why swim in the water

value

2009-12-04T22:40:00.001-05:00

Even after all this time...

2009-11-30T16:38:00.002-05:00

Lemonsade

2009-11-20T13:24:00.000-05:00

You know, I think sometimes life gives you lemons, but I don't think you always have to make the lemonade. Sometimes life gives you lemons, and then life gives you lemonade...you didn't necessarily always have to make it yourself, but you just had to be patient and wait for it to come to you.

Is that grace?

-bennett

Cannot be done...

2009-11-13T15:26:00.008-05:00

I was in the office today, listening to some Innocence Mission Music on grooveshark.com, and I stumbled upon a website. The website had a collection of videos of dogs welcoming back troops from their deployment. After the second one I teared up. Weird, right?

To recreate my experience follow these steps:

Step One - click on this link and let the video play the song in one tab:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWB713KokXA

Step Two - while it starts to play click on this link to open it up in another tab and play the video and watch this video (just listen to the other video in the background): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/13/dogs-greet-soldiers-retur_n_356672.html?slidenumber=HvIrShMjkbg%3D#slide_image

They have multiple videos of different dogs greeting, but the top ranked ones are my favorites.

-bennett

Air Purifier (or No Guilt in Life, No Fear in Death...)

2009-10-29T18:25:00.000-04:00

In Jr. High I was always negative. I didn't go out of my way to be happy. Getting a taste of 6 different schools from 1999 to 2003 made me tired of change. I didn't want to make any new friends. The friends I did have told me I was negative and complained a lot. I didn't take them seriously until my mom expressed the same concern one day driving me home from school or something. Then I started to wonder...

Then I had an experience in July of 2003 that changed my life. It was Church Camp. Everyone gets saved at Church Camp, every year. It's just what you do. I did it. In fact I didn't just do it at Church Camp I did it at home too--that's how holy I was.

But it was only it was because I was scared.

Before July 2003 I couldn't go to sleep some nights because I was afraid. I'd hear a noise and wonder if it was someone trying to break in and kill us to death. I also had sinus problems so I couldn't breathe very well through my nostrils and breathing through my mouth made my my mouth dry. And I didn't want to breath through my mouth because I had heard in class that breathing through your mouth doesn't catch germs on your mucous trail like breathing through your nose did. So I was afaid that if I slept with my mouth open, I would die. And I was afraid if I fell asleep with my mouth closed and my nose suddenly got too stuffed up for me to breathe while I was sleeping I would die.

My dad had sinus problems too. My family decided to invest in an air purifier for our home in efforts to help clear our nasal passages. So we went out and bought one of these air purifiers:

Now keep in mind this was way back in the late part of the last millenium, so it was a very noisy air purifier. After a while, my parents decided it would be okay to keep it in my room. And that's when something miraculous happened.

I would turn it on every night and it would make this very loud "white noise" that drowned out all other sounds. A nuclear reactor or two could explode in our trash can outside, and I wouldn't even notice. Also, after a while, I could start breathing through my nostrils again.

It was wonderful. I started getting sleep. It seemed as though I had overcome my paranoid obsessive compulsivities* and entered into a life of peace. Problem solved right?

This did not keep me from fearing death.

Some nights I would wonder, "What if there really isn't such a thing as eternal life, and when I die my existence just stops? And then what? Nothing? Forever?" It was quite unnerving.

Each time that happened though, I looked out the window and saw the moon was still there. Then I would remember how the moon's placement keeps us from dying. And then how the solar system works. And then how the water cycle works and how plants work and how human bodies work. That's when I realize we had to come from somewhere.
Problem solved, right?

This did not keep me from fearing hell.

My day consisted of waking up, going to school, doing my homework, eating, getting in fights with my brother. Going to bed I would renew my insurance and ask God for forgiveness, just in case my interactions with my brother were selfish or impure enough to be classified as a sin that would send me to eternal damnation. I didn't want to experience eternal damnation.

It was like this every night for years - "God, I love you, forgive me, I'll never be mean to my brother again."

Until Communion made sense to me for the first time ever.

Before then salvation was appealing a $120 speeding ticket because I didn't want to pay the fine, not feeling guilty about it at all.

Then I realized salvation was about the power of grace. It is accepting grace that makes atonement possible.

It is grace that empowers a man to pick up his mat and walk. It is grace that gives a woman caught in adultery free from a stoning. It is grace that, when Jesus tells her to go and sin no more, gives her the power and the ability to live life without sin.

And it is grace that gives me the power to live life without sin.

And that same grace lets me live life without fear.

Grace is an even greater air purifier that lets me go to sleep at night.

So then what about the old negative boy that I was? What happened to me? I began a process where I became an optimist. I began to believe living without fear was possible, and good things were going to happen. Idealism crept into into my mind. And stayed a while.

But then I was told I needed a better balance of realism and idealism. All my positive thoughts were too ambitious. God doesn't go according to our plans, he will surprise us with negative things. And nothing ever works perfectly, you must count on this.

So I made an effort to find the balance, and at times the realism outweighed the idealism. But I think I am rediscovering some things I can be optimisitic about.

Maybe it is idealistic to believe in a life free from sin. Does that mean it is impossible? Does that mean I shouldn't believe God's grace can make it happen like he says it can?

And maybe dreams don't always come true. But I know one thing: My dreams will never have the chance to come true if I don't dream in the first place.

-bennett

*I spooned this word myself, I think.

Fog

2009-10-02T12:46:00.005-04:00

Yesterday morning the campus air was saturated with beautiful white fog. I love it when 7:00am looks like that. You feel as if you are in a movie about something important. But it's so much more real when you are walking through it. You can't capture it quite the same with a camera.

I tried to take a picture of the fog. With the flash on, the light reflected back into the camera, and it didn't look quite right. You couldn't see anything in the picture.

Then I turned the flash off and it came out much clearer. But with the flash off I have to hold the camera very still.

I'm not very good at it sometimes.

-bennett

Super Glue

2009-09-30T19:25:00.004-04:00

Super glue sometimes works when you need it to. Often it does not. But it always works on what you don't want it to.

Ah, the consequences of living in a fallen world...

-bennett

so, why swim?

2009-07-28T00:51:00.003-04:00

I'm tired of swimming.

I've never been good at it. I don't do it very often. Sure, I love the feeling of being in water, but when I try to move fast in it, it doesn't work out so well. I swim like an overweight basset hound. And it makes me tired. I guess I'm not in good shape in that area. I'm incapable of moving in the water.

So why do I keep trying?

In my life I keep trying to swim, and I don't get anywhere. And then I get to the point that I get so tired of swimming I just feel like giving up. And that's when I risk drowning. And the only reason I was swimming instead of walking in the first place was because of the fear of drowning itself.

I don't want to swim anymore.

I want to walk on the water.

I want to live with no doubts. If faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, then what can faith the size of a mountain do?

I've said it so many times before - - I really have no clue where I am going. But I know who is leading me. I know the reason I am able to walk on the water.

But I can't walk on the water and swim in it at the same time.

The Future? What I want the future to be?

2009-04-16T21:32:00.005-04:00

It's like there is a present underneath the Christmas Tree.

I can't open the present until Christmas. I don't even know if it is my present to open, it's not labeled or anything.

Except this time, I'm not really sure when Christmas is.

Always winter, but never Christmas?

I dunno. I just want winter to end and spring to come.

And it will.

I decided to stop trying to rush spring. I'm letting God bring spring to me.

penn the atheist

2009-03-09T23:30:00.001-04:00

new blog

2009-02-16T17:27:00.003-05:00

Hey there everybody, just want to let you know about my new blog, called Brown Shoes. MVNU admissions and marketing decided they wanted me to blog especially for them, so perspective students can look and see what it's like to be a real-life college student. You can click on this shoe to get to it:
Or you can just go to bennettmvnu.wordpress.com yourself.

NOW ---> this will be different than this blog. Therefore I will do my best to keep this blog going, even though during the school year I only get to post about once a month.

Brown Shoes will be more about actual specific events going on in my life at college, while this blog will continue to be random lessons of life as always. Brown Shoes will be updated at least once a week, and will usually contain pictures of REAL LIFE things!

I will probably post on this blog more frequently during the summer, as I have a lot more time to do so then.

I never used to like blogging that much, but that was because I had a narrow view of what it could be. I thought it was just writing about my day, and I thought that would be boring to everyone. But now I have figured out my own way of doing it, and it is a lot of fun.

Anyway, enjoy :)

How to Draw

2009-01-20T17:25:00.007-05:00

I think I'll write a book. It will teach people how to draw everything. I've already completed two pages. Here's a preview:

PAGE ONE:

I showed the first page to an experienced art professor on campus. She said, "Well, I think it's missing something."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Um, you could start by adding some shading," she responded.

"GOOD IDEA!" I said zealously.

So for page two, I made sure it had shading...

PAGE TWO:

I can't wait to get it done. It would be an honor to get published. It's the American Dream. It seems like everyone at least at one point in their life thinks to themselves, "Boy, I oughta write a book." And then some of them actually take initiative, and think, "Boy, I oughta write a book about something like BEING A CHRISTIAN, because there are only eight million books written about BEING A CHRISTIAN and I think I should write another one. And then people can become even more confused. That sounds like a good idea." I know I've been wanting to write a book about Christianity, so don't let my sarcastic tone mislead you. I just can't write it because I don't have the attention span or the knowledge to. I'll stick to drawing books. We could always use more of those.

I have no idea why I just made this post.

greatly mediocre/why you shouldn't

2008-12-21T00:42:00.008-05:00

This blog has two wonderful parts that have nothing to do with each other. . . I still put them both within the same post though, out of fear that if I posted two separate posts you would only read the more recent one. RIGHT??

Well, nevermind. I end up tying the two parts together somehow. . . TA DA!

PART ONE: Greatly Mediocre
Once again Daniel Coutz has inspired a blog post. I dedicate this entry in honor of his geniusness

Tonight my good friend Daniel used the term "greatly mediocre" to describe his dining experience at Golden Corral. While this term may seem silly at first glance, I believe it really just means "if you looked up the word 'mediocre' in the dictionary, you would see a picture of this next to it." It is something that captures the true, organic essence of what mediocricity* is at its core. Examples:

"Watching this Arena Football Game is a greatly mediocre experience."

"This school newspaper is greatly mediocre."

"This episode of 'Step by Step' is greatly mediocre."

"Mehmet Okur is a greatly mediocre basketball player."**

"This blog post is greatly mediocre."

I think you catch my drift. But all this thinking about things being "greatly mediocre" caused me to think about how I sometimes describe things as "wonderfully terrible." Things that are wonderfully terrible, by my definition, are things that are poor in quality, but at the same time you find yourself loving it, or at least enjoying it because you enjoy making fun of it. Do you know what I mean? Kind of like a lovable loser. For example. . .

"William Hung's singing is wonderfully terrible!"

"This chocolate cheese is wonderfully terrible!"

"This yo-yo I bought at the Dollar Tree is wonderfully terrible!"

"Big Joe's Polka Show on the Rural Free Delivery TV sure is wonderfully terrible!"

"This blog post is wonderfully terrible."

See, the phenomenon that commonly occurs is that many of the "greatly mediocre" things are often more frustrating than the things that could be "wonderfully terrible." Like RoseArt products for example. I can't stand RoseArt stuff. They take advantage of poor Sunday School teachers who think they are getting a good deal by spending a little less by buying low-quality RoseArt crayons instead of Crayola crayons. How much difference could there be? GAH! It's like trying to use Saran-Wrap instead of toilet paper. It's just not the same.

Hmm, maybe some things aren't even worthy of being called "mediocre."

----Okay pretend I am using a clever transition phrase/illustration/diversion tool here-----

PART TWO: why you shouldn't

Our kindergarten teachers always told us it was bad for to swallow gum because it would clog up our intestines or something like that. Well I did some good quality research on the world wide web and found the REAL reason you should not swallow gum. The teachers were just too shy/proper to explain to us that this is really what happens when people swallow bubble gum:

IN CONCLUSION:

I'd rather purchase a low-quality product that I am expecting to be low-quality than purchase a mediocre-quality product I am expecting to be high-quality.

I guess I would feel the same way about myself. I'd rather be a low-quality person that people can tell is a low-quality person than a poser who everyone thinks is great but finds out isn't all he's cracked up to be.

See, if I make myself out to be some great, wonderful, amazing person with all the qualities you expect to find in a great, wonderful, amazing person but on the inside I am anything but those things, it may work out perfectly for me temporarily. But after a while these things I have hidden will become problematic and expose themselves. And that is even more embarrassing and shame-inducing. Just like the poor little boy who swallowed his gum so his teacher wouldn't see, and then ended up with a giant bubble coming out of his backside.

:)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* - "mediocricity" isn't really a word, but I like using it instead of "mediocrity." "Mediocrity" sounds too crunchy.
** - I just used Mehmet Okur as an example because his name sounds a lot like the word "mediocre."

Good

2008-11-13T23:44:00.008-05:00

I think I may be on to something.

I think it's a good sign.

I've been at points in my life where things are going so good, they seem too good to be true.

And sometimes they are indeed too good to be true, and that's disappointing.

Other times they seem too good to be true, but then I realize they really aren't all that great.

But then sometimes things are just good.

And it is now when I feel the most at ease. The most satisfied.

Because right now things aren't too good to be true.

They are just good.

That's what I would consider a real kind of good.

And that's really good.

Unibrowsing

2008-09-22T01:55:00.006-04:00

I've told this story to a few of my friends. But I will tell it again, and make some witty connection to a deeper meaning or something.

Last year I roomed with a great person named Daniel Coutz. We would share all of our deepest thoughts with each others.

We shared our likes and dislikes, our dreams and disappointments. And we shared our fears.

Daniel doesn't like mullets.

I don't like unibrows.

Daniel has been afraid that he will wake up with a mullet someday, somehow letting it happen without even realizing it.

I have been afraid of waking up with a unibrow with the same thing happening.

Last Sunday night at this time I was in the PSU trying to sleep because of the power outage. I didn't get to sleep. But at 6:00 am they let us go back to our real beds. I slept for a while. But I dreamed as well.

I dreamed a terrible dream.

In my dream, it was dark in the apartment--because of the power outage--and I walked into the bathroom. I looked in the dark mirror and saw something hideous on my face. It was a unibrow! But it wasn't just any unibrow. It was a unibrow that went from the top of my forehead to the tip of my nose.

It was gross.

So in my dream, I was so disgusted, so I reached for my shaver...

...my electric shaver...

...that needed charged.

Then that was the end of the dream.

---------------------

But really, it is interesting to me that my weird, unreasonable fear would cause me to have a dream such as this, at the one time when I can't make it all better by shaving it off.

Why do dreams take advantage of our fears? I have always been afraid of heights, so I always have dreams were I am falling to my most probable death.

See as long as I am in control of my height, I can make it. I can clutch a guardrail or just not go on the roof in the first place.

But once I am falling, I've lost control. There's nothing I can do about it.

Once the electric has gone out and I can't shave my unibrow, I've lost control. There's nothing I can do about it.

I guess the big question is:

Could the biggest fear I have had, be the fear of losing control?

Blasts from the Pasts for August - Nick Arcade

2008-08-16T02:23:00.004-04:00

A----------------------------------------
This is what someone on youtube claims is the first barbie commercial ever. The only thing that has changed about them is that they are slightly more politically correct now.

"Someday I'm gonna be exactly like you . . . I'll make believe that I am you . . ."

Hmm....

B----------------------------------------
Anybody remember this show?

Poor Nadine.

When I Am an Old Man...

2008-08-01T02:29:00.014-04:00

When I am an old man, if I make it that far, I will have long stretchy earlobes. They will look like squeezed play'doh.

When I am an old man, I will be very wrinkly, and I will wear hats that I think look really good, but are actually ridiculous.

When I am an old man, I will complain about how the newspaper comics aren't as funny as they used to be.

When I am an old man, I will eat cereal that is high in fiber, and think it is delicious.

When I am an old man, I will get really excited when I find a coupon for the cereal that is high in fiber.

When I am an old man, I will forget to zip up my pants at least once every other day.

When I am an old man, my wife will say something to me, and I will hear her, but say "What?" anyway, just so I have more time to think of the answer.

When I am an old man, my wife will say something to me, I won't understand her and say "What?" She will repeat herself, and then I won't understand what she said again. But because I hate to keep asking her to repeat herself, I will just say, "I don't know," and hope it wasn't important.

When I am an old man, I will buy a mailbox shaped like a goose.

When I am an old man, I will have several mugs given to me as gifts, but none of them will be used for drinking. They will all be on different desktops, filled with ballpoint pens that have the name of a medication on them.

When I am an old man, I will find myself using one of these:

And I will drive one of these:

Except mine will probably hover because it will be in the second half of the century.

When I am an old man, I will have one of these around my neck:

And it will save my life.

And so I will go on commercials . . .

And help other people.

Except by this time these things will become commonplace instead:

Right now these cost about $65,000, but by the time I need one, it will be mass produced.

And it will hover.

When I am an old man, I will sit on a bench in the park and examine my fingers. Meanwhile, a passing parent will tell her child, "Look, son. It is an old man. Sit and talk to him. He is full of wisdom and experience."
Then the small boy will come and sit by me and say, "Hey, you're old. Tell me a story."
And I will continue looking at my fingers, and then I will say, "Yesterday the grocery store raised the price on the wheat bread ten cents. Now I have to use less toilet paper to make up for the difference."
And the boy will leave, with more wisdom.

When I am an old man, I will sit with my old wife, and we will watch Game Show Network. And we will call the people on Family Feud "idiots" when they make stupid guesses for "things you find in a glove compartment." And during the commercials, we will compare the moles and liver spots on our arms.

When I am an old man, I will eat my fat free, sugar free ice cream bar, and let my old dog lick the stick after I am done. But I will make sure I leave some ice cream on it for her to enjoy. Then the dog will lick my feet.

But when I am an old man, it won't bother me that I am old. It won't bother me that I may not have much more that I can do before I am done. But I will be content. Because I lived my life the way I was supposed to. I did what I could. I passed something on to the next generation.

And when I am an old man, it won't bother me that my wife doesn't look like she did when she was twenty-four. Because she will look like home. And when I hold her, she will feel like home. When I talk to her, she will sound like home. She will be so much a part of me, that I will never stop believing she is the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth.

Even when she is an old woman, and I am an old man.

When I am an old man, God will be more real to me than ever. God will make more sense to me than ever. We will be old pals that understand each other. We will be ready for each other.

Because I'm not ready now. I get to spend eternity in heaven. I only get a few years on earth. I want to do as much as I can here while I can.

And when I am an old man, I will most definitely probably look like this:

the boy will learn from someone

2008-07-26T01:18:00.006-04:00

I was talking to my friend Nicole tonight about how kids are being raised in this society.

Before you think, "Boy, that's all easy for him to say--he hasn't raised kids yet! Who's he to talk?" Just hear me out. I want to challenge our generation. I am in no way saying parenting is easy. And I have observed many things, including things my parents did.

I think you can probably figure out the details of what is disturbing me from just a simple story from working at Cici's:

Over a year ago, one day I was cleaning tables and junk, and I noticed a mother eating with her little boy. The woman was on her cell phone the entire meal. The boy ate virtually by himself. It was so nice of this mother to spend good quality time with her son, right? Oh yes.

It made my stomach turn inside out. I wanted to take her cell phone and send it through the conveyor belt pizza oven.

We need a refreshed generation of parents. I know there are many great parents out there, but I think we are slacking.

And I'm not talking about rules and spankings, necessarily.

I'm talking about effort.

There are many great ways to rear a kid good. But it takes work.

We need parents that are willing to invest in their kids' lives more than other crap.

Because the boy will learn from someone.

The boy will learn how to make conversation.

The boy will learn how to make friends.

The boy will learn how to interact.

The boy will learn how to have relationships.

The boy will learn what to do with his body.

The boy will learn how to treat women.

The boy will learn how to treat men.

The boy will learn how to treat you.

The boy will learn from someone.

The question isn't whether or not the boy will learn it all.

The question is who will the boy learn it all from?

"You have a rainbow in your mouth, open it for the world!"

2008-07-20T23:49:00.005-04:00

I become more satisfied.

Then I turn around and become even less satisfied.

And then I find things to be satisfied about.

Yet, I am still unsatisfied.

I have discovered the paradox of being completely satisfied yet unsatisfied at the same time.

And I know what to do. I keep going. I keep walking on the water. When the winds and waves throw themselves at me I keep going.

Even though I can't see what is coming.

And I really want to know what is coming.

But I have something in myself and I need to figure out how to make the best of it. Tonight on "King of the Hill," Bill was trying to convince Kahn to return to his karaoke singing, and he said "You have a rainbow in your mouth, open it for the world."

What is the best way I can do this? And why do I keep asking myself questions I know the answers to?

I guess sometimes I get the illusion that if I didn't know the answers, then I wouldn't be so bothered...

protecting crunches and protecting from crunches

2008-07-13T00:40:00.012-04:00

I ate cereal for breakfast yesterday at about 12:00 or so. It was a really good cereal, Muffintops that I got from Wal-mart in Marietta for 50 cents. AMAZING DEAL!

Well, yesterday they got soggy fast. Man, that's frustrating.

But it turns out someone else was frustrated in the same way I was. Take a look at something that received its U.S. patent in 1991:

It's called a "Crunch Protector." You keep the dry cereal separated from the milk until you are ready to eat it. You fill the base (21) with sand to counter the weight correctly so it doesn't tip. I'm not kidding, this is really patented.

It really doesn't look that convenient to me. I wondered how much such a contraption would cost someone. I looked it up online several places. Did not find the crunch protector (seems like something I could find at Ollie's though). But I did find this on Google:

This dome has arched crossbars sturdy enough to support an adult's weight. It's called the "Baby Cage." This lets baby sleep in bed with mommy and daddy without the risk of being crushed. This just seems like a terrible idea to me. I looked up to see if this was purchasable either.

This is the closest thing I found:

What a wonderful thing the internet is.

Tony Shalhoub as Bennett

2008-07-10T00:29:00.008-04:00

Ever have a moment in life, where you stop and say, "Now this would be a good scene in a movie?"

I noticed those moments usually happen during times when:

a) the television is not on.
b) i am at wal-mart.

i think Wal-Mart would be an excellent place for a movie scene, at least if it were a movie about me. If it were about me, the turning point of the film would be there. I would have some great revelation that would provide the solution to a great problem I was in the middle of while looking at different kinds of masking tape. Then a song by Penguin Cafe Orchestra would play as I heroically run out of the store through the parking lot and off somewhere to save the day. I would be wearing a brown shirt, with my brown converse sneakers and blue jeans. My part would be played by Tony Shalhoub.

But anyway, enough with that hypothetical situation. The moral I learn from the previous revelation about television is this:

If most of a person's spare time is spent watching TV, then his or her life will probably not be inspirational enough for anyone to want to make a movie about it. And everyone lives expecting to have a movie made about their life.

Because that is our generation's idea of immortality.

Till Today

2008-06-20T02:19:00.006-04:00

"When you can hear it but cannot see it, it‘s surreal.
What a feeling I get when I cannot state how I feel.
It’s like the child who learns how easy it is to pray
And it’s a wonderful thing when I cannot wait till today."

just a big ball of poop

2008-05-10T21:24:00.012-04:00

I thought about making a note on my facebook to tell everyone about how I am feeling right now about it being the end of my freshman year. I thought I could tell all of the fun stories. Or maybe I could write about how I met many of my friends at mvnu. I may still do the latter.

But that would all be just cute for facebook's sake.

I thought that would just be making something fun for the reader. I wouldn't be typing what I really want people to know.

And what I really want people to know, I don't think I want everyone to know.

This is dedicated to my guy friends, who are mainly the ones who look at this as far as I know. Not many look at this yet, I'm still new and hidden.

I don't care if women read this as well.

Because then people would just look at my post and leave flowery comments that may or may not hold much substance. I know that the people that look at this blog are only going to look at it because they actually want to read it. And even if no one except me reads it, then that's fine with me.

So here's the actual body of my post:

What have I learned about myself this year?

a) I am jealous

b) I am inadequate

c) I am unconfident

d) I am confident

e) I am a loser

f) I am a winner
------------------------------------
Jealousy (a), I think, is one of the ugliest words in our language. Jealousy--often stemming from pride and selfish ambition--drives people insane, causes them to think illogically, and can change their attitude so that they change who they are and how they are and what they are. Jealousy stinks worse than the insides of a one of the shop-vacs we use in the cafeteria.

Why have I been jealous? Because I have constantly been making, changing, and editing a list of all the things I wanted in life and decided that I would pursue them. And when I failed at times to accomplish simple things that I saw other people succeeding at, it made me feel crappy about myself. I never thought I would be the one who would be jealous of people that had dating relationships. But it happened. Several times. Not because I originally put on my list, "Hey, I want a girlfriend, I'm a gonna go out and get me one," but because I found myself in situations that looked promising, and they turned out to just be dead ends. This has happened multiple times.

I couldn't figure out why this kept happening. And I got bitter at times. I said to God, "I know I'll learn something from this, but when am I going to learn it? I know what I'm doing God! Haven't I've learned all I can learn from this! It's not getting any easier!"

And that's when I felt him say, "When you feel like you've learned all you can learn, that's when you haven't learned enough."

Geez. It seems like I would have learned by now. . .

That's when I realize how inadequate (b) I really am. How many times on the way back from spending time at my bench have I stood at the bottom of that little flame monument thing and stared at the words "APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING" and cried out, "That's how I want to live! I know I can't do anything! I'm too weak, too fragile, too frightened to try to do anything on my own." And yet I still find myself trying to walk on water to Jesus and then the winds and the waves that have been distracting me and causing me to fall are the winds and the waves that I have created myself. Well shoot. How am I supposed to get to Jesus when I'm letting my own ideas and ambitions get in the way?

I don't know enough about God to say I know how everything works. If that information was fed into my brain it would probably explode and I might die or something. That's how the supernatural works. Our brains haven't experienced enough to understand it or handle it. We ask so many questions about God, expecting there to be tangible answers that we would understand--when I think most of the answers we would never be able to understand because our laws of science, logic, and reasoning cannot fit with them. That's because the supernatural world was not created based on our laws of science, logic, and reasoning, but the supernatural world is what created our laws of science, logic, and reasoning. Who said the heavens have to conform to our rules? Who knows that the idea of creation was just created for our creation? Okay, I'm getting dizzy.

I gotta speed it up. If I make this entry too long, not even the Rain Man will want to read it.

I've considered myself a confident (d) person for a while now. But then I found out that confidence comes in different categories of life. I think a person who is confident in all aspects of life is a rare find. I am confident that my personality is for the most part the way it needs to be, and will be effective throughout life. But I have also found myself becoming unconfident (e) in many areas such as dealing with the opposite gender and using words to defend my ideas and beliefs in person (in other words I don't feel like I'm a good debater). But in the past few days I've been taking steps to overcome that, and look at how the things that I am confident about in my life can fit into those things that I am not confident about, and help them along. If my personality is the way God wants it to be, I don't need to put so much pressure on myself about girls. Let my personality do the work, in whatever bizarre way it can.

So yes, sometimes I am a loser (e). A big one. And I don't mind that. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the losers win in the end. I'm not very good at competing though. Which means I have a higher risk at being a loser more often. I hate competing with other guys, and so I end up not doing very well at it. So that happens.

But yesterday in Sociology an idea was presented to me by Tony Campolo that I found very encouraging:

Back before I was born, before I was even a zygote, I was a sperm (well, the manliest part of me was anyway). And I was a sperm among literally millions and millions of other sperm. I was participating in one of the greatest tests of manhood of all time--a race to see who could get to the egg.

It was an intense battle, with many obstacles, tricks, and traps--what else could we expect from a woman? And of all the mighty sperms fighting through to reach this goal, only one could be victorious over all the others. And you know who that one was?

That was me.

I am already victorious! I'm already a winner (f). I beat all those other guys. I got to make life! And we can all say that.

And we all are already victorious in Christ! We've already won (A Collision by David Crowder*Band). Have you read the Book? We won when Jesus rose from the dead and conquered sin and death and hell. Have you read the Book? In the end, guess who wins?

God wins. And he let's all of us losers down here be on his winning team.

We just have to put on the jersey and play for him.

So, that's what I've learned this year. Well part of it anyway. Some people have to learn the hard way, I guess I'm the type of guy who has to find out for myself (Free At Last by dcTalk).

I may be just a big ball of poop. But I'm not a big ball of poop that can't do anything. Because there is a glorious dung beetle named Jesus that comes and picks me up and molds me and uses me so that something good can result.

That's one kind of big ball of poop you can be.

The alternative is one that just gets flush down the toilet. Just a big ball of waste.

I think I want to be the one that the dung beetle gets to mess with. Apart from him I can do nothing. . .

boiling ice cubes.

2008-04-28T14:44:00.004-04:00

Is it good for a man to feel uncomfortable with pretty much all of the churches he has visited or been a part of, when he is planning on becoming a pastor himself?

why math class is so important

2008-04-13T18:38:00.015-04:00

I have a biology exam tomorrow. So far I haven't done very well on my biology exams. I don't have a biology mind. I didn't really want to take biology for my science credit, I wanted Environmental Earth Science, but my advisor insisted that EES wasn't a real class or something, and he suggested Biology wouldn't be too challenging. Well, it's challenging enough I guess.

But it has to be better than chemistry. I took chemistry my junior year in high school because I thought, "Hey, in TV shows they get to blow up stuff in chemistry classes," and I wanted to blow up stuff too. But we didn't get to do that. The coolest thing we got to do was make tye-dye shirts at the end of the year. And that didn't even have to do with anything we were learning.
What made chemistry so frustrating for me was the fact that it combined complicated science principles with math. And if there's one thing my brain stinks at more than science, it's math.

Math.

Every year through Junior High and High School I heard numerous students ask their teacher the same thing about new concepts we were learning, "What are we going to do with this stuff in the real world?" And the teacher's response was usually always the same: "Um, well..."

Yes. The "Um, well..." which was usually followed by a desperate cover-up answer:

"Um, well you use it whenever you're measuring triangles and your ruler isn't working properly."

"Um, well you can use this whenever you are at the grocery store and need to know the square root of 34.57."

"Um, well you can use this formula in case you ever go on a trip to the Sun and your electronic measuring and computing devices aren't working."

Are you seeing a pattern? Here's the truth: Unless you are going to work for NASA or become a math teacher, there is no reason for learning most of what we learn in math class. Really we learn all we need to know as far as math goes before we're even halfway done with elementary school.

Let me illustrate my point:

Fig. 1

See, up through middle school we learn all of the shapes we will need to know to get through college and even get us on to retirement:

Fig. 2

There you go.