The Assemblies’ stupid missionary system.

For a movement that believes in indigenous churches, we sure do make our missionaries dependent upon the homeland.

Since I started ranting about missionaries in the last entry, I’ll follow that up in this one.

I greatly disapprove of a missionary system that reduces apostles of God to traveling beggars. The Assemblies of God’s belief is a valid one—if God really has called you to minister somewhere, he’ll provide the finances. How that’s supposed to work is that God simply provides the finances: Someone gives you money to get there; a job opens up in the place where you’re sent; locals come to assist you and chip in for expenses; you get favor from the local government… You know, like Barnabas, Paul, Silas, or Priscilla. The ancient system worked. It ain’t broke.

But the way that the Assemblies, and many an Assemblies missionary, puts this concept into practice is by going to church after church and preaching a missions sermon for money. It’s the equivalent of a freakin’ street performer. God called them to minister, not to be dancing monkeys. The idea of “furlough” is also one I disapprove of. I can understand a brief vacation—a few weeks to visit family and friends, relax, unwind, etc. Instead I have known missionaries who have spent up to a year in the States, begging for financial and prayer support, when they should be in their adoptive homelands, ministering. They should not be forced to visit us; we should be visiting (and assisting) them.

The disgruntled missionary.

Badmouthing churches behind their back isn’t gonna generate you goodwill, fella.

Class at Coffee Cat last night was interesting… I always approve of having class in coffeehouses. I can have a few cups… then on the way back to campus, I can stop by Starbucks… Hey, relax, it’s all decaf.

I showed up early, as usual, and ran into a classmate (from a different class) who was there with some of his family. Apparently his nephew, who was there, is an Assemblies of God missionary to the Philippines. When he found out I’m a member of Vaca Valley Christian Life Center, he proceeded to bitch about my church.

(This is not the way you gain support, by the way. Future missionaries, take note. I could be a deacon for all he knows; I’m not, but if I were, he would be even less likely to get financial support from the ministries I’m involved with. Not with that attitude.)

Stupid Internet Survey: The Dante's Inferno Test.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory! Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
level	score
Purgatory (repenting believers)	extreme
Level 1: Limbo (virtuous nonbelievers)	high
Level 2 (lustful)	low
Level 3 (gluttonous)	moderate
Level 4 (prodigal and avaricious)	very low
Level 5 (wrathful and gloomy)	very low
Level 6: The City of Dis (heretics)	very low
Level 7 (violent)	very low
Level 8: The Malebolge (fraudulent, malicious, panderers)	moderate
Level 9: Cocytus (treacherous)	very low
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Why would the boss need to give us a resumé?

There are now three blogs I've seen that contain this “resumé of Jesus Christ.” Naturally, Jesus never wrote it because he would never write anything so cheesy. It proposes that Jesus is applying for the position of Lord and lists a whole bunch of proof-texts to show why he would be great for the job. Like any other resumé, it's heavily padded in favor of the positive and skips over the negative, which is quite unlike Jesus, who never pulls punches:

• You want to follow me, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross. [Mt 16.24, Mk 8.34, Lk 9.29]
• You will suffer persecution. [Jn 16.33] But it's all good. [Mt 5.11] Love your persecutors anyway. [Mt 5.44]
• If you have lots of stuff, it will hinder you to the degree that it’s more likely to shove a camel through a needle than for you to get into the kingdom, Lk 18.24-25] which contrary to popular interpretation, is not a metaphor. (And it can be done, with a very powerful food processor.) You can't serve God and wealth, Mt 6.24, Lk 16.13] so get off this idea that God wants everyone to be wealthy. I already told you there will always be poor people. Mt 26.11, Mk 14.7, Jn 12.8] The TV preachers who tell you otherwise are only trying to justify their greed.
• Prophets get no honor in their homeland. Mt 13.57, Mk 6.4, Jn 4.44] Maybe you should leave.
• Stop sinning. Jn 5.14, 8.11, 1Co 15.34] Be perfect like your Father in heaven. Mt 5.48] Again, not a metaphor; and stop using that excuse that all have sinned. Those verses Ro 3.23, 5.12, 1Jn 1.8-10] are in past tense for a reason. No one who truly abides in me sins. 1Jn 2.6, 3.9, 5.18]
• I told you to make disciples, Mt 28.19] not get people to say the sinners’ prayer or some other “magic words,” then abandon them to figure everything else out on their own. Stop leaving my sheep behind for the wolves to prey upon. Your job is not done until you have adequately trained them to likewise make disciples.

Naturally there are others, each a Rant in itself.

But the dopey bit is that this so-called resumé presumes that anyone would apply to a person to be their boss. Jesus never had to apply for his job; making the universe automatically puts him in charge of it, and dying for it shows he deserves to be in charge of it.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter. Christ is risen.

Someone asked me, “You want to go to a sunrise service?” I thought about it and responded, “I suppose I could stay up that late…” Instead, I went to Mass.

Mass was at Holy Cross in Santa Cruz (for those outside the area, the church that the town is named after). It was my first Mass since childhood, and my sister’s first Mass ever. It was a lot like I remember… sort of. My previous experience has been in Air Force chapels, which are never as nicely decorated or attended. Today was standing room only, which is what we get for arriving on time.

Because it was Mass, I figured I should wear a tie. I really dislike ties. Ties are not of God. They were invented to suck up to kings, and evolved into a cultural standard that represents conformity, a lack of individuality, and the approval of shallow people who only look at people’s outsides—four things that are not of God. Plus I don’t like wearing stuff on my neck; it cuts off circulation to the brain, and God wants us to use our brains, so that’s a fifth thing. I could list more…

I didn’t take communion. I haven’t been confirmed and didn’t feel it was appropriate. Not that I’m not a member of the body of Christ; but the Catholics have a procedure to formally confirm that people are Christians before they participate in the Eucharist. If you believe—as they do—that the hosts and wine literally turn into Jesus, you can understand why they’re worried that anyone take it in an unworthy manner and call condemnation on themselves, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians. (I often feel Protestants don’t take communion seriously enough. Maybe the bread and wine don’t literally become Jesus; but as symbols of Jesus, they deserve proper reverence because of the person they represent.) Eucharist is the central point of Mass, and it’s a serious business. So if I’m at their church, it’s appropriate for me to respect their beliefs. I didn’t have to go to a Catholic service, after all. If I ever go again, I should probably get confirmation out of the way so I can fully participate.

Lent is over, so I can eat bagels again… which I did for lunch. God bless Noah’s Bagels, and whoever figured out you could put Asiago cheese in a bagel.

The hall is once again filling up with students, and the noise level is back to normal. So much for peace.

Watching Christian movies.

Kent’s Recommended Watch:
Mel Gibson:
The Passion of the Christ

Saw The Passion of the Christ again tonight at church. They announced it by saying, “Come at seven; we’ll have some popcorn made and some refreshments…” I thought: This is not a popcorn movie. If you can eat popcorn through this movie, there’s something wrong with you.

It’s not that the movie itself is so good that it emotionally picks you up and body-slams you. It is a good movie in itself; and there are lots of horror movies with more gore. The difference is that this is someone I know. Put it this way: If you were watching your best friend getting beaten to death before your eyes, it would freak you out. And lots of Christians consider Jesus to be their best friend, or their Lord, or at least the guy that they talk about so much at church that they recognize the pastor is fond of him. So it’s traumatic. But it certainly helps you appreciate him.

(And, I’ve found, The Passion had led me to appreciate Jesus’s mom more. Protestants tend to underplay her contribution to his life and ministry because we feel the Roman Catholics overdo it; but under-appreciating her isn’t the solution. She was a really brave woman; and you’d have to be a strong woman in order to raise God.)

Kent’s Recommended Watch:
Brian Dannelly:
Saved!

And, just for contrast, I also saw Saved! today, which almost gave me flashbacks from my high school youth group. (Heck, there are some people at Bethany who are like that… but I won’t name names. Y’all know who you are.) Yeah, I remember my early days as a young Christian hypocrite… figuring that God’s will was for every Christian to be successful, and popular, and eventually make lots of money so we could help get conservative anti-abortion candidates elected to office. (Because that was the only issue we cared about; screw the poor and homeless, they did it to themselves.) Fortunately, God saved me from that too.

So, an interesting Good Friday…

Abraham Lincoln died on Good Friday too, you know.

A little peace and quiet for Easter.

Ahh… for once, I don’t hear the sound of thumping in the floor above me. Nearly everyone’s gone home for Easter.

This is, I think, the first Easter I haven’t spent with my family. No, wait… it’s the second. I will see my sister, who will be in town this evening; but she’s not primarily here to see me. She’s here to visit friends and show off her boyfriend. Priorities, you see.

With no school tomorrow, everyone’s in Friday mode. Party now; go home (if it’s within driving or flying distance) in the morning.

So I’m watching The Apprentice in our lounge and D comes in to invite me to a birthday party. I declined. I don’t know the birthday girl; if anything I am a casual acquaintance who had a class with her once, and I’m fine with leaving that the way it is. Plus, I don’t feel it’s right to crash someone’s party simply because you know other guests. Worst of all, they were going bowling.

I find that there are a lot of people, on this campus and elsewhere, that are so desperate for a social life that they will hang out with people they don’t know, simply so they can say they did something over the weekend. I’m not talking about just meeting someone and partying with them. I’ve done that; depending on the person, it can either be a lot of fun or a scene out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But I’m talking about the fools who would rather be with "cool" people than with friends, and don’t care (or do care, but are willing to settle for it) if they’re ignored all evening.

Screw that. I’d rather watch TV.

Musical selections.

I’ve been listening to too much Evanescence lately. I don’t know why; I just happen to like that Tori-Amos-meets-Andrew-W.K. sound; take the two extremes of the stuff I listen to (actually, I listen to stranger stuff than that, as anyone who’s seen my iTunes playlist will tell you) and frappé and you get that.

I’ve been fiddling with the Party Shuffle feature of iTunes and now my computer produces better music mixes than the idiots on the local music stations; them and their freakin’ top 15 aren’t cutting it for me anymore. Plus, my computer plays a lot more U2, Sting, Steely Dan, and Phil Keaggy than the radio stations would, and includes the occasional Monty Python song to break up the monotony.

Interesting side effect: I discovered that Jars of Clay sounds exactly like Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Trying to avoid paying for my blog.

Being poor/cheap isn’t easy sometimes.

I don’t want to pay for Xanga Premium. I know, they’ll let me upload all the images I want and stop running those ridiculous “[Imperative verb] the [noun] and get a free iPod!” ads on my page. Frankly, other places will let me blog for free and let me upload DVDs worth of junk onto it. The main reason I’m sticking with Xanga is that I like to have a consistent address. In my early days of having an email address I switched it around too often (actually, every time I changed service providers) and lost contact with a lot of friends. Now it’s at iWon; I’ve had it for six years; I have not won a red cent from iWon even though they’ve told me in all that time that I could win thousands of dollars; and my friends, Amazon, and eBay know where to send email. (Unless they send it to my FirstClass account, which I check maybe once a week, which annoys people… but mainly people who don’t know me. So, no big loss.)

So how do I get all these images on here? Simple. I stick pictures on my website and link to them. That, or link to stuff on other people’s websites, which annoys them when everyone does it—suddenly they have all this bandwidth being used, yet nobody’s going to their site to buy their product or see their “Get a free iPod!” ads. Case in point—the image from www.churchsigngenerator.com that I posted Tuesday. They had a minor snit. So I stuck the image on my website; now Blogger can pitch a snit if it wants to, and the churchsigngenerator people get off my ass.

Bandwidth is a pain. You want popularity—well, most people do—but if you get it, you need to spend more money to make sure everyone can access your page. And if you don’t want to pay more money, people can’t access your page, which annoys them, which means they won’t try to access it, which means… I’m sure some economist has figured out how this works by now, with charts and graphs and calculus equations and everything. I’ll leave it to that nerd, and go to bed already.

It’s not voter apathy; it’s that they have no real power.

I decided to not vote today. Having heard the speeches in chapel, I concluded that I am okay with whoever wins. I mentioned this to DeLonn Rance today at lunch.

“Obviously you’re not fasting and praying over it,” he commented while I shoveled the café’s version of pot pie into my mouth.

“No need,” I said.

It isn’t like the world will end or the campus will monumentally suck if one of them wins. The candidates pretty much agree on everything. They want to serve the students; they want to see the ASB Senate do great things; some even have experience. All didn’t say they wanted to add this their resumés, but we all know that if they win, it’s going on the resumé. My senate experience is still on my resumé.

I posted before that the ASB Senate doesn’t have the real power on this campus; the Resident Advisors do. I spent 1995 to 1997 on the ASB Senate (’cause I did the newspaper). During that time we accomplished a lot of things, but none of them lasted. We held socials. One of us tried to get a water purifier installed on campus; that didn’t happen. I tried to get a coffee shop started on campus; that didn’t happen. Neither of our yearbook editors produced a yearbook. The game room (the work of the 1993-94 Senate) opened, then closed nine months later due to neglect, and now it’s a conference room. We really didn’t do much other than meet weekly, deal with the many social functions that take place on this campus, and spend the students’ money. Just like high school.

But I need to qualify my previous statement. The ASB Senate could have real power on this campus if they chose to do something about the spiritual climate on this campus. Right now, most of the effort that I can see is being made by the staff and faculty, with the assistance of a few students. There are exceptions (there always are) but it appears a lot of the students are too busy for Jesus, and would much rather bitch about the climate than do anything to change it, or figure one good Hallelujah Night makes up for weeks of apathy. Since the ASB Senate is already in a leadership position, it can easily take the lead in this. But we’ll see. It largely depends on the president; and I suppose I’ll find out who won in the morning.

Wait… we had brisket for lunch, pot pie for dinner…

It’s a bad sign when I get meals confused.

Every so often I have to change crap on my Xanga in order to keep myself from getting tired of them. I don’t have a lot of pictures of myself (because I’m usually the one on the other side of the camera) so I make do with what I have. This week I decided on a graduation photo. I don’t look much different than I did in 1998, except I no longer have the ponytail.

I also found this photo of the U.S. flag on someone’s site; she was using it as evidence of God’s favor on America. An optical illusion as a sign of God’s favor? It just goes to show you how people begin their quest for truth with their minds first made up, then pick and choose which arguments best support their preconceived notions. In her case, illusions will do. How appropriate.

ASB Senate elections wrapping up.

From Dudeism’s church sign generator.

Thank God the ASB elections will be over soon, because I am running out of clever adjectives to attach to Josh’s posters. (Y’see, for fun, I have been taking the adjectives he originally put on there, removed them with Wite-Out,™ and inserted my own choice descriptions. I have not resorted to scatological ones yet, but I may have to if this goes on another week.)

The discussion in the café one evening was about the appropriateness… or lack thereof… of the photos on a certain candidate's posters. I saw the photos; I didn't see any problem with them. But these guys were going on and on about how “suggestive” the poses were. Suggestive? She’s lying on grass, and she’s sitting on a car’s hood. Apparently this gets these guys all hot and bothered, but that’s their own personal kink. I don’t see it. All it suggests to me is that she likes to lie in the grass and sit in cars. That's not necessarily the best message to get out—that you prefer lounging to work—but nobody hired me as an image consultant. Not lately.

I like what another candidate did; he listed his positions on a flyer and circulated them. That at least gives one more of a reason to vote for a person than that the campus is covered with their flyers.

Which brings up a pet peeve of mine—I can never find any freaking recycling bins on this campus. Aren't Christians obligated to care about the planet that God made us responsible to take care of? But you'd never know it at Bethany College. Whoever gets elected to anything should hook us up with recycling bins; get them from the city sanitation department or something. And make sure to recycle all the paper that went into those bloody campaign flyers.

And in my free time, I learn Greek.

Since I have some free time, I am in the process of relearning how to pronounce Greek. I am tired of sounding like an idiot every time I say something in Greek; I sound like President Bush does when he speaks Spanish—I sound wrong. So does every New Testament Greek student in the U.S.; we learned some strange bastard hybrid of Erasmus’s hypothetical Hellenistic Greek pronunciation mixed with a lot of American accent. So I got a Modern Greek-English dictionary—and confirmed the pronunciation scheme with a few other Modern Greek resources—and I spent today relearning.

Yes, I have odd hobbies. But there’s nothing as much fun as startling overzealous Bib/Theo majors when I can read straight out of the Greek New Testament and they can’t.

Blame Dr. Richard Israel. He gave me that idea when I had his Greek class back in ’97. “One of the cool things you can do,” he once told us, “is when your pastor knows you can read Greek, you can sit in the front row with your Greek New Testament, and whenever he uses a Greek word, he’ll look at you to make sure he did it right.”

“Is that what happens at your church?” one of us asked.

“Yes,” he said, “and just to keep him on his toes, I usually shake my head.”

The other Christians are bugging me again.

S’funny… I’m supposed to be the Pentecostal with the experience-based theology, and yet I find I quote the scriptures a lot more often than the non-Pentecostal yutzes I’ve been emailing.

…Well, I have to. Contrary to their prejudices, Pentecostalism isn’t experience-based; it’s holistic. Experience is confirmed by scripture, which after all is a record of other people’s experiences. I notice a huge disconnect between these folks’ experiences and scripture. It’s why dispensationalism has become so popular. Haven’t experienced any miracles? So create a theology that explains why they regularly took place in the scriptures, but not in your personal life. That way, you can feel good about yourself, and not feel like you’re lacking faith or anything.

(The weird bit is when dispensationalists write about miracles—if you’ve ever read those godawful Left Behind novels, you know what I mean. Those guys have no clue about what a miracle looks like; their so-called miracles look like a Hollywood version of a miracle. Maybe that’s because Tim LaHaye was hoping Hollywood might take an interest in his books; instead, the only people he could get interested was Paul Crouch, the man responsible for the suckiest Jesus movie ever. Honestly; the Mormons did a better job.)

From my life’s soundtrack, 1.

A typical café conversation…

HE. Are you going to the banquet?

ME. No.

HE. What are you going to do tonight, then?

ME. I’m going to church.

HE. Oh. That's cool.

ME. …Where I will be praying for all the souls that will be conceived tonight.

ALL. (general laughter)

I never said anything about how or why all those souls will be conceived tonight. Yet every single person I said this to just knew.

When Jesus does stand-up.

The sermon today was about John 2, in which Jesus is at a party and has to provide the keg. Or something like that.

The part that many people have struggled with is when Jesus’s mom comes to Him and says, “They have no wine,” and Jesus responds, “What has that got to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” Yet even though Jesus bitches about having to do something about it, he does something about it. This, in spite of the many times I’ve been told while growing up, “Quit your whining and do your job.” How come Jesus got to complain to his mother and I can’t complain to mine?

I was struck tonight by those words, “My hour has not yet come.” I flipped through my PDA bible quickly—in every other time those words came up, the context is one in which Jesus is in immanent danger of getting killed. People are about to stone him or kill him; but it doesn’t happen yet because his hour hasn’t yet come.

So what, in this passage, puts Jesus in such immanent danger of death? Simple. His mom comes up and says, “They’re out of wine.” You’re at a wedding; the guests expect—no, demand—wine, and you have just been handed the job of announcing that they’re all out. So, in his own subtle way, Jesus responds, “What are you trying to do, get me killed too soon?”

In other words, Jesus made a funny.

Yet we’re so used to taking Scripture so deadly serious that I don’t think I’ve ever heard this interpretation before.

Stupid Internet Survey: Which religion is right for me?

Which religion is the right one for you?

You scored as Christianity. Your views are most similar to those of Christianity. Do more research on Christianity and possibly consider being baptized and accepting Jesus, if you aren’t already Christian.

Christianity is the second of the Abrahamic faiths; it follows Judaism and is followed by Islam. It differs in its belief of Jesus, as not a prophet nor historical figure, but as God in human form. The Holy Trinity is the concept that God takes three forms: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost (sometimes called Holy Spirit). Jesus taught the idea of instead of seeking revenge, one should love his or her neighbors and enemies. Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to save humankind and forgive people’s sins.

Christianity	83%
Buddhism	71%
Judaism	54%
Paganism	38%
Islam	25%
Hinduism	25%
Agnosticism	25%
Satanism	25%
Atheism	21%

Which religion is the right one for you?
created with QuizFarm.com.

At left, one of the few quizzes I’ve found amusing enough to take.

I think I would have been surprised if it turned out I wasn’t Christian. Some of those questions are rather obviously biased towards or against Christians. I am a bit surprised that I scored what I did on the agnostic/satanist/atheist scale; but not too surprised about the Buddhist/Judaism results. I believe those religions are more right than wrong. But, since I’m a Christian, obviously I think Jesus is the most right.

Jesus is just all right with me…

The prom… I mean Spring Banquet.

So the prom (the Spring Banquet) is coming up. I’ve been to two; the difference between it and eating in the café is limited to these factors.

• Slightly better food.
• Served at your table.
• Different location.
• Better decor.
• More ties and cleavage.
• More people paired off than usual.
• Entertainment.
• You pay for it. (Gentlemen pay for two.)

And of course the difference between it and the high school prom is that no one is crowned; there’s no dancing; and fewer people will be having sex after it’s over.

Analyzing DC Talk’s theology. (Because I can.)

I’ve ranted before about how, if you don’t like the lyrics to a worship song, leaders should feel free to change it. Of course, as a worship leader, you should know what the heck you’re talking about before you do so.

Case in point—the DC Talk version of “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum. They decided to change this bit…

♫ Never been a sinner

♫ I’ve never sinned

♫ ’Cause I’ve got a friend in Jesus

♫ So you know that when I die

♫ He’s gonna set me up with the Spirit in the sky

…to reflect their theology:

♫ You know that I’m a sinner

♫ We all sin

♫ But I’ve got a friend in Jesus

So the DC Talk version reflects a more Calvinist total-depravity belief about sin: that everybody does it. Whereas the Greenbaum original reflects a more Arminian sanctification belief about sin: that Jesus washed those sins away.

So which one’s more theologically correct? More hopeful? More inspiring? More likely to work on pagans? Should DC Talk have been futzing with it?

(Musically, though, I’ve gotta go with Greenbaum; that guitar lick rocks.)

Preaching the Greek dictionary.

Back on campus. But in order to get here, I took the 5 a.m. train… which meant I was up at 3:30… which is usually what time I get to sleep… The upshot is that right now I need to sleep. I know, I’m the guy who usually says, “Sleep is for the weak.” Well, right now I’m weak. But first I’ll take advantage of once again having high-speed internet.

So I went to my family’s church yesterday, and the pastor took the time to plug the church’s small groups. Throughout the sermon he was mispronouncing κοινωνία and οἶκος (and if your web browser can’t display Greek, they’re often transliterated “koinonia” and “oikos”). This is typical; most pastors have learned to pronounce Greek in what I call “self-educated preacher Greek,” or what my former Greek teacher, Dr. Richard Israel, once called “ivory tower Greek”—basically, it makes American Christians sound retarded. Proper pronunciation: kEE-no-nEE-a and EE-kohs. But I digress; that’s not what I want to rant about.

Every so often you get a pastor who preaches the dictionary. “In this verse, it says, ‘Jesus wept.’ What does ’wept’ mean? Webster’s states…” which is followed by a mini-lecture on all the things “weep” can mean and Jesus’s state of mind when he wept. (Never mind that the pastor never stated which Webster’s; the name isn’t copyrighted, so just about any American dictionary can, and does, call itself Webster’s.) These days, thanks to computer concordances, we have the Greek version of preaching the dictionary: “In this verse, it says ‘they met in one another’s homes.’ The Greek word is οἶκος. That word can mean house, or family, or regularly-seen group of people…” Yes, it can mean all these things. In what context does this verse use it? In this verse, Acts 2.48, it means “house.”

But this didn’t stop him from preaching a message that—while good and largely valid—used οἶκος out of context to mean “regularly-seen group of people.” He just took that alternate definition and ran with it.

Haven’t been going to my church lately.

Since I left Vacaville, my family stopped attending Vaca Valley Christian Life Center. Mom has felt disconnected from it for years—actually, since she went to Israel for six months in 2000 and nobody from the church checked up on her. (Their manner of checking up on her was to ask me, “Hey, how’s your mom?” Such is missionary life—out of sight, out of mind, thus out of money or prayers.) She admits the only reason she attended was because I attended.

Thus whenever I’ve been in Vacaville since last August, I’ve attended The Father’s House with my family. It’s got a great worship service; and I know a few of the people there (namely, friends of my siblings and former VVCLC members).

My trouble is this: I feel if you don’t like how your church is doing things, you don’t just pack up and leave; you do something about it. You contribute to the solution. I have gripes about VVCLC, but if I don’t contribute anything to the solution, I don’t feel I have a valid enough reason to gripe.

But I can’t do anything about it until May, so I’ll just have to leave it alone until then.

Another item on the reading list.

Kent’s Recommended Read:
Umberto Eco:
Foucault’s Pendulum

I had time; I figured I'd try to read Foucault's Pendulum again. I bought the bloody book in 2000 and never got past the 30th chapter. Not that it isn’t a good read; I just find I have a lot of other things to do and put it away. Since I don’t have much vacation left, I fear I may not get past the 90th chapter before I have to go back to school.

I’m trying to get some 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵, dangit.

Vacation, to me, consists of vegetating. You know, sitting around the house, reading books, watching movies, sleeping… My strategy for vacations is to do so much nothing that I will get sick of it and want to do everything once vacation is over.

Not everyone understands this concept. My mother (from whom I think I get my workaholic tendencies) finds this astounding. Every time I go on vacation at her house, her response is, “You’re doing nothing?” followed by a list of things that she might do for fun if she were on vacation.

In the end, we visit a lot, which I think is a lot easier to do once we don’t have to change locations to an artificial environment, like a coffee shop or restaurant or movie theater or shopping center.

My siblings haven’t been around so much; they’re working and they have lots of after-work activities to keep them busy. It’s the same reasons why they never call me. Life just gets like that.

My only trouble is that I may become tired of this vacation ahead of schedule…

Would’ve been nice to know.

Ah, spring break in Vacaville. It’s not Mexico, but it’ll do.

And unlike Mexico (or for that matter, Scotts Valley) one can drink the tap water.

So my sister finally told me she’s pregnant.

Okay, now that you’ve reacted with horror, it’s not Kerry I’m talking about; I have another sister named Shannon, and I’m about to get another sister… once my brother gets married this May.

I’ve known about the pregnancy since February—Mom asked me, “Has your sister called you yet?” and I said, “Why?” and she said, “Something important,” and I deduced the only important thing that she’d have to talk to me personally about would be that she’s having another child. While great news, it would have been nice to hear it from her, but my sister figured that since I “heard it through the grapevine” there was no point in telling me personally.

Religion finally dies?

♫ There’s a place where religion finally dies

♫ There’s a place where I lose my selfish pride

♫ Dancing with my father God in fields of grace

♫ Dancing with my father God in fields of grace

—“Fields of Grace” by Darrell Evans

Mike has his computer shuffle between all his worship songs. “Fields of Grace” was in there. I’ve heard it lots of times before; we sing it at my home church.

It’s interesting to me how the crowd gives up a great big cheer on the MP3 after they sing, “Religion finally dies.” Worshippers do the same thing at church. Now, I’m not sure that this line is going to provoke a giant outburst of enthusiasm with everyone; not every Christian thinks of religion as a bad thing. Yet at every service where they’ve sung this song, the worshippers cheer right at that point. It makes it feel fake. I’m not big on hypocrisy in my worship.

I say not every Christian thinks of religion as a bad thing because I’m one of them. The popular definition of religion is, by and large, “a cold formal ritual that reflects no relationship with God.” If this is what we’re talking about, I’m all for cheering its death. Death is all it will lead to. But if religion means—as it does to me—“a ritual, enacted on my part, representative of a desire of God in scripture, that reflects the joy of my relationship with God,” then I’m all for religion. In fact, I need to be more religious.

Fun with government forms.

Five hours of sleep seems to be catching up with me.

I did my taxes today. I know so many people that are completely intimidated by filling out these forms. They aren’t hard. The FAFSA is harder. Took me all of 20 minutes, including the first unsuccessful 5 minutes when I tried to phone them in and was told that the IRS didn’t have one of my employers’ ID numbers on file.

Every year it seems my tax refund is shrinking. Aren’t the Republicans supposed to be in power? Aren’t they supposed to be the anti-tax party? So why are my bloody taxes going up when I earned less money in 2004 than previously? I suspect there are more tax-and-spend Republicans than the party would have us think.

What kind of ethics are these dumbasses learning?

Dan Albrecht and his coffee…

“I never see you without your cup,” another someone recently pointed out. “I worry about your caffeine intake.” Worry not. After the first cup in the morning, it’s decaf from that point on—or it’s decaf from the very beginning. I like coffee, but I’m not too crazy about caffeine. It makes me twitch.

That said, my tolerance for caffeine is lower than average, which means one cup of Dan’s stuff at 8 p.m. means I’m still conscious at 3:40 a.m. I’ve been trying to flush it out of my system with herbal tea (decaf, of course), and still no success. But it’s my own bloody fault for accepting the coffee.

I don’t remember how it was exactly presented but it was something along the lines of this. Some students were discussing an ethical dilemma from their class. I don’t know which class; I’m presuming it’s the kind filled with fools. That is, a class in which such ethical dilemmas are discussed so that you kinda know where you fall in case these things come up in real life. Trouble is, a lot of students are young and idealistic, and their ideals tend to come before the people in such scenarios.

The situation is this: There’s a church split. The smaller group wants some money from the larger group over something that sounded petty. I don’t remember what it was; maybe they paid for new hymnals; it’s not relevant. What do you do?

What came immediately to my mind was my Rabbi’s teaching, “Don’t resist evildoers. If anyone wants to sue the shirt off your back, throw in your jacket. If a press-gang forces you to carry a load for a mile, go two.” [Mt 5.38-42] So my response was, “Give them the money and wish them Godspeed.”

The students’ reply was that this was a legal issue, not a theological one. Or so it was determined in the class.

My reply was that if a pastor is separating matters into legal and theological categories, and following Jesus depended upon the category, then there’s something wrong with that pastor’s Christianity.