Don't try to make something more than it is

At a Perspectives class for my old church, the instructor said something along the lines of "Romans in the Pax Romana spoke Latin, but the common language was Koine Greek. The New Testament is written in Koine Greek. Isn't it amazing that God decided to reveal the truth of His Son and His redemptive plan in the common language of the day?"

Um, no. It's not amazing. That's the equivalent of saying "Most Americans speak English. Isn't it amazing that most American books are written in English?"

Guys, let's not try to find "amazing", "captivating", or otherwise "revolutionary" ideas where none exist.

Thought Experiment: disability

This is a thought experiment intended to get you in the mind of someone who has been disabled from birth (this idea was spawned by thinking about someone who is deaf).

Imagine that tomorrow you're going about your daily life and you notice that people start treating you a bit differently. You don't really know why, things seem the same to you. You ask one of your friends and they say that you're "abrent" [I've made up a word here]: i.e. you're missing a sense that everyone else seems to have. Apparently it's something around you that you interact with all the time, but you can't perceive it. People try to describe it to you but obviously and utterly fail because how do you describe an entirely subjective experience?

Now imagine how someone might feel who is deaf from birth. As they grow up, they can obviously see people communicate imperceptibly with others. It seems that someone opens their mouth and moves it around and the other person knows exactly what they're communicating. Someone tries to explain that they're making sounds with their mouth that the other person hears, but how do you explain sound? How would you explain color to a blind man? If this person were somehow excluded from all other humans, they might think they were a perfectly normal human being. But put them in a society of hearing humans and they're labeled "deaf" and it's claimed that there is a sense that they are missing.

How would you feel if you found out tomorrow that there is a "sixth-sense" that you've been missing out on this whole time? I can just imagine the situation now:

[You and a friend walk outside]
Friend: Oh, it's going to rain today!
You: Wait, how do you know?
Friend [looks at you dumbfounded]: Because my fingertips tingle, obviously.
You: What do you mean your 'fingertips tingle'?
Friend: Wait, you don't feel that? Everyone feels that.
You: What do you mean 'everyone feels that'?
Friend: Like...hey, John, do your fingertips tingle?
John: Yeah. That's what they're supposed to do. It means it's going to rain. [Walks off confused]
Friend: Mary, are your fingertips tingling?
Mary [gives a weird look]: What is this, a trick? Obviously they are.
Friend [turns back to you]: See?
You: Huh. Well I just don't feel it. What's it supposed to feel like?
Friend: It's kinda like you touched an electric fence, but not quite. Almost....cold? Uh, it's kinda hard to explain.

Imagine how your life would change from there on out.

Here's a random, pointless question relating to Jesus that I just came up with. It has no theological, philosophical or other significance.

Did God choose ahead of time the appearance that He (aka: Jesus) would take? To put it another way: God could've made His human form look appealing, ugly, average, etc. Or He could've "just left it up to chance" (predestination is another topic for another time) and just said "I'm going to become a human baby" and just let nature do with the growth as it may. 

I wonder if there was some sort of discussion between God the Father and Jesus before He was incarnated along the lines of "Ok, Son, I've decided that I'm going to send You to Earth in human form; to grow up as a human." "Sure, Dad. I'll do whatever you ask. But one request?" "Yes?" "Can you make me at least a semi-good-looking person? Not some grotesque creature no one wants to listen to?" I doubt something like that happened. I'm probably trying to impress upon God human emotions and qualities. But it is amusing to think about.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case, you fail by default.”

~ J.K. Rowling

“I try to take one day at a time but sometimes several days attack me at once.”

~ Ashleigh Brilliant

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

“Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there’s no point trying to look in that direction because it won’t be coming from there.”

~ Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

"Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

~ O Me! O Life! by Walt Whitman

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words are meerly the smallest element of language capable of containing meaning and isolation and as such could never directly produce the 4000 Newtons of force per square centimeter required to break bones."

~ Michael Stevens of Vsauce

"Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild."

~ Alexander Supertramp (From Into the Wild)

Philosphy on the final item of a set

As I see it, there are two ways to view an item that is the last of a set of "roughly identical" items: as simply the final iteration or as something that must be, in a way, the punctuation and somewhat encompass all that came before it.

The former is a very easy method to choose. It's the same as what has been done before and it will be done again (but for the last time). It doesn't try to assess any of its predecessors, but simply adds to them. It says what needs to be said and is done.

The latter is a much more challenging task. It requires a careful contemplation (not to mention- memory) of everything before it. All the previous information must be summed up perfectly and, if necessary, abbreviated appropriately. It may add new information to the set or it may not, but regardless, the majority of its goal is to bring to an excellent conclusion all history of its relatives.

Quote about the Cell

[Posted more for the humor than the topic, yet posted nonetheless]

(Written about the first cell of a person formed when sperm meets egg)
"The mere existence of that cell should be one of the great astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell...
     If you like being surprised, there's the source. One cell is switched on to become the whole trillion-cell, massive apparatus for thinking and imagining and, for that matter, being surprised. All the information needed for learning to read and write, playing the piano, arguing before senatorial subcommittees, walking across a street through traffic, or the marvelous human act of putting out one hand and leaning against a tree, is contained in that first cell. All of grammar, all syntax, all arithmetic, all music...
     No one has the ghost of an idea how this works, and nothing else in life can ever be so puzzling. If anyone does succeed in explaining it, within my lifetime, I will charter a skywriting airplane, maybe a whole fleet of them, and send them aloft to write one great exclamation point after another, around the whole sky, until all my money runs out."

~ Lewis Thomas (Scientist and Physician)

My thoughts:

Simply put, can you imagine what the world and our testimonies might be like if we took the above quote, replaced any reference to "that cell" with Christ, then followed it?

A lesson in humility

Preface: This post does not by any means claim to be a comprehensive and complete description of my thoughts on the subject. I simply read through II Corinthians 12 today and felt compelled to write about the subject. If you have not read (or even if you have read) II Corinthians 12, I urge you to read it before you read this post so that you may gain a better understanding of what it is I am saying here.

There are some people that I have come across here at Cedarville that simply proclaim God's glory while taking little credit themselves. I yearn to be one of these people. I desire to be not of this world and to only think about He who has created me to praise His glory. The thing that holds me back is that my outward image, which I have have worked so long to form, would be changed. And that change takes hard work.

One step I have made in that direction is to memorize one of the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards was a Theologian that had written down many (70) resolutions about how he would live his life. My favorite (and the one that I have to work on the most) is #8. It is:

"Resolved to act and to think as if there has never been someone so vile as I, as if I had committed the same sins as any other, or had the same illnesses or failings as others; and that I would not let this knowledge of others' failings promote in me anything but personal shame in myself, and let such an occasion be an opportunity to confess my own sins and miseries to God."

I am a horrible person. We all are, but (with the knowledge I have of myself that only I and my Creator can have) I am especially horrible. This resolution sums it up very succinctly and efficiently and I wish it were on my mind always. Every moment before I speak, I wish it were on my mind. But now I see an even greater summation of such thoughts. And should we be surprised that it comes from the very mind of God?

 "Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure...And [God] said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

~ II Corinthians 12:5-7, 9-10

Can it be said any better than that? Even if we can guarantee that we speak the truth, we should refrain so that no one thinks of us higher than what he should. Even the VERY WORDS OF OUR MOUTHS should be stopped so that they don't cause us to be prideful. I can only wish for the "thorn in the flesh" that Paul had that caused him to remember to be humble. If I have such a thing (which I'm sure I do), then I must locate it and bring it to the forefront of my thoughts at all times. (One note- this passage is NOT saying that we should sin so that we can see that God's strength is stronger. For a repeal to that argument, see Romans 6. All of it.)

Please pray that I am humbled every moment of every day. Pray that God will break me more than I every thought I could be broken so that I may recognize (and, more importantly, proclaim) that His grace has been made known to me. Proclaim, not so that I may be brought higher, but that He might be made known.

Easter Sunday Rant

When I attended the Easter Sunday service today at a church in Xenia, the pastor wasn't my favorite. The way he presented the message seemed to me as a view that followed the "that seems deep but it really isn't, it's just catchy" type of view that our modern society so often falls victim to. In addition to that, there were two times when the pastor said things that I didn't agree with.

First: The first was something that could've been interpreted as offensive, but I prefer to interpret it as the pastor's misinterpretation of the scriptures (or rather the pastor taking an opportunity to follow the mindset mentioned above and say something that was catchy, but not true). He was talking about how the scriptures often mention childbirth as an example of pain (*side note: it is my belief that whenever someone speaks of something of which they have no experience, that there should either be a preface of "I have no experience in this" or that such a topic should be avoided altogether. I usually choose the latter). When he tried to connect it to Jesus in the tomb, he said, "Jesus couldn't be held in the tomb anymore than a woman can hold a child in her womb."

My Response: First off, this rhymes and automatically makes it pleasing to the ears, causing it to become one of those sayings mentioned above (catchy, but not necessarily with any truth behind it, yet people disregard the truth for the "catchiness" of it). Secondly, to address the actual truth behind this- I think these are two different things that shouldn't be connected. The reason I think that the scriptures refer to childbirth pains is that some men (again, I have no experience in this, I'm merely speculating) recognize that childbirth, especially back then, is extremely painful and among their reference for "examples of great pain", that was the most common.

Secondly: The part that irks me the most about his message was actually something that came before the aforementioned comment. The pastor was discussing how some people might view God sending His Son to die on the cross as child abuse. He then proceeded to say, "Is it child abuse if you know you can bring your Son back from the dead?"

My Response: The first thing I usually think about when asked questions like this is to compare other examples and I immediately disproved his view. Is it child abuse if you light your child on fire, knowing that you'll douse them in water in a couple minutes? Is it child abuse to hold your child under water until they drown as long as you know CPR and can revive them? Yes. Of course it is. The end does not necessarily justify the means (that saying isn't necessarily fully applicable here, but it's close). The act of child abuse is not discounted and considered to not be child abuse simply because there was a later act of good will. What I think the keys are here in viewing God's choice to send Jesus to die on the cross are this: God not only sacrificed His Son, He sacrificed Himself ("I and the Father are One" ~John 10:30) and we must be very careful not to apply our human ideas to our non-human God. I will expound upon the second key. "Child Abuse" (even as just a phrase in itself) has very negative connotations attached to it in our minds and child abuse has to do with humans not following human standards. We cannot apply human actions and restrictions to a non-human God (no matter how strange and irrational it may seem). God is not human and He is above our reasoning, of this I am certain. "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord." ~Isaiah 55:8.

Challenge Accepted: Minimalism

I have decided to become a minimalist as much as possible. This is particularly hard for me not because I keep lots of things in the sense that I am a horder, but that I keep lots of things in the sense that I like to "keep my options open". For instance, I may have 3 different apps on my tablet that all do practically the same thing, but I like each for different features. Some apps I even just download once, explore a bit, then never use them again. This can also be applied to other areas of my life. I'm wasteful in some of my food (e.g. I'll buy a dozen eggs only to use half), I don't ever wear some of my clothes, or some books don't ever get read.

I am beginning a mission. I will try to cut out the parts of my life that are not used (or are rarely used) in order to better spread my blessings and wealth to others. I'll get rid of the clothes I don't wear, buy less food (or make an effort to eat more of the stuff I do buy), etc. Books are the only thing I haven't convinced myself to cut out. I'm trying to build a library of books so that I may share it with others and show others my...je ne sais quoi...personality? of books I like.

Along with this will come the Hunter-Gatherer diet and other implementations.

The Hunter-Gatherer diet (also known as the Paleolithic diet) basically states that I cannot eat anything that, bluntly, can't be hunted or gathered. This means any food that is more than one "separation" away from a hunting or gathering state cannot be eaten (e.g. bread, ice cream, cheese, cereal, etc). As some examples, I can eat eggs, milk, nuts, seeds, meat, spices, vegetables, fruit, rice, beans, etc. There is one thing that I am allowing (because I know it to often be healthy and because when I have these meals I often make GORP) and that is granola. Something else that is kinda controversial (in my mind, at least) is fruit juice (apple, orange, etc). The main idea behind the Hunter-Gatherer diet is to avoid processed food.

The reasons for this are four: an effort to improve on my life (physically, mentally, etc), to bring myself into a closer relationship with my Creator, to improve the ideas that others hold of me, and to prepare myself for my hike of the PCT (where the food supply will be restricted to much fewer options).

Philosophy of Vacations

When working tonight I was closing down the SSC and I heard a commercial about vacations. Obviously it was advertising a vacation spot. Spurred by my contempt for things of commerce and the ever-fleeting idea of "I have to have the next great thing", I started to analyze vacations. To me, they often seem like a form of quitting or giving up. "I've been doing this for a while, so I think I need a vacation." You don't need a vacation. You want a vacation. Besides that small grammar fact, does it strike anyone else oddly that vacations are pretty much a "First World Country" idea? Mainly this is because in other countries, it is often the case that working is how you survive. You can't afford to take a day off (no matter what). This is even often true in our First World countries, so maybe I should define this as the idea of the Upper and Middle societal classes.

Our society is so used to being able to give up and quit when we like that our will power and perseverance have lost their strength. When throw in the towel when the going gets tough  and we don't try new things (because if something's too hard for us, how will we ever complete it?).

This is probably just another one of those things where I look upon it in contempt because we use our wealth for things we don't need where someone else could use it for things they do need. I believe an equal distribution of wealth is paramount to any other issue facing our world today.

Tonight is the first all-nighter of, I believe, my college career. That is, if it indeed ends up being an all-nighter. I have a Calculus III assignment due tomorrow, a Dynamics test tomorrow, and 10 papers due tomorrow in Social Psychology (of which, at the beginning of this night, I had done 6). Poor planning on my part. Also, I am driving some students to the Airport through SCAB's airport transportation service at 0500 tomor--correction: today. To keep me awake, I have two energy drinks: the standard Guava Rockstar (my energy drink of choice) and a Monster Rehab (which is a line of Monster energy drinks with a tea base). I don't usually enjoy Monster (and I am not too much this one) but I kinda like the black tea-lemonade-energy drink combination. It is definitely something that is an acquired taste though. I am saving the other for last and drinking the Monster first.

I do believe in the limited capabilities of words, but I believe even more in the power of them. Words bring great ideas to their knees and transfer them from one mind to another through the audible voice. Without them our ideas would run wild without any bounds or limitations. It is as if we are trying to catch a school of fish and we focus on trying to catch every fish rather than trying to define which fish we should (and can) catch. Words are the net that we throw out to show where an idea begins and ends and how it is different from this idea and that one.