""

to-day's quotation shall be posted here because I cannot access angelfire at the moment.

"I thought we were friends, Derek!"
"My name is ANDY!!"
"Your name is Liar because you're telling lies!"

Another? My five-year-old brother told me two knock-knock jokes that were pretty standard and then, when he found he had run out of material, he created a joke on the spot:

"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Q."
"Q who?"
"Q ... is a fat head."

I am slightly bored

To-day's quote from The Colbert Report is as follows:

His guest author, Peggy Noonan who wrote "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father", had just told Colbert how soon she thought the Pope would enter sainthood -- sooner than he normally would because the people of the Catholic church have already acclaimed him as such. He responds...

Colbert: So there's a chance the shrine in my home will become official soon?
Noonan: [hesitantly] Is it a shrine to Pope John Paul?
Colbert: [Yea, we love the Pope around our house.] I named my son John Paul.
Noonan: Did you really?
Colbert: Yea, he's four years old; we call him Your Holiness.


To-day's shower epiphany:

The reason we find difficulty in viewing all sins as equal is that we evaluate them by how much they grieve man.

Thursday, 22 December, 2005:)

What's to-day's revelation? Why I am simply too eager to tell you!

While walking west along Evans Avenue past Islington Avenue, I realized that good things are not God. Similarly, things that God has commanded, things that the Bible says are good, things that are for other people - noble endeavors for sure are not God. Only He is who He says He is. (The application? Only He should be focused on, nothing else.)

This meant much to me during my trek because I am overwhelmed and distracted (perhaps with a sprinkling of Confused) these days and it was nice to promenade for an hour or so in the cold, listening to good music and a good God. I felt slightly cleansed but, moreover, I see now how unclean I actually was. In the words of Kanye West, "I did dirt and went to church to get my hands scrubbed." I .. you know what kind of thing I am talking about. Basic neglect, I guess; or apathy. Ahh, yes. There is nothing quite like simplicity. I do miss church a little bit, too.

declaration part five

**Last Sunday, I heard an amazing sermon (preached partly by a good friend of mine [rock on]) that was invaluably useful to me and instrumental in changing my view on evangelism. The sermon was entitled Enlarging my Heart and point number four explains how that happens when we are ...

Sharing our Faith
"But that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him." 1 Timothy 1:16

**Some of the ideas that struck me hard as refreshing and relieving...

-"believe God for appointments"
-"in the Bible, there are no stereotypes" [of evangelizers]
-evangelism means "us wanting them to have what [we]’ve got (often they do not respond and it hurts)"

**This concept in particular resonated with me entirely. It has helped me to better understand the Great Commission, making me eager to take my medicine with the bitter/foul edge taken off the taste...

"We were not called to be ‘hunters of men’!" After two shots, the prey will scamper away, never to return; afraid of double barrels and fluorescent jackets forever. "Fishers" have something the fish want. If people don’t want anything you’ve got, don’t witness to anybody! The timing is up to the fish."

**Simply put, the exhortation was...

"Be yourself and tell your story!"

**We were told that our response should be to...

Keep Praying, Keep Sharing
"So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time." Galatians 6:9

I had an epiphany:

If we are all created in the image of God - all reflections of some facet of Him - then how can we compete with one another? How can one part of God be better than another?


[sister posts: 25/01/05:), 29/03/05:)]

analogy

You walk into the doctor's office and have a seat on the long, papered chair. You tell the trained professional of all your ailments, routinely shifting your gaze between his eyes, your bum knee and the certificates on his wall. He watches you carefully and listens intentely, periodically making sparse notes on his clipboard that you can neither see nor understand. With a finalizing, "Aaaaand that's about it," you stop talking and breathe deeply. The doctor says, "Alright," confidently in a tone that shows he is (surprizingly) not overwhelmed. He turns away to look for a piece of equipment when you swiftly sidle out of the room as you barely hear him inhale grandly before he would have begun to pronounce your long list of exact problems and exact solutions. *


Between pages upon pages of praise and petitions, I need to stop and give God an opportunity to speak.




*NOTE: this idea is not original (only the creative expression) so I do not take full credit.

revelation part 3

(Being convinced to sin is a one-sided argument.)

You know that sin you have that you can convince yourself is OK sometimes? You know the one that is only written about in the Bible under a larger category or in such vague terms that loopholes are abundant? You know the one you can imagine yourself doing at certain times "in the heat of the moment" even though you have had time to plan it? You know how the guilt you (would) feel afterward is not enough for your repentance to be full and sincere?

I have a sin like that which has been bothering me since my first semester here at the University of Guelph. I like to think I can get away with it unless I think about the "everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial" principle (which I still do not fully understand). Yesterday, I slipped into that sin in the precise way I always imagined it (fantacized about it, actually) except it happened even quicker because of the environment I was recently/currently surrounded by. At the time, my dominant emotion did not let me think much about the sinful aspect of my actions. My thoughts (small because I was VERY distracted) were (a) I cannot believe I just did that, (b) I cannot believe that happened so easily, (c) I do not feel guilty at all, largely because the sin was not as deliberate as one might think (d) I cannot even apologize right now because I would not mean it, (e) I can't WAIT to tell some Christians about this scandalousness and laugh about it! and (f) wow.

Soon after that incident I napped for about 5-10 minutes and when I awoke, the dominant emotion was gone and I could see my sin a little more clearly. At the least, I could see remorse and I apologized though I did not exactly hope it would never happen again.

This morning, while in the bathroom (revelations happen there...) I resolved not to tell a single soul about that sin because I would be doing it to glory in it. Do not get me wrong: I am not in denial and refusing to be honest and vulnerable by concealing a sin. After a moment's pause [as I write this, I think that pause was me giving God a chance to talk] I recognized that I should not glory in things that do not bring Christ glory. (As a matter of fact, anything that brings me glory is unlikely to glorify Christ.) It hit me hard: this is why we do not take sin lightly; this is why not everything is beneficial.

I think that more words heaped on this will take away from the statement so here I stop.

within four days

--"Logorrhea" can be broken down into two roots: "logos" is Greek for "words" and "rrhea" means "free flowing". I find it ironic that "log-" seems to be more closely linked with "diarrhea" but that is OK; I respect the English language and all its idiosyncracies.

--The most recent challenger in the race for strange places to sleep:
Four stacks of six elementary school chairs.

[I wanted to lie down for 15 minutes or so before I continued working in my moms' classroom after school was out. However, I was exhausted enough to forget about the following: (a) I could roll off and smash my something on the linoleum, (b) someone could walk into the room and I would not be able to explain myself very well, (c) yikes. I was into a real sleep and it was my mother's "Oh, I didn't know you were still here," that woke me up. Yowza.]

--My quote of the day: "... great Italians like Jim Carrey, Mozart and Carlos Santana."

--I spent about 26 hours in the Tobes (and partly in the TDot) this week to rehearse with some kids' choirs at my moms' school. It was fun to do it because of the pressure I was under to deliver (this was our first rehearsal and the concert is 6 days away) and because of the freedom I had to call whatever I was doing my "best" whether or not it actually was. Now, don't get me wrong: I do not want to be deceptive. I mean that no one in the school plays piano so I get to be the authority which, I guess, means there is more I can get away with ... but that still sounds wrong. I want to do my best and I wanted to do better than I actually did but, given the circumstances, I could not do much else. Let me tell you: there is a lot of 1-5-1 business going on in my left hand. Amen to that.

--I wigged out during those 26 hours because of how exhausted I was from the past (what is now) 12 days of no sleep and high "stress" thanks to academia. On the streetcar to school on Thursday, I thought to myself, "How am I going to do this? How am I going to do this?" [repeat for 10 minutes] when the gravity of my workload hit me once again. For the record, I was facing two final examinations and one essay due ... well... to-day. The problem was that I could not figure out how to best divide my time and there was not one assignment that could afford to be slacked on (even slightly). I have been aware, during the past two weeks, that I need to insure my spiritual life is healthy during "busy" times like these for many reasons (chime them in, Sunday skool kids...). During that time at my sister & brother's place, I wanted to at least stay in the Bible and stay in prayer but I seemed to be too easily distracted and to only open the Book when I was on the streetcar or the bus because I couldn't be doing school work. In other words, God got my leftovers. Anyways, that Thursday morning, I found Psalm 20 (my habit of late has been to read one or two per day) and it calmed me down like nobody's business. My whole body sighed with relief.

May the Lord answer you when you are in distress;
..may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
May he send you help from the sanctuary
..and grant you support from Zion.
May he remember all your sacrifices
..and accept your burnt offernings.
May he give you the desire of your heart
..and make all your plans succeed.
We will shout for joy when you are victorious
..and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the Lord grant all your requests.

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
..he answers him from his holy heaven
..with the saving power of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
..but we rust in the name of the Lord our God.
They are brought to their knees and fall,
..but we rise up and stand firm.

O Lord, save the king!
..Answer us when we call!

When I arrived at the school, I rewrote the psalm, replacing every "you" for "me"/"I" (and every "your" for "my", etc.) so that I could read it and understand that it did apply to me. I carried that sheet around the school with me whenever I was heading to play or to practice so that, when other thoughts crept into my head, I could look at it and be told to chill owt. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. [I substituted "Christ's sacrifices" for "your sacrifices" and "your burnt offerings" for "Christ's burnt offerings" because I don't live under the law.]

my question:

Blog? What the heck is a blog?


So much to say, so little brain space.