Friends!

As I promised I thought I would "Introduce" those who do not know my friends to at least a picture and very basic information.

(there needs to be a word for an electronic introduction)

I thought I would start with the two people I mentioned in my last email.

Natanya is in the middle screaming... She is from Germany and getting married this summer (!).

Juanita is on the left. She is my RA and she is in Media and Communications.

[For those who would not recognize me dressed up, I am on the far right... ]

Natanya is one of the hottest friends that I have. I really doubt that she can look bad in a photograph. Aside from this, I have recently discovered how profound she is. I think it is easily overlooked because she seems quite comfortable to engage with people at any level

Here Junaita is illustrating her fearlessness that I spoke of in my last post. She is de-horning the ravenous Emicorn at my surprise birthday party.

For the longest time I thought Juanita was naive because she would talk to anyone and everyone. Even in Safeway (she would use the Cashier's first name for example). This made me nervous at first. But after hanging around her enough one begins to really enjoy people.

Fear

First of all, hello to all my readers. I had no idea Steve Jeavons was reading!! Welcome, and I have replied to your post on good firday. Hello Matt, and Ariel! You gave a post! I should have been watching more... Hello mom, and I think I now have something to say back.

Second of all there has been a lack of pictures on this thing due to my time. So here is a photo:

Not random: if you can read it: it speaks of God's love towards us, and someone (Natanya) has taken the time to capture it with her camera. An image of an image. It's like those mirrors that go on and on. One day I will post pictures of my friends here and intoduce them.

Now what my thought is this morning is about the nature of fear. I have been thinking about love (and in consequence fear) yesterday and today, and have a few things that are quickly forming into questions.

The only thing we are to fear is God, according to the bible.

What happens when we fear people? It seems like a very respectful thing to do, and even humble, but I am beginning to wonder if it is not a cause of lots of chaos in relationships. God usually does not give us unhelpful advice. If we are to fear him only then there must be a good reason.

I think that is the amazing thing about Juanita. She seems to not fear people.

I am terrified of people. They can (and do) hurt you a lot. But the more I am afraid of being hurt, the more I realize how much God has loved, and loves, even being hurt. This means that taking my cue from him and imitating Him, I can love beyond fear.

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
(This is found in that peculiar book, In Mr. John’s first epistle, chapter 4)

Apparently fearing God is different than fearing people.

(Question forming here)


I am wondering if fearing people is not a very selfish thing, that is exalting people, but ends up making you use them. You use them because you no longer treat them as equals. Fear of people will make you avoid them, which is impossible, and because you need them you will end up using them for what you need and no more.

These are vague raw thoughts, I know, but I thought I would post them. I will continue to wonder.

Please, dear readers, do not fear to post … ;)

This peculiar book..

I was just beginning be very frustrated with the reading the bible. I am wondering why one should read it. It seems to dry sometimes.

As I wash windows the best thing to do is sing an Irish ballad. Except that the words and pictures that pass through your mind are not the best meditation material. I wondered why there were no bible stories to haunting melodies.

I have come to the conclusion that the answer to the two wonders that I am wondering about is that I, and others, probably view the bible the wrong way. It is that feeling when all the concepts and characters and principles become removed from reality because they are “holier” than us.

It must have something to do with not celebrating humanity, and the more one detaches from humanity the more abstract and “dry” the content becomes. Christ was fully human, so there must be no problem with celebrating…

This probably has something to do with what Lewis calls “True Myth”.

feminism rethought

I have been reading Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot. It has helped me to understand something, at least that I am not in an unusual situation of trying to understand how to love God and what to do with my love of boys. I have begun to reconsider the possibility that there is an order to relationships, that what the bible says about gender is not merely to be taken as cultural. Though I was unable to complete my paper on free will, I at least got a wee glimpse into the question of what is freedom? I am feeling like boundaries are very good and necessary things. However, since the fall we war against these, trying to surpass our finiteness and make our own reality. But in the end we must realize that giving ourselves definitions is an empty pursuit which ends in chaos and disappointment. We are images: our fundamental nature is not to be a self creating identity, but to take our identity from an outside source.

The language in sociology betrays a bias. For example, In my sociology book it states

...pluralization means that individuals no longer have strongly affirmed, pre-determined identities..”

It then goes on to say how they are given the freedom to create through actions etc. their identities. If one phrases it a bit differently, however, it begins to have to form a question of what is really good. “Stereo types”, for example, while a negative word or even concept, yet give the boundaries to our behavior. The question is whether this is a good thing or not. Looking at a different way, is it good for us to have boundaries of our identify, or are we really supposed to create who we are? I highly doubt the later.

How?

How does one love those who are hardest to love?

Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected--not in itself, but in the object...


~George MacDonald

Home

I used to think Truth was a feeling. Then I thought that it was an abstraction. Now I see both are right unless they are isolated, in which case they are wrong.

What do I mean by truth?
I think I might mean reality. I fell into thinking “Platonically” about this world and in consequence thought I should deny it. Then I went to L’Abri and that solved that misconception, but I fell into thinking that to know reality was an intellectual task.

This has caused no amount of turmoil as I, in reaction to my previous thought, assumed the whole project of feeling and what produced that feeling was a heresy. I looked into my faith no longer as something that was emotional, but as something that was logical and intellectual.

I have just begun to see how I have boxed in the supernatural experience into a cage that ultimately kills it.

What I am talking about is perceiving God via ideas, feeling, creation etc. I have recently found that C.S. Lewis had a name for it, “Sehnsucht”, which he translated as “joy”, but which means “longing” in English. It is a feeling of intense pain and pleasure at the same time. It is impossible to call up for oneself, but for anyone who has felt it, it becomes the entire meaning and pursuit of their existence.

Here are the things that make me to feel this:

Scotland
The Writings of Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald
Music (Ravel and Celtic)
Mountains and Forests
Seasons
Old memories

They all have the quality of nostalgia and longing, almost unbearable at times. I was beginning to think that I was supposed to neglect them and look for God because God was not any of them. But now I understand that these are agents that God uses to reveal himself to us in. Scotland is not actually the best country in the world, and The Highlander (i.e. the idea Scottish husband) does not exist—when I look for these on this earth it is trying find the reflection in the mirror three dimensional. Nevertheless, that does not mean that the agents are to be done away with. Rather, one must learn that they are reflections, symbols, which God has given finite creatures to perceive the infinite.