returning from away

recently, i have become partly amused but mainly quite disheartened.

the past three days have opened my eyes to a few characteristics that seriously influence my outlook on the church. i suppose since i surround myself with people who aren't mean and snappy and full of an elite-i-am-right-you-are-wrong attitude, i never knew they existed in real life. strike that, part of me knew they existed, but the majority of me never wanted to believe they did. i can't see how worshipping doctorine is worshipping God. how above all else we are to love God with our whole mind, self and all our strength and also love people - and how that fits in with smashing the avil of 'truth', of 'the ONE revelation of scripture', of 'my way is the right way' over the heads of people who think differently.

i, over here at Huntington University, do not just pull this stuff from thin air. i have a life that i live - i haven't been brainwashed by Dr. Sanders ((as some of the 5pointers believe)). he mainly taught our classes with great intellect and much patience and handled the chaotic mess that the system made of his life with grace and love. that's it. that's how he became a major influence and a fine man --

i am relatively new at this Christian lifestyle - it's hard to adjust. its much more difficult when i see this warfare over doctorines, character bashing of a great man ((when his theology is in question)), put downs and insults over xanga lines by and with complete strangers, weaponizing the bible, monsterizing God, et cetera.

i joined in on this Christian thing to love people - to work my hardest to make sure everyone i came in contact with knew that God loves them. try to tell little marcus, who at the age of 11 had to hold his mother's hand while she bled to death after being stabbed by her live in boyfriend, that if you aren't a Calvinist you are not going to make it to heaven. Or what about the little girl who lost her dad in a fire? are you going to tell her that God killed her dad as part of His plan? These aren't very loving things. i want to be a lover of people - not a lover of doctorine. i can only pray that this continues for me, i see the malice that is brought forth. theology, like everything else, has become a human institution of sorts - and let's face it, we screw everything up.

my God may be a pansy to you, but He is relationally centered and compassionate - and above all else, He is love.

input jacks

i really like the deep blue sea
and in other news - i want to publically say Thank You to Amos who might just be amazing. ((in a beautifully platonic admiration))
heather and i are embarking on a chicago extravaganza this day - chinatown, art institute, field museum, painting the town red.

yes!

my karamazov

today happens to be five years and one day after the most tragic event in my life.

i'd like to tell you that yesterday i sat around and contemplated the evils of this world - suffering and human kind and how the two interact and dance so delicately together. i'd like to report that i prayed on my knees for strength because i could barely go on or that i called my loved ones because i was concerned about their wellbeing on this day that shaped and conformed and transformed and manipulated with vulnerability our lives forever five short years ago.. but i didn't. i did not do these things - or anything of the sort. the thought festered in the back of my mind for a long time, but other than shallow passerbys, the ideas did not boil into full blown REAL life, tangible, discussable thoughts. but today.

Alas! today... let's face it, i probably won't pray about it. and when i called my grandparents, we didn't talk about the pain that we evidentally all felt yesterday and every june 11 for the past half of a decade... we didn't do that. but we knew. the suffering is, at times, unspeakable, but ever so evident. we know this. we have this in common - -this one disaster. but hand in hand with every person who shares human hood, i have this in common. i hurt. it's just part of it... in varying degrees, it's just part of it.

one time i asked andy why shit like this goes down.... the me incident, the marcus incident, the iraq incident.. we both agreed that we didn't know and that we didn't think it was part of god's 'plan' -- and i understood.. as i still understand that it would be delightfully easy and plausible to believe that there is no god, no supreme being ((especially designed the way we (evangelicals) have fashioned him)) who is all good. i know. i never have held my dying mom's hand as she bled to death -- never have i. but knowing that an 11 year old boy had to makes me think -- yeah right there's a god. but then i remember - he isn't the way we think he is. if he was, we'd all be screwed.
so, there's that.

ever heard of doggie style?

'However, there are some humans who claim from personal experience that sexual relations with aliens are possible. Elizabeth Klarer was a wife and mother living in the hills of Natal, South Africa, where she had seen UFOs on several occasions. Eventually, in 1956, she met one of their occupants. Akon, a scientist from Meton, a planet in the Alpha Centauri constellation, was seeking an Earthwoman as a mate for experimental purposes. "We rarely mate with Earth women," he explained. "When we do, we keep the offspring to strengthen our race and infuse new blood". What began as a clinical experiment turned into a meaningful relationship:

"I surrendered in ecstasy to the magic of his love making, our bodies merging in magnetic union as the divine essence of our spirits became one... and i found the true meaning of love in mating with a man from another planet."

She also found motherhood, for she became pregnant and was taken by Akon (together with her beloved MG car) to Meton, to bear her child there. She spent four idyllic months on Meton, where there was no pollution (except that caused by her car, presumably), everyone was vegetarian, and there were horses for her to ride once she had recovered from childbirth. Unfortunately, however, because Meton had a different vibratory rate to that of Earth, she could not live there permanently.'

~Evans, H. (2001) Unexplained, The: Coming from the skies. Carlton Books Limited: Dubai, p25.

'where are your friends'

i'm not going to say that i believe every detail in a dream is significant for interpretation - but i will say that i may be a sucker for some instances in dreams being directly linked to real life, real awake moments. i feel like that's not too absurd to say - i even will go as far as to say that some of you agree with that. usually ((usually)) i can figure it out. i can't even begin to think about my dream last night. so weird. or the dreams the night before. there are so many thingsi need to do - top on the list:pay my damn seat belt violation ticket.