Fabric

I wrote this as a response paper for my class and it so affected me that I decided to share it with you all. Let me know what you think.

Throughout the lives of people, it is physically impossible to not have relationships with other people. Even in the womb, a child has a dependent relationship with his mother, and begins to know her voice. There has only been one human in the history of the planet that was without other humans for any length of time, and that was Adam, and God didn’t let things stay that way for very long. “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18 NASB) Even God said that there people were not meant to be alone. We exist to help one another, and to give each other, for lack of a better term, a support system. Dallas Willard calls it a Circle of Sufficiency in his book Renovation of the Heart. In his theory everyone has a circle of sufficiency that is made up of one’s immediate relationships. We often find ourselves struggling desperately to maintain these circles because they are literally what we rely on to continue our existence. Human life, when it is stripped down to it’s utmost base form, is a relationship. To take an ancient metaphor, all of the lives of people and all their relationships make up a “fabric” of which the people are the "threads". Their relationships weave these threads together to make the tapestry that has been the human existence. Now even though close up, one can see the individual threads, and indeed if one was small enough (or the fabric large enough) only a few threads intertwining would be visible. But the farther out we zoom, more and more of the picture becomes visible, and we can see that this fabric is of a complex weave indeed. Not a single thread is detached from the fabric. And that fabric connects every thread with every other thread from the present point in time all the way back to Adam.

Sufficiency Circles are based off of the fact that we are all connected, and that there is no circle that is removed or separated from any other circle. We like to think that we are self sufficient though. That our circle could go on unaffected by the circles around us but Willard points out that even the most basic of circles, a mother and child, can be vastly affected “The togetherness of the mother and child may be drastically affected by economic conditions on the other side of the earth.” (Willard p. 180) He goes on to point out the truth of the fragility of our little circles. That even though we struggle and try and strive to make our circles stable and safe, the fact is that a ripple in the cloth will start somewhere and travel to the far tips of the cloth. We feel the affect of an earthquake in Haiti. People in Alaska are touched by a Hurricane that wipes out New Orleans. The sad thing is that we’ve so tried to separate ourselves from the pain, (because who wants pain?) that we sometimes don’t even acknowledge the affects of the ripples in the ever expanding cloth. We fool ourselves in doing so. We are, essentially, lying to ourselves. Willard uses the phrase “Everything is okay now”. So often a mother will comfort her child with these words, usually at times when they are least true. Only once we realize our total and complete submersion in the cloth do we realize the tumultuous situation that we find ourselves.


There is only one way that one can overcome the chaos of the ever-expanding, ever-rippling cloth, and that is to “anchor” oneself onto the only one that is truly self sufficient. The One that could, would He chose to, completely separate Himself from the cloth, and be perfectly fine. I talk, of course, of YWHW, Creator of the universe. But through some stroke of genius, His Son, and oddly enough Himself, confined Himself to a single thread, and allowed Himself to be woven directly into the fabric of the cloth that He created. Jesus Christ “came” to earth (whatever that means) in human form. Born as a babe of the virgin Mary, and effectively, as a string in the cloth, rippled that sucker so hard that we’re still feeling the effects today. And He’s managed to do something that no one else has ever done before, or since. He defeated death. Completely shut it down. Death has absolutely no hold on him. Not even Methuselah, longest living of all humans, can touch Jesus record. (Genesis 5:27 NASB)
Though Jesus ascended into heaven, his thread still runs strong, straight through the middle of the fabric, sending vibrations throughout. Those that weave themselves in with His thread can find a place of steadfastness. As the psalmist writes “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2 NASB).

Rob Bell, in his NOOMA video “Rhythm” talks about our relationship with God as “getting in tune” with the “music” that God is playing. Those that weave themselves in with Jesus thread begin to vibrate and pulse on the same wavelength as Him and are in harmony with Him. This ensures security; however, it also means that those that are in sync with Jesus' thread, are out of sync with the rest of the fabric. This causes stress in the weave, conflicting wavelengths, and dissidence. It is known amongst the Christ followers, as persecution. There will always be a dissidence and conflict unless every thread is woven in with the straight and narrow thread of Jesus Christ, only then can every thread ripple in sync with every other thread in a beautiful harmony. The Bible says that in the end, God will take the threads of the fabric that have refused to join the harmonious and intricate designs of Jesus, and pull them out of the fabric itself, throwing them away to be burned forever in a fire, completely separated, for all eternity, from the only sure “sufficiency circle” that exists, which is Christ. Is that not the most hellish thing that one can imagine? The others, however, who have dedicated their life to being in sync, and intertwined with the Christ-thread will be woven anew into a glorious new cloth, that ripples and flows in perfect synchronization with the central strand of Christ. All dissidence, all conflict, and all unrest will cease forever. Only the beautiful dance of the synchronized threads will exist for the rest of eternity. Is that not the most heavenly thing that one can imagine? Therefore, I suggest, that we strive for the heavenly, rather than the hellish, and endure the dissidence of today, for the perfection that is to come.

Avatar

Hey! so long time no see hey? So the other day I went to go see Avatar in 3D because I wanted to have my face melted off. My wife and I get there, fork over 30 bucks for the tickets, plastic glasses, and some food. We proceed to be bombarded by probably the most liberal "Go Green" message that I've ever seen. Really James Cameron? Really? way to throw away you soul to get on the Green Train. No offense to the movie, the story was really well presented, the acting was wonderful, I really did feel like I was 1000 feet above the ground when they were flying, but it's hard to enjoy something that's so blatantly has a political agenda. I mean there's this part (spoiler alert) where the main guy sits down and talks to a tree and says "If you could see where I'm from, there's no more green, they killed their mother" He's talking about earth here. Really? REALLY? Okay people, the earth ain't goin' nowheres. Okay? read the Bible, it's in there.
The second main beef that I had with the film branches off the first, and in fact may be the root of the problem here. Earth Worship. Really blatant earth worship. The Navi who live on this planet called Pandora literally worship the earth, there's a very Native American feel to the way they treat the animals that they kill, calling them brother, and sending them back to "mother." Which is fine, I've endured worse just watching a documentary in history class. But then later (spoiler alert) they all gather around this sacred tree that the Mother is supposed to be connected to, attach their little brain stem things to the roots (they have external brain stems with which they can connect to other plants and animals, kinda neat) and their Shaman leads them in a trance ritual. The Shaman's eyes roll back into her head and everything. Now I know some of you reading this aren't really into spiritual warfare and what not but if you've ever seen someone manifest a demon, that's kinda what it looks like.
Here's the deal folks. We are living in a time when earth worship is becoming a guiding spiritual force on the planet once again, no it may not look like it did 3000 years ago, but it's still there. Putting anything above God on your priority list is worshiping that thing as an Idol. And in a spiritually starved community, people are grabbing hold of anything that looks good. And of course it looks good, Satan is the best at what he does.
Let me say this in parting, taking care of the planet IS a good thing. God gave it to Adam to take care of AND use, therefore putting us above the planet on importance; however, we need to seek God's kingdom first. Trying to fix the planet is a Noble cause, but doing anything without God is all for naught. Keep that in mind when you feel yourself getting carried away by the Green Train.

God's Barrista signing out

Where are you gamers?

So! here we are my faithful followers, nearly a month after my last blog which boldly stated that I was going to start posting every week!  So much for that. Not that I'm not going to continue to try and post weekly, but it's turning out to be harder than I originally thought.  Although this week I've got a couple things on my mind, neither of which are slightly related to one another.  

The first thing on my mind is this, aren't there any decent Christian video game reviewers out there? Now I have to give props where props are due, www.pluggedinonline.com is a christian website put on by focus on the family that reviews all kinds of media including video games.  And where I do appreciate this I often find that their reviews are lacking.... a lot.  The main source that I go to for video game information is ign.com.  Now as great as IGN is, they have almost no moral compass and there's plenty of things on the website to make a young christian guy.... or any christian guy for that matter.... to be tempted to look at things he ought not.  So my question is where's all my christian gamers at and what are they doing for solid reviews?  I had a flash of lightning inspiration this morning.... i've got a video camera and i like to play video games so why don't I do reviews?!? And then reality took a two by four to my face and reminded me that I have no money and that as cool as it would be to review all the games for all of my friends and fellow Christian gamers around the world, I still wouldn't get paid for it and it would eat up all of my time to do it all by myself.  I will continue to ponder this great dilemma and get back to you if i do have any strokes of genius on the subject.  

Now for part two of this exciting two parter blog! I recently found out some information about Obama's new health care plan.  Now just like everything our new president says, it sounds amazing!  Great health care for everyone, everyone pitches in to help everyone else, one big happy family etc.  But I heard some incredibly disturbing things from people who actually read the bill titled "Health Care Reform."  The things that are actually posted in this bill are down right scary, and not to be harsh, but down right evil too.  We're talking socialist, Nazi, Satan evil.  The rumor is that anyone can accept this new health care or reject it if they so desire to keep their own healthcare plane, but the truth is that if the bill is passed, everyone will have to use it regardless of if they want to or not.  I'm not sure what all the health care companies are going to do if this gets passed, but I can't see a flourishing economy on their end.  Also, and this is scary, there will be a committee that reviews individual claims to decide who does and does not get health care.... oh yes, there will be people who get denied further health care and now amount of money or pleading will help.  How do they determine?  Lets take a look.  Lets say a 20 year old guy falls off a ladder and breaks his leg.  He goes to the hospital to get it fixed and the committee says yes and he gets a cast yay! Now lets say a perfectly healthy 99 year old man does the same thing, he goes to the hospital, but the committee looks at him and says, "you've already lived a full life, we're reserving the health care for younger people who can better serve society"  and the hospital, whether the doctors like it or not, has to turn the old man with the broken leg away.  That's right, a committee will determine your worth to society, and decide if you get health care.  Now I don't know about you, but if my grandmother got sick and was denied just because she's old, I'd be downright foaming at the mouth.  The ugly truth is that this whole thing is based on Neogenisist views on life.  Not familiar with the term? It's what the Nazi's thought about civilizations, superior race and stuff.  This will force hospitals to give abortions and euthenasia.  It will also encourage people to not live as long, that's right, not live as long.  There's a bit in there that makes people have to visit a counselor every 5 years, who will instruct them on how to shorten their life so that they won't be a "burden" on society any longer.   Now I don't want you to just take my word for it so i'm going to put a few links here for you to look at/listen to etc.  The point here is that we need to take action FAST.  Obama is forcing this through congress like a chuck norris forces his foot through a bad guys face: Fast and Furious.  He's trying to get it passed before the general public even gets a chance to look at it, and not only that the bill is, get this, 1500+ pages long, who wants to read that?  But on behalf of the American public I'm begging you, the american public, to DO SOMETHING.  Not just sit there and say, man that's terrible.  Please write your congressman and voice your opinion, pray heartily, and beg God to have mercy on this country for it's mess ups, because if this gets passed,  it will be the first step to a socialist America, and I'd rather fight this at the polls than at the stake, know what I mean?

Well, sorry to end on such a sober note, but these are serious times and we need to be vigilant, because the enemy is one sneaky filthy... well you get the idea.  

Here are the links

CPPR Press Conference

An Overview of the Plan

The Full Fledged Plan for the brave and fast readers.

Hate the Devil

Kill the Devil

Pwn the Devil

God's Barista

To my Followers!

So apparently when someone decides to get updates about my blog they become my follower.... muahahaha!  On other news, I've decided that the only way that I'm going to keep a steady blog going, is if I have a specific goal and stick to that goal.  My computer networking teacher has a blog and he says that the only blogs that stick around are ones that have goal, so here we go.  My first goal is linked to my first blog.  I want to give my thoughts on things and have an outlet for what goes on in my head.  So from now on I plan on doing a weekly blog update!  We'll see how that goes.  

Yesterday I went to go see Transformers with my wife and, sadly enough, i was sorely disappointed.  Do not go see this movie! It was terrible and will add nothing good.   It's kinda like when you're fixing a meal and you have your meat and your potatoes and your vegetables but you need some kind of filler, so you put peas in there too.  Why? Because you needed.... something.... right? Not that they taste good or anyone likes them or you come away thinking... I'm really glad i ate those... but just because it was necessary.  This movie was kinda like that.   I can give you a brief summary of the film

1) Megan Fox

2) action

3)Megan Fox

4)bad sex jokes

5)Megan Fox

6)repeat.

Now there was more to it than that but not much... actually you know what? No that's all there was.  The humor in the film was mostly distasteful and the action wasn't linked together with any sort of a good story.   There were absolutely no good moral values in the film either.   In the end Megan Fox ends up saying "I love you" to Shia LaBeouf and then he comes back to life.... like we haven't seen that a million times.... and he says "I love you" back and it's all warm and fuzzy, but the point was that it was fairly obvious that they'd had sex already and the movie was basically trying to say that the words "I love you" are the end all.... I just want to get something straight. 

First you date

Then you say i love you

Then you get engaged

Then you get married

Then you have sex.... Any questions?

That's the way things go, not the other way around, doing it out of order will line you up for a world of hurt, pain, misery, destitution, shame and otherwise all manor of spiteful things.  

So instead of going to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, go eat a can full of peas, because it's better. 

God's Barista

popsicle man

Behold the Popsicle Man!
As a child I gave in to whatever whim I desired. Play outside? Why! when i can fight dragons inside! Perfect temperature, cozy couch, the comfort of a controller in my hands. What can you call me? Dragonslayer! Do my homework? why? I can learn so more watching Discovery channel, in HD, and not move more than three muscles changing the channel during a commercial. Stay at home and have dinner with my family? why? I can go out and play all night with my Friends, and by play i mean watch a movie at their house instead of mine. A problem? what problem, why deal with it? As long as i ignore it it's not really there.... right? Oh what fun i have, oh what great joy... but soon the realization is made. When i grow up i have to make decisions that are hard, my homework actually counts for something, if i don't do anything the problem doesn't fix itself or go away... it gets worse. Little did i know what all my lackadaisical tendencies were building in me... or ripping out of me. All of my fun has in fact eaten wholes through my character, eroded away at my will, and deteriorated my constitution. A man i have become due to sheer force of age, but the inside betrays the truth, no longer a whole being, I am a perfect, pretty, attractive shell, ready to be blown over by the first possible breeze of hardship.
Behold, the Popsicle Man!

The Beginning- A good place to start

So, whoever you are you're probably thinking that using the word conservative means i'm some extreme right wing nut on a mission to trash everyone who doesn't believe the same way i do. Well in some respects that'd be an alright statement. I do not consider myself strictly a republican, nor do i see myself hanging out in the democratic party. I believe, very strongly that God has a place in everyone's life, however, and that yes, He cares about the politics in America, as well as the world over. my blog also isn't contained to politics. I have been thinking an awful lot about what's going on in the world, but God has also been leading me down paths of self-improvement and opening my mind to secrets that i never before realized! I'm pretty stoked. This "blog" is simply going to be whatever i happen to be thinking about at the time, a journal of sorts that is made up of stuff i kinda want everyone to know about. You, my dear reader, are more than welcome to contradict me, challenge me, disagree with me, or dislike me because of what i have to say. I'm not here to prove people wrong, although i deffinitely believe in a right and wrong, i'm simply going to say what i think needs saying. That being said enjoy! and don't expect every blog i write to be quite so cordial.

Justin, God's Barista