All Else Failed

After two years...

2009-02-22T19:55:00.000-08:00

...all I have to offer is my current favorite quote:

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

As the Ruin Falls

2006-10-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

- C. S. Lewis

Stampede

2006-04-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

The blight is gone. Some things are just too important to be remembered.

Illusions of Grandeur

2006-01-31T07:39:00.000-08:00

I want to know Christ. I want you to see him in my eyes, my love, my tears, my laughter. I want him to emanate from me in such a way that when you see me you will be attracted not to me, but to Jesus in me. I want to see past your skin and into the soul that lies beneath. I do not care that you are scarred or obnoxious or slow or angry; I will love you regardless of who you are. This desire to be like Jesus is very real, coming from deep inside of me. But how much do I really want to be like him? I want the result without the work that goes with it. I am like a person who wishes to lose weight, yet has no intention of dieting. I want to be like Christ, yet I do not have an interest in studying his words or in spending more than two minutes talking to him. In my mind I will wash your feet, even breathe my last in service for you. But give me a real person to serve and my desire turns to disdain. I never wanted to be this way. Is this yearning inside of me no more than an empty, meaningless desire? I will be like Jesus in my fantasies, but what has that to do with real life? Christ, change me.

The Message of the Cross

2006-01-24T17:11:00.000-08:00

The world exalts the strong, the powerful, the rich, the athletic, the fashionable, the resilient, the driven, the popular, the intelligent, the gifted.

Christianity exalts the weak, the desperate, the poor, the humble, the downtrodden, the abandoned, the broken.

It is for this reason that the cross is foolishness to the world.

It is for this reason that the world is foolishness to God.

Article on the American Christian

2005-07-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Q.
How can I worship idols and still stay on God's good side?

A.
Dear reader,

Thank you for the great question! Worshiping idols as a believer is easier to do than you might think. The important thing is to remember that you must worship only Christian idols. A Christian will never bow down to stone or wood. A Christian will never reverence an image of a person or animal. A Christian will not sacrifice his children to a fiery god or scar his body to pacify a deity. However, there remain many things a Christian may worship and still feel good about his faith. Let's review a few of these options:

1. Your money. Let the wealthy give their resources to the cause of Christ. You can barely make your car payments, your house payment, and your credit card bills as it is. Yes, if you had more money you would certainly give it to others, but God understands if you have insufficient funds. You are only required to give of your excess, and while you are living up to your means you are hardly left with any excess to give. It is perfectly acceptable for a Christian to be unwilling to sacrifice his comfort to reach out to others. Do not entertain the thought that perhaps you could do more good if you did not have two car payments and a nice house to keep up with. Remember, these things are necessities for the American Christian.

2. Your time. You have to work untold hours each week just to put food on the table. At the end of the day, you are simply too tired to do anything for the kingdom. You certainly would feed the hungry and love the lonely like Jesus did if your life just wasn't so busy. Though you must still go to church at least once a week and read your Bible for two minutes a day in order to please God, do not feel guilty for doing no more than that. In order to worship this idol, it is important that you never allow yourself to believe that God is able to give strength to the weary. He would rather you rest so that you can stay refreshed by your own resources.

3. Your comfort. Sometimes it's alright to splurge. Get that leather sofa you have been saving up for. Buy your new name-brand apparel that you have so wisely found on sale (being a good steward is always relative). It's important that you don't even consider that most people on this earth live on only a dollar a day. Never stop to think that instead of paying $60 for designer jeans you could feed a hungry child for two months. It is always okay for the American evangelical to live comfortably and with no concern for others.

4. Your popularity. Remember that you always want others to think favorably of you. Your primary means of accepting yourself comes from the approval of others. Do not stand up for what is right if that will make you unpopular. I am certainly not suggesting that you should fight for what is wrong, but sometimes it is appropriate to hold your silence and so save your reputation. Sharing the gospel has never been popular; and besides, no one is going to come to faith if you are all talk and no walk. Focus more on how you are living and the rest will fall into place. If people are not asking about your faith, they probably are not interested in the gospel anyhow.

5. Your safety. In addition to making you unpopular, the gospel may even endanger your very life. It is never God's will for you to be put into a position that may harm you. If this is the result of living a godly life, you may be certain that you are doing something wrong.

6. Your happiness. God wants you to be joyful, and what is joy really but happiness? You must always act like your temporal happiness is the fundamental reason you were placed upon this earth. Spend your resources or money, time, and energy on entertainment and material possessions. Never let your faith put you into a position of displeasure. Of course sinning is wrong and a Christian must never do so, so be creative in how you live to please yourself. Some examples of less blatant forms of self-gratification include loving people for what they can give you, controlling situations so that they ultimately benefit you, and giving only when others will recognize you for doing so. This will ensure that you benefit the most from surface-level spirituality.

7. Your holiness. The true believer must be very careful to always guard his purity and Christlikeness. The best way to do so is to isolate yourself from the world. The book of Proverbs warns us that bad company corrupts good morals. If we avoid contact with the world we will certainly avoid the pitfalls contained therein. Do your best to avoid socializing with unbelievers, as they will drag you down spiritually. By surrounding yourself only with other believers and by living inside of the Christian subculture, you can be sure that you will not be put into a precarious position.

Though this list is by no means exhaust, I'm sure it has benefited you in discovering ways to creatively worship idols in the 21st century and still live in the sunshine of God's approval. For other ideas simply look at the church around you, observing how the typical Christian is living. You will certainly see many more ways to serve idols and still serve Jesus. God bless!

Goals Revisited

2005-07-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

The summer is halfway over, and I have all but forgotten my goals. It wasn't intentional, it's just that my blog disappeared and with it all hopes of bettering myself vanished. Now that I have forgotten what I wanted to do this summer, let's see how my accomplishments look.

Books - I'm not positive if I've finished a single non-fiction book this summer. I haven't read much fiction, for that matter. I just finished Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, which is a classic in case you don't recognize the author's name. I've been reading a lot of American poetry lately--Frost, Sandburg, and Crane. So I guess I have been reading, but I am nowhere near having finished eight books. I'll go ahead and count Shakespeare's book as one, even if it is a play. I'm almost finished reading a book on stock photography, so that is two. I'm also nearly finished with Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller and The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball. Both are excellent books. Oh, and I read To Kill A Mockingbird not too long ago. Fiction, but classic.

Bible Memorization - Whoops. I'm still only halfway through Psalm 139...

Curriculum - I'm right on target for finishing by the end of the summer. Finally, something I'm doing right!

Cooking - I haven't done too much lately, but I have made a few meals and done some baking this summer.

Hot Chocolate - I made it one time. I wasn't a big fan of the recipe, and I haven't bothered remaking it. Coffee is better anyhow.

Work and save - I have excelled in this category. I've been working full time and spending hardly any money whatsoever.

CSS - Been there, done that.

Photoshop - I've actually spent a few hours on Photoshop today. I'm trying to come up with some kind of logo for my Dad's engine building. I might even make a website for him. We'll see how that goes.

So basically, I'm still doing alright in the goals department, in spite of having forgotten that I made any. I've also been learning Spanish lately, though I haven't made a goal of doing so. The photo lab can get slow sometimes, so I always take fifty or so palabras de espanol to memorize. I work with a guy from Columbia, so if I have any questions I just ask him. It has worked out very nicely.

That's enough for now!

Summer 2005

2005-05-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

While I was at school, there were a lot of things I wanted to learn but I just didn’t have the time to commit to anything. Before I left Iowa, I set some goals for the summer so that I could accomplish something other than getting a really good tan. Here they are as I set them out at school, untouched as of 26 April, 2005:

Read eight nonfiction books
Memorize one or two chapters of the Bible
Read through the curriculum for the group I will lead next year if I come back
Improve my cooking skills
Learn to make good hot chocolate
Work hard and save money
Learn CSS
Become more proficient at Photoshop

Not unlike so many New Year’s resolutions, these goals have already changed. I thought I would have plenty of time to read, but I really haven’t gotten much done so far. I’ve read about half a book in the ten days I have been home. I think I’m only going to shoot for three books this summer, sad to say.

As for the other goals…
I’ve memorized half of Psalm 139.
I’ve completed about 10% of the curriculum.
I just made rice two hours ago, though I would hardly say measuring out rice into a steamer counts for honing my cooking skills. I don’t think I’m going to accomplish much as far as this goal goes.
I like hot chocolate...
I’ve made $150 since I have been back. I’m working full time at Target and helping my dad get some stuff done a few evenings a week. I got to put valve seals, springs, and bolts on a motor last night. It was great.
I learned CSS in one full day last week. I’m amazing at it too.
I’m about fifty pages into a book I checked out at the library on Photoshop CS. I’ve learned some highly cool things in the past few days, and I will continue to learn more for the rest of the summer. We’ll mark that book under the nonfiction reading category. Maybe I’ll count it as two books considering it is nearly seven hundred pages long.

Overall I am doing alright, minus the cooking and reading (both of which are highly overrated). In addition to the goals I set in April I have added learning JavaScript to my list. I’m familiar with some of the very basics so far, and I hope to have it down by the end of the summer. It’s more difficult than HTML or CSS, but I think I can handle it.

I’ll post an update on my progress toward completing these goals every few weeks. We’ll see if I can check them off at the end of the summer, or if they will be no more than your stereotypical New Year’s resolutions (made in May).

That was very official. I think I need a little Jack Handey to lighten the mood. Here is a favorite:

I can still recall old Mister Barnslow getting out every morning and nailing a fresh load of tadpoles to the old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and round, like a wheel of fortune, and no matter where it stopped he'd yell out, "Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!" We all thought he was crazy. But then we had some growing up to do.

Don't play in the water, kids.

2005-04-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

For the news story of the week click here.

Filth

2005-04-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

I would just like to vent about a terrible situation I experienced this evening. I will use initials for everything so as to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent alike. I went to T. Lounge at E. B. College with my friends J.M. and J.S. to work on our six packs. We have an ab workout video that we like to do, and T. Lounge is our typical place to do it since it is the only lounge with a television. After working out, we walked over to the table and noticed an appalling sight. Someone had made some sort of chicken in a crock pot and left a cutting board and knife sitting out which were both covered in chicken remains. In addition to this, there was a bag of blood sitting on the table. In a bucket they had various chicken by-products, not to mention the leftovers still in the crock pot. Though disgusting, this situation would not be so bad if it were isolated. It is commonly known that T. Lounge is the grossest place in D., Iowa and smells like a toilet. There was also a bowl with rice crispy treat leftovers and a whole stick of butter just sitting on the table. There is another crock pot full of left over food that has literally been sitting on the table for two weeks.

I must have counseling, and the people responsible for this sordid mess will pay for it.

Survival of the Fittest Blogger

2005-04-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Creating a blog on blogspot seemed to be a simple thing to me upon first glance. However, it was not long before I was met with great difficulty. Who would have known that the blog title in the URL "allelsefailed" was already taken? In addition to this, they wanted me to type a series of letters into a box to assure that I was not a bot. I swear I am not a bot, but I could not make out what the letters were. It took me two tries to get it right. If I have already encountered such troubles before even my first post, who knows what's in store for me? It's a tough world here in the blog jungle.