"Human rights?"

The moment you give humans a law they will break it.

The moment you give humans "rights and freedoms" they will subvert the "rights and freedoms" of other humans.

These are all we have in common.

vegan steps

Yesterday my mother baked vegan double chocolate cookies. Semi-sweet (no milk) chocolate and margarine not butter.

And they're damn fine.

FIGHT YOU

I will destroy you.

I mean, completely wasted.

So if you don't believe that this is the best blog ever, I will fight you. And that is no lie.

When I have nightmares I dream of Old English

So, as it turns out, there is not one translation of The Passion of Saint Christopher into Modern English in the entire world. That's right, zero, none.

"A little... not much..."
"NONE!!!!!"

So I guess I'll be forging some new territory in the land of Old English (twitch).

On the bright side, Gmail is awesome.

...........................................ahhhhh

This post could probably have about 4 or 5 titles, so instead I'm going to give each section its own title.

Peeling the Dead Skin

If you ever get a tattoo you should be warned that the top layer of skin dies in the process, and about five days after getting it you'll be in the shower and all the skin will peel off. And then the ink coloured skin will float around in the water.

Crazy week

This week has been really weird. Like, really. Natalie and I kept randomly running into each other all week and that was cool... often leading to pretty in depth converstations about everything. Conversations then lead to thinking about everything. Thinking leads to well... crazy.

Late nights

I don't think I went to bed before 1:30am any day this week. Gah.

Ignorance is Stupidity

Well.... Maybe I should do all my homework

That's all for now.

for the first person

"It's Sacramental!"

render unto caesar
that which is

I

cut the tongue feed
on the blood of

I

being a Canadian on the day after the Federal Election...

So I guess Ontario and Alberta really like the Conservative Party.

Well, at least it's a minority government and we can expect another election in six months or so....

Inked (Again)

Well, I have now voted and tattoo-ed.

I got two matching tattoos, they are on the back of each arm above the elbow and are of the Greek letters Alpha and Omega. Mom got a tattoo of a turtle. Erin watched, and afterwords the three of us had lunch at Maggie's Eatery (highly recommended), and then Erin and I had coffee.

Then of course, class, followed by voting, which, by the way, you have 4 more hours to do.

I also bought my friend Brendan Benson's new album The Colours of the Sky. It's pretty awesome.

Vote!!!

Today is the Canadian Federal election. If you are Canadian and 18+, go vote now!

Do it.
Right now.

Oh yeah, I'm also getting a tattoo today. Rocks!

Mercy's for the weak

Mercy's for the weak,
we do not train
to be merciful.
Mercy's everything,
I fear we do not train
to see his mercy here
(Christian Lindskog)

Grace: Getting the blessings that we don't deserve.

Mercy: Not getting the punishment that we do deserve.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy
(Jesus Christ)

Of course, that would go the other way too, wouldn't it? Those who know the mercy of Christ on the cross will naturally desire to show mercy. Or at least they should, shouldn't they?

To the:

homeless
poor
drug addicts
criminals
losers
hypocrites
liars
cheaters
thieves
rapists
murderers
child molesters

and also to:

the misguided
those who know better
those who think they know better
each other

Yeah, let's show mercy, cause we are all weak.

youthful exuberance on post #318

This is actually post #318, you can count if you wanna. I dares ya.

My friends are awesome. I'm really thankful for them, they're the best people in the world. However, sometimes I feel I'm not thankful enough and am paraniod that they will all leave me when they realize how much of a %$#@ I am.

So thank you all. You make me better, you bring me closer to God.

Don't waste your time. I have nothing important to say.

"I'm just gonna go pee."

Quoth Paul Lawton seconds before his stellar awesome surprise birthday party. Yeah, that was fun. We drank pop, ate cake and played "Jeo-Paul-dy," and most importantly, we prayed for Paul. (Good thing to do).

Oh yeah, and he did get to pee.

And Paul: now that I know you read this I expect you to find it funny that I quoted you saying "I have to pee" to the whole world. Ha.

Todd wrote a poem on my hand for me. I think that some of Todd's best work is on the fly and improvised. It's really different than me, because most of my stuff is continously ruminated upon and modified.

Here's Todd's poem:

dragging
this skin so
tight to my mind
across your
thoughts and
heart

Thank's Todd. That means more to me than you probably think it does.

Being stranded at campus is the coolest thing ever

Peterborough buses are
defunct
with freezing rain cancelling the buses
onetwothreefourfive
busesjustlikethat
and now I have to ask how do you like your blue-eyed Noah
now mr. bus?

These words

These words are blank verse memories of you;
Blank, like the white sky on a summer day.
Or blinding, like the snow in December.

prophet

You're a prophet, Love.

You saw the earth spinning off its axis and into the sun.

Like the sun to the earth, my head was spinning me as well. All spinning, constantly from the axis to the fantasy; the sound of the leaves blowing through the trees and the look of the stars on a beautiful night. So, you say that you saw all this before, and I believe, but I'm left with one question:

Is this what it feels like to float breathless above the world?

You're a prophet, Love.

________________

Conversing with God.

Sparky is a bad nick-name

The past couple days have been pretty swell. Today eight people at church got baptized, including Mark Stephen's three sons. Both of their sets of grandparents were there too. It's so compelling to see this family that has such strong spiritual roots passing on the knowledge and love of God to the next generation. The verse that says "Bring up your children with the fear of the LORD and they will follow me" comes to mind.

It makes me sad that my future family will have no such spiritual heritage... but I will start one and I guarantee that when I see my grandchildren getting baptized this day will come to mind.

I've known Mark, Ellen and their kids for five years now... it was so intense; the second I saw Luke climb into the tank my eyes totally filled up... and there was still two more. Luke also gave me a big post-dunk hug to get me wet, ah, so awesome!

Last night Natalie came over to my house and we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and ate my birthday cake and drank tea. It was swell.

Tonight is TCF Church in the Caf, and Mr. Carlo Raponi is speaking, and I expect to see you there at 8:00pm. You can all give me a hug.

Oh yeah, Sparky is a bad nick-name.

I'm like a Mockingbird

Derek Webb, Mockingbird

Best album to close 2005 with? Probably.
Best lyrics ever? Most likely.
Most convicting artist to hit the Christian Music scene since Keith Green? Oh, definitely.

Trying to tackle God, love, and politics in 40 minutes is insane, but Derek pulls it off. Best lyrical snippets:

don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
i prefer a shot of grape juice

don’t teach me about loving my enemies

don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
just give me a new law
(from "A New Law")

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him
(from "A King & A Kingdom")

peace by way of war is like purity by way of fornication
it’s like telling someone murder is wrong
and then showing them by way of execution
...
when justice is bought and sold just like weapons of war
the ones who always pay are the poorest of the poor
(from "My Enemies are Men like Me")

i’m in love
oh i love what i can convince you of
‘cause i’m a prophet by trade
and a salesman by blood
now i’m dying just to be
a filtered, sub-cultural version of me
(from "Zeros & Ones")

like an addict to his fix
so am i to your sweet lips
the wife of my youth, my drug of choice
(from "Please, Before I Go")

Anyway, you should own this album.

Through the eyes of a jealous kind

To your godesses of love:
The new covenant in my blood.

An open line of reciprocity,
a line; that curves and pulsates
like an artery.
Like yellow-cracked hardened fat:

So feel your heart.
So feel your blood rush to your head,

and stand in the line that opens
like a tree; stretching each branch
to reach your goddesses of love:

So feel your blood.
So feel your heart crack your head,

opening your pithy mind and spilling
through the eyes of a jealous kind.

NS
01.11.06
11.01pm

Eunoia

The shortest English word containing all five vowels. "Beautiful thinking." The title of a poetry collection by Christian Bok which contains five chapters named after each vowel; and each chapter only uses the vowel of its title. Highly recommended, but I must warn that each section contains a poem that deals with a "prurient debauch." (In other words, some of it is dirty).

So I guess today is my birthday. I guess I'm 22 years old.

let me rise

Had tea with Mark Buchanan today. Good times.

Many of my friends keep asking me to teach them about the Spiritual gifts. I think there is a lack of solid teaching about the Spiritual gifts. Most teaching is biased and skewed; either towards a fundamentalist (cessationist, no more gifts) or a charismatic (focus on the "flashy" gifts such as tongues, prophecy and healing), view. Neither of these extremes are biblical or applicable, the truth is somewhere in the middle. For the record, I have at times been both cessationist and charismatic leaning, but now I tend to look at things in a balanced way:

• all the gifts are important and can be used today (except, of course, apostleship, considering the prerequisite for that gift was being alive during Christ's earthly ministry... See Acts 1)
• Each gift is distributed amongst the church under the will of God
• There is no single gift that everyone is called to have
• All the gifts are divine
• Some gifts should not be valued over others
• Each gift should be practiced under the biblical specifications regarding it (and some gifts have far more specific regulations, notably the gift of tongues which has an entire chapter explaining its proper usage)
  

Of course this is totally a complicated issue and each of these points warrants explanation but right now I don't have the time to get into it, I do have a biblical basis for each of these points.

Anyway, I do intend to teach a thorough study to my Young Adults' Group, so when I make notes for that I'll probably post them. Not promising anything soon (or neccessarily at all) though.

and on this day

Within 30 seconds of getting off the TrenT Express at Bata I ran into Brent, Meaghan, Desiree, Rick, Robbie, and Blake. And I saw Claire but she didn't see me. (What other girl at Trent would wear a Kreator hoodie? METAL! \m/ >_< \m/)

Natalie and I "did breakfast" today, and that was fun. I ate a double-bowl (two packets) of Oatmeal and a bowl of Corn Pops. I totally could have ate more because I was really hungry but I didn't want to eat all of the poor girl's breakfast materials. She had a meagre half-bowl of Corn Pops. No wonder her mom called her "Bird" as a child. We also had tea at Dreams and Beans and that was cool as well.

Good News: My seminar that takes place during TCF is fortnightly so I'll be able to go every other week! Yay!

Anyway, school has truly begun again.

"... there are two great lies that I have heard: the day you eat a fruit of that tree you will surely not die and that Jesus Christ was a white middle-class republican, and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like him."- Derek Webb

Back to... "it."

"It" being life, school, and all those other things that happen after the glorious month known as "Winter break." (Oh, the memory already fading!)

Tonight I have to translate 75 lines of Beowulf. I also have to do the same tomorrow. And I have a grammar assignment due on my (freaking) birthday (January FRIDAY the 13th for all you newcomers). I think I might rent the entire Friday the 13th series and have a "Jason" party... and at the end Jason can burst out of an oversized cake with red blood-coloured icing and hack everyone present to death. (After, or course, some well-placed "teenage innuendos")

Hmmm.... or maybe that's a bad idea.

I do have Junior High on my Birthday. Christopher has promised "twenty-two paddywacks." I'd like to see him try. Now, if his dad gets in on it...

I'm starting my series "How to love what God loves and hate what God hates." (Think that's too heavy for 12 year olds? Nah! Just gotta go slow).

And tomorrow I'm having breakfast and "hot beverages" with Natalie. That is, if her headache goes away.... I hope so. But, if not, I just get a head start on my FREAKING BEOWULF TRANSLATION!!!! GAH!!!! NOAH HATES BEOWULF TRANSLATION!!!!

(Okay, glad that's out of the way).

Mom and I are getting our tattoos on MONDAY JANUARY 23rd, which is, funny enough, also the date of the Canadian Federal Election which everyone reading this will vote in.

And who am I voting for? No clue. I'll figure it out, I just need to decide which half of my ethics will be sacrificed for my vote. (For more on my feelings about politics, read this).

I am reminded at this time of my continual need for the power of Christ in my life

More Wine
Cuz I gotta have it

More Skin
Cuz I gotta eat it
(From "Lakini's Juice" by Live)

Live is an interesting band. Definitely not a fan of their singer Ed's Eastern religious views and his obsession with a universalistic view of humanity as being all good; however, I am a fan of his Christian imagery and symbolism and his constant struggles with God and theology. Just because he doesn't believe the same as me doesn't mean that there are not valid spiritual truths in his writing.

Anyway, that's my fun disjointed post of the day. Have fun.

mild explosions

but all I could think of was you
when colour explosions blue #3 red #2
titanium polysorbate (as a free flow agent)
but all I could think of was you

but all I could think of was you
when loving breathing harshly through
a bomb (ten basic ingredients from the kitchen cupboard)
but all I could think of was you

but all I could think of was you
when words stutter meaningless ruse
with the meaningful profound (of ice on the ground)
but all I could think of was you

who I am instead

Something has happened that has never happened before. I'm actually dreading going back for second term. I love school.

Its just that, for some reason, the end of the first term had an unnatural sense of utter completion to it. I'm not completely certain why. It could be that one of my classes was a half-credit, or that I had a very large assignment due in each class, or that I don't have another large assignment due for a few months.

It could be that there was a lot of... ending this term A lot of emotional and intellectual "endings." Things that have occipied my psyche for a long time that are no longer present. It's almost like this new term is like starting in September.

Or like it's totally starting over. Completely. Interestingly this marks literally the half-way point of my university education.

What I left will no longer be there when I return.

But I am looking forward to seeing some people when I get back. And as much as things have ended, other things have started. Exciting things. It seems that even though I am leaving last term void of the past two years, it is still a journey into the unknown future.

Excitement and dread:
this is who I am instead.

"...and I will rebuild it in three days."

This house that we have built:
I will rejoice in tearing down
every stone and brick.

meeting people is easy

holding on is hard.

Some people hold have friends forever. Witness Jerry and Tedd, who have been friends for at least 16 years now.

For some reason I never have any friends for any length of time. The longest was 8 years I think. Sometimes its inevitable, like when someone moves away. Other times people just grow apart. I've recently realized how easy it is to grow apart.

For example, I no longer see all the friends I met in first year university. I still like them and all, but I never realized how easy it is to be friends with someone who has the same classes as me and lives on campus, and how hard it is to be friends with someone when those factors disappear. Soon contact is lost and before too long neither person cares and its like you didn't know the person.

All my closest friends I met before university. All my university friends that I still speak to are the ones I met in second year.

Another thing I've noticed is that the majority of the friends I've held onto the longest are Christians. This is probably because Christians tend to put a high value on community. That and the majority of my non-Christian friends became Christians recently.

But I need to be friends with "normals." Christians are weird folk. We're told to be in the world and not of it, but I think a lot of Christians aren't even in the world.

A comedian once said of fundamentalist Christians, "Aren't you supposed to be away somewhere? Waiting for the rapture or something? Just go away!"

A lot of Christians tend to "go away" naturally, but not because they are told to by the world, but because we have developed this sub-par copy of the world's culture (music, clothes, tv, books) and called it a "Christian counter-culture," but really its too pathetic to even deserve that name as it tends to be a cheap rip-off of the "real thing."

Wow. Talk about random topic change.

Anyway, the main point is that without normal (non-Christian) friends, I am bound to become brainwashed by the Christian rip-off culture, and therefore become completely useless and irrelevant to God, humanity, and the world in general.

Although, as much as I need normal non-Christian friends, I'd really like it if my normal friends became Christians, not because I'm on some sort of "holy crusade to convert the heathens," but because I really want them to know and love Jesus the way that I do. Jesus is an awesome guy to love and know.

So, well, I guess I want to say, "be my friend." And be my friend for a long time. And I'll put effort into being your friend so that it lasts longer than one year.

Thank you.

I am a one-trick pony

I had coffee with Megs today and that was a fruitful endeavor. Megs and I always tend to get along and challenge each other in subtle ways to be better people and Christians.

I think I am becoming a "one-trick pony." I have one sermon that I want to preach, and only one... I want the church in North America to seek justice and to be godly. That will need to start on an individual basis, but I have some ideas. I could go all out into this right now but I am still formulating this in my mind.

I think Mom and I are going to get our tattoos on Monday January 15th. It should be swell... talk about bonding, getting a tattoo at the same time.

New Year's Project

Well, its 12 hours and 4 minutes into the new year....

Who cares?

I've never really understood the celebration of new year's. Most holidays exist to mark a special event or to celebrate the life of a notable person, but new year's is totally arbitrary and based on a somewhat futile human-made system of time management.

So everyone makes "resolutions" as if the passing of another day will motivate them to change, and that is a fallacy as only the Holy Spirit can enact true change in our lives. Then they all go get drunk so that they don't even remember the passing of the year... new year's is little more than an example of and celebration of our pathetic excesses.

That being said, I've always loved the song "New Year's Project" by Further Seems Forever. It has a hopeful yet dreadful tone, and it is a reminder that even if a "new year" is arbitrary, it may indeed offer us a new perspective on things.

So cheers.

"New Year's Project"

Your hands didn't move
well neither did mine.
New Years will bring
so much to say
but nothing comes out right
both of us left without words
both of us lost in this world
it's softer than ever before.

And you were the outline
of everything you would become.
The keeper of these hands.
To hold you now
it is a far cry more than
anything that I deserve.

I'm waiting to give you
whatever the world may bring
I'd give you my life
cause I don't own anything.
It seemed like the bottom
was all that I had
until now
I'd give you my life
if you'd give me
yours somehow.

Your hands didn't move
well neither did mine
New Years will bring me to you.
I'm waiting to give you
whatever the world may bring
I'd give you my life
cause I don't own anything.
It seemed like the bottle
was all that I had
until now
I'd give you my life
if you'd give me
yours somehow.

(Words by Christopher Carraba, music by Further Seems Forever)