I about wet myself.......

Okay, so I was just being bored at work a minute ago and one of the employees came in (Joy). I get to talking with her and find out she speaks Chinese. So I'm like okay, I have another person to practice with. This is pretty cool. There are like 3.5 (I'm the .5) Chinese speakers at the lab so I get a little chance for some well needed practice every so often. She asks who my teacher is, and I tell her it's Teng Laoshi. She asks what I think of her. I tell her pretty honestly that Teng Laoshi is the only person I have trouble understanding. Then I ask where she learned Chinese. She said, "at home. Teng Laoshi is my mom"


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now you must understand, this teacher is hard to understand. She's really nice but for some reason this 5 foot tall little Chinese lady intimidates the crap out of me. I think it's mostly because its a common stereotype that Chinese is hard to learn. (it is hard but it's not impossible) so when someone busts out with a stream of Chinese, it's almost like you pre-programed yourself to not understand. It's constantly something I am struggling with in that class, that I know more than I think I do. With language, confidence is everything.

On a more serious note, I sinned today. Don't get me wrong, sinning for me is not something spectacular or rare. I tend to do it a lot. However, this is something I thought I kicked. I guess not. Part of me wants to beat myself up about it, but part of me doesn't think there is a whole lot I can do. I mean I did it, I repented, I can try to do better next time and God loves me anyway. Next time I get tempted I just need to ask God's spirit to help. In my more lucid moments, I know the worlds systems and its lies cannot satisfy what my heart really longs for, to get my glory from God, and to have him love me and tell me I am good and beautiful and right. However, very rarely I get theese spells where the only thing I think about is how I want to sin, and I should satisfy that want. You know when you get hungry and the only thing you can think about is eating? That's what it is like. I really just need to stop and say no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, enough with confessions, I have a poodle's birthday I need to celebrate!!!!

Happy birthday Josh!!!!

Daniel

recognition

I am still stuck on the idea of recognizing God. It seems like Jesus had this naked yearning for people to come to their own conclusions about God (preferably the right ones, I think). When the rich young ruler came to ask Jesus how to be saved (calling Him good in the process), Jesus asked Him, "why do you call me good? No man is good but God" with a do-you-really-know-what-you-are-saying type of frankness that often makes people stumble. The example repeats itself over and over in the gospels. Peter, the 12, the pharisees and Pilate all had to confront with a Jesus who insisted they come to their own conclusions about Himself. If I had to pick a theme for the 4 books, I would say they narrarate peoples struggles and problems with recognizing Jesus as God.

Yet don't we have the same issue here? The last couple weeks I've been reading a lot of Christian authors who slant towards the left side of the isle theologically. I mean, people like Donald Miller, Anne Lamott and Brian McLaren all would not classify themselves as liberal Christians (neither would I classify them so, really), but they would also stand in stark contrast to conservative Protestant theology. For a while, I felt really guilty about reading some of these guys, like I was aiding and abetting a practicing heretic (I wasn't). However for the most part, nothing was inherantly wrong or against the Bible (There are always exceptions! Gandhi said something like there are 6 billion religions on the planet, one for each person! Every feeble manmade attempt at doctrine is us looking through a glass darkly). I was raised with an interpretation that said writers like this were totally absent of truth. Yet, I found truth here. I drank deeply of it and feasted at this great big Biblical love-feast of truth. It ws beautiful!

I guess my point is, Christians have a responsiblility to look for God everywhere. He screams in all creation and I think it would be a shame if we didn't listen.

Daniel

2nd peter 1:1-10 meditation

Hey sorry about not postin in a while, school is a monster. I'm even more sorry that i didn't proof read this. ah well.... I'm about as passionate about proofin' as I am about cleaning my room... maybe that's a bad thing..... hmmmmmm

Hope you guys enjoy, it's a good 'un

Daniel

ps post more!!!!!

I’m trying to get a comprehensive picture of Scripture. I want to see it as a whole. I want the passion to scream at me, the love to shake me, the peace to overtake me. I want to perceive Kefa’s heart as he tells his communities of like-faith how they are to live if they want this Jesus thing to really work.
I’m struck by a couple things. First, that journey people travel in order to share in the divine nature. First is Trust, excellence (the mkjv translates this as moral excellence but it’s deeper than that- it’s what Achilles, Odysseus and Hector had. This is the excellence that makes men heroes), knowledge, self-control, patience, goodworship/godliness, brother/friend love, and lastly and most grand- the love that dies. The words themselves burn in my soul. What does it mean to apprehend the concepts? How is it than when we walk this road of progression we become unshakeable? The Greek is ironclad, he who walks this road will NEVER stumble.
It’s also cool how you add one to the other. You don’t leave trust in pursuit of excellence, nor knowing in pursuit of self-control. Furthermore, all these things that pertain to life and godliness come through knowing Him as you know a friend, a brother. To reach Godliness, you don’t know about God as you know about calculus or Spanish, you recognize Him when you see Him and that brings you to the life He bought you- the life he made you for.
For instance, I am sitting writing this in espresso royale. I am outside, surrounded by dreadlocks, cigarette smoke and street corner guitar. I’m fighting the urge to go inside because it’s a little cold and the bush/cheney stickers on my laptop make me feel like a target in a crowd that you could not exactly bring your mom to. The guitar music, joking, laughing and dancing all are sweet and savoury however, even the cigarette smoke, though it makes me cough a little, is sweet incense. People walk by the café, see somebody they know and the crowd just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger….
Is God here? I believe He is, and by recognizing Him here as He is everywhere, God has given us everything that makes us unshakeable. His divine power grants us all this unshakeableness through the weight of Him and same excellence I talked about above, that life of a hero that saves the world. Christ died and rose in this hero feat. He dove to hell and back in an attempt to save the world and set our feat upon this Holy road, paved with the recognition that God is everywhere, ever the passionate lover screaming our name.

(The weightiness of God might sound unusual but think about it- we all know what it means for someone’s presence to weigh on us. One cannot escape from those who are truly worthy of respect, even in their absence.)

Good Easter to all!!!!

I'm sitting writing this in the middle of family, surrounded by good people in all their quirks and foibles. The blessing of Easter is life. Life for us in Christ, and that life is drawn from each other. You see that in family and community, no where is it more apperant then in the midst of our context. I'm reading Searching for God knows what by Donald Miller, and he talks a lot about how we derive meaning from others and how it was a good and holy thing that Adam needed someone to tell him who He was. In spite of Adam having God in all his naked intimacy, Adam needed someone else. He needed to derive his meaning from somewhere, and God, in his mercy provided that in the midst of the human interaction. Life with each other AND life with God teaches who we are. I think that is important and might even relate to the earlier post about finding your stance and fighting and removing obstacles. Who knows.... as always, more later....

I pray you would remember the glory of the most Holy God's sacrifice and the victory of his resurrection. I pray your life would be filled with the sacrimental wine of God-heady nights and great conversations. I also pray that you would seize God's glorious day in all its pretty, ugly, splendid, gritty, God-drenched beauty. He screams in everything. Hear Him and life will never be the same.

All praise and honour to the otherish God of the resurrection!!! Praise the God who got up!!! Praise the Holy three-in-one!!!!

I'm done, good easter to all.

Daniel

God-heady nights and good conversation like fine wine

I came back from this incredible time at visions. It was splendid. Oh man, I'm still just drunk on the hugeness and largesse of my great big conquering God. He breaks to heal, he hurts so He can mend. His Love endures forever. It lasts, nothing can stop it, not death, not sin, not even I, the lover he chased through broken glass. I am free, I am good, I am confident in Him. Nothing can restrain the Lord of Hosts. His armies conquer all the barren places in my soul.
HE IS GO(o)D!!!!!

He told me to keep my stance. I learned in Kendo that stance is everything. You must keep your stance solid or the enemy will knock your head off. He said shame and rejection have no place in the warrior's life. That I am to hold my sword rightly with pride and honour. That I will break down obstacles with the strength of God. I will walk into to victory circle, "shout hail the victorous dead!!!" in honour of those who went before and sit down in the victory circle of those great worthies. Hail All-mighty God!!! Hail the Risen Christ!!! Hail the All-Seeing Spirit!!!!


Gloria!!!!

Daniel

ps, that was part LOTR, part the actual message I heard from God last night at visions. I had an actual word of prophecy given to me by two really good friends. God It was so on and right and God that I am going to try and figure out what in the blazes it meant on the redpool. I realize it sounds a little too pentecostal, and to that I respond with a mixture of apologies and appreciation. I hope you enjoy it!!!

attempts at understanding God's romance

a small poem...

God the Romantic with the starfire eyes, enrapt with the ardour of thy beauty most fair, screams in the chorus of creation's sweet song, "rejoice for a princess of Zion is here! To stare at us sweetly with the starfire eyes." So even the angels of zion revive to look on her sweetly and stare in her skies, eyes to us mortals, she, the whole breadth of the seas and the skies. All praise to the princess with the starfire eyes!!!! Blessed am I, says God, to woo her to my side!

more later I think....

Daniel

the community of mystery

I am priviliged to be in the community I am in. Greenhouse, Crusade, Visions, and Bible Actors (yeah ma sorry!!!). I feel like we have this community of creative tension going on. For the most part, it's not confined to a certain ministry, All my friends share a little part of each of these distinct missional organizations. I have friends I see in GH, crusade, visions, and B.A.'s. Yet we are not bound by the common tie of one group. One organization can't contain my tribe, just as much as one man can't contain the church of Jesus. This tribe is bound by common passion and love. We our bound by our love for each other by the Love we share for our God.

We are also a community that thrives on discourse and talking things out. Questions are brought joyfully with the glory of almighty God. Questions are offerings of worship, not anathmas of perdition. We thrive on talking things out and trying to figure this God out, confident in the joy that we will never succeed. More soon about the joys of not figuring God out.

Before I go though, I quote a lot of people, both consciously and unconsciously. I have a lot of influences in my writing, I guess I feel that the strongest arguement is one that appeals to men wiser than I. That is not necessarily true. The Bible demands that we TEST EVERYTHING vigourously (1 john 4). What does that testing look like?

Daniel

eden to zion

Sorry, I haven't had the oppotunity to post. I've been reading a lot about some crazy stuff. You will see the fruits of this in the weeks to come... However, this is the meditation for tonight based on Genesis 1-3. Enjoy!!!

Eden to Zion

Restore to us the Glory of Eden
Reignite the dying starfire within our
Numinous melancholy, our nostalgia
A wisp of weeping and gnashing in our breast
And the grasping of straws
Sliding from our feeble manly unscarred hands
In the midst of the cool day’s
Garden, fleeing now our apple stained fingers
Rhambutan to kill our dreams

Return to us the glory of Zion
Rend us rule us make us break us

(Why do you insist
to look the other way when
the blood of the rescue is the meat you covet?)

make us yours with deep magic
and ancient saining rites, rights?
Right seeing right being right
Needing, these are those God-given
Riven irrevocable and pure
Thirst of the lesser men
Wanting to live as heroes
seeds of the thirsty
Upon the hallow’d ground

Restore to us the glory of Eden
Restore to us the glory of Zion
Restore to us the glory of Christ

Now we are ourselves

lots and lots to say...

The Gospel is invading all of life. Christ is huge and expansive. God is big.... I'm learning a lot of stuff and not all of it fits my boxes.


not enough time to go into depth. I'll explain more tomorrow....


Daniel

I shan't fix God

I think we try to fix God, the church, or ourselves way too often. Don't get me wrong, I believe that we must always be evaluating our system to make sure it is giving us the results we want. We can't lose sight of the church's goal to be the Kingdom of God in the best and brightest way possible.

We are not the ones who achieve that goal, however. We gain our life from the vine of God. We live and breathe and have our being from God. He fixes where his church goes astray. We are just along for the crazy ride.


Daniyel

hmmmmmm

girls confuse me. I need God. Period.

I feel like I'm free!!!!!!!!

God is so nuts. It feels so free to walk in the Spirit. It feels so beautiful to not have to worry about how strong or good or right I am. God will help me conform to his design specs. All I have to do is enjoy this ride. God helps me listen more than I can speak. God stands in and saves the day. YES!!

I love You Jesus. Help me to stand and live in your reality. Help me to understand that this abundant Spirit-led life is not by my own power or wisdom or grace.

Iesous Pantokrator!!!!! (Jesus all-Conqueror!!!)

Daniel

Where God is...

The last couple months I've felt like God's been far away. Like he expects us to live this life par excellance but he leaves us to do it ourselves. I have felt like God leaves us up the crick with out a paddle, that commands but doesn't enable.

That is so blessedly wrong, I love it. We are only able to love God, love people and live this revolutionary life of Christ if we have the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is God's glorious, triumphant answer to the hurting, dying world around us that wonders who he is. When the world asks, "where's God when it hurts?" God answers with His Spirit which is fully present. The Spirit is the only way I can do what he said, it's the only way I can get over my fear of people. It's the only way I can get out of the funks I can sometimes be in, where I don't want to talk to anybody. The Spirit is the only way I can talk while really listening. It's the only way I can be fully present. Come quickly my blessed spirit of God!!!!

Baruch haba ruach elohim
Daniyel

fight club and meditation

Couple things cause I don't know when I will have time to post next...

1. Michael-- Thanks for the stuff on the church and tradition. I'm still processing it, but expect a response on here in the next couple days.

2. Bible Study-- Meditation is 2 (?) peter and/or the first three chap's of genesis. Be thinking about a big book you might want to go so if I forget we still have something to talk about.

3. fight club--- I saw it last night and I have to say--- it doesn't get much weirder than that. But the philosophy was cool. It's kind of intriguing the idea that we are enslaved to our stuff. The way fight club made it sound was that the only way out was pain though. I don't necessarily agree with that. Maybe pain with a purpose is a good way to put it. Jesus found the fufillment of his life in the cross, but that was because he had the world to save. I guess the message of fight club was that gratuity was the way of freedom.... maybe I'm not sure. I need to think about it more.

It kind of is difficult to write when you don't have enough processing time!

Palm sunday in three days--- we remember you Lord JESUS!!!!

Daniel

Memoriam to St. Patrick Pt. 2

St. Patrick was instrumental in staging missions that effectively saved civilization through the dark ages. It was commonly held in that day that the pagans were in an irredeemable state and that any attempts to reach them were ultimately fruitless. In spite of this bigotry, Patrick went and that was enough. His ministry not only reached the whole of Ireland but also became the inspiration for monastaries that latter sent missionaries as far north as Scandanavia. These missionaries were latter responsible for reaching the communities of Viking raiders that lived in the north, and thus ending years of strife and bloodshed.

Finally, Patrick was a master of cultural adaption. He pioneered the tactic of adapting the unchanging gospel to the winds of shifting culture. He conceived the Celtic cross by placing the sun venerated in Irish paganism in the middle of the crucifix. Doing so, sent a powerful message to the Irish that God was Lord even of the Irish sun. He also used fire (another pagan rite) in easter celebrations, even when the King of that time forbade it. His civil disobedience sent a message to the King of that time, eventually securing land for his own monastary.

For further information, check out Patrick by Stephen Lawhead. It's a great story and a decently historical take on this great warrior for God.

Happy Feast of St. Patrick!
Daniel

Memoriam to St. Patrick

Since it's the feast of St. Patrick thursday, I thought I would do a spiel on the guy. If you want to read what he wrote click here

Patrick was not born to a very religious family. Historians believe that his father was a deacon solely because it provided him tax incentives. He grew up a spoiled British youth, drunk on wine, women and song. By his own admission, he spent the better part of his youth in things that didn't matter, trying to be someone he was not. When he was 16, Irish raiders came and took him captive. He was taken from his home, his family and everything he loved into the Irish wilderness to herd sheep. It was there he learned about the faith, in the silence of the Irish hills. He eventually heard God telling him to escape, which he did 6 years after his capture. Upon leaving, he has another vision in which an angel with a scroll bearing the title "the voice of the Irish" begged him to come back to the land of his captivity in an attempt to preach the gospel to them. He does this by being ordained (a process that took 15 years in those days) and is incredibly sucessful.

More coming tomorrow on his mission work.

Daniel

soldiers of mystery part 2

But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory, which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, "Things which an eye didn't see, and an ear didn't hear, which didn't enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him." But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God's Spirit. But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Now the natural man doesn't receive the things of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can't know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one. "For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?" But we have Messiah's mind.
(1Co 2:7-16 HNV)

The rest of 1 cor 2, after vs 7 deals with what this mystery means. It's spirtual (from God's spirit). Those who have God's spirit, according to the text, know parts of what God knows, (limited only by His will). Those who have the world's spirit, know what the world knows. The two are striving and God's wisdom appears as foolishness to the world because it's extrasensory. it's outside of the realm of experience. God's wisdom compares spiritual things with spiritual things and so makes connections that few can argue are abstract!!!

But they are still real. The natural man is offered this wisdom but can't take it, because you need the spirit to make it make sense. I think God/Paul is taking about the spiritual implications of the world we breathe in. He goes on in chapter 3 to talk about how the church has split up, it has followed mere men instead of God. Then Paul says all things are yours, affirm truth everywhere because this mystery is real and God makes connections: spiritual connections that you cannot fathom! I have to reason this out but this theory would explain a lot of my experience. God give me spiritual wisdom to understand this how you want!

Daniyel

soldiers of mystery and the meditation!!!

But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory--- Paul (1cor 2:7)

I'm trying to understand what it means to have no idea what I am talking about.

I read that the word for mystery here (musterion) for the pagans meant a hidden truth for the initiated. It literally comes from the word for wink. It was also translated into Latin as the word sacramentum (where we get our word for sacrament). In Classical Latin, this word originally meant a military oath, although the commentators I read didn't think that reading had anything to do with the biblical text.

But what if it did, I mean, it's bad exegesis to pick meanings for a world out of a dictionary like a buffet, but what if you translated the text,

But we speak God's wisdom in a sacramental/mysterious military oath, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory

I don't think it would detract from the text to assume the early roman writers had this in mind when they translated Paul's letter. I mean, one could make a case that they conceived of their lives in Christ as,

1. the just alligience of a warrior to his Lord
2. and a mystery; something you couldn't understand by assuming the text was telling you to be a soldier. That was the crusader's error and it's way to easy. The answer's in the Bible are rarely that simply. In some mystical way you fight for Christ. If anything the next verse only confirms this. Paul says that if the rulers of this world knew this mystery, they wouldn't have killed Christ!!! Knowing the mystery of God and violence are too completely different and foreign ideas, but that does not mean that in some cosmic way, Christian mystery involves fighting something.

I think it has something to do with fighting our human understanding. More on that tomorrow, stay tuned!!!!

by the way, bible study is on, in two days, 2nd peter and 1st 3 chapters of Genesis are all fair game for art. bring some good stuff!!!!

Daniel

the grand holy story

I was a little disappointed in the state of my spring vacation. The first half I hung out with people and that was cool, but the second half I was frantically trying to get this report done and it just wouldn't finish. I wanted to read stories, I wanted to relax and have some time with my holy lover (Jesus). I wanted the romance and adventure of this faith that is in the most real sense, magical. I had a week off, can you think of a better way to spend it than that?

Instead I had to write about A Brief History of Time for four days. It sucked. What do you guys think? I mean how do you find that balance between your relationship with God and the needs of daily life. God calls us to be in the world (and not of it) so monasticism (for all it's attractions) is not the answer. Maybe all our lives, even the books reports must be consumed by him? I'm not sure, I oscillate on this question quite a bit in fact. How much actual concentrated God time should we give the guy?

in Holy mystery (more on that tomorrow if I remember)

Daniyel

I need God...

You know you are nuts when the question, "where's God when it hurts?" doesn't drive you to anger but prayer.

I need God. I need to know Him. I need Him to solidify what it is that makes me human. I need Him to give me my identity and show me what this Gospel is, what this Kingdom is. I need God to show Himself like I need Him every day. I need Him to help there be time for people. I need Him to show me what love is. I need Him to help me give money and time and life to his gathering. I love you, three personed God.

I shall not be chaste unless you ravage me--- john donne

so much more to say

Daniyel

compulsion

I read today that you are only a writer when you can't see yourself doing anything else. Even when you work as a waitress or a mechanic or whatever, you still write because that is what you do. You can't imagine anything else coming out of your soul but words. I'm starting to get that. I'm starting to write not because I want to but because I have to. It's what I do. I write.


gotta go, mom's sleepin watching tv and it's difficult to type cause I'm afraid it's too loud.

pax vobiscum!

Daniel

I am not a smart man....

I am not a smart man. I have these blindspots of judgement that make me wonder what was I thinking. I do things that are not consistent with the high ideals and lofty language that I post here. I am, to some degree, immature and a hypocrite.

Yet we all have stupid days and stupid moments. It's a part of the human experience. Our flaws (as well as our gifts) make us human. I'm always scared I am going to forget that. I am afraid that I am going to think I am this great spiritual writer guy and so condemn myself to never be that person. Pride destroys. It kills someone's soul in a battle for our lives. We all fight this spirtual cancer. Nobody is exempt. This terrifies me.

One day, a couple years back, my mom, brother and sister and I were talking about our biological dad. A couple years earlier he left us for another women. My mom said something I will never forget. She told us that the reason that he left was because he thought he was too strong. He didn't thing he could fall. So he did.

more later

Daniel

the pursuit of the Holy

What follows is what passes for a conclusion to my little conundruum. I'll probably talk (and complain) about it more, but I'm making a decision tonight.

I know what I want from my college experience. I want to know God. I want to seek Him. I want to know things and languages and words and glories and ecstasies and poetry and art till they fall off my lips and seep out my skin faster than I can think them. I want to be a scholar. I want to backpack all over the world. I want to help the body of Christ remember who she is--- the bride of the Holy.

In the long run a girlfriend is not incompatable with these aims. However, I believe for the present a romantic relationship would hinder the attainment of that which I so earnestly seek. I need my mind clear and agile to achieve the goal I so earnestly seek--- God, His Wisdom and Knowledge and everything He has.

Now I don't believe in making vows. Mainly because, more often than not, I break them. But until further notice, I think this is how it's going to be, one day at a time. That notice is God's and not mine.

Now there is a reason why I am publishing this. It's not because I am smart enough to figure it out by myself. I am not. I am thankful for the bloggers herein with the experience and kindness to say words I needed to hear even when it was a tad uncomfortable (Doesn't mean I want it to stop--- keep them coming!). I'm publishing this because because on the hope that if I fall head over heels again, someone will have the infinite compassion to ask me before I get into anything, "Have you found the adventure yet?"

I thank you all. Pax vobiscum.

Daniyel

obsession

I just finished Ted Dekker's Obsessed. Great book, but that is to be expected. The man is quickly becoming one of my top 5 favourite writers. In no particular order (A mother could sooner choose favourites among her children than I could choose the brightest among these great luminaries), they are Lewis, Tolkien, Dekker, Ingermason (or maybe Walter Wangrin...) and Peretti.

Enough of my boyhood worship. Obsessed was about destiny and purpose and seizing the one for whom you were made. The lead character is driven towards what he knows not. He finds out at the end of the book that the fire behind his passion is his beloved, not the object he originally sought ( I don't want to give away too much!)

But yeah, that reminds me a lot of what Linda told me the other day. I was lamenting about how girls confuse me, (refer to earlier posts). She told me, ever so kindly, that girls don't like guys who won't pursue them. That romance is about pursuit and intimacy and the fact that a guy is willing to put his heart on that line, that is what girls like.

The thing is I don't know if I have time. Too many questions and I want to know for sure this is what I want before I go getting obsessed!

Daniyel

wondering what to do....

I'm sitting right now, in my room right now waiting for God. My roommate's friends are here chillin' so there's not a lot I can do, 'xept update the blog. I want to pray though cause my time in visons was in need of processing.

Some friends and I had to minister to another friend. He was mad at God and wanted to quit the adventure. He eventually got persuaded but I didn't understand how. I didn't say a whole lot but I want to figure out what happened. It was a learning experience for sure! I'll post the processing later.

Daniyel

paths in the snow

Being a Michigan native as I am means learning to deal with snow. You get to a point where you learn to find the footprints of people who cut through the snowy fields before you. If you follow in someone else's footsteps, then you are don't have to walk around the opposite end of the world to try and walk to the mall.

Admittedly this method isn't perfect and I have drenched my socks more than once trying to jump from footprint to footprint on my many walking adventures. I guess the hope is, though, that if enough people miss and biff their foot in the snow, a path of ice will form and more people will be able to cut through the get where they need to go.

I have to think that maybe God is a little like that. We have trials, pain and suffering and they hurt us today but maybe they will enable us to help others on the road of life. Maybe because I "drenched my socks" in, say, the death of my friend Steve, I will be able to help others who lost a friend. As the more stuff happens, the easier it is to deal with stuff because empathy promotes healing. This is how the body of Christ looks after each other, in the path of the pain of shared experiences that allows us to get where we all need to be--- the arms of Almighty God.

going to visions tonight.... pray I can minister to believers and unbelievers. I feel a definate bias towards the former in my minstery adventures.

much love
Daniyel

emo post #2

So apparently the trick to getting people to post on a website is to write about girls..... hmmmmm... Anyway thanks for the outpouring of advice, encouragement and general empathy I received for my last post. My friends rock!

I can't post for long cause my bathroom is having issues... long story. But I was at crusade last night and praying about girl stuff. I think God impressed on my heart the nature of the question. Not so much "should I date?" but "what do I want to be? Adventurer or Romantic?" I know it sounds a little kooky but allow me but mere moments to explain.

Adventurer: I would do exploits for God. I would travel, speak, live, preach, scream the life of my God and wherever I went something amazing and unexpected would happen. I would still romance God and be romanced by him. By human relationships would be an attempt to get to know the "wildness of God" (Bible study shout out!!!!) that resides in every person. I wouldn't focus on one person but adventure with the community God put me with: Visions, Greenhouse and Crusade.

Romantic: The relationship between God and his church is a reflection of the relationship between a man and a woman. Though I am way too young to get married (the context the Bible sets for this modeling of God in a male-female relationship), I would like to get in a dating relationship to at least attempt to understand this analogy God put on human hearts. Here I would do a lot of the things mentioned as adventure but God and the Great Romance would be my chief adventure: a great task indeed. An advantage here is I would be able to understand and use feelings of attraction in a God-honouring way.

The surest way to know the answer is to discover the question. To be honest, I'm leaning more towards adventure but I promised God I would pray about it over break. Thoughts are appreciated!

Daniel

thanks and complaints

There's a lot I have to say today. I feel like I'm becoming a better writer through this thing (at least I feel like I like a lot more of what I churn out--- the objective assesment of my quality is ultimately up to you, the reader).

God has a tendency to do bug me when it comes to girls. I feel the Spirit encouraging me to 'pursue' (a bad word for it--- maybe 'do the dating thing' is a better way to put it) girls who usually don't reciprocate. Then, it drives me into His arms and when I ask why this happened, why the rejection and such, he says He uses it to drive me closer to Him and to reveal his lover self to me.

(when I say God spoke to me, I don't mean to say it's an audible voice or something like that. A lot of times God speaks in Scriptures, ideas, or knowings that you cannot explain. The voice of God is a topic for another day....)

Anyway, Isn't there a way for Him to drive me closer without getting my butt shot down everytime? Rejection sucks!!! There has got to be an easier way to learn to love God than this!!

At the same time, I still love Him. If worse comes to worse, God is worth getting rejected for. I know some people are going to read this and tell me, "just be friends and girl-love will come." I have been trying to and I think I've been doin a darn good job. It's just that I still have feelings and it goes against my nature to repress and restrict them (even if it's a good idea!). I believe one day God is going to redeem our feelings and purify them so this restraint of the heart is not necessary but in the mean time...

BWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

I don't know if she even knows I like her. She might even like me back. I'm just a wee mite frustrated. Girls confuse me.

Daniyel

the spiritual gift of not knowing OR The Federation of people who are determined to talk about SOMETHING

Meditation this week was Revelation 4. I wanted to do one more chapter out of the Revelation because every time I read this book it lights my imagination on fire. I get consumed with the imagery and I feel like I am there. The story, God's story of the fixing of history, is open like a big gaping door (or maybe the entrance to the Holy of Holies) which I walk in and pace up and down amid the imagery and vividness of His life. My story mind leaps into action, the same mind that got drunk on Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Lord of the Rings gets lit up with the stories of God and it is sooooo good. It's good the adreniline of victory is good, it's good like the freedom of triumphant dominating life is good. It ushers me into the kingdom of God. Paul thought the midwife of faith was the law, the church fathers thought it was philosophy. I think for me maybe the midwife of faith is story. It gets us ready to see the Holy of Holies and prepares us for (never becomes for us) the presence of Almighty God.

I am also struck by how much I have no idea what any of this means. There are lamps and fires and rainbows and weird mutant creatures who can talk. It is totally incomprehensible. I mean I have theories, presuppositions which almost to my shame I take to the text before even reading it. They mean nothing. My presuppostions are shattered in this book. Maybe the message of the Revelation is that before Almighty God, you know nothing, and there is nothing you can do about it. All my high ideas and prophetic, scholarly interpretations of the text are dust and ashes. We revel in our human ignorance before a world not our own inhabited by beings not like us. We are strangers here, but the hope is, by the mercy of God, we make this place of God, this throneroom of the Most High our home.

"a man who visits another world does not come back unchanged"- CS Lewis

Daniyel

remember me

a poem....

we long to be remembered in this sweet sidreal fire
to banquet among the holy and find us in thy care
to pursue the greatest lover in times restrictive space
to gaze into his eyes, held in firey 'brace

the sweetness of his eyes most fierce
the lovelieness of his speech most fair
the incomprehensiblity of his immutable eyes
like this, not this, but these, I must compare

but cannot fully fathom thee, viceroy of my eternity
Donne plaintative cry from time unseen
"I shall not be chaste unless you ravish me!!!!!!"

Remember me again oh viceroy of my heart and wooer of my soul