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Monday, 09 November 2009

why i don't facebook and xanga more often

communication was meant to be reciprocal. giving and receiving were meant to be together. not apart.
it's frustrating to say something profound and not get a response. and how should i respond to a profound entry? a one line comment acknowledging that ive read it? sometimes the appropriate response to a profound statement is silence. but you only feel that understanding silence--that rare gem which is a listening ear, when you're face to face.
but i always read your xangas. if im subscribed to them.

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

time and love

i just missed a mandatory training for work...and being a newly minted employee, things like this don't help at all. this is the second time. and they won't easily forgive. questions arise. what will my supervisor say? will i still have a job even? dammit.  why can't i keep my schedule together??
in my naivete, i think if others were unjust to me, it wouldn't be as bad. my integrity would still stand. but when i realize that ive done something wrong it hurts so bad. it's as if the pillars im standing on are knocked out from under me. my thoughts sink into my stomach.
one thing that i feel really guilty about is missing appointments or not fulfilling what i had planned to do. and that is just what happened this morning.  a few missed appointments which says that im not fulfilling the role to be a faithful worker. a few missed appointments which says that i don't have my priorities straight. how can i even begin to think about the eternally-important responsibility of sharing christ to others, when i cannot even handle the day-to-day responsibility of showing up to a place on time?
sigh.
how can i dare even think about the death of the saints and their reckless abandonment to love when i am not faithful in my commitments to others? because surely, the saints' faithfulness to the gospel was what led to their death and reckless abandonment...not that death and reckless abandonment stand alone because if not for love they would be no more than a clanging gong or cymbal. my soul weeps at the thought. maybe then, this whole process will take more time than i think.  maybe the path towards radical change starts with simply being faithful.

Sunday, 13 September 2009

game over

I played 5 hours of video games today. Something I haven't done in a while. And something I don't intend to do again for a looong time. The game is called Madworld. It's on Wii, and it's a gore game. You have a chain saw, and obviously, you kill lots of things with it. There's a lot of blood and swearing and all that crap. So you start the game. And you learn the controls. There's the basic attack, and some other fancy attacks, but you settle for the way that scores the most points. Yada yada. You move the buttons a certain way you get this effect. Or that effect. But you settle for the combo that inflicts the most pain and you use it over and over. Again. And again.
I don't know why I would spend my life oogling over games all the way from my prepubescent years to my early college years. I'm just realizing now that video games, especially single player video games, are repetitive. For first person shooters, you just fine tune your hand movements, then point and shoot. Maybe it takes time to learn the finer points of the game...the AI for example, but then you've got it. And you reuse the formula again and again. Rinse and repeat for the next first-person shooter. For RPGs, it's the same deal. You spend time collecting XP and money, you buy the better and better weapons and armor, and there you go. After playing a whole bunch of RPGs you realize that there are common story and gameplay themes that people use over and over again. Formulas. Repetitive hand movements. Maybe it's the enjoyment of guaranteed level-ups. But come-on, after you finish the game, it's over dude.
So I'm really proud of myself today. At one point, I felt more like reading a book than playing games. Yeah, I'm liking this. But in the end I didn't because I wanted to finish the frekkin' game. I think I've got to work on that. It's good to finish things, but you don't have to finish video games, you idiot :P
Some food for thought.
Over time, designers and companies will continue to make what they think are "better" games, but in the end, I don't think games will ever have the ability to make a virtual world better than the real thing. Example. Even with the ease of communication through facebook and skype...nothing beats meeting a friend face to face. Maybe, for a moment, the virtual world might seem better, but nothing replaces the real thing.

Thursday, 27 August 2009

restoration

I've been listening to Tim Keller, and I've found so much wholeness listening to him talk about the gospel. He offers two perspectives on how to see the gospel. 1. God, Sin, Man, Jesus. 2. Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. If you think about it, the second way is about Jesus too.
I think we live in a time where people's minds are getting tired of saying the name "Jesus". The sounds "Je" and "sus" do not excite our neurons as much as say than the sound for "change" or "Obama". And so people get more excited about politics than religion. And why is that? Well. Say something that means the same thing for 2000 years, and you might get quite bored with it.  It's time to move on. We've tried Jesus already. And like, nothing's changed. JEBUS. Hahaha. That was funny.
When Jesus came down, I think he meant more than just to say "God loves you".  Maybe love is like the best thing we have in the English language, but it means waaay too many things for it to actually mean something. Sex, desire, a vague feeling, <3, luv, maybe we need to differentiate the love that comes from Jesus from all these other ones.
Love speaks with action. We only know love because our moms cook us food to brighten our day. We only know love because the guy proposes to the girl. We only know love because Jesus died for us. Words were not meant to just stop with the idea, but were meant to act with purpose. Action. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Now, when we speak of love, what is to come afterward? What is love in action? I think. It's a lot of stuff.  A lifetime of stuff. But, I know this much now. A big chunk of it is restoration. And restoration happens every day. The sun rises. The sun sets.  The sun rises again. Leaves grow. Leaves fall. Leaves grow again. The world does it, but we are not of this world. Relationships are made. Relationships break. We wonder. We wait. Brokenness. The biggest brokenness has got to be between God and man. I mean, just think of the tension. Before we sacrificed animals, but we didn't take it seriously. So Jesus came down to be the sacrifice. To restore the biggest thing, and give us strength to restore all the other things.
I bet if people saw restoration of all things through Jesus, something big would happen.

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

I played guitar for 3 hours today almost until my fingers started to bleed. It felt good. I'm glad that I still want to play. I finished a song that I started to write about a year ago. It felt GREAT. Maybe it's time to tie up some other loose ends. I'm halfway through an Obama book that I want to finish. And I'd also like to create a workout schedule that I'll stick to.

On a broader note, I'm starting to think with more clarity these days. But along with it has come a lot of regrettin' I'm afraid to say. The grass is greener on the other side gets to me A LOT. And I don't typically envy people. It's a stupid thing because regret just sucks up your time, and it doesn't really do much other than make you more miserable. Note to self. JUST DO IT.

I'm starting my new job in 2 weeks. I'm going to be bring lots of pictures to my cubicle. Nice pictures with trees and faces on them. Lots of pictures.