Life is...

Remember your Creator

in the days of your youth, 

before the days of trouble come 

and the years approach when you will say, 

“I find no pleasure in them”— 

I have to admit, I enjoy Ecclesiastes a lot and I like finding reasons to quote it every now and then.

I can name off the top of my head four popular songs I've heard lately that have the message (or directly say) "Live while you're young." From the first song I heard like this it struck me as a pretty shallow meaning for a song (I mean, I've heard much worse but it's still not too inspiring.) Being the analytical person that I am I eventually decided to think out why exactly it's shallow.

It's not that it's flat out a bad idea. You really shouldn't spend your whole childhood, teen years and young adulthood playing video games, reading books or watching TV (or whatever other useless things you had in mind. Sorry). But I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing these bands have in mind, considering they're some of the more secular artists I've heard. The problem is more their definition of living, usually partying and shallow relationships.

But if you have a correct definition of living then this is a wonderful sentiment. Live a life of Christ while you're young rather than putting off a serious relationship until you're older and ready to settle down.

It still needs a little adjustment though, these artists also all imply that you can only live while you're young, so you need to get it all done while you still can. A better strategy would probably be to learn how to live while you're young so that by the time you're ready to "settle down and mature" or whatever your plans are this living is already first nature (yes, first nature, not second nature) because I can honestly already say from my own experience that I just get more stubborn and harder to teach as I get older. Learn how to learn from your creator while you're young so that you can continue to learn when you're old.(er.)

How can a young man keep his way pure? 

By living according to your word. 

And no, this post wasn't brought on by the whole turning twenty and decade thing, thank you for asking... ;)

Advent Part 2ish

Well here's the post I said I was planning when I wrote my last post. (Oh my, that's such an obvious statement. That's painful.) This is in fact my second and last advent post, yes, I did miss a week or two. Finals and midnight showings do that. But the other week I saw from my dad's Facebook post (don't question) that one week of advent was about joy. Ooh! I know about joy too! Or so I claim.

Right now I'm feeling something that feels a lot like joy. I've been doing a lot of walking on air recently with really no reason for it besides the fact that God's awfully awesome. I could give specific reasons; The Hobbit is fantastic, finals are done, the Hobbit was everything I dreamed it would be, I have freedom to actually do things, the Hobbit. But as much as I could say those are "because I'm awesome and I rocked finals" or "because Peter Jackson is a genius" they're really just because God is awfully awesome. He likes to overwhelm me every now and then.

I did actually have something slightly new to add to my view of joy though. On the list of my personality quirks (such a long list, we'll never get through it) is my inability to express things I love. If I really really want something it's going to be the one thing I can't get myself to ask for. If I really really love something no matter how hard I try I can never get across to anyone how much I love it (this can be frustrating, it's why I like talking to people who similarly love whatever it is.) So the few times a year when I'm really joyful and overwhelmed with the amazingness that is God I can't possibly get it across. You may see a lot of exclamation points and geeking out but believe me, it's not anywhere near what I'm actually feeling.

I like to think that's how God feels about us. His love is so enormous that we can't possibly grasp it, as much as we try to understand it our concept of God's love will always fall short of the reality. His blessings that we see in our every day life are just the tiniest bit of how he displays it. But right now, of all times, we can probably remember a little better just how much God loves us and his greatest attempt to show us. What a great reason for Christmas joy.

The Better Part of Valour

This is an in between sort of post, I wanted a prelude to my next post. See, I'm pretty sure every single blogger, serious Facebooker, twitterer or whoever is out there to voice an opinion is going to say something about the shooting in Connecticut. I think it's assumed that you have to speak out and at least let the world know that you're praying for them, thus you're a good Christian.

You may wonder about the title of this blog. Well, most people probably know that humility isn't exactly a quality I possess in abundance but I'd like to show some now. A very few people probably realize that when something terrible happens to someone I know I'd rather not have to talk, I'd rather be able to do something. Unfortunately, while blogging is doing something it also involves talking. I'd rather not try.

I'd like to show that I care about this situation by not voicing my opinion because I'm not wise or insightful enough to say anything new and inspiring. I'd rather not add to the enormous muddle of articles and posts and blogs that are out there. I'm not saying anything against the posts I've seen, the only ones that are really messing things up are news sites and those apparently are beyond help. But I just don't want to add to the confusion of opinions with my own half-baked and uninformed opinion.

I'm not connected to this tragedy by any stretch of the imagination. I don't know any more than anyone else who reads news articles. I'm not any more insightful (actually probably less insightful) than anyone else who has a blog.

Now I realize that in posting this blog I have in fact added to the muddle. If I really wanted to carry out this desire of not talking I would have just continued to say nothing. But as I said, this is a prelude to my next post. My next post is planning on being extremely upbeat and jolly and I didn't want it to seem like I was disrespectful or didn't care about this shooting. I care and I'd like to show that I care by toning down on the attention it's getting, I'm thinking these people would probably like some space from the public eye rather than more posts about them.

Advent Part 1 (Or: Hope Revisited)

Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

This post was supposed to be for last Sunday but homework likes to build up until Sunday evenings, this cuts into blogging time. At the time when I'm writing this it is Thursday so we'll see if I actually get it done in one day.

It came to my attention in church on Sunday that the theme of the first advent candle was hope, an area of expertise on my part. (Hardly, more like a lesson I keep learning over and over.)

I don't really have anything enormous to add to what I said last time but I was interested by a new perspective on hope (and when I'm interested in something that means you get to hear about it). The season of Christmas in celebrating the birth of Jesus is preceded by all the years of hope between Eden and Bethlehem. That's a very long time to hope. That might manage to make us feel a little inadequate if not for the fact that the Israelites decided to go astray every other year or something akin to that.

It's still fascinating to think about though, for all those years all they had was God's word that he was sending a savior and the miracles he did for them in the meantime. We, meanwhile, have the testimony of the Bible and all sorts of saints and other Christians since (as well as your own personal experience with God) telling us that God did indeed send a savior and he's now the reason we hope.  It's a reason to continue the Thanksgiving season into the Christmas season, we can be so thankful that we have what prophets searched for and the things into which even angels long to look.

I guess this is my actual serious Thanksgiving blog combined with my first advent blog (and posted just before the second week of advent. I'm very on top of things.)

A Little Gratitude

I was going to not do a Thanksgiving post and just write a completely unrelated post but I had an idea last night and thought I'd follow through on it.

The following is a list of things that you should be thankful for that you might not usually think of.

Light switches Being a basement dweller myself, I deal with a lot of lights that turn on with long strings or ancient looking chains. They're a little hard to find in the dark, at least light switches stay in the same place. Before I lived in a basement I had a room with a light switch. The light switch was outside my room. Machia liked to use it to let me know dinner was ready. Everyone else liked to use it to conserve energy, not realizing I was in there. I learned to throw things at the wall to get them to turn it back on.

Defrost It's really handy in the early mornings. Rachel's car doesn't have it. I try very hard to always take my car, it's safer that way for everyone involved.

Oreos When I have Oreos life is fantastic.

Computers I do hope those of you who have their own computers appreciate it. I'm very grateful for school computers and a Daddy who is willing to share his laptop.

Internet I mean really, you wouldn't be reading this wonderful blog post without it! And for about half of you reading this, I wouldn't even know you without it.

Sweatshirts A companion for defrost, very nice in early mornings. I used to dislike sweatshirts. Now they're my best friends. (However, I require either a hood or a zipper or both.)

Web Designers Having taken (okay, and kind of loved) web design class, you should all be glad you don't have to write your own code at all times in order do do something fancy like <b>bolding</b> a word. (And yes, I meant for that not to work.)

I suppose I could go on and talk about serious things to be thankful now, but I think you're all bright enough to think of your own and why preach? Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Conclusions

Let it never be said that college is not a learning experience. Whether I'm learning anything that my teachers actually meant to teach me is a different matter. Here are some of the things I have concluded from my various experiences lately.

• The great indoors is nice and warm.

While I love being outside and would spend every day outside if it's 60 degrees or more, freezing rain sends me inside. 60 degrees and raining is still fine, but I'm really loving the school buildings, especially the ones with computer labs and couches.

• Writing will cure most bad moods

An appropriate point for the first day of National Novel Writing Month. Recently all of the stories I've been working on have decided to become easier to write. On top of this I started journaling about specific Bible passages again (I'm currently in 1 Corinthians, expect to see more verses from the Corinthians for a few months). Writing in general, once I force myself to do it, will at least keep me occupied and not grumbling about weather and school. The exceptions to this rule are essays...

•  Bullet points are fun.

Okay, I'm kidding. Partially. I know I had more to write in this blog but I took so long to get around to it that I have forgotten what I was going to write. (But I did have some fun with bullet points in Web Design.)

• I need to lighten up.

I spent a few weeks reading some short stories by Kafka, Kafka does not believe in happy endings. I was fairly impressed by the complete lack of happy endings. I've been listening to the Les Misérables soundtrack, I have yet to find a happy song. I'm always in a mood for Brave Saint Saturn music, they're not big on happy songs either. While I enjoy all of these things (and adore Brave Saint Saturn extremely) I came to the conclusion that I personally really need to lighten up in general. I can enjoy depressing books and movies and TV shows but I've experienced actual depression myself and don't see much point in stimulating a fake sad mood. I'd rather spend time being abnormally happy.


All right, I'll resist the urge to keep rambling and have a shorter blog post than... some past ones. I'll leave you with a cool verse I also rediscovered recently.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

The Geek shall inherit the earth

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, school, cars, randomstuffthatisn'twork, and things like that got in the way. I honestly wasn't sure when I was going to blog again until three of my five classes were cancelled for today. It's like fall break a week early.
This time I'm going to talk about what I promised to talk about in my very first post: geeky stuff. Surrounded by a ton of normal college students I appreciate geekiness even more than usual. I'm also learning to appreciate different variations of it. Sadly few people are self-professing geeks so I have to get to know seemingly normal people and then dig out their nerdishness hiding underneath. (Man, spellcheck really hates me today...) The different combinations of Doctor Who fans who also love superheroes, Lord of the Rings fanatics who have a passion for Star Wars, Trekkies who are patiently waiting for the next Sherlock and all the rest are hard to keep track of. In general it's just easier to remember which fandoms a person hates.

But there's another kind of geek/nerd combination which will be very pertinent in about 20 days on November 1st. That would be my author friends. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) when tons of my literary-minded friends spend their days and nights pounding on keyboards to reach their word quota for the day. I'm extremely jealous of the people who have time to do this, it almost makes me want to try it on top of my homework.

This story writing usually goes along with one of my favorite traits in an individual; an active imagination. These are the people who can spend three hour car rides staring out the window without being bored. They're also the people with whom I can have whole chat conversations while pretending to be fictional characters. If you've never tried it I suggest finding your geekiest friend and giving it a go.

I'm incredibly thankful for my ability to make up stories in my head. It isn't just the way I survived car trips before I could drive, it's also how I go to sleep at night and how I entertain myself when all I have with me is a notebook. Being able to easily pretend to be a fictional character is how I learned to act and extremely handy when just plain old Apples to Apples gets boring.

But I have to admit that there have been times when I worried that my fictional worlds possessed too much of my self. I mean, I could tell you the plot, major and minor characters and their background of the Lord of the Rings before I even read it, meaning when I was 8. I can do the same thing for Narnia, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who and others in addition to being able to tell you the actors who have portrayed the characters. (And the filmography of the actors. And the directors, costume designers and composers...) You get the idea. Add to that the entire world I've created for the stories I write and you have a large portion of my brain, that's probably equal to many years of Bible Quizzing.

Moderation (despite this comic) is what makes the difference between an awesome geek and an ill-adjusted, socially awkward geek who can't survive without a fictional world. Self control makes all the difference, including the decision of whether to start in on a fandom in the first place. You'll notice that none of my lists include any video games. Originally this was a parental decision but even now I'd rather not start in with them. I know my own competitive nature and I can see how video games would pull me in and leave me obsessed.

Despite these dangers included in all fiction and fantasy here is another reason I'm thankful for them:
"If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."

This entrance into a fantasy world is a way of learning to be apart from the world. I've never been exactly of the world, I don't think the word "normal" has ever once been applicable to my way of life. But visibly being a Christian and visibly being a geek both set you apart from the world in extreme ways. Sometimes toning down the geek is a good idea, especially if you're trying to witness to the general population. But it also opens up opportunities some Christians don't have. Have you ever had a discussion about the Christian themes in the Avengers? What about a Church book group reading the Lord of the Rings? Suddenly there's a whole new realm of witnessing ideas.