snowy thoughts from a scattered mind

1. the general exam is flippin' scary man. 10 days.
2. something I want to do in the near future: take a charcoal grill and good beer out to a really snowy beach.
3. I've fallen in man-love with andrew osenga. he's got a free ep on his website that's pretty sweet; he reminds me of a quieter derek webb circa 2000ish. if you can, listen to 'priest and the iron rain.'
4. life's crazy; again: apologies for being largely incommunicado. 10 days folks.. probably a celebration that night too (december 11th). if not, then after liane's b-day stuff the next day.
5. the lovely sheena is amazing. and really sappy. and the rest is private. :)
6. soup is really cheap at safeway right now. like, the microwaveable ones are a buck each (instead of three!).
7. get to see my housemate phil perform tonight. awesome.
8. putting sin to death is necessary and only God accomplishes it. but we choose whether we will freely participate.
9. the word 'cute' has entered my vocabulary in a very limited sense. I don't know what this means.
10. it's interesting that in first thessalonians 4, paul talks about pleasing God and his first practical suggestion is to flee sexual immorality. that probably says something about the church he was writing to, but it's also a reminder of the fact that our sexual life is not a box separate from the rest: it is the most intimate and revealing expression of love and obedience on this earth (to God and in my case a woman) and therefore of our present being.
10a. connection to idolatry and unfaithfulness.
11. 'it is so hard to believe precisely because it is so hard to obey.' [!]
12. there are some things that can be known but most be set aside; a form of earthly (and perhaps even revealed) truth that would try to replace Authority.
13. quantum behaviour offers awesome metaphors for human interaction.
14. when people talk about separation of church and state, somehow it became common knowledge that personal religious belief should not (in our republic) affect or determine political persuasion. so, people that don't support abortion because of religious belief (like myself) are attempting to violate separation of church and state. but this is complete bullshit and people should know it! nowhere in the constitution or any legal document has it ever been written that people are allowed to support a political cause only for certain state-sanctioned reasons. if congress passes a law and people justified that law on religious grounds, that doesn't breach church and state. argh.
14a. gay marriage is another great example; so is stem-cell research. let congress pass laws! if you don't like those laws, elect new representatives who pledge to repeal those laws and pass new ones that you agree with! quit whining about 'unconstitutionality' when you really mean 'I disagree! hard!'
14b. by trying to make the constitution say a bunch of things it doesn't (and thereby substitute ill-founded judicial authority for representative government), we are in far more danger of having a pseudo-religious government than from a bunch of christians who want to pass policies in accordance with their beliefs.
14c. again, what audacity! 'you're only allowed to support a policy if you support it for certain reasons that I decide!' as though the act of deciding what's sanctioned isn't blatantly religious in nature.
15. this business in sudan with the british teacher is awful. savages.
16. similar with saudi arabia and the woman who was raped; and then sentenced to be whipped and go to prison.
17. multiculturalism has become state-supported dogma in some circles. or at least, folks are trying to make that happen. how else can we see human-rights-violation charges for an expression of free speech?
17a. like the folks crying out against european cartoonists a year ago for their 'hateful expression.' what about the christians/jews murdered by rioting crowds in the middle east?
18. this 'annapolis peace process' is a total fraud. as revealed by hamas coming out right after and talking about how there's no room for jews in the middle east. imagine if israel made an official statement that there was no room for palestinians in palestine.
18a. right up there with that nonsense a summer ago: hezbollah starts war with israel; israel responds to acts of war with [gasp!] acts of war; hezbollah targets israeli civilians and then operates from civilian zones in lebanon; israel fights back; world condemns israel for 'disproportionate' warfare in addition to deliberately targeting civilians; hezbollah fills rockets with shrapnel to maximize israeli civilian misery; followed by silence.
18b. once you make excuses for a person or group's choices ('they're oppressed!'), you've tried to strip them of their most fundamental human expression: responsibility for their freely chosen actions.
19. ok, enough self-righteousness from me. God willing.
20. why is it so hard to behold things that have factual basis without becoming self-righteous about it? why does observation suck in my pride so quickly? the judgment of others that I fall into is unacceptable.
20a. knowledge is a clanging cymbal in the face of love. just because something might be true doesn't make it supersede the call to love.
21. sheena's way too good for me: still too true. undeserved and rich love..
22. dinner. :)