Unexplained Notes On The Twenty-Seventh of March (ever expanding in mystic profundity)

Early Rise. Late Start. Close call. The Lord be praised. Coffee and Pancakes.

Listened to 1980 debate between Dr. R.C. Sproul and Dr. Greg Bahnsen on apologetics methodologies (Classical Synthesis and Presuppositionalism)

Ordered Chinese Food, will probably be here in about an hour- who's excited? (and how do you type a dash instead of a hyphen anyways?)

Chipped ice in front of apartment door- safety level is up 67%.

Eating an egg-roll right now- it is amazing.

Practiced guitar.

Found and copied a few choice definitions.

Took a Star-Trek break. Those Zindi are really gonna get it.

Quote of the Week III

"Really? That's too bad." He smiled. "May I suggest something? The next time you decide to call God, call me. Call God by calling me." To my religious ears, his suggestion sounded profane. Did this guy think he was God? He checked himself, as though reading my mind. "Not that I'm God or anything," he said. "Lucky for both of us, I'm not. But God does speak to me through other people, and I'm fairly confident he's able to speak to you through someone like me."

(from Nate Larkin's book "Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood" Thomas Nelson Inc. Nashville: 2006)

Quote of the Week II

"For now, to survive, I choose both acceptance and indignation. Then, even though your loss will never be okay, someday I will be." (Molly Fumia. "Safe Passage Words to Help the Grieving". Conari Press: 2003.)

Somethings cannot be undone by us. Sometimes we get in so far over our heads that we really are unable to fix it. I would like for the world to be a great place to live. I would like to fix all its problems. I cannot.

I am almost overwhelmed by the pain I see in the world sometimes. It is truly a nasty place. Reality is brutal at times. And we are so weak. Lord have mercy upon us. If you blink, we will perish.

A Note About Powerlessness

Someone I knew just committed suicide. If I were to carry the metaphor out further- would I say that that person lost the war? In the aftermath of tragedy like this all my words fail me. What could I possibly say? What could I possibly do? I cannot make it right. I cannot turn back time. I am powerless to help those left behind. And I feel a great pain and sadness that makes me think maybe I should take the problem of evil more seriously- perhaps not for the philosopher, mind you, but for the grieving parent, for my friends.

I have always expected life to turn out bad. I have always wondered why some expected otherwise. But what parent could hope for anything but good things for their child? There are so many things in life we might wish to understand. There are so many things that we do not. Today and for a time I will mourn. Today and for a time we will all mourn. That, at least, makes sense.

Christian Cadre

I have stumbled upon a great resource. I wish I had found this a long time ago. If you are interested in Apologetics, the audio section of this site has links to all of my favourite places plus a few I had not heard of before. Quite a lot of work. My hat is off to the chaps at Christian Cadre. There is a link to the homepage on the side to your right (under the heading, "other resources"). Go and check it out.

Quote of the Week I

"The Roman Catholic apologists have worked out elaborate arguments to prove that theology and philosophy cover clearly differentiated domains of reality and follow clearly differentiated methods of investigation. Philosophy is said to deal with the domain of the natural reason, and Christianity is said to deal with the domain of faith. Theology, says Jacques Maritain, presupposes certain 'fundamental truths of the natural order as an introduction to the faith.' On the other hand, 'The premises of philosophy are self-supported and are not derived from those of theology'" (Van Til, Cornelius. "Christian Apologetics". P&R Publishing. Phillipsburg: 2003.)

Introduction To The Quote Of The Week.

I am going to start posting a "quote of the week" every week. I will not comment on it myself in a post for several days (if at all). I will, however, respond to comments on the quote. I (as always) encourage comments (dissenting, and the occasional "amen", as one sees fit). We shall see how she goes.

Responsibility and Control

Have you ever dreamed of something that seemed impossible? Have you ever woke up one morning only to find that not only was it possible, but because you had thought it impossible, you had not prepared for it- and now it was highly unlikely? Have you ever thought to yourself, "I'm stuck, and it is my own fault."? I have something to say about all this. As many people know, what you believe affects how you act. As fewer people know, you are not exactly in complete control of what you believe (try to stop believing that your mother,at one time, was alive and existed- go ahead and tell me what kind of genuine control you have over that). This means that in an important sense, you are not in complete control over how you act. You are, however, pretty well responsible for how you act. There is a tension that should haunt you a bit. Or perhaps it should haunt you a lot. I ask myself sometimes, "how did I get here?" It is not always so readily apparent.

The Dirtiness of Self

I have always disliked Wal-Mart. Every time I go into one of their stores I feel out of place. I feel extremely uncomfortable. I have nothing against big business in principle mind you- so it is not that. I have often wondered just what it is that bothers me so much about Wally World. I have never been able to figure it out. Sure, the people are fatter, poorer, and dirtier than in other stores (and at least half of the customers always seem to be wearing sweat-pants), but I do not feel out of place in an inner-city setting, or a third-world setting (both of which often have poorer and dirtier people... although not usually fatter). And let us not forget that I am not rich and I have read and accepted the book of James (among others). So the people do not seem to be sufficient reason for me to be disturbed every time I walk into a Wal-Mart. There is the huge amount of cheap crap for sale- but other places (like the Christmas Tree shop, or Building 19) which also sell loads of crap do not weird me out in the slightest. There is the "heard-of-sheep-grazing" set-up in the store that appeals to a particular type of consumerism that offers almost no concern for the product offered and very little customer service. It's all just "help yourself", if you will. That still does not seem like enough to really get under my skin, though.

So What could it be? Well, I am still not really sure. However, I think that the whole poverty of the place might remind me of everything I see as cheap and dirty in myself. Perhaps I need to come to terms (in some manner of speaking) with all of the work yet to be done by God in my own life. Perhaps I still hate myself a little too much and don't really like to be reminded of it. I suppose time will tell. Thank God for His faithfulness.

Brief Moments Out

I had some amazing cream-puff things tonight. They were really fabulous. And I don't even care how that sounds. Sometimes you just have to take a break and eat.

And Then

And then I said, "I love you."
And all the world apart
And Oh the silence when it fell,
It took with it my heart.

And then it was that I did doubt
That you were ever real
And all the things you never did
Took on a different feel.

And then you said, "I'm leaving."
And all the doubt was gone
And apparently it mattered most
That you would feel a certain way.

War With Self

Some people have asked me why I consider it necessary to view my own life as a war with myself. The anonymous have claimed it was disturbing. Some have thought it over the top. Many have not had the faintest idea what I mean by, "War With Self". Now I normally don't like to answer questions- and so usually I just shrug and remain silent. This night, however, I choose to speak. It is not that many would listen- and the ones who ask and complain and object are the least likely to listen to what I have to say here. The truth of the matter is that I spent most of my life with a self-loathing that some would find hard to believe. People didn't understand. People didn't even usually see it. I would think to myself, "they just don't understand because they have led better lives than I have. They have not screwed up the way I have. Some of them probably don't even really know what regret is." Now I may know better now (a bit, anyways), but that was then and then is never now.

With the dismal view of myself that I had, it was easy for me to accept that I could never reach God on my own. The Christian view of humanity fit perfectly with my own experience. When I read, "In Adam's fall, we sinned all," I felt a chord struck inside deep down. I knew what that meant. When I first heard the term, "total depravity" I thought, "what an apt description of my own miserable self."

This miserable self had zero recourse available in its noetic structure to fall back upon from within. And that which you hate is usually your enemy- and enemies must be slain in war. If they are not, you, yourself will be slain. And what did I hate more than anything else? What did I hate more than my dead father, more than the pain, more than the hostile cruel joke of a world? What did I hate more than the evil without? I hated the evil within. I transferred the evil within to be all of me- and so I hated myself. And something had to give. Something had to go. Only blood would bring peace.

But while I took total depravity to be something other than it was- namely that I was as bad as I could be, or that I was all bad, I was partly right, and it is very hard to shake a lie that is mostly true. I believed myself to be worthless, depraved and destitute of value. I was a fatalist long before I ever heard the name of John Calvin- and no amount of arminian-handwaving-bullshit would ever shake the error out of me. The vacuousness of the whole system (if you can even call it that) was ineffective in instilling anything but terror in my young mind (and you should know that it was only a thorough study of the doctrine of predestination that began to shake the fatalistic hopeless lies). The extent of the fall was not clear to me, but I had this hope (inconsistent though it was): though I could not reach God at all in this life, yet when I died or He returned He would make things right and fix what was broken. I awaited the second coming as one awaits air support when pinned down in battle. I had no hope for this life- I expected only suffering and misery. And this was deserved- as if all of life was a long purgatory. I was guilty of believing everything that Nietzsche claimed Christians believed. And I am sure I was not alone.

In this structure of belief, the idea of war is of course apt. All is bad; all must be destroyed. In the end it will be set right- until then you will fight to the death. Of course I was at war with myself. The full extent of the gospel was not yet clear to me (not to imply that I have arrived now, but...).

I was not, however, all bad. This life is not a lost cause. It did not turn out to be true that hope was only for the "after-life". And yet I still hang on to this imagery of warring with myself.

The truth is that it is a serious thing to deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Jesus. I cannot demand metaphors of others. I do, however, choose my own. I may have good things, I may not have lost out for this life, but that does not mean that I am in no need of crucifixtion. I still sin. I still see darkly. I still rage against the right. I am still at war. I am at war with myself.

Late and Great I Feel A Void

I do not know about you, but I am still not sure it has really hit me yet. Sir Edmund Hillary is dead. I know it happened more than a month ago- but somehow I still feel like I am in shock. It is very similar to the way I felt after Alex Lowe died. Edmund Hillary was the first man to step on top of the highest mountain on the planet. I wish I had words to describe... I do not have them. I am sad to see him gone.