Stumbling Toward God?

There are a lot of things that I wanted to talk about last week, but did not get the chance. So now I’ll just do it all at once.

Sunday: Watching the bass player at church, the thought occurred to me, “I’ve never once left the ground while I was playing guitar.” Which I guess is just more proof of how depressing my music is.

Speaking of playing guitar, I’ve started playing guitar in our group that meets Sunday nights. On Sunday afternoon, I was informed that I would have to lead two songs that night. (It turns out that by “lead” she really meant play guitar in the background while she sings, which is not my definition of “lead,” but whatever.) Anyway, I just looked at her and casually replied, “Do you know Wasting?” It was HIlarious. Of course, I don’t think anyone there got it, but the voices in my head were sure laughing.

Sunday night, my girlfriend and I broke up. You didn’t know that I had a girlfriend? Well, okay, I realize that in nearly six months I never once mentioned that fact here. I had my reasons for that, once. I suppose they stopped being good reasons long after they were already firmly established.

Monday: I’m man enough to admit, I spent a fair amount of time… weeping like a baby. Ahem.

Tuesday: I used to really like The Cure. Now they’re filed away in that big box of cd’s I don’t listen to anymore. However, when I walked into the food court Tuesday morning, (where they have wifi, and I can check my email if I get to school early enough) I was greeted with a line from the somewhat lesser known tune, High, “…makes me bite my fingers through, to think I could have let you go.” Thanks Robert, I needed that.

I had an econ test, (yeah, already?) which of course I did not study for in the least. I haven’t even taken the shrink wrap off the book yet, just like old times. [ It turns out that I got an A… what can I say, my Dad has half of a PhD in economics… it’s just in my blood. ]
I get out of class at noon on Tuesdays, and this time I decided to haul back to Redlands for the fellowship-gathering-formerly-known-as-Taco-Tuesdays.

It also happened to be April 12th, the day on which I traditionally do my taxes. Always a good time.

Wednesday: Wednesday, I actually don’t remember so much.

Thursday: For those who have been following the story from the beginning, about two years ago, I said that God was giving me the proverbial finger. It’s really how this whole thing began. Today I gave it back.

I’m not endorsing this as a particularly wise thing to do. I might have handled things differently if I had it to do again. At least now we’re back on the same page.

If you haven’t been following the story from the beginning, I’m sorry, all I can say is that I’m working on it. Slowly. Very slowly.

Friday: I went to work for the first time in five months. I had stopped thinking of myself as even having a job. Ah, the annual Miss Teen California Pageant. You symbolize everything that I hate most.

Saturday: I spent most of the day trying to remember how to program, for an assignment for an engineering class that does not have computer programming as a prerequisite! No really, I actually am a registered Apple Developer.

It was also game night, and we learned that boys just aren’t good at the “David Bowie” game.

Sunday: Not too much out of the ordinary, unless you want to count Denny’s’s bid for worst restaurant service of the year. Unfortunately for them, it’s looking like a pretty tight competition this year.

There’s something I’ve been praying about, asking for wisdom and guidance and all that. When I simply no longer knew how to go any further, I gave it to God. I could not have been more amazed when He actually took it. Away. Immediately. Just… gone.
And I knew it was as it had to be.
Today it hurt. As it will hurt, today, this week, these months… as long as it takes. Otherwise i don’t learn nothin’.

Great is Your faithfulness, to carry on with a sinner like me.

You must have heard by now that the Pope died. My pastor even offered a prayer for the Catholic church as they search for new leadership. I, however want to say what I don’t think others else would dare say right now. However great a person he was, and whatever he may have done, the man was crazy. I have no doubt that he did a lot of good things for a lot of people, but he also thought that when he sat in a certain chair, that he spoke directly for God. To be fair, there are a lot of people who seem to feel that they speak directly for God whether they are sitting in a chair or not, but I digress. A long explanation of the differences between Catholics and Protestants is beyond the scope of this post, but briefly, I feel that the main argument for Protestantism can be summed up by Luke 11:27-28:

As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Did the Pope have a relationship with the Lord? I would certainly hope so. Yet the fact remains, from where I stand, he was the world leader for a large group of people who just don’t quite get it. Now there lies is the real issue. If Catholics are all wrong, how can I be so sure that the people of my church are right?

I think the greatest hindrance to my spiritual growth is that, having cast aside my former world view, I now lack any tools to properly evaluate “truth.” So, while I need no particular convincing that I myself am a wretched sinner, when it comes to declaring to others that they can never earn God’s favor on their own merit, (my own mother for example, or say, the Pope) well, that’s where I fall short.

I’ve been trying to clean my house up for the past couple of days. Of course, anyone who’s ever lived with me knows that I have a tendency to leave complex calculations scrawled on the back random pieces of paper all over the house. Sometimes I get a curiosity in my head and I can’t stop until I’ve figured out, say, the angle between faces of a dodecahedron. (116.56 degrees.) You know how it is.

Today however, I found something truly perplexing. An envelop had the word “Joy” pencilled in one corner, then off to the side and slightly below it, written lightly, what appeared to be “(shire)” [with the parentheses], and directly below that and darker, the word “Breakfast.”

Having satisfied to myself that it was indeed my handwriting, and going questionable assumption that I was in my right mind when I wrote them, I eventually figured out that there actually is a relation between these words, although exactly what my purpose was in writing them still eludes me. Bonus points to whoever else can figure out the connection.

It was recently suggested that some of my eccentricities could indicate that I may have high-functioning autism. I don’t know that I buy it, and if I’ve gone this long without anyone noticing, I’m not sure that it even matters.

Interestingly though, did you know that one possible sign of autism in children is that they don’t smile? I didn’t.

A couple of weeks ago I went again to the Round Earth Society meeting to hear a guest speaker, one of the physics professors, talk about the origins of the universe. She talked about how in the first moments of time, the universe was composed of a “soup” of sub atomic particles, so hot that electrons could not stick with protons, and whenever a light wave would hit an electron, it would bounce off in another direction. So the whole thing was just a cloudy mass of particles and scattered energy. As the universe expanded and cooled, electrons began to associate with protons, light was able to pass through without being scattered and continued going in whatever direction it happened to be going, even to this day.

This was all well and scientific sounding, but I just sat there dumbfounded thinking, “So what you’re essentially saying is, ‘In the beginning, the universe was formless and dark… and then there was light’?”

I must say, I was not prepared for that.

Early in my walk/stumble, I read somewhere that the five sort of “essential” books of the Bible that one should read first to get a core understanding of Christianity were: John, Romans, Genesis, Isaiah and… well I forget the fifth one. Maybe Psalms, or Hebrews or… Obadiah…

Anyway, having read the others, I started in Isaiah… and I did not have the faintest idea what he was talking about. So, gave that up before too long. Perhaps I was influenced by the opinion of an old friend who claimed to have read the Bible cover to cover… except for Isaiah.

Time passed. Inspired by various factors, I decided to try again. J. Vernon McGee was going through Isaiah on the radio. I remember being in my car in the RCC parking lot, a good forty minutes before class, McGee’s “Through the Bible” on the radio… me sleeping right through it… I went further that time. I got all the way to chapter 51 or 52, I think. Yet still, everything I was reading went… in one eye and out the other? Again I gave up. (Which is unfortunate, because chapter 53 is where it really gets interesting.)

Around New Year’s, I decided to do the “Bible in a year” thing. I actually found four or five different “plans” for this (chronological, Genesis-Malachi/Matthew-Revelation, daily reading+ a Psalm and a Proverb, etc. ) I went with the “blended” method, where everyday you read from the Old Testament and New Testament in an order which is, not obvious to me, though there probably is one. I chose this one mainly so that I would not have to read all of Isaiah in one stretch. It also had the added benefit of having Isaiah in January/February, so I could either get it over with early, or you know, if I gave up again… at least I would be giving up early… (This seemed like a plus somehow.)

In case you could not guess where this was all going, today is February 16th, and I have FINISHED READING ISAIAH! What was it about, you ask? Um… I don’t know, go read it for yourself. Alright, in the first great many chapters, God was a bit upset with people and was planing to wipe them out in alphabetical order. Then, as I understand it, there would be a servant of the Lord who would suffer and die for the iniquities of the people, thereby allowing God to look upon them with favor again. But God’s chosen people refuse to accept Him, therefore they will be cursed and He will reveal Himself to and bless a different people. Hmm, that’s interesting. I would also like to point out for those who are not aware, that this is from the Old Testament, written about 700 B.C.

So I can’t say that I would recommend the whole book of Isaiah as an introduction to Christianity. Actually, less than a week ago, someone was looking for book recommendations and I said, “Not Isaiah.” But if you want to, I would suggest starting around chapter 40 or 50.

Lately, I’ve really been wanting a semi-hollow guitar. (It’s sort of a hybrid acoustic/electric.) Now where is a guy like me supposed to get a new guitar? Well, techically, I’m supposed to…well… build it.

My resources are rather limited in that respect. (If only I had inherited my father’s Shopsmith…) But I keep trying to tell myself, guitars were actually invented before power tools…

I have spent what I think is an unhealthy amount of time this week thinking about the past. For some reason, I remember it always being sunny at RCC. (Well, there was that one time, of course.) But I know that it couldn’t possibly have been sunny ALL the time. I’m sure that my mind is lying to me. That can’t be healthy either.

It’s never sunny here at Cal Poly. Even when the weather is warm and bright, it’s just never “sunny.” Why do you think that is?

When dwelling on old times, it’s certainly not helpful to look at the iTunes Essentials list of 90’s one hit wonders. But you know you want to, dontcha? Can’t be held responsible. She was touchin’ her face. I won’t be held responsible. She fell in love in the first place. For the life of me, I can not remember, what made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise. For the life of me, I can not believe we’d ever die for these sins, we were merely FRESHMAN!

No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

–Luke 16:13 [~Matt 6:24]

Yesterday when I woke up, my landlord was watching the news coverage of “The Pomp and Pageantry of the Presidential Inauguration.” They were saying that the whole she-bang would cost $40 million, NOT including security, which apparently was billed separately to the City of Washington D.C.

Let’s be honest, I have about $12 in my wallet right now. I don’t have the faintest concept of $40 million. I DO know that the initial U.S. tsunami aid commitment was $35 million. That’s less. So it’s a pity all those people are dead and dying over there, but we need to have a party to celebrate the fact that NOTHING IS DIFFERENT. Whether you voted for Bush or not is a whole other topic. The simple fact is, he was president yesterday (or the day before), and he’s still the president today. I think at the end of the year, I’m going to spend several grand on a party to celebrate the fact that next year, I will STILL be in college.

Lately, the more I think about capitalism, the more I despise it.