Aftermath of Republic Session one...

Nothing like three hours with a man who did his doctoral thesis on Plato, and being forced to reexamine the way you are living your life because all of a sudden less and less softly padded rebukes are knocking you in the head. Sorry, long sentence.

So, I'm confused, and scared. But I feel great. This is the first time in a long time I've felt anything in my soul resembling new thought.

I learned so much today, largely how truely foundational Plato is to the entire world. How translators of the New Testament used language that Plato created in talking about the tripartied soul (excuse any spelling errors please), immortality of the soul, the Forms of the good, the true, and beauty, etc. How Plato shaped education, totally turned spirituality upsidown and came to unbelievable conclusions that seem prophetic. Its terrifying to come into so much heady information.

Let me first say that I am by no means to be considered knowledeable about Plato to any great extent. I have read some of his works and been guided by the tutilage of several great mentors whom I trust to know the text very well.

With that said, please let me relate something within the Republic that nearly knocked me off of my chair:

After speaking on the just and unjust man (and city) for a while, Socrates makes a statement about the man who is just, but doesn't seem to be.
This guy is truely just but the city thinks the opposite of him, that he is injust. The language in my translation says that "we impale the man," in the original the word is more accurately translated "we crucify the man." The worst punishment for the just man: crucifixion. Interestingly enough, there is more. Concluding the entire work of the Republic is the famous myth of Err. Err dies on the battlefied but is allowed to travel around after death that he might report what he sees and return with that information to people on Earth. He is ressurrected after this experience. For all the describing of the just city and just man, with all of its pages and pages of side arguments and specifications, what does the final book say we need? We really need a guy to die and come back to tell us how to really live.
Pause for effect.

Is this not jaw dropping? Plato, 427 B.C. - 347 B.C. recognized what it would take to make things right. Phenomenal.
Our pull question was "How did Plato 'get it right' without the Holy Spirit?"
What a humdinger huh?

This much has been thrilling to me, sort of the adrenaline rush you get from opening a window in a stale room to winter air, it nearly freezes your lungs but its so invigorating and fresh and real that you have to keep gulping it in.

What makes me cast my head down is the pursuit of the good, the true and the beauty. This is the "motto" of Torrey. Bonum Pulchur Veritas (again please excuse any butchering in spelling). I'm beginning to recognize the utter holyness surrounding them as God contains them and is them and suddenly I've been offered a new way to see the approach to them, and I realize how fully I fall short. What I don't understand is how am I really supposed to order my life? It seems to even approach truth I must abandon so much of my day to thought, as my thoughts hardly ever reach the point of takeoff let alone actually approaching the true. I feel like a child hindered by my playpen, and yet, my life is that playpen and I know God gave it to me for a reason. Sport, work, friends- all these are good for my soul and develop it, but how do I live them so that they aren't hindering my pursuit for the true? I understand that this is all part of the intricate way that my life has been formed by God but I'm scared that I'm getting it wrong somehow. That I missed the point and I'm just using Him as justification. Lord I fear that attitude the worst.

All of this has left me fearful and questioning. But I know that because of that, I think I'm ok. Jesus chose the least of men to follow him. In all the holyness that was wrapped up in his being he allowed the most disorded men to dine with him. Jesus loves those who come to him with their disordered souls and messed up priorities. God's glory returned to Earth and poured out over his people. His people. Them. Me. Us.

It's a beautiful day.

Confessions...not quite so grand as Augustine, but from the heart

Alright, so I suppose I have a little explaining to do, since I've been absent from my blog for months upon months.
This blog has functioned in a few ways for me, letting my friends know what's going on in my life, usually reflections on my spiritual growth and movement while at school. Its a sounding board for some of my thoughts that come at times when there's no one around to listen. For a while I loved it, then as school got more intense I had less time and blogged less frequently until finally ceasing.
Why not continue over the summer, why start again now? (besides the fact that I keep forgetting my class in @ 8:30 and not 8, so I'm ready to go...and bored=)

The truth? Because I have had nothing to write. Nothing I was proud of anyways.

This summer was spiritually stagnant for me. I slipped quietly away from communication with God every day in prayer and scripture to manipulating every ounce of my time for money or entertainment. I worked long days at the gym as a counselor, and then went home, rested, and did whatever the heck I felt like doing, every day. I even found it an imposition when my mom asked me to help her with the horses once a week. It was all about me. I spent every waking moment with Jesse which was amazing and I loved it, but I neglected my family. I only saw my best friend once or twice over a summer that ended up changing her life. Oh, and as for church, I hardly ever went. I wanted to leave the church I have been at since becomming a Christian, for legit reasons too, but I never made to effort to find a new spiritual home. When I did go, all I did was nit pick at their messages, hating the way they phrased it or interpreted scripture.

I was always bitter.

So, here I am now, feeling so empty in a place where the absence of God in my life stands out so much more to me. At home the perspective was far far different, but now that there are chapels and people always praying and discussions with friends, I can see what I let happen all summer.

What to do then?
Well, figuring that there's no place like the beginning I began to earnestly read Matthew again and at the same time started a book my friends gave me called the Challenge of Jesus. I wanted to see who Jesus really was, God and man, for real. I wanted to find out for myself his character, motives, goals and desires as if I was sitting there listening to him, seeing him, watching his disciples. Sometimes you just have to start over. I tried picking up my faith where I let it sit stagnant for so long, but I let things get rusty and corroded. I need to learn what it means to be a follower of Christ now, every day. A religion that has spanned so many years has done so because it works in every era without changing its core. I want a faith based on this. I want to be a part of something that's been going on for years and will keep going because it is so alive. I want to learn how to really love, with everything I have. I want to not just be me. I've had enough of just me

So here I go, feet first, and I pray to God that the water is cold, cus it would sure be nice to feel again.

Thoughts from my devotional...

Oswald Chambers makes a really salient point to connection and identification with Christ regarding the giving up of our sins. He talks about this really painful moment just before you surrender your sin, of seeing yourself as the Lord sees you. Ironically, when this happens you are less disgusted by the sin itself, and moreso by your attitude in dealing with it. We become most ashamed at our reactions and emotions regarding bad things than the actual bad things themselves.

That should remind us of something.

The phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin" may be cliche by now, but cliches are what they are because they are true. The sin isn't important, go figure. Those things which we fight tooth and nail- which we rage personal all-out battles with, don't matter. Funny then to see how people focus SO much on their sin. Ever talked to a Christian about their spiritual lives and they respond first with "I'm working on getting rid of ______"? Sin, though painfully gripping, cannot be offed by ourselves. The human body is far to frail to reject such things by itself forever. Drawing nearer to God will realign the soul, put you in a more right place, and through that the sin will begin to slough off. Some sins which are physical and tangible require a moment of actual resistence to follow through with the sinful action. (I say action, not desire, because note that when we sin it is because of misplaced desire, so in truth our desires are right in the sense of what they are seeking after at the deepest level.) But even that moment where you must say no is made less painful and harsh by fulfillment of those same desires in God.

I suppose this should remind us that we are not fighting an enormous battle against sin (do the war metaphors make anyone else feel overwhelmed ever???) we are striving to draw closer to our God. I think it's also worth noting that emotions are very important here. (One of my more favorite topics, emotions are dealt with strangely in the Christian church...but that's another blog=)

Bear with, this is long but totally worth the read.

I found this article through AOL, very interesting. Go check out the guys website and then post what you think!

On eBay, Atheist Puts Own Soul on Auction Block
The Winning Bidder Offers Unusual Deal: Visit Churches and Critique
By SUZANNE SATALINE, The Wall Street Journal


(March 9) A few weeks ago, Hemant Mehta posted an unusual item for sale on eBay: a chance to save his soul.
The DePaul University graduate student promised the winner that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend an hour of church services. The 23-year-old Mr. Mehta is an atheist, but he says he suspected he had been missing out on something.
"Perhaps being around a group of people who will show me 'the way' could do what no one else has done before," Mr. Mehta wrote in his eBay sales pitch. "This is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me."
Evangelists bid, eager to save a sinner. Atheists bid, hoping to keep Mr. Mehta in their fold. When the auction stopped on Feb. 3 after 41 bids, the buyer was Jim Henderson, a former evangelical minister from Seattle, whose $504 bid prevailed.
Mr. Henderson wasn't looking for a convert. He wanted Mr. Mehta to embark with him on an eccentric experiment in spiritual bridge-building.
The 58-year-old Mr. Henderson has written a book for a Random House imprint and is currently a house painter. He runs off-the-map.org, a Web site whose professed mission is "Helping Christians be normal." Mr. Henderson is part of a small but growing branch of the evangelical world that disagrees with the majority's conservative political agenda, and wants the religion to be more inclusive and help the disadvantaged.
Days after the auction, Mr. Henderson flew to Chicago to see Mr. Mehta, who is studying to be a math teacher. The two met in a bar, where they sealed a deal a little different from the one the student had proffered. Instead of the 50 hours of church attendance that he was entitled to for his $504, Mr. Henderson asked that Mr. Mehta attend 10 to 15 services of Mr. Henderson's choosing and then write about it.
Mr. Mehta also agreed to provide running commentary on the church services on the off-the-map site and take questions -- bluntly sharing a nonbeliever's outlook on services that many consider sacred. The deal called for Mr. Henderson to donate the $504 to the Secular Student Alliance, a group headed by Mr. Mehta that has 55 chapters in the U.S. and abroad.
"I'm not trying to convert you," Mr. Henderson said at the bar. "You're going there almost like a critic....If you happen to get converted, that's off the clock." For Mr. Mehta's first service, the two attended noon Mass at Old St. Patrick's, a Catholic church near Mr. Mehta's apartment. In the third pew from the rear, Mr. Mehta silently gazed at the statues and the worshipers' folded hands. He tried to follow along, but was a beat behind the congregation as it stood and knelt on cue.
Mr. Henderson asked Mr. Mehta to score the priest, on a scale of one for boring to 10 for "off the charts." Mr. Mehta gave him a three. "More stories" in the sermon, Mr. Mehta suggested -- and less liturgy.
Asked about that advice, the Rev. John Cusick, who said the Mass that day, was unfazed: "There's nothing he could say that I haven't heard 100 times over."
Mr. Mehta's commentaries award sermons kudos for clarity, demerits for redundancy. After a service at Chicago's nondenominational Park Community Church, he criticized the preacher for repeatedly referring to a Bible verse in which the Galatians are called "fools" for doubting the divinity of Jesus -- without explaining why the passage was relevant to his congregation. The room, Mr. Mehta noted, was already full of people who didn't share the Galatians' doubts.
Associate Pastor Ron May wrote in to thank Mr. Mehta: "As the guy who spoke yesterday, I really appreciate the honest eval. (Unfortunately, a lot of the time you only get polite smoke...good job...thanks for the message.)"

Mr. Mehta was born in Chicago and raised in Jainism, an ancient Indian faith whose followers vow to harm no living thing, not even microbes in the air.
He praises famous atheists, but has also read parts of the Bible, loves watching televangelists like Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen, and admires their appeal to congregations. "If I could be an atheist pastor?" he says, "Oh God, that would be great!"
Mr. Henderson, who was a member of the Association of Vineyard Churches, a nondenominational ministry, says he preached for 25 years, but says he grew disenchanted because many of his peers were obsessed with gathering more believers and increasing their budgets. Off-the-map started as a hobby, an outgrowth of a long talk with a friend and co-founder Dave Richards, who had been a member of one of Mr. Henderson's congregations, about why they disliked evangelizing.
Mr. Henderson began interviewing nonbelievers -- in front of audiences and video cameras -- about the ways Christians had offended them. That material became part of his book, "a.k.a. 'Lost,' '' espousing his softer approach, published last year by WaterBrook Press.
Hiring Mr. Mehta has been his wisest investment, Mr. Henderson says. The Web site received 5,000 hits in the first 10 days after the auction -- typically the number of visits in an average month.
Some visitors to the site castigate Mr. Henderson for giving an atheist a forum. One said he was "rather misguidedly (throwing) money at someone to simply get him 'churched' for a time so he might possibly get 'saved?' "
Mr. Mehta has also been reading and critiquing church bulletins. In one, Park Community asked the congregation to pray, in advance of a coming meeting on the construction of a church building "that God would...open the doors to the right parking solution, allowing us to build a worship space for 1,200 people, rather than the 850 currently permitted."
"Really?" Mr. Mehta observed on the Web site. "That's what you're praying for? Do they think a god will change parking restrictions? Will a god change the price of nearby property? Will a god add another level to a parking structure?"
Mr. May, the pastor, admitted such talk sounds weird to an outsider. "It's good to be reminded it's unusual," he said
Mr. Henderson says he is thrilled that Mr. Mehta is prompting such reactions. "We're getting to a place where we're talking and not converting," he says.
With about half his obligation to Mr. Henderson fulfilled, Mr. Mehta says he's no closer to believing in God, although he does admire churches for the communities they create. Church, he has decided, is "not such a bad place to be."

Think I'm starting to get it...

Anyone who didn't have to work that hard through high school can empathize with me here. I don't mean like people who didn't do anything, cus heck, I did a ton of actual work, but it always just sort of came, ya know? Funny about college, you have to work for it... a lot harder.

I looked at my calendar yesterday and freaked out. Anna Karenina and the Brothers Karamozov are coming up between midrags (Torrey midterm) and spring break (right after spring break our Torrey paper is due). Both 900-1000 page books. I almost curled up into the fetal position and cried. There's another great thing about high school, usually you have about one class that really requires a lot of commitment from you, in college, not so. In the mix there are exams, quizes, and more reading for other classes that require a lot of effort. Then there are the jobs...and the sport. It's all insane.

Later that night I read an email someone posted about Torrey. I think it was in response to those who are struggling just to keep up with minimum requirements still, and haven't settled into the program. In a nutshell he said that Torrey is about taking charge of your education and making it something worthwhile. Just meeting the requirements completely misses the mark of Torrey. I really agree, and you know what, that goes with EVERYTHING!

I was focusing so much yesterday on just meeting the mark, just looking at what I had to do to make it to spring break without too much mental or scholastic injury.
When I opened up As You Like It for the first time last night, I really read. I read and I enjoyed and I thought about it. To tell you the truth I haven't done that since the very beginning of the semester. I've been churning pages to get through a book or memorizing to just do well on the test. This isn't an education. Why pay 25 grand a year to memorize????

Yeah, I know it's still going to be brutally and frustratingly hard sometimes, and it's going to tax me to my mental limits. But that's good as long as I let it stretch me so that once the initial pain subsides, I will have grown.

To put things in perspective one last time, let me tell you what my mom says nearly every time we talk about school:

"I wish that I could do what you're doing right now! To be able to not just read and learn all these cool things but to have people interested in the very same things. You are so lucky to have so many friends that you can sit and talk these things through with. Enjoy college, it's like no other time in your life."

This made me smile=)

My Dad sent me this via email:

>> Pay special attention to the wording and spelling. This is really cute.
>>>> If you know the bible even a little, you'll find this hilarious!
>>>> It comes from a Catholic elementary school test.
>>>> Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. The following
>> statements about the Bible were written by children. They have not been
>> retouched or corrected. Incorrect spelling has been left in.


>>>> 1. In the first book of the bible, guinessis, God got tired of creating
>> the world so he took the Sabbath off.

>>>> 2. Adam and eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was joan of
>> ark. Noah built and ark and
>> the animals came on in pears.

>>>> 3. Lots wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during
>> the night.

>>>> 4. The jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with
>> unsympathetic genitals.

>>>> 5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a jezebel
like delilah.

>>>> 6. Samson slayed the philistines with the axe of the apostles.

>>>> 7. Moses led the jews to the red sea where they made unleavened bread which
>> is bread without any ingredients.

>>>> 8. The egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, moses went
>> up to mount cyanide to get the ten commandments.>

>>> 9. The first commandments was when eve told adam to eat the apple.

>>>> 10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

>>>> 11. Moses died before he ever reached canada then joshua led the hebrews in
>> the battle of geritol.

>>>> 12. The greatest miracle in the bible is when Joshua told his son to>stand
>> still and he obeyed him.

>>>> 13. David was a hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He>fought>> the finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in biblical times.

>>>> 14. Solomon, one of david's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

>>>> 15. When mary heard she was the mother of jesus, she sang the magna carta.

>>>> 16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived they found jesus>in
>> the manager.

>>>> 17. Jesus was born because mary had an immaculate contraption.

>>>> 18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.

>>>> 19. Jesus enunciated the golden rule, which says to do unto others before
>> they do one to you. He also explained a man doth not live by sweat alone.

>>>> 20. It was a miracle when jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the>> tombstone off the entrance.

>>>> 21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.

>>>> 22. The epistels were the wives of the apostles.

>>>> 23. One of the oppossums was st. Matthew who was also a taximan.

>>>> 24. St. Paul cavorted to christianity, he preached holy acrimony which>is
>> another name for marraige.

>>>> 25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

CUTEST BOYS EVER!!!! (apart from Jesse ;-)

Hooray!

Victory ladies and gents, I think we've found an awesome little church, right next to APU!!! South County was really cool, but so far away and to be honest, I only knew a few people there, most of them were late 20s I'd venture to say. We are now attending EV Free of Covina, it's a smaller church with lotsa love=) I swear I've only been once and I feel like I'm friends with three different people I've never met before=)
With all the talk of how to be a Christian and what real ministry looks like, I sometimes wonder if there is such a thing as excessive theology. There are times when I would trade someone with exactly the same views as I for a honest to goodness friendly and loving person. We don't know exactly what this church believes, to the T. But I'm ok with that. I don't want to be a church shopper=P
Anyhew, I'm so excited. Thankfully it's big enough to still have a college group afterwards, which I am very excited about=) Praise God, for new friends and new adventures=)

Oh, and a prayer request. Jesse messed up his shoulder yesterday playing rugby, well- his shoulder's been messed up since football season (torn labrum we think, he did physical therapy but never anything surgical). Anyhew, he's not able to sleep on it well, and even standing up pulls on it and gives him a lot of grief. Please pray that this isn't anything serious and will get better on its own. Surgery would break his heart because it would pull him out of rugby, football, and basketball temporarily.

Have fun at church ya'll!