Simple

Leukemia & Who We Really Are

2009-01-08T15:24:00.001-08:00

On a note: My Aunt Ceomi has leukemia. I'm closer to her than any of my extended family, and she's the one who brought me down to college, who was there when I graduated FC, and she's seen me through some hard junk. She's in Chicago getting chemo right now, but because of the nature of her leukemia, she may need a bone marrow transplant. If anyone is interested in helping by seeing if they can be a donor, or would just donate blood on her behalf, it's much appreciated. Prayers, too. It's kinda rough. I'm used to seeing her pretty regularly and haven't been up since early Fall and I miss her and my cousins a lot (Ben, too, of course, but that's different).

That was the biggest news to get the day after Christmas.

I started classes yesterday. I got to sit on the floor in Cultural Anthropology. Dr. B. reminds me of the Prof Robin Williams plays in Dead Poets Society. I think I want to try standing on the desk in class tomorrow to see what her reaction is. I don't think I'm that gutsy, though. But classes seem like they will be enjoyable. If my other two texts books would just show up already, I'd be okay.

And for your reading pleasure.
A section of a podcast I listen to transcribed for your own uplifting:

.....

"My mom did some sick stuff...partly because of that, largely because of that, I didn't grow up thinking I had unsurpassable worth; I didn't think I had worth at all. In fact, I internalized the message that I thought there was seriously something wrong with me; there's something defective about me; I'm a bad kid; I'm a bad machine; there's something just not working right with me. And uh, the only thing I'm really good at is getting authorities to be really mad at me.

...So that's how I got life, I mean, we do what we can to get life in this feeding frenzy of idols to get life however we can and the one thing I was good at was, in Catholic school was getting Mother Mary mad at me. No other kid could push her that far, but with ME, the funniest thing in the world was when you could get a nun to swear! Yes! Of course you get the skubalon beat out of you when that happens, but I was used to that, now I was just getting it from Mother Mary [instead of my mom].

So you get life from that, but see, when I came to Christ at the age of 17, I brought all that baggage with me. I really did want to serve God, and wanted to be saved and believed it was true, but I brought that baggage of screwed up thinking with me. And looking back on it, I didn't know so much at the time, but my picture of God in those early years looked a whole lot more like my mom than it did Jesus. God always had his fist clenched, it was cocked back, waiting for me to screw up. Because I always screw up. And you know what? I would eventually screw up. And he's just waiting to bloody my face because I screwed up one more time. And the early years of my Christian walk I went through this process of repenting, and getting re-saved and losing my salvation and God would beat me up and I'd go back and repent. And the Big Fist was the eternal one, cause then if I don't get it straightened out at the time time, I'm going to be eternally getting a bloody face. So that was my picture of God, that was my picture of me.

As time went on I gradually began to learn the truth about who God is and the truth about who I am. God was able to sear through and evaporate some of those lies that were filled in my head, and I came to learn gradually that God is not a God whose fist in clenched back ready to hit me, but rather, God is a God whose hands are on the cross, nailed on the cross for me.

God is not a God who wants to bloody my face, God is a God who allowed his own face to be bloodied on my behalf. I began to see that God is a beautiful God and that God pursues me and to see that I'm the prodigal son, and God runs down the hill to embrace me and when he sees me he doesn't make me grovel, he doesn't even let me talk, he just embraces me and then he throws a tremendous party for me. That's who I am that's who God is. He runs towards me!

I'm the lost sheep that he goes out looking for. In the middle of the night, it's my own fault I got lost, but he comes looking for me and finds me, just before the wolves devour me, brings me home, and instead of chastising me, throws a tremendous party. That's who the true God is and that's who I truly am.

I began to see that I am the child of the kind and that I have unsurpassable worth and that I am filled with his Spirit and I am the walking temple of God..."

-Greg Boyd, "Skubalon" Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast

blood on the doorposts of the universe

2008-12-16T20:45:00.000-08:00

so i'm in the midst (and i think i may actually be Right in the actual literal middle) of reading Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell & Don Golden

...& so far it comes with my recommendation.

--

not being in school and having time to read is something i take seriously.

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CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!!!

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The End....ok, not really.

_{OH! And, I found out that I Did pass Microecon. Barely, with a C, but I made it! Wooooohooooo!!}

--

Excerpt from the aforementioned book, which I am no longer in the midst of, I have completely finished.

"Imagine...having the pastor say to you, 'I just can't get my kids interested in Jesus. Do you have any suggestions?' ...

The students in this church, these are good kids. They are from families who just want to see their kids become good Christians. ...

Many of them own more than one pair of shoes.

There are even some among them who have eaten at least one meal every day of their lives.

So we are talking about a miniscule minority of kids in the world.

At the exit off the highway near their church is a Best Buy and a Chili's and a Circuit City and a McDonald's and a Wal-Mart and a Bed, Bath and Beyond, much like the other town in their state and in their country. The music they listen to is distributed by one of five major corporations, which also own the movie studios that create the movies they watch, which are also connected to the corporations that create the food they eat and the commercials they watch, which also have significant ties to the clothes they wear and the cell phones they own, and the ring tone on their cell phones, the one by the artist who is signed to the record label that is owned by the same company that owns the cell phone company and the advertising agency that announced the artist's new album, which is owned by the same company that owns the beverage company in whose advertisement the artist appeared, drinking the particular beverage, singing the song that is now a ring tone on the student's phones that they purchased at the mall across the street from the Olive Garden next door to the Home Depot on the other side of the Starbucks.

And so each week they gather to hear a talk from the pastor.

Their pastor tells them about...Jesus.

About the blood of the cross.

About many of the first Christians getting arrested.

About Jesus having dinner with prostitutes and tax collectors.

About people sharing their possessions.

About Jesus telling a man to sell everything.

About the uniqueness of their story in the larger story of redemption.

How do children of the empire understand the Savior who was killed by an empire? ...

How do kids who are surrounded by more abundance than in any other generation in the history of humanity take seriously a Messiah who said, 'I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor?' ...

They gather, they sing, they hear a talk from the pastor, and then they get back in the car with their parent and they go home; the garage door opens up, the car goes in, and the garage door goes down. ...

This is what Jesus had in mind?

And so the...pastor turns to you and says, again, 'I just can't get my students engaged with Jesus. Do you have any suggestions?'

What do you say?

How do you respond?

Your only hope, of course, would be to remind him...that there is blood on the doorposts of the universe...."

_{from Chapter Five, Swollen-Bellied Black Babies}

Catalytic Converter

2008-11-29T01:15:00.000-08:00

I found God in a catalytic converter in Topeka on a Monday night...
Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future, so you know what keeps me hangin' around...

Keep that in mind. Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.

_{"Topeka" by Ludo}

charlie chaplin

2008-11-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

i am a mute.
but i'm not as cute as a mime.
my voice just ran away and i haven't found it yet. i'm drinking a lot of tea to coax it to come back. currently pumpkin spice with honey.

finishing up my sociology paper. writing about A.A.. teacher thought it sounded like a great idea to go to meetings and get interviews....oh she has no idea. ha!

i got oil paints for my birthday from my sunshine boy. i have no idea how to oil paint. i guess we shall see if i can learn. someone already commissioned me to do a painting once they saw my sketches. and i do not ever claim to be anything close to decent as an artist. but it's flattering nonetheless.

i'm making friends thanks to the www with a friend i went to college with for 2 years, but never knew the whole time...so nearly 2 years after that, we're becoming great friends. i like that.

i'm also making friends with someone who was recommended to be friends with me....hmmm that doesn't make much sense. a mutual friend told her "hey you should talk to charlei. you'd like her." so.....she did. i like that, too.

i also like seeing Jesus in people who haven't learned his name yet. it's a beautiful growing process to watch.

grace and peace to you and yours.
remember the big picture. but don't pass up the little ones.

a prayer.

2008-11-12T00:06:00.000-08:00

God give me peace of mind right now. I know you work everything together for the best, but I never really know what's best. God - you know. You already know all the best and how those things should be. I love you and I want what you want, even if sometimes that means sitting in some hurt for a while before I see what you have - and even if what you have for me hurts, you always teach me what I need, exactly as I need it, so I'm open to whatever you have for me, God. I'm your child and I trust you to hold me together, and when need be, to pull me apart or even end me when the moment comes. You are the creator and the life-giver. All that is, is yours. Bless me only insomuch as I can do your will and share your love and grace and hope with the lives I meet. I am yours. Do what you will, not as I will.

...

Soliloquy: Forgiveness is the most liberating thing there is

...

Don't be unaware that one of the biggest enemies we have can be guilt. We don't even have to do anything "new" that's wrong or hurtful...all that has to be done to succeed in unraveling our Souls will be to keep bringing up past failures and making us feel worthless and not Whole in Jesus.
Jesus loves you.
It will get better.

Those are the best things I can hear some days. Maybe every day those are really the best things I can hear :)

zer0

2008-10-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

From Escape From Reason

"The fact that man has [... messed up royally...] does not mean that he has ceased to bear God's image [...] even non-Christians can still make beauty. And it is because they can still do these things that they manifest that they are God's image-bearers.

Although man is twisted and corrupted and lost as a result of [...his own screw ups...] yet he is still man. He has become neither a machine nor an animal nor a plant. The marks of man [...] are still upon him-- love, rationality, longing for significance, fear of non-being, and so on.

The Bible teaches that, though man is hopelessly lost, he is not nothing.

As a sinner, man cannot be selective in his significance, so he leaves behind bad as well as good marks in history, but certainly he is not zero."

Much more than zero.

Jesus & USF Part II

2008-10-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

So today the "I Agree with Quina" group was out in the same spot that Tuesdays screamers were, with the more positive end of the story the others were [terribly twisting and] telling.

I listened to a bit while Quina gave the testimony and people signed the boards that said "I Agree/Disagree with Quina because..."
There was a guy walking through the crowd with a shirt that said "USF Atheist Association" carrying a book "50 Reasons People Give for Believing" and some small compass looking thing. When he stood next to me and held it up and said, "Nope. Still no." I looked and realized it's a "God compass." And it says, Yes and No. Obviously it's permanently switched to No. He walked away, and I had to leave for class, but I decided on the way I needed to tell him something.

He kept walking away from me, but he finally stopped to listen to Quina and I tapped him on the shoulder and just said, "Hey, it's ok, because God believes in you even if you don't believe in Him."
He looked a bit confused. He said, "Why would you say that, I mean, I'd say Santa Claus believes in you, does that convince you of anything.?"
I shrugged, and said, "Of course not. I'm not trying to convince you. I didn't really think further than that, except I just felt I should let you know."
He thanked me for my honest answer and I told him I had to go to class.
I think I confused him. He thought I was trying to convince him of something. I wasn't. I just thought someone should let him know him not believing doesn't change God or the fact that God can still use him.

God is not contingent on us.
Thank God for that. Seriously.

Let me tell you why you deserve HELL (Jesus & USF Part I)

2008-10-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

So there was like 4 guys (and one guys wife) at USF doing hellfire and brimstone preaching wearing the signs that say stuff like "Ask me why you deserve HELL" and stuff like that. I was going to talk to the one guy's wife, but she was busy filming him so she wouldn't talk to me.

So I went up to one guy wearing a sign ("The wages of sin is death") and asked him why he left off the last half. He's like "Of what?" I said "Your sign. It only says the first half. The whole verse says, 'the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life.' Don't forget to give people their hope."

We had a decent chat and he ended up giving me a book, but I was pretty unhappy with the other guy yelling at people and telling them they were losers and stuff. I asked if they were together and told him it's pretty ineffective to tell people things are wrong and never tell them why or that there's a different way. Pretty useless. I think a lot people were looking at me funny because I look like a pretty unlikely one to go up and do that sort of thing today. My bandana and my massive pants with holes all over em...and my gauged ears. haha. It was kinda fun, though.

A lot of people were just entertained by what they were doing and making a mockery of their rude presentation, but whatevs.
Interesting part of my day for ya...

much love...

sacred.

2008-10-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Standing up for what you believe despite pain will not make your heart unbreakable, but it will leave your soul unadulterated and in peace.