I haven't gotten much sleep in the last month. I say that not so you'll feel sorry for me or suggest remedies, but for the sake of anything that makes no sense in what I write tonight. You've been warned.
I'm comfortable.
I have a full time, steady job that pays the bills and allows me to irresponsibly spend more than I should without going deeper into debt. The fact that I'm working upwards of 50 hours a week aside, it's a sweet gig. I have my favorite ministry, Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, to spend pretty much every night surrounded by like minded wayfarers on the journey of life from adolescence into adulthood, whatever that means these days. I have a place to live that's pretty dang nice and cheaper that I could've hoped for. And I've got my hopes, dreams, aspirations, and afflictions.
And yet I bumble about in my own mind looking for the next big thing, praying for God to show me the next step in my journey, the girl I'm supposed to marry, the new professional stepping stone, the girl I'm supposed to marry...did I already say that?...dang...
I'm comfortable...
I don't know why, but I hate being comfortable. It has a sense of stagnation to me, like that birdbath that you forgot to clean out, or that Chipotle sac that you accidentally shoved under the passenger seat of your car...something's just not quite right even though by all observable data, everything's running smoothly.
My body hurts for no good reason, my mind stagnates with the glow of my work computer screen, my brain fries from my two cell phones and my bluetooth headset, my bed welcomes me every night and disappoints as I wake more exhausted than I was 6 hours before.
2 things I must do to revive myself into action: restart my body and refuel my soul.
I must start running every day and working out in some other way at least 3 times per week. I'm slowly killing myself with Chipotle lunches and PB&J dinners. I must take my body back from the sluggishness which has set upon my bones.
I must return to my books, specifically my Bible and the list of classics I was supposed to have read by this month. How can I hear God's call into the next phase of my life if I don't speak the language in which he calls?
As Sertillanges said, "to dig and dig into the same hole is the way to get down deep and to surprise the secrets of the earth." I must get off my coffee break and make myself uncomfortable, because no work gets done when you're comfortable. I must move.
As for the things I keep asking God to show me...I'm convinced they will become apparent in good time...and at least one isn't even in my own hands anyway.
If what you're doing now won't take 50 years to accomplish, you're not thinking big enough. I intend to save the world. I think that will take at least 50 years. Your help would be appreciated.
--Ceteris Paribus
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Let the Games Begin
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” Matthew 7:1-2 (ESV)
Most people, Christian, Atheist, or otherwise affiliated, know this verse and use it when it suits them. Christians tend to use it when they’ve done something deemed wrong by another Christian, Atheists use it when a Christian pushes his morality on them, and others use it for similar reasons and in similar ways. But the problem is that almost everyone stops with the first verse. “Judge not, that you be not judged.”
No one who uses this verse in the aforementioned ways wants to read on and see that it’s not a commandment not to judge, but a warning to the Judge. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” The NASB says it this way, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”
Warning noted, and taken to heart, I choose to judge ideas according to the standard which I want my ideas judged. I choose to judge people according to the standard against which I shall someday be judged. I choose to submit myself to a single standard, and ask you to hold me up against the standard which I plan to set in this blog.
I learned what to think in high school, church, college, and at home. The difference between home and the other three is that my parents also tried to teach me how and why to think. I later learned from others much more experienced than I how to test ideas against tradition, scripture (both Holy Scriptures and classically accepted truths), and modern advances in both thought and technology.
This is my background as a Philosopher, plus or minus a few University courses in the subject.
I encourage you, reader, to challenge me and my ideas, my claims, and my core beliefs that shall seep out through the issues I choose to take up. In fact, I implore you to, for only through debating what is the Truth can we discover if our minds are shielding us from it through our self created delusions or if we have accepted such truth as a foundation of the world.
Let the Games Begin!
Most people, Christian, Atheist, or otherwise affiliated, know this verse and use it when it suits them. Christians tend to use it when they’ve done something deemed wrong by another Christian, Atheists use it when a Christian pushes his morality on them, and others use it for similar reasons and in similar ways. But the problem is that almost everyone stops with the first verse. “Judge not, that you be not judged.”
No one who uses this verse in the aforementioned ways wants to read on and see that it’s not a commandment not to judge, but a warning to the Judge. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” The NASB says it this way, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”
Warning noted, and taken to heart, I choose to judge ideas according to the standard which I want my ideas judged. I choose to judge people according to the standard against which I shall someday be judged. I choose to submit myself to a single standard, and ask you to hold me up against the standard which I plan to set in this blog.
I learned what to think in high school, church, college, and at home. The difference between home and the other three is that my parents also tried to teach me how and why to think. I later learned from others much more experienced than I how to test ideas against tradition, scripture (both Holy Scriptures and classically accepted truths), and modern advances in both thought and technology.
This is my background as a Philosopher, plus or minus a few University courses in the subject.
I encourage you, reader, to challenge me and my ideas, my claims, and my core beliefs that shall seep out through the issues I choose to take up. In fact, I implore you to, for only through debating what is the Truth can we discover if our minds are shielding us from it through our self created delusions or if we have accepted such truth as a foundation of the world.
Let the Games Begin!
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