them playing hymns. The old people in nursing homes 20 years from now will be former Dead-Heads. Baby boomers. Unchurched and apathetic.
In fact, I think we were assuming a lot by playing hymns and praying at a nursing home. If it weren't for the fact that nursing home residents will welcome any kind of entertainment you throw at them, i would have expected someone to mention something. Buddy Holly may have been more their style.
But it underlined to me the growing rift between Christians and society.
For example, in the 1200s, the Church was the only thing holding western society together. By the 1800s there were plenty of people who had decided that it wasn't for them. Since world war II, it feels like american culture has been rapidly splitting away from the Church. And in response to that, we have created "Christian Subculture", the horrifying, impact-reducing, relevance-decreasing bombshelter that christians in churches the world over are encouraged to hide away in.
Don't get me wrong. Worship music is awesome. Its almost entirely the only thing i've listened to while in college- Hillsong and David Crowder. And christian bands in general are cool. But the rift between our separate cultures is too big for comfort. We've made ourselves freaks, uneducated and insensitive to the people around us.
I wish there were more bands like Switchfoot.
Jon Foreman writes songs from the perspective of a christian that force people to think, without being a part of that rift. Like you can actually address issues of faith without dragging people inside of the bomb shelter and talking about how nice the stuffy air is and how great the canned peas taste. I like that. I wish more people would do that. Paul took the Gospel to all the corners of the known world. We sit on it and spend our creativity presenting it to ourselves over and over again rather than bringing it to people who need it.
Do me a favor. If you're reading this on facebook, like it. I have no way of knowing how many people actually read these things.
It's adorable.
The RCA worship band, accompanied by some of Russel Sage's gals and later by other kids from RCA played a set of 5 hymns at a nursing home yesterday.
I've never liked hymns.
I've also never liked nursing homes- as cool as old people are, i get a bit apprehensive when i'm surrounded by them on all sides.
But don't get me wrong, I liked playing. It was a good night, disregarding the lamp that I knocked over with my bass case, shattering a glass tabletop.
But what I couldn't get out of my head was this:
In 20 years, the people living in nursing homes will not want to have college students come to them playing hymns. The old people in nursing homes 20 years from now will be former Dead-Heads. Baby boomers. Unchurched and apathetic.
In fact, I think we were assuming a lot by playing hymns and praying at a nursing home. If it weren't for the fact that nursing home residents will welcome any kind of entertainment you throw at them, i would have expected someone to mention something. Buddy Holly may have been more their style.
But it underlined to me the growing rift between Christians and society.
For example, in the 1200s, the Church was the only thing holding western society together. By the 1800s there were plenty of people who had decided that it wasn't for them. Since world war II, it feels like american culture has been rapidly splitting away from the Church. And in response to that, we have created "Christian Subculture", the horrifying, impact-reducing, relevance-decreasing bombshelter that christians in churches the world over are encouraged to hide away in.
Don't get me wrong. Worship music is awesome. Its almost entirely the only thing i've listened to while in college- Hillsong and David Crowder. And christian bands in general are cool. But the rift between our separate cultures is too big for comfort. We've made ourselves freaks, uneducated and insensitive to the people around us.
I wish there were more bands like Switchfoot.
Jon Foreman writes songs from the perspective of a christian that force people to think, without being a part of that rift. Like you can actually address issues of faith without dragging people inside of the bomb shelter and talking about how nice the stuffy air is and how great the canned peas taste. I like that. I wish more people would do that. Paul took the Gospel to all the corners of the known world. We sit on it and spend our creativity presenting it to ourselves over and over again rather than bringing it to people who need it.
Do me a favor. If you're reading this on facebook, like it. I have no way of knowing how many people actually read these things.
Friday, February 12, 2010
On Unused
I went to EMPAC today to get a ticket for a show tomorrow. For those of you tuning in not on the RPI campus, EMPAC is the 220 million dollar building that is very cool and very unused. They tell us that they do research there, but then again, the RPI student union has to pay RPI for ice time for RPI's Div1 hocky team on RPI's own ice.
But here's the deal. The northern wall of EMPAC is 7 stories of glass showing a really cool staircase that goes from the bottom of the building to the top. The top is where the Box Office is, where you get tickets.
Except the box office is really just a wrap-around stainless steel desk.
And there's only one guy working it.
Empac is 7 stories of about 22,000 square feet.
You can walk around in the building all day, and unless there's a show going on, the only person that you'll ever see is that box office guy, staring at his iMac indefinitely.
EMPAC has employees. I'm going to guess maybe 10 or so full time workers.
They have really nice offices in the back. They're the guys that are in charge of programming, getting artists into the place, administrative and creative work.
But you walk inside the building, and there's simply an overwhelming sense of Space. Like you're surrounded by open-ness, you can look out the enormous window at Troy, everything is blue slate, glass, and stainless steel.
But it feels abandoned. Because there are no people in it that aren't shut away behind their locked suites in their nice offices.
I feel like the church has a lot of similarities to this.
Jesus paid much more than 220 million dollars for the church. He died. The guys that wrote the New Testament, most of them died for the church. Centuries of Saints died for the church.
But what are we doing with it?
Paying a single person to sit in the entree way waiting for a few sparse people to come buy tickets? Locking our pastors away in offices while we have theaters and auditoriums full of unused space? (think figuratively, not literally)
The Church is the greatest organization on the planet. We could at least do more than EMPAC with the resources we've been given.
But here's the deal. The northern wall of EMPAC is 7 stories of glass showing a really cool staircase that goes from the bottom of the building to the top. The top is where the Box Office is, where you get tickets.
Except the box office is really just a wrap-around stainless steel desk.
And there's only one guy working it.
Empac is 7 stories of about 22,000 square feet.
You can walk around in the building all day, and unless there's a show going on, the only person that you'll ever see is that box office guy, staring at his iMac indefinitely.
EMPAC has employees. I'm going to guess maybe 10 or so full time workers.
They have really nice offices in the back. They're the guys that are in charge of programming, getting artists into the place, administrative and creative work.
But you walk inside the building, and there's simply an overwhelming sense of Space. Like you're surrounded by open-ness, you can look out the enormous window at Troy, everything is blue slate, glass, and stainless steel.
But it feels abandoned. Because there are no people in it that aren't shut away behind their locked suites in their nice offices.
I feel like the church has a lot of similarities to this.
Jesus paid much more than 220 million dollars for the church. He died. The guys that wrote the New Testament, most of them died for the church. Centuries of Saints died for the church.
But what are we doing with it?
Paying a single person to sit in the entree way waiting for a few sparse people to come buy tickets? Locking our pastors away in offices while we have theaters and auditoriums full of unused space? (think figuratively, not literally)
The Church is the greatest organization on the planet. We could at least do more than EMPAC with the resources we've been given.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
On Stages
Its been a really long week.
By the looks of it, they're only going to be getting longer each time around. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm stressing a bit about where all the time I thought I had to do homework went. It just isn't there.
I watched a few snippets of a church conference this week. There was a lot of talk about home-based churches that are moving especially in california. cool stuff. But I still like Perry Noble's stance- that the church ought to have the most creativity, the best shows, the most captivating experiences, since we have the greatest message of all and we might as well back it up the way it should be.
That couldn't have been underlined more clearly than with The Who's performance at halftime less than an hour ago.
I spent all of the Halftime Report staring at the background behind the commentators trying to get a glimpse of the setup going on the field.
Greatest. Stage. Ever.
I feel like stadiums have always been one of the most difficult places to pull off a good looking stage, since you have people on every direction. A circle is a natural route to go, but an enormous curved LED screen with flash pots inside of it and media that complements its shape perfectly is absolutely phenomenal.
The problem?
Pete Townsend is 64. His days of rock and roll are over. All those guys looked like frail grandparents at a college reunion, enjoying their 12 minutes in the middle of the Sun Life Stadium.
We have the most excellent stage and lighting plot celebrating a bunch of old guys way past their prime who are celebrating football, beer, and wings.
we can do better. It would be my dream to be directly involved with something better than that. But seriously. Jesus >>> football. We make a big deal and throw parties to watch two teams of professionals, neither of whom we particularly cared for during the regular season, and then don't see anything wrong with merely showing up to church on sunday morning. Where's Jesus' circular screen-around-a-stage? Where are his lasers and his Showguns? And by golly, where are His fireworks and His flash pots?
If we did church like that every sunday, the entire state of new hampshire would, at the very least, be really really interested in what was going on.
By the looks of it, they're only going to be getting longer each time around. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm stressing a bit about where all the time I thought I had to do homework went. It just isn't there.
I watched a few snippets of a church conference this week. There was a lot of talk about home-based churches that are moving especially in california. cool stuff. But I still like Perry Noble's stance- that the church ought to have the most creativity, the best shows, the most captivating experiences, since we have the greatest message of all and we might as well back it up the way it should be.
That couldn't have been underlined more clearly than with The Who's performance at halftime less than an hour ago.
I spent all of the Halftime Report staring at the background behind the commentators trying to get a glimpse of the setup going on the field.
Greatest. Stage. Ever.
I feel like stadiums have always been one of the most difficult places to pull off a good looking stage, since you have people on every direction. A circle is a natural route to go, but an enormous curved LED screen with flash pots inside of it and media that complements its shape perfectly is absolutely phenomenal.
The problem?
Pete Townsend is 64. His days of rock and roll are over. All those guys looked like frail grandparents at a college reunion, enjoying their 12 minutes in the middle of the Sun Life Stadium.
We have the most excellent stage and lighting plot celebrating a bunch of old guys way past their prime who are celebrating football, beer, and wings.
we can do better. It would be my dream to be directly involved with something better than that. But seriously. Jesus >>> football. We make a big deal and throw parties to watch two teams of professionals, neither of whom we particularly cared for during the regular season, and then don't see anything wrong with merely showing up to church on sunday morning. Where's Jesus' circular screen-around-a-stage? Where are his lasers and his Showguns? And by golly, where are His fireworks and His flash pots?
If we did church like that every sunday, the entire state of new hampshire would, at the very least, be really really interested in what was going on.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
On Praise Habit
I'm starting to read a book by David Crowder, "Praise Habit".
My brother got it for me for Christmas this year.
It is excellent.
I know this because after reading the introduction I couldn't stop smiling because he expressed everything I've ever wanted to say about eastern religion and its relationship to Christianity so perfectly.
Here's an excerpt:
"The consequences of this discovery were huge. If He was in a sandwich, where else could He be found? Every moment was becoming holy. Nothing was nonspiritual. This was habitual praise- a perpetually sacred acknowledgment of the Giver of every good thing. A relentless embracing of good and a discarding of bad with an awareness of the one who in the beginning spoke those life-affirming words."
-David Crowder
Then last night I read Psalm 148. It goes as follows:
"Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being.
He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children.
Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones- the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!"
It seems to gel well with what Crowder was talking about. The idea that "Nothing was nonspiritual" has always been something that i've thought about. When i've learned about eastern religion it seemed to go along the same lines- that holiness, that truth is everywhere, in everything. Which is the right idea, just a pivotally wrong focus. God can be found in everything, because he made everything. You can find praise in absolutely everything you do, everything you look at, everything you think about. And when that happens, you're probably in a good place.
My brother got it for me for Christmas this year.
It is excellent.
I know this because after reading the introduction I couldn't stop smiling because he expressed everything I've ever wanted to say about eastern religion and its relationship to Christianity so perfectly.
Here's an excerpt:
"The consequences of this discovery were huge. If He was in a sandwich, where else could He be found? Every moment was becoming holy. Nothing was nonspiritual. This was habitual praise- a perpetually sacred acknowledgment of the Giver of every good thing. A relentless embracing of good and a discarding of bad with an awareness of the one who in the beginning spoke those life-affirming words."
-David Crowder
Then last night I read Psalm 148. It goes as follows:
"Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being.
He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children.
Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones- the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!"
It seems to gel well with what Crowder was talking about. The idea that "Nothing was nonspiritual" has always been something that i've thought about. When i've learned about eastern religion it seemed to go along the same lines- that holiness, that truth is everywhere, in everything. Which is the right idea, just a pivotally wrong focus. God can be found in everything, because he made everything. You can find praise in absolutely everything you do, everything you look at, everything you think about. And when that happens, you're probably in a good place.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
1/3
As of yesterday, I am 1/3 of the way through the Bible for 2010.
I've been reading with a pen. Passages that get underlined also get written down for future reference.
Each time I read through the Bible this year, i'm going to compare notes from each version to see how they're different. Just to see. Just to see.
Watched Star Wars Episode II last night.
One scene stuck out to me in particular. It was after Anakin finds his mother. She died in his arms. He then became full of rage and killed all of the Tuscan Raiders who had taken her captive.
Then he and the family that had purchased his mother buried her in the sand of Tatooine. There was another grave stone. It had everything the final ceremony has here on earth- mourning, tears, flowers.
But no pastor.
That's something that I've noticed more than ever this time through watching Star Wars: the complete paganism of the entire galaxy that George Lucas created. Everyone does their own thing. There is no direction, other than the general consensus that Jedis are usually right. In fact, everyone except the Jedis and those that deal with them regularly seem to be motivated entirely by greed and nothing more. There's violence in all corners of every planet. Everything is corrupt. By the middle of Episode II, Emperor Palpetine controls both sides of two powers about to go to war. That's messed up.
The world without Jesus is messed up.
I've been reading with a pen. Passages that get underlined also get written down for future reference.
Each time I read through the Bible this year, i'm going to compare notes from each version to see how they're different. Just to see. Just to see.
Watched Star Wars Episode II last night.
One scene stuck out to me in particular. It was after Anakin finds his mother. She died in his arms. He then became full of rage and killed all of the Tuscan Raiders who had taken her captive.
Then he and the family that had purchased his mother buried her in the sand of Tatooine. There was another grave stone. It had everything the final ceremony has here on earth- mourning, tears, flowers.
But no pastor.
That's something that I've noticed more than ever this time through watching Star Wars: the complete paganism of the entire galaxy that George Lucas created. Everyone does their own thing. There is no direction, other than the general consensus that Jedis are usually right. In fact, everyone except the Jedis and those that deal with them regularly seem to be motivated entirely by greed and nothing more. There's violence in all corners of every planet. Everything is corrupt. By the middle of Episode II, Emperor Palpetine controls both sides of two powers about to go to war. That's messed up.
The world without Jesus is messed up.
Friday, January 29, 2010
On Learning this Week
we've been watching movies every night this week. by "we", i mean some folks from RCA. By "movies", i mean mostly Star Wars. We watched Episode I yesterday and today we watched Gladiator.
Here's my thoughts on Gladiator:
I never realized that being a Charioteer would involve so much drifting. That would be so awesome.
Here's my thoughts on Star Wars I and Gladiator together:
Movies are made infinitely better by the addition of a cute kid that gets a lot of screen time without lines.
Here's what I learned from the Bible today:
In reading through the Old Testament, I'm about halfway through Numbers, not even to Deuteronomy. But one thing has become absolutely clear: redundancy.
I keep feeling like i'm reading the same things over and over again. If I was a little Jewish boy 2100 years ago, all this stuff would literally have been pounded into my head by now. There is no possible way that anyone could have said that they didn't know any part of the law. It's written down like 20 times in like 20 ways in several different books.
Its crazy how after so many examples through Moses alone where someone turned away from God and then God made the earth swallow them or sent fire down or something ridiculous like that, people still disobeyed the laws. Constant reminders just aren't enough. Watching people die just isn't enough.
In Gladiator, Commodus (evil emperor) saw over and over again what it took to make a good leader. He was surrounded by success in his Father, surrounded by success in his friend and general Maximus. But even after throwing opportunities to reform his ways out the window time and time again, he would not budge. He decided to stick with being the evil emperor. And he died for it, killed by the already fatally wounded slave of a former general of a former friend.
We're so stupidly stubborn. Our flesh is doomed to die and stay here on earth. Why are we so determined to remain with it when the reminders and the opportunities are never ending?
Movies are made better by cute kids. And so our lives are made better when we make ourselves like cute kids. Innocent, with few lines, content to be with our master, to win a podrace regardless of the stakes on our victory. (that was a starwars reference)
I could never be a film maker. I wouldn't know where to start.
Here's my thoughts on Gladiator:
I never realized that being a Charioteer would involve so much drifting. That would be so awesome.
Here's my thoughts on Star Wars I and Gladiator together:
Movies are made infinitely better by the addition of a cute kid that gets a lot of screen time without lines.
Here's what I learned from the Bible today:
In reading through the Old Testament, I'm about halfway through Numbers, not even to Deuteronomy. But one thing has become absolutely clear: redundancy.
I keep feeling like i'm reading the same things over and over again. If I was a little Jewish boy 2100 years ago, all this stuff would literally have been pounded into my head by now. There is no possible way that anyone could have said that they didn't know any part of the law. It's written down like 20 times in like 20 ways in several different books.
Its crazy how after so many examples through Moses alone where someone turned away from God and then God made the earth swallow them or sent fire down or something ridiculous like that, people still disobeyed the laws. Constant reminders just aren't enough. Watching people die just isn't enough.
In Gladiator, Commodus (evil emperor) saw over and over again what it took to make a good leader. He was surrounded by success in his Father, surrounded by success in his friend and general Maximus. But even after throwing opportunities to reform his ways out the window time and time again, he would not budge. He decided to stick with being the evil emperor. And he died for it, killed by the already fatally wounded slave of a former general of a former friend.
We're so stupidly stubborn. Our flesh is doomed to die and stay here on earth. Why are we so determined to remain with it when the reminders and the opportunities are never ending?
Movies are made better by cute kids. And so our lives are made better when we make ourselves like cute kids. Innocent, with few lines, content to be with our master, to win a podrace regardless of the stakes on our victory. (that was a starwars reference)
I could never be a film maker. I wouldn't know where to start.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Goal
I think my tentative goal for 2010 is to read through the entire Bible 4 times, in 4 different translations. It shouldn't be too difficult to remember to give myself 45 minutes at the end of each day for reading. Except, of course, when you consider all the other books I have to read this year and how busy this next (and next fall's) semester are going to be. Ick.
I'm starting the year with NLT, and my plans are to pick up an Amplified Bible and an ESV study bible along the way. But that leaves one more translation open to picking. any suggestions?
I'm starting the year with NLT, and my plans are to pick up an Amplified Bible and an ESV study bible along the way. But that leaves one more translation open to picking. any suggestions?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
On Bottlenecks
This winter break is almost over. It's been 4 and a half weeks so far, but from this end, it just flew by. I spent the last two weekends at conferences, which is good in that conferences are amazing, but bad in that I come back from them with a notebook of stuff I thought about and no time to re-read anything or collect my thoughts.
OIL was probably the longest conference i've been to thus far, and it was without question intense. I have a program booklet full of notes from seminary professors and a few more books I have to read. But one thing that one of the speakers said as an aside got written down on the back page:
"Just about every American leader went to college."
Think about that.
Almost every person of influence in our world went to a college of some sort.
We have created a culture that puts a great deal of emphasis on higher education, which is in most cases a good thing.
I did some searching for some numbers. Here's what I found.
There are about 24 million 18-24 year olds in the United States.
There are roughly 7,000 colleges in the United States.
College tuition is climbing at a freakily fast rate.
That's because everyone knows that in order to succeed in our world, you have to go to college. So since everyone goes to college, those 7,000 colleges get to charge lots of money for tuition. It's a bottleneck. Every leader in America has to pass through at least one (often more) of those 7,000 institutions.
Interesting fact I just learned from Wikipedia's article on the US's Demographics: There are about 7,000 Episcopal churches in america. That's one Episcopal church per college. There are hundreds of thousands of other churches in our country.
So... how does it make sense that people are capable of graduating college and going on to lead governments and organizations having not heard the Gospel?
There are plenty of churches. They're just not doing their jobs very well.
One thing I've learned so far as a college student is that the first month or so in the water sets a trajectory for the semester, the year, and for life. The first people that meet each other tend to stick around each other. And the company we keep sure affects everything about ourselves. People join frats, clubs, and study groups. The people in those groups are the people that hang around each other. It's an absolutely critical time.
And if you ask me, it seems like a really, really, incredibly easy time for evangelism. People go into college with "open minds", soft fertile soil for any idea and every idea. Might as well take advantage of it.
College campuses. You have thousands of young people concentrated in a teeny tiny area. There's no reason for UNH to be the 11th top party school in the USA when it could easily be the #1 churched school in the USA. How could the world be different if every year, a few thousand young adults graduated on fire for God instead of graduating mostly drunk? You can't fathom it. Don't even try.
OIL was probably the longest conference i've been to thus far, and it was without question intense. I have a program booklet full of notes from seminary professors and a few more books I have to read. But one thing that one of the speakers said as an aside got written down on the back page:
"Just about every American leader went to college."
Think about that.
Almost every person of influence in our world went to a college of some sort.
We have created a culture that puts a great deal of emphasis on higher education, which is in most cases a good thing.
I did some searching for some numbers. Here's what I found.
There are about 24 million 18-24 year olds in the United States.
There are roughly 7,000 colleges in the United States.
College tuition is climbing at a freakily fast rate.
That's because everyone knows that in order to succeed in our world, you have to go to college. So since everyone goes to college, those 7,000 colleges get to charge lots of money for tuition. It's a bottleneck. Every leader in America has to pass through at least one (often more) of those 7,000 institutions.
Interesting fact I just learned from Wikipedia's article on the US's Demographics: There are about 7,000 Episcopal churches in america. That's one Episcopal church per college. There are hundreds of thousands of other churches in our country.
So... how does it make sense that people are capable of graduating college and going on to lead governments and organizations having not heard the Gospel?
There are plenty of churches. They're just not doing their jobs very well.
One thing I've learned so far as a college student is that the first month or so in the water sets a trajectory for the semester, the year, and for life. The first people that meet each other tend to stick around each other. And the company we keep sure affects everything about ourselves. People join frats, clubs, and study groups. The people in those groups are the people that hang around each other. It's an absolutely critical time.
And if you ask me, it seems like a really, really, incredibly easy time for evangelism. People go into college with "open minds", soft fertile soil for any idea and every idea. Might as well take advantage of it.
College campuses. You have thousands of young people concentrated in a teeny tiny area. There's no reason for UNH to be the 11th top party school in the USA when it could easily be the #1 churched school in the USA. How could the world be different if every year, a few thousand young adults graduated on fire for God instead of graduating mostly drunk? You can't fathom it. Don't even try.
Monday, January 4, 2010
On Advice
Mark Batterson reads the bible through in a different translation every year.
I decided I wanna try that out, and kick it up a notch, so i found myself a nice 90-day bible reading plan and i'm going to tackle my NLT bible with it. The reading plan does 3 different sections each day, so for right now it has me reading chapters in Genesis, Job, and Matthew.
Anyway, i've never actually gone through the entire Bible methodically before. I've done the new testament several times, but there are definitely sections of the OT that i've missed. I'm excited.
This verse in Job made me giggle:
"A wise man wouldn't answer with such empty talk! You are nothing but a windbag."
-Job 15:2, NLT
The book of Job is well known for its exhibition of poor advice.
Those words were spoken by one of Job's friends after Job was pleading with God to show him how he had sinned and deserved to have everything taken from him.
But this man, Eliphaz, wasn't someone that Job should have listened to, and luckily he didn't. His advice was crummy, even though it makes logical sense in the context of the whole chapter.
Its good to have mentors and to seek advice from people wiser than ourselves. But it is incredibly important for us to know who we should be taking advice from in the first place. Without discernment on that front, we can end up more lost and disoriented than if we had never asked for direction in the first place.
nothing but a windbag. Not even a good insult.
I decided I wanna try that out, and kick it up a notch, so i found myself a nice 90-day bible reading plan and i'm going to tackle my NLT bible with it. The reading plan does 3 different sections each day, so for right now it has me reading chapters in Genesis, Job, and Matthew.
Anyway, i've never actually gone through the entire Bible methodically before. I've done the new testament several times, but there are definitely sections of the OT that i've missed. I'm excited.
This verse in Job made me giggle:
"A wise man wouldn't answer with such empty talk! You are nothing but a windbag."
-Job 15:2, NLT
The book of Job is well known for its exhibition of poor advice.
Those words were spoken by one of Job's friends after Job was pleading with God to show him how he had sinned and deserved to have everything taken from him.
But this man, Eliphaz, wasn't someone that Job should have listened to, and luckily he didn't. His advice was crummy, even though it makes logical sense in the context of the whole chapter.
Its good to have mentors and to seek advice from people wiser than ourselves. But it is incredibly important for us to know who we should be taking advice from in the first place. Without discernment on that front, we can end up more lost and disoriented than if we had never asked for direction in the first place.
nothing but a windbag. Not even a good insult.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
On Avatar
I have a thing now about writing about the good movies that i see.
Here's my latest collection of thoughts.
Uhm, spoiler alert.
Just got back from seeing Avatar in 3d.
James Cameron did an excellent job. It was the most immersive film i've seen since in a long time. When they say that he was after Star Wars, that's got to be what they're referring to. Immersion. Its most definitely not the 3d. It's the movie's ridiculously powerful ability to take your mind, your body, and your emotions and transport them into a compelling universe where James Cameron's imagination is king.
The faces. That's what I think made the film. The faces on the aliens. You know that they aren't supposed to be human. But at the same time you know that Cameron wanted us to mistake them for ourselves.
There is something unmistakably powerful about "waking up".
The Matrix did it. Avatar does it in completely the same way.
We do the same thing with video games- this movie ties in to what i was thinking about here.
There are no references to video games in the movie at all except when the researchers are talking about how much time they'd logged on their Avatars. But what makes Avatar so much cooler than the Matrix is that when they "plug in" to their avatars, they're still in reality. They're just in a different part of it. They become something that they could never in human form be, become part of a society that would never allow them in.
Honestly, whether James Cameron intended it or not, Avatar is self-referencing. Sure, its a great movie and delivers nicely for entertainment. But that's exactly it.
We've gotten to a point where we put on 3d glasses and plug ourselves into made up worlds where we have legs and can jump around in trees and interface our neurological system with giant awesome lizard bird things.
And unlike the lame ending of the movie, we can't just transfer our bodies into that falseness.
Time after time, we have to face the reality that we need oxygen to breathe. That all around our movie theater, while we're vegetating there staring at a 75 foot wide glowing screen, people are returning to their lives in the giant parking lot outside, sitting in traffic, inhaling cigarette smoke.
I have a lot of respect for Amish people. Someone 150 years ago realized that innovations in technology were making us schizophrenic, and decided to keep life as simple as possible. As a result of ourselves, a really scary amount of people in our world are simply unable to keep Reality straight. They don't like what's going on in their lives, so they turn to all the wonderfully convincing escape routes that we've spent the last 100 years spending all our money creating. And all the while that they're learning the language of some tribe of humanoids, their actual body, their actual mind, their actual spirit is sitting in a metaphorical bed link device, atrophying into nothingness.
On the way back from the movie, Chris Pike mentioned something about a guy feeling called by God to go to africa. He had no way of getting there, but went to an airport on faith thinking that maybe someone would give him a ticket or something would come up. He went to the bathroom, and when he came back out, he was in Africa.
I always come out of really good movies really pumped up.
If our population will buy into James Cameron's imagination, think about what they'll do when they figure out reality- that Jesus Christ fixed the world and everything else is a bonus.
Here's my latest collection of thoughts.
Uhm, spoiler alert.
Just got back from seeing Avatar in 3d.
James Cameron did an excellent job. It was the most immersive film i've seen since in a long time. When they say that he was after Star Wars, that's got to be what they're referring to. Immersion. Its most definitely not the 3d. It's the movie's ridiculously powerful ability to take your mind, your body, and your emotions and transport them into a compelling universe where James Cameron's imagination is king.
The faces. That's what I think made the film. The faces on the aliens. You know that they aren't supposed to be human. But at the same time you know that Cameron wanted us to mistake them for ourselves.
There is something unmistakably powerful about "waking up".
The Matrix did it. Avatar does it in completely the same way.
We do the same thing with video games- this movie ties in to what i was thinking about here.
There are no references to video games in the movie at all except when the researchers are talking about how much time they'd logged on their Avatars. But what makes Avatar so much cooler than the Matrix is that when they "plug in" to their avatars, they're still in reality. They're just in a different part of it. They become something that they could never in human form be, become part of a society that would never allow them in.
Honestly, whether James Cameron intended it or not, Avatar is self-referencing. Sure, its a great movie and delivers nicely for entertainment. But that's exactly it.
We've gotten to a point where we put on 3d glasses and plug ourselves into made up worlds where we have legs and can jump around in trees and interface our neurological system with giant awesome lizard bird things.
And unlike the lame ending of the movie, we can't just transfer our bodies into that falseness.
Time after time, we have to face the reality that we need oxygen to breathe. That all around our movie theater, while we're vegetating there staring at a 75 foot wide glowing screen, people are returning to their lives in the giant parking lot outside, sitting in traffic, inhaling cigarette smoke.
I have a lot of respect for Amish people. Someone 150 years ago realized that innovations in technology were making us schizophrenic, and decided to keep life as simple as possible. As a result of ourselves, a really scary amount of people in our world are simply unable to keep Reality straight. They don't like what's going on in their lives, so they turn to all the wonderfully convincing escape routes that we've spent the last 100 years spending all our money creating. And all the while that they're learning the language of some tribe of humanoids, their actual body, their actual mind, their actual spirit is sitting in a metaphorical bed link device, atrophying into nothingness.
On the way back from the movie, Chris Pike mentioned something about a guy feeling called by God to go to africa. He had no way of getting there, but went to an airport on faith thinking that maybe someone would give him a ticket or something would come up. He went to the bathroom, and when he came back out, he was in Africa.
I always come out of really good movies really pumped up.
If our population will buy into James Cameron's imagination, think about what they'll do when they figure out reality- that Jesus Christ fixed the world and everything else is a bonus.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
On Shepherds
I love reading through the old testament and finding a passage that clearly and vividly points to Jesus. Some of the prophesies about Jesus are pretty vague. But there are certainly plenty of very obvious, clear ones.
Read Ezekiel 34:1-16.
"The word of the Lord came to me: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have no strengthened the weak or healed th sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered all over the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a food pasture, and the mountain heights of Istael will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.'""
For the entire time I read this passage, I couldn't stop smiling and thinking about Jesus.
In John 10:11 Jesus told the Pharisees,
"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
This is really interesting because Pharisees spent their entire lives memorizing scripture- including Ezekiel, the third of the major prophets. They would have been able to instantly recall that, about 500 years ago, God had spoken to his people and said that he was throwing out the shepherds. And not only that, but He, Himself, would take over the roll. Assuming that the Pharisees recognized themselves as the "shepherds" in the prophesy, the priests, the ones in charge of leading God's chosen people, his sheep, then by Jesus calling himself "the good shepherd", he was stating himself to be God incarnate.
Mind blowing.
And it's so true. God knew that the laws and priests were crummy shepherds, so he came down to fix it himself. Jesus is our shepherd, he tends to us, and searches after the lost, bringing them home strikingly like the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15.
Reading through the Old Testament is one of the coolest ways to affirm Christianity as truth. It would be humanly impossible to write a book with so many different "authors" over such a long time period and have it result in the perfect handbook to Life.
Read Ezekiel 34:1-16.
"The word of the Lord came to me: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have no strengthened the weak or healed th sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered all over the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a food pasture, and the mountain heights of Istael will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.'""
For the entire time I read this passage, I couldn't stop smiling and thinking about Jesus.
In John 10:11 Jesus told the Pharisees,
"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
This is really interesting because Pharisees spent their entire lives memorizing scripture- including Ezekiel, the third of the major prophets. They would have been able to instantly recall that, about 500 years ago, God had spoken to his people and said that he was throwing out the shepherds. And not only that, but He, Himself, would take over the roll. Assuming that the Pharisees recognized themselves as the "shepherds" in the prophesy, the priests, the ones in charge of leading God's chosen people, his sheep, then by Jesus calling himself "the good shepherd", he was stating himself to be God incarnate.
Mind blowing.
And it's so true. God knew that the laws and priests were crummy shepherds, so he came down to fix it himself. Jesus is our shepherd, he tends to us, and searches after the lost, bringing them home strikingly like the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15.
Reading through the Old Testament is one of the coolest ways to affirm Christianity as truth. It would be humanly impossible to write a book with so many different "authors" over such a long time period and have it result in the perfect handbook to Life.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
On a Way Out
Look at your hands.
Move your fingers.
These are your fingers.
Out of the entire infinite expanse of the universe, only YOU, whatever "you" actually is, can control your fingers.
I've always been intensely interested in video games. I'm not all that great at playing them, but the philosophical connotations are neat. I know people that easily spend 3 hours every day playing xbox. When they're done, they get up, put the controller down, and walk away, usually to get food.
Video games are really cool because you can turn them off. And when you turn off a video game, life returns to normal- back to reality.
Descartes wrote a book trying to convince himself that he was alive and that God was real. I don't need to go through that much work. My assurance is this: Ever since I was little, I've never been able to shake the notion that throughout our lives we've been holding a video game controller, and that one day we'll have to put it down. And when that happens, we'll return to reality.
That's what I like about eastern religions- they get that. They understand that we don't live here just to reproduce, but that there is so much more beyond our pale blue dot of a planet. The early Christians understood this too- Judaism loosely shares some concepts with, say, taoism and buddhism. But somewhere along the road, maybe blame the 900-year reign of the Catholic Church that created the western world, we lost touch with that fundamental reverence that There Has To Be a Way Out.
Our bodies are fundamentally foreign. The idea that the jumble of biology in our heads somehow gives us Existence seems impossible. I've heard the body referred to as an "earthsuit" before- a protective layer that allows us to live on Earth, much like how a spacesuit is a protective layer that lets astronauts move around in space. Spacesuits are the very essence of "limiting". They restrict body movement by being big and clunky. In the same way, our bodies limit our ability to think, to move, and to live.
Move your fingers.
These are your fingers.
Out of the entire infinite expanse of the universe, only YOU, whatever "you" actually is, can control your fingers.
I've always been intensely interested in video games. I'm not all that great at playing them, but the philosophical connotations are neat. I know people that easily spend 3 hours every day playing xbox. When they're done, they get up, put the controller down, and walk away, usually to get food.
Video games are really cool because you can turn them off. And when you turn off a video game, life returns to normal- back to reality.
Descartes wrote a book trying to convince himself that he was alive and that God was real. I don't need to go through that much work. My assurance is this: Ever since I was little, I've never been able to shake the notion that throughout our lives we've been holding a video game controller, and that one day we'll have to put it down. And when that happens, we'll return to reality.
That's what I like about eastern religions- they get that. They understand that we don't live here just to reproduce, but that there is so much more beyond our pale blue dot of a planet. The early Christians understood this too- Judaism loosely shares some concepts with, say, taoism and buddhism. But somewhere along the road, maybe blame the 900-year reign of the Catholic Church that created the western world, we lost touch with that fundamental reverence that There Has To Be a Way Out.
Our bodies are fundamentally foreign. The idea that the jumble of biology in our heads somehow gives us Existence seems impossible. I've heard the body referred to as an "earthsuit" before- a protective layer that allows us to live on Earth, much like how a spacesuit is a protective layer that lets astronauts move around in space. Spacesuits are the very essence of "limiting". They restrict body movement by being big and clunky. In the same way, our bodies limit our ability to think, to move, and to live.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
On Honor
Here's a decently well known story. Moses is in the middle of leading Israel to the Promise land, and everyone, as usual, is complaining:
"Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, 'If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!'
Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord said to Moses, 'Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock and drink.'
So Moses took the staff from the Lord's presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, 'Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?' Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.'"
Numbers 20:2-12
Whoosh. That's hard luck right there.
God just told Moses that he won't be the one that brings the nation of Israel into the promised land. After almost 40 years of wandering around, putting up with all the complaining of his people, having to beg God to show them compassion, fighting through the disunity and overcoming his fears of leadership, he blew it. No milk and honey for Moses.
So what exactly did Moses do?
The scripture doesn't tell us. All it does is not tell us what he doesn't do.
"Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff"- Moses hits a rock and water comes out. He was completely obedient to God.
But here's the deal.
We know that Moses has a problem with public speaking- that's why Aaron signed on in the first place. Moses hits the rock and God follows through with his promise of water, but Moses fails to recognize God's power in front of the Israelites. In fact, he almost uses the event to glorify himself.
He didn't say, "the Lord will pour water out of this rock for you". On the contrary, he said, "must we bring you water out of this rock?" The 'we' is very much referring to himself and Aaron, not God.
The Israelites weren't particularly grounded people. When they were hungry, they complained about food, and when they were thirsty, they complained about water. When Moses was on mount Sinai, they complained about him taking too long. These are a people that were never good at having their eyes on God- that was Moses' job. So when Moses makes the problem worse by lifting himself up with his water-from-the-rock magic trick, the people look to him as a great leader, rather than a great follower of God.
Moral?
Everything we do is for God's glory, and if we don't recognize His power and His works, we're being like Moses. Moses died before he could get into the place he toiled for decades to get to.
Now here's something else.
When you read, "Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.", what mental image do you have?
Whatever it is, its probably wrong.
In Numbers 26, we learn that the number of fighting men (over age of 20) in Israel about this time was 601,730. Double that for their wives, and double it at least again for their young children. I'd say that a decent approximation of how many people were at the rock: 2.4 million.
That's a lot of people. You can't imagine that many people. Luckily for us, a very recent event also had roughly 2.4 million people at it: President Obama's inauguration.
Here's some perspective.
Look at this picture:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4403_17681689.jpg
That's about 2.4 million people. they look like ants.
Here's a different view:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4402_17676747.jpg
And my favorite is the Gigapan image, taken from the press box next to the capitol building:
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=17217
Zoom in all the way in the top-right. The end of the crowd is at the Washington Monument.
That is a ridiculous amount of people.
With those images fresh in your mind, try to re-imagine enough water gushing out of a rock for all those people and their livestock to drink. This is not a garden hose. This is a river.
Also, now that you know what 2.4 million people looks like, go back and read Exodus. Everything in that book means a lot more when you realize the insane logistical challenges facing Moses and Aaron to keep track of, communicate to, and feed that many people.
"Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, 'If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!'
Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord said to Moses, 'Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock and drink.'
So Moses took the staff from the Lord's presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, 'Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?' Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.'"
Numbers 20:2-12
Whoosh. That's hard luck right there.
God just told Moses that he won't be the one that brings the nation of Israel into the promised land. After almost 40 years of wandering around, putting up with all the complaining of his people, having to beg God to show them compassion, fighting through the disunity and overcoming his fears of leadership, he blew it. No milk and honey for Moses.
So what exactly did Moses do?
The scripture doesn't tell us. All it does is not tell us what he doesn't do.
"Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff"- Moses hits a rock and water comes out. He was completely obedient to God.
But here's the deal.
We know that Moses has a problem with public speaking- that's why Aaron signed on in the first place. Moses hits the rock and God follows through with his promise of water, but Moses fails to recognize God's power in front of the Israelites. In fact, he almost uses the event to glorify himself.
He didn't say, "the Lord will pour water out of this rock for you". On the contrary, he said, "must we bring you water out of this rock?" The 'we' is very much referring to himself and Aaron, not God.
The Israelites weren't particularly grounded people. When they were hungry, they complained about food, and when they were thirsty, they complained about water. When Moses was on mount Sinai, they complained about him taking too long. These are a people that were never good at having their eyes on God- that was Moses' job. So when Moses makes the problem worse by lifting himself up with his water-from-the-rock magic trick, the people look to him as a great leader, rather than a great follower of God.
Moral?
Everything we do is for God's glory, and if we don't recognize His power and His works, we're being like Moses. Moses died before he could get into the place he toiled for decades to get to.
Now here's something else.
When you read, "Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.", what mental image do you have?
Whatever it is, its probably wrong.
In Numbers 26, we learn that the number of fighting men (over age of 20) in Israel about this time was 601,730. Double that for their wives, and double it at least again for their young children. I'd say that a decent approximation of how many people were at the rock: 2.4 million.
That's a lot of people. You can't imagine that many people. Luckily for us, a very recent event also had roughly 2.4 million people at it: President Obama's inauguration.
Here's some perspective.
Look at this picture:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4403_17681689.jpg
That's about 2.4 million people. they look like ants.
Here's a different view:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4402_17676747.jpg
And my favorite is the Gigapan image, taken from the press box next to the capitol building:
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=17217
Zoom in all the way in the top-right. The end of the crowd is at the Washington Monument.
That is a ridiculous amount of people.
With those images fresh in your mind, try to re-imagine enough water gushing out of a rock for all those people and their livestock to drink. This is not a garden hose. This is a river.
Also, now that you know what 2.4 million people looks like, go back and read Exodus. Everything in that book means a lot more when you realize the insane logistical challenges facing Moses and Aaron to keep track of, communicate to, and feed that many people.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
On Davidisms
Whenever I don't know what to read in the Bible, I turn to one of the books of history- Samuel, Kings, Chronicles. Every single story in those pages is absolutely vivid and full of things to learn.
In 1 Samuel 21, David is running away from Saul, the king at the time, because he wants to kill him. He arrives in a town and goes to the priest, Ahimelech, to ask for supplies.
"David asked Ahimelech, "Don't you have a spear or a sword here? I haven't brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king's business was urgent."
The priest replied, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one."
David said, "There is none like it; give it to me.""
-1 Samuel 21:8-9
How awesome is that?
David needs to find a sword. He ends up with the sword of the guy that he killed years ago that led to his rise to fame in the first place. When people see David out on the battle field with Goliath's sword they will be full of instant respect. Here's a guy fighting with a sword probably twice as big as it needs to be that he took from a giant when he was just a shepherd.
You never know when you're gonna find yourself like David- when our past victories will come back to help us in our times of need. Take every chance you can to fight a battle because if you win, that's one more sword stored away that you might be able to use later on in life.
In 1 Samuel 21, David is running away from Saul, the king at the time, because he wants to kill him. He arrives in a town and goes to the priest, Ahimelech, to ask for supplies.
"David asked Ahimelech, "Don't you have a spear or a sword here? I haven't brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king's business was urgent."
The priest replied, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one."
David said, "There is none like it; give it to me.""
-1 Samuel 21:8-9
How awesome is that?
David needs to find a sword. He ends up with the sword of the guy that he killed years ago that led to his rise to fame in the first place. When people see David out on the battle field with Goliath's sword they will be full of instant respect. Here's a guy fighting with a sword probably twice as big as it needs to be that he took from a giant when he was just a shepherd.
You never know when you're gonna find yourself like David- when our past victories will come back to help us in our times of need. Take every chance you can to fight a battle because if you win, that's one more sword stored away that you might be able to use later on in life.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
On Prophesy
I read through a little bit of Micah a few days ago.
One of my new favorite verses:
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from days of eternity."-Micah 5:2, NIV
"Origins from of old, from days of eternity"
That's pretty poetic. Jesus Christ, our new testament savior, is from of old. He's eternal. He was alive billions and billions of year ago. He was around when Moses and Aaron were in charge. He watched Jewish history unfold as humanity proved to itself that the Laws couldn't possibly be enough to save us from our sins. And he waited patiently until the Father said, "go", and then joined us on this lonely blue speck where humanity is just a phrase to cover up all the shortcomings of our lives.
One of my new favorite verses:
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from days of eternity."-Micah 5:2, NIV
"Origins from of old, from days of eternity"
That's pretty poetic. Jesus Christ, our new testament savior, is from of old. He's eternal. He was alive billions and billions of year ago. He was around when Moses and Aaron were in charge. He watched Jewish history unfold as humanity proved to itself that the Laws couldn't possibly be enough to save us from our sins. And he waited patiently until the Father said, "go", and then joined us on this lonely blue speck where humanity is just a phrase to cover up all the shortcomings of our lives.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
On Christians
I think it was Ghandi that once said, "I love your Christ but can't stand your Christians" or something like that. Here in the West, we have this weird, stupid, wrong disconnect between faith and "religion" and the "real world".
We have 1/3 or so of our America full of people who say that they are Christians.
News Flash: Adding the enclitic "-ian" to a word turns it into an adjective. A Christian is someone who has taken Christ- literally, Jesus Christ, and made Him the adjective for their life. We are modified by Christ. That should be more significant than just a "thing" that we do every now and then with other "christians".
When you take the word out of its literal context, you get it to mean a "Follower of Christ".
That definition also doesn't quite see itself given justice in westernland. To be a follower of Christ LITERALLY means that you LITERALLY follow Christ.
That means you read the New Testament, find out what Jesus did, and follow it.
If i were to ever start a church, the emphasis would be on the basics; the most important things, and nothing else. Literally making our lives line up as close as humanly possibly with Jesus and proclaiming him as savior of the world. And not much else.
I've never liked "salvation messages". Don't get me wrong, but when you stand up in front of a group of people and try to convince them to change every single thing about how they look at their world and where they fit into it within an hour-long segment of time is just BEGGING to need the grace of the holy spirit to have any impact. I know that it's biblical that its only by the spirit that anyone can understand, but seriously... it would take a lot more than a single sermon to convince me to change everything about my life.
And i think maybe that's one of the causes of shallow Christianity. That maybe people don't understand everything that it means to call yourself a "follower of Christ", or maybe that their parents didn't tell them that and that's how they grew up... just going through the motions because no one ever said, "hey, there's an eternity more to this stuff than you can talk about in one sermon".
I dunno.
Follow Jesus, tell others. seems simple enough, right?
We have 1/3 or so of our America full of people who say that they are Christians.
News Flash: Adding the enclitic "-ian" to a word turns it into an adjective. A Christian is someone who has taken Christ- literally, Jesus Christ, and made Him the adjective for their life. We are modified by Christ. That should be more significant than just a "thing" that we do every now and then with other "christians".
When you take the word out of its literal context, you get it to mean a "Follower of Christ".
That definition also doesn't quite see itself given justice in westernland. To be a follower of Christ LITERALLY means that you LITERALLY follow Christ.
That means you read the New Testament, find out what Jesus did, and follow it.
If i were to ever start a church, the emphasis would be on the basics; the most important things, and nothing else. Literally making our lives line up as close as humanly possibly with Jesus and proclaiming him as savior of the world. And not much else.
I've never liked "salvation messages". Don't get me wrong, but when you stand up in front of a group of people and try to convince them to change every single thing about how they look at their world and where they fit into it within an hour-long segment of time is just BEGGING to need the grace of the holy spirit to have any impact. I know that it's biblical that its only by the spirit that anyone can understand, but seriously... it would take a lot more than a single sermon to convince me to change everything about my life.
And i think maybe that's one of the causes of shallow Christianity. That maybe people don't understand everything that it means to call yourself a "follower of Christ", or maybe that their parents didn't tell them that and that's how they grew up... just going through the motions because no one ever said, "hey, there's an eternity more to this stuff than you can talk about in one sermon".
I dunno.
Follow Jesus, tell others. seems simple enough, right?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
On Praying
A month or so ago I went to a weekend intervarsity retreat. I don't remember much from it, but i did write a few things down. As i was just reading through my notes, i spotted something that i had wanted to remember- "Pray like a texting conversation"
I think it was a reference that one of the speakers made, but it got me thinking.
Ever since the advent of "unlimited texts", teenage girls (and some guys) will spend the entire day with multiple conversations running with multiple people.
Like, they start off each day with a "hey" to the same person, and then throughout the day, they have their noses in their phones going back and forth and back and forth until bedtime.
Its really annoying.
Constant connected communication is one of the great paradigms of the 21st century- incredibly useful and also incredibly crippling.
But i think its really cool that we can stay in touch with our friends for the entire day, even if we don't see them once.
Prayer ought to be exactly the same thing.
Mature christians usually have a "quiet time" or a "prayer time" set apart in their day where they pray to God- and that's a good thing.
But it's a much deeper place when in addition to that, you never take your mind off of God- praying ceaselessly, like a texting conversation, every minute, every day.
back and forth, back and forth. That includes listening.
I think it was a reference that one of the speakers made, but it got me thinking.
Ever since the advent of "unlimited texts", teenage girls (and some guys) will spend the entire day with multiple conversations running with multiple people.
Like, they start off each day with a "hey" to the same person, and then throughout the day, they have their noses in their phones going back and forth and back and forth until bedtime.
Its really annoying.
Constant connected communication is one of the great paradigms of the 21st century- incredibly useful and also incredibly crippling.
But i think its really cool that we can stay in touch with our friends for the entire day, even if we don't see them once.
Prayer ought to be exactly the same thing.
Mature christians usually have a "quiet time" or a "prayer time" set apart in their day where they pray to God- and that's a good thing.
But it's a much deeper place when in addition to that, you never take your mind off of God- praying ceaselessly, like a texting conversation, every minute, every day.
back and forth, back and forth. That includes listening.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
on "society"
You've heard it in church thousands of times:
"society is going downhill, blah blah blah."
church people always talk about how our culture is ruining our minds and money money money girls girls girls blah blah blah.
society isn't going downhill, and i'm sick of hearing about it.
society is reverting to how it used to be.
the "Western World" we've all learned to love is the culture that the church created.
Before that was Roman times, and Mayan times, and Babylonian times, and Greek times, and Sumerian times, and Chinese times.
Romans in the year 0 had a culture that any of today's teenagers would be shocked at. The world isn't going downhill. The world has always been at the bottom of the hill. We've just grown up in an age where the world has been in a temporary state of "suspend", where for a brief 1500 year timespan, Christianity defined our society. That is coming to a close. We have to stop wishing that things would be all warm and cozy and be willing to actually do something with our faith besides have potluck dinners and hang out with old people. It's time to get out there and actually win souls.
"society is going downhill, blah blah blah."
church people always talk about how our culture is ruining our minds and money money money girls girls girls blah blah blah.
society isn't going downhill, and i'm sick of hearing about it.
society is reverting to how it used to be.
the "Western World" we've all learned to love is the culture that the church created.
Before that was Roman times, and Mayan times, and Babylonian times, and Greek times, and Sumerian times, and Chinese times.
Romans in the year 0 had a culture that any of today's teenagers would be shocked at. The world isn't going downhill. The world has always been at the bottom of the hill. We've just grown up in an age where the world has been in a temporary state of "suspend", where for a brief 1500 year timespan, Christianity defined our society. That is coming to a close. We have to stop wishing that things would be all warm and cozy and be willing to actually do something with our faith besides have potluck dinners and hang out with old people. It's time to get out there and actually win souls.
Monday, November 9, 2009
on funerals
My uncle passed away this past thursday.
Sunday morning at noon i boarded a train to penn station, then got on the LiRR to huntington to get picked up by my dad. Ate pizza, and got to the church at 6:15.
Left the church at 11.
My dad decided to drive me back instead of taking a train in the morning. Drove from 12am until 3:30. I just finished my physics homework. I'll be going to bed for 3 hours shortly.
Basically, My entire sunday and the first 4 hours of monday have been spent getting to, going to, and coming back from my uncle's funeral.
It was entirely worth it.
The church had a pretty good size sanctuary.
It was absolutely jam-packed. 1500 people came out to the service.
My mom, my other uncle, and my cousin gave speeches.
I learned a lot about him that i never knew.
I also learned this:
His dying wish was that his entire family would be saved.
My uncle's speech turned into a salvation message.
After the pastor gave a sermon, he gave a call for salvation, and about 25 people answered that.
I never got a chance to really get to know my uncle that well, and i'm regretting that. He wasn't a pastor, he owned an auto shop with his brother. But his influence on the community was enormous. His funeral saved 25 people. That's wild.
The pastor then compared death with physical birth.
After 9 months of being in the womb, we simply can't stay in there any longer. We have to bust out of it and experience real life, not the safety of the inside of Mom. I think that's a cool way to think about death from a christian perspective. After 18 years of lymphoma in and our of remission, and after 2 months of leukemia, my uncle needed to bust outta here. From the stories i've heard, from the pictures i've seen, he lived at least 3 lives' worth on earth. He needed to get out of here and go hang out with Jesus in real life.
I had more to say but my 8am calc quiz is in 4 hours. and this kitchen smells disgusting.
Sunday morning at noon i boarded a train to penn station, then got on the LiRR to huntington to get picked up by my dad. Ate pizza, and got to the church at 6:15.
Left the church at 11.
My dad decided to drive me back instead of taking a train in the morning. Drove from 12am until 3:30. I just finished my physics homework. I'll be going to bed for 3 hours shortly.
Basically, My entire sunday and the first 4 hours of monday have been spent getting to, going to, and coming back from my uncle's funeral.
It was entirely worth it.
The church had a pretty good size sanctuary.
It was absolutely jam-packed. 1500 people came out to the service.
My mom, my other uncle, and my cousin gave speeches.
I learned a lot about him that i never knew.
I also learned this:
His dying wish was that his entire family would be saved.
My uncle's speech turned into a salvation message.
After the pastor gave a sermon, he gave a call for salvation, and about 25 people answered that.
I never got a chance to really get to know my uncle that well, and i'm regretting that. He wasn't a pastor, he owned an auto shop with his brother. But his influence on the community was enormous. His funeral saved 25 people. That's wild.
The pastor then compared death with physical birth.
After 9 months of being in the womb, we simply can't stay in there any longer. We have to bust out of it and experience real life, not the safety of the inside of Mom. I think that's a cool way to think about death from a christian perspective. After 18 years of lymphoma in and our of remission, and after 2 months of leukemia, my uncle needed to bust outta here. From the stories i've heard, from the pictures i've seen, he lived at least 3 lives' worth on earth. He needed to get out of here and go hang out with Jesus in real life.
I had more to say but my 8am calc quiz is in 4 hours. and this kitchen smells disgusting.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
genre
Worship Genres that i would like to see more of:
Hip-Hop Worship.
Dance-Worship.
Ambient Instrumental Worship.
Progressive Indie Alt-Rock Mutemath "reset-EP" style worship.
i miss jumping around with my bass on my shoulder.
Hip-Hop Worship.
Dance-Worship.
Ambient Instrumental Worship.
Progressive Indie Alt-Rock Mutemath "reset-EP" style worship.
i miss jumping around with my bass on my shoulder.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
on churching
just got back from watching the iHeart film.
it was incredible.
So much passion.
So much awesome.
SO. many. people.
There was a really good quote from Reuben Morgan.
I can't remember it entirely, but it's paraphrased roughly as such:
"The Message is perfect. The message is infallible. The message is complete. So there must be something wrong with the way people are telling it."
I love that. The only reason billions of people in the world aren't running to God with everything they have is because we're really, really, really bad at telling people about Him. All the successful witnessing and conversions are direct results of God's work.
I've read a lot about the "Local Church" lately.
How important it is, how integral it is to have a Local Church for our walk with God.
And Hilllsong is here showing us that the "Local Church" isn't a building, isn't a sunday morning worship service, it's US.
I want to start a Local Church that doesn't "do" church.
I want to start a "local church" that has a sunday morning service that consists of some musical worship and a quick sermon.
And then every other day of the week, i want my local church to have small groups for believers to actually grow.
And then every other day of the week, i want my local church to actually DO something. To volunteer. To serve. To love.
I don't want a local church that collects a tithe on sunday mornings and then structures a budget around that.
I want a local church that consists of its members giving unconditionally regardless of what day it is, and one where the "operating budget" is a teeny, tiny, sliver of what is actually collected.
I want a local church that sends anyone and everyone to the corners of the earth for the sole purpose of loving other people.
i want a church that the people invest in.
i want a church where there is no "inside" and where there is no "outside".
i want a church that is everyone.
I realize that there is a lot of "me" in this post.
I apologize. It's late. I'm emotional. This is my 100th blog post since January 9th, 2006, when I was a highschool freshman riding a school bus to and from somersworth highschool every day.
it was incredible.
So much passion.
So much awesome.
SO. many. people.
There was a really good quote from Reuben Morgan.
I can't remember it entirely, but it's paraphrased roughly as such:
"The Message is perfect. The message is infallible. The message is complete. So there must be something wrong with the way people are telling it."
I love that. The only reason billions of people in the world aren't running to God with everything they have is because we're really, really, really bad at telling people about Him. All the successful witnessing and conversions are direct results of God's work.
I've read a lot about the "Local Church" lately.
How important it is, how integral it is to have a Local Church for our walk with God.
And Hilllsong is here showing us that the "Local Church" isn't a building, isn't a sunday morning worship service, it's US.
I want to start a Local Church that doesn't "do" church.
I want to start a "local church" that has a sunday morning service that consists of some musical worship and a quick sermon.
And then every other day of the week, i want my local church to have small groups for believers to actually grow.
And then every other day of the week, i want my local church to actually DO something. To volunteer. To serve. To love.
I don't want a local church that collects a tithe on sunday mornings and then structures a budget around that.
I want a local church that consists of its members giving unconditionally regardless of what day it is, and one where the "operating budget" is a teeny, tiny, sliver of what is actually collected.
I want a local church that sends anyone and everyone to the corners of the earth for the sole purpose of loving other people.
i want a church that the people invest in.
i want a church where there is no "inside" and where there is no "outside".
i want a church that is everyone.
I realize that there is a lot of "me" in this post.
I apologize. It's late. I'm emotional. This is my 100th blog post since January 9th, 2006, when I was a highschool freshman riding a school bus to and from somersworth highschool every day.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
On Scale
Read this a few nights ago and it stuck with me:
"Then the king and all Israel with him offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelite dedicated the temple of the Lord."
-1 Kings 8-62-63
This is as king Solomon completes the Lord's temple, and is dedicating it with an enormous offering to God.
Imagine the scale of 120,000 sheep being sacrificed.
Imagine what it took just to get them all in one place.
Imagine how huge of an undertaking that would have to be. Where do you keep 120,000 sheep before you kill them? Not to mention 22,000 cows.
And imagine having to be the guy that cuts them open!
And imagine having to be the guy that keeps the fire going on that altar for hours and hours and hours.
Ridiculous.
Also it sounds like all of Israel was there to see this.
That's like 6 million people.
That's a lot of people.
This thing going on here, it's a big deal.
I mean, a cow weighs about 1200 pounds, right?
That's 132,000 TONS of beef.
Imagine how many meals that is!
That's 1,056,000,000 quarter pounders.
A billion hamburgers.
That's a lot of food.
But God was important enough for that.
Solomon made a big deal out of opening the Temple of the Lord because it was BIG deal! Before this point, God had literally been living in a tent.
He goes from a crummy tent that moves around into a massive, awesome, beautiful temple, and the inauguration ceremony consists of hundreds of thousands of animals being sacrificed.
Imagine if we made as big a deal about every new church plant as Solomon made about the temple? Imagine if everything we did for God had the same sort of scale that Solomon threw this ceremony on. That would be pretty cool.
"Then the king and all Israel with him offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelite dedicated the temple of the Lord."
-1 Kings 8-62-63
This is as king Solomon completes the Lord's temple, and is dedicating it with an enormous offering to God.
Imagine the scale of 120,000 sheep being sacrificed.
Imagine what it took just to get them all in one place.
Imagine how huge of an undertaking that would have to be. Where do you keep 120,000 sheep before you kill them? Not to mention 22,000 cows.
And imagine having to be the guy that cuts them open!
And imagine having to be the guy that keeps the fire going on that altar for hours and hours and hours.
Ridiculous.
Also it sounds like all of Israel was there to see this.
That's like 6 million people.
That's a lot of people.
This thing going on here, it's a big deal.
I mean, a cow weighs about 1200 pounds, right?
That's 132,000 TONS of beef.
Imagine how many meals that is!
That's 1,056,000,000 quarter pounders.
A billion hamburgers.
That's a lot of food.
But God was important enough for that.
Solomon made a big deal out of opening the Temple of the Lord because it was BIG deal! Before this point, God had literally been living in a tent.
He goes from a crummy tent that moves around into a massive, awesome, beautiful temple, and the inauguration ceremony consists of hundreds of thousands of animals being sacrificed.
Imagine if we made as big a deal about every new church plant as Solomon made about the temple? Imagine if everything we did for God had the same sort of scale that Solomon threw this ceremony on. That would be pretty cool.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Memories
I saw an XKCD comic that reeeeally got me thinking, because it brings up a fundamental issue with our minds:
http://www.xkcd.com/647/
click the link, read the comic, and then read the mouse-over text.
8 year old kids are old enough to have intelligent conversations about an event that they never witnessed. An event that happened when I was 10, that I remember very clearly.
And then you realize that 8 years is a pretty long time- it's long enough for a human being to grow from a newborn into a fully cognitive child.
I'd like to suggest something:
Thinking about our memories is one of the closest things we can get to understanding God's eternalness.
As humans, we can't get our minds around that concept.
God is forever. He is the beginning and the end.
He completely transcends time.
And so do our memories.
In our minds, we mark time based on our memories.
But very vivid memories often seem to be more recent than they actually are.
For example, 9/11. Or watching your favorite childhood cartoon on saturday mornings.
Those memories feel recent. They're vivid, you remember the "like it was yesterday".
And so time doesn't seem to matter that much.
My family went to the same church from before I was born until I was in 8th grade.
I have fuzzy memories of being a baby and my mom carrying me into the nursery during the worship service.
I can also remember being a little kid and one of the pastors giving us pez every morning.
That's pretty much all i remember until i was in 7th grade and started going to youth group.
Within that time frame, my family got pretty involved on the worship team and i played bass on sunday mornings for at least a year's time. I don't really remember much from that. All i remember are those really early times and then later.
It's significant events that we keep clear in our minds.
When you think about something, you tend to retain it much better.
We think about significant events => we remember them.
The result is like a timeline of events comprised of what we think about most, with no datestamps.
The time itself is not important to our minds. What's important is the content.
I like to think about time as a "container" that the physical world happens to be inside of. Our memories aren't physical- they transcend time.
So I think that's as close as we can ever get to understanding timelessness.
http://www.xkcd.com/647/
click the link, read the comic, and then read the mouse-over text.
8 year old kids are old enough to have intelligent conversations about an event that they never witnessed. An event that happened when I was 10, that I remember very clearly.
And then you realize that 8 years is a pretty long time- it's long enough for a human being to grow from a newborn into a fully cognitive child.
I'd like to suggest something:
Thinking about our memories is one of the closest things we can get to understanding God's eternalness.
As humans, we can't get our minds around that concept.
God is forever. He is the beginning and the end.
He completely transcends time.
And so do our memories.
In our minds, we mark time based on our memories.
But very vivid memories often seem to be more recent than they actually are.
For example, 9/11. Or watching your favorite childhood cartoon on saturday mornings.
Those memories feel recent. They're vivid, you remember the "like it was yesterday".
And so time doesn't seem to matter that much.
My family went to the same church from before I was born until I was in 8th grade.
I have fuzzy memories of being a baby and my mom carrying me into the nursery during the worship service.
I can also remember being a little kid and one of the pastors giving us pez every morning.
That's pretty much all i remember until i was in 7th grade and started going to youth group.
Within that time frame, my family got pretty involved on the worship team and i played bass on sunday mornings for at least a year's time. I don't really remember much from that. All i remember are those really early times and then later.
It's significant events that we keep clear in our minds.
When you think about something, you tend to retain it much better.
We think about significant events => we remember them.
The result is like a timeline of events comprised of what we think about most, with no datestamps.
The time itself is not important to our minds. What's important is the content.
I like to think about time as a "container" that the physical world happens to be inside of. Our memories aren't physical- they transcend time.
So I think that's as close as we can ever get to understanding timelessness.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Quick Metaphore
me and my suitemate both use acne treatments before we go to bed at night.
Mine is one of those creams that you put on.
His is a pill.
I never knew that they made swallowable acne medicine.
But here's the deal.
Acne cream works by drying out your skin.
It draws the junk out of zits and makes them go away temporarily.
The pill medicine actually modifies your body's immune function so that you don't get zits to begin with. It works to eliminate the problem rather than dealing with it after it exists.
That's really cool.
For something as superficial as acne, the treatment method isn't particularly important. They both get the same results. But does the comparison sound familiar?
Here's a more significant example:
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell." -Matthew 5:21-22
Oh hello there, Jesus. What is this strange new thing you have to say?
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus outlined a bunch of "new laws" for the people-
He went over a bunch of common jewish laws and turned them around.
The law back then didn't actually solve any problems.
It just treated the surface.
Jesus came along and showed people that it's the root of the problem- the heart, the attitude, the thoughts- that lead to the actions that the law attempted to fix.
I thought that was neat.
Mine is one of those creams that you put on.
His is a pill.
I never knew that they made swallowable acne medicine.
But here's the deal.
Acne cream works by drying out your skin.
It draws the junk out of zits and makes them go away temporarily.
The pill medicine actually modifies your body's immune function so that you don't get zits to begin with. It works to eliminate the problem rather than dealing with it after it exists.
That's really cool.
For something as superficial as acne, the treatment method isn't particularly important. They both get the same results. But does the comparison sound familiar?
Here's a more significant example:
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell." -Matthew 5:21-22
Oh hello there, Jesus. What is this strange new thing you have to say?
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus outlined a bunch of "new laws" for the people-
He went over a bunch of common jewish laws and turned them around.
The law back then didn't actually solve any problems.
It just treated the surface.
Jesus came along and showed people that it's the root of the problem- the heart, the attitude, the thoughts- that lead to the actions that the law attempted to fix.
I thought that was neat.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Unity of Purpose
Enclosed in red on the image below is the 275-acre RPI main campus.
The building in blue is Troy High School, which happens to be adjacent to the eastern side of campus.
Go ahead and click on the picture to get a better look.
Troy High School is a pretty impressive building. Actually, it's massive.
It houses about 1200 students during the day.
RPI has 6,000 students on our almost 300 acre campus.
Take your finger and pinch troy highschool.
Fit 6 of those buildings within RPI's boundaries.
You'll notice that you could probably fit a dozen more.
A student at Troy High School spends the exact same amount of time in that building that an RPI student spends on campus. 4 years of study. Same amount of life.
Think about the drastic difference between what gets accomplished from one 4 year period to another.
High School students spend much of their time not wanting to be there.
College students spend much of their time wanting to graduate.
But year in and year out, a highschool doesn't accomplish anything material.
It educates teenagers and that's it.
Research universities, on the other hand, teach students and then develop new ideas, grow industries, and file patents.
RPI owns a 1200 acre industrial park a few miles down the river.
There are 70 corporate tenants and about 2400 employees in that industrial park.
It has absolutely nothing to do with undergraduate education.
But RPI, as a college, is able to support it.
Because it has a unity of purpose.
Every RPI student has a personal objective: to complete the degree that they are working towards. But in the process, they fulfill a secondary objective: to grow the university and spread its reputation.
Universities are entirely self-perpetuating. Successful graduates donate money to the institution, growing it and causing more students to invest their careers into it.
Look back at that map.
That's 275 acres you're looking at.
I walked around about half of the campus tonight. It took me about an hour.
It really gave a sense of how enormous the place is. Many of the buildings are incredibly impressive. EMPAC is that funny looking white blob in the very lower left of the map. That's 7 stories tall. It's a pretty big building.
Its entire purpose is for audio research and performance.
In order for an organization to spend so much money and resources on something of that nature, there needs to be an intense unity of purpose.
But walking around the campus, this thought came to my mind: Its all such a waste.
Here we have the cutting edge of mankind's splendor. 6,000 students and hundreds of professors saying that they are a part of this body and this is what they have to show for it. It's incredible.
But that purpose that we're all unified in is pretty lame.
RPI exists for RPI, and to a lesser extent, for the furthering of mankind through technological innovation and whatnot.
That's a lame purpose.
Imagine if those same people with the same resources could be unified for the purpose of nothing more than to bring glory to God.
What would the academic campus look like?
The building in blue is Troy High School, which happens to be adjacent to the eastern side of campus.
Go ahead and click on the picture to get a better look.
Troy High School is a pretty impressive building. Actually, it's massive.
It houses about 1200 students during the day.
RPI has 6,000 students on our almost 300 acre campus.
Take your finger and pinch troy highschool.
Fit 6 of those buildings within RPI's boundaries.
You'll notice that you could probably fit a dozen more.
A student at Troy High School spends the exact same amount of time in that building that an RPI student spends on campus. 4 years of study. Same amount of life.
Think about the drastic difference between what gets accomplished from one 4 year period to another.
High School students spend much of their time not wanting to be there.
College students spend much of their time wanting to graduate.
But year in and year out, a highschool doesn't accomplish anything material.
It educates teenagers and that's it.
Research universities, on the other hand, teach students and then develop new ideas, grow industries, and file patents.
RPI owns a 1200 acre industrial park a few miles down the river.
There are 70 corporate tenants and about 2400 employees in that industrial park.
It has absolutely nothing to do with undergraduate education.
But RPI, as a college, is able to support it.
Because it has a unity of purpose.
Every RPI student has a personal objective: to complete the degree that they are working towards. But in the process, they fulfill a secondary objective: to grow the university and spread its reputation.
Universities are entirely self-perpetuating. Successful graduates donate money to the institution, growing it and causing more students to invest their careers into it.
Look back at that map.
That's 275 acres you're looking at.
I walked around about half of the campus tonight. It took me about an hour.
It really gave a sense of how enormous the place is. Many of the buildings are incredibly impressive. EMPAC is that funny looking white blob in the very lower left of the map. That's 7 stories tall. It's a pretty big building.
Its entire purpose is for audio research and performance.
In order for an organization to spend so much money and resources on something of that nature, there needs to be an intense unity of purpose.
But walking around the campus, this thought came to my mind: Its all such a waste.
Here we have the cutting edge of mankind's splendor. 6,000 students and hundreds of professors saying that they are a part of this body and this is what they have to show for it. It's incredible.
But that purpose that we're all unified in is pretty lame.
RPI exists for RPI, and to a lesser extent, for the furthering of mankind through technological innovation and whatnot.
That's a lame purpose.
Imagine if those same people with the same resources could be unified for the purpose of nothing more than to bring glory to God.
What would the academic campus look like?
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