Come'n back! Misspellings and all.

It's a new school year, a new fall semester, and i think i'm gonna try this whole blogging thing again. I secretly hope that the few people who would gaze upon it before have moved on to much cooler and interesting things then reading the meandering self important scribbling of me, but who knows. There are really three reasons I want to do this again.

are you ready for a riveting list?...

!. I find it entertaining to write something that won't be graded or corrected by anyone.

2. It is entertaining to have something to look back on. A compendium of my thought patterns that I can one day show the young'ns and say, "see kids, this is a computer. Before it was wired into you frontal cortex we got on the internet like this. JIMMY STOP MIND LOADING PORN IN PUBLIC!!"

3. I write differently when I think that someone else might read it. More coherently and clearly and with a constant eye on my eventual candidacy for the governor of Illinois and subsequent enditment for corruption. (it's what they do there apparently)


Peace and Grace

Oh the discombobulation!!

Everyone once in a while I feel like a mess. This wouldn't really be an issue if I could look at my life and see the messiness. At least that way I would have a plan of attack. No, for me it's all this kind of internal discombobulation. The feeling that I am off kilter. That something just doesn't feel right. At this point it really only effects my sleeping habits ( I can't seem to) and my motivation (I have none).

So I'm going to go ahead and see if I can get down to the bottom of this with a bit of spiritual exercise. This idea may come from the fact that I have been reading about the desert fathers lately and I like them. But either way i'm gonna kick this party off with a 4 day fast. From now till monday at noon.

Now I know what your thinking. "Mike, but if you get your crap together how will you possibly keep up on the atrocious amounts of online T.V. you've been watching and the massive quantities of cheese based meals you've been consuming!?" These are the risks a man must take.

Wish me luck.

Ruth Rumiko Ozaki

This is My grandmother. She is 87 years old. When my mom was in the hospital she kept my family afloat financially and resisted being payed back.

She did a fair bit of raising of me and my sisters.

I'm really quite fond of her. We all are.

but unfortunately he heath went down hill really fast this last year and over the last 2 days she had a series of strokes. The doctors are saying that she probably won't last more then a couple of days.

I'll probably be coming back to california for a bit real soon. Not sure about details though.

quote of the day

"I've come to meet the legendary takers. I've only come to ask them for a lot. Well they say I come with less then I should rightfully posses, I say the more I buy the more I'm bought. The more I buy the less I cost."

Deep simplicity 3

Continuing with my previous rants...

Another thing that this all makes me think of is Chariots.

In deuteronomy God is setting up all the rules for his new nation, his new people. They are going to be a different Kind of people who run a different kind of system. Nothing like the empire they came out of (egypt) or the ones that will surround them (babylon, assyria, cannon).

And God knows we tend to just do what the most powerful around us do. They must be right, right? Look at all their stuff!

But God says this new people have to rest one day a week, they have to treat the foreigner among them the same way they treat each other, they can't harvest the corners of their fields, that's for the poor to take. Every 7 years they have to free all slaves and release all debts and every 49 years every, all ownership and land has to go back to what it was.

In the empire this is terrible economics, but in the Kingdom it's beautiful community.

Mixed in with all these rules is an interesting directive for the King
Deuteronomy 17:16
The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make
the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are
not to go back that way again."

No horses...but why?



Horses were the Tanks and planes of the Bronze age. Empires were built and conquered on the backs of horses. Especially the most advanced weapon of that time...the Chariot. If you ever wanted to take over an army, to advance on a city, to push your might across a battle field, you HAD to have chariots and horses! You could defend without them...but not attack. But God says no. "your not to Go back that way again."

GOD'S people are not to be like THOSE people. GOD'S kingdom is not to be like THOSE empires.

Again He seems to be putting limits on technology for his people. He seems to know what we do and become with greater and greater power and fewer and fewer limits.
So what happens with people and groups that DO do this? What do they look like. What do they do and how do they think? Or are they just freaks in the forest who psychologists would LOVE to get their hands on?


later man...I"ll rant more later!

Quote of the day

By Henry Nouwen just before he quit his job as a Harvard professor and moved into a home for disabled adults called L'Arch, "something inside is telling me that my success is putting my soul in danger."

Deep Simplicity

Talking about this stuff makes me think of the Tower of Babel, Horses and the Amish.

Let me explain...

The flood happened a while back and Noah and all his gang left the boat, set out across what is Mesopotamia and multiplied like a bunch of middle eastern bunnies.

Slowly they move east and come to "the plane of shinara". forget the industrial revolution, this is where the first technology boom happens. They figure out how to make bricks, then morter then real buildings and a city. In this city they decided to make a building that can reach to the heavens so that they can "make a name for themselves."

It's human nature to do this. To build, to create, to advance more and more. We count this as success and a sign that we are better then once were. Think about it, the most "developed" societies are the ones with the most tech.

But God takes issue with this view.

Gen 11 says;
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." So he changes the language and scatters them all around.


Growing up I learned this story as a working against doing something before asking God if I should. But i think what it really is is a view into God's thinking on progression and technology.

"nothing they plan will be impossible for them"

we would say this is great. We want to be limitless, especially in our ability to create. But maby what were really trying to be is our own Gods. Limitless, in need of nothing and no one. All powerful.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1800 our ability has been growing at an exponential rate. We live longer, go further, make faster. But the question maybe is not what can we do but what do we do with it all.

-in the last 100 years more people have been killed in war and genocide then in the previous 4000 years combined.





- Each day over 80'000 ares of forest are destroyed







-there is most slavery today then at any other time in history








- there is more economic inequality now then at any other time in history (20% own 80% of the wealth and 30% own 94%)

Maby God had something better planned for his people then advancement. And mabey focusing on that makes us loose site of what that is.

Deep Simplicity

I am a lazy bastard.

I have a dirty love affair with T.V. from which i occasionally take a break to wrap myself around my second lover...internet.

I hate this about myself, but through the last 25 years using these things for entertainment and relaxation has become engrained in me. When I'm without it I get so board and restless.

painfully board.

I've been thinking about this a lot and why it is so. I mean, I'm sure people on the prairie didn't get board as easily as me. Does that mean they were more content...happier? Does that fact that I need more and more stuff, greater and greater stimulus, louder and louder voices to occupy my mind and be content?

As if to drive the point home my friend Chris www.kretzu.com/blog posted this video



So now i'm thinking,

mabey progress isn't everything we think it is.



more on this later...i'm getting board.

I have a crush on a girl.

It's causing me no end of anxiety.

resulting in this face



and to consider actually buying glasses like these



Psh, chicks man.

A thoughts on thoughts

I used to think differently.

I used to have real deep important thoughts about interesting things. I don't feel like I do this anymore.

This ability was stolen from me, like a midnight thief through the unlocked doors of my mind. I even know who the culprit it.

SCHOOL!

I've never been very good at school. I chalk this up to the fact that my attention span really didn't mature much since Jr. High, and Jr. high was ROUGH. So it takes so much of my concentration, so much of my mental energies that there is no room for the pondering of questions of why, or how, what the hell does this really mean. It's all taken up with the facts, figures and forms that i'll need for a test later.

For the most part I'm ok with this. I figure it's a season now where i'm taking in information and world view changes. Later I'll have the time and energy to make connections between it all that make some kind of sense and help me answer a question or two.

But on the down side it has made me a TERRIBLE conversationist. I'm a cacophony of awkward pauses and confusing logic. My apologies to anyone i have spoken to on the phone with lately.

poor grandma. (shakes head in guilt)

And then there's also the fear that sits in the back of my head that i've somehow lost the ability to think like I once did. But if I went into all the fears that are in the back of that thing i'd be blogging for days.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

words words words....with a sprinkle of meaning
In the search for truth we follow great but fleeting scents I catch upon the wind. They lead us in their direction, in frantic desperate steps. Then fade away into the mire of the familiar smoke of heavy lies surrounding us. We are confused, with no other choice, walking slowly, in the direction, stumbling along like children in the dark. Until we catch the scent again and run.

They are all honest humble steps

Though taken by a fools and a thieves

Be patient, I must go slowly…be patient with me.



Tuesday, August 14, 2007

connections
At what level must we connect with people in order to love them?

how vulnerable must we become.

Saul wrote, "above all things guard your heart, for it is the well spring of life." Can i still truly love and have deep connections with people and still "guard my heart?"

or to truly love in the way that Christ loved and in the way that brings true freedom must I be willing to show my heart and in the same way make it vulnerable. Vulnerable to already broken people...the kind that are most likley to hurt it.

Or i can stand on the outskurts. Have friends, showing as much grace and love as possible but never allowing them to enter in. to come to that dangerous vulnerable place, instead always make sure i am able to walk away easly if need be.

"above all else guard your heart, for it is the well spring of life."

a couple of questions for my mind to consider and my soul to wrestle with.


Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A blog on Blogs, (aka) a blog blog, (aka) Thoughts on blogging.
I love blogging. I love the idea of putting ones thought out there in a cohesive and organized manor. Which is in stark contrast to how we often feel we are communicating ourselves to the world.

I love the idea of reading someone's thoughts. Weather they be broken of triumphant. I like people's thoughts. Especially when they are humble and honest... proud posers need not apply.

I would do it much more except that one though nags at me as I set to type out the jumbled mess that is my thoughts, "why am I doing this?"

On the one hand I think that honesty is a main path to our freedom. The ability to be completely truthfull with who you are and how you think and feel, putting it all out there for any and all to read (and if they must) judge.

But not really care.

On the other hand, am I just doing this as a huge "LOOK AT ME!!" not so silently looking for some sort of validation and notoriety? Waiting with a hope that sits in the back of one's mind that says...please notice and care.

I don't want to be an attention whore...I fear I already am.

But I don't want to hide either, afraid to be open, to be known.

dear Jesus, When you finally come out with bible part 2 (and frankly we could really use it about now) please include a chunk
on the internet. Thank you.
-mike


Sunday, September 17, 2006

a poem
One faint glimmer heavey shadows fail to drown

But hide away, hide away, never hear a sound

he crys mercy now and again by mouth and mind

What is it I am to find, Was to see, fail to look for

The glimmer flickers one at him

What which he could not kill but smothered in sin

by loves great tenacity it was the light that mould not leave

Through actions moan, "let me alone."

it always stayed with him

a cool and steady wind

the constant truth of LOVE

past thoughts and musings

I have not post on here in a loooong time. And just like returning to the game after a long leisurely off season i feel I need to ease my way back in, lest I pull a blog-muscle. The most self-involved muscle of them all. So i'm going to start with a bunch of old blogs that i liked.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Psh...you would read this, wouldn't you.
There are certain sentences that if you fespond to someone else with them, it really doesn't matter what you say, it's kind of insulting.

Case and point; "you would _______." IT really doesnt matter what the other person says. If you respond with this. It's a bit insulting and your first reaction nay very well be do deny the accusation.

Person 1: I just gave away everything to the homeless.
Person 2: Psh, you would give away everything to the homeless.


Person 1: I just saved 20 orphans from that burning building!
Person 2: You would save them.

Person 1: I just won 500 dollers
Person 2: You would win.

Go ahead try it with your friends. Just throw it in at some point!

You would try it!

(pokes head in and looks around)

Geez, i haven't been here in a while. I think i'll start visiting again.

looking back on some old blogs i realize something...

my typing is atrocious.

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the other day i went to go see this movie, I can't really tell you what it was called. Everyone here just calls it "black Jesus" as in,
"hey, come watch black Jesus with us!" It was an ok flick, but it got me thinking...

Why do we always think of Jesus as white?


according to the first century Jewish historian Josephus the real Jesus looked much more like a black man then a modern Jewish one. In fact, according to Dr. Mosha, an anthropologist here who specializes in middle eastern culture, the whole of the middle east would have looked much more african then.

When did the traditional western picture of the Jesus become a white dude with flowing hair? This we can chalk on up to good ol' Constantine, the man responsible for taking christianity off the Roman most wanted list the throwing it into the political ring. Then this happened he also decided that he needed a pretty Jesus image to lead his armies into battle. The easy answer, just take the already make image the greek god Apolos and throw Jesus' name on it.
WA LA! you have ready made white Jesus.

How different would it have been if we would have left him a dark skinned Jew?


What else are we just throwing Jesus' name on and using his image for?

How much of our culture have we allowed to bleed into our gospel?



The more I read that more I'm convinced...a whole hell of a lot.

This was thanks giving dinner this year. A far cry from the solo cups, paper plates, video games and and screaming kids that normally make the day. I went to michigan to spend it with of sister and we went over to one of her friends places to eat. It was amazing food and you have not lived untill you eat peach stuffing. Plus they all turned out to be amazingly kind and entertaining folk. Despite the fact that i had to play my nemesis of hands...apples toe apples. Ugh.

Proof that there is no higher archy at this school. The man putting up those lights is the university chanselor. A man with multiple doctorits.

The buildings at school are pretty old and so there are these little doors scattered all around, hiden here and there. Everytime i see one i feel the compulsion to open it. imagining amazing suprises on the other side. Perhaps its full of candy and toys. or a doorway to a miny, poorly hidden narnia. or, and i only dare dream this on special days, the living courters for the race of little people that secretly live on campus. Sadly though, i have only discovered pipes and storage spaces so far. but i'm keeping hope alive.

Voices in my head

hey mike, hey buddy, look I know you've been having a hard time these last couple of days. mainly due to the fact that yesterday you turned 25 and find yourself working at a friendly's and taking collage courses with 17 year old and not having any friends in a new city.

I know buddy...it's a rough day in here (gestures to slightly chaotic head space)but hey, I have something that will hopefully cheer you up and convince you your life is just totally behind.

A list, you'll figure out what it's for:
-BORN!!
-watched parents fight eating disorders and win
-traveled to 39 states by bus, building sets and doing plays the whole way with 40 of your friends and class mates.
-shook President Clinton's hand
-Got "asked to leave" school.
-Decided this Jesus thing was the real deal and i'm in
-Graduated high school
-went to Vancouver Canada for 6 month DTS
-Worked in Mother Theresa Home of the Dieing
-Spent Easter in Himalayas and helped build a church there
-At grasshoppers, beetles, frogs, maggots,
-Got a tattoo
-Got heart broken
-Was on Swedish T.V.
-Was on CNN
-Moved to South African Townships
-started after school program
-Loved dieing people and wept a lot for them
-Got mugged...multiple times
-Led a team in Namibia for 3 months
-bought, Killed, Skinned and cooked a goat for 20
-Lived among traditional tribesmen for 3 weeks
-Ran from the police
-Got caught in a riot and gassed
-Got stuck in Ethiopia and left behind
-Got bit by a Hyena
-prayed all night on Mt. Sinai
-Learned to Scuba Dive in malawi and the Red sea.
-met old friends in London and realized you like them even more.
-Learned to care for people other's don't
-Learned that God was bigger then I expected by reading books and meeting people who showed me
-Ran a high school youth group
-Traveled around Ireland for 2 weeks with old friends
-taught children with Autism
-betrayed trusts
-broke someone's heart
-Moved to a new city and started school where I wanted

see, despite where you are now, you’ve lived to the best of your ability. Don’t worry about it…dummy.

Monday is my birthday...I'll be 25.

The truth is my major birthdays have been kind of a bust. 20 was good, I don't really remember what I did, but I'm sure it was exciting and meaningful. Full of exciting misadventure and deep realizations of the existential nature of self and man.

But since then They have been kind of a bust:
18: I was in school and very angsty. This wasn't special for my 18th birthday, i was angsty all the time. But still...it carried over.
21: I was stuck in the township. Sure i was in south africa but i couldn't go out of the base walls and i was really busy being melodramatic about a girl...girls, psh.

And now it's time for my 25th. I have school durring the day but refuse to sit at home doing homework and feeling sorry for myself...

So what should i do? suggestions?