If you have never been in a Native American Sweat Lodge I recomend it. I have some Choctaw friends in middle Mississippi that let me sweat with them. It is an interesting process. There is this lodge built so that no heat can escape, and they keep bringing in pumice rock that has been in the fire for a couple hours.

It is a wonderful experience. I am writing about this because I have been invited to sweat again. Of course I am going to go, my last sweat was a couple months ago. There are points during the sweat I feel like I am going to drop dead and I put my face directly against the ground searching for cool air. If you have never done it I recomend you make some Native American friends and try, even for a Christian there are deep spiritual benefits.

I went with my roomate today to the Circuit Playhouse in memphis. "tuesday's with Morrie" was playing, I had read the book. I have read it and Mitch's other one "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." I really like a lot of what Mitch Albom has to say. If you have never read either of the books I recomend both.

The first is about living life, the second is about understanding the life you have lived. It reminds me how easy it would be for me to waste away in front of the television or the internet or even with a good book. I have a hard time experiencing life, living in the day, making the best of the relationships I have and have had. I often get into a rut of looking back on my life with displeasure. Through some parts of my life I was like a tornado leaving a wake of disaster behind me, ask a few of my exgirlfriends. Some parts of my life were so lifeless that it was like I didn't even live.

I was sitting in the theater today thinking, "I wish I could have already seen this play instead of sitting through it now." Not because I didn't like the play but because it is so hard for me to focus attention. Having said that I also want to say I love the theater. I prefer it to the movies, because the people, I believe, are doing harder work, they can forget a line, have a bad day and so on.

I cried in parts of this play, and wept in others. Morrie was a college teacher, and though he moved data from his mind to that of his students, that wasn't his whole philosophy of teaching. Morrie inspired. When I preach or teach I move data, but more than that I want to inspire and give hope.

In the end, I look back on my past, in friends basements doing things that the good kid everyone saw wouldn't do, the pain I caused other and has been caused in me because of others. My favorite movie is called "Shadowlands." It is about really understanding what it means to love. to love will cause one to feel pain. The statement in that movie concerning the death of his wife joy, spoken by his wife, in the movie, is : the pain then [after her death] is part of the joy now.

Some wonderful friends left me this summer and I debated as to whether or not it is even worth loving just to lose the closest people to me. However I know, of course it is worth it. The pain in loss attests most of all the sweetness of the relationship.

As Morrie said, " Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you."
-tuesday's with Morrie., 157

I was translating from Codex Beza today. In class we were translating a section from Mark but not from the normal UBS or NA text. It was so cool to be reading from a text, even though it was a western text, that wasn't cut and pasted together from differernt readings.

I had the last meeting of my last summer course. A greek class worth one hour. We met weekly and translated. Parts of it were very fun but I got very tired of it in the end. My translations actually got sloppier as the summer went along. I think part of it was that I was in summer mode and didn't care to do much work.

Here is a quote to think of:

Generally bu the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

Some time ago I helped a dear friend load up her moving truck and go. My help was paid for with what is called a Sorbet Fizz. The Sorbet Fizz is TCBY's mix of sorbet and sprite. It is an amazing drink. There is a fizzy creamyness to it that tingles the tummy and brings joy to the palat. This certain Fizz I drank was Orange Sorbet. I love that orangy taste especially when it is mixed with the tingle of soda.

Yesterday I was going to treat myself to a sorbet fizz, just as I had it before. The Orange, the fizz... wow what a combo then after standing in a long line at TCBY I found they had no orange sorbet. So without thinking I just figured they were out and went to another TCBY, this is memphis we have like fifteen of everything in driving distance and like fifty starbucks shops.

So I walked into the other TCBY and made my request, "One large Sorbet Fizz please," and the individual behind the counter began to make my fizz, I had figured it would be just like that first one I had that brought so much joy to my palat. Then he finished, and set it before me, it was green, not the wonderful orange that I had before. I said to this man, "last time I had this it was Orange," and his reply almost broke me.

"The flavor changes with the sorbet of the day." I didn't take the green monster before, hung my head and walked out the door.

Today I went to the supermarket, picked up some Orange Sherbet, and Sprite. I mixed them together using my hand mixer. After two tries, I never matched the taste of that Sorbet Fizz. Maybe it is because of the sentiment of the situation... something I will never taste again because the taste was not simply the mix of two wonderful ingrediants but also the situation of seeing a dear friend leave... The bitterness of an event showing me the depth of the sweetness for so long I had been a part of.

Maybe I will never have another good sorbet fizz, but I will always have the wonderful memory of that sweet mix of orange sorbet and sprite.

I feel like the Lord lead me to Ezekiel 34 today. It is a wonderful passage of scripture. The thing is to me that I don't know a lot about the book of Ezekiel, only that a lot of weird stuff goes on in it. Before writing this I had to consult a commentary and at that I have found that the book is very complicated. Ezekiel is among the exiles in Babylon, and I can't talk much about the message he is carrying and to whom he is carrying it. Regardless, this leads me to study the book of Ezekiel better in the future. I believe the temple has been destroyed by this time Jews are in exile, it is looking pretty bad and they aren't expected to get out of exile any time soon.

Chapter 35 is intersting, it is about a shepherd, and sheep. You see the shepherds had grown fat, so they were judged in their obesity. Then there were the sheep, they had gone astray for lack of leadership. Ezekiel points out (as I take the cannonical purpose of Ezekiel) that God makes the decision to gather his sheep back together. Chapter 37 is one of those well known chapters about the dry bones comming to life. The dry bones represent Israel and they, as Israel will come back to life.

These allagories strike me from the perspective of one who wants to be clergy. I am reminded about how easy it is to make my Bible study a matter of acedemics instead of God. See, the greats, St Basil, Athenasius, even Augustine, the entire purpose of their writing was to bring people closer to God. If you read my booklist below you might even note that I add CS Lewis to this. All of these men had their flaws, but their point it to help people understand God and the things that keep us from him.

Things like that were all thrown out the window in the 19th century with the rise of modernism and of German Libralism (Libral meaning the critical study of scripture apart from faith). There is currently a rise in the desire to go back to faith based study. To making it be about knowing God.

Of course let me get back to why this chapter strikes me. Will I be a fat shepherd or a good shepherd. This has nothing to do with my weight but how I vew my ministry. Simply put will I make it God centered or me centered. One way that manifests istself is in my desire to work and play well with others. I don't think during the day, how can this bring me closer to God, I think , "what can I get out of this?" As a leader people will depend on me. That is why I have been so thankful that I have the chance to be in seminary. My time around spiritual giants changes me, humbles me, and helps me understand there is a mystery to all of this. But still, I fear, I fear of falling into the pit of being a fat shepherd.

Now I take into account that we read this section as a messianic prophesy and that I am not the "Good Shepherd," but it also makes me ask, "What kind of leader am I amongst the sheep?"

My computer is sick, I think it has had some unprotected contact with other computers. What is funny is that I have an antivirus program, a spyware thing, and a firewall. What the heck.

Anyway... I want to give a "must read," or a "books I like" list.

Non Fiction
Mere Christianity- CS Lewis
1 Corinthians - Richard Oster
Practicing the Presence of God- Brother Lawrence
The Imitation of Christ- Thomas a Kempis
1 Maccabeas
Tobit
The Book of Commin Prayer
St. Chrysostems Liturgy

Theologcial Fiction
Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet- CS Lewis
Till they Have Faces- CS Lewis
In the Beginning- Chaim Potock
Davida's Harp- Chaim Potock
Night- Eli Wiesel
Dawn- Eli Wiesel
Jacob's Ladder- Noah Ben Shea

Fiction
The Unabridged Hitchikers Guide- Douglass Adams
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul- Douglass Adams
The Lord of the Rings- Tolkein
Blankets- Craig Thompson
Arabian Nights - Any Good Translation
For one volume Jack Zipes/ Malphers and Mathers in 4 Volumes

This is a working list, what do you think?

I was sitting on my couch this evening with Abraham, one of my birds, sitting on my shoulder. I made pirate sounds a few times because, well I mean, do I really need to explain it? I really wish I had a picture of it to post but what can you do?

New Bulla Found!!!

I know what you are asking, "what is a bulla?" Long long ago in a land called the Near East kings would impress parchment with a seal showing that it was from the king. These seals would often have the full name of the king, or scribe that was making the proclamtion. We really don't find these seals, however, they were imprinted in clay. When the seal was broken the clay would fall to the ground and be forgotten, it was basically garbage, we call that garbage, "Bulla."

This Bulla (not to be confused with a wooly bulla) has the name "Yehukal son of Shelemyahu son of Shobai (or: Shobi)." A name very similar to this appears in Jeremiah 37:3 Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah. Take into account yahu is a form of the sacred name Yahweh. Elijah's name in Hebrew actually sounds like Eliyahu, so shelemyahu to shelamiah is not a far switch. Iah, or Jah, is a common alteration for western language. Like Jeremiah which is in hebrew more like Yirahyahu.

Well, we can't be 100 percent right now that this is the same person, another blogger has pointed out a possible problem with the letter that they have made into the sh sound. check out here for a discussion of the bulla with the hebrew text apearing on it and here for a photo and the sin/shin question, for all those linguaphiles.

An old roomate friend of mine has been in town so we threw a party. I enjoy paries, even more when I throw them. Mainly because I can stand at the grill and hide then clean up in the kitchen when I am tired of being around people. It is also really fun to see how many people I can get into my apartment. Of course it is mainly old Harding people, not everyone but a lot, so when we get together there is no alcohol or loud music, just a lot of burgers, soda, and we play a good bit of mofia. Mofia is an intersting game, especially if you like watching people try to be deceptive, A game that is based off of lying somewhat like a game I used to play initialed BS.

I have found out I like to grill out, I think I am going to get a grill, since the one here belongs to someone else, I am going to grill out in the middle of winter. Especially if it is the day in the memphis winter that it snows. Because unlike growing up in the northern panhandle of West Virginia which would get well over a foot over night. Now I know that the people from the Dakota's and Wisconson and such think "ooh a foot, we get like 10 feet" but it is enough for me to not like snow anymore.

anyway God Bless

Last night I went to Bible study, and we dealt with 1 Peter 3. I was unhappy the leader chose not to deal to heavily with the reference to the spirits in prison, I always like those fun refrents to odd books not in our cannon.

All in all the major point we chose to discuss was submission. At the end of chapter two slaves submit to masters and at three wives submit to husbands. I also understand a mutual submission when i look at places like Ephesians 5, in submitting to one another. There is a good bit in the New Testament about submission, to rulers, to God also Jesus in the garden during the Night with Ebon Pinion.

Submission is very countercultural. I used to work with children who were fed a steady diet of rap music and bling bling. I have seen more gold in the teeth of people who can't afford it than you imagine. Never scared!!! the words of a rap song. Outside of the club and you call me a punk, so I go to the loaded tech nine and open the trunk. Never scared!!!!

The story is simple, if you cross me you die. A long cry from the New Testament Submission.
Maybe I over simplify when I go to the words of Gandolf in the fellowship. "Many live who deserve to die. Some die who deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo?

I work myself through Graduate school by working in the maintenance department at HUGSR. I do enjoy the work. For the first two hours I drove the riding mower around and cut some grass, which in itself is a nice job. The second half of the morning involved work with the weedeater, which in Australia is referred to as a whipper snipper. I don't care much for the work during the summer heat but as it begins to cool off I will enjoy it more. Last summer was very nice. When I have papers due and am running late on things and am having ministry issues, I believe that the day after day work with a weed eater is relaxing. Or the day to day work with a paintbrush, you should look at my chapel renovation blog. I personally think I have one of the best jobs on campus. Anyway these are my daily musings.

God Bless

Have you ever noticed Macgyver never uses a gun. It goes back to when he was a kid and somehow accidently he killed a friend of his. He does all kinds of cool stuff and doesn't even carry a piece. I don't have a problem with people owning guns, I am from West Virginia, it is odd I don't hunt but i have kin who do. They like guns and NASCAR. Not incredibly strong in my family but my brother picked up the hunting thing in his adulthood. I am not opposed to hunting to killing in season, the father of one of my closest friends is a conservation officer in West Virginia. I understand the desire of venison or wild turkey (the meat not the drink) jerkey. I met some Choctaw who told me that the original hunting they did was in respect for the animals. They would say that the animals, understanding their place in teh circle of life, would come to the Choctaw people.

Well the world is differnet people have guns it is perscribed in the constitution, the right to bear arms. I have a friend who carries, I have another who has pulled the trigger finding out the gun wasn't loaded, and once years ago I stood a foot away from a Crypt who at one year younger than me had taken life on the streats.

Is there nothing that can be done? How is it that so many handguns appear on the streats? I know a lot of people who think of the abilty to take life as the ultimate power. Anything to save face. When I am wrong the hardest thing to do is admit it. My pride doesn't want me to admit it. How much harder then when I'm not wrong and my name is being slandered. My personal desire is to make people sorry they messed with me. I am wired the same way as everyone else. I forget that Vengence belongs to the Lord, and want to choose myself to make things even. What if more people accepted that Vengence belongs to the Lord.

Lately I have been trying to get a little healthier. I was doing better about a month ago when I was running three times a week and in better control of my diet. However I am not doing horrible. I am also finding that I am a fan of natural stuff. During the winter I eat a lot of whole grain oatmeal, while it is cold I tend to eat honey bunches of oats. I tend to have acid reflux issues and my grandmother who is also into the holistic stuff recomended, for years, lime water. Basically is it a liquified calcium that is heavily alkaline. Since my blood tends to be very acidic I think this is a good thing. My grandmother is a wonderful woman, not only does she send me the lime water but ph paper to test my saliva :) thanks grandma

I am also a believer in Kefir. You may be asking, what is kefir. Kefir is a form of fermented milk high in acidofolous. What is acidofolous, well I am probably spelling it wrong but hey you can check that if you want. Basically it is a form of bacteria that lives in the colon to aid in digestion. Yogert has it too. Anyway kefir is intersting, it is an acquired taste. I mix it with various juices. However, the juices are not to kind to my indigestion, however, when I am running, paying attention to my eating, and drinking my kefir the indigestion never seems to be a problem.

For info on Kefir: check out http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html
peace out!!!

I pulled my birds out trying to train my wonderful little parrotlets, and lately they have been somewhat frustrating. Parrotlets are small birds, like I have said before sometimes smaller than finches. The male chomped down on my thumb today and it was sore for a while. The male I have noticed doesn't care much to be handled, of course, however, I am not one of the more loving of owners of pets.

I am currently watching the truman show. There is an intersting statement the creature of the "show" in the movie makes, "We accept the reality we are presented with."
How often is that true. Now when it comes down to it I am simply an armchair philospher take a look below at my poetry and you might figure that out. Though it reminds me of the allagory of the cave. People living chained up staring at the wall of a cave, a fire behind them and things interacting between causing shadows to be cast on the wall. One guy breaks free and finds the biggest frustration is getting the rest of the people to want to leave their chains.

Chains of bondage, the way I see it theologically we are bonded to one thing or another. We are either bonded to God or to sin. I pull this idea from Paul. the mid 20th century brought this idea into addiction with the beginning of the use of the 12 steps of AA. In some way the addict is in bondage, either to Alcohol or his higher power. The whole thing is based off of surrender.

regardless I can always wax an elephant often enough to even get him through the door. Freedom in Christ is an intersting concept. Freedom from sin is bondage itself. There is an evengelical Christian song called "pierce my ear," in the end of the song the singer chooses to have his ear pierced in line with the Hebrew law that lets a slave choose to stay with his master after the year of his release.
Psalm 84 talks about the writers desire to be a doorman in the house of God than a good life in the homes of the wicked.

The desire for God must be greater than the desire for anything else.

Anyway this post is not pointless but very disjointed.

God Bless

Well,
I want to add a picture to my profile but to do that I have to put one in my post. That is crazy to me, if I can load a pic to the post and take their space why can't I just load one onto my profile. No one ever said it had to make sense.

So here it is, my mug, I am letting you choose what you think of it, I'm not to keen on my hair and my mustache has looked better, but I learned from Napolean Dynamite that it is important to be able to grow a mustache. It might even propel me into office. I always as a note of pride view my facial hair. Now the big question is, what do you think of that smile. taking the picture was probably weird looking because I was standing by the mirror and I just cropped out the camera in photoshop. I didn't crop it out because I thought it would be good just to have the mug, but because my digital camera model's first buyer was Enoch (the biblical character). And if I leave the camera people will add comments, assuming they read this page, that say things like, "get a new camera old camera guy" and I just can't handle that dressing down. So here it is my picture, then everyone can see who I am.

Peace and Hairgrease

It's late, I just got back from Searcy to watch the HSBS Graduation. My church supports a fellow in that program so in representation I went with our minister, I suppose minister works for a title. It was great to see Harding again. I noticed they were renovating my old dorm, so I decided to walk through it, look at one of the rooms I used to stay in. I was telling my friend about some of the weird traditions we had at Harding. It was really good, it ended with a trip to midnight oil where we ran into some guys we knew. It is funny to hang with the minister/mentor I work with. He is a total hippy with the long hair and everything, we even drove over in a van. Who would have guessed, I found a hippy for a mentor.

It is important to have mentoring in ministry. It scares me that some 22 year olds try to leave college and get jobs with no guidance. Since I have been in graduate school the best learning I have had has been from one mentor or another, whether at the urban church I worked at or the House church I currently reside with. Somewhere along the line Christians in our movement quit getting mentors. It seems like no matter what is going on in life someone has been through something like it before, wouldn't it be nice to find someone who understood and can work through it. Shoot, AA is based on a similar principle. I suppose mentoring got a bad name some years ago when a movement in our family of Christianity broke free in Florida through a campus ministry and moved to Boston. At that point, discipling became a bad word for us main liners, as called by the international C of C'ers.

My final words, find a mentor, some Christian older than you, who is in a place you might someday want to be in.

God Bless

These are my burds, starting from the left, Sarah, and Abraham. They are parrotlets. Supposed to be very nice social birds. Not always the best of birds though. They are tiny little birds, smaller than finches. It is always nice to have something to take care of.

I am going to Searcy this afternoon to watch a friend graduate from the HSBS program. I met the guy at mychurch in memphis. You should check out the webpage, we are a collection of house churches in the greater memphis area. It is weird, I started in memphis working in the inner city, and I see there are people who live in the greater area with as many issues. The issues are generally the same.

I currently have a year left in my program at HUGSR, I will graduate with a Masters of Divinity. After school I am thinking of going into Hospital Chaplency. The direction God has been leading me is intersting, wherever I minister and whatever I do, I want to give people hope.

In my life and the lives of the people I have worked with and befriended in Memphis, I see this great lack of hope. The world we live in is not designed to give people hope. Read my poetry :). I hope I can help people find hope

Well,

I haven't posted on this site in years, so if you want to read some of my bad poetry go ahead. I will change it for no man or woman. Not necissarily proud of it all but i figure if I am going to call the thing the journey I might as well let you see it. I remember that poem, it was a very lonely time. It is always neet to see how far I have come and how far I still need to go. To know me you have to be able to understand grace.

Anyway, I helped a wonderful friend move today. It was very sad, I didn't know what to do with that. I was so sad when I left, but that is Okay, being sad is important. I used to thrive in my saddness, now that I let my friends see this blog, I suppose I have to accept that I used to choose to live my life in the dark pits of despare because I belived it made people think I was deep or smart or something.

anyway God Bless

Netherworld: The great reconciliation

I dreamt one morning that the darkness came…
Of the things of true night and never ending rain…

I dreamt one night of the eternal morn
Of the sunshine of God forgetting my scorn…

The damn pain
As I lose my control
The damn hurt
As I give in to my burn

Elated decision
Forgotten once more
To flog the prisoner
The candy assed whore.

Where does my help come from
My help comes from my death
Where’s God when I pay the pest
Where’s the face that shines on me
Bound by my sin never set free…

Where’s God when I want to die
Watching waiting and listening to me cry
Listening hearing when my muscles jerk
Hearing the cry when I lose my perk…

Where does my help come from?
My help comes from my death
Where’s God when I pay the pest
Here’s the face that shines on me
Ever more setting me free…

Elated decision
Forgotten no more
No peaceful sleep
Purifying the whore

The great joy
When I win the race
The great love
When I stand again to face

I dreamt one morning that the darkness came…
Of the things of true night and never ending rain…

I dreamt one night of the eternal morn
Of the sunshine of God forgetting my scorn…


just a note, I concieved a lot of this from CS Lewis' Great divource

To find things Lost

Forgotten, impoverished, and dusty
My soul it longs to hear
Forever, eternal, never
My heart is begs in fear

Elation, joy, and bright
Lost for years to come
Despair, pain, and death
Lost in history now numb

Happy…
There’s happy
Sad…
There’s sad

Living…
I suppose
Dead…
Never so bad

My search for the center begins at the edge
My God to dismember my heart with a sledge
Elation to enter, Despair as well
Love in the embers, and fires-- far from hell.