Change

It's spring out. I like the spring time. Today the clouds dispersed after torrential rains displaced all the mulch from every flower bed on campus. That's the trouble with mulch in a garden on a hill. It floats away everytime it rains. The clouds left too, the wind picked them up and moved moved them, just like the mulch. Nothing stays the same, there is no such thing as consistancy. The mulch will always be moved and the clouds will always move on and then it will be sunny and the sidewalks will be muddy, and eventually it will dry up there dirt will be encrusted in between every little pebble in the rough concrete. There is no consistancy.

I woke up at 11:30am, not quite lunch time yet. I'm not exceptionally lazy, although I suppose one could argue that point if they liked, but sundays I like to take my time. Not that I refuse to work. Once I'm awake and moving Sundays can often be my most productive days, but sunday I take time to relish those moments where I don't have to be up right away. You could say this is a problem. I've relished that extra sleep to much on a school day before and missed a class. That behavior might make your point on the laziness case. But Sundays it isn't laziness, just leasuredness. I made my way over to the village market to get food, scrounge up a breakfast burrito before the dinner across the street closed. I got my food and saw a few people I knew, but their table was full. I wasn't going to be the one to sit a table by myself. So instead I went back to my room with a purposeful stride. After all I had intended to go back there all along, that's why I was leaving. It had nothing to do with the fact that there weren't any open seats. I was busy, it was sunday. The relishing was over.

Grades have been a struggle. I usually do well. Well enough anyway, but this semester it wouldn't be far fetched to say that I'm failing. I'm not failing in the sense of an F. I don't believe in societies definition of what failing is and is not. You are either suited for a task or you are not, but failing is judged entirely upon capability and potential. For that reason I say I'm failing. My capabilities are not being fulfilled. I'm getting lazy. The kind of lazy that makes one relish sunday mornings on a tuesday. I haven't always done poorly. I have been known to, on occasion, have 3.9 semesters. Not recently though.

I walked outside after being a shut in all morning. I'm not as anti-social as I sound, believe me. I am as extroverted as an introvert can be. But silence and solitude are also friends who require plenty of time. Being a writter doesn't help either. I can't write in the presence of people. I have to be secluded, cut off from what's around me in some way. At the moment I'm in the library surrounded by people, but there is a social iron curtain between us. You can be as cut off as you like even surrounded by warm people. Soon though, before long, I will need companionship, conversation, words of affection. Solitude isn't a constant comfort. Soon I will seek out other people.

And so the seasons changed. The clouds dissapeared, the cold was banished. Yet there is no consistancy. Sometimes it returns in bursts, but it is on it's way out I suppose. And one day it will return. Perhaps consistancy only exists in the inconsistancy of it all. Sundays will not last forever, I can be sure of that. Solitude will not last forever, I will make sure of that. And summer will have to go. Mulch won't stay where you put it, and clouds will move on or move in regardless of what you do. All that's left for me to do is accept it. Things move on.

Old and New.

For those of you friends who have faithfully followed me on facebook, my deepest gratitude and apologies. I will be adding, over the next few days, most of my facebook notes to this blog so as to update it with all my most recent writtings. I do intend to add some new stuff here, promise.

Who Is This That Darkeneth Thy Counsel?

Late nights and William Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury. Mornings and Rob Bell. Velvet Elvis. There is a hurting world and it revolves around the self, so says 20th century writers. There is a hurting world and it revolves around the our perverted view of the way, so says an ancient Jewish Rabbi.

Learned men gather around the intellectual table of the last two thousand years to discuss the great world philosophies, and the most innovative ideas that can be conjured up are existentialism, nihilism, and humanism. There is no meaning beyond self, there is no meaning, and meaning only comes from the relation of the self with humanity. Humanity is the highest aspiration. Beyond my insights and my knowledge there is nothing. Beyond me there is nothing. I can not even prove that you exist, ergo you have no meaning. I can not prove I exist, therefore I have no meaning. 20th Century Philosophy.

If I was to venture and put in my two cents I would have to admit that of these philosophies only humanism even approaches the truth. I do exist, and although faux-philosophers and so-called intellectuals will tell you otherwise I do believe there is no doubt, at least in my own mind, to my existence. I think, therefore I am. I believe also that I can very much prove your existence. Since the experience of existence is a series of electrical impulses sent and received by the nervous system there is no way to prove beyond what we are given that anything exists. So one must approach the obvious by what we already know. I know that when I touch someone I can feel there skin, and when I talk to someone I can experience empathy. I need nothing more to prove to myself that they are as real as I. My ability to comprehend them without ever being able to understand them allows me to be able to prove their, in my own mind, existence via my experience. By comprehension of their emotions I can prove to myself that something exists which causes me to feel empathy and by lack of understanding I come to the conclusion that this something is altogether beyond myself, therefore making their existence outside of me conclusive.

Judeo-christian theology has never been that concerned with asking questions about whether or not we exist. It is a moot point at best. Followers of the messiah have always been more concerned about how one treats their existence, and how to live it as one should. The life of Christ requires action. You can not sit around wallowing in self reflection and be a christian. There is a message, a Way, in which to live. God says beyond your own existential reality there is a deeper reality that created you. If you wish to live you have to live in harmony with the deepest reality of the there is, God's love, or the law. If others exist, and their existence is just as valid as ours, God says that we must love them as we would love ourselves. This is the law, the way, and if you choose to live outside of the deepest reality in the universe everything will be out of sync. Take a look at the world today, does it look like we are out of sync with the Way? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

I have chosen to live in a world where I am not the only thing that exists. I live in a world beyond that of the 20th Century writers. I live in a world where love means more than self satisfaction, I live in a world where there's a way, a truth, a life. Yeshua is leading me into that truth everyday. The Spirit is guiding me in that way. I am growing into the deepest existence possible, the one where the suffering mankind does matter, that there is ultimate truth, and that I can love that truth. I don't even have to prove it, I just have to live it.

A Declaration of Faith

I am a follower of the Messiah (a christian), a gentile grafted into the fold, a believer in the power and love of the message of Yashua (Jesus), my Lord and savior. I have been freed from bondage by his life, death, and resurrection. The life of perfect love gives me strength to love as he did, the death of perfect sacrifice give me the reprieve of knowing that my sin has been blotted out, and his glorious resurrection gives me the promise that my heart has been fully restored and of a life forever with him. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

I believe in the message of Adventism, but my allegience is to Christ and Christ alone. I believe that the Bible is an inspired revalation of God to his people, and that to know God fully we must know his word. To this end I find the founders of my denomination an inspiration. Their dedication to searching the truth is as astounding today as ever it was. But I am not bound to their finite findings or their opinions. TRUTH is forever growing, we will always learn more and more. My faith relies on Christ alone. "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Roman 3:22-24)

I believe that all who profess Christ are members of the body, although some have varying degrees of truth (WHOSEVER believes in him). I believe love of humanity and a of love of truth. Christ died for humanity. If the life of the very least human was deemed worthy for the sacrifice of my Creator than love for humanity is my highest calling. 18 " 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD." (Leviticus 19:18).

I believe that the Church has a responsibility to free people from bondage. I believe bondage can take the form of lies, mistruths and theological errors, but that bondage is also physical. Jesus healed the sick because his heart broke at the site of fallen man. I am to love as he loved, offering the healing power of truth and sheltering those who need refuge. "27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27).

I believe that there are differences between people into how to intrepret prophecy, but that it doesn't matter in comparison to the message of love. Denominations exist for a reason, and I belong to the Adventist Church because I believe in her truth. But I believe that when we let that truth divide our love for eachother as members of the body of christ we have stepped into dangerous ground and are erring in the way of the pharisees. The pharisees sin was that they loved truth more than people, they were so zealous for the law they forgot about mercy within the law. They wanted to keep God's law so well that they missed the great essential. Bless us God that we will not do the same. 17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20)

I don't have all the answers. I am still studying. Some things I must accept on faith until I can know them more fully. I will continue to question (not discount, but simply be looking for other answers as well), and some I may never know on this earth. But I believe that one day my God will make all things known when I am with him forever. For now we see things dimly, through a vale as the children of Israel saw Moses, but someday all things will be made known.

First and Foremost

This isn't a blog about any one thing. It's a conglomerate of all my ideas poured into one small area. I'm really only making it for convenience sake, a place to put all those ideas I decide to put into words and so people can keep track of what I'm writing instead of having to just catch it whenever I happen to post it as a facebook note. If you enjoy what you read, I am glad for you. If you don't, then I simply assume you will stop reading, it would be silly of you not to. Here we go.